“So, did you tell your wife?” Cassandra spits out, shaking her breasts; she cannot hold it in anymore. Tanguy, who does not look his fifty years as he sits across the table of restaurant Deux Jambes—the most in in South Paris 5—does not flinch; he grins to his curvy lover, gulps down a glass of Montrachet, cleans his mouth and then whispers, “Oh, yes, of course…it’s all taken care of, honey.”
“How did she take it, the old whore?” Cassandra insists, triumphant, already tasting on the root of her tongue the salty aroma of that prey, so crunchy, so juicy. After a five years wait, she can finally bite into it. His wife is pissing off now.
“Let’s think about the two of us tonight, we have to celebrate,” Tanguy dryly replies, asking the waiter another bottle of wine. Last time’s Chardonnay, please.
“I only hope she doesn’t suck your marrow out, before letting go… I well know the likes of her… Moneygrubbers…they know their game,” Cassandra presses on, trying to make the man slip some extra info; he looks calmer than usual, an expression carved on his face that she has never seen. It reminds her of the impassive, patient masks with eyes ajar of the Ivory Coast Senufo people.
Strange, she thinks, if he really told his wife, that should’ve been bad for him, knowing the bitch…she knows how to show her claws, when she needs to. Is he feeding me more bullshit? But maybe not putting out worked, men are all the same…you just have to cut off supplies and they do whatever the hell you want. You want me to spread my legs again? Okay, so dump that old whore. Simple.
“It’s all taken care of, don’t worry, and I’m not dead, am I?” Tanguy cuts short, reaching out his left hand to the woman. “Didn’t you notice?”
Cassandra looks, seems not to understand, then she realizes. “Oh, you took off the ring…how sweet of you. The mark’s still there, though,” she underlines in her usual bittersweet, spicy tone.
“Give it a little time. So, are we eating, or does the Inquisition require further evidence?” Tanguy heartily laughs, squeezes Cassandra’s hand, and raises a finger to the maître, who rushes in with quick little steps, like a pigeon, trying to make his three rolls of paunch bounce as little as possible inside the wide white shirt.
“Does the gentleman wish to order?”
Tanguy dabs his temples with his precious, blue handkerchief, silk manufactured in the city-state of Yŏju, United East Asia territory, the only guys still able to breed animal silkworms without reverting to semi-cloning. Nobody can forget the invasion of giant maggots in southern former Japan: five years ago, those beasts binged on human brains; hypertrophic, extremely gluttonous creatures, extinct now thanks to carpet bombing by the army, sweeping everything away for hundreds of kilometers with no discretion: beasts, larvae, men, and larvae of men. Tanguy is not feeling hot at all, and is not sweating, but such tissues are only affordable by men endowed with true-magnate bank accounts, and they need to be shown off at any possible occasion.
“I’ve already planned a special menu with the chef, for tonight: can you tell him we’re ready to begin?” Tanguy absent-mindedly orders, blowing out the words as though he didn’t want to make a big deal of it.
“Certainly, sir, I will inform him immediately,” the maître chirps, tiptoeing away from the table just in time, after a long pause, to resume breathing while pushing out his stomach—which gets back to its natural jutting position with a blop.
“Special menu? So you are serious!” Cassandra exclaims, shaking her breasts with more enthusiasm than usual. She well knows that Tanguy can forget about the stuff she’s sporting, with the old cow—flesh so fresh and firm. His wife is twenty years older than she is, and by now she is covered in cellulite gems like a Madonna in a procession.
Chef Dorian Moreau shows up at their table, a pirate bandanna on his head and a glittering meat cleaver in his hand. Everybody adores him in South Paris 5; he is a real trend-setter, showing the way toward the Mecca of human meat. He is so popular that some people even dream about becoming one of his dishes of the day, or a Thursday delicacy; anything to become part—in flesh and bone, well-cooked, sliced, or chopped—of his famous sensorial tastings, simulacra of New French post radical-chic.
“Dorian, how wonderful to see you again…here she is, she is Cassandra,” Tanguy greets him, springing to his feet like a jackal bitten by a half-kilo flea.
The Chef just slightly bends his head toward the woman, letting few words out of his narrow teeth. “Madame… Welcome to my little heaven… I will be honored.”
Cassandra looks at the two men, astonished: Tanguy has never treated her like this, like a real lady…such distinction! she thinks, showing a grin worth at least fifty teeth, her incisors stained with lipstick. She takes back her composure and beams as she answers, “The honor is all mine. I’m really looking forward to taste your famous dishes, even those…”
“I perfectly understand, Madame… Well, may we start?” Dorian Moreau whispers, turning his gaze to Tanguy who, incapable of holding his excitement back anymore, keeps squeezing his hands between his thin legs, like a child waiting to unwrap a present.
“Of course, Chef, we can’t wait.”
Signal received, Dorian Moreau takes a deep breath, raises the cleaver, and strikes it into Cassandra’s skull, splitting that remarkable red hair in two. The woman, open skull and brain en plein air, keeps smiling as though nothing has happened, looks around stupefied, grabs the stem glass of Chardonnay, raises it in a toast toward Moreau, then her head suddenly collapses backward against the seatback.
The waiter leaps onto the scene and drags Cassandra’s deflated body toward the kitchen, pulling it by her calves. Moreau’s cleaver is still stuck in the woman’s skull, bouncing on the steps, up and down, leading to the subterranean reign of the Chef.
Moreau gracefully bends, picks up one of Cassandra’s shoes, now without an owner, and offers it to Tanguy while assuring, “The course will be ready shortly. Excellent choice, the Madame, firm as they come: congratulations.”
The Chef snaps his fingers, making two brawny youths appear to clean up and fix the customer’s table. “Quick!”
Before vanishing into the kitchen, Moreau addresses the other customers, who have followed the scene with absent smiles and little applauses—the performance was, of course, on tonight’s menu. “Later, ladies and gentlemen, a special ice-cream taste of the Madame for everybody, on the house.” He takes his leave with a bow. The other customers resume chewing and voicing their wonder, some with fried fingers in their dish, others—already at the dessert—drooling around a tray where a big, tender, lusty profiterole of vanilla-filled tits sinks, glazed in chocolate and covered in meringues, purple cubes of testicles and candied fingertips.
Tanguy impatiently rubs his hands, while quiet is back in the room.
Julie—Tanguy’s wife, small eyes and apish body, splendidly rich—has just sat at the table and removed her fur coat as a line of waiters, followed by a radiant Moreau, approaches the couple with a dilitium-plated magnetic trolley carrying yet another wonder of the Deux Jambes.
The Chef lifts the silver lid hiding the treasure, and proudly announces, “Buttocks à la Moreau, stuffed with ragout of ground nipples in pink sauce, with New Scotland asparagus and tongue seared in Nouvelle Charent cognac on chestnut purée. Bon appétit!”
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