Cannibal Man

by Dorothy Knight

  “But I was so tired. I was finished, so I just fell on the bed and I was gone. The world could have come to a standstill. I would not have been aware of anything. After what seemed to be only a few minutes of sleep, the door opened and mother superior briskly told me to get up for morning prayers.

  “I could see through the door that it was morning already. The dark curtain over the small window was still drawn. I struggled to get up and I swear I could sense her tapping her foot impatiently at me. Once I was up, she briskly walked towards a small chapel on the other side of the property. I had to trot to keep up.

  “It was as if everyone was just waiting for me. As I entered, the morning mass started. I fell into one of the chairs next to a row of nuns who ignored me. Most of the sermon was done in a native language, so I understood nothing. I stood up when they stood up and knelt when they knelt. I did sing along the Ava Maria, only, I sang it in English.

  “After mass, the nuns waved with their hands that I should follow them. I followed them to an open area under a huge tree. There was a huge, wooden table under the trees. They indicated to me that I should sit. They scurried off and came back with pots and crockery. The breakfast consisted of oatmeal and sweet tea. I swear I have never had such a wonderful cup of tea. I asked for another cup and they poured for me. I asked for more tea and they gave me more. Only later did I learn we were all just allowed one cup of tea and that I had drunk more than my fair share. Then only did I eat my oats. The nuns ate in absolute silence, When I asked them questions, they would nod and smile. I thought that they did not understand me, speaking only English and Portuguese. Or maybe “Sour Superior” told them not to talk to me. Only later I learned that they were part of a ‘silent order’.

  “After breakfast they started washing the dishes and I tried to pitch in. They very gently shooed me away back to the table, as if to tell me to go and rest. I asked one of them where Sour Superior was, and they directed me to a small office next to the chapel. The sun was barely up, and already some of the nuns were hoeing the vegetable gardens. Because of the heat, people worked early in the mornings and then had siestas in the afternoons.

  “Sour superior was sitting behind a desk doing paperwork. I knocked on the door and said good morning, but she did not even look up. She carried on writing. I watched her for a while, getting very irritated by her nonsense. I did not invite myself there. The least she could do was tolerate me for a day or two until we found a way to get to Blantyre. I got up to walk out and decided to find a faucet so that I could wash myself. As I turned to walk out of her office, she spoke to me.

  “‘I suppose you would like to bathe’, she said to me without looking up. I’m sure she could smell me, besides all the dirt and grime that was stuck to my nightgown. I told her that it would be nice. Then, without warning, she got up, glared at me and told me that I was in one of the most poverty stricken countries in the world and all I could think about was a bath. Then she told me that I should have one as I stunk to high heaven. Her change in thought was mind boggling.

  “My bath was an enamel basin filled with perhaps three liters of cold water placed on the table next to my bed. I don’t know to this day how the basin got to my room. I first washed my hair and face then the rest of my body with a piece of flannel material she gave me. I had to soften the bar of soap in the water before I could get it to smear off on the cloth. It was so hard. As I only possessed the nightgown that I was wearing, I washed my underwear and hung it over my bed to dry. I kept the water in the basin as I wanted to wash my nightgown that evening before I went to bed. There was a silent knock at my door and one of the sisters brought me a dress. A brilliantly colorful frock with a very native design. I’m sure I looked like a parrot in it.

  “During the morning, the police men arrived at the gates again and said that I was needed at a local hospital. They did not speak to me. They spoke to Sour Superior. When she heard I was a doctor, her attitude towards me softened a little. Again, I was carried on the back of a bicycle. The hospital was not far from the mission station. The road was very narrow and we had to cross two rivers. I was welcomed like a queen, dressed in this bright green and yellow frock. There were two other doctors there and they worked for the same relieve agency as we did. It was like meeting old friends.

  “I pitched in and was given the women and children part of the clinic. Every now and again, a warm cup of sweet tea would appear on my table, and just before lunch, two thick slices of warm bread and jam. It was a meal from heaven. By middle afternoon, things quieted down, and we doctors started chatting. They were both Americans. We chatted happily and one thing led to another. The doctors made a local brew from sugar cane and God knows what else.

  “By now it was getting late, but they indicated that they would arrange transport back to the convent for me. They also fed me the most delicious vegetable curry. I sipped what they called ‘Malawian Bush Brew’. I think maybe it was the relief of making it out of Mozambique alive that made me reckless and motivated me too drink too much of their Bush Brew. Well into the night bicycle brigade told me that I must now be taken back to the mission station. They did not want to leave it too late because that was when the lions started hunting. I remember saying that if a lion ate me now he would be drunk after three bites. I was plastered. Actually, I can’t remember much of the ride back to the mission station, except that my brains felt scrambled after the ride back.

  “To this day, I swear the reason I got so violently ill was because the bicycle ride was so bumpy. I really can’t remember drinking that much. I do know also that these home brews have evil kicks. As I was let into the station, I could sense that Sour Superior was not happy with my inebriated state. She basically ignored me and her face was even more pinched.

  “I staggered down the narrow hall to my cubbyhole of a room and passed out on top of the bed. Then my head started spinning. I tried to steady myself by putting one foot on the floor…not that it helped. The next thing I spewed vomit all over the room. It splashed on the wall opposite me, and all over the floor…everywhere. I don’t think I was ever that sick before that night or since. I tried to get up, but I was so paralytic that I could barely move my head. Through a haze, I can remember two of the nuns cleaning me and the room. The stench was unbearable…vegetable curry and Bush Brew. One of them force liquid down my throat—which I just vomited up again. Eventually I just passed out completely.

  “I woke up the next day feeling like death warmed up. I was dressed in my own nightgown again. Whatever happened to my parrot dress, I do not know to this day. I always wondered whether the nuns kept this hideous dress on standby in case someone arrived at their doorstep destitute and dirty…or drunk.

  “I managed to get up, struggling to the door in search of water. I swear I have never been that thirsty ever. I opened the door and the brightest sunlight bombarded my eyes into blindness. I staggered for a moment trying to get used to the idea of being vertical and in fresh air. I shaded my eyes with my hand. I looked up slightly and saw a nun sitting outside my room. I asked her for water. She nodded and indicated with her head that I should follow her, which I did…straight to Sour Superior’s office.

  “Old Sour was not too happy with me—which was understandable. She beckoned me to a chair and handed me a huge mug of water.

  “At first, she only looked at me as I slowly sipped the water. Then, in a very cool voice, she started lecturing me about the Catholic Saints. Saint Christopher will protect you on your journeys, Saint Paul will do this, this one will do that…blah, blah, blah off she went. Then she paused. She then said to me, ‘there is Saint Jude. Now he is a very special saint. His duty in this creation is to guard hopeless cases like you’,” Doctor Mayer laughed out loud. She took the last sip of wine from her glass.

  “Our relieve flight arrived the next day and we were flown to Italy. But that is another story. When I arrived in Blantyre, I still felt like death warmed up. One of the doctors examined me and told me I had contrac
ted malaria. Now, if you have never had it, let me tell you, it makes you so ill, you pray for death.” Doctor Mayer paused and looked down at her empty plate. Both Hobbs and Jeanine were silent.

  “A few months later when I was back in London, there was a news report about a Catholic Mission station that was attacked by the Mozambique rebels. Horrific photographs started circulating in the media. I recognized old Sour Superior’s body in one of the photographs. She and the nuns were lined up, made to kneel and shot in the back of their heads. The news reports said that all the nuns were raped before they were shot execution style. I remember crying for more than a week.”

  Doctor Mayer took a deep breath. “That is Africa for you—not meant for the faint hearted.” She got up and started clearing the table. Hobbs and Jeanine stared at her in silence. Hobbs suspected Doctor Mayer turned her back to them so that they could not see her sad face. Some memories just don’t fade that easily.

  “Coffee anyone?” she asked with her backed turned to Hobbs and Jeanine. Both nodded yes.

  They retired to the living room with their coffee. The mood was very somber now. Hobbs drank his coffee quickly and silently.

  “Thank you for the evening,” Hobbs said as he got up and walked towards the door. He made a point of not looking at Jeanie.

  Chapter Thirty

  The first time he screwed a fat girl was so traumatic that he failed to get a hard-on. Henry, at that stage, had tried everything else so he decided to try fat girls.

  She was really gross. He met her at a pub in town. Because of his height people presumed him much older. She gushed over him from the start—even bought him beer. He just started his studies and did not have much money. Then she suggested that they have drinks at her apartment two blocks away.

  She led him into the apartment by the hand, ripped her shirt off and pushed his hands on her huge breasts.

  “Fuck me! Fuck me hard! You can do anything to me,” she pleaded. She wiggled out of her tight jean and purple g-string, grabbed his right hand and slapped on her fanny.

  He remembered that she was clean-shaven and wet. He stroked her lightly to make sure that there was no hair.

  She giggled. “Do me hard!” she whispered.

  She led him to her bedroom, fell back onto the unmade bed and dragged him on top of her. She ripped his jean open expertly looking for his penis. Her hand found it, and she began stroking his semi-hard limb.

  His mind was not on the sex. He wanted to see the hair-less fanny. He had never seen one before. He loosened her hand from his penis and lowered his head.

  “Oh, yes. Oh, God…” she muttered.

  Henry looked at the swollen, hairless, purple lips. This is actually ugly, he thought to himself. Yet he inserted two fingers into her.

  She moaned and wriggled her fat bottom. “Yes, yes,” she moaned. Her fat thighs wobbled next to his head.

  His fingers became moist from her fluids but his penis remained limp. Then he saw the empty beer bottle next to her bed. He picked up the bottle and inserted it into her. She panted with pleasure. He moved the bottle faster and faster, all the while watching the bottle getting wetter. She started thrashing and moaning louder. She pushed herself up on her elbows, opened her eyes and saw the bottle in his hand. She gave a slight laugh and sat up.

  “Hey big boy,” she cooed, “it’s you I want inside me.”

  Henry did not even try to get sexually excited. She revolted him. “Hey bitch!” he bawled at her, “I’m hungry. Go make me some food.”

  “Food?” She was flabbergasted.

  Henry stood tall between her legs. “Yes…food! Something wrong with your hearing? I’m hungry. Can’t perform when I’m hungry.”

  She looked at him confused, but got up and drew a dressing gown over her nakedness. “Follow me big boy. I will make you a feast,” she said, all coy.

  “I don’t want a feast. I want something to eat.”

  He had to admit it to himself that she did know how to cook. She made him the most scrumptious pasta dish he had ever had. Clearly she enjoyed cooking and eating. He had barely taken his last bite when she was all over him again, rubbing her huge breast on his bare chest. He walked her back to the bed and threw her onto it. She gave a little yelp, but immediately rolled onto her back. She was not going to miss out on sex with this gorgeous man.

  “Open your legs,” he demanded.

  She did, stroking herself slowly. She gave a sigh. He dug his face between her legs and sniffed her. The female smell was familiar. The taste was the same. But he just couldn’t do it. She reminded him of Mother when she was much younger, way before Wills went to jail.

  She gave a deep groan. He shoved two fingers inside her and watched mesmerized as they moved in and out. His penis remained limp. She was growing excessively wet again. He picked up the bottle and moved it inside her.

  “Oh yes, baby!” she moaned. “Give it to me.”

  So he did. He shoved the bottle into her extra hard. Only the bottom part stuck out. He shoved it hard into her again and again. She moaned with pleasure and wriggled her fat bottom. Her face contorted, and that revolted him even more. Using his palm, he shoved the entire bottle hard into her.

  She yelped and her eyes jumped open. He shook his head at her, got up and walked out. He heard her moan in the room as he closed the door behind him.

  He picked up an even fatter girl in a bar a week later. It was the same story, no hard-on. He explained his failure to perform to too much beer. He knew that he had only had two beers, and normally it had no effect on him. So he got up, went to the kitchen and drank a few more beers. Maybe that was the problem, not enough beer. The urge to have sex with her became stronger and stronger as he drank. He got up after his third beer and walked back into the bedroom. Fat girl was sleepy when he opened the door, but the moment she saw him, her face lit up.

  “Go lie down,” he commanded, “I want to fuck you.”

  She did just that and flung herself open to him. He only had eyes for her cunt. “Come-on baby,” she purred, as he slowly took off his clothes. “Come fuck me.”

  “Turn off the light,” he commanded further. He couldn’t tolerate her fat. She was reluctant to do so, as she wanted to watch his beautiful body and erect penis.

  He climbed onto the bed, crawled towards her and inserted his huge penis inside her. She moaned, but more for show than with pleasure. He slowly pumped into her. She tried desperately to kiss him, but he avoided her mouth. She stank of cigarettes and booze. He closed his eyes and got into the rhythm of things. Slowly, a lingering fantasy started. As a child he watched a sow eating her new born. He heard its tiny bones crushing in the sow’s mouth.

  His hands held the fat woman’s neck tightly as he started licking her face. It tasted of stale smoke and make-up. He jammed the light on, sat up and screamed at her, “Don’t you fucking wash your face before you go to bed, you filthy whore?”

  She sat up stunned. “Okay, okay, I’ll go do it.” She got out of bed and walked naked to the bathroom. He watched as her stomach flapped against her thighs. She was gross. He got up, got dressed and left. By the time she came back from the bathroom, the bedroom was deserted. She took her vibrator from her drawer, turned it up high and had a fantasy herself.

  That same night he made eye contact with another drunken woman in a bar. Desperate girls are easy to spot. They would be the ones in tight and revealing clothing hanging on bar counters, scanning the room for their next lay. They are the ones who are notoriously drunk at nine, and when picked up, they tell you that they don’t do one night stands as a rule. All he had to do was wait for her to notice him. He merely raised his eyebrows and she slithered off her bar stool and slinked over to him.

  “Hi handsome.”

  Why ‘handsome’ he could never figure out. He knew he had good looks, but these desperate girls would call all the men in the bar ‘handsome’. And some were as ugly as sin.

  Without a word, he ordered her a drink. “Ah, thank you…a m
an after my own heart,” she cooed. Her dress strap fell off her shoulder. She wet her top lip with her tongue before sipping the new drink. Henry looked at her. Her breasts sagged almost to the fat roll on her waist. The black pencil skirt was way too tight and showed the cellulite dimples on her thighs. She failed dismally to turn him on. Her make-up was smudged under her eyes. There was lipstick on her teeth and she was very drunk. He finished his drink and went home to Heidi.

  That is not the kind of girl I want in my fantasy, he thought to himself. The girl he wanted was to be chaste with a heart of a whore, like Heidi once was before her drunken father raped her and spoiled the innocence. He wanted a woman that would read and quote from the Bible, pretended to be holy and was at least clean. He needed a challenge. He was tired of drunken girls falling into his lap. He could, and did what he liked to them. They were beyond fear.

  “Heidi, that church you go to on Sundays? Can anyone go?”

  She was secretly happy. Maybe now he would change his ways and be faithful to her. At least he did not drink. He was a hard worker and provided for her well.

  He spotted quite a few of them, women who sat with their Bibles on their laps and said ‘amen’ and ‘hallelujah’ a lot. Yet, he caught a few of them stealing glances at him. He would give them his brightest smile. Heidi was a very popular girl that first morning. All her church friends came over to them after church and wanted to be introduced. Two weeks later he also met her one half-brother. The brother was clearly gay. In a strange way, it excited him.

  “Heidi,” he said carefully. She looked up at him. They had not seen each other in years. She definitely had their mother’s eyes and mouth.

  She smiled at him and gave him a huge hug.