Pt 1

Samantha sat in her dorm room listlessly rocking her computer chair, staring out the window without seeing anything beyond. If you had walked into the room and asked her what the weather was like outside she would not have been able to tell you. The small TV in the corner was playing her favourite show on Netflix but she was not even aware of it, she was too lost in her own thoughts. Samantha’s twenty-first birthday was in less than two weeks and then it would be too late. Again.

Nearly twenty one years ago, Samantha had been born into a world where cooking and eating young girls were accepted, even common-place. She had been to two parties where girl-meat was on the menu before she turned six, the age at which she herself became eligible for slaughter. The first had been a family gathering where one of her older cousins, thirteen or fourteen at the time, had been spit-roasted. The other, she could not remember the occasion, had involved two girls not much older than her being boiled together in a big stew pot. She remembered finding it funny, as if they were taking a bath outside. She also remembered how tasty the stew had been later.

Throughout her childhood, Samantha had always carried the assumption that she was bound for the dinner table sooner or later. Nobody had told her this or even, as far as she could remember, suggested it as a joke, it was just something that she “knew”. As she got older, she saw more and more girls like her cooked and eaten, always enjoying those she got a chance to taste. She went to parties where the Birthday Girl got barbecued, went to restaurants where, instead of a menu, a live girl was brought to the table to help you pick which pieces you wanted, there were even more family reunions, weddings and other celebrations where girls from her family were cooked. The more girls she ate, the more certain she became that she would join them one day.

Then she had turned fifteen and suddenly found herself not only uneaten but now ineligible to ever be so. She did not know how to feel. There was relief to an extent but also a strange disappointment. It was not exactly that she wanted to be eaten. She was a happy girl who enjoyed life and was more than happy to go on living it but knowing that she would now never be cooked felt strange and a little upsetting, like she had missed out on a big opportunity. Then, when she was seventeen, that law had been changed. In response to increasing demand for girl-meat, the age of eligibility was extended downwards from six to four and upwards from fourteen to twenty. Once again, Samantha had found herself of an age where she could be cooked and the familiar feeling of certainty had, slowly but surely, crept back. It was almost like being given a second chance at a prize, albeit a prize she was not sure that she wanted, but a second chance none the less.

And yet the years had rolled by once again, years filled with parties and even dates to girl-meat restaurants, while Samantha remained almost obstinately alive and uneaten. It was not as if anyone had asked her directly but there had been plenty of occasions when volunteers were called for. She had waited for someone to suggest it to her, for her friends to apply a little peer-pressure, and yet it had never come and now, here she was once more, about to cross the boundary beyond which nobody would ever taste her meat.

She had certainly made the most of her life so far. She had studied hard at school, got great GCSE results and followed those up with even more impressive A-Levels, earning her a place at the top university of her choice, on her way towards what was sure to be a glittering career. And yet she felt unfulfilled. However much she thought about the future and tried to look forward to it, she could not shake the feeling that, whatever was to happen in the years ahead she was not supposed to be a part of it and that her destiny lay on the dining table. But could she bring herself to make that choice? To volunteer her body at some party or sign herself over to a restaurant to be eaten by strangers?

“Hey girlfriend!” Her best friend Vicki let herself into the room, smiling broadly and closely followed by Amelia. Both were carrying shopping bags that clinked in a tell-tale fashion as they moved. “We thought you seemed a bit down and we’ve come to cheer you up!”

“Thanks.” Samantha smiled, pulling herself out of her introspective thoughts and into the room with her friends, welcoming the distraction. “I’m okay, just got stuff on my mind, you know?”

“Oh totally!” Amelia grinned, plonking herself down on the bed, reaching into her bag and pulling out two bottles of Vodka. “Luckily, we know just the thing to get rid of that!”