Tender is the Flesh(37)
7
Every so often, an inspector from the Office of the Undersecretary for the Control of Domestic Heads shows up at his house. He knows all the inspectors, all those who matter, because when they shut down the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, when the world was in chaos, when his father began to want to live inside books and would call at three in the morning asking to speak with the Baron in the Trees, so that the man could help him get into the pages, when his father later told him that books were spies from a parallel dimension, when animals became a threat, when at a chilling speed the world was put back together and cannibalism legitimized, he worked there, at the undersecretary’s office. They’d recruited him based on the recommendation of employees from his father’s processing plant. He was one of the people who drafted the regulations and rules, but he lasted less than a year because the salary was low and he had to put his father in the nursing home.
The office first began sending inspectors a few days after the female was brought to his house. The female who at the time had no name, who was a number in a registry, a problem, one domestic head like so many others.
The inspector was young and didn’t know he’d worked for the undersecretary. He took the man to the barn where the female was lying on a blanket, tied up, naked. The inspector didn’t seem surprised and only asked if she’d been given the required vaccines.
“She was a gift and I’m still getting used to her being here. But she’s been vaccinated, I’ll get the papers for you.”
“You could always sell her. She’s an FGP, she’s worth a fortune. I have a list of interested buyers.”
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet.”
“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. My only suggestion is to clean her up a little to prevent disease. Remember that if you decide to slaughter her, you’ll need to contact a specialist who’ll verify you’ve done so and notify us for our records. The same goes for selling her, or if she escapes, or if anything else happens that should be recorded, so we don’t have any issues down the road.”
“Okay, everything’s clear. If I want to slaughter her, I’m certified to do so. I work at a processing plant. How’s El Gordo Pineda doing?”
“You mean Se?or Alfonso Pineda?”
“Yeah, El Gordo.”
“No one calls him that, he’s not fat, and he’s our boss.”
“So El Gordo’s a boss. That I can’t believe. I worked with him back when we were kids. Send him my regards.”
After that first visit, El Gordo Pineda himself called to say that the next time an inspector stopped by, they’d only ask for his signature, so as not to bother him.
“Hi, Tejito. Imagine you of all people with a female.”
“Gordo, it’s been ages, mate.”
“Hey, I’m not fat any more! The wife’s got me drinking juice and other crap that healthy people eat. Now I’m thin and miserable. When are we gonna have ourselves a barbecue, Tejito?”
El Gordo Pineda had been his partner back when they’d started carrying out inspections of the first domestic heads. The owners knew what was prohibited and what wasn’t, but they didn’t expect visits from inspectors and the two of them witnessed all sorts of things.
The regulations were adapted on the job. He remembers one case where a woman answered the door. They asked the woman about the female in the home and needed to see her papers, verify that she’d been vaccinated and take a look at her living conditions. The woman got nervous and said that her husband, the female’s owner, wasn’t home, and that they’d have to come back later. He looked at El Gordo and the two of them had the same thought. They moved the woman aside as she was trying to close the door and entered the house. She shouted that they weren’t allowed to come in, that it was illegal and she was going to call the police. El Gordo told her that they were authorized to do so and said she could call the police if she wanted to. They went from room to room but the female wasn’t there. Then it occurred to him to open closets, check under beds. Eventually they looked in the couple’s room. Underneath the bed was a wooden box with small wheels that was big enough to hold a person lying down. When they opened it, they saw the female, in what looked like a coffin, unable to move. They didn’t know what to do because regulations hadn’t been drafted for a case of this nature. The female was healthy and though the wooden coffin wasn’t a conventional place to keep her, it wasn’t reason enough to fine the owner. When the woman walked into the room and saw they’d discovered the female, she broke down. She began to cry and told them that her husband had sex with the head and not with her, that she couldn’t take it any more, she’d been replaced by an animal, and couldn’t bear the idea of sleeping with that disgusting creature under the bed. She was humiliated and if they sent her to the Municipal Slaughterhouse for being an accomplice, she didn’t care, all she wanted was to go back to a normal life, to life before the Transition. With that statement, they were able to call the team in charge of examining heads for evidence that they’d been “enjoyed”, which was the official word used in such cases. The regulations specify that reproduction is only permitted by artificial means. Semen must be purchased in special banks, and sample implantation carried out by qualified professionals. The whole process has to be documented and certified so that if the female is impregnated, the fetus already has an identification number. As such, domestic females should be virgins. Having sex with a head, enjoying her, is illegal and the sentence is death in the Municipal Slaughterhouse. The special team went to the house and confirmed that the female had been enjoyed “in every possible way”. The owner, a man of around sixty, was sentenced and sent directly to the Municipal Slaughterhouse. The woman was fined and the female confiscated and sold for a low price in an auction because of what is officially referred to as “proscribed enjoyment”.