The Collected Works of Sawney Beane: Volume #97
CHURRUSCARIA
by Sawney Beane
9 February, 19-20 April, 7 June 2003
4,222 words
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE and DISCLAIMER: Sawney Beane requests that any distribution of this work of fiction remain within the realm of social responsibility. This story is suitable neither for minors nor for the seeming majority of adults who have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It is pure fantasy, which means that, for whatever reason, someone has found it interesting to think about the events depicted herein. It does not in any way mean that the author would like to see this fantasy become reality, so if you are the type of person who might be swayed into doing something irrational by reading a work of fiction, the author respectfully requests that you decline to read further.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sawney Beane, originally a native of Edinburgh, lived for twenty-five years in a cave on the coast of County Galloway, subsisting on the flesh of unfortunate travellers, roughly a thousand of them all told. He and his wife raised a large family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters. Eventually, the family was captured, and the whole lot was brutally and unjustifiably tortured and executed without trial. Since his death in the early 17th century, Beane has reformed his ways and now confines his atrocities to his literary endeavours.
WARNING: This story contains scenes of snuff and consensual gynophagia. If you find such things offensive, please steer clear; you have been warned.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: A well-deserved homage to Brazilian culinary genius. Unfortunately a bit of a caricature, but that's how it goes.
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It had been a long time since I'd been to Brazil. My first trip was as a curious wide-eyed twenty-year-old college exchange student. Now, I was nine years older and on a business trip to the paradise of my youth.
In the intervening years, the only taste of Brazil I'd had was a brief two-year romance with a memorably beautiful Brazilian college student. I was twenty-five at the time and she twenty when it started. I suspect the main attraction I offered to her was my rudimentary ability to speak her native language, but I didn't mind. I was quite enthralled with her until the day she graduated and announced that she would return to her native land. We parted tearfully as friends but never spoke to one another again.
So now I was more than ever yearning to revisit the places that had been most exciting to me as a younger man. Foremost among these was the churruscaria I had fallen in love with in Rio de Janeiro. There really wasn't any culinary experience to compare with the decadent gorging with meats of all sorts that one found in the churruscaria. The goal there seemed to be to see how much beef a person could eat, and the inevitable painful feeling one experienced after eating four or five times the recommended daily dose of meat served as no deterrent.
So it was with this nostalgic excitement that I sought out the gluttonous memory of my previous trip. I arrived at the restaurant on my first night in Rio after a long day of meetings and a carefully preserved and enhanced hunger brought about by skipping breakfast and lunch and dinner the night before. I wanted to make the most of my return.
The outside of the tastefully sedate restaurant was exactly as I remembered it, and I entered with my anticipation at a fever pitch. The first difference I noticed was that the price had risen quite dramatically. But of course that's what happens in nearly ten years time. Still, the price increase seemed rather more significant than inflation. But as a successful CEO, I could now afford the ten-times higher price effortlessly, and I was not about to let such quibbles spoil me enjoyment.
But inside I realized that things had changed rather more than I had expected. I was shown to a table by a beautiful but surprisingly concealed woman in a long black cloak, which buttoned tightly around her lovely dark neck and reached well below her knees. Such modesty was not the norm for Brazilian women in my experience.
Nevertheless, I sat down prepared to gorge myself. The large banquet hall contained rather fewer tables and patrons than I recalled. Still, I had arrived at eight o'clock, which was quite early for dinner by local standards. It would certainly get more crowded as time passed.
In my earlier visit, one of the highlights of the experience had been the salad bar. It wasn't really a salad bar, in fact. There were various salads and vegetables to be had there, but far more prevalent were the assortment of fishes and shellfish, both raw and cooked, one could select from. The tastes were a bewildering variety of delights. In combination with the main feature, dozens of waiters scurrying around with large skewers of different cuts of beef eager to distribute a large slab to each diner, the salad bar was a preview of heaven.
But when I went up for my first course, I realized that things had changed quite a lot in this restaurant. There wasn't a single fish to be found on the salad bar and even fewer vegetables than in the past. What was there, however, was breathtaking.
The new edifice consisted of a ring of heavy wooden tables. In the ten-foot diameter space between the tables, I found seven women waiting to serve me. Brazilian women are known for their apparent aversion for clothing, but these women had gone a step further and wore not even the brief and revealing fashions popular in this country. These seven women were completely nude, wearing only the solicitous smiles on their faces.
I love Brazilian women. Perhaps this is clear by now, but it bears restating. These seven ranged from the one or two truly gorgeous among them through the several cute and a few rather plain ones. But all of them seemed alluring and inviting. The thing I like most about Brazilian women is their skin tone, and these seven were no different, showing off skin ranging from a faint mocha colour to a rich golden brown. They made my mouth water, and for a moment I forgot that they were not what I had come to the salad bar expecting to find.
Upon closer examination I realized that each of these seven lovelies was in charge of one of the seven divisions of the former salad bar. In each of the seven, sections, the same assortment of dishes was available. There was a substantial pile of chorizo sausages, deep-fried liver, sweetbreads, and other assorted entrails. I had come to appreciate these delicacies on my previous visit. In this country, they really know how to make the most of all parts of an animal. They know their meats very well.
A tall lovely seniorita with skin of an alluring light tan loaded my plate with several sausages and other assorted bits of meat that I loved so much. In light of her unconcealed allure, my rudimentary Portuguese more or less abandoned me, and I was unable to respond intelligently to her friendly comments, but I went back to my table happily.
I was deeply engaged in my even more delicious than expected meal when something oddly familiar drifted across my field of vision. I had just decided I was nearly finished with my appetizers and ready for the deluge of meat that would inevitably follow when I switched the little red sign on my table over to green. The rules of the churrascaria dictated that the waiters should descend upon any tables showing a green signal with such implacable fury that even the most devoted carnivore would go into shock. But I was ready and switched my sign to green.
It was then that the odd familiarity struck me. The first waiter came instantly up to my table pushing a long cart rather than the expected skewer of meat. I blinked in disbelief as I saw what was on the table. First I saw a pair of long dark legs, feminine and fantastic. These particular legs reminded me powerfully of my long lost Brazilian girlfriend whose legs had been beyond compare. As the cart wheeled up to me, I saw more and more of the nude woman attached to these divine legs, and as I finally saw the soft delicate features of the smiling face, I was even more strongly reminded of my ex-girlfriend. In fact, at this point there was no question that it was indeed she. My former lover was on her back on this cart exposed in her full and undiminished loveliness. My eyes popped and my jaw dropped.
"Eva!" I gasped.
"Michael!" the vision exclaimed, with even more surprise and joy than I showed. "I can't believe you're here! Perfect!"
"Fantastic! But darling, what are you doing here?"
She smiled sheepishly and gazed with her deep dark brown eyes into mine. "I'm going to be dinner in a few minutes."
"You what?" It was all suddenly a lot clearer than I could dare admit to myself.
"Main course," she remarked, "moment of truth."
"This is why you had to come home?" I asked.
"Yes, of course, I've been waiting for this day all my life."
"God, no."
"Don't worry, Michael, it'll be wonderful," she replied seductively. "Anyway, I'm so glad to see you here. You know a girl loves to see a familiar face on an evening like this. I hope you'll enjoy me, lots of me."
"But...." I stammered.
"You know, I secretly hoped you'd be here. I chose this restaurant because you said it was your favourite. There are a few closer to my hometown, but I wanted to do it in your favourite place."
I want to point out at this point that I am a worldly and experienced man. This was not my first experience with cannibalism. I am no puritan or bleeding heart, and both of the two previous events at which I was served human flesh proved to be completely enjoyable and memorable. But two things shocked me a little bit about the situation I found myself in at my beloved and much altered churrascaria.
First, I was surprised by how openly cannibalism was practiced in Rio. In the States, eating people is still only barely legal, and the few restaurants that dabble in such specialties tend to be small and shady edifices. There we are still ashamed of our developing tastes. We hide it from public view. I have been twice to such places, more out of curiosity than anything else, and, though I must admit that I enjoyed the taste of the unusual meat, the environment was far from inviting. But here at my beloved churrascuria, things are eons away from that world. The Brazilians are more open about everything they do than we are, and this is no different.
Secondly, and far more importantly, I have never eaten anyone I knew personally, let alone anyone I had ever loved. In my previous experiences I never met the person who donated her flesh for my meal. In fact, there was no way to tell whether it had been a man or a woman that had become my feast. Now here I was about to watch someone I cared for very much on the verge of becoming prime rib. It was disconcerting and a little bit horrifying, but it was clear that there was nothing I could do about it, so I kept my thoughts mostly to myself and tried to be articulate.
"Who served you that," Eva asked, suddenly taking an interest in my nearly consumed sausages.
I pointed to the tall dark girl at the salad bar, and Eva smiled appreciatively. "That's Anna, she's a lovely thing isn't she? Great fun, you should come see her tomorrow night. And your appetizers," she thought to herself for a moment. "That would be Juanita. She was nice also, I bet she turned out delicious!"
It took a while for it to dawn upon me that the appetizers I was enjoying so much were also the parts of a former woman. That explained their unusually succulent flavour. But my confused look prompted Eva to explain.
"We're the past, present, and future of the dinners here. Your sausages are the leftovers from Juanita's feast yesterday. I will soon follow her lead as I become today's special, and Anna over there will be on this cart tomorrow night."
"So many!"
"Yes, this is one of the largest churrascarias in Brazil. They go through fifty girls a week. Seven go each evening. If you look at the back of Anna's shoulder you'll see tattooed on it tomorrow's date and 9:00. As for me...." She rolled over to show me the back of her own shoulder, and I stared open-mouthed at today's date and the time "8:30" inscribed in her soft skin in tiny black letters.
I looked at my watch and saw that it was within a few minutes of my love's moment of truth.
Eva continued her explanation. "They take one of us every half hour between 8:00 and 11:00."
"That's only 49," I murmured.
Eva smiled. "Yes, they take the most attractive woman from each batch and give her a special job. That's Leticia the hostess you saw when you came in. She'll do her thing each evening and then they'll serve her up at the end of the night on Sunday."
I didn't get a chance to ask what Leticia's "thing" was because my attention was riveted by two men carrying between them a steel skewer. In the middle of the skewer, impaled from ear to ear, was the head of a long-haired Latin lovely. The expression on her face was not one of fear or pain but only of mild surprise on her mouth and staring eyes. I gasped aloud.
"Oh, look at Maria," exclaimed Eva, enthralled by the sight of her predecessor's arrival. "Doesn't she look marvellous?"
"That's what they do here?"
"Oh, yes, she's the 8:00 tonight."
I was slowly becoming aware of the waiters swarming around the other tables with various skewers of meat. I had been too distracted by my appetizers to notice the surprisingly human appearance to some of the racks of ribs and hams that were being circulated. It appeared that Maria was being spread around and enjoyed by many throughout the restaurant.
"Darling, it's time for me to get started. Sorry we can't talk more, but I hope you will do me the honour of taking my first piece. What part of me would you like to sink your teeth into first?"
I stared down at her perfect body with a horrified expression on my face. I was feeling shocked and afraid. "I can't do that to you, Eva! I love you; how can I destroy that body?"
Eva smiled up at me indulgently, "Oh, Michael, you're so sweet. Far too sentimental, but you're sweet nonetheless. Tell you what, I'll make the rounds while you get used to the idea of feasting on me, and I'll come back a little later. I promise to save my best steak for you. Don't fill up on any other girls while I'm gone!"
With that, the waiter wheeled her off to the far side of the room where I could hardly see her. My mind was reeling, and I didn't know how I would survive this evening. I knew I had to do it; she wanted me to devour as much of her body as I possibly could, so I couldn't let her down. How could I disappoint someone I loved as much as I loved my dear Eva?
When she returned ten minutes later, the situation was entirely different. Instead of a perfect dark-skinned goddess, I found her in a horrifying state. Shiny red blood stained parts of her skin and the cart she was riding. Most of the damage was focused on her right side. Her magnificent right breast was entirely missing as was her right arm up to the elbow, and her right leg up to mid-thigh. She seemed amazingly unconcerned about her diminished state. Her charm and beauty remained intact.
"OK, Michael, I don't have a lot of time, so you'll have to be quick."
"Eva!"
"Shush, I promised you my best bit, so are you ready now?"
"Yes," I replied, averting my eyes.
"Thank you, darling, I know you'll enjoy me."
I wondered what her best part might be; so many perfect bits to choose from. I glanced slightly at her solo left breast. She noticed my stare and laughed. "No, dear, you don't want that; entirely overrated, all fat and no meat. Still, it will go quickly; they're very popular for some reason, but you can do better."
She pointed slightly with her remaining left hand to her belly, and I gasped at the thought of consuming her tight shapely abdomen. She was athletic and fit, and her belly was the envy of many women. It was, indeed, a very nice bit.
I gasped as the waiter plunged a sharp knife into her belly just to the left of her bejewelled navel.
"Doesn't that hurt?"
She rolled her eyes slightly, "Not a bit, why would it?"
"Just that...you know..."
"Yes, well, the drugs do help a lot. I can't feel a thing below my neck."
"Mmmm, yes, of course."
The waiter had drawn three quarters of a red circle in the left side of her belly and was just about to complete the incision when Eva interrupted him and began a sharp conversation in agitated Portuguese. After some debate, the waiter resumed his work, this time veering sharply to the right so as to include Eva's perfect bellybutton in my enlarged portion. The thick slab of lean meat was soon staring up at me from my plate. I stared in amazement.
Eva was making a valiant effort to avoid bleeding to death and look cheerful at the same time as the waiter dropped my slab of her belly onto the small grill built into the middle of the table. With a deft stroke of the sharp knife, he dislodged the thin silver band that had pierced her bellybutton and placed the bit of jewellery on the edge of my plate. It was a fine piece of jewellery, the only kind worthy of such a bellybutton, and it carried three small diamonds in the silver setting.
I began to offer the band to Eva, but she insisted that it was a gift for me to remember her by. I protested that I couldn't accept such a costly gift, but she laughed in my face.
"In case you hadn't noticed, I have no use for it anymore since I don't have a bellybutton. Besides that I will be dead in about twenty minutes." The waiter shook his head gravely and almost imperceptibly. "Sooner even than that," she corrected herself. "If you don't take it, the restaurant will own it. Don't be silly."
I thanked her and apologized for my lameness. But by then my steak was smelling fantastic and was served to me in a perfect medium rare."
Eva had persuaded her waiter to reluctantly keep her near my table so she could see my first taste of her offering. I sawed off a corner of the belly steak and placed it in my mouth. I closed my eyes and drank in the flavour of my beloved. I had tasted this belly many times before, but never had it been so flavourful. In all its succulent loveliness, I was rendered speechless.
But my facial expressions told the story enough for Eva. "I knew you'd like me!" she giggled happily. "Dear, please promise me you will eat as much of me as you can tonight. Don't eat any other girls, save all your appetite for me, and don't forget dessert. If you really want to show your love for me, come back tomorrow and have some of my leftovers. Darling, I love you." This was spoken hastily as the impatient waiter was wheeling her off to the next table.
"I love you too, Eva," I replied earnestly. It was the last she heard from me, but it did reach her ears because I saw the broad smile on her face as she arrived a few tables over and left her remaining hand for their enjoyment. Several other tables received bits of her divine flesh, but all too soon she was rushed off to the kitchen to begin the next phase of her assignment.
It was not until several years later that I learned what went on in the kitchens of a restaurant like this one. So I can only imagine the final scene of my Eva's short life. It was time for the chef to separate her from her body, and they had devised a very special machine for snuffing her and the many like her.
The girl is laid on her back on a padded table, and her head is placed in a special snugly fitting padded cradle. A leather strap across her forehead securely immobilizes her, and the spike is aimed with surgical precision.
If she is still conscious, she is traditionally given the privilege of indicating her readiness for the final stroke. She is instructed to say a something appropriate that will tell the chef when to push the button. Of course, they can't wait all day, so a five-minute time limit is usually imposed so that if she fails to indicate her readiness, the button gets pushed anyway.
In any case, after the button is pushed, the slender steel skewer is launched with incredible speed. It will penetrate through one of the woman's ears, and will almost as quickly exit the other. In between it will have fatally wounded her, and death is almost instantaneous.
I, of course, did not witness the final moments of my beloved Eva, but I know that she would not have let the five-minute time limit expire before saying the word. I am certain she called for the spike as soon as she was placed in position.
The next time I saw her, or part of her, it was less than ten minutes after she had entered the kitchen, she was in the same state as Maria had been before her. A man was carrying her severed head around the dining room. He was holding it by the steel spike that stuck out of both of her delicate ears. Each of the customers in the room was battling to get a choice piece from this desirable offering. Bits of her face were distributed to the crowd. I wanted to get her lips, but by the time she got to me I considered myself fortunate to receive a portion of her cheek. It was all very disturbing.
The rest of the evening was harrowing for me. My Eva's body had been roasted thoroughly to perfection, and parts were coming out of the kitchen on skewers and served all around every so often. I grabbed as much of her as I could and thoroughly gorged myself, trying to fight the mixture of emotions within myself. I was deeply saddened by the loss of her, but felt bound by her begging me to consume as much of her as possible. Also, she was the best meal I had ever had.
The real challenge, however, was deciding which morsels to grab. Throughout the evening at half-hour intervals, six other women were meeting a fate identical to my Eva's. Eva was the second in line, and the one before her and five after her were coming out of the kitchen bit by bit as well. The many skewers of meat swirling around the dining room became difficult to keep track of, and it was a challenge to determine which belonged to Eva and which to other comely Latin culinary martyrs. I did my best.
A while later, once most of the evening's doomed had met their fate and the others were well on their way, hostess Leticia finally began to do her "thing". She had removed her long cloak and made her way through the dining room stopping at each table to inquire as to additional orders. She was stark naked and stunningly beautiful from head to toe. She was completely shaved from the neck down, and finely detailed lines and labels covered her body. I couldn't tell if they were magic marker or tattoos, but the decorations indicated the various cuts of meat that could be had from her body.
But today she wasn't selling her own body. She was selling the leftovers from the other seven bodies destroyed that night. She suggestively sold her comrade's flesh by pointing to the part of her body corresponding to an available cut of meat and took requests from the lustful diners.
It seemed forever, but she eventually made her way to my table and in a lusty voice asked me what I fancied. I asked what she had available from the 8:30 meal. She checked her list and said there wasn't much. She pointed to her right shoulder and said she had a small piece of that and a little bit of ribs. I asked for both, and she sent the order immediately to the kitchen and moved to the next table. I didn't get to see it, but I presume that on Sunday, Leticia sold off the parts of her own body in much the same way.
When the commotion had died down and the skewers of meat had dwindled to nothing, and the stuffed and drunk patrons were about to burst, the dessert cart came around and handed out bowls full of a sweet gelatinous substance. The waiter whispered in my ear in broken English as he deposited one bowl in front of me, "This is from Eva, she told me to give you one of hers."
At first I didn't know for sure what it was, but after a few bites I realized that I was eating a portion of my beloved's jellied brain. It was a fitting end to the meal, and tasted wonderful, but the idea troubled me somewhat.
In the end, I practically rolled home to my hotel room to sleep off my enormous meal and dream about the wonderful girl who had supplied the feast. I loved her more than ever and knew a pleasant image of her would be fixed forever in my brain.
Of course, I had to go back the next day and give Leticia another large cover charge so that I could finish the job. However, that day I ate my fill from the salad bar and decided not to stay for the main course.