Ming

Chapter 5

"You bastard! You prick!"

They were sequestered in one of the innumerable rooms in this vast building, well out of earshot of the throng still lingering over dessert and after dinner liqueurs. Lyle was comfortably ensconced in the soft leather embrace of an upholstered chair. Ming was pacing the oriental carpeting and ranting, her face livid with fury, her body and still shaky from the effects of the spasms that had hurled the contents of her stomach to the floor of the dining hall.

"You tricked me! You drugged me and tricked me, goddammit!"

"Drugged you? Yes. Absolutely. We often do that for newbies, to keep them from going off the deep end. But tricked you? Rubbish. You knew there was a deep, dark secret — as you put it — and you came here anyway. Even signed that phony confession so I'd let you come, a confession that will stand as legally valid in a court of law, should it come to that. You signed it, you came and now you know the secret. And since you are now an accomplice to what the Law calls a Class A felony, you may as well stop calling me names and let me show you the bright side. "

"The bright side! Jesus Christ! What you're doing here goes way beyond criminal . It's an abomination!"

"Nonsense." His voice was as relaxed as his demeanor. "Cannibalism has been around for thousands of years. Right now it happens to be illegal here. So what? Sex outside of marriage is a capital offense in some places. Does that make sex evil if it's not State certified? Of course not. Sex is sex regardless of religious and legal restrictions. Likewise, meat is meat regardless of what species it comes from."

"Cannibalism is not just a religious restriction. It's an abomination everywhere on earth!"

"You're wrong. Hundreds of people belong to this organization world wide. There would be hundreds of thousands if we could publicize it. You yourself, before you knew what you were eating, were delighted with the flavor. Admit it, if you have the courage. Girl meat is delicious. Furthermore, every aspect of the process — from obtaining it to preparing it to serving and eating it — is immensely erotic and satisfying."

"Jesus! This isn't just cannibalism. It's murder!"

"Don't be silly. Not one girl has been eaten here who did not participate voluntarily. Did you think that Sherri, the girl whose flesh we consumed tonight, didn't know we'd be doing so? Hell, she planned the whole menu, including how she would be cooked and presented."

"I don't believe that for one minute! She was probably tricked the way I was. Tricked and drugged!"

"Pure nonsense. Sherri has been a Permanent Guest here for quite some time. She knew exactly what we do and had participated enthusiastically."

"She knew she was going to be eaten today? And came willingly? You expect me to believe that?"

"She didn't know this would be her day to be on the menu until she got here, but she knew there was always the possibility. She found it exciting. They all do."

"All?"

"Every one of the women here. They all participate in a kind of lottery when they arrive, to decide which of them will have the honor of being the featured course of the day."

Ming gaped at him. "All the women here do that? They volunteer to be cooked?"

"No. They voluntarily take the risk. For the thrill of it. Today, for example, their chance of winning the honor was only one in twelve. Excellent odds. A small risk, but still enough to make your heart pound! Talk to Jade. She'll explain it to you."

"Jade?! She was in on this trick of yours! Why should I trust anything she says?"

"Don't put any special onus on Jade. Many of the women here were eager to take her role. You're a lovely new addition to the group, after all."

"I'm not in the group!"

"Oh yes you are. But I decided on Jade because you and she seemed to bond well, right at the start."

"She betrayed me!"

"On the contrary. She helped initiate you into our group. You're now one of us and . . ."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are, and despite your current state of anger, you'll come to realize two things. That you have no choice. And that you wouldn't have it any other way."

"What do you mean no choice ?" She glared at him, seething, afraid she already knew the answer.

"Right now you're upset and angry with me because whatever you thought the 'secret' of Millennium might be, this wasn't it. But the fact remains that you love me. You love me enough that you wrote out and signed a statement saying you knew all about the Millennium Group activities and took part willingly. You did that prove to me that your love for me goes far beyond the perishable love of ordinary people, that you love me so completely you're willing to put your life in my hands. I accepted that proof of your devotion and brought you here because I love you with an equal passion and knew that the proceedings here would bind us together forever. If you continue to honor me with such unconditional love, I no longer need nor want any other woman in my life but you."

O God! Words she had waited so long to hear! The promise of fidelity for which she had swept away all her trepidations about the letter, about coming to this place. He had just offered her all that she had hoped for. The red hot anger that had boiled away her resolve to win her handsome doctor began to cool. A voice roared at her from the part of her mind that had longed for this moment. You've won! Don't blow it! screamed the voice. Still, it was not able stop one last attempt to vindicate her fading ire.

"But cannibalism is wrong."

Lyle rose gracefully from the chair, wrapped his arms around the still frowning Ming and drew her tightly against him. "Your reaction to the consumption of human flesh is understandable since you've been brainwashed from infancy to think it's wrong. But that's mere nonsense. Eating human flesh is as ancient a human practice as fishing and was part of every prehistoric culture. Christianity even uses the concept in the Eucharist: we become one with God by consuming the body and blood of Christ. Deep in your soul you know that the human body is simply meat and bones, like any other animal, and the most intimate thing we can do with that body is to bequeath it to our friends to share in a joyous feast. Your feelings of anger are only temporary, my sweet darling. In your heart and soul you still love me and want our partnership to grow closer and deeper. If it were not so, you wouldn't have bothered to hang around and scold me, now that the secret has been revealed."

He kissed the back of her neck. She made no physical response, but neither did she try to push him away.

"You sure don't make it easy to keep on loving you," she said. "And you're wrong that I wouldn't have it any other way. If we could back up and start over, I'd never sign that goddamn paper."

He nuzzled her hair and kissed her ear.

"Sure you would. Because you want us to be together forever, exclusively together, and that paper would still be a necessary step. Coming here would still be the next necessary step. Our love would still have to go through this little trial by fire before our union could be complete and permanent." He paused to kiss both her eyes. "The final step is for you to agree to continue coming here as my loving, permanent guest. At that point we will be, to my mind, more than married. Our souls will be inseparable. We can follow it up with a legally binding wedding if it pleases you to do so; but what happened here today and what will happen during all our future visits here will be the sine qua non, the marriage rites that count."

Sine qua non . Without which, nothing. He was predicating his promise of eternal love on her acceptance of the Millennium Group.

He continued to place delicate kisses all over her neck and face as he let made her fateful decision.

"Is that supposed to be a proposal?" she finally whispered.

"You may think of it that way. But in actuality, our love is taking us on a journey in which marriage is implicit and inescapable. We're already two thirds of the way there. All you have to do is stay the course. Asking you to marry me is as superfluous as asking an infant to suckle. But if you need the traditional ritual to feel well and truly engaged, then yes! I'm asking you to marry me. Will you marry me, my sweet Ming?"

She buried her face in his shirt and began to weep. After a few minutes, she sighed, pulled herself together and asked in a voice that already signaled surrender, "We'll have to keep coming here?"

"Yes, my love. If you're willing to do that for me, for our marriage, I'm more than willing to be your lover exclusively, forever. That's the deal."

"And if I'm not?"

It was Lyle's turn to sigh. "Are you happy with what we've had so far? Boyfriend and girlfriend. Weekends at the club. No strings. No commitment. No future?"

"No."

"Tell you what." He kissed her firmly on the mouth, running his tongue over her lips, feeling her breath shudder. "We'll spend the night here in the luxury suite they've reserved for us. That'll give you time to think about it. Talk with some of the other women here. Get their take on what it's like to be a PG. Maybe it will help you decide whether you really want to be Mrs. Lyle Bach."

He turned her, took her arm and led her out of the room and down the hall away from the festive sounds emanating from the Dining Hall. They ascended the marble staircase to the second floor, traveled another plushly carpeted hallway and stopped in front of a teakwood door bearing a brass plate with the number 113 engraved on it. Lyle drew a plastic card from his pocket and slid it into a slot under the door handle. A lock tripped with a soft click and he opened the door revealing the most sumptuous bedroom suite Ming had ever seen. Flocked wallpaper in subtle blues and greens, natural wood furnishings that included a sit-down vanity with huge three-way articulated mirrors, upholstered chairs and sofas, a partner's desk and a gargantuan flat-screen TV mounted on the wall opposite a four-poster king-size bed beneath a ceiling mirror of the same size. As Ming entered the room, nearly tripping in the depth of the carpet, she could see that similar luxury had been lavished on the bathroom. She spotted the gleam of gold in the fixtures through the open door and twin shower heads on the far wall of the tiled room.

"I'll leave you to change your clothes," Lyle told her. "Come on down to the Great Room when you're ready." He gave her a gentle kiss, lingering until he felt her begin to react. He put his left hand over her right breast, put his right hand in the small of her back and pulled her in tightly against him. Almost immediately she was chewing on his lips and pressing her pubis against his leg, moving her hips slightly. He knew he had her. He broke it off with a light kiss to her throat, smiled at her in that way that promised rapturous lovemaking to come, and let himself out of the room.

Twenty minutes later when she had taken a shower to rid herself of the last traces of vomit and was making the final adjustments to a sexy new dress. It was a dark yellow sleeveless model with green trim around the arm holes and all other edges. The bottom hem was just above the ankle but wide cut-outs up each side turned bottom half of the dress into front and back panels, exposing the entire sides of both legs up to the curve of the hip. A standup collar was pinned at the throat with a horizontal wooden dowel and another cutout in the form of an oval dropped down to midway between the breasts to reveal a modest but tantalizing cleavage. Contiguous oval cutouts down both sides made it clear she was wearing nothing underneath.

The hot shower and fitting her lithe form into the stunning dress had helped divert Ming's attention from her residual anger. A part of her still argued that this was all wrong, that killing and eating humans was the worst kind of evil. But another part of her loomed larger every minute. That was the part that Lyle had aroused with his promise of lifelong singular devotion to her, if only she would go with him to the Millennium Group's triannual banquets because, after all, hundreds of members of the Millennium Group did, and such feasts had once been a perfectly normal part of human society, and the women they cooked were all volunteers, happy to share their bodies as meat. Which part of her was right? Or did it matter? Was aversion to cannibalism simply a cultural taboo based on nothing more than squeamishness? Was adhering to that taboo worth losing Lyle? Since she had already eaten human flesh, was there any point in pretending she was innocent?

As she stared semi-focused at the dresser mirror there was a light knock at the door behind her. It opened just wide enough to admit Jade's head, reflected in the mirror.

"May I come in?"

Ming's sense of anger rekindled at the sound of her voice.

"You're half in now. Why bother to ask?"

It was a childish bit of rudeness but Ming had no intention of sparing this woman the venom she had failed to inflict on Lyle. But if Jade was fazed by the acerbic invitation, it didn't register on her face or in her body language. She entered the room and plopped herself in the most comfortable chair as blithely as if she had never collaborated in the terrible deception.

"You feeling better, sweetie?" she asked, sugary as you please.

"I'm feeling betrayed!" Ming snapped back. "By you and by Lyle!"

Jade laughed. A short, bright little chirp. "Oh hon, we all felt that way at first. Well, most of us. Some of the girls here knew what to expect before they got here."

"And they came anyway?" Ming was astonished.

"Sure. It's exciting as hell! Getting into the lottery and waiting to see if your number will come up. Shit, there's no other rush like it! Better than sky diving. Better than sex!"

Ming didn't know what lottery she was referring to and found herself curiously reluctant to probe. Instead she barked, "And it doesn't bother you that you're eating people ? Human beings?"

"Fuck, no. It's just another kind of meat, and pretty damn tasty. And don't give me any shit about how you didn't like it, too. I heard you pronounce it 'wonderful' and 'amazing' when Candy gave you that sample. I saw you digging into it at dinner. You loved it! Till you threw it up, of course. Yuk!"

Ming tried to hold on to her outrage, but the memory of vomiting in front of the entire room swept it away in a wave of shame. She felt her face grow hot.

"Oh don't worry about it, sweetie," Jade soothed. "The staff had it cleaned up in seconds. They kind of expect that reaction from newbies and they're ready for it."

"Others have thrown up?"

"Of course."

"You?"

"No, but I've seen a lot more shit in this world than most. Besides, my first time here they didn't have the carcass right up there in front of us on a bed of veggies. She'd been carved up into steaks and stuff. It was only when I saw her tits on a platter that I figured out what the mystery meat was. By then I was too loaded to care."

"Why on earth did you come back after you found out?"

"Like I told you, hon, Taylor was my ticket out of the life . Whoring ain't exactly how I wanted to spend the rest of my days. I mean, I was doing okay, making a pile of money; but it was running through my fingers like water. Clothes, booze, drugs, parties, classy cars, fancy San Fran pad, you name it. And I gotta tell you, playing hide the salami with an endless stream of jerkoffs could act like you're dog meat gets to be a real drag. Taylor was phenomenally rich, extremely generous, a real gentleman, not bad looking and willing to set me up for life. All I had to do was agree to come with him three times a year to this fantastic estate. Big risks, big thrills, all kinds of fun, terrific dinners and a huge payoff. A no-brainer."

Ming's embarrassment at the memory of the vomiting episode had leached away most of her anger. She sat down and studied the relaxed young woman who obviously had no qualms about having teamed up with Lyle to turn her into a cannibal.

"Doesn't it disturb you at all that you're eating other human beings?"

"Trouble with you is you're still caught up in the propaganda you've been fed since you were born. Human meat is no different from any other kind of meat, except it tastes better than most."

"But you're killing people! That's murder."

"Not at all. A woman has to die to give up her meat, that's true, but she's not murdered. Every woman at the Millennium Group is here by choice. Taking part in the lottery goes with the territory. Actually it's an incredible rush! There's always the chance, however small, that you'll be the one on the table."

"What the hell are you talking about? What is this lottery ?"

"That's how we chose our meat, sweetie. By lottery."

"Explain that, please."

"All us Permanent Guests arrive here sometime before eleven a.m. on the day of the banquet, or maybe the night before. We all enter a lottery at eleven o'clock sharp that determines who's going to be the main course. Whoever wins it is escorted to the kitchen and converted to meat."

"You all do this?"

"That's right. All of us. No exceptions."

"The men, too?"

"No, hon. Men's meat is terrible. Too tough and stringy. They cook only girl meat. That's us."

"That's horrible!"

"It's exciting! I've been coming here two years now — tonight was my sixth banquet — and every time is more of an adrenalin rush than the time before. And the sex afterward is through the roof! I'm all wet now in anticipation."

"You actually look forward to coming here when any at any visit you could wind up slaughtered and eaten?"

"Ming, you think you know what you're talking about, but you don't. Until you've spent time with the knowledge that you're only meat on the hoof and that at any time you could be called upon to be converted into a roast or a boiled dinner for your friends, you can't begin to understand the thrill of it."

"My God, Jade! It may not be murder when someone voluntarily enters a lottery to be killed and eaten, but it sure is a kind of suicide!"

"So what? There are young men and women voluntarily blowing themselves up all over the middle east just to spread fear by killing other people at random. The people who talk them into it call them martyrs. The bomb carriers no doubt think of themselves as martyrs during those last panicky minutes of their lives. Why is it so bad that we Millennium women choose to risk being turned into meat? We're not killing other folks. If we do win the lottery, we're feeding our friends with a beautiful, highly personal gift of our own sweet flesh, cooked to perfection and served elegantly."

"Jesus!" Ming was dumbfounded.

What had she gotten herself into? On the one hand, it was a relief to learn that the girl she had helped to eat was not an innocent victim the Millennium Group had snatched off the streets and murdered. She had willingly gambled her own life away. On the other hand . . . .

"Did I hear you right, Jade? Do all the women here, the Permanent Guests, do they all have to take part in this lottery?"

"Absolutely. If you wanna dance, you have to pay the piper."

"Sounds like a good reason not to come."

"Millennium women are required to attend at least two banquets a year. Doesn't have to be here. There are other facilities. But this one's the best. Best grounds, best chef."

"And what if they don't?"

Jade smiled. An oddly sad smile. "They do."

"But what if they don't?"

"Ming, sweetie, you don't need to bother your head with that. You're gonna love it here! There's lots to do, the accommodations are marvelous," she gestured at the room to prove her point, "you'll come to love the meals and you'll even be amazed at how addictive the high is when it comes to the lottery. It's scary, it's exhilarating, it's way beyond exciting!"

"My God, Jade! You're telling me that if I start coming here, I'll not only have to be part of a lottery which, if I win, means I'll be slaughtered and eaten, but I'll have to keep coming back two or three times a year and doing it all over again!"

Jade stood up and walked over to Ming's chair. She sat on the right arm of the chair and took both Ming's hands into hers. They were cold as ice.

"Ming, honey. You'll be coming back because you love Lyle and he wants you to come back. He's promised to be yours alone if you do that for him, and he means it."

"Mine alone until my luck runs out and I'm eaten, you mean! I won't do it!"

"Sweetie, you've already done it."

"What?"

"You've already been here. You have to come back."

"No! I don't have to come back.! I won't! Why should I?"

"You're not that naïve, Ming. The Millennium Group has a lot to lose if there are loose canons rolling around out there."

"Loose canons? What do you mean?"

"You can't really believe they'd simply let you wander off unchallenged with what you've seen and heard."

"How would they stop me?" A cold dread began to grip her heart. "You said they don't murder people here. You're all volunteers. You don't mind being eaten. Well I do mind! And I'm not volunteering."

"When you and Lyle arrived, were you met by a brutish looking man who parked your car?"

"Yes."

"Well, hon, his name is Lenny, and parking cars is only one of his duties. His real value to the Millennium Group is retrieving rebellious young women who might prove to be a security problem."

"Retrieving them?" The dread was turning into alarm!

"Bringing them back. Or, if that's not practical, creating accidents for them that solves the problem. Permanently."

"And when he brings them back?"

"The solution is just as permanent, but less wasteful."

"You said the meat here all comes from volunteers!"

"I said all the girl meat for the banquets comes from volunteers. Retrieved security risks end up as frozen cuts shipped all over the world."

Ming's heart was pounding. "I don't believe you. This is another one of your tricks. What you're saying is I'm trapped! That they'll never let me out of coming back over and over until I lose the lottery. Lyle wouldn't have brought me here if it were a trap. He was always saying if I came back, if I decided to be his permanent guest here. If, if, if! 'If' means I have a choice!"

"In other words, Lyle loves you. You do believe he truly loves you, don't you?"

"Yes!"

"Because he does. With all his heart. And he absolutely intends to do what he's told you, to be faithful to you as his one and only love partner. To marry you, even. If you come back."

Ming started to jerk her hands free of Jade's grip, but Jade held on.

"Listen, Ming! Let's forget Lenny for the moment. He don't matter. Just think about your life with Lyle. Do you really want to go back to what you had? Sharing his dick with a hundred other babes? Going to the Club so he could swap your body for still more fresh cunt? Stringing you along until he finally finds a hot little snatch so eager to become Mrs. Dr. Bach that she agrees to be his Millennium Girl? Then he dumps you. Is that what you want?"

Caught between two horrors, Ming couldn't answer.

"You wanted him bad enough to go way out on a limb and come here, not knowing what you were getting into. That was love coupled with courage. Now is not the time to turn chickenshit. Now is the time to put real Living into your life."

"Short as it may be, you mean," Ming interjected bitterly.

"I'll tell you this, sweetheart. I would never go back to life without Millennium. Life as a rich girl with plenty to spend and no worries is like a decorated egg: pretty on the outside, hollow on the inside. Easily crushed. These trips to the Millennium estate make life a Farrari racing along a mountain road! Sure it can fly off the edge, but godfuckingdamn! What a ride! See what I mean, hon?"

"What I see is that you're telling me I have no choice, so I better rationalize a way to get used to it."

"I'm telling you you're a lucky girl. There are scads of others who'd be more than happy to toss their name in the lottery to earn a lifetime in Lyle's bed."

"A possibly very short lifetime."

"Or a very long one. Look at me! I've breezed through five lotteries and I'm already revved up for the next one. I know Millennium Girls who've been coming to banquets for nearly ten years and still going strong. Shit, Ming! You could be hit by a truck and killed on the way home. Or blown to bits by some asshole terrorist. Or raped and murdered while walking home from work. No one gets out of this world alive. We're all gonna be dead in a while no matter how safe and boring we play it. So don't be a drag. You've got the good doctor wrapped around your finger. Have fun with that! He's yours!"

"He's mine? Or am I his? His little trapped animal. Killed and quick-frozen if I try to escape, slaughtered and cooked in style at a future banquet if I stay."

"Look hon, it's time to be practical. You can't go backwards, so concentrate on the pleasures ahead. Eat, drink, be merry and play the game. The stakes are high, sure, but the odds are in your favor and the rewards are tremendous. Come on! Let's drop the long faces and go down and mix with the other ladies. Find out what living on the edge does for the party animals in us!"

On the edge, indeed! thought Ming as Jade led her briskly out of the suite toward the noise of the Great Room, already filled with well fed, well oiled revelers. These women have lots to celebrate. By surviving today's lottery they've won three more months of life before they have to come here again. Only next time she'd be among them. One more Millennium Girl from whom Lady Luck would chose dinner.