An Eater by Heather Cutforth

 

 

My brother is an eater.

His eating is a point of pride for my family. Mum glows when she heaps meaty seconds onto his plate, and Dad can’t resist telling the boys in The Black Bull about Daniel’s appetite.

The boy could eat a horse, he likes to say. He’s going to be a real lady killer!

I do not like to watch Daniel eat. His mouth repulses me, the way he uses the absolute entirety of it, the front teeth and back, how he pokes out his tongue and tightens his slimy lips. When I think about my brother’s mouth, I feel sick. I have tried to close my eyes at the dinner table but it is not enough. I still hear the sounds, the pluck and pucker like wet tentacles coming loose, the crunch of mastication, bone on bone. Wet, slurping, burping, inhaling, coughing, grunting, and the pornographic belch of relief that comes at the very end.

Hey! You gonna eat that?

 

My brother and I still share a bedroom. He eats even in his sleep. Night after night, I listen to him salivate over imagined banquets.

Are you ever not thinking about food?

Are you ever not being a massive bitch?

Daniel will only speak to me when we’re at home. In school, I am not very popular and he is. I think it is something to do with his height and the way he rolls up his sleeves. The boys ask him about protein powder, macros, gym schedules; the girls ask if they can touch him. To both he obliges but it is the girls who squeal and blush and talk about hardness.Sometimes he leans towards their ear and I know the things he says to them. I know because he talks to them on the phone in our room. I am not allowed to speak while these calls happen. He has become very good at pretending I do not exist at all. I wish I could tune him out so completely.

 

In my dreams, I see nothing but his mouth and when I wake up, it is right there –  working away, drawing me close, like a black hole ready to pull me into pieces.

 

I know you were watching me last night, Daniel says as he gets ready for a date. He is standing in front of the mirror shirtless, testing out the muscles in his chest. You’re always looking at me. Are you a pervert?

I just want to sleep, I tell him. And eat.

I know people who could help. There are loads of desperate lads in the gym. They’d give you something to put in your mouth and knock you right out. Do you want that?

No.

Who do you want?

No one.

Liar. I know who you want. It’s these disgusting thoughts that keep you awake and turn your stomach. You are a disgusting girl.

I know I am disgusting. Not because he tells me but because it is right there on the surface for everyone to see. Skin and bones, with eyes the colour of a bruise. My hair falls out in the shower and I am too tired to shave my legs, cut my nails, or even brush my teeth.

No one will sit next to me in class. Even the teachers hold their breath while walking past. They pretend they don’t; they say they’re worried about my well being; they drag my poor parents in after hours and say: We only want what’s best here. There are places your daughter can go, people she can speak to.

Oh, we’re very concerned, Dad tells them, hand on his heart as he looks them in the eye. Then, behind closed doors, he says to me: What is the matter with you? It’s not bloody rocket science. Just open your mouth and swallow!

I do not mind his yelling but I do hate the way he pries open my jaw and pushes bread between my teeth. He holds my face together and stops my nose, so I have no choice but to gulp.  When I feel the food on my tongue, I think about Daniel and it is like his mouth has become my own. This foreign tongue swells and cuts off the air.

Be honest, baby, Mum says when we are alone. Is it for a boy? Lots of girls do silly things to impress boys. But, baby, listen to me. Most of them like a woman who’s got a bit of meat on her bones.

I want to tell Mum that I am not a virgin, that boys do not care about weight, smell, or long, tangle-free hair. They care only for willingness and even this only goes so far.

But I do go willingly with them, down past the bike shed, where the playing fields slope down towards the brook and mud sucks at your shoes. They touch me against trees and have me kneel down in the wetness. Don’t tell your brother, they say in my ear. We are both thinking about Daniel.

 

Where did you go after lunch? my brother asks.

I was trying to get some sleep.

You’re a liar.

Where do you go after school with Tracey Wane?

Don’t do that, he tells me and gets very close to my face. Don’t act like you and I are the same, that we do the same things.

My brother and I used to be the same. Before the age of twelve, we looked exactly alike. Mum dressed us up in matching shorts and shirts, and she cut our hair with the same bowl from the kitchen. At school, we were unpopular together. People simply called us The Twins. Once, my brother dangled a worm over my mouth and I ate it with a smile, because it was what he wanted and we lived to make the other one proud.

I have a dare for you…

Things changed the summer before high school. Mum won some money in the lottery, so we spent a whole month on the Spanish coast. My brother and I stood awkwardly on the beach, afraid for our pale skin, aware that we were not only odd to the locals but ugly too. One of the beautiful teenagers pinched my brother’s arm just to see if he were real. Ghost! Do you feel this, Ghost? They laughed at him and blood rushed to both of our faces in embarrassment. Ghost! Ghost!

The Spanish boy did not pinch me. He did not acknowledge me in front of his friends. But he was always there, outside the women’s bathroom, waiting for me with a smile on his tanned face. He pushed me against the wall and ground the bone of his pelvis into my leg. Open your mouth, he would say, his English accented and moist against my lips. It is not kissing unless you open your mouth.

 

Daniel and I were awake one night when our parents were down in the bar singing 80s ballads into a broken microphone. He lifted up the covers and I crawled to his side without even being told to because I loved the warmth of him. We often slept like that, curled up like those skeletons made of ash. Our parents used to find it cute but not at that point. Mum caught us once and gave a big speech about what was right for boys and girls who had the same blood. That was how she phrased it – the same blood.

I saw you with that boy, he said to me.

Which one?

You know.

We’re not friends, I told him. I hate him.

It didn’t look that way to me.

It’s true. I’ll prove it. Tell me to hurt him and I will. I’ll bite off his fingers, every last one.

If I told you to, would you do that?

Yes.

What else would you do?

Anything. We’re the same blood.

Give me your arm.

Without question, I pulled it out from the covers and put up no resistance when he lowered his mouth and tested the skin with his teeth. I lay perfectly still and closed my eyes. His breath was hot and damp against the fuzz of arm hair. I could feel which teeth were incisors and which were canines as he sank them down with more and more pressure, my flesh eventually yielding. I inhaled sharply but did not try to pull free. Blood dribbled down from the corners of his mouth.

Then our parents returned. I leapt back to my own bed and tried to feign sleep, while still keeping an eye on my brother’s face. I watched as his fingers went inside his mouth. He pulled loose a piece of skin that had caught against his gums. Delicately, he sucked it down and swallowed.  From that point onwards, a part of me was inside him. If we had been created through a 50/50 division, the scales tipped then in his favour.

Our parents started to bang about in the other room with drunken grunts and moans. I tried to catch my brother’s eye but his face was turned up to the ceiling. The blood was rusted against his chin like a birthmark.

The next morning, at breakfast, my brother ate twelve sausages from the buffet bar. He left without saying a word and swanned confidently down towards the beach. By the time I joined him, the beautiful teenagers were crying. The tanned boy held his hand in the air and showed the missing tip of his index finger. It bled the way fountains do.

 

Do you remember our holiday in Spain? I ask my brother in the dark. But he doesn’t answer me, only chews and chews.

At school, I raise my hand in class but am never called on. The boys no longer pester me when my brother isn’t looking. I catch one leaving the home room and stand right in front of him, saying his name. He doesn’t look up. At the bottom of the corridor, I see my brother, his terrible mouth.

Soon, I find I am too tired to go to school or walk down the stairs for dinner. Mum stops setting a place for me. I listen from my bed to the scrapping of knives and forks, the wheezing inhales between mouthfuls.

More?

I no longer wish to eat or fall asleep. In fact, I want nothing at all. It is like desire has been sucked clean from my marrow and without it I feel happy for the very first time. I am smiling when Daniel gets into bed with me.

Daniel pulls my arm from the covers. There is a scar, crescent shaped and grinning, on the forearm. He starts there first. The sound of my ending is like every other meal. He devours me, using every part of his mouth, until there is nothing but blood, nothing but bone. He grinds me up, inhales, and then burps with satisfaction.