The Decadent Handbook

by Rowan Pelling

  And with that, he collapsed back in his chair.

  The dish was placed somewhat awkwardly in the centre of the table; for some moments we all sat and stared at it. Then Cardinal Salviati stood up, leaned as far as he could across the table, stuck out a greenish, corrugated tongue, and dipped the tip of it into the great mound of cream. He closed his eyes for a moment, licked his lips, then opened his eyes again and nodded.

  ‘Very delicious,’ he pronounced. ‘Very delicious indeed. Flavoured with grappa and wild honey, if I am not mistaken.’

  ‘Bravo, Eminence!’ Lorenzo Strozzi cried drunkenly.

  Embolded by Salviati’s initiative, several of the gentlemen and two of the ladies did likewise; they giggled and nudged each other as they extended their tongues to taste their host’s culinary ‘apotheosis.’ The technique, awkward though it was, was clearly catching on. It fell to Cardinal Ridolfi however, to finally expose the ‘secret’ of the extraordinary dolce; bending across the table and wiggling his tongue, he pushed it into the creamy mass only to withdraw it again with a piercing and womanly shriek.

  ‘It moved!’ he cried. ‘God’s bones, I tell you it moved! Ah! –’

  There was a general commotion as it was observed that the great mound of decorated slop was indeed moving; it shuddered and wiggled, as if suddenly endowed with an alien life of its own. Clotted lumps of cream fell away, nuts and cherries flew off and showered onto the table. It seemed to be growing. Ridolfi by now was having an attack of the vapours, wiping his lips furiously with the back of his hand as though he had ingested poison; indeed, had this been a banquet given by Pope Alexander VI Borgia, whose memory still haunted curial slumbers, it might well have been.

  Everybody was at the thing now, licking and scraping the cream off as fast as they could; people were stretched out across the table, plates were pushed aside or even fell to the floor; there was screeching and laughing and vulgar gestures. I do not think I have ever seen so many protruding tongues in my life, and it is a spectacle I care never to witness again; human beings look utterly ridiculous with their tongues sticking out. Leo should ban people doing it in all papal states. As a matter of fact, I had entirely forgotten about Leo: he was slumped in his chair, spellbound by the goings on. His eyes bulged and watered.

  There was a young woman buried under that grotesque hillock of cream; furthermore, it quickly became obvious, as first a thigh was exposed, then a foot, a wetly glistening pink nipple, and finally a hairy pubic mound, that she was a very naked young woman. The cacophony of screaming and guffawing rapidly swelled in volume as people began to applaud. And still the tongues were at work, probing and wiggling and scraping lasciviously, lingeringly, across the smooth, pale flesh. Two men – one of them rather young for this sort of thing in my opinion – were licking at the same breast, contending for the stiff little nipple, occasionally looking into each other’s eyes in a sly, knowing manner as they did so. Much to my surprise however, it was a lady (I use the term cautiously) whose face was buried deep between the shuddering thighs, sucking, slurping shamelessly, her long tongue darting rapidly in and out of the private opening hidden beneath the bush of black hair. I can well imagine what sort of cream she hoped to find down there. The young woman stretched herself out in the dish, still half-covered with rapidly liquifying slop; she writhed and groaned and fluttered her eyelids in a sexual ecstasy. The colloidal sludge oozed and squelched beneath her buttocks. Then she uttered a low moan:

  ‘Ah … ah!’

  The last two things I noticed were that the young man sharing a breast with a fellow diner had drawn out his quivering penis and was rubbing it surreptitiously up against a leg of the table, while the female devotee at the other end had pushed a cherry up into the hairy labial glory-hole which was so occupying her attention – presumably for the pleasure of sucking it out again.

  ‘Your Holiness,’ I said to Leo, ‘it is time for us to take our leave.’

  ‘Yes, you are right, Peppe. Yes, yes.’

  The Art of Cooking a Murder Victim

  Guillaume Lecasble

  In our previous classes we have always tackled the recipe by first considering the essential question of the raw material: man or woman? Today, a different approach is needed as the first and most important thing is to source your murder victim. The state in which you salvage him or her will then determine the recipe. For example, strangulation would suggest something along the lines of stuffed duck.

  Although you will be forced to adapt according to what you find, to maximise your chances of success the first step is to find a murder victim who corresponds to your tastes. To help you in this endeavour I have created a list of questions to ask the pathologist before travelling to the scene of the crime.

  1. Is the victim a man or a woman?

  2. How were they murdered?

  3. Is the body battered or bruised?

  Always remember that presentation is fundamental to a recipe’s success. One tastes a dish with the eyes, the nose and the ears as well as the mouth.

  4. Has there been much loss of blood? Can any congealed blood be recovered? Remember the wonderful properties of congealed blood in the gratin we made at the start of the course. With regard to blood, we will be tackling suicides next week, and you will learn how unfortunate it is that often the veins are slashed in a bathtub of water. The blood becomes almost unusable, unless one reduces it heavily through boiling – and even then the results are risky. Some readers may be of the opinion that suicide is a type of murder practised on oneself; I will tell you next time why I have chosen to distinguish suicide from murder victims. We already have plenty on our plate this week.

  5. If the body has been carved up, into what cuts has it been divided, and how many?

  6. Are there any pieces missing, and if so which?

  7. In what position is the body?

  8. The scene of the crime.

  If for example the victim was discovered in a newly seeded garden, you’ll have to use the same approach as with a red pepper. However, the multiple orifices, body hair, nails etc., make it much more complex to de-seed a human body than a pepper. One of the reasons we have chosen cannibal cuisine is to avoid irritations of this sort often posed by more traditional recipes.

  9. Never forget to check the age.

  No need for further explanation here. We’ve spent several session on the subject, and everything that has already been said applies equally to murder victims.

  10. Was there any sexual contact, and what kind?

  11. Any identifiable diseases?

  Skin diseases are visible to the naked eye; a pathologist will be able to give you good advice concerning others. Liver diseases tend to produce a bitter taste. The thing to avoid at all costs is the anxious individual – nervous bile is undetectable and spreads only at the end of the cooking process. Your meal will suddenly be fit only for the dustbin, leaving you empty-handed with guests to feed.

  12. Clothes?

  13. Social standing?

  14. Was the victim afraid?

  15. Did the victim smoke?

  16. Did they drink?

  17. Were they on drugs?

  18. Is any silicone present? As with veal fed on hormone-enhanced diets, there are two schools of thought. Unlike the monsantists, the organic lobby is fiercely opposed to the consumption of silicone. On the one occasion I personally had the opportunity to eat a surgically-enhanced murder victim, the silicone was in the breasts. It may have been my imagination but the jelly-like consistency of the flesh seemed offset by a milky flavour. The life-giving breast had thus spiced up an otherwise bland dish. Some of my fellow guests spat out their first mouthful, so this may be a matter of taste.

  If the answers you receive to these questions whet your appetite such that you wish to proceed, make sure to pose a few additional questions regarding the eyes, hair, nails, teeth and body hair. Remember our session on hair: it is extremely tasty, not to mention visually attr
active, when frozen and then fried in very hot oil seasoned with a little garlic.

  For today I have chosen to demonstrate the issues with a victim killed in his car. Let’s go through the questionnaire point by point.

  1. It is a man.

  2. He was killed by a shot in the head. The resulting fusion of brain matter with blood lends a slightly sweet flavour, meaning that the head can be caramelised with a dash of vinegar and no need for added sugar.

  3. The head has of course been damaged. We must therefore create a ‘blackened’ dish, as in Cajun cooking; as you know this allows for a normalisation of the appearance. However, be conservative with oven temperature; you don’t want your victim to look charred.

  4. In this case, yes, the head has bled a great deal. Calculate cooking time and temperature according to the amount of blood still present, thus ensuring that the flesh doesn’t dry out. Tenderness is crucial.

  5. The victim has not been carved up.

  6. No part of the body is missing.

  7. The victim fell onto the steering wheel, jamming the horn. Even in a lifeless body sound creates vibrations transmitted through the eardrum. This is very helpful for even distribution of flavour.

  8. Scene of the crime: a 4×4 jeep, implying the victim was rich (answer to question 13). The leather upholstery may have perfumed his lungs, but in answer to question 15, he was a smoker. Of cigars – butts were found in the ashtray. Before cooking insert two small holes in the ribcage to drain the liquefied tar.

  9. The victim was still young. Given his social status one can infer good nutrition and thus assume that any excess fat is ‘good’ fat. You will also notice that tennis had overdeveloped his right arm; he must have been right handed. Because of this, when carving you should give preference to the left side, especially for the more muscular cuts.

  10. Irrelevant question. He was returning from the countryside and had been driving for six hours – enough time to build up any semen he may have spent. With regard to anal sex the victim was a virgin.

  11. The victim had a small amount of psoriasis on his elbows. Nothing nasty. Before cooking, grate a little and keep to one side.

  12. Good quality clothes, which will only have contributed to his well being. On to our own, therefore…

  13. The big one: was he afraid? Examine his face. We’re in luck, he had no time for fear. If he had, rest assured he’d have been good for nothing but the morgue.

  14 & 15: Finally, he had taken no alcohol or drugs; more’s the pity! There is nothing better than internal organs pickled in alcohol. Regardless of type, the marinating and preservation processes produce the unique taste of a kiss following a glass of wine. As for drugs, they tend to mellow the general flavour.

  We have now considered all the angles. I suggest you switch on the oven and get cooking.

  ‘Blackened murder victim, served with grey matter gravy and elbow garnish.’

  Decadent Death Styles

  Death Styles

  Jad Adams

  ‘Death laughs, breathing close and relentless

  In the nostrils and eyelids of lust’

  I’ve always liked that line from Swinburne and when my decadent friends started to die it seemed particularly apposite. We were, of course, the AIDS generation. I don’t mean they all died of AIDS, though some did, but certainly the disease set a tone for youthful death from the challenges of sex, drugs, drink and despair.

  Staying on the move, you pass a lot of gatekeepers and sooner or later one of them is going to bounce you out of the club forever. The thing about living fast and dying young is that you can be sure you are burning up your life, you just don’t know in which form the grim reaper will appear to invite you for a dance.

  So my friend David, a poet, died from nasopharyngeal cancer, related to drinking and smoking. But he could just as easily have died on the loo, his body finally giving up on the struggle of life, like my friend Barrie. Now, Barrie was a prolifically promiscuous homosexual flagellant who sometimes used intravenous drugs but being thusly a multiple risk for AIDS didn’t mean that carried him off. He was just worn out with excess.

  Our mutual friend Peter died injecting a dodgy drug but he didn’t take much care of himself and he did indeed have the collection of illnesses called AIDS – the drugs just got there first. Not so his lover Hasani who worked at the BBC and whose day off was to sit in a cubicle in the public toilets on Clapham Common with a flask of tea and a bag of sandwiches and provide sexual services gratis to any man who wanted them. When I last saw him alive his limbs were like brown pipe cleaners with his head a walnut on top.

  Death styles of the poor and decadent, as the Goncourt brothers reflected in their diary of 1861 culminate in ‘dying in shreds at the age of forty-two, without even strength left in them to suffer.’

  Ghosts go along with us until the end;

  This was a mistress, this, perhaps a friend.

  Debbie bled out after falling over drunk in the bathroom and hitting her head, Maggie finally tired of her drugs and her men and took an overdose.

  I remember one time having dinner with three other men, a film director, a singer and the director’s lover. Within eighteen months the director and singer were dead, I never had the heart to enquire as to the lover’s fate; sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. It may be of no consolation to their mothers, but at least they didn’t get old and boring.

  Some just slipped away and I don’t know what space they are in. I am unaware, for example, if my chum the drunken classical scholar Patrick is in soul-space or earth-time but he lives in my memory which is all I need. He used to silence the company with the statement ‘I am going to tell you a joke, I am going to tell you the oldest joke in the world.’ When he had quiet he would begin ‘Lupae nanus dicit …’ and would continue to tell the entire story in Latin. If he is dead, which I suspect, I think he will have told that joke to the shades of Johnson and Dowson. And they will have laughed.

  Primordial Soup

  Christine Leunens

  A woman in late middle-age was sitting on a weathered sack of charcoal, taking in the sun. Her hair was three sorts of blonde, and if this weren’t enough variety, her roots were grey. She had on a grass-stained pair of trainers, a tight pair of jeans, a T-shirt and, from what I could see (and anyone else, quite easily) no bra. Her smile was empty, a rag-doll smile with black button eyes.

  I assumed she was one of my neighbours and replied, ‘Just some shopping, Ma’am. Salt and pepper are fine things, but one does need variety in life.’

  Her smile transformed into a contortion of malice. ‘You bit my man.’

  I could not apologize before I knew whom she was talking about. ‘Which one?’ I asked, and not in the least insolently.

  ‘You bite often?’ she sneered and came at me with clenched fists. Like the neglected fruit of an overgrown garden, her breasts sagged under their own weight. Although they could feed a famished army, the man to whom she was referring had apparently not bothered to take a bite for many a year.

  ‘My past samples do not concern you unless you have consumed your partner since? I did not think so. Goodbye.’ I did not wish to dismiss her rudely, but her face answered my questions quicker than her speech did, and besides, I had my own cuisine to worry about.

  ‘So you eat every dick you come across?’

  ‘If you enjoy the same flesh over a prolonged period, I congratulate you. As far as I’m concerned, no piece has yet addicted me.’

  She blocked my path.

  ‘Now if you shall excuse me.’ I pushed past her, but didn’t get very far.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ she grabbed me, ‘You bit my husband’s ass bad!’

  She was breathing heavily; a hiccup jarred her chest and I detected a trace of pork and beer.

  ‘I do not wish to upset you, Madame, but your husband was given the gift of free will from Our Lord above, he consented willingly, I promise you, you shall find no signs
of chains or thrashing if you examine him more thoroughly. He should cut the links off himself if serving as a woman’s meal, other than his lawfully wedded wife’s, tempts him so much.’

  ‘He told me all ‘bout how it happened, you prick-tease, you was jerkin’ off a carrot in his face, you was playin’ with a cherry like it was y’r tit, you were puttin’ yer mouth on all kinds o’fruits an’ lickin’ ’em nasty, toyin’ with every obscenity you could get yer dirty fingers on!’

  As she pulled my hair, I stepped around in an ungainly little dance. ‘I beg your pardon?!’

  ‘Whadda ya think, yeah gotta go to university ta understand? You all think yer so high an’ mighty, yer all ajecated an’ smart, well lemme tell yeah, yer more a slut than I ever put my eyes on!’

  ‘Let no man judge you in eating, Colossians, 2–16.’

  ‘Don’t you play no holy mouth with me, ya nasty cunt!’

  ‘One [man] has faith to eat everything, but the [man] who is weak eats vegetables. Let the one eating not look down on the one not eating, and let the one not eating not judge the one eating, Romans 14:2, 14:3.’

  ‘Shut yer mouth, you stinkin’ sperm bag!’ She gave my head another more forceful tug backwards; unfortunately, she was pulling the silver chain of my crucifix as well as my hair. ‘Tell me how it all happened, I’m curious t’hear yer vursion. Tell me why ya picked ’im? You knew he had a big one, ya could smell it a mile away,couldn’t ya? Was that yer criterion? You teased him ’til you was certain? You was just starin’ at it in the mirror, dying t’have it, wasn’t ya?’