Darren lay motionless with his cheek flat against the cold porcelain plate. The anger and hate had drained from his body, the fear and terror had ebbed away and left nothing but emptiness in its wake. He lay defeated as the young woman who would soon consume him laughed and conversed with her fellow dinner guests.
The conversations were mundane and flaky, and their voices were poised perfectly, rehearsed nearly to an art. His eyes caught only the occasional glimpse of her manicured hands as they reached close to him to pick another edible off her plate to shove down her slimy esophagus.
In tears he thought of Tapp, drowning in a dank humid living prison cell. Afraid, confused and abandoned, wrapped in darkness like a blanket with nothing but the silent embrace of death to look forward to.
Her clever sharp eyes, her demanding witty voice, her insatiable thirst for knowledge and drive for becoming more than she was fated to be; it was all going to be silenced. The cranky little diva was to be snuffed out without compassion. It broke him completely, and having no strength to express himself Darren withdrew from the situation and let his fingers release their grip on the knife. It fell to the porcelain surface with a barely audible ‘thunk’ and Darren surrendered to the ravenous hunger of his executioner.
The waiting was the worst of it, feeling of Keeran’s fingers brush past him, the quake of the entire plate as she took something from it, the sounds of the guests eating, chewing and conversing. Feeling the hair-raising sensation of something close to your skin only to have it brush past and choose something else entirely. Darren wasn’t sure if it was because he looked undesirable as a meal, or because Keeran herself on some subconscious level enjoyed the thrill of making him wait. The absolute power she exerted over him with the simple process of random selection was a sensation he had never before experienced. Was there a process to this? Was she selecting what she was going to eat one bit at a time, was she finishing one thing first before moving on to the next? Careful not to let a single thing touch lest her perfect system be thrown off?! Or was he simply part of some complex obsessive compulsive eating ritual the university scholar did at every meal? No different than a plate of roast beef potatoes and corn.
Darren always finished one item before moving on to the next. It almost made him laugh to think that he was now a part of another being’s meal time ritual. He suddenly thought about every meal he had ever sat down to, be it a rack of ribs, a bowl of Mac and Cheese, corn bread and mashed potatoes, or his personal favorite deep dish Pizza with anchovy’s, green peppers and olives. He was no better, no greater, no more privileged now than anything he had consumed in the past. He was a simple card carrying member of the food chain, only his place on it was no longer at the top, it wasn’t even somewhere relatively safe in the middle.
In some sick defeatist way, it actually made sense. She was big and he was small, no amount of moral rightness was going to save him. It was a simple signed sealed delivered case of the natural order of things. He was prey to a larger, stronger, fitter animal. But somehow knowing that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. It still felt wrong, criminal. He was intelligent, he had purpose, he had accomplished things. He loved and was loved by others! He was being eaten by a being he could compromise and reason with. It felt like a perversion of the very fabric of reality.
“I’m sorry; I just don’t see how you can make that connection.” The somewhat familiar voice of Hedyn spoke up over the roar of the dinner conversation. Darren’s own thoughts continued to run in circles until it was more productive of him to pass his final moments alive listening to the idle prattle of predators.
A female laugh was heard, it was deeper and obnoxious, with a sort of high air to it. “You really like the ignorant little things don’t you?” The woman sounded highly amused. Darren’s eyes drifted and his neck changed angles to hunt for the source of the voice. Though blurry he could make out a blond haired woman about 10 years or so older than Keeran. She had a lot more makeup on than Keeran, with red thick painted lips, an olive complexion and a medium build. She was far from fat, but she wasn’t slender and young like Keeran was.
The woman sat composed, with her chin resting on her hands, she held her head up on her elbow and faced the man Darren could hear but not see, but knew to be Hedyn.
“I’m not particularly fond of them, but I don’t think they’re food. They are a sentient species for Emperor’s sake.” Hedyn said sounding unsure; most of what he said was washy and built on egg shells and sand.
“What does sentience matter? They are unable to survive on their own, their entire existence hinges on protection from the Space Exploration Corps, protection that costs billions of credits per year, protection that has been the cause of countless borderline skirmishes between the Empire and the Hive. How many lives have been lost protecting that one small inconsequential blue rock in the Sol System?” The woman spoke as if cornering a wounded deer.
“That doesn’t mean we can eat them. Listen you may be right, it may be expensive and not make a whole lot of sense but none of that means we can just murder thinking, living, breathing sentient beings.” Hedyn spoke like a school boy who was standing in front of the principal.
Keeran scoffed impatiently and reached for a piece of flat bread beside her plate She tore a piece off and dipped the flat bread into a red bubbling dip and then wrapped it around the glowing Dunnermaac egg. It was warm to the touch and glowed brighter than it had before.
“So, am I supposed to swallow this too?” Keeran asked using her free hand to prevent the dripping sauce from spilling onto the table. Unlike Hedyn she spoke with such practice it was clear she knew how to handle herself around the sort of people she found herself with presently.
“Dunnermac roe should be chewed to release the flavors.” The blond woman smiled politely and demonstrated the proper form by dipping her bread and then scooping an egg up and popping the whole thing in her mouth.
Keeran watched with fascination and did as the blond woman demonstrated. Quickly after chewing Keeran made a sour face and forced the rest of her mouthful down, quickly drinking from her glass and shaking her head in disgust.
“Oh its fowl, it was moving when I bit down…it taste awful!” Keeran spattered.
“Surprised that baby Dunnermac also don’t like to be eaten?” Heyden protested quietly. His plate had hardly been touched, the three humans he had been given were still lying in place between the other oddities he didn’t have the stomach for. After what he’d seen tonight, food was the last thing on his mind.
“Oh will you quit whimpering.” Keeran sighed. “If you want to stage a hunger strike do so quietly. I am trying to learn as much as I can and YOU are not helping.” Keeran poised herself and took another drink.
“It really is a shame to let those go to waste though.” The blond woman leaned into Hedyn and eyed the humans on his plate with hungry eyes.
“They’ll be killed afterwards anyhow.” Lert Prenn spoke up next, he was likely sitting somewhere in ear shot of the conversation but outside of Darren’s field of vision.
“They were given to me, and I intend to keep them.” Hedyn spoke lowly and softly, avoiding eye contact.
“Go ahead and take them home boy, that venom will eventually kill them anyhow. Even if you do get them veterinary care, they will take months to heal and may never recover fully.” Lert Prenn spoke, he was calm and sympathetic.
Hedyn looked to the three humans on his plate with absolute remorse. An olive skinned girl with wavy long black hair, a white male with short red hair and a tubby build, and a male with brown skin and shirt black hair. They were all facing down, lying in an arranged position. They looked indignant, cold, and still.
“So, they’re dead?” Hedyn asked sadly.
“No, they’re alive. The venom only paralyzes them, but it is a paralysis that can only last so long, their organs begin to shut down and most of them never fully wake up. The HOS has rescued humans from insectoid’s before. There is a very slim recovery rate even with extensive care.” Lert went on, he too almost sounded remorseful.
“That’s such a terrible thing to do.” Hedyn spoke, aghast.
“It’s because they soak them for so long, to really get the stiff as a board look but maintain the warm blood flow they have to make sure to really soak them until the brink. They have it down to an art.” The blond woman spoke casually. “If done right, they can’t move. Breathing is automatic and if left on their own will die within 48 hours.” The blond finished her sentence and popped a bread wrapped egg in her mouth.
“It’s just wrong.” Hedyn frowned.
A few in ear shot broke into stuffy laughter.
“Your friends a little hero Keeran, it’s rather adorable.” The blond haired woman spoke up with a boisterous laugh as she fingered one of the two remaining humans on her plate bewitchingly.
“He’s just pouty is all, never mind what he says. He isn’t keeping anything. We don’t want to be rude…do we Hedyn?” Keeran seethed with mock poise.
Hedyn ignored Keeran as he watched the blond haired slender woman take a female dark skinned human by the ankle and drag her through a black sticky sauce, an amused look on her face. At last he spoke still watching the blond woman. “I don’t see why I have to eat them here…I can take them home if I like…they were gifted to me were they not?” Hedyn asked stubbornly.
The attractive woman’s tongue slid out from between thick moist red lips and bathed the prone little human in a wash of sticky warm saliva. She took a long slow breath, savoring what was to come with greedy anticipation. “You should take extra care to savor the salty flavor and the exotic spice of the sauce; it really is an experience everyone should try at least once.”
“No thank you.” Hedyn said looking down at his own plate now.r39;
“You really ought to try it!” The blond woman spoke provocatively. Without another word she rested the human on her slick wet tongue and slurped the prone, still, wide eyed human up like a limp strain of pasta. There was a lip smacking puckering sound as the blond licked each and every one of her fingers before corralling a stray dribble of sauce from the corner of her mouth and suckling it slowly. “Absolutely delicious!” She spoke with a full mouth before swallowing the little human down effortlessly.
“You’re just sick.” Hedyn protested, though with every bit of viciousness as a lame puppy.
Everyone around Hedyn burst into laughter at his squeamish uneasy behavior, Keeran included. After a bit of laughing and head shaking the blond woman took the remaining human on her plate, a dark skinned male with short hair and a thin scrawny build, and held him before her mouth.
“Come on now, just like this, boy.” She spoke like a school marm shoving Hedyn’s shoulder to encourage him.
“They’re just animal’s son, nothing to be ashamed of. Like a squark, or a roast quar.” Darren heard another man speak up from somewhere in the distance.
“No thank you.” Hedyn mumbled once more, watery but at least sticking to his convictions.
“Well you’d better eat something; I won’t have you offending our host!” Keeran hissed and pushed Hedyn’s plate close to him, her eyes nervously watched the Overseer, who was across the room seemingly conversing with one of his servants near the back doors.
The Overseer ‘spoke’ a few silent ‘words’, his servants reacted immediately. A few left the room while others went about doing as they were apparently ‘asked’ but neither of them seemed concerned with what was happening with the guests.
“Fine.” Hedyn took hold of a small foul smelling violet truffle and made a point of showing it around before popping it into his mouth and crossing his arms.
There was a dull roar of conversation as things seemed to move off the lad, until the familiar blond woman spoke up once again. “It’s just meat boy, like anything else. Meat is meat.” She nodded as she popped the dark skinned man into her mouth and swallowed quickly. “It’s all the same on the other end!” The blond woman said with a hearty belly laugh.
Darren’s hand tightened around the hilt of his knife once again, his teeth grinned in his bonded mouth. His eyes stung with a new form of tears now, bitter tears of anger and hate. Meat? They thought he was meat, like ham or chicken or beef, just another cut of meat? For some reason, hearing it come from the mouths of his oppressors made him swell with anger once again.
He thought of Eyrn, how long he had spent with her, how close he had become to her. Until he had met these monsters, until he had experienced this torture tonight, the thought of what they were doing was so alien it didn’t even occur to him as a possibility. For as long as he had been with Eyrn, cared for Eyrn, lived under her protection, and eventually become an object legally owned BY her, he had never once looked upon her as a predator and him as prey. Because in all her years, the very last thing any of them were to HER was meat! They were her friends, her family, and her whole world! Not food!
Darren was not food, Tapp was not food, and they were NOT meat!
Keeran watched with interest as the Overseer made a quiet and discrete exit; it seemed odd given how interested the being was with the state of his guest’s just moments earlier. Unsure, but put off Keeran sighed and turned with annoyance to Hedyn and the few he was speaking to.
Spotting the Overseer leave in such an undefined and abrupt way caused a few of the key faces in the crowed to make a dignified and cordial exit as well, it happened in such a subtle and organized manner that the rest of the guests didn’t seem to notice or care. A man with glasses and a nice looking suit came up behind Lert Prenn and whispered something in the man’s ear which caused Lert to stand with a nod and a smile and follow the gentlemen out of the room.
“Enough! Just keep your thoughts to yourself and let the rest of us be ok?” Keeran spoke harshly as she reached down and took hold of Darren by his ankles, dragging him and swishing him around in the black oily sauce on her plate that had been arranged next to the three humans in a decorative fashion.
Darren clutched onto the knife and hid it behind his palm and wrist as he was lifted from the plate. His face and body was saturated in the thick, oily black sauce. His eyes burned from the sting of it. He was helpless to resist as he was dragged face first through the black muck, and then flipped onto his back and swiveled through it one more time, just to make sure he was coated with as much of the fowl smelling crap as could be. Finally he felt vertigo as his body was hoisted without effort off the porcelain plate by his ankles, pinched between the titan’s two fingers. It was painful and humiliating, and it was only the beginning.
All of this was terrifying, but not nearly as much as the sight that he lay witness to next. It likely happened fast, as fast as one took to toss a handful of popcorn into their mouth, or shovel in a spoonful of soup. But to Darren, it took forever, an agonizingly long and torturous ordeal that spared him no view, smell, or sensation.
His body hung limp as Keeran brought him to her slightly parted lips and let her tongue out just a little to meet with him. His face and neck landed on the tip of her tongue and sunk into the soft wet flesh. Like a snake the strong muscle worked its way under his shoulders and down his chest, coating him in an extra layer of wet and sticky saliva to go with the oily sauce.
Darren could feel her sharp teeth scrape against his back as she pulled her tongue into her mouth back where it has come from. He felt her finger on his feet as she pushed him the rest of the way in. The dim light that gave him an unpleasant view of the back of her throat, her uvula and the course surface of her tongue dimmed and then left all together as she closed her lips to ready him for his journey into her stomach.
Darren tried to push himself up, his baser instincts refusing to lay down and watch as he was swallowed whole, but the strong muscle beneath him arose to press him against the ridged roof of her mouth, preparing him to be swallowed. His ears popped form the change in pressure as the oxygen was pulled from her mouth and forced down her throat. Panic began to overtake Darren as he started to doubt his ability to resist her at all, or the effectiveness his weapon would have had he even a brief moment of reprise to use it.
He felt the roof of her mouth press against his back, slimy sounds of moving liquid, squelching wet muscle on skin and the faint clack of her teeth pressing together met with absolute silence as all the extra room and space was pushed out. Her tongue firmly pressed him against the roof of her mouth once more and he began to slide easily against the smooth tongue like a water slide down the back of her throat to the tight embrace of her esophagus.
The strong tight muscle contracted quickly, and then relaxed enough for him to slide down, and then the process repeated itself all over again as he moved further and further down her throat. The muffled sounds of the outside world grew more and more faint as he towards his destination, putting more and more flesh, bone and skin between him and freedom.
The swallowing process generally takes only six seconds, from the time the food is swallowed to the time it lands in the stomach, but those six seconds fell like six hours. During that agonizing length of time Darren’s whole life flashed before his eyes, birth to abduction and to where he was now. Every accomplishment he had ever made, his first steps, his first two-wheeler, his first car, the first time he kissed a girl, his first real job. His first post upon enlisting in the armed forced, his first promotion, the day he meet the 114 foot Giantess of Area 51, and the first time he knew true helplessness, the day he became somebody else’s meal.
***
Keeran took a moment to savor the taste of the small human in her mouth, it was a very unique blend of smooth saltiness, and rich warm spices from the sauce. There was very little flavor to pick out otherwise, and almost felt similar to having one’s finger laying on your tongue. His skin was smooth but a little rough, and once the sauce and saltiness had washed away it tasted rather bland and unremarkable.
There was the smallest hint of movement, a twitch, a muscle spasm. Keeran’s eyes narrowed slightly, she could only imagine what it must have felt like, looked like to be where the unfortunate human now lay. She thought of Dr. Freeman, how he would feel on her tongue, she could hear his silly protests and demanding little voice as he begged to be let go. Where would his little bitch girlfriend be then?
She was glad he hadn’t answered her questions, made her work easy. Thanks to him she was making connections and forging alliances that would change her life forever. She was experiencing sensations few titans ever could; her life would never be the same.
As she maneuvered the doomed little human to the back of her throat, she felt no trepidation like she had before with the first, there was no mane of long silky hair to gag on like with the second. His body was limp, smooth and slid effortlessly down into her throat like a round peg through a round hole.
It really did get easier with time and practice, and it really did feel amazing.
Amazing that is, until a Keeran Lefan felt a sharp stinging pain in the pit of her throat, enough to cause her to lurch forward, grabbing hold of the table with both hands and looking onward in a panic.
***
Darren flicked his wrist, and using what little movement he had, he stuck his knife into the wall of Keeran’s Esophagus. He kicked his legs out against the strong contracting muscle, pressed his back against the other side and braced his other arm against the wall for support. His descent slowed as the strong muscle threatened to snap his legs and arms and crush him into a little ball. With all his strength and with every bit of anger and rage he had built up through this whole ordeal, Darren slashed and hacked and tore at the skin around him with his knife, dragging the razor sharp blade down the esophagus wall as he was pushed down.
Slippery thick red blood began to flow from the growing wound, making his descent all the faster. The quantity of blood soon became far more substantial than the cut he was inflicting would seem to produce. This likely due to the artery his knife passed directly through as he flailed and hacked and struggled madly for his very survival.
***
At first Keeran tried to cough; it almost felt like she was choking early on, she couldn’t breathe as if something was stuck in her throat. The choking sensation soon made way to pain, a sharp agonizing pain that caused Keeran to grab hold of the arms of her chair and wither in total anguish.
She motioned with distress as she felt her throat begin to fill up, her horse coughing became a sickly gurgling whimper, and she began to cough up copious amounts of blood that splattered on the plates and dishes of the stunned guests around her.
“Kee? Are you alright?”
“I think she’s choking!”
“Dear heavens somebody help the poor girl!”
“Shaka…is that blood?”
“Somebody call an ambulance!”
“Turn her on her side so she doesn’t choke…gorram there’s so much blood!”
“I don’t think she’s breathing!”
“Kee….Kee Kee wake up…Kee please….”
“Emperor’s mercy…she’s not breathing! Somebody help her she’s not breathing!”
(“Sometime during the whole mess, chaos broke out, Peacekeepers came, voices shouted, there was screaming, crying, and so much blood. Sometime during the whole thing I saw faces, got moved about. There was yelling, accusation, but to me it was all a blur.” Darren gave pause; his voice was a faint memory of its former self. Eyes void of anything but sorrow and remorse, black pools of emptiness staring off into the far off distance. He felt his consciousness leave his body, and he could almost see himself sitting in Pryvani’s lap, tiny, pathetic, insignificant and terrified.
“It’s always been from a distance, you understand. I’ve never had to actually look into the person’s eyes. Never had to watch the life drain out of them, see the tears streaking down their face…watch them grasp at…” Darren choked down his sorrow as it threatened to burst forth, and composed himself. “I’ve never had to watch them grasp at their throat for air…and I’ve never had to see the terrified, confused and helpless look in their eyes as they breathed their last.” Darren quivered terribly, steadily declining into tears, as silently as he could. “She was just a girl. God…I should have just went quietly…she was just a girl.” Darren looked up to Pryvani, desperately, searching perhaps for forgiveness, acceptance, and validation. Her eyes glassed over and she quickly looked to the side, for once Pryvani Tarsus had no idea what to say)