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7. The First Seating
Suddenly there's a lot of activity at the table nearest where she stands pressed between iron grids. Young men in black pants and white shirts unbuttoned to the middle of their well-exercised pecs work alongside young women in dangerously low-cut white blouses and obscenely short black skirts. They stretch white linen over the long table and lay down large square plates and light blue linen napkins. Each napkin is soon weighed down with an arsenal of heavy-gauge stainless steel dinnerware, including three forks, three spoons and two knives. Water glasses and wine glasses sprout up, interspersed with narrow fluted vases bursting with carnations and roses in whites, reds, pinks, yellows and purples. Handsome handcrafted bowls arrive overflowing with steaming vegetables and colorful salads.
The other two tables are receiving equal treatment from other young wait staff.
Lili has counted the chairs at these tables many times during these long dreadful hours. Twenty settings per table times three tables is sixty dining guests per seating, times four seatings is two-hundred-forty banqueters in all. Divide two-hundred-forty by the twelve sacrificial victims, and that's twenty guests feasting on each roasted girl. Then there are all the waiters, guards, pilots, kitchen staff and other employees eating the leftovers. At least there should be no wasted meat, she thinks bitterly. But the frugality brings her little comfort.
With help from the kitchen assistants, the waiters bring out three more trestles for the spits and set them up in a central location not far from the roasting pit. Three stainless steel tables with butcher block tops are arrayed around them. A lower shelf contains stacks of large oval platters, the kind used for serving meat. Hanging from the sides of the tables are a variety of knives, cleavers and forks.
Lili takes in this last detail with great interest. Here's a glimmer of hope. If she can reach those knives, maybe she can slash her way out of here. Assuming the guards stick with their pattern, when they free her from the cage she won't be shackled. The only restraint will be the collar and leash. If she moves suddenly, she may be able to jerk the leash out of her guard's hands and make a dash for the knives? Once armed, she may be able to fend off the cattle prods and Tasers. Would she need to take a hostage? Put the knife to the throat of a smaller female guest? Would they care? Then what? How would she get out of here? She doesn't even know where she is. Doesn't speak the language. Do any of the guards have guns? Shit, none of that matters. She has nothing to lose. She has to take the chance!
Six guards use towels to wrap the ends of three spits on the roasting pit — the ones bearing the original three sacrificed females — then lift them off the pit enclosure and carry them to the waiting trestles. A fresh roast, Lili remembers, has to be "rested" before carving so the juices can settle into the meat. A while earlier the chefs had removed the foil from the heads and genital areas to help even out the color of the roasted skin. The girls were still clearly identifiable.
A door on one side of the courtyard opens and a hoard of semi-inebriated guests pour through heading toward the newly dressed tables. As they find places to sit, waiters emerge with trays of wine bottles and canisters of ice, some containing bottles of Champagne. Soon every wine glass is filled and the waiters depart, only to return with trays laden with hors d'oeuvres — smoked fish, shrimp with cocktail sauce, steamed mussels, chowders, salads and a myriad of other delicacies.
In due time, the main course is announced. The chefs stand by the spits with their carving knives while the guests who have purchased special cuts flock to the trestle area to make sure they receive their due. The most expensive cuts are the breasts, so care is taken to let each purchaser point out the one he or she has paid for (verified by the computer receipt, of course), before the chef slices it away from the body and places it on a plate.
Once all six breasts have been removed, the bodies seem to lose their aesthetic appeal to the guests and most meander back to their seats to drink and await the platters of hot meat. At this point the wires around the knees and ankles are cut and an electric reciprocating saw is used to sever the legs at the hip. The legs are placed on the butcher block tables to be carved up by the assistant cooks while the chefs carefully slice out the labia from the newly exposed crotch, and as much of the surrounding flesh as is edible. These are put in special saucers and served to the three men who ordered them.
Next the wires around the torsos and arms are snipped, the arms cut off at the shoulders with the saw and delivered to the carving tables. The limbless carcasses are then slid off the skewer and placed on separate carving tables. The bellies are sliced open and the stuffing scooped on to three chargers, one for each table. Last to be stripped from the carcasses is the rib meat and the juicy rump steaks.
Lili had told herself she would not watch this atrocity. But she does. She doesn't seem to have any control over herself any more. Her mind feels as brutalized and helpless as her body. Long after the cooks have departed and the picked-over remains of the dead girls have been placed in the containers for leftovers or dumped in garbage bags and carried out, she's still staring at the dinner guests — noisily conversing, drinking their wine, munching on the meat of their victims, toying with their desserts and laughing.
Laughing!
She has witnessed a multitude of abominations this day as she languished in her cage, but the most cruel and hurtful of all is the depraved indifference of their laughter. Derision clings to their titters and guffaws like slime from an infested gutter. She pounds her head on the steel bars and sobs out her anger and sorrow and frustration, her disgust that the human race could spawn such evil.
Then they come for her.
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