17

The Gein Configuration

Armin softly stroked the side of Bernd’s dead face. The skin felt cold beneath his fingers. He was overcome by a wave of tenderness toward Bernd; this was his soul mate and he wanted to memorize his features. Especially since Bernd’s face would no longer be recognizable once it had been skinned.

“Bernd, it’s time for your loving, cannibalistic funeral celebration, my friend,” he said. “Your body won’t have to waste away in the ground or be burned to a cinder. I know you didn’t want that.”

Armin pulled Bernd’s body slightly toward him on the butcher’s bench. He felt big and strong as he stood over the body. This was an awesome demonstration of power for him. Soon he would satisfy his sexual desire to eat a man, or long pig, as it had been referred to throughout its culinary history. Armin hoped the flesh on the well-exercised body would be tender. A certain amount of fat was desirable as marbling to add a juicy, flavorful quality, and it looked like Bernd had just about enough fat on him.

Armin rubbed his hand along the corpse’s thighs as he talked to his dead friend. “I can’t wait to sink my teeth into these taut thighs and your plump, ready-to-eat rump. Soon I’ll be able to butcher and eat your horny flesh.” He looked at his watch. It wouldn’t be an easy job to break down the human body from the full figure into serviceable choice cuts of meat. He had better get started. It was time for Bernd to be hoisted.

Armin suspended the corpse upside down from a meat hook to gut it and clean it.

He hauled the feet up first, with the head down so that the body could bleed dry, like a pig. This was called the Gein configuration, and he had learned it from the cannibal sites online. He tied simple loops of rope around the hands and placed the arms out of the way so that he could access the torso easily. And now let’s start the bleeding. Armin placed a large open vessel beneath Bernd’s head, gripped his long kitchen knife and plunged it in about an inch at one corner of the jaw. It was amazing to feel the blade sink into the flesh. He looked proudly at his first incision. Then he made a deep ear-to-ear cut through the neck and larynx to the opposite side, elongating the earlier, fatal cut to Bernd’s throat. He knew this would sever the internal and external major arteries, which carried blood from the heart to the head, face and brain. He stepped back from the cadaver as Bernd’s blood poured out. After the initial rush, the stream died down and Armin directed the blood into a container. He watched as the red fluid poured out. Then he massaged the corpse’s extremities down toward the trunk and pumped the stomach to drain out the rest of the blood. He knew from his reading that a mature long pig like Bernd should normally contain about six liters of blood. Still, he couldn’t believe how much blood seemed to flow out of him—even after his castration.

The red river flowing out of Bernd finally started to ease. Armin stared at the bucket full of blood and the blood-splattered floor and walls. He would have to dispose of the bucket somewhere.

Now that the bleeding was done, Armin geared himself up to chop off his dead friend’s head. He sliced away the neck muscle and ligament, then he cleanly removed the head by gripping it on either side and twisting it off where the spinal cord met the skull.

Armin contemplated Bernd’s severed head. He had heard human brain wasn’t that good to eat; he also knew that the large brain mass was hard to remove without opening the skull. Cannibal folklore had taught him to place the skull outside in a wire cage so that scavengers such as ants and maggots could cleanse the flesh from the bones. A more realistic option, given his circumstances, was to saw the skull to get at the brains, although that would demand a lot of physical strength. No, he decided, he wouldn’t do that. He would keep the skull intact. Bernd should join in the fun. He had enjoyed chatting to him, and realized he didn’t want to stop now.

Armin grabbed Bernd’s head by the hair and placed it on the table so that he could talk to it as he disemboweled its body.

“There you are, Bernd,” he said to the severed head. “Now you can watch. You wanted to watch, didn’t you?” The eyes were closed, but Armin spoke with the severed head as if it could see. He continued his bloody work, saying, “You don’t need to be worried. You’re going to be just fine.”

The next stage in the slaughter was the skinning of Bernd’s hide. Armin wanted to flay the carcass so that he could expose Bernd’s muscular configuration and get rid of the hair and the tiny glands that produced sweat and oil; they looked distasteful. He knew skin was composed of two layers: an outer thinner one, with a thicker tissue layer below it. He first scored the skin’s surface, cutting lightly to be sure of depth and direction, and then cut down into the skin tissue.

He cut long slices about an inch apart and started peeling away each layer of skin. It was slow work. On the fat-tier parts, he carefully pulled the skin from the fat underneath. He shivered with pleasure as it made a pronounced ripping noise. Armin gazed longingly at the exposed red flesh. Next, he tore Bernd’s scrotum away from his body.

He addressed the severed head, “I bet you’re sorry you won’t be able to join me eating these for breakfast, aren’t you, Bernd?”

Now that he’d removed the skin, Armin could start gutting the carcass. He made a cut from the solar plexus, between the breastbone and stomach, almost to the anus. He was careful not to cut into the intestines; he didn’t want to contaminate the surrounding area with feces or bacteria. He then ran his blade around the anus and tied it off with twine. This also prevented contamination, as it stopped the body from voiding any material left in the bowel.

Armin used his saw to cut through the pubic bones. The lower body now lay completely open, and he began to pull out the organ masses. He let out a long sigh of pleasure as he grabbed huge handfuls of the large and small intestines, kidneys, liver and stomach and cut them away from the back wall of the body. He loved the feel of the slippery masses of flesh in his hands. He marveled how these had once served as part of the engine driving Bernd’s body.

Armin was in heaven as he disemboweled his friend. He felt such tremendous power; Bernd’s body was his to do with as he wished. Everything was going according to plan. After spending hours pouring over cannibal Web sites, he knew by heart the best methods to eviscerate a carcass—all he had to do was put his knowledge into practice.

Armin heard a quiet click and jumped. He stalled a moment, confused as to where the sound was coming from. He looked at Bernd’s skull, as if he expected the decapitated head to offer an explanation. Ah, the video camera, he suddenly realized. He bounded across the room to check his equipment.

The videotape had run out.

He felt a surge of annoyance; it was essential to film the slaughter so he could freeze his moment of glory. Blood and guts spilled onto the floor as Armin stepped out of his slaughter outfit. Bits of Bernd seemed to be everywhere. Armin stepped around the mess and went to the sink to wash his hands. He scrubbed them clean of blood, splashed water on his face and put on a change of clothing. “There, that’s better,” he said.

He left the mutilated body and calmly drove to Rotenburg to buy another videotape.

 

 

Armin strolled in a relaxed way through the streets of Rotenburg. He barely noticed paying for the videotape or getting back into his car; his thoughts were focused on his abattoir. He couldn’t wait to start chopping up Bernd’s upper torso. When he arrived back at the farm, he ran up the stairs, inserted the new cassette in the recorder and put his blood-soaked clothes back on.

He turned to the skull. “I’m home, Bernd. Hope you weren’t too lonely while I was gone.”

Armin resumed his work, now cutting through the diaphragm of the carcass. The muscular membrane divided the upper and the lower abdominal cavities. He removed the breastbone, cutting down to the point on each side where it connected to the ribs, and then sawing through and detaching it from the collarbone. He pulled out Bernd’s heart and held it high above his head, in a gesture of triumph. He took out the lungs and removed the larynx and trachea from Bernd’s cut throat.

“So now I’ve taken out all the inner organs,” he said in a satisfied tone.

He trimmed away the blood vessels and any remaining pieces of connective tissue from the interior of the carcass and washed it out.

He was now ready to start the actual butchering of the body.

Armin cut into the armpit and bored straight through to the shoulder. He removed the arm bone from the collarbone and shoulder blade, before chopping the hand off an inch or so above the wrist. Most of the meat would be between the elbow and the shoulder, where the muscle groups were larger. He broke apart the elbow joint; the two halves of the arm looked perfect to carve servings from.

His next task was to split the body. He removed the entire backbone by cutting and then sawing up either side from the tailbone. He then took down the two halves and chopped off the feet about three inches up from the ankle. The bones thickened where the leg connected to the foot.

It was tough work.

Armin then divided each side of meat into two more main portions: the ribs and the shoulder; and the half-pelvis and leg. In between was the belly, which he planned to use for fillets and steaks, or thin strips for bacon. He decided to roll some of the wide strips of flesh to serve as a roast. The ribs would be delicious when barbecued.

He moved on to one of the top quarters of the carcass. He trimmed away the neck and cut along the outline of the shoulder blade, removing the meat on top and dislocating the large bone. He made an incision along the length of the collarbone and then cut and pried it away.

“Oh, that’s a lovely piece of meat, Bernd,” he said.

Then he cut the lower quarters. This was where most of the meat was. The muscle mass was largest in the legs and rump. The main pieces were the buttock, or rump, and the upper leg, or thigh. He removed the whole calf muscle from the back of the lower legs and admired the cut. All those hours Bernd had spent cycling and in the gym had paid off. Armin cut off the leg at the bottom of the rump, then chopped away the bony knee mass. He spoke again to the head. “Your upper leg is ready to be made into beautifully thick, round steaks, my dear.” He carved Bernd’s buttocks from the pelvis. The thighs provided the rest of the meat.

And that was basically it.

Armin stood back and proudly examined his work. The whole process had taken a few hours, but he had cut off a lot of flesh.

A veritable feast lay before him.

All he had to do now was dispose of the offal and other waste trimmings. He grabbed a handful of gut and slipped it into the waste bucket, making a wet plop.

“You’ll soon become one with me, dear friend,” he said.