CW: snuff, cannibalism, béchamel.
He set down the whetstone and balanced a 10” Damascus steel chef knife between his two index fingers, aligning it with the unblinking industrial lighting. The edge of the blade was a vector so very straight it seemed atomically perfect. The mirror polish on the metal was interrupted by the warm fog of shuddering breath. His eyes glazed over in the blistering lamps imagining the possibilities. A Twitch & A Throb. The cellar kitchen was windowless, featureless and clinical – most are. The austerity of the setting was a deprivation of ceremony, and thus the heart and soul that one typically puts into preparing a dish, but the blankness of the canvas invited infinite potential too. It was Total Silence, save for the rhythmic entrancement of water droplets splashing and dropping into the sink...interrupted by the shuffling of clothes. He exited his euphoric trance and locked eyes on the counter, donning a subdued navy pair of latex gloves. The sound of well-worn Oxfords clicked in step towards the kitchen counter. The harsh white lightning gleamed onto the silver cloche as he removed it. There on a silver platter amidst parsley garnish lay a white lab rat specimen adorned intricately in a scarlet rope web, gagged and blinded. Her body squished under the pressure of the ropes, and it abraded and burned her. With his thumb and his index finger, he pulled away her slobbery gag. Rather than panic or fear, her immediate reaction was utter indignity. “Do you have any idea who you've just kidnapped? I'm insured for this! When the philharmonic director finds out” etc. etc. etc. and I watched her do that for about 5 minutes, which was when the gravity struck that she was going to be murdered for sexual gratification, and then I watched her have a panic attack and cry for another 5 minutes. It would be impolite and unprofessional to play with one's food, and theatricality comes with a cost – if the meat knows that it's going to be killed, it will release too many stress hormones and lose any appetizing qualities. A proper home cooked meal always needs to be made with love. So I reassured her and spoke to her in a soft voice and relieved her manually and repeatedly. And once she was assured that it was all an elaborate roleplay that she must have set up months in advance, she became comfortable and began to babble on about how she was the world's smallest little micro pianist, and she began to saying something about the tragedy of the commons as I sliced open her belly and cracked her ribs open. She screamed terribly and died in visceral pain after about 2 minutes, and she spent her final agonizing moments enraptured in pleasure, thinking about the proportional gallons of her own murderer's hot steamy jizm still dripping out of her, mixing on the floor with her own sputum and plasma. I watched her exposed heart stop beating. He ran his tongue all over her corpse and knife, then shaved her limp slumped body delicately with a cheap disposable razor. He stuffed her torso with chopped thyme, chives, mushrooms, cranberries, cloves, and a torn up loaf of sourdough bread he soaked in red wine vinegar. He incised a needle into her flesh and sewed her tummy back together. He put her in an enamel black pot with white speckles and made a pot liquor of her blood with carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, garlic, herbs, goose fat and sherry. Her tiny lifeless corpse simmered in the oven for two hours at a low heat, before she was taken out of the furnace’s fires and served upon a clean white plate on a silver platter, with buttered broccoli and a cold crisp glass of blanc by candlelight. He took a saucière and poured piping hot roux over her body, expertly roasted and still tied presenting and assuming the position as he showered her with salt and cracked peppercorns. And as his knife carved into her flank and he tore away a morsel of her sinew, the silver fork passed his lips and her flesh played a symphony of notes in his saliva and on the taste buds of his tongue. Not bad – kinda like her music was; tasteless!