Chapter 12.2
The treatment was very anti-climactic. A few drops of liquids were put on their tongues. Anson felt a tingling, and then, growing more and more strongly, a bitter, foul taste. He instinctively started to spit some of the substance out.
"That's the test taste; that's how you know it's working," Andrew smiled at him. "With your normal taste buds, the Serum would be virtually tasteless. Here, have some slightly scented water to remove the taste."
Anson and Jessica each drank from a cup of water which had a tiny piece of lemon in it.
"Mmmm," said Anson, nodding to Jessica. "That's a strong lemon taste!"
Andrew smiled again. "Five minutes ago you would have told me you couldn't even taste the lemon. Try some food, please."
Before them were trays of different kinds of plain food. Anson spooned some white rice. He hated white rice. It was so bland! He ate rice, but always with a mix of seasoning.
But now plain white rice tasted so rich and bold. It was like opening his mouth to an entirely new world of taste.
"Ummmm!" said Jessica, nodding up and down vigorously as she felt the same.
"Trust me, I've never seen her this happy with her mouth full before," said Anson.
That got him a kick under the table, but when Jessica finally swallowed, she smiled and said, "This stuff's wonderful!"
"It's plain rice. And plain noodles. And plain everything else. Dig in, my friends, dig in!"
Anson and Jessica sampled everything. For the first time in a long time, they felt that what they were doing was so enjoyable because it was so safe; they weren't in a fraudulent spaceship simulation, they weren't being brainwashed in a monastery, and they weren't risking their lives in shark infested waters. All they were doing was sitting in a room and eating foods which were entirely unthreatening. There was a certain comfort, to the simpleness of it.
And the food tasted wonderful. Anson never knew that plain beef, or plain white bread, could have such flavors. And not just single flavors! With every bite of a piece of bread, he felt richness, layers of flavor.
"Try these," said Andrew excitedly, handing him a tray of several pieces of bread.
"What about them?"
"One is fresh. One is two hours old. One is four hours old, the last is six."
Anson gave him an odd look, but bit into pieces of each slice of bread. They all tasted different! They each had a unique flavor.
"You're brilliant!" said Anson, and Andrew beamed, and suddenly, he felt a little better about his bad experiences in childhood.
But then, after a while, Andrew wheeled out some new samples.
"What are these?"
"Baked Parmesan Zucchini, and Caramelized Broccoli with Garlic," said Andrew.
Anson gave him an odd look. He took a bite of the Zucchini. It tasted incredibly bitter. He spit it out.
"What was that?" Anson said.
"Baked parmesan zucchini," said Andrew patiently.
Jessica tried the caramelized broccoli. She screamed and spit it out.
Andrew smiled as he recalled memories of childhood.
"Awful," said Jessica, rubbing her tongue with a napkin. "What did you put in this?"
"Nothing unusual," said Andrew. "It's you who have been changed."
And then they finally understood that this was the end of the demonstration. They had been given the ability to taste wonderful things from very plain, very basic foods. But the price they had to pay for it was the inability to eat most other foods that had stronger or combined flavors.
"So now we can only eat a handful of very plain kinds of foods?" said Anson.
"Yes," said Andrew. He smiled. "You're just like me."
"I don't think this is going to work for our client," said Anson.
"But just think about the richness of white rice he will never experience! The varied flavors of plain bread, or plain chicken breasts!"
Anson shook his head. "Sorry. The price is simply too high."
Later that evening Jessica sipped some wine in their hotel room. She violently spat it out.
"Bitter?" said Anson.
"Still!" said Jessica.
"Andrew did say the full effects would take a few hours to wear off," said Anson. He sipped some wine experimentally. It tasted bitter, but much less than it had an hour ago.
Jessica made a face, and started to strip off her clothing. In moments she was nude, and looking expectantly at him, as she tentatively rubbed her vaginal lips.
"Yes?" said Anson, looking up.
"I need your penis," said Jessica simply. "Inside my vagina. Now, please."
Anson shook his head. "I have too much work to do."
"It will only take a few minutes," said Jessica. "Please, Anson! I have to come. I can't eat normal foods. I have to experience some kind of pleasure!"
"I'm sorry," said Anson.
"What's gotten into you?" Jessica demanded. "Ever since you changed back from being a woman, we haven't... you know... done it. Have you... are you no longer attracted to women?"
Anson put down his datapad. "No! No, no! You're very sexy, Jessica."
"Then fuck me!" said Jessica, sitting down on his lap, and putting her hands around his shoulders.
"I... I can't," said Anson.
"What is it?" Jessica demanded, jumping up. She looked funny, putting her hands on her hips, standing there totally naked.
"It's... this job," Anson lied. "It looks like we're going to fail."
"Everyone fails sometimes, darling," she said, rubbing a hand on his back.
"But it's my biggest commission," said Anson. "It will be a spectacular failure on my record."
"So... you're upset about it?"
"Yes," said Anson.
"I could help ease your pain," she said, snaking a hand between his legs.
"I appreciate it," said Anson. "But I'm just not in the mood right now."
"Men!" Jessica shouted. She marched to the comm and activated it, not caring that she was totally naked.
"Room service!" she fairly shouted.
"Yes," said a robotic voice at the other end.
"I'd like a male sex worker in room... 821," said Jessica. "I'd like one with at least a six inch penis, please."
"Anything else?"
She looked over at Anson. "Yes. Preferably brown hair, light blue eyes, at least six feet tall. And by the way, that six incher? On second thought, better make that a seven."
"Yes Ma'am."
Jessica turned to Anson. "We'll try to be quiet-like. I know you have important work to do."
"I'm still confused," said Anson. "How can you say that you are not eating people?"
Jason Fairfax had had a life changing experience in the Andes, nearly 200 years ago.
He had been on a stratoliner which had crashed in bad weather into a mountaintop. Most of the crew and passengers had been killed instantly. It was a miracle that anyone had survived. But 17 of the 296 passengers survived, saved by the plane cracking into two parts before it exploded. Those few who weren't flung out of the plane instantly in the second section managed to survive.
At first, they huddled on the frozen mountaintop, some 10,000 feet up in the sky. They expected rescue quickly. Surely they would be reported as missing. Surely the plane's locating beacon would be traced. Surely satellite surveillance could find them.
Their plane had been reported as missing, but the locator beacon had been destroyed in the crash. And the plane had crashed during a tremendous snowstorm, so the wreckage was covered in just hours.
The passengers waited a day for rescue. Then two. Then three.
They ran out of food. They were starving.
And then it was Jason who lit a fire and cooked the first batch of... beef. It was stringy and tough, but had a tangy flavor.
At first the other survivors were horrified. But hunger drove them to try it. They too started to eat beef.
The corpses, preserved by the cold, started to lose bits and pieces of flesh; around the buttocks, the legs, the arms, and the chest.
Over time Jason started to notices differences in flavor. Buttock meat was softer, more flavorful. Arm meat was toughest, and hardest to swallow.
By the time rescuers discovered them, twelve days later, they had eaten their way through 22 fellow passengers. The rescue team discovered the half eaten bodies and accepted the lame story that they were "eaten by wolves", even though wolves don't make even cuts of flesh with knives and forks.
After that event, Jason found he was fascinated by the taste of human flesh. He tried to sample the flesh of as many other animals as he could, but none approached the richness of human flesh.
And for a hundred years, Jason was forced to abstain from his favorite food.
But then there were rapid advancements in cloning technology. Jason huddled together with a geneticist, a technological biologist, and a food ethicist and decided to launch People Eats.
"They are not people," Jason assured Anson. "They are merely cloned body parts. Here, let me show you."
He punched up a holo, showing row after row of tubes, filled with bodies being grown. The bodies had arms, and legs, and chests, and necks...but no heads.
"They're people. You just chop off their heads," said Anson.
"No, Mr. Ford, there is no chopping of heads in People Eats," said Jason. "The stem cells representing head growth are simply removed at inception. We only clone body parts."
"But... those are body parts of people," said Jessica, with obvious dismay.
"Not people. People have heads. These have none," said Jason. "Oh, technically, the flesh has the DNA of human beings, but these are definitely, definitely not human beings. The World Government has sent the Department of Human Rights to investigate me on four separate occasions. They have found no human beings in my cookery."
Anson looked at Jessica. She was clearly disgusted by this idea. But he thought it might be perfect for Francisco Odour. Odour clearly despised people. The idea of consuming them might appeal to him.
"What is your menu selection like?" Anson asked.
"The same as you would find in many popular restaurants," said Jason. "Breast, thigh, sirloin, top round, bottom round, all cuts of meat well known to most diners."
"From women and men?" Jessica asked.
"No, only women," said Jason.
"Why not men?" Jessica asked.
"There's no demand for it," said Jason. "Women meat is more flavorful and juicy." He smiled at her. "Ms. Dhomes, you look like you'd taste a lot better than Mr. Ford."
Jessica gave Anson an uncomfortable look.
"Hahahaha," said Jason. "Just joking, of course. We also have other meat choices, such as dark meat and white meat. People usually find dark meat more juicier than white meat."
"Dark meat? White meat?" said Anson.
"Sorry," Jason grinned. "I mean meat from black people or white people. The flesh of black people is juicer, but higher in fat content. Meat of white people is healthier, but dryer."
"And Asian meat?"
"There's no demand for it," said Jason. "Too tough. Too stringy. Not enough meat on the bone." He paused. "If you're interested in white meat, we have several different kinds--blonde, brunette, and redhead."
"You categorize your meat based on the hair color of your cloned body parts?" said Jessica.
"Hair color correlates highly accurately to different meat flavors. We're not entirely sure why. Breast meat of blondes is sweetest, brunettes are juicer, and redheads... oh redheads," said Jason, rolling his eyes.
"What about redheads?"
"Oh my God. Some of the very finest cuts of beef I've ever tasted," said Jason. "You have to try it and see. Say--would you like to go to one of our tasting rooms? We're having a sampling right now."
Anson and Jessica looked at each other.
"Absolutely not," said Jessica.
"Sure," said Anson.
They were led to a room where people were sitting around a big table, munching on different kinds of... meat.
Jason recognized a regular and clapped him on the back, a large balding fat man. "Hello, Mr. Anderson! Back for another sample, I see!"
"Yes. This stuff is great. I tried to get my wife to come, but she doesn't like to eat women," said the man, chewing on what appeared to be a thigh bone. He burped as he put it down and licked his fingers. "Hey, any chances of adding some young girls to the menu?"
"We're working on it, Mr. Anderson," said Jason. "Adding veal to the menu is one of our top priorities."
Jessica looked at Anson with horror in her eyes.
Anson watched the people eating. If he didn't know what they were eating, it would have looked like a steakhouse. People were cutting slices of meat, eating burgers, spooning beef stew... all things that should have been ordinary.
"Would you like to try something, Mr. Ford?" said Jason. "Perhaps a Girl Burger?"
"Girl Burger?"
"Ground thigh ground beef from a delectable redhead. 100% ass fed beef."
"Ass fed?"
"We have found that meat that is fed through a tube in the ass is much more flavorful than meat that is given nutrients the traditional way. In fact, all the food you see here is 100% certified ass fed," said Jason. He held up a burger. It looked really juicy. "Would you like a Girl Burger?"
"No thanks," said Anson.
"How about some sirloin?" Jason asked, indicating a platter of meats. "This comes from one of our finest brunette clones. Her ass meat is simply the tastiest thing you will ever eat."
"What is this?" said Jessica, pointing to a platter filled with very familiar body parts.
They looked like breasts. Cooked human breasts.
"Breast meat, of course," said Jason.
Jessica looked at the cooked female breasts.
Jason whispered in her ear. "It's honey glazed, cooked in an old-fashioned wood-fired oven, and stuffed with wild peppers and mushrooms, and with a cherry on top!" he added, pointing to the teats, which were each covered with a large red cherry.
They saw a diner eating a breast, using a fork and knife to cut off the cherry encrusted nipple on top. "Uuummm," he said loudly, rolling his eyes as he popped the cooked nipple in his mouth, chewing appreciatively. The meat was hot; a thick stream of steam was coming out of the hole on top where the nipple once was.
"You're liking that breast meat, aren't you, Mr. Connolly?" Jason grinned. Connolly nodded vigorously. "The tits are always the tastiest part. This one is much better than that last batch, the pear shaped breasts. These big round ones are so plump and juicy!" He looked at Jessica, and held up a forkful. "Try some!"
"No!" Jessica cried, grabbing her own breasts protectively.
"Come on, it's incredible," said Connolly. He put the fork in his mouth and groaned with pleasure. Then he looked at Jessica's breasts and smiled. "I'll bet yours would taste pretty good, babe."
"Anson, I need to get the fuck out of here RIGHT NOW," said Jessica. She stomped out.
"We need to think about it," said Anson politely. He started to follow her out.
"Wait," said Jason. "We're having charred labia tips for dessert!"
"Horrible, simply horrible," said Jessica. "I'm still shivering! The way those... cannibals, cook and eat girls!"
"Technically, they are not girls. They have no heads."
"They are pieces of girls. They treat them like meat," said Jessica.
"You mean, like the way people treat sex workers?" said Anson pointedly.
That only made Jessica angrier. "I wouldn't have had to use room service if you hadn't taken a fucking vow of celibacy. She's GONE, Anson. No amount of self-punishment is going to bring her back."
Anson turned away. He spent a moment trying to calm himself, to focus. "I think this is an idea we should bring to Odour."
Jessica waved a hand dismissively. "Go ahead."
A moment later they had established a holocomm to Francisco Odour.
"...eating people?" Odour asked.
"Not exactly people, Mr. Odour. Clones of body parts of people," said Anson carefully. He wondered how Odour would react to this.
"Hm... eating body parts of cloned people..." and then Odour gave Anson an expression he had never seen before.
He smiled.
"That might be a possibility. What does it taste like?"
Anson and Jessica looked at each other.
"Well?"
"We... uh...."
"Spit it out, man!"
"We never swallowed," said Jessica.
"We never tried it," said Anson.
"Why not?" Odour demanded.
Anson tried to think of an answer that would satisfy Odour, but couldn't.
"Cowards," Odour muttered. "You would think that I haven't paid you a hundred million credits for this."
"Sir-"
"Never mind. Perhaps I'll give it a try. Or perhaps I won't. But it still won't solve my problem. I'm looking for something to do, Mr. Ford. Munching on a redhead's ass, while possibly quite tasty, is not going to fill all my days and nights."
"Yes sir."
"I will tell you that I do like the fact that you're exploring unusual possibilities. Keep looking."
His image faded.
Jessica was already undressing. Anson tried to ignore her. When she was naked, she held up one of her large breasts. "Are you sure there isn't something here you'd like to snack on?"
Anson went into the bathroom and slammed the door.
"That's right, Anson!" Jessica yelled after him. "Go in there and rub your dick like it's a magic lamp. If you rub hard enough, Jennifer just might appear in front of you and grant you your fondest wish!"
"Odour is never going to be interested in this," said Jessica.
"He did tell us to try unusual ideas," said Anson.
"But really, eating shit?" Jessica asked.
"It is not shit, Ms. Dhomes," said Marci Beinstock sternly.
Marci Beinstock was a devout follower of the She-Goddess Aura. One of the most foremost principles of the Goddess was that followers should practice Nurda Gababba, literally to "heal the earth". Like many followers of the Goddess, Marci viewed humanity as a plague, as an infestation, like termites, which slowly but surely was destroying the Earth.
Marci was particularly upset every time she went to the bathroom. For most people, they did their business and gave no further thought to it.
But Marci thought about it a lot. As she squeezed the shit out of her ass, she thought not just about her shit, being dumped into the environment, but the shit being squeezed out of the assholes of every other person of the planet. There must be millions of pounds of it, despoiling the environment every day. It was a wonder that they were not all up to their necks in shit.
Marci became consumed with thoughts of rivers of shit drowning the planet. That drove her career and her destiny. She spent years studying biofarming, and, after earning a Ph.D., spent years after that working on a special project.
To eliminate shit from the planet.
Shit, or excrement, results from the body processing food and injecting it with waste products from different bodily organs. The result is toxic, brown, smelly, and not fit for human consumption.
Marci so desperately wanted to change that. She spent years working on activating pastes which could line the walls the intestines and neutralize the bodily poisons which were excreted into the waste. It took her twenty years to figure out how to do that.
Then she spent time working on how to biofarm those wastes, how to use basic chemical processes on the cellular level to transmute those toxic chemicals into something more palatable.
Forty years later, she was successful.
"It is not shit as you know it," said Marci. "It is apples, cucumbers, cookies, cake, hamburgers-"
"You can make fully cooked hamburgers come out of a person's ass?" said Anson, clearly impressed.
Marci shrugged. "It's biofarming. Once we learned how to manipulate molecules and chemical compounds, we can turn anything into anything. And in this case we turn human bodily waste into any kind of food we want. Anything."
"Anything?"
"Anything. Celery, carrots, bread sticks, noodles, sausage, meatloaf, pudding, anything."
"But... they come out of peoples' asses," said Jessica. "It's dirty!"
"Not after their intestines have been biofarmed for a few days," said Marci.
"I'm not sure I'd like to be a diner during the transition period," said Anson.
Marci gave him a sharp glance. Then she gestured to a tray on her desk. "Would you like a breadstick, Mr. Ford?"
Anson didn't know how to answer that.
Marci picked one up with her hand, and saw Anson and Jessica watched her in horror as she started to chew on it. "Crunchy," said Marci, smiling. "And quite tasty." She wiped some crumbs off her lips.
"And that came out of... of..."
"My asshole, yes," said Marci. She held out a breadstick. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to try one?"
Anson and Jessica shook their heads.
"I was hoping that your client might be attracted to our concept because of the ecological implications," said Marci, still munching on the breadstick. It was hard and a little brittle; she had squeezed it out of her anal cavity last night, and it wasn't as fresh as it could have been.
"Ecological implications?"
"There are 40 billion human beings on the planet, Mr. Ford. We collectively produce trillions of tons of excrement every year. We're drowning in it."
"I don't notice anyone drowning in it. Do you, Jessica?"
Jessica shook her head.
"Trust me, Mr. Ford, it's happening," said Marci. "The planet is slowly being destroyed. The only way to save it is to recycle."
"To recycle... our excrement?"
"A totally closed cycle," said Marci, smiling broadly. "Food goes in the mouth. A lesser amount of food comes out of the anus. That food, with some supplements, goes into the mouth again. It's a nearly closed cycle. There is no more waste."
"That does sound rather... progressive," said Anson, trying to find a positive way of putting it.
"It is," said Marci excitedly. "It will save the planet! Look... would you like to come our tasting room? Come, and see for yourself what we've accomplished."
Anson looked at Jessica, who shrugged. "Sure," he said.
Marci's explanation hadn't quite prepared them for the tasting room. It was a room full of fat people.
Naked fat people. They were all eating continually, and, as it appeared, they were also shitting. They were sitting on what looked like toilets, except the toilets were totally transparent, so you could see what was going into them. The toilets seemed to operate not on a water based system but a pneumatic one, moving excreted substances by air pressure. There was a long transparent tube that carried substances from the toilet up to a plate by each diner's right arm.
Anson and Jessica watched with horrible fascination as a large man grunted, and grunted, bearing down. He closed his eyes and squeezed tightly. Slowly, something seem to come out of his buttocks. It looked like sausage links. First one came out, then two, three, four, and then five. When the last one came out, the man cried, "Ahhhh," and smiled. The pneumatic tube connected to the toilet carried the sausages to his plate. Instantly, he grabbed the plate, and started chowing down.
"As you can see, a truly closed cycle," said Marci proudly.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Jessica whispered.
"These people... they're all naked, and... going to the bathroom in front of one another."
"One of my proudest achievements. We have taken the taboo out of going to the bathroom," said Marci. "Think about it, Mr. Ford. Going to the bathroom used to be a dirty, disgusting thing. But now it's no more disgusting than producing a meal."
Anson watched as a smiling woman, legs spread, "Aaahed" with happiness as a fully formed cucumber slowly started to come out of her asshole. On another toilet, he saw a man squeezing out chocolate chip cookies. But in a third, he saw a man squeezing out what looked like shit! And when the pneumatic tube took the shit to his plate, the man actually said, "Yum yum!" and started to chow down on it.
Anson pointed at it in horror.
Marci went over to the man, stuck a finger in his food, and put it to her mouth. "Umm, meatloaf. Would you like some, Mr. Ford?"
Anson, watched the happy diner with brown food stains around his lips, and shook his head. He looked around and saw that urination was handled differently. People urinated into separate tubes, which carried the liquid into their drinking cups. He saw one man emit a sigh of relief as a steady stream of yellow fluid flowed out of his penis. It was quickly transferred to his drinking cup. When he was done, and he had shaken his penis dry, he lifted his cup and started drinking.
Marci noticed his stare. She went to the man and said, "May I?" and he nodded.
She put the cup to her lips and drank deeply. When she put it down she said, "Sparkling apple juice, Mr. Ford."
Marci ignored his shocked expression and pointed out a series of vats. "These are our pastes. We have pastes for every kind of food. If you want to excrete shrimp, you eat paste from that vat. If you want to excrete carrots, you eat from the second vat. And so on. These pastes biofarm the human waste inside the intestines, turning bodily poisons into very delicious entrees."
Anson looked at the diners. They all were obese, and all seemed to be eating and shitting almost constantly. At any given moment, a diner was either eating, or shitting, or both.
Marci was right. It was a closed cycle.
"How much does this... experience cost?" Anson asked.
"That's the best part! It's a bargain!" said Marci. "To get your very own, anally cooked meal costs only 5,000 credits a meal."
"5,000 credits a meal!" Anson cried.
"For the most ecologically minded meal that will help save the planet? 5,000 credits is a pittance for that kind of reward, Mr. Ford." said Marci.
Anson watched a couple who were eating and shitting like the rest. The wife seemed much more enthusiastic than her husband, gobbling away at chocolate pudding which had just come out of her ass, and drinking fine wine which had just come out of her bladder inside her vaginal folds.
The husband seemed less happy, making a face as he ate chocolate cake. "I don't know," said the husband. "It still tastes like shit to me," he said.
"It's all in your mind," said his wife, slurping her chocolate pudding. "You've been on the plan for three days now. All the literature says that the shit taste disappears after the second day."
"I tell you, it still tastes like shit," said the man.
The wife sighed, reached over, and nibbled on some of the chocolate cake which had come out of her husband's ass. She made a face as she chewed on it.
"Well?" said the husband.
"Yeah, it still has kind of a shitty taste. Keep eating. You'll get used to it," said the wife.
Anson looked at Jessica, who was silently mouthing the words, "Can we get the fuck out of here now?"
Anson nodded.
"That's the test taste; that's how you know it's working," Andrew smiled at him. "With your normal taste buds, the Serum would be virtually tasteless. Here, have some slightly scented water to remove the taste."
Anson and Jessica each drank from a cup of water which had a tiny piece of lemon in it.
"Mmmm," said Anson, nodding to Jessica. "That's a strong lemon taste!"
Andrew smiled again. "Five minutes ago you would have told me you couldn't even taste the lemon. Try some food, please."
Before them were trays of different kinds of plain food. Anson spooned some white rice. He hated white rice. It was so bland! He ate rice, but always with a mix of seasoning.
But now plain white rice tasted so rich and bold. It was like opening his mouth to an entirely new world of taste.
"Ummmm!" said Jessica, nodding up and down vigorously as she felt the same.
"Trust me, I've never seen her this happy with her mouth full before," said Anson.
That got him a kick under the table, but when Jessica finally swallowed, she smiled and said, "This stuff's wonderful!"
"It's plain rice. And plain noodles. And plain everything else. Dig in, my friends, dig in!"
Anson and Jessica sampled everything. For the first time in a long time, they felt that what they were doing was so enjoyable because it was so safe; they weren't in a fraudulent spaceship simulation, they weren't being brainwashed in a monastery, and they weren't risking their lives in shark infested waters. All they were doing was sitting in a room and eating foods which were entirely unthreatening. There was a certain comfort, to the simpleness of it.
And the food tasted wonderful. Anson never knew that plain beef, or plain white bread, could have such flavors. And not just single flavors! With every bite of a piece of bread, he felt richness, layers of flavor.
"Try these," said Andrew excitedly, handing him a tray of several pieces of bread.
"What about them?"
"One is fresh. One is two hours old. One is four hours old, the last is six."
Anson gave him an odd look, but bit into pieces of each slice of bread. They all tasted different! They each had a unique flavor.
"You're brilliant!" said Anson, and Andrew beamed, and suddenly, he felt a little better about his bad experiences in childhood.
But then, after a while, Andrew wheeled out some new samples.
"What are these?"
"Baked Parmesan Zucchini, and Caramelized Broccoli with Garlic," said Andrew.
Anson gave him an odd look. He took a bite of the Zucchini. It tasted incredibly bitter. He spit it out.
"What was that?" Anson said.
"Baked parmesan zucchini," said Andrew patiently.
Jessica tried the caramelized broccoli. She screamed and spit it out.
Andrew smiled as he recalled memories of childhood.
"Awful," said Jessica, rubbing her tongue with a napkin. "What did you put in this?"
"Nothing unusual," said Andrew. "It's you who have been changed."
And then they finally understood that this was the end of the demonstration. They had been given the ability to taste wonderful things from very plain, very basic foods. But the price they had to pay for it was the inability to eat most other foods that had stronger or combined flavors.
"So now we can only eat a handful of very plain kinds of foods?" said Anson.
"Yes," said Andrew. He smiled. "You're just like me."
"I don't think this is going to work for our client," said Anson.
"But just think about the richness of white rice he will never experience! The varied flavors of plain bread, or plain chicken breasts!"
Anson shook his head. "Sorry. The price is simply too high."
Later that evening Jessica sipped some wine in their hotel room. She violently spat it out.
"Bitter?" said Anson.
"Still!" said Jessica.
"Andrew did say the full effects would take a few hours to wear off," said Anson. He sipped some wine experimentally. It tasted bitter, but much less than it had an hour ago.
Jessica made a face, and started to strip off her clothing. In moments she was nude, and looking expectantly at him, as she tentatively rubbed her vaginal lips.
"Yes?" said Anson, looking up.
"I need your penis," said Jessica simply. "Inside my vagina. Now, please."
Anson shook his head. "I have too much work to do."
"It will only take a few minutes," said Jessica. "Please, Anson! I have to come. I can't eat normal foods. I have to experience some kind of pleasure!"
"I'm sorry," said Anson.
"What's gotten into you?" Jessica demanded. "Ever since you changed back from being a woman, we haven't... you know... done it. Have you... are you no longer attracted to women?"
Anson put down his datapad. "No! No, no! You're very sexy, Jessica."
"Then fuck me!" said Jessica, sitting down on his lap, and putting her hands around his shoulders.
"I... I can't," said Anson.
"What is it?" Jessica demanded, jumping up. She looked funny, putting her hands on her hips, standing there totally naked.
"It's... this job," Anson lied. "It looks like we're going to fail."
"Everyone fails sometimes, darling," she said, rubbing a hand on his back.
"But it's my biggest commission," said Anson. "It will be a spectacular failure on my record."
"So... you're upset about it?"
"Yes," said Anson.
"I could help ease your pain," she said, snaking a hand between his legs.
"I appreciate it," said Anson. "But I'm just not in the mood right now."
"Men!" Jessica shouted. She marched to the comm and activated it, not caring that she was totally naked.
"Room service!" she fairly shouted.
"Yes," said a robotic voice at the other end.
"I'd like a male sex worker in room... 821," said Jessica. "I'd like one with at least a six inch penis, please."
"Anything else?"
She looked over at Anson. "Yes. Preferably brown hair, light blue eyes, at least six feet tall. And by the way, that six incher? On second thought, better make that a seven."
"Yes Ma'am."
Jessica turned to Anson. "We'll try to be quiet-like. I know you have important work to do."
"I'm still confused," said Anson. "How can you say that you are not eating people?"
Jason Fairfax had had a life changing experience in the Andes, nearly 200 years ago.
He had been on a stratoliner which had crashed in bad weather into a mountaintop. Most of the crew and passengers had been killed instantly. It was a miracle that anyone had survived. But 17 of the 296 passengers survived, saved by the plane cracking into two parts before it exploded. Those few who weren't flung out of the plane instantly in the second section managed to survive.
At first, they huddled on the frozen mountaintop, some 10,000 feet up in the sky. They expected rescue quickly. Surely they would be reported as missing. Surely the plane's locating beacon would be traced. Surely satellite surveillance could find them.
Their plane had been reported as missing, but the locator beacon had been destroyed in the crash. And the plane had crashed during a tremendous snowstorm, so the wreckage was covered in just hours.
The passengers waited a day for rescue. Then two. Then three.
They ran out of food. They were starving.
And then it was Jason who lit a fire and cooked the first batch of... beef. It was stringy and tough, but had a tangy flavor.
At first the other survivors were horrified. But hunger drove them to try it. They too started to eat beef.
The corpses, preserved by the cold, started to lose bits and pieces of flesh; around the buttocks, the legs, the arms, and the chest.
Over time Jason started to notices differences in flavor. Buttock meat was softer, more flavorful. Arm meat was toughest, and hardest to swallow.
By the time rescuers discovered them, twelve days later, they had eaten their way through 22 fellow passengers. The rescue team discovered the half eaten bodies and accepted the lame story that they were "eaten by wolves", even though wolves don't make even cuts of flesh with knives and forks.
After that event, Jason found he was fascinated by the taste of human flesh. He tried to sample the flesh of as many other animals as he could, but none approached the richness of human flesh.
And for a hundred years, Jason was forced to abstain from his favorite food.
But then there were rapid advancements in cloning technology. Jason huddled together with a geneticist, a technological biologist, and a food ethicist and decided to launch People Eats.
"They are not people," Jason assured Anson. "They are merely cloned body parts. Here, let me show you."
He punched up a holo, showing row after row of tubes, filled with bodies being grown. The bodies had arms, and legs, and chests, and necks...but no heads.
"They're people. You just chop off their heads," said Anson.
"No, Mr. Ford, there is no chopping of heads in People Eats," said Jason. "The stem cells representing head growth are simply removed at inception. We only clone body parts."
"But... those are body parts of people," said Jessica, with obvious dismay.
"Not people. People have heads. These have none," said Jason. "Oh, technically, the flesh has the DNA of human beings, but these are definitely, definitely not human beings. The World Government has sent the Department of Human Rights to investigate me on four separate occasions. They have found no human beings in my cookery."
Anson looked at Jessica. She was clearly disgusted by this idea. But he thought it might be perfect for Francisco Odour. Odour clearly despised people. The idea of consuming them might appeal to him.
"What is your menu selection like?" Anson asked.
"The same as you would find in many popular restaurants," said Jason. "Breast, thigh, sirloin, top round, bottom round, all cuts of meat well known to most diners."
"From women and men?" Jessica asked.
"No, only women," said Jason.
"Why not men?" Jessica asked.
"There's no demand for it," said Jason. "Women meat is more flavorful and juicy." He smiled at her. "Ms. Dhomes, you look like you'd taste a lot better than Mr. Ford."
Jessica gave Anson an uncomfortable look.
"Hahahaha," said Jason. "Just joking, of course. We also have other meat choices, such as dark meat and white meat. People usually find dark meat more juicier than white meat."
"Dark meat? White meat?" said Anson.
"Sorry," Jason grinned. "I mean meat from black people or white people. The flesh of black people is juicer, but higher in fat content. Meat of white people is healthier, but dryer."
"And Asian meat?"
"There's no demand for it," said Jason. "Too tough. Too stringy. Not enough meat on the bone." He paused. "If you're interested in white meat, we have several different kinds--blonde, brunette, and redhead."
"You categorize your meat based on the hair color of your cloned body parts?" said Jessica.
"Hair color correlates highly accurately to different meat flavors. We're not entirely sure why. Breast meat of blondes is sweetest, brunettes are juicer, and redheads... oh redheads," said Jason, rolling his eyes.
"What about redheads?"
"Oh my God. Some of the very finest cuts of beef I've ever tasted," said Jason. "You have to try it and see. Say--would you like to go to one of our tasting rooms? We're having a sampling right now."
Anson and Jessica looked at each other.
"Absolutely not," said Jessica.
"Sure," said Anson.
They were led to a room where people were sitting around a big table, munching on different kinds of... meat.
Jason recognized a regular and clapped him on the back, a large balding fat man. "Hello, Mr. Anderson! Back for another sample, I see!"
"Yes. This stuff is great. I tried to get my wife to come, but she doesn't like to eat women," said the man, chewing on what appeared to be a thigh bone. He burped as he put it down and licked his fingers. "Hey, any chances of adding some young girls to the menu?"
"We're working on it, Mr. Anderson," said Jason. "Adding veal to the menu is one of our top priorities."
Jessica looked at Anson with horror in her eyes.
Anson watched the people eating. If he didn't know what they were eating, it would have looked like a steakhouse. People were cutting slices of meat, eating burgers, spooning beef stew... all things that should have been ordinary.
"Would you like to try something, Mr. Ford?" said Jason. "Perhaps a Girl Burger?"
"Girl Burger?"
"Ground thigh ground beef from a delectable redhead. 100% ass fed beef."
"Ass fed?"
"We have found that meat that is fed through a tube in the ass is much more flavorful than meat that is given nutrients the traditional way. In fact, all the food you see here is 100% certified ass fed," said Jason. He held up a burger. It looked really juicy. "Would you like a Girl Burger?"
"No thanks," said Anson.
"How about some sirloin?" Jason asked, indicating a platter of meats. "This comes from one of our finest brunette clones. Her ass meat is simply the tastiest thing you will ever eat."
"What is this?" said Jessica, pointing to a platter filled with very familiar body parts.
They looked like breasts. Cooked human breasts.
"Breast meat, of course," said Jason.
Jessica looked at the cooked female breasts.
Jason whispered in her ear. "It's honey glazed, cooked in an old-fashioned wood-fired oven, and stuffed with wild peppers and mushrooms, and with a cherry on top!" he added, pointing to the teats, which were each covered with a large red cherry.
They saw a diner eating a breast, using a fork and knife to cut off the cherry encrusted nipple on top. "Uuummm," he said loudly, rolling his eyes as he popped the cooked nipple in his mouth, chewing appreciatively. The meat was hot; a thick stream of steam was coming out of the hole on top where the nipple once was.
"You're liking that breast meat, aren't you, Mr. Connolly?" Jason grinned. Connolly nodded vigorously. "The tits are always the tastiest part. This one is much better than that last batch, the pear shaped breasts. These big round ones are so plump and juicy!" He looked at Jessica, and held up a forkful. "Try some!"
"No!" Jessica cried, grabbing her own breasts protectively.
"Come on, it's incredible," said Connolly. He put the fork in his mouth and groaned with pleasure. Then he looked at Jessica's breasts and smiled. "I'll bet yours would taste pretty good, babe."
"Anson, I need to get the fuck out of here RIGHT NOW," said Jessica. She stomped out.
"We need to think about it," said Anson politely. He started to follow her out.
"Wait," said Jason. "We're having charred labia tips for dessert!"
"Horrible, simply horrible," said Jessica. "I'm still shivering! The way those... cannibals, cook and eat girls!"
"Technically, they are not girls. They have no heads."
"They are pieces of girls. They treat them like meat," said Jessica.
"You mean, like the way people treat sex workers?" said Anson pointedly.
That only made Jessica angrier. "I wouldn't have had to use room service if you hadn't taken a fucking vow of celibacy. She's GONE, Anson. No amount of self-punishment is going to bring her back."
Anson turned away. He spent a moment trying to calm himself, to focus. "I think this is an idea we should bring to Odour."
Jessica waved a hand dismissively. "Go ahead."
A moment later they had established a holocomm to Francisco Odour.
"...eating people?" Odour asked.
"Not exactly people, Mr. Odour. Clones of body parts of people," said Anson carefully. He wondered how Odour would react to this.
"Hm... eating body parts of cloned people..." and then Odour gave Anson an expression he had never seen before.
He smiled.
"That might be a possibility. What does it taste like?"
Anson and Jessica looked at each other.
"Well?"
"We... uh...."
"Spit it out, man!"
"We never swallowed," said Jessica.
"We never tried it," said Anson.
"Why not?" Odour demanded.
Anson tried to think of an answer that would satisfy Odour, but couldn't.
"Cowards," Odour muttered. "You would think that I haven't paid you a hundred million credits for this."
"Sir-"
"Never mind. Perhaps I'll give it a try. Or perhaps I won't. But it still won't solve my problem. I'm looking for something to do, Mr. Ford. Munching on a redhead's ass, while possibly quite tasty, is not going to fill all my days and nights."
"Yes sir."
"I will tell you that I do like the fact that you're exploring unusual possibilities. Keep looking."
His image faded.
Jessica was already undressing. Anson tried to ignore her. When she was naked, she held up one of her large breasts. "Are you sure there isn't something here you'd like to snack on?"
Anson went into the bathroom and slammed the door.
"That's right, Anson!" Jessica yelled after him. "Go in there and rub your dick like it's a magic lamp. If you rub hard enough, Jennifer just might appear in front of you and grant you your fondest wish!"
"Odour is never going to be interested in this," said Jessica.
"He did tell us to try unusual ideas," said Anson.
"But really, eating shit?" Jessica asked.
"It is not shit, Ms. Dhomes," said Marci Beinstock sternly.
Marci Beinstock was a devout follower of the She-Goddess Aura. One of the most foremost principles of the Goddess was that followers should practice Nurda Gababba, literally to "heal the earth". Like many followers of the Goddess, Marci viewed humanity as a plague, as an infestation, like termites, which slowly but surely was destroying the Earth.
Marci was particularly upset every time she went to the bathroom. For most people, they did their business and gave no further thought to it.
But Marci thought about it a lot. As she squeezed the shit out of her ass, she thought not just about her shit, being dumped into the environment, but the shit being squeezed out of the assholes of every other person of the planet. There must be millions of pounds of it, despoiling the environment every day. It was a wonder that they were not all up to their necks in shit.
Marci became consumed with thoughts of rivers of shit drowning the planet. That drove her career and her destiny. She spent years studying biofarming, and, after earning a Ph.D., spent years after that working on a special project.
To eliminate shit from the planet.
Shit, or excrement, results from the body processing food and injecting it with waste products from different bodily organs. The result is toxic, brown, smelly, and not fit for human consumption.
Marci so desperately wanted to change that. She spent years working on activating pastes which could line the walls the intestines and neutralize the bodily poisons which were excreted into the waste. It took her twenty years to figure out how to do that.
Then she spent time working on how to biofarm those wastes, how to use basic chemical processes on the cellular level to transmute those toxic chemicals into something more palatable.
Forty years later, she was successful.
"It is not shit as you know it," said Marci. "It is apples, cucumbers, cookies, cake, hamburgers-"
"You can make fully cooked hamburgers come out of a person's ass?" said Anson, clearly impressed.
Marci shrugged. "It's biofarming. Once we learned how to manipulate molecules and chemical compounds, we can turn anything into anything. And in this case we turn human bodily waste into any kind of food we want. Anything."
"Anything?"
"Anything. Celery, carrots, bread sticks, noodles, sausage, meatloaf, pudding, anything."
"But... they come out of peoples' asses," said Jessica. "It's dirty!"
"Not after their intestines have been biofarmed for a few days," said Marci.
"I'm not sure I'd like to be a diner during the transition period," said Anson.
Marci gave him a sharp glance. Then she gestured to a tray on her desk. "Would you like a breadstick, Mr. Ford?"
Anson didn't know how to answer that.
Marci picked one up with her hand, and saw Anson and Jessica watched her in horror as she started to chew on it. "Crunchy," said Marci, smiling. "And quite tasty." She wiped some crumbs off her lips.
"And that came out of... of..."
"My asshole, yes," said Marci. She held out a breadstick. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to try one?"
Anson and Jessica shook their heads.
"I was hoping that your client might be attracted to our concept because of the ecological implications," said Marci, still munching on the breadstick. It was hard and a little brittle; she had squeezed it out of her anal cavity last night, and it wasn't as fresh as it could have been.
"Ecological implications?"
"There are 40 billion human beings on the planet, Mr. Ford. We collectively produce trillions of tons of excrement every year. We're drowning in it."
"I don't notice anyone drowning in it. Do you, Jessica?"
Jessica shook her head.
"Trust me, Mr. Ford, it's happening," said Marci. "The planet is slowly being destroyed. The only way to save it is to recycle."
"To recycle... our excrement?"
"A totally closed cycle," said Marci, smiling broadly. "Food goes in the mouth. A lesser amount of food comes out of the anus. That food, with some supplements, goes into the mouth again. It's a nearly closed cycle. There is no more waste."
"That does sound rather... progressive," said Anson, trying to find a positive way of putting it.
"It is," said Marci excitedly. "It will save the planet! Look... would you like to come our tasting room? Come, and see for yourself what we've accomplished."
Anson looked at Jessica, who shrugged. "Sure," he said.
Marci's explanation hadn't quite prepared them for the tasting room. It was a room full of fat people.
Naked fat people. They were all eating continually, and, as it appeared, they were also shitting. They were sitting on what looked like toilets, except the toilets were totally transparent, so you could see what was going into them. The toilets seemed to operate not on a water based system but a pneumatic one, moving excreted substances by air pressure. There was a long transparent tube that carried substances from the toilet up to a plate by each diner's right arm.
Anson and Jessica watched with horrible fascination as a large man grunted, and grunted, bearing down. He closed his eyes and squeezed tightly. Slowly, something seem to come out of his buttocks. It looked like sausage links. First one came out, then two, three, four, and then five. When the last one came out, the man cried, "Ahhhh," and smiled. The pneumatic tube connected to the toilet carried the sausages to his plate. Instantly, he grabbed the plate, and started chowing down.
"As you can see, a truly closed cycle," said Marci proudly.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Jessica whispered.
"These people... they're all naked, and... going to the bathroom in front of one another."
"One of my proudest achievements. We have taken the taboo out of going to the bathroom," said Marci. "Think about it, Mr. Ford. Going to the bathroom used to be a dirty, disgusting thing. But now it's no more disgusting than producing a meal."
Anson watched as a smiling woman, legs spread, "Aaahed" with happiness as a fully formed cucumber slowly started to come out of her asshole. On another toilet, he saw a man squeezing out chocolate chip cookies. But in a third, he saw a man squeezing out what looked like shit! And when the pneumatic tube took the shit to his plate, the man actually said, "Yum yum!" and started to chow down on it.
Anson pointed at it in horror.
Marci went over to the man, stuck a finger in his food, and put it to her mouth. "Umm, meatloaf. Would you like some, Mr. Ford?"
Anson, watched the happy diner with brown food stains around his lips, and shook his head. He looked around and saw that urination was handled differently. People urinated into separate tubes, which carried the liquid into their drinking cups. He saw one man emit a sigh of relief as a steady stream of yellow fluid flowed out of his penis. It was quickly transferred to his drinking cup. When he was done, and he had shaken his penis dry, he lifted his cup and started drinking.
Marci noticed his stare. She went to the man and said, "May I?" and he nodded.
She put the cup to her lips and drank deeply. When she put it down she said, "Sparkling apple juice, Mr. Ford."
Marci ignored his shocked expression and pointed out a series of vats. "These are our pastes. We have pastes for every kind of food. If you want to excrete shrimp, you eat paste from that vat. If you want to excrete carrots, you eat from the second vat. And so on. These pastes biofarm the human waste inside the intestines, turning bodily poisons into very delicious entrees."
Anson looked at the diners. They all were obese, and all seemed to be eating and shitting almost constantly. At any given moment, a diner was either eating, or shitting, or both.
Marci was right. It was a closed cycle.
"How much does this... experience cost?" Anson asked.
"That's the best part! It's a bargain!" said Marci. "To get your very own, anally cooked meal costs only 5,000 credits a meal."
"5,000 credits a meal!" Anson cried.
"For the most ecologically minded meal that will help save the planet? 5,000 credits is a pittance for that kind of reward, Mr. Ford." said Marci.
Anson watched a couple who were eating and shitting like the rest. The wife seemed much more enthusiastic than her husband, gobbling away at chocolate pudding which had just come out of her ass, and drinking fine wine which had just come out of her bladder inside her vaginal folds.
The husband seemed less happy, making a face as he ate chocolate cake. "I don't know," said the husband. "It still tastes like shit to me," he said.
"It's all in your mind," said his wife, slurping her chocolate pudding. "You've been on the plan for three days now. All the literature says that the shit taste disappears after the second day."
"I tell you, it still tastes like shit," said the man.
The wife sighed, reached over, and nibbled on some of the chocolate cake which had come out of her husband's ass. She made a face as she chewed on it.
"Well?" said the husband.
"Yeah, it still has kind of a shitty taste. Keep eating. You'll get used to it," said the wife.
Anson looked at Jessica, who was silently mouthing the words, "Can we get the fuck out of here now?"
Anson nodded.