Pt 4

“What’s your name?” Jenny asked the younger girl who sat excitedly on the butcher’s block, swinging her feet. Her dad was finding the clippers to remove most of the girl’s hair and Jenny knew that her task would be to rub in the removal cream to take off the stubble that would be left as well as her eyebrows. There was no painless way to remove eyelashes so they would do that once the girl was dead but at least this way she would feel like part of the process.

“I’m Maria.” the little girl smiled.

“Nice to meet you, Maria,” Jenny grinned. “I’m Jenny.” She always tried to get to know the name of the meat-girls her dad slaughtered and it use it to help put them at their ease. However keen and willing they might be, their experiences in that back room of the butcher’s shop were often a little traumatic and it was good for them to feel as if they had a friend there to hold their hand. Just then, Jenny’s dad returned with the clippers and a plastic bag which he handed to his overall-clad daughter.

“Here we go!” he grinned at the little girl and held the switch down for a second or two to make the clippers buzz as if he were warming them up. “let’s get you sheared, shall we? Lay down for me please, sweetheart, with your head over the end of the table.” Maria did as she was told, laying on her back with her knees bent. “That’s it!” the butcher smiled down at her as Jenny took her position holding the wide bag open to catch the hair as it came off. “Good girl!”

The small girl giggled, finding the buzz of the clippers ticklish as her shoulder-length bob-cut hair disappeared into the bag Jenny was holding. The butcher was well experienced and worked very quickly, finishing in no time at all.

“There we go!” He grinned, blowing on the head of the clippers as if they were a gun he’d just fired. “All done! You can sit up now.” Still giggling, Maria sat up and ran her hand over her freshly-shorn head.

“I feel like a hedgehog!” she chuckled, feeling the prickly stubble on her otherwise bald head.

“We’d better fix that!” grinned Jenny, setting the bag aside and picking up the tub of hair-removal cream. “Prickles aren’t very tasty!”

“Don’t forget the gloves!” Jenny’s dad reminded her, glancing over his shoulder as he began to sharpen the butcher knives in preparation for what would be happening in a few minutes. The overall-clad ten year old rolled her eyes at him and pulled two latex gloves out of the packet on the counter.

“Just to warn you,” she told Maria, “this can feel pretty cold when it goes on, then it gets kinda hot. Ready?” Maria nodded and Jenny scooped some of the cream out of the pot and began to rub it onto the younger girl’s scalp, making sure to cover everywhere that stubble remained. They chatted a little while she worked and Maria excitedly told her about the party where her big sister had been cooked, how delicious she had been and how she’d begged so much to be eaten too that her parents had eventually relented and agreed that she could be butchered. “Right!” Jenny cave her new friend a little pat on the top of the head once she had finished up by slathering the cream onto her eyebrows. “Just need to sit like that for a minute or two then we can rinse it off.”

The workspace had a portable, high-pressure hose for cleaning the blood and other detritus out of gutted carcasses. It looked a little like a vacuum cleaner but also had a space on top to fit a wide funnel, allowing the water to be filtered and recycled through the hose again. Jenny checked that it was topped up and that the water was pressurised then wheeled it over to the block where Maria was sitting, her cute round head slathered with the white cream.

“Okay,” Jenny smiled, confident in her ability to work the machine. “Lay back for me again.” Maria did as she was asked and Jenny manoeuvred the machine until the funnel was directly under the younger girl’s head. The end of the hose has a kind of gun like a petrol pump or garden hose with a trigger which would moderate the water pressure depending on how hard it was pressed. Keeping it fairly light, Jenny rinsed off the top of Maria’s head. “Close your eyes.” she instructed as she moved onto the eyebrows. “There we go! All done!” she grinned, holstering the hose and giving the machine a little push with her foot so it would roll away. “You can sit up now!”

“Is it time to kill me now?” Maria asked a little nervously, sitting up and giving her head an exploratory rub, finding that it was as bald and smooth as a bowling ball.

“Yes, sweetheart, your big moment has come!” the butcher grinned at her and she practically bounced on the spot from excitement. “We’re going to do it over there.” He pointed to a corner of the room where there was a tiled are with a drain which looked a lot like a shower in a school or swimming pool but, instead of a shower head, had chains hanging from the ceiling. As the bald little girl hopped off the block and obediently followed him, Jenny filled and re-pressurised the hose ready for cleaning her out.

Jenny had watched girls getting slaughtered in this corner more times than she could remember but still found it fascinating! She watched as her dad had Maria sit in what looked a bit like a barber’s chair but made from polished metal. He pulled a lever on the side of the tiled area which lowered the chains, on the ends of which were shackles like might be used to restrain a prisoner. These he fitted around Maria’s ankles and adjusted them so that they were tight. He then took a pair of cuffs and locked her wrists together, explaining when she protested about having no intention of running away that they were to stop her arms thrashing about when her head came off. As she sat demurely with her manacled hands in her lap, he lifted the lever and the chains slowly retracted until most of the slack was taken up but they did not pull against her legs.

“Ready?” he grinned down at her, “This is the fun bit!” and with the press of a button and the wheeze of hydraulics, the chair flattened itself into a bed, much like an electric hospital bed might, leaving Maria laying on her back. The butcher then took out a device which looked like a curved sword-blade mounted within a perspex shield, a plastic handle on the end.

“Ooh can I do it, Daddy?” Jenny asked, “Please?” she made her eyes go wide and pleading in the way she knew he could not resist.

“Sure!” her dad chuckled. “You know what you’re doing!” Jenny took the device from her dad and used the clamp on the bottom to lock it into place then asked Maria to sit up a little. As the meat-girl propped herself up on her elbows, Jenny unclipped the shield and lifted it up. It had a circular hole like a guillotine and she gently guided Maria to lay back down before lowering the top half over her and locking it into place.

“Okay, Maria,” she smiled down at her friend. “This might hurt but only for a second, okay? Then you’ll be delicious meat ready for chopping up and cooking!”

“Sounds good to me!” the little girl grinned. “Should I close my eyes?”

“You can if you want to.” Jenny explained. “Some girls do, some don’t. It’s up to you.”

“I think I’ll keep them open.” Maria smiled.

“Okay!” Jenny grinned. Want to count with me? Three… Two… One…” on the next beat she pulled the handle down with all the force she could muster. The razor-sharp blade cut easily through the little girl’s throat and neck, needing only a little extra pressure applied to cut through her spine. Before she even realised what was happening, Maria’s head was off!

Jenny picked up the neatly-severed bald head which was still looking surprised, the pretty brown eyes darting about, and turned it around so that Maria could watch as her headless body was pulled up by the chains and began to drain of blood. Jenny continued to hold the head as she watched her dad slit the torso open and remove the viscera. By the time she turned the head around again to look at the face, the eyes were dull and Maria was clearly gone.

“It will be a while until she’s ready to cut up.” her dad explained as she set the head down carefully, ready to be packaged. “You might as well go back outside until your friends come.”

“Okay, Daddy!” Jenny grinned, peeling off the blood-stained overall and revealing her cute young naked body once more. “Thanks for letting me help!” and with that, she made her way back through the shop, picked up her stack of leaflets and resumed her spot in the sunshine handing out leaflets to prospective customers and meat-girls alike!