Quietly, Jennifer sat and watched the happy, energetic young girl, naked in every sense except for the most pedantically technical, dancing on the screen. She had picked a video and random, not checking the date, so had no idea if she was watching Sarah’s mum and her siblings or her friend’s older sisters, before she had joined the dance troupe. What she knew with a reasonable degree of certainty, however, was that at least some of the girls she was watching had been cooked and eaten! She thought about the last question that had been asked of Martha, about whether Sidney would be proud of her legacy and she was inclined to believe the answer.

She thought about what Sidney’s father, Orin Roebuck, had said when dismissing the rumours about the goings on on his associate’s private island. Even if he were telling the absolute truth and there had been no secret cannibal society, she was sure that someone with his wealth and resources could have arranged for his daughter to disappear quietly, the victim of an unfortunate accident, death certificates and police reports either faked or signed by people who were paid more than enough to keep their mouths shut. If all Sidney had wanted was to be eaten, then she was sure he could have made it happen. He owned multiple properties all around the world, after all. It would not have been too challenging to kit out a remote villa somewhere the South of France or up in the Smokey Mountains with a catering-sized oven, or to have hired a discrete butcher. No, there had to have been more to it than that.

Sidney, she realised, had not simply campaigned to be eaten. She had campaigned for the right to be eaten! A right that she knew would, by necessity, be extended to others once her case had been tested by the legal system. She wasn’t doing it just for herself, she was doing it for all the girls who would come after her and want to follow in her footsteps. The Sidney’s restaurant chain, far from being a happy side-effect of her life’s work, was in fact her crowning glory! A place where any girl could go and offer herself up as food, knowing that she would be delicious! The fact that this practice had spread further into the general culture would be for Sidney, Jennifer was sure, the absolute icing on the cake!

That night, as she slept, Jennifer dreamed of being a mermaid at the bottom of the ocean, making love to the body of a drowned sailor who may or may not have been Craig. The idea should have been horrific but, as is so often the way with dreams, it made its own kind of sense and felt incredibly erotic, the pale limbs and blank, staring eyes of the naked corpse eerily beautiful. Of course Jennifer knew that in real folklore, mermaids were not sweet and whimsical but rather dangerous predators who lured men to their deaths so this scenario did not seem shocking or out of the ordinary.

Eventually, however, the body came to pieces like a broken toy, bloodless arms, legs, head and penis all floating off in different directions while the torso settled onto the sea floor. In her dream, Jennifer swam towards the surface, swishing her long and beautiful tail to propel herself upwards. As she emerged into the sunlight she saw a naked girl paddling at the edge of the beach, her appearance changing depending on the angle she was viewed from. Sometimes she was small, other times taller and more developed. Now her hair was curled and now straight. Sometimes her hands were empty and at other times she carried her pink cowboy boots as she flicked the water up and wiggling her toes in the sand.

Looking out to see, the mysterious naked girl saw Jennifer and smiled at her, waving then beckoning her towards the shore. Jennifer swam towards her, feeling her tail turn to legs as the water grew more shallow until, by the time she reached the other girl, she was walking. The girl was unmistakable now. She was Sidney Roebuck, stood in a confident pose with her hands on her hips and trademark hat in place while the clear, salty water lapped around her pink leather boots. As Jennifer drew close, Sidney held out her hand and Jennifer took it in her own, realising that she was now wearing her own Sidney outfit, the white had and boots that she had bought from the gift shop and was planning to wear for her presentation. Holding hands with Sidney, she began walking up the beach towards a light that grew brighter and brighter the closer they got, without hurting her eyes, until all she could see was the other girl.

“Tag!” Sidney grinned, tapping her playfully on the nose with her finger-tip. “You’re it!”


To be continued...