Carnality carries you through the night and into the morning. By the time Erika has stopped struggling in her filthy prison you are exhausted. You slip into a deep sleep filled with vivid dreams. At one point you awaken covered in sweat from a dream of Amelie. Your soul engulfed hers and she burned bright as you saturated all the pathways of her mind and heart. You tasted her childhood, her joys, her explorations, and you swallowed her terror whole.

“I think this will be fun,” Olivia says, pacing over and kissing you on the lips like she has five or six times in as many minutes. She’s just this side of nervous. If you didn’t know better you’d say she was prowling. “Ever since that time with Gemma, when she was inside you and we were together… God, I haven’t been able to get that out of my mind!”

You’ve learned a thing or two. The brothers you lured were firmly tied using fabric you shredded from hotel bedsheets, one kept restrained and mute under the increasing heft of your midsection while you tied the other. You felt him try to push you off like a desperate massage and the stomach grumbles that he must have heard up close and personal set him kicking for his life. No avail, though.

You know of only one way to make someone like you. And that’s to devour them. Hard to be more like you than when they’re part of you, hugging you as tight as fat beneath your skin. You never got back to sleep. You don’t sleep well unless you’re full, yet here you are with a belly groaning through the final stages of an immense feed still unable to sleep.

After you came to visit me, whatever devil had been driving me seemed to dissipate. We spent the next day together, it being one of those long lazy mornings that turns into evenings, with you appreciating not being required to move your newly acquired bulk too much. Talking, playing games, watching things on your phone—these all were interspersed with long, luxurious tummy rubs, helping ease the growing digestive discomfort as your body worked on the previous day’s meal.

I am a fool. I am so lucky. I watch as your eyes close again, the better to savour what you take from my wrist. Watching your eyelids feels like watching the guillotine fall. I can’t pull away. When I try, your arms feel like iron, and you rock only the tiniest bit. Blood loss fuzzes my motor control, making me feel hot, weak and shaky. Watching the rhythmic pulsing of your throat isn’t helping matters.

It’s been a few days since we’ve seen one another. It’s unusual for me to be absent like this. I’m not great at responding to text messages at the best of times but it takes half a day for me to respond to your check-in. When I text to ask if you can meet me at mine it’s a bit inconvenient. You’re a little annoyed at my disappearing act and you’re considering saying no to teach me a lesson, but my next message piques your curiosity.