Appetite

Steve Beresford

“Crikey, I’m still starving.” Eddie turns away from the bedroom window to wink at me. “I could murder a curry.”

I’m in bed, bloody exhausted.

It’s Monday. Day off. 1.30 pm. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday morning in Eddie’s bedroom.

“Curry?” I’m queasy at the thought.

“Ey-up,” he now says, as I hear noise from outside, “he’s mowing again.”

Eddie often complains that his neighbour, Roger, mows his lawn too often. And washes his car too often. Everything Roger does, in fact, Eddie complains about it.

“Oi! Rog!” He raps on the glass, then puts his thumb on his nose, waggling his fingers while blowing raspberries.

“Eddie! He’ll see you.”

“Let him see me.”

“You’re naked.”

“So?”

Eddie does a little dance, but luckily the windowsill is probably high enough, with the angle from the next-door garden below, to mask the wayward willy. Also luckily, his bedroom is at the back, not the front. And anyway, Eddie is hardly blessed in the willy-waving department. Roger would need binoculars.

Which is why, you see, I went to see Janetta Lollafabula. Or Janice Lollard, as she used to be known when we were at school together. She’s our local witch. Well, you know what I mean. I was sort of hoping that what Eddie lacked in, well, size could be made up for with more enthusiasm. Eddie could be a little lacklustre in the bedroom department. I do love him. Of course, I do. Eddie is witty, intelligent, ripped and tremendously gorgeous. And well off too. Bit of a catch, to be honest.

The only problem is: in the bedroom, or anywhere else I initiate rumpy-pumpy, he’s a bit of a damp squib. No enthusiasm or appetite. Almost have to twist his arm.

Janice gave me a potion when I explained my problem. Three or four drops, she advised, would transform Eddie into a proper Casanova. I stirred half the bottle into that supermarket shepherd’s pie I served at my place on Friday evening, just to make sure.

It’s clearly done the trick.

“I have to go,” I say.

Eddie stops his prancing and leaps onto the bed. “What! No! You can’t!”

“I told you. I’m taking my mum to the dentist.”

“Awww!” He’s getting aroused again. Already. Blimey. “Phone her. Tell her something’s come up.”

I laugh, but I really can’t take any more just at the moment. “Eddie. Control yourself.”

“Can’t.” He nuzzles my neck, his hands roaming.

I throw him off and, grabbing some clothes, scamper away to his en suite.

I eventually make my escape, promising to return later. Bit of a breather, I reckon, and I’ll be ready to start again. Eddie promises to prepare a feast. His appetite for food now matches his appetite for me.

When I get outside though, there are two police cars at the end of the road, slightly dampening my mood. A gang of uniformed coppers are scribbling notes as they talk to people. I’m going the other way, but there are cops this way too. Door-to-door thing, by the looks of it.

As I pass one of the doorways I hear the cop asking: “Running down the back alley, you say? Can you give me a description?”

The woman at the door, a housewife, 50s, in a pinny, says: “Tall-ish. Maybe. It was dark though.”

“And he was carrying a fox?” The cop sounded sceptical.

“Think so, yes. Holding it by the tail, he was. ”

What the...? I realise I’ve paused to listen when another cop appears right by me, surprising the proverbial shit out of me.

“You a local?” Young, he is. Hardly shaving yet.

“Me?” I shake my head. “No. Just visiting a friend.”

“You visited your friend yesterday? Sunday night?”

“No. I was at home then. In Great Barr. What’s going on?”

“’ad reports of a feller. Grabbing animals. Y’know, a couple of cats. Fox. That sort o’ thing. You en’t seen nuffin then?”

“No. Sorry.”

The cop lets me get on and off I go. Get home. Get showered and changed. Out again to take my mum to the dentist. Check the news on my phone while I’m sat in the waiting room.

Apparently, it’s exactly as the cop said: some bloke, making off with animals. Weird. Anyway...

I get Mum back home, just a scrape and polish this time, then head back to Eddie’s place. I don’t want to stop all night. Work tomorrow. He’s been texting me about this fabulous feast he’s been preparing. To be honest, I’ll be happy with just the food. Give the nether regions some time off.

“So...” Eddie leads me into his dining room after a long smooch and a fumble and then me batting him away in the hallway. “...what do you think?”

I nod. “Impressive.”

And it is. The table is dressed as though for a royal feast. Fancy tablecloth, perfectly arranged china and cutlery, napkin rings, candlesticks glowing in the evening twilight.

The aroma filling his house is almost overwhelming. And I gradually realised it’s not altogether pleasant.

I veer towards the kitchen. “What’re you cooking then?”

“Curry. Like I said.”

“Curry?” Doesn’t smell like curry. Smells more like... an abattoir.

The kitchen is hot and stifling. A mess too. Unwashed pots, pans and utensils. Offcuts of meat and veg scattered around.

Blood. Everywhere.

A fox tail, I see now. A cat’s paw. A dismembered human hand. And...

Oh shit.

...a head. Smashed at the back, empty, as though the brain’s been removed.

A memory now - Eddie telling me Roger’s full name - slams into me so hard I stagger. Roger Curry.

“I could murder a Curry,” Eddie said this morning, with me not catching the capital C.

“Don’t know what’s come over me,” Eddie now says. “Suddenly got this craving for...” and his smile is blood-chillingly twisted “...something different.”

And I remember Janice’s warning about her sex potion.

“Few drops,” she said. “That’ll perk up his appetite.”

Only I poured in half the bottle.

Steve Beresford studied astrophysics and has worked as a programmer, traffic engineer and archivist (amongst other things). He lives in Lichfield, UK, and has had 100s of short stories published (horror & SF, crime, mystery, etc) in books, magazines and competitions worldwide. One story was longlisted for last year’s CWA Margery Allingham Competition. He’s also written some non-fiction and had a couple of TV scripts optioned.

Find him on Bluesky @LostInMilbury where he mostly indulges his love of books, TV and film. Mostly. Loves Phils Dick and Rickman, and other non-Phil writers such as Baxter, Griffiths & Moffat.