Posted by PK on October 08, 2001 at 16:40:23:
The blonde shook her head. "No way." Nude and neat and smeared with butter, she suddenly
felt quite secure. The sense of safety is relative. She wasn't daft enough to tempt fate any
further.
"Okay, my turn," Andrea slurred.
The door was opened again and Andrea climbed in, helped by many willing hands. Slippery
as she was, it took some doing.
"This is bloody stupid," Paul said. "Somebody should stop it before there's an accident."
Steve shrugged. "I suppose so." Both of them were too overwhelmed by the spectacle to
resist staying to look a moment longer. Andrea's elegant legs curled under her, her long back
arched over them. A dream come true.
I wish I looked like that, Kirsty thought. Andrea looked great in the oven, perfect in every
part. She shuddered.
Ian played with the controls and hit a switch. The lights came on and a ragged cheer went up.
Then Andrea started wriggling about. She looked hot and sweaty. Her movements became
more energetic, which got her more applause. There were muffled sounds coming from the
oven.
Katrina came in. "What's going on?" she asked Paul and Steve.
"Some sort of game....oh shit. You fucking idiot. Ian, turn it off!" He started to run forward,
shoving people aside.
Kirsty and Steve, unlikely companions, gave each other one startled look and comprehension
dawned. They followed. Ian had switched the microwave cooking circuit on.
It took time to get through the crowd around the oven. Ian resisted Paul's attempts to move
him away from the controls, he was giggling. They struggled. Steve finally caught up with
them and dragged Ian off far enough for Paul to hit him hard in the face.
Kirsty watched as Steve secured Ian while Paul frantically hit the controls of the oven. Finally
he shut it off.
"Fuck of a show," Rog confided to Kirsty. "Want a hit?" She shook her head, staring. The
oven door was opening. Andrea wasn't moving any more. "Tequila?" She shook her head
again and then grabbed the bottle.
Katrina moved forward. Damage control was needed. How bad was it?
Paul was breathing hard, but he hadn't lost it. He tried to find a pulse or a breath but he knew.
He saw Katrina out of the corner of his eye, or maybe he just smelled the frost.
"How bad is it?" she asked. Her voice was devoid of any human concern, she wanted a
sitrep.
"Bad as it gets. She's dead. I need a hand getting her out."
"Hold on that." Katrina's mind was in high gear. Murder inquiry? Accident investigation? Too
disruptive. Only one way out of it.
"Shut the door and switch the oven back on. Cook her." Paul and Steve stared at her. She bit
back exasperation. "Anybody here from catering?"
Judy nodded and gulped. She was still naked, Katrina paid no more attention to that than if
she'd been dressed in overalls. "Good. You'll know how to operate the oven. Listen
everybody."
Her voice cut like a whip. Everybody seemed to have drifted in, attracted by the scent of
disaster. The crowd went quite and waited.
"Andrea was a valued employee. I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted her accident to cause
problems for us all. I'm also sure you don't want this company ruined by scandal and your
jobs lost, so here it is." She paused for breath. This was really pushing it but she might just
bring it off. "We all have to pull together now."
Aside, she asked for Rog. Steve pointed him out and he sauntered beatifically through the
crowd. When he arrived she wasted no time. "Got any more cannabis?"
"Sure, want some?" Rog offered her a battered joint, the latest of many.
"No. Roll up lots and pass them around. Do it now." The words 'that's an order' didn't have to
be spoken.
"What do we have to do?" somebody asked.
It was just like Parliament, Kirsty thought. Katrina's stooges asked the questions she wanted
to answer. Katrina had just asked Paul something.
"No, I don't think she signed anything." he said. He glanced at Ian, armlocked by Steve,
bloody nose by him. He was out of it.
"So we need witnesses that she went in the oven voluntarily." she muttered. There was only
one way to make that look remotely plausible. She raised her voice. "We must show Andrea
our respect and solidarity the only way we can. We have to honour her wishes, however
fantastic they may seem. We will hold her wake here, and celebrate her life in the only
appropriate way.
We have to eat her."
I'm going to kill Ian, she thought.
This isn't happening, Kirsty thought. I'll wake up tomorrow and this will be a dream. It's totally
out of order to feel like this. Andrea is dead. She took another shot from the tequila bottle.
Paul was coming back to her, white faced. He held his hand out for the bottle and took a
swig, wincing at the sting of raw alcohol. He'd better go back to beer, he thought. Too used to
drinking long draughts of beer, if he stuck with spirits he'd empty the bottle and be on the
floor in no time.
"Are we really going to eat Andrea?" Kirsty asked tentatively, once Paul seemed to have
steadied himself. The thought was outrageous, and the fact of her sudden death was
horrifying but a part of her was quivering with arousal and excitement.
"If Her Satanic Majesty says so, we will, I suppose." Katrina's speech had made no sense -
Andrea had not expressed any such wishes - but nobody would care about that. Everybody
would follow her lead out of habit or concern for their jobs. Her strategy was obvious. Get
everyone smashed enough, create an atmosphere of response to group crisis, plant a
suggestion - by morning, most of the people here would 'remember' that Andrea had
intended to get herself cooked, the rest would go along with it. They'd have to, if they ate her
and didn't stick to that story they'd be accessories after the fact to murder.
"What are we going to do?" The 'we' had a different emphasis this time. Kirsty had her hand
tucked intimately into the waistband of his jeans. Paul felt aroused despite himself, and
protective. Kirsty had removed her glasses - he'd often wondered if she really needed them
or just used them as a defense - and her brown eyes were wide and intense.
"I'm going to go along with it, I think. The Boss is right about one thing, cooking Andy won't
hurt her now. If you can't face it, you'd better get out quickly, I wouldn't put it past her to lock
us in and guard the exits." He sighed. "This is my fault really. I knew Ian was off the rails, I
should have known he'd go too far one day. Then what do I do? Play along with his mad little
game."
"You can't blame yourself," Kirsty said firmly. "Nobody did anything until it was too late, at
least you tried. If you're to blame, we all are. And if you're staying, so am I." Good, he smiled
at that. "Do you really think it will work?"
Preparations for the bizarre wake were already under way. Those not working were standing
around in groups talking and drinking, some tearful, some laughing too loudly. Andrea was
probably the subject of fond little anecdotes in most of them. As at any funeral, the
atmosphere was a little unreal. In their minds, Andrea wasn't really dead yet. Rog was
present in body, mind viewing the events through a telescope on Alpha Centauri. Pete and
Clara were probably still playing mental chess next door. One or two people had passed out
and a few were leaving. Paul doubted they'd have jobs to come back to.
"Yes, I think it will." Katrina would see to it that Ian was discreetly committed to psychiatric
care and after a day or two of tabloid scandal and a police inquiry that led nowhere, it would
blow over. It was rare for people to get eaten at parties but it happened, it was legal given
consent. There would be suspicions but no proof.
Steve wandered over, Melanie with him. She had her arm around his waist. Stranger things
have happened, Paul thought. Beside him, Kirsty possessively slipped her hand further into
his jeans. "Hell of a thing," Steve said.
"Just a bit."
"I know it's awful but the weird thing is, she smells really good."
All over the room, people were probably saying or thinking the same thing.
Melanie shuddered, not entirely theatrically. "That could have been me," she said. Nobody
disputed this. She turned to Steve rather archly. "Do you think I'd smell that good too?"
He assured her she would, and Kirsty suddenly wanted to be told the same thing. She had of
course been relieved that Paul hadn't really intended to kill anyone, her in particular, but if he
wasn't going to eat her it shouldn''t be because she wasn't worth eating. She wondered at
herself. Was she really feeling jealous of poor dumb Mel or poor dead Andrea?
Rog wandered up, or possibly floated. "Hey guys. Something smells good, huh? Where's
Ian?" Steve and Paul looked at each other, conversed silently for a second. Hopeless.
"Dunno, Rog, I suppose he'll turn up."
It seemed hardly any time at all before Andrea's cooked body was brought out on a serving
platter and laid on a table. She smelled almost obscenely, mouth-wateringly, tempting. Due
to her posture, carving her up wasn't easy but Judy, still naked for some reason best known
to herself, and a man from the kitchen staff did their best. The foursome took their drinks to a
table. With practiced efficiency, pieces of Andrea were served to everybody. Nice substantial
slices of meat, perfectly cooked and just a little pink inside. With little sprigs of parsley.
Katrina delivered the world's shortest eulogy in lieu of grace and worked in a toast at the end.
Everybody raised a glass to Andrea and started eating. Paul was amazed how easily
everybody accepted this. Why not, I did, he admitted. Some eyes were a little red, others too
bright; some voices hushed and others too loud but it all came together. Andrea's death had
become integrated, part of the occasion. Dinner conversation started after somebody made a
daring joke about how she tasted as good as she'd looked.
Judy appeared at his elbow carrying a small heated salver bearing a piece of fragrant flesh.
She set it down before him. "The Boss thought you should have this," she said. "Since you
tried to save her. She'd have wanted you to have it."
"Is that what I think it is?" Steve uttered in an awestruck voice. "I'd have bet the Ice Queen
would have had it herself. You lucky sod."
"You'd have lost, and yes it is."
"If you don't want it...." Judy hesitated, nervously.
Paul looked at Kirsty who looked back, eyes avid and intense. Could he really eat a girl's
cunt, served by a naked woman, in front of his new girlfriend?
Hell, yes. This would never happen again in his life, carpe diem. He sliced off a piece and ate
it. Exquisite. "My compliments to the chef," he said. Judy nodded, smiling, and withdrew.
Kirsty licked her lips so he cut another sliver and offered it to her. Her lips parted, eyes
locked on his. She took it. He addressed himself to Andrea's clitoris.
Not bad at all, Katrina thought complacently, over the worst of her cold fury at Ian. The
squirrelly little bastard (now sedated unconscious in a closet) had endangered the company,
but she had it under control. Now she had a unarguable reason to get rid of him, and the few
rats who had deserted wouldn't be missed. Maybe this was for the best after all, a symbol of
a new start, a new esprit de corps. Not for Andrea, of course, but she was only a secretary,
she could be replaced. Everyone was bearing up well, even that mousy little Kirsty whom
Paul inexplicably seemed to have adopted. She looked again. Not so mousy now, perhaps,
her hair unbound and her specs gone. Well, well...
In the toilets later, Steve congratulated Paul. "Looks like you're on a winner there."
Paul made a noncommittal gesture. "Could be. What about you? Mel? I mean, she's pretty
but..no offense..."
"Dumb as a post? Sure she is, but she's sweet. Really. I'm sick of complicated relationships
and game playing. Besides..." he shrugged.
Paul raised an eyebrow.
"Great tits, biddable and she fucks like a mink."
Having arranged a taxi, Paul met Kirsty outside. The night sky was clear with a few clouds
and a big moon, it was chilly but not bad for the time of year. She had found her shoes - she
swore to herself that she'd turn up in jeans and trainers next time and to hell with the boss,
she was in marketing, not reception - but she'd ditched the specs.
"I heard some people talking about doing it again next year, can you believe it?"
Paul shook his head.
"Want to come back for a coffee?"
"I don't drink coffee."
"I've got a bottle of crap wine, a cheap stereo and a bed. Want to come back and we'll screw
each other's brains out?"
He kissed her nose. "Sounds like a plan."