Since I was five years old I had an appetite for my body. I would eat myself. Scrape off bits of skin and flesh and eat. I would find an object to use, cut deep in the skin, and rip it out and off with my hands, biting and chewing on the rubbery skin. It was always “I had blisters, mom” or I was burning or scraping my hands when I had to make excuses. I could not simply stop. It was when I was thirteen years old I took a further step when, swinging a hatchet chopping wood, I brought a chunk of flesh out of my leg. It burned and stung, and I watched as the bit of flesh fell out of my leg, blood pouring out into the ground the chunk of flesh just sitting there on the ground. The flesh, covered in blood, still warm, with blood oozing everywhere. I stared at it for a while, letting my thigh bleed and gush blood. I stumbled over to the flesh, dizzy from the loss of blood, and I picked it up in my hands. Gripping it tightly, I bit into the piece of flesh, chewing on my own muscle, tissue, and drinking my blood.
It wasn’t enough. Eventually, I had my sessions, cutting out bits of flesh every week. I was becoming thin, infected, and unhealthy, and my condition was deteriorating rapidly and noticeably. Years went by. My parents, thankfully too drunk and drugged to know what was going on, themselves turning to alcohol in this dystopian city, my condition worsened. My teacher, one day, taking me aside for her session with me, beat me into submission, as was her gimmick. Punching and kicking and whispering in the closet that I would never amount to anything and I was her plaything and slave. Eventually she hit a spot where I was healing, and noticed as she forced me to undress in front of her. She was horrified at the sight and certainly no longer held such attractions as she had before. Instead, when she discovered holes and chunks missing from my body, an exposed chunk of flesh missing, and bleeding, she tossed me aside and ran out the closet, tripping on herself, slamming into the floor.
I realized she had done some damage, noticeably breaking her nose and bleeding, possibly cracking her skull and earning a concussion as well. I felt an attraction to her, as she possibly did to me. This was a different sort of attraction though. I felt attracted to her face, not because it was young and beautiful, but because of her wound. She was staring back at me, and I can only imagine my expression must’ve shocked her. She attempted to crawl, to get on her feet, and I went to work, moving on her face, licking clean the blood as she struggled with me. A simple kick and I was off her, but I would not be letting her go. No, I had to finish. She, limping out the classroom, struggled with the door to open it and I slammed a chair down on her. Out from her pocket, she pulled a small pink spray bottle. As it sprayed into my eyes and face, I had never felt such a blinding, burning sensation. I could feel her kicking against me, trying to get up, but I could not see. I moved my hands across the desk beside us, trying to lean on something, to gain balance. In swinging my arms around, I felt something slide off the table, and I heard the Shlick sound. Shh-lick. The sound made you stab a kitchen knife into meat quickly. The sound when I would stab myself. I felt a spurt against my leg, and began to fall onto her to feel around her. I could hear her gasping, choking, and my hands reached around her neck. I felt scissors. I felt scissors…and at the end, I felt wetness. A syrupy feel, the feeling of wet, sticky… Oh god.
Eventually, she stopped struggling and my eyes recovered. I stared for a moment, this bloodied, beautiful, young corpse. I stared at the pool of blood, and I knew…I knew this was the end. That attraction was back though… I removed the scissors from her neck. I traced down into her body…and I brought those scissors right across her belly. Cutting deep into the flesh, tearing it open, I gripped both sides and tore it apart. I saw the ribs, the organs, the lungs, everything. I found intestine and…Good lord, she was pregnant. I started at the fetus first, chewing into it and feasting. The internal liquid, blood, sprayed in around my mouth as I chewed and swallowed bits of her baby. Bit by bit, down my throat, tasting so amazing. You want to feel a fetus, take an egg yolk and cook it. You want to taste it, put some vinegar on while you’re cooking, some oil, and corn syrup. I went up. Her intestines, worm-like in your hands, I bit into them, and tasted corn. I tasted beef. I’m glad I didn’t start at the other end or I’d be tasting shit. I bit it bit by bit. Like a long gummy worm to munch each piece off at the time. Rubbery, like a gummy worm, like a gummy worm you’ve left sitting in water for a few days so it absorbs the water and gets fatter and “gummier”. Picking her ribs clean of flesh, chewy, meaty flesh, warm… warm flesh… like pork, but easier to keep down…easier to chew…easier to swallow. She was lean, thin, with little fat on her. I reached inside and ripped out, taking bites of her liver. A sudden curiosity rose in me, and I took those scissors and began to scalp her. I cut into her scalp, with her amazing hair and began to peel it back. Sure enough, there was a small crack in her skull. Using a pencil and paperweight, I jammed the pencil to wedge it in the crack. I lifted her body, guts falling out of her open chest, and began to slam her head into the edge of the desk. After a few hits and breaking my fingers, her head just seemed to fall apart…and out slid the brain on the floor. I jumped right on top of it and began gnawing on it when I heard somebody call out “Vickers? Christie?” Someone was looking for her. I opened the window, grabbing the brain and placing it in my backpack, and running out the window and down the fire escape.
It wasn’t like I could return to my family now. None of my friends, not even a soul who I knew in this city, state, country…not anyone I knew in general. I could make it over the border, I could hotwire a car and drive to the border and dig under the wall. I knew Spanish fluently and…I was in a hotel. I had hailed a taxi driver, then when we got to the hotel, slit his throat, climbed over the seat, and drove to an alley. I took my knife and poked into his eyes, removing and eating them. They were like rubber with the consistency of grapes with vinegar. I so wanted to cook this brain in my backpack, sauté and eat it. I could not contain my appetite in thought and realized I had bitten through one of my fingers in mouth, already swallowing it whole. I stopped for a moment, looking at the stump of my pinky finger. I bit into my ring finger, chewing and then biting through. I stopped after swallowing my ring finger. Soon I would render myself crippled, unable to even get the door open. I wrapped cloth around my fingers, removed an ear from the taxi driver, and chewed on the cartilage. I finished and swallowed when I made it to the hotel, covering my bloodstained shirt with my jacket, and wiping my face. I purchased a room with slight difficulty, explaining I was just arriving to visit family. They never showed but called and I’d stay in the hotel for a day, they’d come pick me up. That bitch behind the desk didn’t buy it. I knew it, but she gave me a room key. I walked to it, opened the door and laid in there for a moment. I was 320 miles from the border. I could drive that taxi through, but how would that look? A flagstaff taxi in Nogales or Sasabe, right…. No. Fuck no. I’d take a car after I made it out. Instead, I wanted to fry that brain.
I dropped it in a pan with cooking oil, and salt and pepper. I realized I had no toppings or seasonings, so I walked downstairs to the lobby and borrowed lemon basil teabags, dropping the dried herbs and zest into the pan. It was cooking, and I flipped it over and around, spreading the brains across the pan, just letting it sizzle and cook. I stood there, waiting, humming songs to myself for a few minutes. She’s a killer queen, gunpowder, gelatin, dynamite with a laser beam, guaranteed to blow your mind, any- “Room Service!”
“Fuck off cunt! I’m stirring a mind here!” I yelled.
Ah, silence. It was time to eat.