Pt 3

The big day finally came! There has been a lot of excitement when Hannah and Natasha had given out the invitations – some to friends at school, a few at their Brownie pack and some at their swimming class. Anyone given an invitation was told to keep fairly quiet about it as they could not invite everyone and didn’t want people to feel left out. There had certainly been giggling at the topless photo on the front and several questions about whether the promise of “Cannibal Cuisine” was real or whether it would be pretend body-parts like at a Halloween party. No matter how many times the twins insisted it was real, there were still those among their friends who refused to believe it but promised to come to the party “just to prove it”.

Although it was mostly girls who had been invited, among the twenty invitees there were five boys – two from school and three from the swimming club which was a fairly mixed group. The twins had giggled with each other wondering if the boys they invited would be pleased to get half-naked pictures of them and what they would think to seeing them completely nude at the party? Although they were at an age where sex did not really loom large in their minds and was really just an abstract thing they learned about at school, they were very well aware of the differences between boys and girls and that men and boys liked looking at naked women and girls. They knew that boobs supposedly made a girls’ body more interesting, they had seen proof from the way boys looked at the girls at the top of the school, but they both secretly hoped that their undeveloped yet feminine bodies may at least hold some interest for their male friends and wondered if any of the invited parent-helpers that their parents were arranging would be dads?

The celebrations on the Friday, their actual birthday, had been had been intimate, for family only. The Marshalls had debated between themselves whether they should tell their respective parents, the girls’ grandparents, what was going to happen or wait until afterwards but had decided that it was only fair to give them a chance to say goodbye. Plus it would save them from wasting money on presents that the girls would enjoy for less than a day. Wanting to give them the chance to process their feelings privately before having to see anyone, Mr and Mrs Marshall had sent emails from their joint account, explaining the situation and making special mention of the girls’ enthusiasm. Whatever their real feelings, at the Pizza Hut they all met at for the Birthday dinner, none of them expressed anything other than pride and excitement for their granddaughter’s big day. The biggest surprise of the day, however, was the announcement that, since the twins did not need birthday presents that year, the four of them had clubbed together to buy their parents an Ultra-HD camcorder to capture all the events of the day, since they would not be there to watch in person.

On the way home, beaming with happiness and excitement, the girls had asked to stop for a final milkshake from their favourite dessert cafe. This gave Mrs Marshall the perfect opportunity to mix in the crushed sleeping tablets she had brought with her from home, knowing that the girls would probably be too excited to sleep and how important it was that they were not too tired the next day. Although it had taken her longer than her husband to come around to the idea of eating their daughters, she was now totally on board and the girls seemed to be showing no signs of regret, badgering their parents to register them as meat from the day the party had been agreed. Eventually, with one week to go, they had conceded and Mr Marshall had filled in the necessary details on the government website. The girls had persuaded him to print out the confirmation screens for each of them and had proudly displayed them on their bedroom wall along with their swimming certificates and other awards from school.

By the time they got home, both girls were fast asleep in the back of the car. Taking one each, their parents had gently carried them inside, got them out of their clothes and into loose-fitting night-shirts so that their bodies would not bear any elastic marks the next day and tucked them into bed. It was still relatively early in the evening with plenty of daylight left so Mr Marshall decided to make a start on setting up for the party.

The spitting machines had arrived folded for ease of transport but it was not too difficult to follow the instructions and get them set up. Below the spit itself was a trough for the charcoal and, above that, a slot where what the manual described as a “gutting tray” could be slid in, should the cook decided to wait until the meat-girl was spitted and mounted before removing her inedible innards. Although it occurred to him that the girls had not discussed when they wanted this done, he decided that unless they specifically expressed any ideas to the contrary, he would wait until they were dead or at least unconscious and deal with it then. One thing they certainly had been adamant about was that they wanted to be live-spitted, not beheaded or killed in some other way before being cooked. Okay, so they did not look especially authentic to the theme but he and his wife had discussed it and decided it was far more sensible to hire professional equipment guaranteed to cook their daughters properly than to try to improvise something that may or may not end up working.

He positioned the two spit-devices on the patio then spread the sand around using a shovel, covering most of the patio and spilling onto the lawn. It would most likely be a nightmare to clean up and he didn’t like to think how much was going to end up in the pool but he wanted to make the day special for the girls in any way he could – cleaning up was a concern for another day. He held half a bag of sand back as he realised the fence posts needed to be dug in before he added the extra later.

Thankful for possibly the first time that their garden soil was mostly clay and not too rocky, Mr Marshall used a hand-trowel to dig two narrow pits, a little over a foot deep and maybe half as wide, about ten feet apart from each other. Hoping that it would work as he anticipated, he carefully lifted the first fence post which was not especially heavy but long and unwieldy and manoeuvred it, point first, into one of the holes, pushing it down hard so that the point would dig into the ground. Holding it steady with one hand, he filled in the sides of the hole with his other than, once he was sure it was secure, built the remaining clay up around to base to provide more stability. Tentatively, he stood and gave a test-push. The pole remained firmly in place. Satisfied, he repeated the process with the second pole, leaving two thick wooden stakes, around which he could just reach both hands, standing ten feet apart in front of the patio. He then took the rest of the sand and scattered it around the base of the poles and the space in between. Next it was time for the centre-piece!

This was the item he had called his friend at the prop-hire company about and he has made sure to have it delivered while the girls were at school. It had been covered with blankets for good measure while hidden in the garage, even ‘though he was fairly sure the girls never went in there, especially since there was no elephant in need of feeding or mucking out! He was grateful for the dolly that it had come with and the fact that it had specially designed slots to make lifting with said dolly a lot easier. He wheeled it out of the garage and set it in place between the two poles then stepped back to admire.

It was a stereotypical cannibal stew pot, very similar to the one the twins appeared to be being cooked in on the invitation. It was about five feet wide, made of some kind of fibreglass and came complete with a vividly-painted fibreglass fire beneath. Sat there on the sand, he had to admit it really did look the part! What made it particularly clever, however, was that despite how it looked from the front, it was really only two thirds of a stew pot with an open back so that people could walk in and out easily. There were even small platforms inside that could be used as seats. The idea was that the party guests to get in and have their photo taken making it look as if they too were on the menu. For the early part of the birthday girls would be in the photos too. He was sure the visiting children and their parents would get a kick out of it!

With all the main props and equipment in place, he spread the skeleton and skulls out on the sand in front of the pot and stakes as if they belonged to earlier “victims” of the vicious cannibal tribe. He decided that the various inflatables were best left until morning so went inside to see if his wife needed any help with preparing the various snacks, side-dishes and desserts that no ninth birthday party, even one with two delicious little girls on the menu, would be complete without!

“Good morning, sleepy-heads!” Mr Marshall gave Natasha’s shoulder a little shake to wake her up before doing the same for Hannah. It took the girls a moment to stir to wakefulness but, the moment they did, they both remembered exactly what day it was and what was to happen! They both sprang out of bed asking to see the garden and if everything was ready and how long it would be before their friends started arriving.

“Steady on!” Their dad chuckled, “Mum’s running you a bath first to get your muscles nice and relaxed then we’ll need to give you a good scrubbing under the shower to get you all clean and ready to eat.” At the mention of preparing them for cooking, both girls had grinned very broadly. “Of course we’ll need to give you a quick wash again in the garden before we oil you up and put you on the spits,” he reminded them to their great delight, “but it will be best if you’re basically clean already.”

Mr Marshall sat down on the end of Hannah’s bed, the closest to the door, and Hannah crawled onto his lap while Natasha leapt out of bed and peeled off her night-shirt like it was on fire and stood posing nude in front of the long mirror on the wardrobe door, clearly trying to imagine her cute young body cooked. Hannah held up her arms in a gesture her dad recognised from when she was smaller and he helped her off with her shirt so that she too was naked, but remained sitting on his lap.

“Are you looking forward to eating us, Daddy?” She asked, wide-eyed and sounding a little nervous.

“Well I’ll be sad to lose you of course,” he put his arm around her bare shoulders, noticing how warm and soft she felt, “but I’m sure you’re going to be absolutely delicious!” He ran his hand along her thigh and down her leg towards her foot, stretching her leg out straight so they could both look at it appraisingly. “Don’t you think you look tasty?” he grinned.

“Very!” Hannah giggled. “What do you think is going to be the tastiest bit?”

“Out butts!” Natasha answered before their dad had a chance to think. “Everyone knows that!” She wiggled her cute bubble-butt in their direction. Mr Marshall leant forward and gave it a playful smack.

“Yes, you’re probably right!” He chuckled, “Come on, your bath should be ready now. Lets go and get you all clean and ready for cooking!”