>>16512
Ed says: "I like that pic too and it could be fun to build a story around! Just no promises as to how quick it might be as I have a few projects on the list at the moment!"

>>16513


Tell him: "Awesome and that's absolutely fine man. I'm just happy you liked the idea!"

Sweet Clementine

Sweet Clementine
By
Edward Hyde



“Do I really have to drink this?” Clementine held the small glass bottle up to the light, the pale green liquid inside glowing faintly as the occasional bubble made its way up the inside of the glass. “It looks really gross!”

“Now stop fussing!” her mum shook her head in annoyance. “You know it’s the only way we can afford this holiday!”

“Seems kinda dumb…” The ten year old blew her blonde fringe out of her face with an irritated huff. “You and Dad are taking it too, right?” She asked with a slightly accusing tone, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. “You’re not gonna be travelling first class and shoving me in the baggage locker are you?”

“Of course we’re taking it too, dear.” Her mum replied, sounding a little exasperated as she pulled a fresh crusty loaf out of the bread bin and began to cut thick slices. “But I need to make sure everything’s ready first. Plus trying to get to the airport like that would be quite a hassle. We’ll take ours in the cab.”

“So how come I need to take it now?” Clementine protested. “Why can’t I just take it when you do?”

“It’s your first time.” Her mum reminded her. “And the process can have some minor side effects if you’re not used to it. This way, if it does make you feel a little seasick or unsteady on your feet, you should have got used to it by the time we get on the plane. You don’t want to spend the whole journey throwing up, do you?”

“Don’t wanna go on the stupid holiday at all…” Clementine muttered but she knew there was no point in arguing any further. The bottle, she knew, contained shrinking tonic. Supposedly it was a new type of science but it seemed pretty much like magic to her. Its discovery had opened the doors to a whole new era of economy travel since it could shrink down any human or animal to roughly one twelfth of their normal size, allowing for far more people to fit on a standard aeroplane, bus or train and slashing costs to a fraction of what they had once been.

There were some hotels and resorts that were experimenting with the idea of having heavily discounted areas exclusively for those who opted to remain shrunk for the whole of their holiday but, generally speaking, medical opinion advised against staying in the shunken form for more than twenty four hours and most people drank a restoring tonic to return them to their normal size upon arrival.

The holiday Clementine’s parents were dragging her along on sounded really boring to the ten year old. Lots of walking and looking at really dull art museums. It didn’t even sound like there were any activities for children – even if those tended to be quite babyish, they were at least better and more fun than boring grown-up stuff! Clementine had begged her parents to be allowed to stay home while they went, or to stay with friends while they were away, but they had refused, saying that she was far two young to stay on her own for three weeks and, in their words, they refused to burden anyone else with her for so long!

“Come on now…” Clementine’s mother patted the kitchen counter. “Get up here so I can keep and eye on you and so I don’t trip over or tread on you when you’re small!” Reluctantly, the young girl heaved herself up onto the counter then, under her mother’s watchful eye, unscrewed the cap of the tonic bottle.

“How much do I have to drink?” she asked, looking down distastefully and the bubbling green liquid which was supposed to smell and taste like citrus fruit but smelled more to her like lemon-scented bleach and was certainly a long way from appetising!

“All of it.” Her mum told her firmly, arms folded. “We have our own bottles.”

“Oh…” Clementine took a deep breath then shrugged. “Here goes!” She put the bottle to her lips and sipped cautiously at first. Despite the very industrial smell it did not actually taste too bad at all and she gulped with increasing enthusiasm until, by the time she took the last drop, she was genuinely enjoying it and a little disappointed that it was all gone. “So?” she asked, setting down the bottle and holding out her hands in front of her, searching for any evidence of change. “When do I start to shrink?”

“Should be any moment.” her mum assured her, opening a large jar of mayonnaise. “Try to sit as still as you can, you might feel a little dizzy.” Clementine nodded then noticed a tingling sensation which started in the tips of her fingers and toes then spread quite quickly up her arms and legs. The tingling was just past her knees when a similar sensation manifested in her ears and on the tip of her nose. As it spread inwards, she did indeed begin to feel dizzy and light-headed. Maybe because of this or perhaps because the shrinking was so uniform throughout her body, she did not actually notice that it had begun until her tennis shoes dropped off her feet and landed on the kitchen floor which already seemed a long way away, closely followed by her socks It was not long before she could not see her arms or legs under the vast sea of white t-shirt fabric. At first, it sat on her shoulders but then even they became too narrow and soon she was left sitting nude and red-faced on top of her panties which themselves were resting inside her denim shorts while her collapsed t-shirt spread out for some distance all around her.

“Hey!” she cried out in annoyance, crossing her arms over her chest. “How come my clothes didn’t shrink?”

“Well how would that work?” Her mum chuckled, shaking her head in amusement. “Here.” She tore a square of kitchen towel off the roll on the wall, folded it in half and handed it to her red-faced daughter. “You can wear this for now. I’ve got a small dress for you to put on in a minute but let me finish the sandwiches first.” Annoyed at not having been warned and grumbling about how dresses were stupid and she hated them, Clementine rather grudgingly took the offered paper sheet then stood and wrapped it around herself like a bath towel. It was actually quite soft and pleasantly warm and not at all uncomfortable. Once she had covered herself, she walked to the edge of her t-shirt to sit down off the denim of her shorts which, in her miniature condition, was bulky and rough.

Giving her a sideways glance which Clementine could not tell whether it was nervous or suspicious, her mum reached up and opened the cupboard, taking out a small plastic bottle of pills. She unscrewed the lid and rolled one out onto the palm of her hand.

“Here.” She smiled a little anxiously, holding out the translucent yellow pill to her daughter. “You need to eat this now.” Clementine took the tablet which had a squishy texture like a gummy bear and looked at it suspiciously. In her tiny hands it was about the size of a cheeseburger.

“What is it?” she asked, turning it around a little to see if it seemed solid like gummy candy or whether there was liquid inside like those awful codliver oil capsules she had been forced to take when she got sick last year. It looked solid enough, which was something of a relief, but this was the first she had heard of needing to take something else after the tonic!

“It’s a stabiliser.” explained her mum, with a slight edge to her voice as if she was not quite certain of her own explanation. “Makes sure the tonic doesn’t wear off before you take the restorer.”

“But it can’t wear off, can it?” Clementine frowned. “Otherwise how would some people spend weeks shrunk down?”

“Just eat it please, dear.” Her mum walked over to the fridge and took out the packets containing various sandwich fillings and salad. The paper-clad little girl had been worried that, once she was tiny, normal noises would all sound really loud and that her own voice would be too small to make herself heard but, other than her mum looking like a giant and her surroundings making her feel like Jack at the top of the beanstalk, everything seemed quite normal! Somewhat reluctantly and still a little confused as to why it was necessary but supposing it was some sort of precaution to do with her first time shrinking, Clementine bit into the burger-sized pill. It was quite bland, no specific flavour to speak of, but on the other hand it was not unpleasant. Figuring she might as well get it over with, Clementine devoured the squishy pill while her mum set out the packets of sandwich fillings.

“Well done.” Her mum nodded approvingly, laying a slice of Swiss cheese on top of the layer of mayonnaise on one slice of bread. “Do you feel anything yet?”

“What am I supposed to feel?” Clementine asked. “I thought this just stopped me from accidentally growing?”

“Oh you won’t be growing, any more, that’s for sure!” her mum chuckled as she shook the water off a large crispy lettuce leaf and laid it over the cheese. “The woman in the shop told me you should start by feeling a little tingly, then quite warm.” As she spoke, Clementine did indeed begin to experience a tingling sensation but, unlike with the tonic where it had started from her extremities and worked its way in, this feeling seemed to start in her belly and spread outwards from there.

“What’s happening?” she asked nervously, standing up and managing to walk only a couple of paces before falling down headlong, the softness of her piled-up t-shirt the only thing that kept her from breaking her nose.

“Right about now,” her mum turned to her and used one finger to roll her onto her back, “your bones are softening and turning to pure marrow. No good for moving around but much easier to eat, not to mention tastier!”

“To… eat?” Clementine felt scared and confused. “What do you… Who’s going to…” But her mum placed the tip of her finger on her lips to silence her then, with the ten year old utterly powerless to resist, as floppy as a rag-doll, she pulled open the paper towel and left the cute little blonde laying naked on the absorbent sheet. “What’s happening?” Clementine protested again. “Why are you doing this?” Although unable to move anything other than her mouth and eyes, she was aware of every sensation, not least the oppressive heat which seemed to come from within, worse than any fever!

“Now stop fussing!” her mum tutted. “This is what you wanted after all, isn’t it?”

“What I wanted?” Clementine exclaimed angrily. “No I didn’t want to get eaten!”

“Well you said you didn’t want to come on the holiday with me and Dad,” he mum reminded her, “but there was no way we could leave you on your own or with anyone else for so long so we found a compromise. You should be thanking me really!”

“Fine!” sulked Clementine. “I’ll come on your dumb holiday and won’t complain any more! Can I please go back to normal now?”

“No, dear.” Her mum replied firmly. “There’s no undoing the effect of that second pill. You don’t have a proper skeleton any more and, after all, can’t you feel you’re partly cooked already?”

“Partly cooked?” The tiny ten year old was both confused and intrigued, almost so much so that she forgot to be afraid! “Is that why I feel so hot?”

“Yes,” her mum nodded, “I don’t really know all the science of it but there’s something in that pill that makes the molecules in your body vibrate so you sort of cook yourself from the inside. Oh don’t worry,” she chuckled, “it’s not like going in the oven. You’ll still be alive when I eat you, just means you’ll be tastier.”

“Um… thanks? I guess?” Clementine was really struggling to get her head around what was going on.

“Okay, let’s get you cleaned up! I’m hungry!” her mum informed her in a businesslike fashion. Before she knew what was going on, Clementine felt herself being picked up by the hair and carried over to the sink. “Your head will be all squishy now!” her mum explained with a chuckle as Clementine felt the discomfort of her entire weight pulling against the roots of her hair. Although she was now the same size as a Stacie doll and weighed practically nothing, the relative pressure on her hair was just the same as if she had been full size!

Over at the sink, her mum turned on the cold tap and held her under it as if she was a piece of lettuce. The water was incredibly cold, especially against her unusually warm skin and Clemetine tried to struggle and pull away but was unable even to twitch her legs.

“Hey cut it out!” she wailed as she dangled from her mum’s fingers like a rag doll. “Bad enough you’re gonna eat me but you gotta torture me too?” Her mum simply chuckled in response and turned off the tap, much to Clementine’s relief, then walked back over to the counter and took another sheet of kitchen towel which she wrapped around her daughter as if she were a burrito then set her down, soggy and with a sore scalp, on the counter.

As she lay watching her mum pour out a glass of Coke that she was presumably going to wash her down with, Clementine found that she was not actually feeling afraid any more. She was nervous, of course, worried that being eaten alive would hurt, and still very annoyed at being tricked into being her mum’s lunch in this way, but not actually afraid. Maybe she wasn’t big enough to feel fear any more or maybe something in the pill which had turned her bones to tasty jelly and was now making her own body cook itself that helped her relax and stopped her thinking too hard about what was going to happen? In fact, she was feeling quite light-headed. At only ten years old, Clementine had never been drunk but she imagined this might be what it felt like!

Even the heat wasn’t feeling too uncomfortable now – perhaps the cooking had stopped or maybe she was just so far cooked she couldn’t feel it so strongly any more? Either way, she was actually feeling quite relaxed by the time her mum unrolled her floppy form from the paper towel and used another to dab her dry. Humming happily to herself, the woman picked her shrunken daughter up once more by the hair then gently laid her on the bed of lettuce atop the bread and cheese.

“Hmm, you need something else!” She observed, looking thoughtful for a moment before picking up the jar of mayonnaise again and scooping out a spoonful.

“Hey that’s cold!” Clementine exclaimed as her mum dropped the yellowish-white blob onto her belly then used the flat side of a knife to spread it out down her middle in a long line starting under Clementine’s chin and running down to just past her knees.

“Eww that feels gross!” The girl protested, grimacing in disgust. “But how come I can’t smell it?” Normally she quite liked the smell of mayo but had been worried that, in such quantities, relative to her reduced size, at least, the vinegary smell would be overwhelming, even intolerable, but actually she could not smell anything at all.

“Ah that’s kinda a fun fact!” her mum replied conversationally, grinning as she screwed the cap back on the jar. “The molecules of scent are actually too big to fit up your nose now. Which is probably just as well because…” She picked up the pepper grinder and sprinkled Clementine liberally from head to toe with black pepper, looking to the little girl like large black snowflakes. “Perfect!” her mum grinned, looking admiringly at her handwork. “Now to finish off this sandwich!”

“Wait!” Clementine called out, causing her mother to turn to her with interest. “What about my hair?”

“What do you mean?” her mum asked. “Who cares if it needs brushing? You’re getting eaten, not going out for dinner!”

“No but, like, shouldn’t you cut it off or something?” the ten year old asked, not entirely sure why she was cooperating with her own consumption but feeling that, if she was going to be eaten and there was no getting out of it, she wanted to be good food with nothing wasted. The thought of her head getting thrown away, landing among the potato peelings and mouldy tomatoes to eventually find its way onto the compost heap bothered her more somehow than the thought of being eaten. On the other hand, she could not help thinking with some degree of justifiable malice, that if her mum were to choke on her hair while enjoying her Clementine sandwich it would rather serve her right for playing such a mean trick on her in the first place!

“Oh no!” her mum smiled. “That’s fine! The same thing that happened to your bones is happening to your hair and nails too. It was still strong enough to hold you up by but when I eat it, it will just be like tiny savoury gummy worms. See?” She grabbed a lock of Clementine’s splayed blonde hair between thumb and forefinger then used the knife she had used to slice the tomato for the sandwich to cut a little piece off the end. She then popped the hair into her mouth and chewed, smiling to show that it was perfectly edible. “See?” she grinned. “Right, now let’s get on with this! I’m hungry!”

As Clementine lay covered in mayonnaise and pepper and unable to move, her mum resumed her humming and lay another leaf of lettuce over the top of her, almost like she was tucking her into bed with a wet, crispy sheet which covered her face. Although she could not see through the green vegetable blanket, Clementine felt the addition weight as three slices of tomato were dropped on top of her, causing the mayo to squish outwards between her and the lettuce, spreading clammily across her torso and thighs. She heard the grinding sound of another layer of pepper being added then finally her world went dark as a second thick slice of bread was, liberally spread with yet more mayo, was set on top and pressed down. In the middle of the sandwich, Clementine was sure she felt herself flatten a little as the pressure of her mum’s hand was applied from above. After all, there was nothing truly solid about her any more.

Laying in the darkness of the inside of the sandwich, Clementine felt her edible casket lifted briefly then set down again, presumably on a plate. This was followed by a clattering sound as her mum got a glass out of the cupboard followed by the sound of the fridge being opened and closed then a metallic chink and a hissing sound as she opened and poured herself a can of coke to enjoy with her daughter sandwich. Then the plate was picked up again and Clementine felt herself being carried a much greater distance, the plate moving up and down with each step her mum took and making her feel quite sea-sick.

“It’ll serve her right if I throw up in her sandwich!” the mayo and pepper covered ten year old muttered out loud but to herself.

“What was that?” her mum asked sharply, coming to a stand-still.

“Nothing.” Clementine sighed. “But are you done walking yet? Being carried like this is like going down that road with all the pot-holes on holiday last year!”

“Yes, I’m done.” her mum replied with a slight chuckle, setting the plate down on what Clementine assumed was the arm of the sofa. Although the descent could only have been two foot at most, the rapid descent over what was to her a relatively long distance made her ears pop. Next she felt another jostling bump as her mum sat down and got comfy on the sofa, followed by the sound of the television being switched on to some daytime talk show where middle-aged women debated the issues of the day as if their expressed views would have any bearing on the real outcome of the situation. The kind of junk television her mum liked to relax with while she had her lunch – lunch that would that day be her own ten year old daughter in a sandwich.

“So,” she asked her daughter as she picked up the sandwich, “which end am I starting with? Head or feet?” Clementine had not expected to be consulted on this matter and hemmed for a moment while she thought it over. If she opted to be eaten head-first at least it would be over quickly but then what if her mum didn’t take a big enough bite and only took off the top of her head? She had heard stories about people losing most of their brain and still being kind of alive and there was the one chicken who had lived a pretty normal life for several years after its head had been cut off because it wasn’t done properly. Although she knew it would only be for the half-minute or so it took her mum to chew and swallow her mouthful, the thought of experiencing that sort of half-life, able to feel but not to think, filled Clementine with horror.

“Feet first, please.” she replied eventually, her voice somewhat muffled by the other sandwich fillings. “I guess if I’ve got to be eaten I might as well be able to enjoy it?”

“Fair point!” her mum chuckled. “I thought you might say that somehow!” This was it, Clementine knew. The sandwich was being lifted towards her mother’s mouth. Soon those giant teeth would close in on her, biting through the bread and fillings from above and below until they reached her legs. Then they would keep going until they met, her gelatinous bones and self-cooked muscle offering no resistance.

Breathing heavily, she felt the pressure just below her knees as her mum’s teeth began to bite down, relieving a little as they cut into the bread and continued their journey. In no time at all, Clementine felt the sharp teeth above her legs and below. At first her legs squashed under the pressure then the huge teeth broke through her skin and bit through her legs as if they were delicious sausages fresh off the barbecue.

“Oh wow!” her mum exclaimed with her mouth full, happily munching her Clementine sandwich. “You taste amazing!” The meat was tender with a smokey taste, pairing perfectly with the other flavours of the cheese, mayo and salad, with the pepper only serving to enhance its flavour. “If I’d known you’d be this good, I’d have eaten you ages ago!”

Clementine was in shock. She had expected having her legs bitten off to hurt but, while it had been uncomfortable in the moment, she could not really describe the sensation as pain. Instead she was left with a tingly numbness that almost tickled – she supposed this was due to her body being mostly cooked and capable only of limited sensation. Still, she was being eaten! It had begun. A few more bites and she would be no more. Almost like… Despite the bleakness of her position, or perhaps because of it and her slightly intoxicated brain trying to shield her from thinking too deeply about the reality of her situation, Clementine began to giggle.

“What’s so funny?” her mum asked, swallowing her well chewed and savoured mouth full.

“I was just thinking about how I’m like the Gingerbread Man!” her partially-consumed daughter explained from within her sandwich. “You know, when the fox is eating him and he cries out about being a quarter gone, then half gone?”

“I see!” her mum chuckled. “Well if you’re keeping score, I’d say you’re about one fifth gone! Speaking of which…” She raised the sandwich again and took a second bite, right through Clementine’s thighs. The bite was quicker this time, since both knew what to expect, but with the mouthful containing more delicious meat, since she had reached the thicker part of her daughter’s legs. The whole situation felt quite absurd to Clementine as she let out more involuntary giggles. Just half an hour earlier she had been getting ready to go on holiday, even if it did sound really boring, and now she was nearly half-way through being eaten in a sandwich, not even commanding her mum’s full attention as she listened to the women on television while munching.

How long could she survive like this, she wondered? She knew that some people lost their legs and carried on living just fine but the next bite would surely be into her belly. Could she survive that? Would be cooked from the inside like she had been allow her to survive a little longer or would she not even live as long as the Gingerbread Man in the story who was able to exclaim when he was three-quarters gone? She did not have to wait long for an answer as, with ever-increasing enthusiasm, her mum swallowed her second mouthful and went in for a third bite. This time, her teeth closed almost exactly in line with Clementine’s mayo-filled belly button, biting off the most tender and juiciest parts of her body.

Although she closed her eyes and braced herself for what she supposed would be the fatal bite, Clementine quickly realised that she was still alive, and was also quite surprised to find she still had her hands. This changed quickly, however, as her mum took a couple of smaller bites to even out the sandwich that was now almost exactly half consumed, leaving Clementine with only the upper half of her torso and very little of her arms below the elbow. Knowing that the next bite would likely be through her chest and knowing she would certainly not survive that, Clementine screwed her eyes shut and braced herself for the final bite which would send her to oblivion but it did not come. Instead, after a moment or two, she felt what remained of herself and the sandwich being set back down on the plate.

“Hey! What’s going on?” she called out in protest. “You’re not full, are you? You can’t just leave me like this!” Once again, fears of going to waste and being thrown out with the rest of the garbage flooded her mind and she started to panic.

“Oh no, no! Nothing like that!” her mum assured her quickly, taking a few sips from her glass of Coke and standing up, something Clementine was able to detect by the way the plate rocked. “I was just thinking you’d go really well with a bag of smokey bacon chips!” She walked out, leaving Clementine alone in the room. The women on television had been replaced by noisy adverts, which she supposed was why her mum had taken that opportunity to go get her chips. Clementine wished she could push the lettuce and the heavy bread on top of it off her face but she still could not move and, even if she had been able to, she had no hands with which to do the pushing! Still, she was not enjoying being stuck inside the dark, clammy sandwich and it seemed a fairly grotty way to spend her last minute or so of life!

Soon enough, she heard footsteps again and the bump as her mum sat back down on the sofa. It was only then that it occurred to Clementine that she didn’t seem to be bleeding – she guessed that was because she was more of less cooked, or maybe another side-effect of the squishy pill she had eaten? Either way, it really did seem as if the experience of eating her, for her mum, was much the same as eating a burger or hotdog in a bun! There was a rattling sound as the potato-chips were poured out onto the plate beside the Clementine sandwich then a crunching as her mum ate two or three before the half-eaten little girl felt the sandwich lifted again.

This last bite, she knew with reasonable certainty, would be the last one she experienced. She was still cross about being tricked in this way and certainly not happy about being eaten but, with seconds left to live, Clementine found a clarity of mind that pushed these negative thoughts aside and she realised she did not want her very last thoughts or words to be angry or sad ones so, just as her mum was about to bite down, she called out:

“Goodbye Mum! I’m glad I was tasty for you! Hope you and Dad have a nice holiday!”

“Thank you dear.” Her mum replied kindly. “Who knows, perhaps we’ll make a little brother or sister while we’re there? We’ll be sure to tell them all about you and hopefully they’ll be just as delicious as you one day!” With that, she bit down, first squashing then biting through her daughter’s chest, biting almost perfectly half way through her heart which immediately stopped beating and, seconds later, sweet little Clementine was truly nothing more than sandwich filling.

After another mouthful of Coke and a handful of chips, her mother took another delicious bite, then another, munching happily on each shoulder and upper arm in turn until there was nothing left of Clementine but her head. One more sip of Coke washed the previous bites down and she pushed the rest of the sandwich into her mouth, feeling the little head pop juicily like a grape as she bit into it. She chewed slowly, savouring the delicious flavour of her young daughter for as long as possible before swallowing.

“Well!” she chuckled, addressing her fully-consumed daughter through the ether. “I guess now you’re all gone!”

She finished the chip and Coke slowly while she watched the rest of the show then took her plate out to the kitchen and went up to the bedroom to finish packing for her much anticipated vacation, the taste of her delectable little girl still fresh in her mouth.

The End

>>23904
This was something unusual :)
I thought that pill will turn into a candy or something.

I'm not sure if I really like this new fantastical direction. Not everything has to be brutally realistic, but those fantasies are just a bit too far from reality.
A girl getting eaten alive and not even feeling something just takes too much away from the immersion and prevents us too much from putting ourselves in the character's perspective.

>>23907
I think it is not really that bad ;) she got transformed into cooked meat which can still move and talk and does not feel pain anymore. everything consistent within the story.
Just that maybe attempt to force some kind of resemblance with real world with hand waving about pills that cook you from inside was bad idea as now it make me think How the hell that is going to work

>>23907
"The more fantasy-based stories are written in response to specific requests. I am still writing my more conventional fare too - it's just fun to branch out a little sometimes!"

>>23908
"Onix, the self-cooking pill stimulates the molecules in her body in a similar way to microwave cooking." ;)

>>23910
well in that case it does not explain why she looks totally fine and alive after getting cooked :) an also does not even get too bothered about being eaten.

So those pills shoud shoud do something more that just make you hot

>>23911
Ed says "A wizard did it" :p

After more than two years of non-stop cannibalism writing Edward is finally out of remotely realistic ways to cook girls. Now if only in his exploration of new scenarios he looked not only for unrealistic ways, but also for other fun things beside cannibalism. One can always hope, I suppose.

It's been quite a while…

Ed?

Ed?

>>24182
Just checked with him myself. He confirmed that the comment above wasn't from him personally.

I've copy-pasted the response he said to me to give you all, so here it is: "Ed's output has slowed somewhat but there are some newer stories on Eka's Portal and Ao3. Most new ones will just be posted there from now on, save too much duplication."

>>24185
Could you pass the links for the new stories, please? I can't find anything in Eka…

>>24190
Here you go. Enjoy.
https://aryion.com/g4/gallery/PristineCheesecake

I have to ask, is this new furry stuff a way to avoid censorship or a new fetish of Edward?

>>24204

Stella Stew was commissioned by our mutual friend, MisterEbony, as a gift commission for me.
Stella is the name of my, at the time, newly adopted OC. MisterEbony wanted something to say "thank you" to me, and knowing how I was hoping to win the auction, asked Ed if he'd write out a story with her in it based off the comments I'd made about having some Stella stew as her introductory image.
https://aryion.com/g4/view/864916

If you're referring to his Lupina stories, then that's different. The first story, For a Good Cause, was written as a request by MisterEbony. More specifically, he wanted a wolf-lady cooking up a couple of kids. MisterEbony loved it, and told him as much. And because of his gratitude and comments, Edward decided to write some sequels to it, continuing off where the last one ended. The most recent one featuring Lupina was actually written by MisterEbony as, not only a sequel to his last one, but as a gift for him to show his appreciation for doing what he had with her. Edward liked the story so much, that he endorsed it as the official sequel to his, at the time, latest story.
https://aryion.com/g4/view/842992

While the Sidneyverse stories are more grounded in reality, with rules and laws and such, his Lupina stories aren't. They allow him to be much more fun and creative with what can happen and how, in ways that might seem out of place in a Sidneyverse story. Like the sweet serum in Lupina’s Sweet Surprise, that wouldn't work in his Sidneyverse because it's too fantasy-like, or how the half-wolf hybrid lady is able to live amongst humans, and how no one seems to question the disappearance of the kids in them.

I hope this is a satisfactory answer to your question, Anon.

Edward Hyde’s old stories

Hey Pristine-Cheesecake, how is Edward doing? It's been 5 months since his last story and I'm just making sure he's ok.

>>25931
God damn. It really has been that long, huh.?

To answer your question, not great at all. He's dealing with a pretty serious personal issue that I won't disclose here as it isn't my place to say.
He has a story that's almost finished, but regardless of whether or not he finishes it before late next week, he's going to be gone for a long while. Though hopefully not indefinitely.

Thank you for reaching out to check on him regardless though. I'll let him know you did, and I'm sure he'll appreciate the concern.

>>25934

I'm really sorry to hear that. Please pass along my sympathies and support to him.

Please let him know he's very missed and that the community won't be the same without him.

>>23680
great story. I like it.>>23680

>>23277

a really great school play

>>23686

also a nice story. I like irt, that the both girls become meat for the stew.

>>23742

he was definitvly a great turkey - a really great story

Well, this thread has seen better days. For those unaware, Edward has written more stories past Sweet Clementine, the latest story posted here before this comment. But, given the lackluster responses to the majority of the stories shared here, he told me to stop uploading them here. A recent comment changed his mind, and he gave me permission to share links to the other stories written afterwards for people who were unaware of them to enjoy.
As always, we hope you like them, and any and all comments are appreciated.

Stella Stew
https://archiveofourown.org/works/44908636

Party Favours
https://archiveofourown.org/works/47124175

Two Tasty Tourists - Gemma and Rebecca's Last Vacation
https://archiveofourown.org/works/47634805

Widdle Weenies
https://archiveofourown.org/works/47812159

The Perfect Burrito
https://archiveofourown.org/works/49476778

Kumi's Honey
https://archiveofourown.org/works/49527805

Community Cookout
https://archiveofourown.org/works/51177667

To The MAXX
https://archiveofourown.org/works/55368118

Friends To The End
https://archiveofourown.org/works/62453896

Elf On The (Oven) Shelf
https://archiveofourown.org/works/62454091

Hallie Haggis
https://archiveofourown.org/works/62454910

And there you go. All linked to A03, so both guests and registered users can comment and share their thoughts. We hope you enjoy them to their fullest. And please, if you enjoyed anything about any of them, please leave a comment. Comments and interactions are Edward's lifeblood. He loves hearing about what his fans liked about the things he worked hard to write.

>>27144

Edward Hyde is one of the writers I look up to the most in the world of guro. I'm always happy to find another of his works.

I can certainly understand needing to leave to deal with personal matters. Whether he returns to guro writing or not, I hope things go well with him.

I figured this would be the most prudent place to put this instead of "dis" as everything regarding Edward is here. Keep everything together and such.

If anyone here still has opinions on any of his stories, Edward's got a task he wanted opinions on.
So, if anyone has anything to say, please let me/us know.

"I am currently writing a story about a girl doing a school project about Sidney and I'm using it as a vehicle to work in all my Sidney-related head-canon lore that hasn't yet been mentioned or at least explored in depth and would not be enough of a plot on its own to carry an independent story. I would love to know if there is anything particular my readers would like to hear about when it comes to Sidney Roebuck, any questions they have or anything they would like to see included!"

I would like Edward to explore more the farm story line. Both about the organized farms as the smaller family farms for girl meat. And it's been a while.

I am very curious about girlmeat adjacent businesses. Girl leather, for example, as a fashion industry where the skin of the girls is tanned and used to craft fetish clothing and accessories that clearly highlight their female origin.
What about bones and skulls? Do they have a market, are they simply buried, recycled, turned into accessories, mementos, fetish items?
Is there a market for partial conversions? Can girls have just parts of their bodies harvested and eaten, and remain alive with amputations? Some women IRL castrate themselves or have their nipples removed for fetishistic reasons, so maybe those bits can enter the market in the abovementioned methods. Is there a market/desire for quad amputee human onaholes?

Would love to know what some of Sydney's best friends thought about her choices. Both before and after she became meat. Especially the early days.

>>27803

"Falquian will certainly get some of his questions answered and, while the origin of the costume has been discussed previously, it can certainly be covered again in this story." ;)

>>27802

It has been awhile since this thread was updated, yes. But he wasn't resting on his laurels. The main area everything is in is my Eka's Portal gallery, and to a lesser extent, my A03 one.
Here's the updates since then.

An Easter Treat
https://aryion.com/g4/view/1131744

Breakfast In Bed
https://aryion.com/g4/view/1133094

Eternal Perfection
https://aryion.com/g4/view/1134657

Defying Gravy-ty
https://aryion.com/g4/view/1148726

Seaside Treats
https://aryion.com/g4/view/1155646

@Falquian Are your stories retired? Especially that bee girl?

@Edward Hyde, I hadn't seen you write something like a Snuff Bunny. While true that all the girls are snuffed on your stories. I hadn't seen one where the snuff is about the girl delivering herself to the buyer and the snuff and torture is long, drawn out, organs removed one at a time, and when the executioner wanting to stop so he can keep her the snuff bunny made a convincing argument for her snuffing as his entertainment and joy. The girl encouraging with each organ and limb removed. A final act of her already dead but giving him a final video encouragement recorded in advance.

>>27828
I have written a couple of things since then, but I have kept mostly to myself. Last thing I wrote was about a girl raised in a farm to have a giant clit and enlarged cunt that could be cooked and eaten while still attached to the girl. She was purchased by a rich woman and had her bits eaten in a fancy restaurant kitchen. My friend Bellrog is even preparing a CG set to go with that story so, once it's done, I may ask PristineCheesecake to publish it on his page, if he agrees.

>>27830

Yeah, that's fine. I don't have a problem with hosting a story for you too.
The CGI picture set though might be a problem depending on how the finished product looks, and how many pictures there is in it.

>>27828

"The slowness and the reluctance of the butcher isn't really my thing but a girl delivering herself for snuffing and having to talk her inexperienced buyer through how to prepare her could be fun! Love the idea of a pre-recorded video to take over when she can't instruct in person any more!"

@Pristine-Cheesecake it isn't exactly the executioner's reluctance to kill her but rather the reluctance to just end it there despite the bunny's insistence as it is under the bunny's contract to die before the expiration date.

The video I thought is less about the instructions and more like a surprise for the executioner after a few days with the montage of the girl growing up with the second to last entry about her giddy someone brought her and the last addressed to him with a heartfelt thanks for the purchase.

@Falquian I hope to read em someday. Also I hope to read one where twins are slowly but surely reintegrated into a single being from their perspective.

Preserving Penelope
By
Edward Hyde


“Oh hello, dear!” the taxidermist’s wife smiled as Penelope arrived for her final appointment. “Everything’s ready for you! The print finished this morning and he’s checked it fully. Everything works like it’s supposed to and all the rough bits have been trimmed off!”

“Great!” the sweet blonde eleven year old grinned. “And how did that special mould come out? I hope that doesn’t have any rough bits!” she giggled. “Don’t want my uncle to cut himself or get sore patches down there!”

“Oh no!” the kindly woman chuckled. “Nothing like that! It came out perfect. In fact, I’ve got it here if you would like to see?” She took a box from under the counter. “Well, the spares, anyway! Just in case!” she winked. Penelope rushed forward with enthusiastic curiosity as the woman took the lid off the box. Inside were two rubbery-looking sausages, about nine inches long and an inch and a half wide, rounded at one end and open at the other.

“Can I touch them?” the young girl asked, her blue eyes wide and sparkling with excitement.

“Of course!” the woman grinned. Carefully, almost with reverence, Penelope lifted one of the objects out of the satin-lined box. The dark pink silicone felt soft, warmer than she expected. The outside was very smooth and she slipped her fingers inside to feel the carefully moulded bumps and ridges. Although she could fit two fingers inside, it was nicely tight. The compound used to take the mould had felt like it stretched her so much, she had been afraid that the finished result wouldn’t grip Uncle Colin properly, but she needn’t have worried. “It turns inside out for cleaning!” the woman explained brightly. “Try it if you like? It won’t tear!” Very gingerly at first but then with increased confidence, Penelope rolled the silicone tube inside out, finding that the smooth outside closed almost solid when on the inside, so much so she could not even get her pinky finger up inside.

“Kinda looks like something else now!” she giggled, waving it around a little before turning it back the right way out. “Pity you can’t do that with real ones, really!” she observed with a cheeky grin. “Might make things easier?”

“I suppose it could!” the woman laughed, taking the silicone cylinder back from her and putting it back in the box before putting the lid back on and tucking it safely away under the counter again. “Well put that in the bottom of the main box.” she explained. “With the instructions and other accessories. Penelope nodded and looked around the shop at the various examples of the taxidermist’s craft on display, remembering her very first visit nearly a year earlier to watch her friend turned into a beautiful statue, one she still waved to every morning on her way to school and again on her way home as it stood majestic and gleaming in the front garden of what had been her home for everyone to see and enjoy, then her second visit just a week earlier in preparation for her own big day.

Some time ago, with her enthusiastic permission, knowing that he needed an incentive to keep focussed on his studies, her parents had made a deal with her Uncle Colin, her mum’s younger brother, that if he successfully graduated from medical school, they would have Penelope made into a love doll for him as a reward. He had always been besotted with her, really from as soon as she could walk and talk but certainly from the age of four onwards when he started taking her on outings to the park or to the beach, never insisting she wear a swimsuit if she didn’t feel like it, and making sure she got properly dried and her delicate skin rubbed with moisturizing cream afterwards so she wouldn’t get dry and itchy.

As she had got a little older, Penelope had started to understand her uncle’s interest in her a little better, even if she didn’t yet have the words to explain it, and had started showing off for him, finding any opportunity to take her clothes off in front of him and even begging him to join her in the bath when he babysat, sitting on his lap and wiggling, enjoying her apparent power to make his willy turn hard despite not knowing at the time why it did that or what it was for. At the age of eight, with a little helpful instruction from her mum, she had given her first blow-job, her birthday present to him, and had been very happy to find out that not only did she enjoy it but she seemed to have quite a talent for it!

As her little sister Maddison had started to get to the age she had been when he had first taken an interest in her, Penelope had worried that Uncle Colin’s affections might be drawn away but was very relieved to find that she remained his clear favorite. He was kind to her sister, of course, and gave her birthday and Christmas presents that were just as lavish as the ones he gave to her, but it was Penelope he continued to share baths with and to take on special outings. Penelope knew that there were some men, and women too, who preferred young girls like her to adult companions and had worried that, as she got older and started to grow up, Uncle Colin might start to lose interest in her so the idea of being preserved for him as eternally young and beautiful was very appealing and when her parents, eager to gain her agreement before making their offer, had pitched the idea of having her made into a sex toy for her beloved uncle, she had jumped at the chance!

The weekend before his final exams, Uncle Colin had come for a visit and, at her parents suggestion, Penelope had shared the bed in the spare bedroom with him. It was the first time they had given their permission for the pair to make love and Penelope had not been sure which of them was the more nervous. They had shared their customary bath beforehand but instead of getting straight into bed naked, Penelope had sent Uncle Colin to the bedroom while her mum helped her prepare for a special dance she had been rehearsing to get him in the mood, as if any encouragement was really required!

The dance had been her mum’s idea. She had explained it was a very ancient custom known as the Dance of the Seven Veils and was believed to have been the dance that Salome performed for her step-father King Herod in the Bible enticing him to reward her with the head of John the Baptist. While Uncle Colin waited with nervous excitement in the bedroom, Penelope’s mum had helped tie the seven colourful sheer silk scarves which formed her costume – two around her waist, two around her chest, one on each wrist and the final one covering the lower part of her face. As she danced she would slowly remove the ones covering her body until she was naked, then at the end would reveal her face by which time, her mum had told her teasingly, her uncle should be ready to “go off like a rocket!”

She had waited outside on the landing while her mum went in, dimmed the lights, told her younger brother to prepare for a treat then set the middle-eastern style music playing. Penelope had burst in on her cue and begun the dance at the foot of the bed, amused by how flustered Uncle Colin seemed to look as she gradually revealed her body despite having been naked in the bath together less than twenty minutes earlier and excited to be performing like this for him. The tingle between her legs which she often felt when she was with him, especially in their intimate moments, felt more and more intense the longer the dance went on and she found herself desperate to feel him inside her.

When the dance was over, she had climbed into the bed and pulled back the duvet then straddled him while he held her hips to gently guide her down as she impaled herself upon his hard, throbbing manhood. The experience was everything she had dreamed of.

“Just think!” she had told him, leaning forward with her hands on his chest, her nails digging into his skin. “Pass your exams and you get to have me like this forever!” And pass them he had so, true to their promise, Penelope and her parents had begun preparations for her conversion. A week ago, she had attended Eternal Perfection for what the taxidermist called “preliminaries”, doing what was necessary to prepare ahead of her actual conversion.

Feeling quite comfortable with the sweet older couple after her last visit, Penelope had come on her own without a chaperone or a friend for moral support. Once again she had been shown the kind of doll she was to be turned into, shown how everything worked and talked through what to expect. She had then taken her clothes off and had been pleased by the compliments both the taxidermist and his wife had given her about her developing body, just entering adolescence with cute little tits like two halves of a fairly small lemon which she had grown since her last visit.

The first stage was a full-body scan for which she stood in narrow perspex tube with her arms held slightly out by her side. As instructed, she had closed her eyes and stood as still as possible, doing her best to keep her breathing light and shallow, while the scanner had moved up and down the outside of the tub, taking ultra-precise measurements of every part of her body, creating a detailed 3D image on the computer. Excited to learn more about the process, she had sat on the old man’s lap, still naked but in the relaxed way she would be around her parents rather than the teasing way in which she sat on Uncle Colin, while he showed her how the computer took this image and smoothed out the details of her features then performed careful calculations to strip approximately three millimetre’s from every surface.

“Peeled like an orange!” she had giggled then watched with interest as her head was removed from the digital model all together as that would be preserved in a different way, essentially as a separate, detachable piece that could be enjoyed independently of the rest of the doll. A gap in the model between her legs was also created which had neatly led on to the next stage of preparation.
To give the most authentic experience, the man had explained, a cast would be taken of the inside of her vagina which would then be used to create a silicone replica which could be taken out to be cleaned between uses. Penelope had giggled at the idea, imagining her uncle having to stand at the sink and rinse his cum out of her pussy before putting her back in the cupboard or wherever he planned on keeping her.

Taking the cast, she had been warned, would be a little uncomfortable and would involve laying still for at least half an hour but he offered to put some music or an audio book on for her so she wouldn’t get bored. She had opted for music and got comfortable on the couch where she had sat to watch her friend Emily’s Polkanisation.
The taxidermist had mixed the compound and loaded it into a large syringe like a caulking gun. To make sure it slid in smoothly, he smeared the plastic nozzle with vaseline but he needn’t have worried, Penelope’s tight, preteen cunt was doing a very good job of self-lubricating! He slid it up inside her then steadily but firmly pushed the plunger and she felt the thick white compound filling her up, stretching her inside just like Uncle Colin’s willy had done. Gradually, at a steady pace, he retracted it until the tip was all the way out, leaving her filled with the slowly-solidifying goo.

“There we go!” the man had smiled as he pushed a simple metal ring with a pin on the end between her plump lips, into the thick compound inside. “Give it half an hour or so and we’ll be able to pull it out, a perfect cast for your uncle. I assume he knows what the real thing feels like?”

“Oh yes!” Penelope had giggle. “How will you know when it’s set properly?”

“I’ll pull gently on the ring.” He’d explained. “If it feels like its pulling loose, it’s not ready yet. But if I feel the resistance and it starts to pull the whole cast with it, I’ll know it’s ready! Try to keep clenched for the first five minutes at least,” he instructed, “but after that you can relax.” Penelope had done as she was told, clenching her cunt muscles the same way she did when she needed to pee and was trying to hold it in. Once it was safe to do do, she had relaxed with her eyes closed and listened to the music. In fact she had become so relaxed and contented that she had fallen asleep, only waking when the taxidermist had shaken her shoulder gently, telling her it was time to remove the cast.

“Just try to relax,” he had told her as he stared to gently “worry” the ring, attempting to loosen the hardened compound which had moulded itself so perfectly to the inside of her vagina, “this might feel rather uncomfortable or sting a bit.” Penelope had nodded and tried to do as he said. There was an uncomfortable tugging sensation then a burning sting like ripping off a bandaid as he got the now solid cast loose. Carefully, pulling her delicate lips apart with his other hand, he eased the irregular white cylinder out then held it up to show her. “There you go!” he grinned. “That’s what you look like on the inside!”

“Good to know!” Penelope had giggled. “But what about the other hole? You know,” she blushed a little and bit her lower lip, “the back door? Will he be able to use that too if he wants to?”

“Oh yes, absolutely!” the man had assured her, carefully wiping mix of vaseline and natural girl-honey from the cast before setting it down on a metal tray. “The kind of doll we’re making is fully functional, but that part is not so easy to get a good cast of so we use a tight generic sheath for that. Now,” he looked over at his wife who had come in with a tray of drinks. “Have your lemonade then my wife will help you get cleaned up. It’s a pretty safe procedure and a non-toxic substance we use but the last thing you want is to get an infection down there so close to the big day!” Penelope had agreed whole-heartedly and sipped the delicious, chilled, home-made lemonade while the taxidermist’s wife admired the cast that had just been pulled out of her.

As soon as Penelope had finished her drink, the kindly woman had led her out of the workshop and into the bathroom where she had showered off before after helping to polish the statue that had been Emily. The lady did a very thorough job with the shower and a soft flannel while Penelope stood in the bath with one foot on the side and her hand on the woman’s shoulder to steady herself.

When they had got back, the taxidermist had gone through the final stage of preparation with her, helping her choose the artificial eyes from his case that most closely matched her own electric blue colour then, since her real finger and toe nails would fall off during the preservation process, picking out a set of artificial ones to be stuck on in their place. These were available in a variety of lengths and shapes and natural style or pre-coloured as if wearing nail polish. Penelope had picked a set that were not especially long but looked well manicured and which were mostly natural but with a slight pearlescent quality to them which she found very pretty. This way, she had explained her reasoning to the taxidermist, Uncle Colin could paint them different colours if he wanted to but they would still look nice without.

After that, she had got dressed again and the couple had sent her on her way with a big tub of special moisturizer to use after showering in the mornings and before bed and a set of instructions about what foods and drinks were a good idea and what should be avoided in her final week as well as some exercises she could do. Now her big day had come and she would not be going home alive. She would be leaving the shop when her parents collected her the next morning on their way to Uncle Colin’s graduation party.

“Would you like to see the box?” the kindly older woman smiled. “It’s all ready for you. We’ve actually got it in the living room as it was taking up a lot of space in the workshop and my husband’s got another big project on at the moment!” Penelope was intrigued by this comment but more intrigued to see the box in which she would be presented so followed the taxidermists wife through a door behind the counter into their home which adjoined the shop.

“Do you need to lock the door?” Penelope asked, not wanting the sweet couple to be robbed while she was looking at her accessories.

“Oh no,”the woman assured her with a warm smile. “I can hear the bell from here if anyone comes in!” The living room was cosy and welcoming with lots of family photos around. A naked baby, almost too small to be real, was curled up on a cushion on the mantle piece, apparently sleeping.

“Who is that?” Penelope asked, hoping the question wasn’t indelicate.

“That’s our second daughter.” The woman smiled a little sadly. “She was born early and didn’t make it and we couldn’t stand to think of her going into the ground or being burned up so… Well, my husband worked his magic so we could keep her with us forever. He did a good job, don’t you think?” Penelope nodded quietly. “And with the bits that were left over, I made a lovely stew! But that was all a very long time ago!” she smiled again, clearly finding the memory bitter-sweet. “This is what you’ve come here to see!”

On the coffee table in the middle of the room was a long, oblong box made from highly polished pine, stained pink in such a way that the beautiful wood grain was still clearly visible. The box was about five feet long and had four gold handles, a bit like those of a coffin, two on either side. At one end was a drawer about four inches deep which, Penelope realized, must be the space for the accessories and instructions the woman had mentioned earlier. The rest of box was padded and lined with pale pink satin.

“It’s beautiful!” Penelope gasped, running her fingers along the edge. “Did your husband make this too?”

“Oh yes,” the woman beamed proudly, “he’s a many of many talents! I’m so glad you like it!”

“Does it have a lid?” Penelope asked, noticing the catches around the top.

“Oh yes of course!” the woman grinned. “It’s not just for storage, it can double as a display case if that’s what your Uncle would like? It’s leaning against the other side of the table. You can pick it up if you want to, just be careful as it’s a little heavy and that’s real glass!” Excitedly, Penelope moved around the table and found the lit propped up against it on its side. Heeding the warning, rather than lifting it up she decided to kneel down beside it to get a good look. The edge was the same pink-stained, polished wood as the main box but with a glass front. The frame was about two inches thick except at the bottom where it was big enough to cover the pull-out drawer and on this section was a brass plaque with ornate edges. Across the middle in elegant, italic letters was her name, below which was the Eternal Perfection logo and above which was written, in the same beautiful font, “With Love”.

“Oh it’s gorgeous!” Penelope gushed. “I didn’t realize it was going to be so special! I was just expecting a cardboard box with a plastic window like a Barbie!”

“Oh no!” grinned the taxidermist’s wife. “You’ll be far too special a doll for something like that! Oh, your outfit came too!” Penelope stood and looked over with excitement. She and her mum had picked the outfit she would be presented in from a small catalogue of available choices so she knew more or less what it was going to look like but it was still exciting to see it in person! The woman pushed the door closed to reveal the outfit hanging on the back of the door so any wrinkles would fall out. Penelope gasped again. Like the box, it was far more beautiful in person than she had expected!

The chosen outfit in which she would be presented to her beloved uncle was a white, sleeveless nightgown, cut low in the front, trimmed with very pretty lace and made from a shimmering, translucent white fabric, quite similar to the angel costume she had worn for the last two years in her Church’s annual Passion Play. Also hanging from the hook were a crown of artificial flowers and a white velvet choker with a diamond pendant hanging from it. Penelope knew that this was to hide the join between her head and the rest of her body.

“I really will look like a fairy princess!” she exclaimed softly in awed tones. “So,” her mind returned to the important business of the day, “is he ready for me? Can I go in?”

“You can go in, I’m sure!” the woman smiled, “But he’s going to be busy with that other project for a little while longer. You can go in and watch ‘though!” she assured her. “Just don’t get in the way!”

“Oh I won’t, I promise!” Penelope replied earnestly. “But what’s the project?”

“A special commission for the church.” explained the woman. “Oh not yours!” she added quickly, seeing the puzzled expression on the young girl’s face. “The Catholic one! They’re moving to a new building and they’ve commissioned a special new crucifix!”

“Oh cool!” grinned Penelope. “I definitely want to go see what he’s come up with, if that’s okay?”

“Of course dear!” the woman smiled, walking with her back into the shop. “You know the way!” Happily, Penelope skipped off towards the work shop at the back of the main shop and showroom where heads, hands and girl-leather products were sold as well as assorted figures of girls, boys and young adults showcasing the full range of products Eternal Perfection could supply. Like Emily when she had come for her own conversion, Penelope had dressed that day in very light, loose clothing, least she ended up with pressure marks from elastic or buckles on her soft skin. She had opted for a pretty yellow summer dress, tied at the shoulders, with no panties underneath of course, and a pair of flip-flops.

The first thing she noticed upon entering the workshop was something that resembled a hospital bed or massage table on wheels which was set up next to one of the taxidermist’s work tables. On this table was laying a headless, humanoid shape made from a translucent, pale blue material with a system of darker blue vein-like tubes rubbing through it and a vague hint of something red deeper inside. She knew that the object was the body of the doll she was to become, created from the scan of her body created on her previous visit.

Close to the kiln which currently stood open as it had for Emily was a large, heavy-looking wooden cross made from a very solid, durable wood like oak and stained dark brown. Just below where the two beams intersected was a hole all the way through, as if waiting for a peg. There was another hole about a foot lower and then a third towards the bottom of the upright bar. An exact replica but unstained and made from a much lighter wood like pine or even balsa was laying on the ground just in front of the clear-sided chamber where Penelope had watched the taxidermist coat Emily with the white powder which had bonded to her skin then turned to bronze in the kiln. Waiting in the chamber was a young man of maybe eighteen or nineteen, naked of course and with a very toned body. His light brown hair was short and he had a soft, youthful beard on his chin. The taxidermist himself was standing beside the chamber in his protective suit, holding his mask.

“Oh hello!” he grinned as Penelope made her presence known. “Sorry I’m running a little late! Come and meet Craig!” Penelope stepped forward a little shyly and smiled at the young man, giving him a half wave by raising her hand.

“Hi!” Craig grinned. “You must be Penelope? I heard you were coming soon! That doll thing is so cool!” He sounded genuinely impressed. “I was checking it out before you arrived. The plans for me are less fun but, I guess, more artistic!” Penelope giggled. “Come in, sit down!” he invited with a very genuine smile.

“So you’re going on the cross?” Penelope asked, getting settled on the sofa with her legs tucked underneath her bottom. “Are you from the Church or did they recruit you from somewhere?” The taxidermist left them chatting for a few minutes while he checked the airbrush that would spray the white powder onto Craig’s damp skin.

“Oh I’m from the Church.” he smiled. “There were a few of us who volunteered and they held a vote during the service one morning. I won!” he informed her proudly. “Been trying to grow my beard out ever since,” he stroked his chin, “but I guess this will do!”

“What about your hair?” Penelope asked curiously. “Isn’t Jesus normally depicted with long hair?”

“That’s what the wig is for!” Craig gestured to a wig on a polystyrene mannequin head which seemed to already be infused with the white powder. It was long and lightly curly and would likely fall around his shoulders. “It should fuse properly in the kiln.” he informed her in a matter of fact tone.

“What about a loin cloth?” asked Penelope. “Is that going to be Polkanised too or will they put a cloth on one you when you’re done?”

“Oh no!” Craig chuckled. “The Church committee decided to go for full historical accuracy! Romans crucified people naked so that’s how I’m going to be displayed! I even got myself circumcised specially for authenticity!” He pointed to his quite impressive penis which was standing at full attention. “What do you think?”

“Looks good!” Penelope giggled, thinking of the teens who were always crucified naked in her own Church’s Passion Plays. “Is that historically accurate too?” She pointed up and down, clearly indicating his erection.

“Actually yes!” the taxidermist cut in with a grin. “Studies have shown that it’s a normal response from a body being crucified so it’s perfectly in keeping!” Penelope chuckled. She had always assumed that the boys she saw crucified in her Church car park had erections because they were excited about what was happening to them and being shown off naked but perhaps it really was an involuntary reaction of their bodies to what they were enduring.

“He is risen indeed!” observed Penelope with a cheeky giggle, remembering the traditional Easter morning response. The two men joined in the laughter before the taxidermist put his respirator mask on and entered the chamber with his spray-gun attached to the pressurised canister. Just as she had done with Emily, Penelope watched as the taxidermist began to coat Craig with the highly toxic white powder from the feet upwards. Unlike Emily, the young man had some natural body hair which was also sprayed and the taxidermist used his fingers to mould the bushier parts into neat curls like a Greek or Roman statue.

Although she was a little impatient to get on with her own conversion, it was at least interesting for Penelope to watch the young man carefully and evenly coated with the white powder which, she knew, would already be starting to bond with his skin. When the taxidermist reached his shoulders he paused and took the wig from its stand and carefully fitted it, making sure that it hung as naturally as possible and that any stray strands of Craig’s own hair were tucked away underneath it. He then completed the process, spraying the model’s face and neck, carefully sculpting his beard with his fingers the same way he had done with his pubic hair.

“How do I look?” Craig asked as he stepped out of the chamber and the taxidermist prepared for the next step by removing his full respirator but putting on a simple filtration mask. Once the powder had bonded to its subject, it was reasonably safe for those close by but as he still had some fairly close-up work to do on this particular project, he did not want to take any chances!

“Kinda pale!” Penelope giggled. “Perhaps you ought to lay down?”

“Good idea!” Craig chuckled. “Luckily I know just the place!” He lay down on the pale wooden cross on the floor and got as comfortable as he could, laying with his arms out in the typical cruciform pose. The taxidermist too a wedge-shaped piece of wood coated with the same white substance, similar to the block Emily had stood on to enable her base to be buried deep enough to keep her from falling over or being stolen while still looking like she was stood on the ground, and Penelope saw that it had a long peg on the back. The man pushed this into the bottom hole in the cross and Craig bent his knees to rest his feet on it, one on top of the other. On another of the work-tables was a small brazier that Penelope had not noticed before and in this were three very large bronze nails, more like railway spikes really, with wide heads. Their intended use was fairly obvious and Penelope felt a distinct tingle between her legs at what she was about to witness, but something about the preparation intrigued her.

“Why are you making them hot first?” she asked as the taxidermist lifted one out with tongs to check and seemed happy with the faint orange glow that he saw. “They don’t normally do that when they crucify the boys and girls in the plays at Church?”

“Ah well that’s the difference between art and theatre!” the man grinned, carefully carrying the nail over to his model as it turned from orange to black while remaining wickedly hot. “For the shows you put on, the bleeding is all part of the drama, people want it to be messy and spectacular!Not to mention the physical pain of the actor. For what we’re doing here, however,” he explained in a friendly tone, picking up and large mallet and carefully placing the tip of the nail against the heel of Craig’s powder-coated hand, “requires neatness. A lot of blood would just make a mess and we don’t really want Craig writhing around if we can help it. A hot nail seals the wound instantly as well as killing the nerve-endings. It will be intensely painful for a few seconds but that is all and there will be virtually no bleeding. Ready?” he asked the young man who looked a little nervous but nodded before turning his head the other way so he would not see the hammer coming down. This enabled him to make eye-contact with Penelope and she smiled at him reassuringly, remembering what she had been told during Emily’s conversion about how the toxic properties of the compound also provided a good deal of numbness and a feeling like being drunk or drugged so the necessary pain involved in the Polkanisation process was easier to endure than a similar experience in a more raw state would be.

The hammer came down with a heavy thud and, although Craig did give a small yelp, he did not scream or try to pull his arm away. The hot bronze passed through his wrist like butter and the wood to which he was being nailed was soft enough that two blows was all it took to push it all the way in.

“On down, just two more to go!” Penelope reminded him encouragingly and he could not help by smile back at her as he readied his right wrist and the taxidermist collected the second nail. This time, perhaps reassured by how easy and relatively painless the first had been, he did not look away as the hammer was raised but watched with interest as the nail was driven in. Finally the third nail was hammered through both feet and into the wedge that was pegged into the cross.

“All done!” the taxidermist smiled. “Wait here!” he instructed with a cheeky wink as if the crucified young man had any other choice.

“So you’re going to be one of those special dolls?” Craig asked from his prone and pinned position, making conversation both to pass the time and to keep his mind off his discomfort. “I was looking at the innards or whatever you call that before you came in.” he continued, clearly meaning the headless figure which lay on the work counter, “Amazing what they can do these days, isn’t it?” Penelope nodded enthusiastically. “So who’s the lucky recipient?”

“My uncle!” she told him with a grin. “Uncle Colin. He’s just qualified as a doctor!”

“Oh very nice!” Craig nodded approvingly. “I hear that can be a pretty stressful job! He’s lucky he’ll have you to help him unwind of an evening!” Before either of them could say more, the taxidermist came back into the room with his wife.

“Oh my!” she chuckled, looking at the crucified young man without expanding on what had elicited this exclamation, although Penelope was fairly sure she knew and couldn’t help giggling. Together, showing more strength that she would have expected for their age, the couple lifted the cross upright so it stood like a conventional crucifix.

“It has to be done like this,” the taxidermist explained, “so the muscle tensions would be right. If we set him laying down, it wouldn’t look right hung on the wall. Not many people would be able to say what was wrong with it but they’d know if was off somehow.” This made sense to Penelope and she was sure that Craig every bit as much as those who had commissioned the new piece would want it to look as close to perfect as possible. The taxidermist brought over a tall metal piece of some kind which looked a bit like a trolley but without wheels. The bottom was a long, flat sheet about five millimetres thick, a foot wide and two feet long, and to the back of this was welded a tall bar with two smaller bars sticking out from it.

“This is the key to the whole thing!” the older man explained proudly. “When they asked me to do it, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get a metal body on a wooden cross, not in any way that would look natural anyway. I thought I was going to have to insist the whole thing be Polkanised but then it hit me!” Craig looked around curiously as the man worked although his movements were limited by his position. Penelope had seen enough people crucified before to know that breathing would be a struggle for him in that position and, while the Passion Play performers had managed to deliver lines while in the same position, they had not had to contend with the compound bonded to their skin slowly hardening, making every movement that bit more challenging, not to mention the light-headedness and lethargy the chemicals within it caused as they soaked into the bloodstream so she was not surprised that he was quiet.

She watched with interest as the taxidermist took a bronze tube and inserted it through the hole in the top hole in the cross so that it emerged between Craigs shoulders. Wearing gloves to protect himself, he took some of the same thicker version of the compound that he had used to “glue” Emily’s foot to the base and smeared it around the end of the pole where it pressed into Craig’s skin. He then did the same with the lower hole, Sticking the end of the second tube to the small of the young man’s back. Next, he and his wife carefully manoeuvred the cross onto the base and pushed it back so that the bars which stuck out slid neatly into the tubes.

“The cross will burn away,” he explained, “but the figure will stay on the stand, then we’ll be able to use the poles to peg it onto the real display cross.” Hearing Craig described as “it” and “the figure”, already just an object when we was, for the moment at least, very much still alive gave Penelope a special thrill and she wondered if he felt the same.

“I must say, you do look the part!” the taxidermist’s wife told Craig kindly. “Oh wait!” Despite looking a little sleepy and as if he was only partly conscious of what was going on around him, the young man lifted his head and looked curiously at the woman. “You forgot something!” she scolded her husband, but in a playful tone.

“Of course!” the taxidermist slapped his forehead dramatically the went to one of his many, rather cluttered workstations returning moments later with a circlet of thorny branches already coated in the white powder. Carefully, wearing thick gloves to protect himself both from the thorns and from their toxic coating, he pushed the Crown of Thorns onto Craig’s head where it became tangled in the wig. “There we are!” he stood back proudly to observe his handiwork. “All ready for the kiln!”

As the taxidermist and his wife manoeuvred the cross and its supporting frame with the young man mounted on it towards the open door of the kiln, Penelope noticed that Craig was talking quietly as if to himself and realised that he was praying! Suddenly, it struck her that he was not just participating in creating a beautiful and lasting work of art but this probably an important act of devotion for him and she hoped that he had not been offended by her flippant comments earlier. He seemed to have taken it in the spirit it had been intended, she reassured herself, and after all, who was in a better position to forgive?

With the cross in place in the middle of the kiln, the couple exited and Craig looked up one last time, making eye-contact with Penelope and smiling at her as she smiled back sweetly, blew him a kiss then waved as the heavy metal door was closed and the taxidermist set the controls. Through the small viewing window in the door, Penelope watched the young man bow his head and assume the position in which he would be preserved forever.

“Right!” the taxidermist smiled, at the sweet, excited eleven year old. “Your turn! Why don’t you pop your dress off then I’ll introduce you to your insides!”

Giggling happily, Penelope kicked off her sandals and pulled her dress over her head, revealing her beautiful young naked body. Although nowhere near as dedicated to physical fitness as Emily had been, she never the less kept herself in good shape and was slim without being skinny with the merest hint of curves developing in all the right places.
For as long as she had known it was something to have an opinion on, she had been proud of her figure, especially her cute bubble-butt, and in recent months she had been very happy with the cute little pair of tits she had grown. In recent month she had noticed soft, downy hair beginning to grown above her plump vulva but, at her request, her mum had found her some cream to gently remove it without irritating her skin. She knew that it was a natural part of growing up but growing up was exactly what she was planning to stop with this procedure. Besides, she preferred it smooth like it had always been before and she was fairly confident that Uncle Colin would like it better that way too!

“I’ll take that!” the taxidermist’s wife smiled, reaching out as she saw Penelope looking around for where to put her dress. “I’ll see that your parents get it when they collect you.” Penelope handed it to her, smiling gratefully. The kindly older woman looked her up and down. “Such a pretty little thing from head to toe!” she observed and the young girl felt warm inside. She had been called pretty plenty of times before, of course, but this couple had dedicated their lives to preserving the beauty of young girls like her, as well as the occasional boy. Coming from her, the compliment felt as if it carried a lot more weight, backed as it was by professional discernment. Leaving her husband and the naked girl alone to get on with the business of the day, the women went back to mind the shop, reassuring them both that she would be around if and when she was needed.

“Come take a look!” the man beckoned her over to his work station with the same excited pride as an Airfix model or Lego enthusiast wanting to show off his latest build, not to brag or seek praise but to share something that made them happy. “I finished the trimming and sanding just before Craig arrived and the circulatory system works perfectly!” Penelope quickly joined him by his side and took her first proper look at the mechanical creation that would soon be wearing her skin.

It was more or less the same size and shape as her own body but with a slightly eerie thinness, especially in the limbs, fingers and toes which seemed unnaturally long. This, she realised, was because of the allowance that had been made in the modelling for the thickness of her skin, meaning that the finished doll would display perfectly natural proportions. The eerie quality was enhanced by the translucent colour, a pale aqua-blue, through which could be seen the red internal frame which mimicked the approximate shape of and served the function of a skeleton, allowing the Penelope doll to stand unassisted as well as being fully articulated. Riddled throughout the body were a series of darker blue tubes, all linked to a pump in the middle of the chest where the heart should be, either side of which were some kind of balloons or bladders whose purpose she was sure would become apparent.

Unable to resist her curiosity, Penelope took a look between the legs which were slightly parted and saw that the lips were slightly sunken, with no tube currently inside to support them, but laying next to the body was another of the pink silicone tubes like the ones she had seen in the shop along with a thinner one she supposed was for the rear entrance.

“Want to see it in action?” the taxidermist asked and Penelope nodded enthusiastically. Carefully, he manoeuvred the skinless doll into a sitting position and she saw for the first time the clips on the top of the neck and the metal pins where the electronic elements of the two halves would meet. “I charged it up with a spare charger,” he explained, gesturing to a wire on the desk with a plug at one end and something on the other which looked a little like a smooth-topped Lego brick, “but normally you’d charge it through the head.” Penelope nodded, remembering when she had been shown the discrete single-pin charging socket at the base of the skull on the display model.

“What’s that for?” she pointed to something that looked like a twist plug in the middle of the neck, reaching out to give it a little wiggle but finding it very tightly screwed in.

“That’s so the circulation fluid can be changed.” explained the taxidermist. “It has a shelf-life of ten to fifteen years but will need changing out eventually.”

“If he keeps me that long!” Penelope giggled.

“Oh I’m sure you’ll be one of his most treasured possessions for life!” the sweet older man assured her. “And everyone will be clamouring over who gets to inherit you in his will!”

“You really think I’ll last that long?” Penelope asked dreamily, her eyes glazing over slightly and a contented smile on her pretty young face. “Toys do break eventually!”

“If you’re well cared for,” the taxidermist smiled, “which I’m sure you will be, there’s no reason you couldn’t last two hundred years or more!”

“Oh wow!” Penelope grinned again. “So it’s quite possible people might be enjoying me long after everyone’s forgotten who I actually was?”

“I guess so!” the man chuckled and, far from being saddened by the idea, Penelope found it rather exciting! Just like the girls whose meat was sold in anonymous cuts at the butcher’s shop or in supermarkets, she was leaving her personhood completely behind and becoming something else entirely! “Now, see here?” the man guided her hand to the back of the neck where she felt small buttons either side of the artificial spine. “These are the on and off buttons. They’ll be hidden under your skin of course but the user will be able to feel them. The one on the right, your left, is to switch it on. Give it a go!” Penelope pressed the small button and immediately the pump in the middle of the doll’s chest began to beat just like a real heart. Not only that but the bladders either side began to inflate and deflate, giving the impression of breathing. “Go ahead and hold her hand!” the taxidermist invited. Feeling strangely nervous, Penelope did so and found it comfortingly warm and, despite its strange texture, surprisingly lifelike.

“It simulates as close as possible the experience of being with a real girl.” the taxidermist explained proudly. “Pressing the button once turns it on for fifteen minutes, long enough for a bit of fun,” he winked at her, “but pressing it twice leaves it on until it’s switched off so he can cuddle you all night if he wants to!” Penelope found this image incredibly sweet.

“These came out nicely!” she observed, looking at the doll’s small breasts which looked as cute and perky as her own with little nubs on the end that would fit inside her pale pink nipples.

“Oh yes, and they’re touch-sensitive too!” the man grinned. “Just like the real thing!”

“What do you mean?” Penelope asked curiously, turning her body a little towards him.

“May I?” he reached towards her perky, budding little tits.

“Go ahead!” Penelope smiled, straightening up to face him properly and pushing her chest forward, eager to find out what he meant. The man carefully, respectfully fondled the firm little cones for a few moment then rubbed his thumbs over her nipples. It felt so nice that Penelope could not help giving out a soft moan, but it was certainly true that her nipples did get harder and grow a little in response to his gentle touch. She remembered that they had done the same when Uncle Colin had sucked on them before and found herself wishing just for a moment that she could feel that sensation again once last time! Of course she had always known that it felt nice to rub them and when she was cold or excited they had got a whole lot perkier, so much so that her mum sometimes teased her about having someone’s eye out if she wasn’t careful, but she had not immediately understood what the taxidermist had meant when he described the breasts of the doll as being touch-sensitive!

It was testament, she realised, to how relaxed she felt around this man, even being stark naked, and how relaxed she felt about the life-concluding procedure she was about to undergo that they had not already been in their more aroused state. Feeling that he had demonstrated his point and that to continue would be improper, the taxidermist put his hands down and look at the happy girl who smiled back up at him.

“Oh wow!” she grinned. “Can I try it?”

“Please!” the man gestured towards the sitting, headless doll still breathing regularly with a somewhat uncanny simulation of life. “Be my guest!” Penelope reached out and began to gently fondle the translucent blue breasts. They were warm like the hand had been with thin tubes circulating the darker liquid around them. Only up close did she notice the tiny sensors in the nipples which she gently pinched and stroked, feeling them extend and harden.

“Wow! Uncle Colin’s going to love this!” she grinned. “How long do they stay like that?”

“About two minutes if they’re not touched again.” the taxidermist explained. “But they’ll stay like that for as long as the power is on and he keeps playing with them!” Having satisfied her curiosity, Penelope stepped back and the taxidermist pressed the “Off” button on the doll’s neck, causing the pump to fall still, the breathing to cease and the nipples to relax. Carefully, he laid the doll back down on the work bench. “Now!” he smiled, standing behind Penelope with his warm and surprisingly gently hands on her shoulders. “Are you ready to get down to business?”

“Oh yes!” Penelope enthused, “Only…” she hesitated for a moment, crossing her arm across her chest and putting her hand on top of his, looking up at him nervously.

“What is it, miss?” he asked. “Having second thoughts? We can always…”

“Oh no no!” she cut him off urgently. “Please don’t think that! Nothing of the sort! It’s just…” A thought that had popped into her head when thinking about future users of her doll long after Uncle Colin no longer had the need of it was haunting her. The man looked down at her reassuringly and gave a gentle, encouraging nod, urging the sweet young girl to share what was on her mind. “Well it’s just…” she sighed. “I want to do this, it’s going to be awesome and I know I’m going to make a great doll for Uncle Colin but…” she hesitated again. “My meat won’t go to waste, will it? You won’t just drop the bits of me you don’t use in the trash or in an incinerator?”

“Oh no, of course now!” the taxidermist assured her, stroking her behind with both hands before giving it a playful squeeze but there was nothing predatory in the gesture, nor did Penelope feel “groped”, not that she would have minded under the circumstances. Instead his touch felt affectionate, almost grandfatherly. “After all,” he patted her firm, meaty cheeks, “it would be a crime to let this go to waste!” Penelope giggled and looked up at him with a happy smile. “No, nothing wasted, I promise you!” he grinned. “My wife’s going to make us a lovely steak and kidney pie for dinner this evening,” he put his hands comfortingly on her shoulders, “then whip up a couple of trays of individual pork pies, a nice liver pate and a pot of her famous chilli for your parents to take to the party tomorrow!”

“Oh wow!” Penelope felt a warm, euphoric feeling spreading from her chest. “Will you need to take me to the butcher over the road once you’ve taken my skin off?”

“Oh no!” the older man chuckled. “I may not be a professional but I know my way around a carcass! I used to go to a lot of hunts as a younger man and got pretty good at field-dressing girls your age or a bit older. In fact it was that hobby that sparked my interest in human taxidermy, mounting my trophies and suchlike!” The thought gave Penelope a little shudder of excitement. She knew that girl-hunts were a thing where girls, usually teens but sometimes preteens too, volunteered to participate in a deadly game where they would try to hide in some woods to be hunted, sometimes with rifles but sometimes with more traditional weapons like hunting bows or even spears and knives. There would be a time-limit on the hunt, whether it be hours or sometimes even a day or two, depending on the size of the hunting ground, with the hunters camping out in the woods, often taking it in turns to stay up and keep watch lest their prey decided to steal their weapons while they slept or prank them in some other way. Those who survived to the end were paid handsomely and those who were caught were, of course, harvested for their meat with the hunter who bagged them traditionally keeping their head or perhaps just their skull as a trophy and memento of the hunt.

“Well that’s good!” she beamed up at him. “So Uncle Colin will get to enjoy my meat too! That’s wonderful!”

“He will get to enjoy you in every way possible!” the taxidermist smiled with warm affection, stoking his young client’s pretty, golden-blonde hair. “But not if we don’t get started soon!” he chuckled.

“Of course!” Penelope smiled a little sheepishly. “What do we need to do first?”

“Well you, young lady,” he smiled at her, “need to take a nice long, hot bath to loosen your skin. Half an hour should do it! My wife should have the bath ready for you any minute and once you’re in, she’ll be bring you a drink. It’s quite a powerful drug and it won’t make you go to sleep but will put you into a sort of dream state so you can relax. You know you have to be alive when your skin comes off, right?”

“Oh yes!” Penelope nodded earnestly. “You told me all about that! If my heart stopped beating my skin would instantly start to shrink to my body and it would be really hard to get it off in one piece without tearing it and we don’t want that at all!” she assured him with a serious expression.

“Good girl!” the taxidermist nodded. “When it’s nearly time we’ll give you another drug, an injection this time, to put your body into shock and slow your heart so there won’t be too much blood. You might feel a little cold but by then you should really only be partially aware of what’s going on, a bit like a nice dream! There will be things in the water to help you relax too but don’t worry, none of this will effect the quality of your meat or your hide!” Penelope looked relieved. “I’ll strip your body first,” the man continued, “and put that in to soak in the preservation chemicals then I’ll do your head. Once all your skin is off, I will cut the artery in your neck and drain your blood to finish you off. If you are aware of it at all by then, it will just feel like going to sleep. Ah!” the man grinned as his wife appeared in the doorway which Penelope knew from prior experience connected to the bathroom of their house. “Speak of the Devil!”

“I ran the bath hot but it’s not exactly molten lava!” the kindly woman chuckled. “Come on, dear, let’s get you soaking!” With a final smile at the taxidermist and a glance at the small window of in the kiln, inside which she knew Craig must be long dead by now, his body burned to ashes inside the hard bronze shell that had been his skin, Penelope allowed herself to be led through the door into the bathroom where the full, steaming tub was waiting for her. On a small table next to the bath was tablet propped up to provide entertainment, a large glass of cold lemonade which was purely for her to enjoy or if she became thirsty and a second, smaller glass that she knew had to be the drug.

“It’s a very sweet wine,” the lady explained, “with a few drops of a special drug in it that’s made from poppy seeds. It was very popular in Victorian times and it’s banned now for recreational purposes but we’re allowed to use it for work.” she smiled. “Sit yourself down on the edge and drink it before you get in.” she suggested. Penelope did as she was told and looked down into the water which was indeed steaming like a stew pot, an effect accentuated by the petals and leaves which floated on the surface, either as decoration or as part of the promised sedative effect.

“I feel like Alice in Wonderland!” she giggled as she took the slim glass and put it to her lips.

“You look like her too!” the woman chuckled. “If we were asked to create a diorama for a library of museum of some kind, you’ve got exactly the look we’d be searching for!” She stroked Penelope’s hair almost wistfully as the pretty young girl steadily drained the sweet liquor from the glass, tipping her head back to ensure she swallowed every last drop! “Maybe your Uncle Colin will get some different outfits he can dress you up in?”

“Suggest it to my mum!” Penelope grinned, already feeling the pleasant tingling as the drug got to work in her system. “She’s always saying she never knows what to get him for birthdays or Christmas! She can give him dressing-up costumes to put me in!”

“Wonderful idea!” the woman smiled, taking the glass from her and setting it on a shelf away from the small table now that it was no longer needed. “So, what would you like to watch?” Penelope thought for a moment then named an animated sitcom that she felt quite grown up for understanding some of the jokes in. With an indulgent chuckle, the taxidermist’s wife found the show on one of the streaming apps available through the tablet. “Hmm, it says it’s for mature audiences only!” she sighed in a comically over-worried voice. “Still,” she winked, “I won’t tell if you don’t!”

“Cross my heart and hope to die!” Penelope giggled, making the gesture across her chest. Holding the woman’s hand, she stepped into the water which she could feel was very hot but the pleasant, almost cosy numbing sensation of the drug meant that it was not painful or even uncomfortable.

“Now,” the woman sounded a little more serious as Penelope lowered herself into the deep water, sliding down to get her shoulders under the surface, and smiled up at her to show that she was settled and comfortable, “you’ll probably want to play with yourself while you wait but please be very careful if you do! You don’t want to be red and sore for your preservation!” Cheekily, she leaned forward and teased one of the preteen’s perky nipples under the water with the tip of her finger. “Feel free to enjoy these!” she grinned.

“My sister was roasted like a chicken!” Penelope told the woman, a little dreamily. “After Daddy cut her head off in the garden! She was so yummy!”

“Sounds lovely!” the woman chuckled affectionately, standing by the door of the bathroom. “Speaking of which, I need to go start making my pastry! Did you hear I’m making a pie for dinner tonight?”

“Oh yes!” Penelope beamed. “Penelope pie!” she giggled. “And lots of other things for the party too! No waste, right?” She looked up at her earnestly. “You promise?”

“None what so ever!” the woman assured her. “After I’m done with the pies, chilli and pate I’ll put the rest in a soup then I’ll even boil your bones for stock. Once I’ve done that, they’ll go in with our other craft supplies to get used in future projects! Not a single scrap wasted!”

“Good!” Penelope sighed contentedly, closing her eyes. “Thank you!” She heard the door closed and listened to the cartoon for a little bit but her mind kept drifting. Seeing Craig crucified had made her think of the Passion Plays again, not only last year’s when her sister had been eaten but the more recent one in which she had once again played an angel in the gauzy white robe which left very little if anything to the imagination.

Jesus had been played by a boy this time, unlike the year before where all the potential volunteers were more interesting in participating in the promotional events for the new Gladiator movie at MAXX. The boy’s name was Josh and Penelope had been very interested when her Sunday School teacher explained that this was really the closest translation of Jesus’ name in English, the Hebrew form being Yeshua which was the diminutive of Yehoshua, translated elsewhere in the Bible as Joshua. She vaguely remembered that he had got in some sort of trouble the year before and had been sent away from his original assignment helping to oil the teenage roasters and had been told instead to wash the little boy who was going in the stew pot. She had never found out what he had actually done but the rumour going around was that he has said something rude about Miss Pritchard, the sweet Sunday School teacher who had gone in the pot.

If he had made a comment about her flat chest then he certainly got his comeuppance as she and the other girls, not to mention several members of the audience, had not been able to avoid giggling at how small his willy was, even fully erect, and there had been several jokes about how it should be presented on a cocktail stick rather than in a hotdog bun when his body was donated to the homeless shelter! Still, he had not been a bad-looking boy and had a decent figure otherwise.

The pot that year had been quite crowded, with Mrs Lucas, a busty brunette who would have been an amazing spit-roaster ten years earlier, sharing the pot with her twelve year old daughter Rebecca who was a smaller, slightly darker skinned copy of herself, and Rebecca’s best friend Lucy, a pretty, thin, pale-skinned blonde girl, along with a teenage couple, sixteen year old Ryan Martin and his fifteen year old girlfriend Jessica who both had something of a fixation about the stories of missionaries in the eighteenth and nineteenth century who were constantly said to be in danger of ending up in the stew pots of the “savages” they tried to convert and thought that it would be incredibly romantic to boil together, even if going to the butcher would really have been a better use of their meat. Like everyone the year before, the couple had had their heads shaved before climbing in so that their whole bodies could be used in the stew but the others, wanting their heads preserved and proud of their long, thick hair, especially Rebecca and Mrs Lucas, had declined. Instead, once they lost consciousness, their heads had been removed and set aside and their bodies allowed to slip down into the broth to finish cooking. Mr Lucas had got married again only a few weeks later to Lucy’s mother and although it was never confirmed by anyone involved, most people had assumed that volunteering for the pot was his first wife’s way of graciously stepping aside and the girls went with her to give their parents the chance for a complete fresh start.

The table of cuts for the grill had been well-stocked and, possibly inspired by Penelope’s sister Maddison the year before, two headless, cold roasted carcasses had joined the raw cuts, five year old Sophie Morgan in piggy-pose and Laura Mitchell as a turkey. Sophie’s older sisters, fifteen year old Kate and thirteen year old Elizabeth had provided the bulk of the prepared meat just as the Delaney sisters had the year before and the supply was supplemented by the usual selection of donated cuts from the friends and family of other Church members.

The highlight, as always, had been the three spit-roasts, two girls and a boy this time. Connor, the sixteen year old boy in question, had actually attracted a lot of attention and even earned a pair of photos along with his two fellow roasters in the local paper. The first showed the trio stood with their arms around each other, Connor in the middle of course, and the second showed them all on their spits, just as they began to cook. Connor had actually won the Gladiatorial games the previous Summer, earning himself and up to four guests a free meal at MAXX every week for a year. This had made him something of a local celebrity and, while he was proud to have won, he could not help being a little jealous of his vanquished rivals who ended up served to the public and so had decided to volunteer for the Church’s annual community barbecue. Fortunately for his reputation, as well as for the diners, Connor definitely did not suffer from the same issue as Josh and Penelope remembered watching with intrigued fascination as a spiked skewer was forced down the hole in the end of his hard sausage, all the way down its length, before the end was hooked into his belly-button like a piercing!

Cooking alongside him had been Alison Hampshire, a rather voluptuous, busty brunette of fifteen whose tender, meaty melons had needed to be pinned together for cooking, and seventeen year old Amy Logan who was less well-endowed in the breast department but had a wonderfully toned and meaty rump and thighs. Perhaps if she had not made her plans with Uncle Colin, Penelope pondered, she might have been in their place in a couple more years! They certainly did look beautiful as they roasted, nubile young bodies stretched out and turning slowly on their spits, and she knew she would have loved to get the attention they enjoyed, but she did not feel even a moment’s regret about the choice she had made, especially now she knew that her meat was to be enjoyed too!

It was hard to say how long she had been in the bath. Certainly the episode she had been half-watching had finished and she was a decent way into another when the taxidermist’s wife woke her up, but whether it was the next one or the second or third one in line she really had no idea. Everything felt like a dream. Her body felt somehow separate to herself, like it was a heavy coat she was wearing.

Something was being pushed into her neck. A needle, perhaps? She could feel the pressure but there was no pain. A warm feeling flooded her entire body

“Ready?” the kindly woman asked her. Penelope couldn’t quite remember what she was supposed to be ready for but the woman seemed nice and her voice was soothing so she nodded and allowed herself to be helped out of the bath. Supported by the woman who put one arm around her under hers and held her hand with the other, Penelope made her way back into the workshop where the blackened bronze statue of a young man in a cruciform position suspended from a metal frame was stood cooling in front of the kiln. Smiling contentedly, Penelope smiled at the burned metal man and blew him a kiss, remembering that they were friends of a sort.

The doctor’s-style couch next to the work table was now covered with clear plastic with a similar sheet on the floor underneath. Guided and assisted by the taxidermist and his wife, Penelope climbed up onto it and lay back, looking up at the roof tiles which constantly rearranged themselves into all sorts of pretty, abstract patterns.

The woman was rubbing her now with some sort of cream, starting with her foot and working her way up. Almost mechanically, Penelope lifted her legs when guided to do so and held out her arms. She moaned sweetly as the woman’s slick fingers slipped between her smooth, plump lips, the area she had been advised to leave alone in the bath, and even rubbed across the hard little nub between them, causing her to squirm happily.

“I’ve decided I’m going to make some special Chinese-style dumplings of these for your uncle!” the woman informed her cheerfully as she rubbed the cream into her perky little titties, causing her nipples to harden like they had when the taxidermist was demonstrating the doll’s special features. Penelope thought this sounded like a very nice idea. She couldn’t quite remember what dumplings were and only had the vaguest idea what the nice lady was talking about making them from but she remembered Uncle Colin and thought it sounded like something that would make him happy so she was totally on board. The cream on her face felt nice, soothing. Once her front was done, the women helped Penelope roll over onto her tummy so her elegantly curved back and cute little bubble-butt could receive the same treatment. She then helped her to turn around again and to sit up on the gently crinkling plastic.

“Are you ready?” the woman asked her husband. Ready for what? Penelope wondered. For dinner? There had certainly been talk of that earlier but that didn’t feel quite right. She was fairly sure there was something else that had to happen first, something important, something she was supposed to be a part of although she could not remember how or what. It was okay, she thought. The nice lady and gentleman would tell her if they needed her to do anything, she was sure. The man was telling his wife that yes, he was ready. “Lean forward and touch your toes, sweetheart!” the woman told her. Penelope did as she was told, sitting up with her feet shoulder-width apart and leaning forward to grab her toes like she had been taught in PE class, feeling the slight pull of the muscles on the backs of her legs and in her back and shoulders as she did so.

The man came and stood behind her, something shiny in his hand. A silver pen, perhaps? She felt something cold move down her spine as if something who had been playing in the snow was running their icy finger down her back, all the way from between her shoulders to just above the cleft of her backside. This sensation was accompanied by a loosening feeling, a slight sense of relief, like unzipping a coat that was a little too tight.

“Good girl!” the man told her, wiping her back with a damp cloth or wet-wipe and gently pushing the skin on her back out to the sides. There was a slight stinging feeling where the cold line had been drawn but not exactly painful. He was collecting up her hair now, holding it away from her neck, and she felt the same cold sensation but moving slower this time, starting at the back of her neck and moving round. As the taxidermist’s arm came in front of her she saw that the silver device she had thought was a pen was actually a knife with a tiny blade, like the one her dad used for cutting out the pieces of the models he liked to build. On the shelf in front of her was a row of heads from other girls so she guessed he must be cutting her head off but this seemed a strange way to do it. Surely the knife was far too small? It took an axe to take off a head, she was fairly certain, or one of those pretty frames like they use at weddings with the blade that drops down. He was going to be at it all day with that tiny knife, silly man! She could not help but giggle a little at the absurdity.

“Nearly there!” the man assured her with a chuckle in his own voice as the blade completed the circuit of her neck, making its way back to where it started. Once again the man wiped where he had been cutting with the damp cloth. Penelope gave her head an experimental shake but it did not fall off. Maybe the man had realised he was using the wrong tool for the job after all? He put a different cloth, a black one, over her left shoulder and gently laid her hair over it so that it hung down across one side of her chest. The stinging spread a little but quickly turned to a kind of warm pins-and-needles feeling as the man tugged at something on her back. The woman stood in front of her now and held her hands, keeping her bent forward, smiling at her reassuringly and telling her all the time how well she was doing. After a while, the woman reached forward and took told of something over Penelope’s shoulder and began to pull. The man was on her other side.

“You can lay back now.” the taxidermist told Penelope and she did as she was told, wondering why her back felt numb. She could no longer feel the plastic she lay on, only the slight sensation of pressure from her own weight pushing down into the cushioned couch beneath. It was strange, she remembered having a lovely hot bath but had no memory of putting any sort of pyjamas on afterwards, let alone a onesie, but she supposed she must have done as that was what the couple were helping her out of now, a cute, peach-coloured one that was pinkish-red on the inside. Must have been a fancy one as it had built-in gloves too which she saw peeled off the ends of her fingers, the sleeve turning inside out in the process. It must have got stuck between her legs somehow as the nice man was using his silly little knife to release it and Penelope raised her hips as requested to help them pull the tight onesie over her bottom and off her legs.

Her feet looked strange. Too pink somehow and with funny patterns on them. Trying to sit up a little, Penelope saw her whole body was the same. Was she sunburned? Had the bath really been too hot? No, that couldn’t be it! There must be one of those stained glass windows in the room, she decided, like in some churches or castles. The ones that cast strange colourful patterns onto everything and made everything funny colours. She felt very sleepy now. The man was putting the onesie into some sort of tub. Was he soaking it before washing like Mummy did sometimes? She supposed that must be it.

“It’s okay to sleep, dear!” the woman told her kindly, stroking her hair and dabbing her forehead a little with a cool flannel. “We’ll make sure you’re all ready in time for your Uncle’s party!” Oh yes, that was it! She was going to a party! That was why she had been having a bath. She remembered seeing a pretty white dress hanging up somewhere. She would be wearing that soon and looking so lovely for her beloved uncle! She closed her eyes but could not properly fall asleep. There was still that nagging feeling that she had something important to do, something to help prepare for the party. Or was it helping with dinner? The nice lady had definitely said she would be involved with dinner somehow! Something to do with a pie, perhaps? Or dumplings? She had not done a lot of cooking before but would listen to any instructions she was given very carefully and try to be as helpful as she could.

Someone was holding her hair now. The woman, she thought, since the hand supporting the back of her head felt bigger, like the man’s, and she could see his other hand in front of her again, moving around somewhere above her eyes. She thought he had his knife in his hand again but she really couldn’t be sure. He really was very silly if so! Not only was the blade far too small to cut her head off with but he wasn’t even cutting in the right place! To her slight surprise, when he had finished and wiped away whatever that warm stuff was that was trickling down her face, he pulled her hair clean off her head! Had she been wearing a wig her whole life and not known about it? Or did hair just come off like that for everyone? She wished she’d known that sooner as it would have made washing it a whole lot easier! He handed it to the woman who took it away somewhere. She tried to turn her head to watch where she went but the man was holding her quite firmly in place. Not that she minded. Turning her head would take energy and she really didn’t have much of that right now. It was starting to get dark, she realised, but only in the corners of the room, slowly moving inwards. She didn’t think that was how darkness normally behaved but she had to admit she had never really given it much attention before so perhaps she just hadn’t noticed?

“Close your eyes.” the taxidermist instructed gently and she did as she was told. The top of her head felt cold without her hair but otherwise she was not uncomfortable. Once again she felt the cold pressure on her skin, just down the couple of inches left of her neck this time. She felt the man tugging at the area where he had presumably just cut then felt his fingers around her forehead. There was a strange noise like a sort of wet popping and she could feel him fiddling about behind her ears, or was it under them? She really couldn’t tell. A metallic scrapping noise, a little like someone stirring tea in a china mug, resonated inside her head then all sound went strange. The gentle classical music that had been playing in the background went… the only word she could think of was fuzzy, like her ears weren’t able to focus properly. Then suddenly her eyes were open again and the taxidermist was holding something that looked like a rubber mask. Noticing that her eyes were stinging a bit, she tried to blink and found she couldn’t.

Putting the mask down, the nice man said something to her that she couldn’t make out although his tone sounded warm and caring. He took the flannel his wife had used and dipped it in a bowl then rolled it a few times and laid it over her eyes like a blindfold. This felt immediately relaxing and Penelope hoped she may now be able to sleep. The darkness in the edges of the room had been creeping closer and closer but now she was experiencing perfect, peaceful black. The man spoke again, very close to the side of her head. It sounded like he said “Sleep now” but she was not sure. There was a slightly uncomfortable pressure in the side of her neck as if someone was pushing their thumb very hard into it but then it subsided and she could hear a soft trickling sound like a stream. Gradually a bright light appeared in front of her, getting steadily bigger as if she was moving towards it. She began to make out colours… just areas of green and blue at first but then she realised it was a lush green meadow with blue skies above it, the sun illuminating it cheerfully and trees in the distance. She saw the stream that she had been hearing and sat down beside it, slipping her feet in then reaching forward and letting the tiny golden fish swim between her fingers.

“She’s gone.” the taxidermist told his wife quietly with a wistful smile. He loved his work, the art he produced and the way he was able to preserve girls at their most beautiful for the foreseeable future but for projects like this there was always the tiny hint of sadness that went along with a girl’s final moments.

“I’ll go get the kitchen ready!” she smiled and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’ll make you a coffee too!” He smiled his thanks then removed the wet flannel from over Penelope’s lifeless eyes which had rolled back in her head so that only small crescents of the electric blue irises were visible. Seeing that the blood flowing into the bucket on the floor had slowed to a residual drip, he pulled the tube out of her neck and put it aside. Knowing from experience that the next stage was much easier in the kitchen, he lifted the flayed carcass that had been Penelope off the couch and folded it into a large tub where it curled naturally into a foetal position. Lifting it by the handles, he carried the tub into the kitchen where his wife had the granite worktop cleared and a chopping board ready for him along with the necessary tools.

Carefully, since it was now quite slippery, he lifted the carcass out of the tub and laid it flat on the counter. He then lifted the head and slid the chopping board underneath before making one decisive chop with the heavy cleaver, a tool Penelope would no doubt have considered far more appropriate for the job than his tiny scalpel, severing the head. Tipping it upside down, he used a small but very sharp kitchen knife to cut the tongue free from the surrounding muscle and pull it out.

“Want me to take that?” his wife asked, holding out a small plate for him to put it on.

“Would you?” he smiled, dropping it onto the offered plate then turning his attention back to the head as his wife disappeared into the workshop with the removed tongue. With a small electric saw, he removed the top of the skull and lifted out both hemispheres of the brain. Once the he was empty, he cut through the optic nerves then used his thumbs to push Penelope’s pretty blue eyes out from behind. As much as he was able, with the same small knife, he cut away any usable meat from the skull then put what was left in the pot on the stove which his wife had already brought to the boil, knowing that he needed the skull to be clean before he could progress with the next stage.

Over the next few minutes, he methodically stripped Penelope’s carcass of her meat, sorting the remains into three piles, one of pure meat, another of the bones which still inevitably had scraps of meat clinging to them and a final one for the offal.

With the amateur butchering complete, he went back to the workshop to return his attention to his professional task, pausing in the doorway as he had an idea and quickly returning to the kitchen to collect Penelope’s little pink heart from the offal pile. This had not been part of the original contract but he was keen to try out the technique and she had been such a sweet, helpful and willing subject he did not mind at all giving her a little freebie!

In the workshop, he checked the skins in the curing solution and was pleased to see that they seemed ready for the next stage. Going to the large drawer where they were kept, he selected the two halves of the drying mannequin which he judged to be roughly the right size – a humanoid head and torso shape made from widely-spaced wire frame, then fitted them onto the mount in the drying chamber, feeding the arm and leg hoses through the relevant holes. To avoid damaging the hair, the scalp had to be treated slightly differently but his wife had taken care of that and Penelope’s beautiful golden locks now sat like a wig on a polystyrene dummy head waiting to be fitted back onto the finished doll.
Treating the now toughened but still slightly delicate hide with care, the taxidermist pulled the skin which had covered Penelope’s body from the neck down out of the solution are carefully mounted it on the drying mannequin like the onesie she had taken it to be in her laudanum-induced stupor. Next he took her pretty face and wrapped it around the head of the mannequin, gently clipping it in place. The eyebrows and lashes had been destroyed by the curing process of course but that was expected, the replacements would be threaded in like the hair of a conventional doll. Stepping back, he switched on the dryer and the hide somewhat comically inflated, reminding him as it always did of the moment in the chocolate factory movie where the girl addicted to chewing gum starts to turn into a blueberry! Ten minutes of this and the skin would be as durable as thick leather but with the pliability of much thinner rubber.

While he waited, the taxidermist cleared away the plastic sheets and took the bucket of congealing blood out into the garden and slopped it over the vegetable patch so that it could nourish the soil before rinsing the bucket out with the outside tap. By the time he came back inside and had washed his hands, ready to start work, the drying cycle was complete. He removed the hide from the mannequin and gave it an appraising shake, finding that it was cured to perfection while retaining its perfectly lifelike colour and softness. The process of mounting the skin, while painstaking, was relatively simple in theory and, as he made his way over to his work station, he turned the skin inside out, pushing a finger into each of the toes to make sure they were loose and empty of debris. For ease of access, he moved the doll body onto the couch where Penelope had lain to be flayed and carefully pushed each silicon toe into the respective skin pocket.

Taking his time and making sure there were no air-pockets or wrinkles as he went, the taxidermist gently eased the skin up the doll’s legs. Once it was over the hips, he paused and used the cold-bonding method which was similar to soldering in practice but without the resulting ridges and caused both elements to fuse together in a way that nothing short of taking a knife to it could separate to fix the vaginal and anal openings to the relevant parts of the doll.

The top half was a little trickier as getting the arms in meant stretching the hide to the limit of its tolerance but he had done enough of these in his time that he knew all the tricks and was able to slide the skin on and up over the shoulders before gently easing each finger into its sleeve. Wanting to perform a quick test, he switched the doll on and checked that the touch-sensitive nipples had settled into the correct place within the skin. The left had but the right was ever so slightly misaligned so he gently massaged the skin around the areola until the rather satisfying moment when the hard nub popped into place.

Next, he rolled the doll onto its front and took tugged the two halves of the skin as close to each other as he could. Next he took clips to hold the seam together while he used the cold-bonding took to seal them together, taking care this time to only bond the two halves to each other and not to the doll inside. Once he was finished and the clips removed, there was only a very thin scar, no more than a millimetre wide and only slightly paler than the rest of the skin. Feeling justifiably proud of his work, he sat the doll up and sealed the skin of the neck to the neck of the doll then finally slipped the sheaths inside the vagina and anus, noting with satisfaction how this plumped Penelope’s cute pubic mound and vulva back out in a way that was sure to seem inviting to her uncle.

“Great work as always!” his wife smiled, standing in the doorway of the workshop. “Dinner will be about half an hour.” Realising this gave him enough time to finish the body of the doll, the taxidermist took the set of nails that Penelope had chosen and, with a small drop of the cold-bonding solution on the back of each which would fix them even more securely than a real finger or toe nail, he carefully pressed each one into place. When everything was finished, he switched the doll on once more and watched the very natural breathing and felt the warmth of the soft, preserved skin, both of which were made eerier by the lack of head. Satisfied that he had done his job well, he switched the doll off and left it sitting up on the couch.

Fitting the nails had only taken just over fifteen minutes so he still had time to work on the extra little side project! Humming cheerfully to himself as he often did when he worked, he took Penelope’s heart and trimmed off the valves and fat deposits, giving it a smoother, more appealing shape that he hoped would not look too like a potato when finished! Next he threaded a long needle and pushed it through the small but powerful muscle, happy to see that the holes closed up behind it, resulting in a length of cotton running from top to bottom.

Next he took a tub from one of the cupboards marked with hazard symbols and put on gloves and a simple mask before opening it. The substance inside was dark green and viscous, the base form of the more recently developed compound to allow Polkanisation to sterling silver rather than the more common bronze. The resulting creation would not be as durable, for sure, but this piece was not intended to ever be left outside or exposed to the elements. Carefully, holding the ends of the cotton, he lowered the heart into the tub until it was completely submerged then lifted it out and allowed the excess liquid to drip off. He could see the bonding beginning to take effect immediately and, holding both ends of the cotton in one hand now, he used a hair-dryer to make it harden a little, but no so much that it would not resume its correct shape when the cotton burned away with should be almost immediately.

Satisfied that the coating was even, he went to the smaller, table-top kiln he used for Polkanised heads or hands when the much larger one that could accommodate a whole body was not necessary. Checking among the assorted stands available, he selected one that looked a little like an egg cup and set the heart in it, in the middle of the kiln.

The Crucifix had cooled and was ready for cleaning but that could wait until the next day. Penelope was his priority for that evening but first he wanted his dinner, having been looking forward to it ever since his wife had made the suggestion, his anticipation made all the sweeter by knowing how keen Penelope had been on the idea too! He washed his hands and took off his work apron then, checking that the door of the shop onto the street was locked, the sign flipped and the window lights off, he went through to the adjoining house and into the dining room where his wife was waiting for him, looking every bit as proud of her own work as he was of his, with a large, delicious-looking pie taking centre stage among the bowls of mashed potato, vegetables and gravy.

“This is a real treat!” the taxidermist exclaimed as he tucked into the delicious, steaming slice of pie on his plate while his wife looked on lovingly, enjoying watching how he appreciated his meal as much as she was enjoying her own. The lumps of slow-cooked Penelope meat were so tender they practically melted in the mouth and the gravy made from her head meat and some other offal was rich and delicious.

“I’ll be working on the party food this evening,” she smiled as she cut him a second, generous slice and lifted it onto his plate, “while you’re finishing the doll. Sweet little thing, she was!” she remarked happily as she looked thoughtfully at a piece of girl-steak on her fork, “She was so happy to hear about all the tasty treats I was going to make with the bits you didn’t need!”

After dinner, the taxidermist helped to clear the table then retrieved Penelope’s blanched skull from where it sat drying on the kitchen counter.

“Now be off with you!” his wife shooed him playfully out of the kitchen. “You’ve got work to do and so have I!” Chuckling, the taxidermist took the skull into the workshop and set it down on one of his work-tables.

Checking the small kiln, he saw that the process was complete and carefully took the heart out on its stand to cool. Like the white powder that turned to bronze, the green liquid coating hat turned black but even a gentle rub with his gloved thumb revealed the gleaming silver underneath. From what he could tell, it had worked perfectly and by the time he had finished working on the head, this bonus piece would have cooled enough for him to clean and complete his idea.

Now that the skull was completely clean, the first task was drilling the holes. To make things easier for himself, he separated the jaw and set it to one side along with the bowl-like scalp he had removed to empty it out. Carefully, with the drill on a low speed, he made the centimetre-wide holes in each cheek for the motors which would allow for different facial expressions – neutral, smiling, and “surprised” which everyone knew was really for giving oral sex. Once the holes were made, he used his precision power-sanding tool to smooth them out. The other hole was a little narrower and he made it on the back of the skull just below the hair-line ready for the charging port. He then fitted the refillable reservoir just above the eyes which would keep the eyes and mouth moistened and the main power bank for the electronics. Carefully, he slotted the two small motors into place and fed the charging port into the hole he had cut for it and welded the connections together inside.

Next he fetched the mask-like face from the drying mannequin and the wig on its stand. Onto the inside of both of these he fitted the mesh of wires which would heat up when the doll was in use to create realistic warmth in the same way as the body’s circulatory system. This really was a throwback to earlier methods used for converting girls to love-dolls before the technology had allowed for lifelike breathing and circulation. Back in those days, the skin had simply been mounted on a solid silicone body with tight holes in the right places and a battery pack recessed either between the shoulders or in the small of the back to provide this artificial warmth and things had certainly moved on since then but he still believed this method worked very well for heads which were, after all, one of his best-sellers. Unlike the full love-doll he was making of Penelope which required dedicating a whole girl to the project, heads could be bought cheaply from butcher’s shops and slaughterhouses who cut of hundreds each day but to whom they were essentially waste products. This meant that he could get away with charging essentially just for his time and materials, making them a very affordable purchase for most people and a popular gift “for the man who has everything.” They always sold especially well around Christmas and Valentine’s Day!

After feeding the delicate wires into the eyelids which would give the Penelope doll the ability to blink on a random cycle, he painstakingly fitted the artificial eyelashes then threaded new eyebrows using strands of the beautiful young girl’s own hair. After wiring the jaw back onto the main part of the skull, he fitted the thin metal strips around the mouth that would create the articulation and attached them to the motors. It was finally time for his favourite part of the process, the part which really made him feel like an artist! There was a skill involved in mounting a hide onto a dummy body, of course there was, and he had seen some shocking examples in his time of the job done badly but it always felt a little too easy for him, like most of the work was done for him and he was just assembling a kit rather than actually creating a work of art. Creating the heads this more traditional way gave him the creative outlet and satisfaction he so craved.

Once again, the taxidermist hummed happily to himself as he hand-sculpted first the inside of the mouth and the gums around her cute pearly-white teeth with the dark pink polymer which would dry slightly spongy to make for pleasant usage and then, working from photos of Penelope taken when she was alive and a computer-rendered 3D image of the typical musculature in a face of her shape, he used clear silicone to give body and shape to the skull and stub of neck, ready to take the flash mask.

It was perfectly possible, he knew, to have a head mount printed fully articulated with all the electronics already in place, just like the doll body, but that struck him as inauthentic somehow. By using the girl’s own skull as the base for the head, he felt that more of the actual girl was preserved. It was possible also to make a whole doll by the same method with which he made the heads, using the girl’s skeleton as the base, but this took far longer, was a lot more complicated and resulted in a product that was prohibitively more expensive making it impractical, with the finished result not being any better objectively or functionally and in fact having more limitations as, while breathing could be achieved, the artificial circulatory system could not, requiring it to rely for warmth on the more old-fashioned method of mesh beneath the skin.

By the same token, he knew, the quality of 3D printing available now meant that a doll functionally identical too and almost impossible to tell apart from the doll he was turning Penelope into could be produced entirely artificially, using only scans of the girl, as well as the internal mould if she wanted or a generic ribbed sheath if not, without causing her any harm at all. There were other business he was aware of that did indeed offer such services, with parents having replicas made of their daughters or girls asking for duplicates for their parents or siblings before going to the butcher or being cooked some other way, or simply to give as gifts. There was even one family a friend in the trade had told him about who had become regular customers, bringing their two daughters who were now seventeen and fifteen in every two years from the age of four onwards so that their potential future spouses could get to experience them at a variety of different ages! It would have been perfectly possible for Penelope’s Uncle to be presented with an incredibly lifelike replica of his beloved niece to play out all his sexual fantasies with while she got on with her life for however much longer that might have been, which he did not suspect would have been incredibly long given how happy the prospect of people enjoying her meat seemed to have made her, still she could have chosen to let her body grow and mature for two or three more years. But he knew that that was not what she, or the other girls who came to him for the same procedure, wanted! She did not want to give her Uncle a toy that just looked like her, she wanted to give herself to him entirely!

While the silicone set, he hollowed out the preserved tongue and fitted the long, finger-width motor inside it then carefully fitted it into the head, soldering the electronics in place and cold-bonding the preserved muscle to the silicone insides of the mouth. Once the glass eyes were installed, he fitted the base to the neck which would allow the body to charge via the head and also gave access to refill the reservoir which he tested and found to be satisfactory, making the inside of the mouth realistically wet.

Finally, it was time to fit the face. This process took a lot longer and was a lot more involved than the body as so many more specific points had to be connected and electronics soldered and fused along the way. It took nearly an hour to get Penelope’s face back on her skull but once he was finished, the taxidermist felt immensely proud, using the pressure pads behind the ears to test the different expressions she was capable of, finding them pleasingly lifelike. If it were not for the fact that she was just a head sat on his work-bench with the top of her skull missing, he could almost have believed Penelope was alive again!

The skin at the top of the “mask” had been fused to the rim of the skull and metal connection points left exposed so that the warmth could travel up into the mesh inside the wig. The taxidermist then took the top piece of the skull and fitted it inside the wig. The two pieces of bone would not be fused to each other but very securely pegged so that there was no chance of the scalp falling off and a tool would definitely be required to prize the top piece away but access for maintenance of the electronics would still be possible if it was necessary.

Very carefully, the taxidermist put the bewigged scalp in position, lining up the alternating pegs and holes that he had fitted in both parts, then pushed down very firmly, feeling it snap decisively into place. If her fringe was pulled all the way back, a slight seam would be visible at the very top of Penelope’s forehead but with her hair in its natural, loose position, it was totally invisible.

“Well then, young lady,” the taxidermist chuckled to himself, lifting his creation off the bench, “some would tell you to quite while you’re a head!” He must have accidentally put a little pressure on the control behind the ear as he lifted her as Penelope’s pretty face broke into a happy smile at this joke, giving him a warm feeling inside and making him chuckle all the more, “but there’s some body over here who is desperate to connect with you!”

“You and your dad-jokes!” his wife chuckled affectionately, having quietly come in to watch him work without him noticing. “The second tray of pies are in the oven and the chilli’s simmering away nicely!”

“They’re in for a real treat at that party!” he grinned. “Come over here and meet Robo-Penelope!” Indulgently amused by her husband’s enthusiasm for his work, she went over to the couch and watched as he carefully fitted the angled pegs sticking up from the neck into the grooves in the bottom of the head which was looking slightly to the left then twisted the head to face forwards, locking it into place. With loving attention, he distributed her beautiful hair over her shoulders then switched the doll on. Automatically, the Penelope doll smiled again as the pump in her chest began to circulate the warming artificial blood and she gently began to breathe in and out. Feeling justifiably proud of himself, the taxidermist stepped back to admire his work and his wife put her arm around his waist.

“Well!” she exclaimed, “These things will never be quite like a real girl, that’s rather the point of them after all!” she chuckled. “But I have to say, that’s damn close! I suppose I should get her ready to meet her owner now?”

“Good idea!” he agreed, kissing the top of her grey-haired head. “I have one last little surprise to work on!”

“Come on Goldilocks!” the woman chuckled, lifting the seated Penelope doll and sitting her on her hip, supported by one hand on her back and the other on her lovely bare bottom. “Let’s get you dressed! Big day for you tomorrow!”

After watching his wife leave with his latest creating, smiling lovingly at the pair of them as they went, the taxidermist sat down and used a rag to clean the black residue off the metallised heart then another to polish it to a gleaming shine. Next, he took out the same engraving tools he had used to make the plaque on the doll’s box and studied the heart carefully for a few moments to decide which side was the front and which the back. Having decided, he stamped the shop’s logo onto the back then, on the wider, smoother space on the front carefully engraved the words in beautiful, italic lettering: “Totally and Completely Yours, Forever” Very pleased with how it came out, he went into the living room to show his wife.

The box that Penelope had been shown earlier was still on the coffee table but now it was occupied by the angelic doll wearing the lacy, translucent white dress, the choker around her neck to conceal the join and the garland of flowers around her head like a crown. Laying with her head on the pillow and her golden hair splayed out around it, she looked like something straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. She was switched off now, no longer breathing, but still with a slight smile on her lips, laying in quiet and tranquil stillness.

Her hands were on top of each other just below her chest and, carefully, the taxidermist turned and cupped them so that she could hold the engraved, silver heart. It really was the perfect final touch he had hoped for. With his business head back on, he checked the drawer at her feet and made sure that the instruction manual, charging cables, remote control, care kit and spare vaginal and anal sheaths were all in there. Satisfied, he carefully placed the glass-fronted lid on the box and clipped it securely shut then he and his wife kissed each other, turned off the light and went up to bed. It had been a long but very fulfilling day, both professionally and emotionally, and they wanted to be up bright and early to be ready for the collection in the morning.

EPILOGUE

“Where can we put these?” Penelope’s mum asked as her brother opened the door to his house where the party was already underway, if an occasion where adults who don’t know each other very well stand around making awkward small-talk with drinks in their hand can properly be called a party. She was staggering under the weight of a stack of Tupperware boxes while her husband followed close behind carrying a large, vat-like saucepan covered over with tin-foil. “The chilli will need heating up but the rest is good cold!” She leaned forward and they exchanged kisses on the cheek.

“Wow! What’s all this?” he asked, trying not to look disappointed that they did not seem to have their promised gift with them.

“Don’t you recognise your niece!” his sister chuckled. “She wanted to help out with the party!”

“Oh right!” Colin replied, a little puzzled still. “Um, put everything in the kitchen!” He gestured, inviting them inside.

“Don’t worry!” his brother in law spoke softly as he passed him, winking cheekily. “We’ve got her in the back of the car!”

Once the food had been deposited in the kitchen and introductions made, Penelope’s parents accepted a drink each then slipped out to the car to retrieve their very special gift. The weight of the doll combined with the sturdy wooden and glass box was not inconsiderable so they carried the wrapped gift between them. A hush fell among the guests as they brought it in and set it on the coffee table.

Struggling to contain his excitement, Colin tore away the paper. At first, what he saw beneath the glass, dressed in the beautiful fairy-like costume and clutching the silver object to her chest, looked so lifelike he felt sure he must be being pranked and as soon as I opened the box his cheeky niece would jump up and yell “Surprise!” but very quickly he realised that she was not breathing. Carefully, he unclipped the lid and lifted it off and took the doll in his arms before reading the words engraved on the heart she held: “Totally and Completely Yours, Forever”

>>28258 Damn! I know one toy that's going on my Christmas list!

>>28256
mesmerizing story as always Ed!

>>28275
hey Blake! how you doing?

Alright then, Penelope done! Had to finish Emily's story too first. What can I say though. There were definitely a lot of little hot moments to highlight, but trying to remember them in a story that long... well, in the Emily story it was definitely hot to see a variety of statues at the start of the story with a little back story to each of the kids they were made of. In the Penelope story one thing that comes to mind is how she enjoys the idea that she will be used as an object even after nobody remembers her as a person. Overall, all the casual remarks the characters make that set the, well, casual and positive attitude. The whole church theme though... on one hand I did enjoy the casual way kids are crucified for performances and whatnot, on the other I'm not exactly comfortable mixing Abrahamic religions with porn or guro.

>>28623
Glad you found some parts to enjoy in those stories, I hope that you would as they are a little bit different fron my normal cannibalism-focussed stories :)

I totally get where you're coming from with the religious angle but my intention was not to disrespect anyone's faith but rather to show that cannibalism and snuff entertainment had become so mainstream that even the Churches were getting in on it as a normal part of community life :)

Hope you're well and, as always, thanks for the comments :D

>>27830
@Falquian Is it possible to read this story? Very much would like to read this tale. Is it possible to include middle aged women as well? A giant mature clit with long butterfly wing Labia sounds so tantalizing. Thanks