“Would it be okay if I came to the butcher with you too?” Amelia asked quietly. “My mum won’t be home for a while yet anyway and I’d love to see what the inspection is like in case I decide to… you know!” She blushed a little, only making her appear cuter to Josh. He glanced over at the mother of the teens but she was reading a book she had taken out of her handbag and did not seem to be paying any attention to their conversation.

“Is that something you’ve been thinking about?” Josh asked carefully.

“It wasn’t…” Amelia admitted, looking down coyly and tucking her hair behind her ear. “But Sam started telling me about her plans for Christmas and the more she talked about it, the more fun it started to sound and I started to wonder if it was something I’d like to do.”

“Are you thinking about next Christmas?” he asked, not wanting to express an opinion in either direction at this point but finding himself unable to stop imagining his daughter’s sweet and pretty friend in a variety of delicious situations. “Or something else?”

“Well,” she smiled, “remember I said my sister has just had a baby?” Josh nodded. “Well I was thinking, they’re probably going to have her Christened in the spring so a family barbecue to celebrate might be nice. They have a pretty big garden and I’m sure you can hire spits that come with the charcoal trough and everything, like the ones they do hogroasts on at fairs.”

“There’s a spit at the hall we’ve hired for Christmas.” He informed her, still trying to avoid saying anything that could be taken as influencing or encouraging while still keeping the conversation on topic. He allowed himself to glance down at her legs. Unlike the thick white tights Samantha wore to school, Amelia had opted for thinner black ones. Although she was slim, her was willowy rather than thin and her legs were definitely long and shapely. He did not think there was as much good meat on her as Samantha, although that was not the easiest assessment to make thought her relatively loose-fitting school uniform, but there would surely be enough for her extended family to enjoy and besides, he was fairly sure that spit-roasting a girl, or live-cooking a girl by any method for that matter, was as much about the spectacle and entertainment as the food.

“Ooh!” Amelia wiggled in her chair a little, kicking her feet with excitement. “I’ll have to take a look at that! See if I can imagine myself on it!” Her eyes glazed dreamily as she tried to picture herself impaled and turning over a bed of glowing coals, her naked body exposed to the hungry gazes of her entire family, not to mention family friends, her trim young body turning pink then golden brown as she made the slow transition from girl to roasted meat.

“What abut your travel sickness, ‘though?” Josh asked, remembering the reason, or at least the excuse given, for why she would be spending Christmas with them rather than with her own family. “If you show up looking green, people might think you’ve gone mouldy!” Amelia giggled at this, a sweet sound like the tinkling of a Christmas bell, just how Josh had always imagined a fairy might laugh.

“We could probably go by train.” she suggested after pondering this very valid question for a few moments. “I’m sure if I were to offer, they’d find a way to make it happen!”

“I’m sure they would!” Josh chuckled. “And I’m absolutely positive that Sam would be proud to think she’d helped you fatten for your own big day!”

In the office, the woman invited Samantha to take a seat on the opposite side of her desk then sat down herself and pulled up her details on the computer. Samantha had not been entirely sure what she was expecting but this simple office with its desk, a small filing cabinet, two chairs and very little else seemed far too mundane for what was discussed there. The only thing in the room that in any way betrayed its purpose was a poster on the wall that seemed to be from the same series as the one in the waiting room showing the meat cuts on the three different girls but this one had only a single picture of the middle girl, the one Samantha’s own age, facing front, beside a column of facts and statistics about the girl-meat industry such as how many girls were cooked and eaten in the UK in 2029 and what percentage increase that was over 2028, which showed the age of the poster, the average age of a meat-girl in the UK – nine years and eight months, and a variety of other facts and figures which Samantha was sure must be pretty out of date by now.

“Thank you for coming in today,” the woman smiled, “my name’s Angela and I’ll be taking you through your mandatory consent interview. Don’t worry,” she smiled reassuringly, “it’s not a test and I’m not going to be doing any sort of inspections, this is just to ensure that you know exactly what it is that you’re agreeing to and that you understand all the consequences.”

“Like being dead, you mean?” Samantha couldn’t help giggling a little.

“Well yes, that’s part of it.” the woman gave a small chuckle. “Let’s run through the basics first.” She asked Samantha to give her name, age and date of birth, checking that it tallied not only with what they already had on file but with what Josh had written on his form. “And do you have an intended harvest date?”

“Twenty fifth of December!” Samantha informed her proudly. “Christmas Day!”

“Oh very nice indeed!” the woman grinned, verifying this information against the parental consent form. “I’m not sure what we’re doing this year but I doubt we’ll be enjoying anything as tasty as you!” Samantha grinned and felt a warm glow of pride. She had been worried that the official she spoke to would try to talk her out of her plans, raise objections and test her to see that she was really committed but she was relieved to find that Angela seemed to be on her side and was apparently genuinely happy for her, just needing to sign off on the fact that she had no grounds to believe that Samantha was being pressured or coerced. “Your parents must have a big oven?” she questioned. “Or have you arranged to be cooked somewhere else?”

“We’ve hired a hall.” Samantha beamed. “They’ve got an oven there that’s perfect for cooking girls! They’ve got a spit and a big stew pot in the back too!”

“Sounds like quite a place!” Angela chuckled, verifying once more that what Samantha was telling her tallied with what was written on the form. “But you fancied the oven over those?”

“Well it’s more traditional for a Christmas turkey, isn’t it?” smiled Samantha.

“Yes, I suppose it is!” Angela agreed with another small chuckle.


To be continued...