Chapter Five


Laying on her bed, Jennifer returned her attention to the book collecting all of Sidney’s campaign material that could be reproduced, including various posters, fliers and images from online ads as well as stills from some of her interviews and TV appearances. She was amused to see a double-page montage with stills from the Kinky Boots video. As she flicked through, looking properly at the pictures for the first time having just skimmed it before, keen to get to the meatier substance of the biographies, she was struck by one particular poster which showed Sidney are around ten years old standing in a relaxed posture with front and back views, dotted lines marking out different meat-cuts on her naked body, above a picture of a pig similarly marked. In her research into pre-Sidney cannibalism she had come across similar posters from a rather extreme animal rights charity depicting models and actresses in seductive poses, naked but posed in such a way as to leave most things to the imagination, with meat cuts marked on them with the slogan “All Animals Have the Same Parts!” The intent had, of course, been to put people off eating meat by suggesting there was really no difference between eating a pig and eating a person but these posters had of course provided great material for the cannibal fetish community and it was fun to see Sidney turning the tables by using the same imagery, albeit in a far less coy way, to promote the opposite agenda! The point stood either way, after all! If eating a pig was no different from eating a person then eating a person was no different from eating a pig and if you were happy to eat one, why not the other?

A note of the opposite page, in one of the spaces between the montage of other pictures was a paragraph explaining that this graphic had been created in consultation with expert butchers to be totally accurate and had in fact been used as a guide when Sidney’s body had been parted out less than two years later. Reading this gave Jennifer an idea and she thought for a moment, wondering who she could ask to help with new segment for her presentation. Caroline seemed to be the perfect choice! Although they were not super close friends, they went to each other’s birthday parties, were often part of the same group hangouts and events and had always got on well. She knew what she was proposing was a fairly big ask but if Caroline was not up for it, it would not be as if she did not have other options. In fact, the easiest thing to do would likely be to talk to a local butcher and arrange some time with one of his clients but a girl on her harvest day often had too much else on her mind to be worried about helping someone out with a school project! There was always Sarah, too, the dancer she had met at Sidney’s and who had been so helpful with providing material for her research but she had a busy life and was really little more than an acquaintance. Not someone Jennifer felt comfortable asking such a favour from yet. Deciding that this was probably a conversation better had “live” than over messenger, she started a video call with Caroline on her phone.

The slim blonde answered on her computer, wearing chunky gamer headphones over rat-tailed wet hair and a towel.

“Oh hey! Sorry,” Caroline giggled. “Just got out the shower!”

“I’ll let you off this once!” teased Jennifer. The friends exchanged basic pleasantries then Jennifer carefully approached the reason for her call. “So…” she began. “Do you still pose for your mum’s art class sometimes?”

“Sometimes, yeah!” Caroline agreed, wondering where this line of questioning might be going. “All three of us do,” she commented, referring to her sisters, one of whom was older and one younger by about three years in either direction, “when they need us.”

“Naked?”

“Sometimes!” Caroline’s cheeks turned a little pink. “If that’s what they’re working on that week.”

“Soo…” Jennifer grinned. “Do you just get naked for your mum’s friends or would you be up for helping me out with something too?”

“You looking for a stripper for your dad’s birthday or something?” Caroline giggled. “Because I warn you, I’m not much of a dancer!” Both girls laughed together and Jennifer explained her project to Caroline, showing her the pictures from the book that had sparked this particular idea. Caroline listened carefully, nodding thoughtfully, then burst into a grin as she spotted what was hanging on the handle of the wardrobe in the background.

“Hey,” she grinned cheekily, her eyes sparkling with mischief, “is that a Sidney hat?”

“Sure is!” Jennifer confirmed, rolling reaching over, grabbing it and putting it on. “Got the boots to match too!”

“Okay then how about this?” Caroline suggested impishly. “I’ll get naked for you and let you mark up my body as cuts if you wear the hat and boots while you do it! Only the hat and boots!” she cut in as Jennifer opened her mouth to respond, before she had a chance to speak. “Sidney style!”

“Deal!” The word laughed its way out of Jennifer’s mouth before she even thought about it! After all, she had already been pondering whether she should deliver the video segments of her presentation functionally naked and now it seemed the decision had been made for her and, to her mild surprise, she felt incredibly good and excited about it!

Two days later, the Caroline was sat on Jennifer’s bed wearing a light, Summer dress with nothing underneath, her perky, preteen nipples poking against the thin, almost translucent fabric. As a veteran nude model, she had warned Jennifer not to wear anything tight, such as underwear, for at least two hours beforehand to avoid pressure marks on her skin so she had spent the morning since her shower in just her soft, pink bath-robe. While she waited for Caroline to arrive at the agreed-upon time, she had set up a studio space in the corner of her bedroom, closing the curtains to block the natural light and hanging old bed-sheets her mum had given her permission to use to create a neutral background. She hoped she might be able to use the editing software on her computer to replace them with a more interesting backdrop later on but even if that did not come off, they would do just fine. Her mum had also been kind enough to let her borrow her camera which could record better than her phone, on the condition that she be very careful with it indeed, and this was now set up on a tripod with a simple wired remote control trailing from it. Her mum had offered to help with the filming too but this was Jennifer’s project and she wanted to do as much of it as possible herself. The final half hour had been spent fixing her hair and putting on makeup in a style similar to Sidney’s, as she would be wearing the costume after all, but a little more subtle and with tones more suited to her autumnal complexion. Shortly before answering the door to Caroline she had put the boots on but the hat was still hanging on her wardrobe door.

“Can I see the pens?” Caroline asked as Jennifer fiddled with the camera. “Just to be sure?”

“Sure! They’re in the drawer of my night-stand!” the bathrobe-clad girl grinned and her model friend began to rummage, finding the packet among the half-used makeup, old phone chargers, novelty keyrings and other precious debris of the kind that tends to accumulate in such drawers. Caroline carefully read the back of the box and nodded in approval. “They’re the type body-painters use for fine detail.” Jennifer explained, having finished her final check. “What? Did you think I was going to scribble all over you with permanent marker or something?”

“Can’t blame me for wanting to be sure!” Caroline chuckled. “We’re going to the beach tomorrow and that could have made things kinda awkward! So,” she grinned, standing up, “we ready?”

“We sure are!” Jennifer giggled. “Get your kit off!”

“Uh-uh!” Caroline waggled her finger at her. “Remember our deal? You first!” Blushing a little, Jennifer undid her robe, not quite believing what she was about to do. She had changed in front of other girls of course and used the communal showers at school but that was quite different from just hanging out totally naked and, while she had posed in this outfit in front of the mirror when she was alone, she was not only about to bare all in front of her friend but would be filming it for posterity, with the intent to show it to her whole school! Turning her back coyly she slipped the robe off and hung it on the peg on the back of her bedroom door then put the hat on, adjusted it in the mirror and turned around.

“Ta-da!” she declared, holding her arms out and doing jazz-hands. “How do I look?”

“Good enough to eat!” Caroline laughed. “Okay, a deal’s a deal!” She pulled the thin straps of her loose-fitting dress over her shoulders and allowed it to fall to the floor, leaving her naked as the day she was born. Jennifer could not help giving her friend’s preteen body an appreciative, appraising look. In truth, she was not really built for eating. Sidney, a hockey player for at least two years before she even thought of becoming meat, had been stockier, bordering on muscular, and her own figure was objectively similar. Although she had no real will or intention to do so, if she subjected herself to the same exercise and diet regime that Sidney had followed in her final years, Jennifer was confident that she could achieve a very similar body. Caroline on the other hand was lithe and slim, just on the edge of being thin. Hers was a very flexible, athletic body well-suited for posing and there was no doubt that she was objectively very attractive and would likely only become more so over the next few years, but, to put it bluntly, there was not a whole lot of meat on her! It occurred to Jennifer in that moment that, over the course of the relatively short amount of time she had been researching Sidney and the culture of cannibalism associated with her, she had subconsciously assessing her friends and even strangers in the street not by how pretty they were, how their hair looked or what she thought of their fashion sense, but by how it would be most suitable to cook them! She considered herself a potential spit-roaster, much like her new friend Sarah from the dance troupe, or perhaps as a good subject for butchering like Sidney herself but Caroline would be best suited to a stew pot to make the most of her lean meat.

“Everything okay?” Caroline raised an eyebrow. “You’re looking at me like you’ve never seen a naked girl before? Pretty sure I have all the normal bits more or less where you would expect to find them?”

“Sorry!” Jennifer giggled, deciding in that moment that honesty was the best policy. “I was just picturing you in a stew pot!”

“My mum has floated the idea!” the slim blonde laughed. “But I think she’s waiting to see if I fill out a bit first then she can have me roasted like my cousin!” Jennifer’s eyes went a little wide. However many girls she saw cooked and eaten, the casualness with which potential meat-girls discussed their fate always stunned her.


“Hey, there’s three of you, aren’t there?” Jennifer teased. “You could do the classic Sidney’s trio! One in the pot, one on a spit and one in the oven?”

“Could do!” Caroline laughed. “Or just get one big strew pot and all get in, Mum too! But speaking of roasting, those are some pretty tasty drumsticks you’ve got there!” she looked pointedly at Jennifer’s thick thighs. “And, turn around for me! Let’s see how much junk you’ve got in the trunk!” Giggling, Jennifer turned and wiggled her bare rump at her friend. “Damn girl! I’m surprised your mum hasn’t had you on the spit years ago! Think she’s saving you for a special occasion or something?”

“Don’t go giving her ideas!” Jennifer chuckled, a little nervously.

“If you’re trying to avoid ending up on the menu,” Caroline folded her arms with a look of mock judgement on her face, “isn’t this whole project kinda tempting fate?”

“Somewhat!” Jennifer conceded with another, even less confident chuckle, “I suppose I am asking for trouble!” She brightened as she remembered the reason her friend was there and why they were both stark naked! “But not nearly as much as you’re gonna be when everyone sees you marked up for the butcher!” She made a show of licking her tips teasingly. Both girls giggled and got into position in front of the camera, Jennifer holding the black pen from the packet with the green within easy reach. Caroline stood in a relaxed pose with her arms by her side, ready to be used essentially like a mannequin. Compared to some of the poses she had been asked to strike and hold for the art club, this assignment was incredibly easy, requiring next to no effort on her part. Jennifer tried to put to the back of her mind the knowledge that she was about to film herself in her birthday suit to show to the whole school and tried to see what she was wearing, such as it was, as a costume, the way Sidney herself reportedly had. She stood facing the camera, the correct distance back that she had worked out was necessary to get herself properly in the frame, then used the toe of her boot to press the button that started the recording. Knowing that the footage would begin with a fade, she counted silently to three in her head before she started talking.

“While today,” she began with practised confidence, “we are all familiar with the many delicious ways to prepare girl-meat, whether whole or in part, chefs in Sidney’s day claimed not to know the best way to prepare her meat. I say claimed,” she grinned at the camera, “because let’s face it. Do girls’ bodies not just scream deliciousness? Are we really supposed to believe that everyone, or at least all of Europe and North America, spent the whole of the nineteenth, twentieth and first quarter for the twenty-first century resisting the yummy little temptations all around them? Well, however you slice it, pun intended,” she winked, “Sidney was the first girl to be legally butchered, cooked and eaten in the United States, leading to a cultural shift across the globe and changing our eating habits forever! For her harvest, she was parted out by an expert butcher into a number of different cuts as shown here.” She paused to give herself space to edit the publicity picture of Sidney marked up for the butcher into the video. “To demonstrate where these different cuts of meat are taken from on the body and to help all you aspiring meat-girls out there to know the proper names for all your meat, I am assisted here by my good friend Caroline!” She made an expansive gesture towards the other naked girl like a game-show hostess showing off the grand prize. Caroline grinned and waved. “So,” she popped the lid off the black pen with a flourish, “let’s get marking!”

Having studied the pictures in detail and practised on an old baby-doll over and over until she was confident, Jennifer began to draw dotted lines all over Caroline’s slim, toned body, asking her to move and turn as necessary. She got so into the activity, she all but forgot that she was naked herself. After all, Caroline was the focus of this scene, her body that was being marked up and highlighted. Once all the lines were drawn, she swapped the black pen for the green.

“Now,” she addressed the camera again, “let’s learn the names of all these absolutely scrumptious cuts!” With the green pen, Caroline still standing obediently, allowing herself to be used as a living canvas, Jennifer marked up her friend’s body with words like “Chuck”, “Brisket”, “Belly”, “Flank”, “Rump”, “Ham”, “Thigh” and of course, in smaller writing on the pleasing bulge above her neat slit, “Prime Fillet”.

“There we are!” Jennifer declared proudly, snapping the lid back onto her pen in a manner that could only be described as triumphant, “All ready to be parted out!” Caroline gave a twirl then a little bow before Jennifer tapped the button on the floor with her toe again and the recording faded to black.

“Wow! I really do feel like a piece of meat!” Caroline giggled, looking down at her thoroughly annotated body.

“Several pieces!” Jennifer corrected her teasingly. “Thanks so much for doing this!”

“Hey it was fun!” her friend assured her. “But would you mind if I used your shower before I leave?”

After showing her friend to the bathroom, desperately hoping that the pens were as washable as they claimed to be and kicking herself for not having done a small test earlier, before effectively graffitiing the other girl’s body from neck to toe, Jennifer put her robe back on and watched through the footage captured by the camera. Happy with what she saw, she transferred the video onto her laptop then checked her phone. To her surprise, there was a message from Sarah.

“Got any plans this evening?” the message read. Intrigued, Jennifer messaged back that she did not. “It’s not a dance night,” the reply came back quickly, “but I’m gonna be a mermaid at Sidney’s. There’s room for one more if you’re up for it? Free meal after!” Jennifer’s heart began pounding. Sarah had mentioned to her before that, while the dance troupe was exclusive with a stringent audition process and a long waiting list to even get considered, with many of the girls who did not succumb to the temptation of putting themselves on the menu using their membership as a springboard to lucrative and satisfying careers in dance and other performance art, the mermaid girls were often allowed to bring friends along to see if they enjoyed it, with a view to potentially becoming regular performers. All it took, as Sarah had put it, was a pretty face, confidence in the water and a willingness to get naked for a room full of strangers!

Her pretty face was something she was reasonably secure about and Jennifer had always been a strong swimmer, ever since she was little. Certainly swimming with the mermaid tail on would be a little different but she was sure she would get used to it quickly and it was not as if the ornamental lagoon was especially deep. But getting naked in front of a room full of strangers did give her pause. It was true that she had just filmed several minutes of footage completely naked which she intended to show to the school but the camera did allow for a degree of distance, of detachment. In the mermaid lagoon in the Sidney’s dining room, she would be only too aware of all the eyes on her, some no doubt wondering whether the mermaid habitat served the same function as a lobster tank in a seafood restaurant with the girls on display available to order. She was sure that must happen sometimes, a single diner or more likely a party trying their luck and asking to have one of the mermaids cooked for them, and she wondered how often the girls in question agreed.

“Do I have to learn any lines?” she replied. “Any particular lore we’re supposed to stick to?”

“Nah nothing like that,” came the quick reply, “some of the smaller kids will believe you’re real and ask you questions about what it’s like living in the sea, that sort of thing, but you can just give them whatever answers you think will make them happy. Of course some people might ask if they can order you but you just have to brush them off politely. ‘Not today, I’m afraid!’ usually does it. If anyone gets too insistent or starts really bothering you, you can just signal to one of the staff who will come over and step in, although it hardly ever comes to that!” Jennifer felt a little reassured. The more she thought about it, the less daunting it seemed. Certainly she would be functionally naked but she would be far from the only one and the meat-girls cooked publicly only feet away would be wearing significantly less! It is not even as if she and the other mermaids would be the focus of anyone’s attention, with the possible exception of the smaller diners Sarah had mentioned who might take them to be real. In reality, they would be the equivalent of a tank of tropical fish in any other restaurant or doctor’s waiting room – a pretty bit of decoration to add to the ambience that people barely even consciously noted.

“You’re on!” She messaged her new friend with a feeling of excitement in the pit of her stomach, not to mention a distinct tingle between her legs. “Should I meet you there? What time? Do I need to bring anything with me?”

“Just some ID is fine,” Sarah replied, “and the phone number of one of your parents for their records. In case you have an accident or something. All pretty standard. Are you busy now?”

“Just finishing up something for my presentation.” explained Jennifer. “Why?”

“Well I’m going over to my Nanna’s first for lunch and I know she’s found some bits from back in the day she wants to share with you for your project. If your Mum or Dad doesn’t mind dropping you, you’re welcome to come over then she’ll drive us both in when it’s time. My Dad will give you a lift home after but he’s in work at the moment.”

“Sounds great!” Jennifer had typed and was just about to continue her message explaining that she had a friend there at the moment but that she would be leaving soon and as soon as she was gone, she would head over, but before she could finish her message, another from Sarah came through.

“Actually, quite a lot of the regulars are on holiday at the moment so they’re pretty short and it’s always a shame when the lagoon looks empty. Don’t suppose you have any other friends who might be up for it? They could either meet us there later or come for lunch with you?” Just at that moment, Jennifer heard the shower stop.

“Give me a minute,” she replied to Sarah, “but I think I might know just the person!”

“What are you grinning about?” Caroline asked, coming back into the room with a towel around her head but not a stitch otherwise, rubbing her hair dry. Jennifer was quite relieved to see that the pen had washed off as easily as promised and no trace of her markings were left on Caroline’s soft, peachy skin. Quickly, she explained about Sarah and her offer of being mermaids for the evening.

“I know you’re going to the beach tomorrow,” she smiled, “but you didn’t mention any other plans for today?”

“No,” Caroline agreed, “I didn’t make any as I wasn’t sure how long this was going to take.”

“So?” grinned Jennifer. “You up for it? Does kinda sound like your cup of tea, with the modelling you do and stuff? Might end up being a regular thing for you?”

“It does sound fun!” Caroline conceded. “Let me message my mum quickly and make sure she’s okay with me staying out.” Picking up her phone which she had left on the bed, she remembered her mum’s annoying habit of being slow to respond to messages so decided to call her instead. Luckily, she picked up quickly and had no objection to her daughter being a mermaid for the evening and enjoying the complimentary Sidney’s meal afterwards, on the condition that she did not complain about being tired on their outing the next day. Caroline agreed and the deal was done. Happily, Jennifer messaged Sarah to let her know that they would both be coming and to get her grandmother’s address.

“Awesome!” Sarah came Sarah’s reply. “The address is:” she typed out the house number, street name and post code, “It’s the one with the green door! See you in about half an hour? Oh and remember what I said about pressure lines before? Best take your panties off now!” Jennifer giggled, looking at her naked, freshly-scrubbed friend then down at her own naked body.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem!” she replied with a winking emoji.