4

Ayala did not sleep the next two nights. She tossed and turned in bed, struggling to process the absolute terror of Friday. She felt like a stranger going to a big party where she didn’t know anyone – no, worse yet, she felt like the people she knew didn’t even like her.

She remembered how she felt this time last week – confident, eager to shake hands with each co-worker, accept congratulations, and give a speech on how she would lead the team moving forward. She had thought of an individual accolade to give each co-worker, with special attention being given to Lily – making sure she was seen as an up-and-comer through the ranks - just as she deserved.

Now, she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to stay at this job. She hated it. Moreover, she hated herself for replaying in her mind, over and over, the look on everyone’s faces when Remi said:

“I harvested her myself.”

Ayala felt her hand wander down her stomach, cross her navel, and rub gently on her cunt, a rush going through her body with an inhale. On her exhale, her brain signaled an alarm that forced her to intervene.

“Please don’t do this, Ayala. You’re more than this.” She whispered desperately to herself.

She forced her yearning hand to instead explore the scarred skin of her right oblique, her fingers examining the part of her flesh that never fully healed.

She shook her head, annoyed at herself for the subconscious temptation to break her long-standing vow of celibacy. She reminded herself of her promise to not masturbate to *this* fantasy ever again, and she hadn’t done so in thirteen years. Thirteen years of abstinence, of clear-headed thinking, had not only kept her alive, but had kept her thriving. She was about to be Sales Lead of…

…well, now she wasn’t sure.

Her hand wandered towards her now aching cunt again, but she forced it away, making herself replay exactly why she didn’t allow this.

It was thirteen years ago, nearly to the day, that she went on her second consensual hunt.

Her first had gone too easily – it was both the most exhilarating experience of her life, and left an insatiable desire for more. She was freshly eighteen and a senior in high school when she had just about ENOUGH of a nerdy, overweight bully who had spent years harassing her with how “Dumb-yani’s didn’t belong in school; they belong on a plate.” She decided to show him exactly where he stood on the food chain – by challenging him to a hunt.

She remembered giggling as she watched him at the start line, the barely-a-man who spent more time at a computer screen than he’d ever spent in a forest, fumbling around with his father’s rifle, trying to figure out how to hold it, not to mention run with it. He never caught even a glimpse of her as she pranced around the forest, her natural, enhanced instincts of sight, sound, and scent keeping her fully aware of her surroundings and safety – he never even got close.

She spent the rest of the school year gloating that “he failed to bag the dumb doe.” He was humiliated; she became a bit of a celebrity – her DMs blowing up with opportunities to hunt her, fuck her, or both. It didn’t even seem to matter that she graded B, the extra attention she received was unrelenting – and she loved every second of it. She allowed her natural cravings for this fantasy to go into complete overdrive – her desire for release became all-consuming.

This had always felt natural to her - she’d masturbated to being someone’s dinner the first time she’d ever came. She didn’t find out until her mother sat her down, just after her High School graduation, to tell her that certain Dyani had a very unique affliction. Ayala’s remembered how tightly her mother clutched the locket she wore around her neck as she spoke, an heirloom of her people.

“Our people call it the Curse of Kohonta. The stars have always led our people to where we are meant to be, it’s just, for some, fate points in a very grim direction.” Her mother had said. “The scientists say they’ve identified the gene that causes it, but either way, it is an illness. If you feel yourself ever drawn to being eaten by a human, you must fight it. Promise me you’ll fight.”

Ayala felt an overwhelming sadness in her stomach, the queasiness from raw guilt, when she learned her natural instincts were an affliction. Ayala wondered if her mother had somehow known about Ayala’s first hunt or her fantasies, but she decided in that moment to never disappoint her with the truth. She couldn’t, not now, not ever, as the tears in her eyes were met with the warmest, most accepting smile on her mother’s face.

“You’re going to do something GREAT in this world, I just know it!” Ayala’s mother had said.

And then, her mother began to sing to her. She sang a silly song that Ayala remembered as a child. She only realized now that her mother was trying to tell her something that she was too young to understand.

♪“Don’t-end-up in-a pot-of-soup!”♪

Ayala’s mother didn’t stop singing until Ayala joined in, and they sang together, until they fell over laughing. Soon after, they shared a hug. And lastly, a cry.

Ayala silently committed herself to never signing up for a hunt ever again.

But, she also didn’t stop masturbating to her greatest fantasy, either. But now, every time she came down from climax, she felt a sourness in her stomach, the stinging ping of regret. She felt terrible as she processed the realization that she was cumming to her own death, that in her greatest fantasy, her life would mean nothing more than a hunter’s supper, and soon thereafter, as a trophy for them to display – her remaining existence not hers to be told.

Ayala felt her hand wander again past her navel at she let her thoughts drift to the image of her own head mounted on a wall, a helpless look in her vacant eyes. She then saw a flash of Remi in her mind’s eye just as she let one fingertip slide inside her soaking cunt. She had to use her other hand to forcibly pull herself off, but couldn’t stop herself from having a taste. She rolled her eyes, and convinced herself that it didn’t count against her streak.

Ayala continued to masturbate to this fantasy in college –but now armed with her mother’s warnings - she kept it to herself – her high school reputation long since faded. It was too bad, she’d thought to herself, as she was in her “roasting prime” and would’ve easily graded A – as she now used her downtime to train her body, eat right, and do everything she could to look and feel “extra delicious.”

Ayala did very well in college – she took advanced classes, got exceptional grades, but her interest in education, and any other future other than being served on a plate, began to fade as the years went on. She tired of dating Dyani men and vanilla romance, and longed for the rush of being hunted and being so close to what began to feel like destiny. Her trajectory, and commitments, changed forever when she heard from a classmate about a website where Dyani “role-played” hunts online, with some eventually meeting for the real thing.

Ayala joined that very night, and soon after, she started chatting with “BlueCollar69.” She never thought that *he* would be the one, with such a stupid sounding name, but his struggles to form complete sentences and his clear lack of intelligence made the thought of being snuffed by someone as “simple” as him was even hotter. Best yet, he just so happened to live in the country JUST outside of her college town.

She swore up and down she’d never actually let him hunt her, even after she’d missed three days of classes gooning her brains out to photos of “deer cousins” he’d hung up on a pole, freshly gutted. She’d only chatted with him for less than a week, and she’d completely lost track of her senses. It was like she wasn’t herself anymore, that she was operating purely from lust, on some type of primal auto-pilot. She remembered how mindless she felt when she signed the paperwork, like she had somehow teleported from her dorm room to the starting line, all of the details in between an impossible blur. The only clear memory she had between the now and then was proudly displayed on her ear – a tag with the grade of “A+ - Prime Meat.”

The rush of galloping through the forest was as exhilarating as ever, and she absolutely drank in every second of sexuality that poured through her veins in those first moments. But, something about this run was different. Her senses just couldn’t figure out where he was, and an eerie feeling grew on her fur that he was following her. As hours passed, her instincts began to scream that she was in danger - she lost her sense of direction, began to wander aimlessly, and couldn’t get control of her breathing.

She certainly didn’t have her breath when he shot her.

She’d heard a crack in the wood around noon, and she wasn’t sure to this day if it was intentional to lure her or not. She didn’t take a second to think – her instincts thrust her feet into motion, running at full sprint so hard that the only thing that broke her concentration was the sound of a gunshot that was so loud, it knocked her off her feet. As she lay face down on the forest floor, and looked down to see the blood oozing from her right oblique, she realized that it was not a sound, but a bullet, that had claimed her. The only thing left now was for her to be hung up on his pole, proudly displayed as his first Dyani kill, meal, and trophy.

She rolled over on her back, and lay there for what seemed like an eternity, processing that she would ACTUALLY be someone’s dinner. She thought this would be the hottest moment of her life, but something about it lacked finality. As she stared into the clear noon sky, she could see the stars through the daylight with her enhanced Dyani vision, and made out what appeared to be a constellation of an arrow pointing to the horizon.

She rose to her feet, motivated by the message from her ancestors, and decided to make one final attempt to carve a different fate She was surprised to see she could still run, and even as heard a second gunshot, she began to run faster. A third only motivated her further, and she did not hear another sound that did not belong to her until she crashed down in exhaustion a dozen minutes later.

When she finally caught her breath, she braved a glance down, fearing the worst, and saw she was merely grazed by the bullet, the skin of her right oblique split forever, never to be healed as it was before. It remained to this day a constant reminder of what she almost was and the challenges of the curse of her people – the Kohonta. Yet, she was thankful. Her ancestors had saved her; they had shown her that some other destiny other than this waited far beyond the stars.

She vowed to herself on that hot, muggy summer day to never masturbate again to being eaten. She felt a confidence, a determination swell in her at that moment that helped her Dyani instincts of sound, smell, and sight lock in, and she was able to stay away from the man intent on claiming her for the rest of the hunt. She never spoke to him again – she closed her account without another word. She never masturbated to being dinner ever again – in fact, she’d stopped masturbating entirely – as she’d literally never cum to anything else in her entire life.

She took all of that energy, that drive – and focused it towards the only thing she had left – her career. With this newfound confidence – she did better than she thought possible – she changed majors to business, busted her tail, and spent the next thirteen years climbing the corporate ladder in hopes of being the Sales Lead and face of the hottest new product on the cookware market. This was quite the accomplishment, she’d tell herself, for someone who was traditionally served in the very pots and pans she now helped market.

An image of Remi flashed again in Ayala’s mind. Her bleached white, sharp teeth. The heavy scent of her vintage perfume. Her clear, unrelenting desire to consume Alaya. Strangely, Ayala felt Remi had already begun consuming her, the thirteen years of confidence she’d spent building clearly shaken. She could feel her former self, the hunt starved snuffette, slowly taking over every inch of her being.

She wished she had her mother with her now – wished she could talk to her about she felt, to help with the struggle with the identity that was consuming her. Ayala’s mother had left this world a few years earlier, during a time when Ayala hadn’t visited as often due to her intense focus on her career. Ayala remembered how she felt, comforting her mother in her final hours, when the worst happened.

“It’s time that I passed this on to you.” Ayala’s mother said, taking off her locket for the first time in Ayala’s life. As she slowly handed it to Ayala, it slipped out of her hand, and they both gasped at the spiritual implication. Ayala rushed to pick it up, not being as careful as she’d been for the last five years, and realized too late that her shirt had risen just enough for her mother to see her scar.

Ayala remembered how loudly her mother wailed in that moment. Ayala tried to explain, but even then, couldn’t find the words. Instead, they just lay together in silence, humming Ayala’s mother’s song. An understanding came between them without words that this challenge, this burden, Ayala would now face alone.

Ayala’s mother passed that night, and Ayala’s heart shattered into a million pieces. It took weeks to piece herself together, and even then, she was never completely the same. Still, her confidence remained, and her drive at work was fortified from her lack of emotion.

She decided it was best to seal all of her feelings away, to lock them up in a place that they would never get out. In turn, she never wore her mother’s necklace. Ayala never felt worthy – at least, not yet. She had to prove to herself who she was before she could wear the symbol of destiny of her people.

Ayala had done so well since then, and she had decided to wear the locket on Friday when she gave her acceptance speech. But, she never expected to face someone like Remi. She never dreamed her lust would return. And, she realized, after just a few short days, for the first time in 13 years, Ayala’s confidence was truly broken.

She allowed herself to think about Remi. No, she allowed Remi to control her mind. She saw herself being tracked by Remi through the forest. She saw herself running. She saw herself falling to the ground, wounded. She saw herself struggle to find her feet; she saw herself being pinned down by Remi.

Helpless. No escape. No mercy. Only one outcome left. Soon. Dinner. Miss Dinner. Just as Remi had said.

Ayala let out a moan from her flushed cheeks, and realized she was panting. No, worse yet, she slowly glanced down and realized she’d been masturbating. She wasn’t sure when she started, but that didn’t matter now. She had broken her streak.

No, Remi had broken her streak.

Ayala moaned louder, allowing her self-control to drift away.

“No, Remi has broken me…” Ayala muttered to herself, beginning to rub her clit more decisively.

“Just one…”

Ayala closed her eyes, slowly edging herself to the brink of orgasm. She built up momentum to the moment of climax in her fantasy, the place where she always came, that moment in the forest where her existence transitioned from Dyani to Venison.

Ayala screamed in orgasm at the thought of a cut of her meat being served on Remi’s plate. Her howls echoed through her modest apartment, and she rubbed furiously to get every second of pleasure out of thirteen years of pent up sexual frustration. Her body shook violently, her eyes went blank, and wave after wave of pleasure rushed through her body.

She then felt the regret linger in, worse than ever. She had broken her streak, and masturbated to her own death. She was no longer focused on her career, no longer a confident Dyani soon to be Sales Lead, but on a head on course to be supper for someone whose values completely conflicted with her own.

Ayala shook her head. She hadn’t felt this low in a long time. She took a breath, starrd out the window for a second, and nodded to herself.

“One more won’t hurt.” She said, letting her hand slide down to her soaking cunt once more.