food chain part 02
You stopped. I don’t know how much you took. I passed out back into sleep, and you tore yourself away from my wrist long enough to force yourself to listen. The fluttering of my heart reminded you of a trapped and desperate baby bird. It’s cage chilled slightly as my body shut down blood flow to skin and extremities.
When you were satisfied I would not require medical or gastric attention you allowed yourself to drift off. A large but quiet belch puffed out your cheeks and reignited the memory of my flavour. Inside you my vitality fizzled and altered as strange digestive juices worked on it. They both befoul and purify the blood, rapidly turning it into something else fit to gurgle deeper into guts that never stopped feeling hunger.
You let me sleep till ten before slipping back into bed. I woke slowly, confused at first. Dark rings put my eyes in shadow and my skin was waxy. Still, I smiled at you with tenderness when my eyes finally focused on you. You handed me a glass of orange juice and some iron supplements. I took both gratefully.
The rest of the day I’m not up to much. I show you a game called Journey that I love, with all its gentle, monumental imagery and the random cooperation of strangers. I watch as you play it through, wrapped up in my blanket but my thigh pressing against yours. Then we play cards. You grow suspicious as I win five games one after the other. I think you’re joking with you accuse me of cheating and offer to give me a chance to experience the task of escaping your gut for real.
I look you dead in the eye, some colour returned but still yellow-pale. “I’m yours to take when you want me. You know that.”
You order hearty, restorative food for me—a midday fry up from a nearby greasy spoon—and still steal my sausages. I kiss your cheek while you’re still chewing your pilfered morsel.
“I fucking love your unashamed greed.”
“Ohmm?” You swallow your mouthful and reach across with greasy fingers. “Then you won’t miss your bacon, then.”
I find it funny that you don’t touch my black pudding.
Blood and spirit. Spirit and blood. It keeps you going but you crave more. I have to go down for a nap and you decide to take a walk.
You know you’re going to feed. You know it’ll take at least four days to burn off whoever you eat and you’ll be hungry before then.
So you leave the house with a summery miniskirt. The better to eat with.
What could be more natural than this? To walk among mortals, like them but not of them, surveying the crowd for the one you will select and consume. Living beings all around call to you and stoke the desire built into you before ever you granted yourself your fangs, before you gulped down that first little meal, before your siren call stole away the first wandering mind for good.
The canal on a hot day hosts families and cyclists, joggers and sunbathers, anglers and people setting up little tinfoil barbeques. The scent of sizzling meat puts your senses in overdrive. You don’t fully realise how your gait becomes less carefree and more pursuing. But what you pursue?
The crowd shows most promise by the lake near the canal, with its little beach and many secluded paths. You spy a young woman leading a young man away by the hand and instantly lope after them.
You have ground to cover and the rich scent of nature is bursting with pine resin so tracking is more guesswork than skill. You stand more than once in a little clearing just scenting the air, scenting the Marc Jacobs perfume the girl is wearing. It’s frustratingly hard work but eventually you find them.
Well, her. She hears you coming and gasps in astonishment and guilt. The girl, scarcely out of teenagehood, is sprawled out on the leaf-litter floor. Her top has rolled up to her boobs and her custom daisy-painted shorts are already unbuttoned. Between them her lover still squirms, wearing the flesh of her smooth, olive-committed belly like a smothering coat.
The predatory girl tries and fails to get to get feet. You stare at her, your belly painfully envious of hers. Both of you are silent, though a young man’s voice screams for mercy in a place a world away from the tranquil clearing.
“This ~braaaap~ isn’t what it looks like!”