Tender is the Flesh(21)
He raises his head and opens his eyes. Then he closes them again. He never remembers his dreams, not with such clarity. He puts his hands behind his neck. It was just a dream, he thinks, but a feeling of instability moves through him. An archaic fear.
He looks to one side and sees the ashes of the cot. He looks to the other side and sees the female lying very close to his body. He gets up with a start, but he’s not steady on his feet and sits back down. The thoughts come quickly: What did I do? Why is she loose? Why didn’t she escape? What is she doing next to me?
The female is curled up in sleep. She looks peaceful. Her white skin glistens in the sun. He goes to touch her, he wants to touch her, but she trembles slightly, as though she were dreaming, and he moves his hand away. He looks at her forehead, where she’s been branded. It’s the symbol of property, of value.
He looks at her straight hair, which hasn’t yet been cut and sold. It’s long, and filthy.
There’s a certain purity to this being who’s unable to speak, he thinks, as his finger traces the outline of her shoulder, arm, hips, legs, until it reaches her feet. He doesn’t touch her. His finger hovers a centimetre above her skin, a centimetre above the initials, the FGPs scattered all over her body. She’s gorgeous, he thinks, but her beauty is useless. She won’t taste any better because she’s beautiful. The thought doesn’t surprise him, he doesn’t even linger on it. It’s what he thinks whenever there’s a head he notices at the processing plant. The odd female that stands out among the many that move through the place every day.
He lies down very close to her, but doesn’t touch her. He feels the heat of her body, her slow and unhurried breath. He moves a little closer and begins to breathe with her rhythm. Slowly, slower still. He can smell her. She has a strong smell because she’s dirty, but he likes it, thinks of the intoxicating scent of jasmine, wild and sharp, vibrant. His breath quickens. Something about this excites him, this closeness, this possibility.
He gets up suddenly. The female wakes with a start and looks at him in confusion. He grabs her arm and takes her to the barn, not with violence, but decisively. Then he closes the door and walks to the house. He showers quickly, brushes his teeth, dresses, takes two aspirin and gets into the car.
It’s his day off, but he drives to the city, without thinking, without stopping.
When he arrives at Spanel Butchers, it’s still very early and the shop isn’t open. But he knows she sleeps there. He rings the bell and El Perro opens the door. He pushes the assistant aside without saying hello and goes straight to the room at the back. He closes the door. Locks it.
Spanel is standing next to the wooden table. She’s clearly relaxed, as though she’s been expecting him. There’s a knife in her hand and she’s cutting an arm that hangs from a hook. It looks very fresh, as though she yanked it off a few seconds prior. The arm isn’t from a processing plant because it hasn’t been bled dry or flayed. There’s blood on the table, and on the floor. The drops fall slowly. A puddle is forming and the only sound in the room is the blood from the table splattering onto the floor.
He moves towards Spanel, as though he’s going to say something, but he puts his hand through her hair and grabs her by the nape of her neck. He uses force to hold her there, and he kisses her. It’s a ravenous kiss, at first, full of rage. She tries to resist, but only a little. He pulls off her bloodstained apron and kisses her again. He kisses her like he wants to break her, but he moves slowly. He undoes her shirt while he bites her neck. She arches her back, trembles, but doesn’t make a sound. He turns her to face the table and pushes her onto it. Then he lowers her trousers and slides her underwear down. She’s breathing heavily, waiting, but he decides to make her suffer, that he wants to enter her behind the cold of her cutting words. Spanel looks at him, imploring him, almost begging him, but he ignores her. He walks to the other end of the table, grabs her by the hair and forces her to unzip him with her mouth. The blood dripping from the arm falls right past the edge of the table, between her lips and his crotch. He takes off his boots, his jeans, and then his shirt. Naked, he steps towards the table. The blood drips onto him, stains him. He shows her where to clean, there, where the flesh is hard. She obeys and licks him. Carefully at first, then desperately, as though the blood that stains everything weren’t enough and she needed more. He grabs her hair with more force and motions for her to slow down. She obeys.
What he wants is for her to scream, for her skin to cease being a still and empty sea, for her words to crack open, dissolve.
He goes back to the other end of the table. He removes her trousers, rips off her underwear and opens her legs. Then he hears a sound and sees El Perro looking in through the window in the door. Good for him, he thinks, carrying out his role of faithful animal, of docile servant protecting his owner. He takes pleasure in El Perro’s blind stare, in the possibility of the man attacking once and for all.
Then he thrusts. Just once, precisely. She keeps quiet, trembles, contains herself. The blood continues to drip down from the table.
El Perro tries to open the door. It’s locked. The man’s rage is visible, palpable. There are fangs in El Perro’s eyes, he can see them, and relishes the man’s desperation. He continues to glare at El Perro and yanks Spanel’s hair. She claws silently at the table, gets blood under her nails.
He turns Spanel around and takes a few steps back. Then he looks at her. He sits down on a chair and she moves towards him, stops right above his legs. Then suddenly, he’s on his feet, the chair knocked to the floor. He lifts her up, and with his body crushes her against one of the glass doors. On the other side of it, there are hands, feet, a brain. She kisses him in anguish, solemnly.