Posted by Menagerie on August 12, 2004 at 19:32:44:
ONCE A YEAR
The cacophony rang out amidst the hubbub of the mid-town SuperValu. Just hours to go before New Year's Eve, and everyone was stocking up at the last minute for parties. Employees scurried to and fro, restocking depleted shelves; liquor, hams, and snacks disappeared into the baskets.
Sacking groceries at the registers, it was all Connie and Jenny could do to keep up with the hordes of customers. The two blonde girls maintained a cheerful front as wave after wave passed through the checkout counter. Trim and attractive, the teenaged sisters were looking forward to an evening of get-togethers. For them, the SuperValu was just a source of pocket money; 19-year-old Jenny was home from college for the holidays, and 18-year-old Connie would be joining her next year.
It was a close neighborhood; everybody knew everybody. That's why the tall, older woman attracted attention. That, and the way she was dressed; she looked like she was ready for a masquerade ball, with a stole over her slinky, black dress, dark nylons, high heels and leather gloves. Her basket was filled with the highest priced cheeses. breads, fruits, vegetables, wines, and seasonings. She paid in cash--a lot of it--and turned to the girls.
“My dears,” she purred in a deep, breathy voice, “I'm new in town. Would you be good enough to help me get my groceries home?”
“Well,” Jenny hesitated, “if it's not far--”
“Not at all,” she smiled, “the big house on First Avenue. Don't worry; we'll only be a minute.”
The girls looked at each other, and shrugged; their shift was almost over, anyway. “Mr. Clark!” Jenny yelled to the shift manager, who was also pitching in at the checkout, “She needs help with her bags!” Without even looking up, he nodded.
They bundled up; it was cold out. Holding two of the lighter bags, the mysterious woman led the way. “I have no car,” she said. “Please, follow me.” Grunting under the weight of the sacks, the girls trudged the six blocks to the old house.
It still looked vacant. Windows were boarded up; the mailbox hung sideways from a single nail. Still smiling, the woman opened the unlocked front door. Inside, it was musty and dusty. “I must apologize,” she said. “I've moved in so recently, I've not had time to clean. Would you please set the bags just inside there?”, waving toward the kitchen. Arms full of groceries, the girls stumbled through the living room in the dark; “Could you turn the lights on, ma'am?”, asked Connie.
The woman appeared at the doorway, holding a candle. “Please, call me Mrs. Carney,” she said, continuing to smile broadly; the girls politely introduced themselves. “I'm terribly sorry,” she went on; “I'm relying upon candlelight and that,” gesturing toward a wood-burning stove, “for now. The electric company said I'd have to wait until next week, with the holidays. Do me a favor and unpack the groceries, there's a dear.”
The sisters obediently emptied the bags, and were somewhat astonished, now that they had time to examine the contents. “Wow!” said Connie, squinting through her glasses. “Caviar? And these mushrooms--they're ten dollars a pound. Are you going to have a party, here in the dark?”
The lady had fired up the stove and was lighting the remaining candles. She turned; her smile seemed even broader. “Why, yes--it'll be a wonderful party, in fact. We have it once a year; my friends and I come from all over the world to it.” She took a kettle off the stove. “Connie, Jenny, please join me in a cup of tea; you've truly been darlings, you really have.”
The girls had finished unpacking the fancy hors d'oeuvres and were anxious to go. “Oh, no,” said Jenny with her sunniest smile, “We have to move along.”
Mrs. Carney's smile looked a little pained. “Are you in a hurry? Is someone expecting you?”
“We-ell,” Jenny paused. “No, not really.”
“Then,” the older woman said, brightening, “you simply must have tea with me. It's an old tradition, you know, in my country.”
What country would that be?, Connie wondered. From the looks of her, probably Transylvania. Her eyes were bright and fairly shone; her skin had an unnatural pallor. The younger girl reluctantly accepted the steaming cup; her eyes met those of her sister, they giggled, and the beverage went down the hatch. The woman continued to smile; she seemed to be eyeballing them, looking them over. The girls sipped again; suddenly, they were getting tired--with New Year's coming! “Please,” Jenny yawned, “We really have to go.” Connie nodded; the two were growing increasingly listless.
“My dears,” Mrs. Carney said firmly--her voice now had grown commanding--”you will come with me.”
The strange woman pointed to an open door; as if in a trance, the teenagers walked slowly toward it. She guided them down a flight of stairs to the cellar, and along the floor, one hand on each girl's arm. “Stop!” she ordered, and they obediently stood.
They were standing in front of a stone wall. Chains with cuffs on the ends were bolted to it. “Now,” she said in a schoolmistress' no-nonsense tone, “you will undress. Both of you.”
Without hesitation, the girls began to remove their clothes. Off came sneakers and athletic socks; beneath their blue jeans were long, shapely, trim legs. Then came the vests and shirts with the SuperValu logos. Their tummies were flat, their waists slender. Reaching behind their backs, Jenny and Connie unclasped their brassieres and let them fall to the floor, exposing firm, cone-shaped, young girl breasts, topped with small, pink nipples that pointed slightly upward. They slipped their thumbs into the elastic waistbands of their panties; bending over, their cute bottoms sticking out, they lowered their underwear to the floor and stood up, pushing the panties aside with their naked feet.
“Jewelry, too,” Mrs. Carney said firmly. Staring straight ahead as if hypnotized, Jenny pulled the rings off her fingers and let them fall, one by one. Connie removed her earrings and dropped them; then came her glasses, which shattered as they struck the concrete floor.
The woman knew the effects of her “tea” would only last a few more minutes. She pulled two collars from pegs on the wall and locked them around each girl's neck; then came shackles for their wrists. The girls stood docilely, lifting their chins and arms as each cuff was snapped into place. With her prey now captive, she examined the sisters more closely. The older Jenny had the bigger bosom of the two, but her curvaceous figure was more petite; Connie was a little taller and more coltish. Both had lean bodies, firm but not overly muscular. The undersides of their breasts, legs and buttocks had the light shadings of fat that showed they had progressed from adolescence into womanhood; the curly fur on their muffs matched their honey-blonde hair. Absolutely, the woman nodded to herself; they'll do, nicely.
The girls began blinking; they were emerging from the influence of the potion. Mrs. Carney turned busily to work, lighting more candles. Still in a daze, Connie and Jenny began to focus on the scene. The glow of the candles revealed a large kiln, such as for firing pottery, and a long table, with a couple of dozen place settings. The tall woman lit the kindling under the kiln, and pumped it with an oversized bellows; the wood beneath the giant oven glowed red and then began to burn. She bustled upstairs, returning a few minutes later with the expensive groceries, and cheerfully spread the costly treats along the table; baskets of bread, bottles of wine.
A rack with rollers was mounted in front of the door to the oven: Mrs. Carney wheeled a heavy metal cart to the other end of the rack, then opened the oven door and pulled out a large pot. Two feet deep, four feet across and three feet long. Humming and still smiling, she reached for the first bag of vegetables and began to chop them into the pan. Pieces of carrot and potato landed in the bottom of the pot with a dull bong. The sound brought the nude teenagers out of their lethargy. Shaking her pretty blonde mane to clear her head, Jenny asked hesitantly, “Mrs. Carney? What is this?”
Without turning, she called out, “Ah, Connie, Jenny, good evening! Welcome to my little party! I'm sorry for your constrained accommodations, but you'll only have to put up with them a short time.” The tall woman pulled two particularly large carrots from the bag, fingered them absent-mindedly, and set them aside; she continued, “Please, try to make yourselves comfortable; I'll be with you shortly.”
Connie was also coming to. “Jenny? Are you there?”
Jenny shivered with the cold, tried to wrap her arms around herself, and suddenly realized she was naked and in chains. “Mrs. Carney!” she shouted. “What have you done to us? Where are our clothes?”
“Now, my dears,” the older woman said, a bit sternly, “first of all, you removed your own garments. Secondly, I've merely secured you for now. I have guests coming from far away, and they might wish to chat with you first, before we--how do you Americans say?--'ring in the new'. It'll truly be a marvelous fete, and you should enjoy as much of it as you can.”
Defiantly, Jenny said, “They'll come looking for us.”
“By then, I'll be gone,” Mrs. Carney responded airily. “Surely you don't think I've purchased this old place? No, it simply suits my purposes for this evening; if your authorities do come here, they shan't find me--nor, I'm afraid, much of you, either.”
The girls had begun crying, and straining at their chains. Connie gulped, “What--what are you going to do to us?”
The lady turned, and for the first time they saw the evil, the glint in her eyes, the parting of her bright red lips as her bright white teeth showed. “Now, Connie...don't be so obtuse. Isn't it obvious? I'm going to cook you, and Jenny too, and you'll be the main course of our New Year's feast!”
The pretty blonde teenagers caught their breath. Jenny, eyes wide, said, “You're--you're a cannibal?”
“Why, of course not!” Mrs. Carney turned again to her vegetables; chop, chop, chop. “A cannibal eats its own. You young ladies are mere mortals. You see, my friends and I have dined together on this date every year for centuries. Our numbers have declined over the years; a couple of young humans are more than enough for us, now.”
Desperately, the girls began fighting their bonds. “Mrs. Carney,” sobbed Connie, sweat glistening on her bare back and shoulders despite the chill of the basement, “please, please let us go!”
Laughing merrily, the woman finished the last sack of onions. Ignoring the girls' pleas, she worked on setting the table, fussily arranging place cards. “Now, D'Avignon--haven't seen him since Amsterdam. Those milk maids,” she glanced at the frantically begging teenagers, “--you would have liked them. Quite delicate. It was Ms. Behrens' turn last year, in Glasgow. Yes, those factory girls--oh, too tough. Neither of you have worked in a factory, have you?” They continued to cry and strain at the shackles. “I thought not; good breeding, you two. Hullo, my first guest!”
A tall, dark man had emerged, seemingly out of thin air. “Deborah, my dear! Another year gone, what? Here now,” he peered at the girls over pince-nez glasses, “who have we here?”
“Ah, Ro-bert,” breathed Mrs. Carney, giving it the French accent, “bonjour, bonjour! Allow me to present Jenny--the softer one, to the right--and her sister Connie; they'll be served for dinner this evening.”
“Splendid!” beamed the man. He looked down at the trembling, tearful girls, who were now huddling together in their chains. “Welcome, ladies! I understand Szymanski will be joining us shortly; you'll certainly get to know him better.” And he chuckled.
Jenny choked, “Who--who's he?”
Mrs. Carney looked away; she said tartly. “Well, you certainly didn't think we were going to cook you alive, did you? We're not savages.”
As if on cue, a short, squat man emerged from the shadows. A wild mane of hair hung over the collar of his heavy shirt; he wore a bloodstained apron.
“Szymanski, old man!” exclaimed the tall man, “We were just talking about you!” He turned again to the cowering girls. “Mr. Szymanski, here, will be preparing you.”
The diners sat at their places, chatting over drinks and caviar. They talked of times past, of war and peace, of who among them had been lynched by townsfolk or had risen to power in government. Then, the clock in the corner began to count off the strokes of midnight
Mrs. Carney appeared at the head of the table, her face flushed from the heat of the oven. Protective mitts were on her hands; she wore an apron. “Ladies and gentlemen, it's time!” she called out gaily, as Robert and Szymanski slid the pot from the oven to the table. “I give you--Connie and Jenny!”
The two girls were crouched side-by-side on their forearms and shins in the pan, facing away from each other. Their hair had been chopped short. Each had an apple clenched in her mouth; each had a large carrot inserted in her rear end. Their flesh was a deep brown; the vegetables were still simmering in their juices in the bottom of the pan. The room erupted into applause; Mrs. Carney savored it and glanced at Ms. Behrens, who frowned. Factory girls, indeed! she thought, and turned to the stocky butcher. “Mr. Szymanski,” she asked, handing him a long handled carving knife and fork, “Will you do the honors?”
The meat carved easily from the bone; it was delectably soft and sweet. The revelers stuffed themselves full of loin and thigh, breast and buttock. D'Avignon, with his ferocious eyepatch and full beard, swallowed a last bite of Jenny's haunch and pushed his plate away. “No more for me,” he sighed, his good eye rolling back, his hands on his massive belly. “Better than Amsterdam! Where did you find them?”
Mrs. Carney smiled. “The supermarket. More wine?”