Pt 3

Beth had not stayed too much longer that Sunday, although the family had invited her to stay for lunch. It was not that she didn’t enjoy being there – it really was a lovely environment full of happiness and love but she wanted to give Maddie the opportunity to settle into her new home with her new family and to understand that she was there on her own merit, so to speak, rather than simply as “Beth’s friend”.

As she cycled to her secluded spot in the woods where she planned to sit in the sun and read, the teenager kicked herself for forgetting again to ask how she was going to be cooked! Not that it mattered too much. If nobody had told her by the time she showed up to babysit on Thursday she could ask then. As she turned her bike off the road and down the track through the trees, Beth pondered if there was any way she would really not want to be cooked.

A big stew pot didn’t sound too bad. It would probably feel like having a very hot bath that got hotter and hotter until she passed out. She wondered if the boiling water would scald her skin while she was still conscious or whether she would pass out first? Still, she didn’t think being boiled would really do justice to her meat – it was really something, in her opinion anyway, for smaller, skinny girls who wanted to get cooked with their friends but didn’t have a lot of meat on them. Besides, there was something inherently silly about the stew pot – if she found herself in one, she didn’t think she’d be able to shake the feeling of being in a Bugs Bunny cartoon!

What other common methods of cooking were there? Well there was the oven of course. She didn’t think that would be too bad and Maddie certainly seemed keen but while the Thomas’s had a fairly large oven in the kitchen that she could probably fit inside, it would be quite a tight squeeze. It would be okay for Maddie if she did end up wanting to be Christmas dinner, although Beth suspected she would not once she found out how nice it is to live with a loving, supportive family. The younger girl would want to be cooked one day, she was fairly sure of that, but probably not for a couple of years. After all, hadn’t she expressed a desire to grow some breasts of her own before becoming meat and that would take at least a year or two. The weather was so nice, Beth reminded herself, that they were sure to want to cook her outside in some way so the oven was probably out.

But what did that leave? She really hoped that she would be alive at the start of the cooking at least although, if her little friends wanted to have her cut up she wouldn’t refuse – it was their birthday dinner after all and she wanted them to have whatever they wanted! But what if they didn’t want to kill her first? She had heard some stories about girls that were presented alive to the diners who were invited to cut pieces off their bodies to put on a grill. That did sound very painful, even if she was somewhat drugged first, and it was definitely something she would not choose for herself but would she really refuse if that’s what the twins asked for? She’d have to have a hard think about it, for sure, but deep down she was fairly sure that she would give them whatever they wanted.

All in all, however, Beth was hoping to be cooked on a spit. It was the method her mind kept wandering back to and it definitely sounded the most fun. Although she was a little embarrassed to admit it, the teenager believed that she would look pretty sexy with her young body oiled up and turning over the glowing coals.

It did not take too long to reach her favourite spot in the woods, a little way off the path where she could be sure of privacy. A tree which had fallen many years ago provided both a place to lean her bike and something for her to lean against as she stretched her legs out on the dry, leafy ground. Wanting to enjoy the feeling of the sun on her skin, she pulled off her trainers and socks and rolled up her jeans to just below the knee then took off her outer shirt, considering that her spaghetti-strap vest would be more than enough.

Having made herself comfortable, Beth opened her bag and pulled out the two books she had brought with her. For as long as she had been able to read for herself, she had liked to have at least two books on the go at any one time – one fiction and the other factual. To this end, she had brought with her the sci-fi novel she had started over her burger the day before and the biography of Sidney Roebuck. It was to this that she turned first.

As she sat under the warm summer sun, Beth lost herself in the book. She had known about Sidney as a historical figure for most of her life and was of course perfectly familiar with the chain of family restaurants named after her. She also vaguely remembered seeing some of a documentary about her a few years ago, something that her mum was watching, but it had not grabbed her interest especially.

Now, however, she consumed the girl’s story with a distinct relish, finding herself relating so strongly to this remarkable young girl who had lived and died on another continent when her grandma was a little girl, feeling, as she often did, a bond of friendship forming with the personality who leapt out at her from the pages of the book.