The Future

THE FUTURE

By C

PART I

CHAPTER 10

                         

       John walks through the opening leading from the unbelievable observation area, and gratefully leaves the sounds of mocking, feminine merriment. He had expected to come to an exit but, instead, finds himself in a corridor. It has a solid row of large, tinted, windows on the right, which give a breathtaking view of the immaculate grounds. The corridor is softly lit, and the atmosphere would have been soothing if it had not been for his stunned, confused, state of mind and for the displays along the opposite wall. This wall is covered with walnut paneling and has small alcoves built in where stuffed bodies are standing. Also, attached to the wall are mounted trophies on plaques and hides.

       John hardly notices the displays humiliating his sex. By now, they are becoming a familiar sight, and his mind is still trying to come to grips with the atrocious scene he had just witnessed. He pauses in front of one of the windows and looks absently at the peaceful, landscaped, setting. He had been so stunned from what he had just seen that he had forgotten the impressive architecture of the building and its immaculate surroundings. Seeing the manicured grounds brings the realization back and only serves to further confuse his baffled mind. He had known that there would be facilities where men would be killed and processed for food, but, in his wildest dreams, he would not have expected anything like this. It made no sense for such gruesome activity to be conducted in a building so impressive he assumed it to be a cultural center.

       Another thing that John had been totally unprepared to find was an area actually being provided for spectators to view men's freshly slaughtered bodies. In addition, he had been flabbergasted by the reaction of the spectators themselves. It is one thing for women to look at human bodies that have been stuffed, but it is quite another to watch bleeding, still warm, bodies that have just been killed. He has now discovered, however, those women are not only capable of witnessing such a gruesome sight, but they actually find it entertaining and highly amusing.

       John starts down the corridor, still expecting to come to an exit. He is somewhat surprised when he reaches the end and finds himself in another long room with a glass wall and rail. It is identical to the previous except that there is a large, brightly lit, room on the opposite side. As before, women are lined up along the rail and looking at what is taking place beyond. This audience is in good spirits, but they are not laughing as much as the group he had just left. Not knowing what to expect, he walks up to an opening in the crowd. He reaches the wall, and, when the scene that lay beyond finally registers in his numbed mind, a cold chill grips his entire body.

       He had assumed that displaying and humiliating the bodies of freshly slaughtered men would be the extent to which the public would be allowed to observe. The discovery that women could actually enjoy watching something so appalling had been hard to comprehend, but he had not even considered the possibility that they would desire to observe any of the far more gruesome activities that would be taking place. With shocking suddenness, he finds out how totally mistaken this assumption had been.

       Directly opposite and running parallel to the glass is a row of fifteen large tables with stainless steel tops. Gutters, also of stainless steel, run around the perimeters to drains

in the corners. Each table is equipped with a rack of knives of various sizes and shapes, a meat saw, and an assortment of stainless steel trays and bowls. The floor, consisting of white ceramic tile, is lower than the viewing area enabling spectators to look down and have a close-up observation of the activity.

       There is activity on every table except for the one directly in front of John. Standing behind each of the other tables is a woman facing the glass wall and the spectators beyond. They are dressed in white smocks that are covered with red stains as are their hands and forearms. The source of the stains is obvious. Each woman is busily engaged in the process of butchering the body of a man that lays on his back before her. The extent to which the men have been butchered varies from several tables containing almost a whole body to ones that have only a few remaining pieces of meat.

       A belt conveyor runs behind the tables on which the women engaged in the butchering process place trays and bowls containing internal organs and parts of bodies. The belt conveyor and its shocking burden disappear through an opening in the wall. The only exceptions are the sex organs, which are picked up and casually tossed on a table.

       The overhead conveyor, that John had seen previously, enters at the left, carrying its grisly load, and runs along the back wall. The still bleeding bodies are diverted to rails located behind the tables. Here they hang motionless, upside down, as though content to put their manhood on display to a female audience while patiently waiting to be butchered. The emptied conveyor passes through an opening at the opposite end of the room to return to wherever it had started.

       This is the astounding scene that greets John as he steps up to the glass wall. Even though he had known such activity would be taking place, somewhere in the building, he is totally unprepared for the stunning shock that grips him from suddenly coming upon it in such an unbelievable setting. He can only gape in disbelief as his mind grapples with trying to comprehend what his eyes are seeing.

     At first, the magnitude makes the activity seem almost hazy, but, for some reason, his mind randomly selects things that are recorded in vivid detail as though a picture had been taken. Several things in particular will remain etched in his memory. One is the sight of a severed head, laying on its side, on the belt conveyor. The open eyes appear to be gazing at John as they pass by. The most vivid sight, however, one that he knows he will never forget, is a table that contains a large pile of nothing but severed sex organs. For several minutes, he can not tear his eyes from the unbelievable sight. Limp shafts intertwine with cone shaped heads visible at the ends of some and blood covered roots of others. Rounded, shiny surfaces of testicles and limp tubes can be seen protruding from the tops of scrotums. It staggers him to see the proud manhood of his sex reduced to lying passively in such a large pile before of a group of female spectators. It makes it even worse to know that all had recently hung between the legs of a living man and that the hand of a woman had cut off each and every one.

       When John walked up to the wall, the table directly in front of him had been empty except for being covered with blood. He had been so engrossed in looking at other things that he gave it little notice until a movement taking place behind catches his attention. He looks and sees a young man's bleeding body, hanging upside down from the rail above, being pulled by two women. As soon as he is over the table his body is lowered until lying on its back. His penis lies sideways pointing toward the audience. The blood that had previously been on the table has been washed off and the wet surface sparkles in the bright overhead light. The women spread his legs and leave. His head is directly opposite John and is turned slightly so that the open, lifeless, eyes appear to be looking directly into John's own. This gives John an extremely eerie, uneasy, feeling and he quickly diverts his gaze.

       John knows what is about to happen, and his conscious mind tells him that there is no way that he can watch a human body being butchered. Yet, he finds that he is unable to force himself to leave. A strange sensation of morbid fascination has flooded over him, and, in spite of himself, remains where he is as though mesmerized. He does not have long to wait. An exceptionally beautiful young woman steps up behind the table, looks down, and allows her eyes to wander over the lifeless body lying before her. It is twice her size, and her eyes sparkle with a look of pride which is enhanced by a mischievous looking smile. She leans over, gazes into the open eyes, runs her fingers lightly over the face, and around the lips of the half open mouth. Her attention shifts to the hairy chest, and she runs her fingers through the course texture and then over the nipples. Her gaze travels slowly down the abdomen until she is staring boldly at the generous, exposed, manhood.

      For several minutes, the woman carries out a close examination of this prominent part of the male body that so vividly separates it from her own. She runs her fingers through the pubic hair and then reaches between the legs and cups the scrotum. She roles the testicles back and forth, and then jounces them up and down. Her next act is to lightly run her fingers up the shaft, around the flared ridge, and finally, over the contours of the cone shaped head. With the tips of two fingers, she lifts the penis and, turning it in different directions, looks at every detail. She then presses on both sides of the hole to force it open and gazes into the moist interior.

       This last act appears to complete the woman’s intimate examination of the genitals, but her attention to them is not over. She reaches out and starts to rapidly slap the penis and laughs at the way it flops violently back and forth. The humiliating activity causes a wave of laughter and giggles to come from the spectators, but, for John, he feels his face flush with embarrassment.

       The woman stops her playful activity and steps back. Her actions had been done in a manner that gave the appearance of having been part of a ritual. She takes another lingering glance at the naked body, and then, without further hesitation, starts to work. She draws a medium sized knife from the rack, pushes the sharp point into the pelvis just above the pubic hair, and slices upward to the breastbone – leaving a red gash as though pulling a zipper. Laying down the knife, she pulls open the abdomen - revealing tightly packed coils of white intestines. With both hands, the woman reaches in, lifts the rope like organs, and drops them on the table. She reaches in again and clamps both ends before cutting them loose. The pile of human entrails is picked up and dropped into a large tray, which is then placed on the belt conveyor.

       John is unable to control the strange fascination that continues to grip him or the eerie sensation that he feels at the sight of a human body actually being disemboweled. He is completely mesmerized and can only gape as one internal organ after another is cut out and removed until all that remain are the prostrate and seminal vesicle. The woman lays the penis over the scrotum, holds a small glass under the head, reaches into the body cavity, squeezes the male glands, and smiles mischievously as a thick stream of seamen squirts out. She raises the glass and drinks with obvious satisfaction. After being drained of their contents and cut out, the glands are soon lying in a small bowl on the conveyor.

     The young woman pauses and then picks up the saw. John watches aghast as she calmly cuts through the neck with remarkable ease. She lifts the severed head by the hair, holds it up, looks onto the open eyes, smiles, and lets out a mocking laugh. John feels a queer sensation at watching this unbelievable scene. The woman places the head, lying sideways, on a corner of the table. The experience of actually looking at a headless human body causes yet another strange sensation pass through John. He feels as though he is drifting in some type of weird dream.

       The pace of the activity increases. Still using the saw, she cuts off the hands, feet, arms, legs to above the knee, and sends them down the conveyor. The sharp, serrated, teeth of the saw had cut through flesh and bone with no difficulty. She pauses and looks down at what remains of the body lying before her. It is now nothing more than a gutted torso and upper thighs, but the impressive genitals still vividly reveal the identity.

      It’s this part of the body that that once again becomes the focal point of attention. The woman picks up a small knife, cuts around the triangular shape of pubic hair, and under the scrotum. She peels back the skin of the hairy patch and pulls until the moist, pink, flesh at the base of the penis is exposed. With her right hand, she picks up a narrow bladed knife that is curved at the end and, grasping the genitals with her left, pulls outward to stretch the exposed flesh at the base of the shaft. She thrusts the blade deep into the pelvis next to the root and cuts around the circular shape. It does not take long for the remains of the body to surrender its impressive symbol of manhood to this lovely young woman. A symbol that, for thousands of years, men had looked upon with defiant pride now appears content to lay limp, like a fallen bird, in a small, delicate feminine hand.

       Holding the severed genitals by the patch of hair, the woman laughs as she swings them back and forth in front of the lifeless face. The humiliating act brings another wave of laughter from the spectators, and John again feels his face burn.

      The young woman lays the sex organs on a cutting block, picks up a knife, slices off the skin containing the pubic hair, puts the fur like pelt into a small plastic bag and places it in a pocket of her smock. A vivid picture flashes through John's mind of rows of similar looking pelts attached to living room walls. In an instant he knows that at least part of the mystery behind the baffling displays has been solved. He had assumed, almost from the start, that the pelts represented a tally of some sort, but had been unable to think what it might be. Now, there is little doubt in his mind that he knows the answer. Each one of the pelts represents the body of a man that had been personally butchered by the woman who lived in the house.

       To John, this can mean only one thing. The young woman butchering the body directly in front of him, along with the women behind other tables, were not employees but members of the general public. It means everyday women in this society periodically butchers a man's body and takes the pubic hair as a souvenir of her achievement. The variation in the number of pelts now makes sense - the older the woman the larger the number. It also explains the reason why one home had contained two such displays. The one that had over two hundred represented the tally of a mother while the other, with only two, of a daughter who had only recently started the gruesome practice. The answer to this mystery comes to John almost immediately and does not require a great deal of conscious thought. He has little doubt that he is correct, but he is too engrossed in the unbelievable activity to try and think of a logical reason why everyday women would actually want to butcher freshly slaughtered bodies.

       The woman puts the severed sex organs in a small bowl and places it on the conveyor. She next lifts the head by the hair, takes one last mocking look at the face, and places it also on the rolling belt. She again picks up the saw and cuts through the rib cage and then the pelvic bone. She turns the torso over and saws along the backbone until it is completely cut in half. When the two pieces are rolled apart, John is struck with how much they resemble two small sides of beef rather than the remains of what, only a short time ago, had been the living body of a healthy, human male. It had been reduced to a state that it can truly be classified as being nothing more than a butchered carcass in every sense of the word. Another woman comes up and helps lift the two halves on the conveyor.

  

       There is nothing left. The table is empty except for being covered with blood as when John first arrived. The beautiful young woman, whose small, female hands had just finished butchering a man’s body, turns and leaves the room. Two other women come up and wash the blood off the table until it once again sparkles in the overhead light. They then pull another body out along the overhead rail. It is not long before it is lying on its back in the same position as the previous with legs spread and limp penis curving sideways toward the female spectators.

       The women leave to attend other duties, and another woman starts walking toward the table. This one is middle aged. She steps up to the table and proudly looks at the lifeless body. She then begins to follow the actions of her predecessor, and is soon enthusiastically slapping the limp penis wildly back and forth. The activity had almost duplicate those of the younger woman, and, in John's opinion, confirms his suspicion that the procedure is part of a ritual.

       The eerie feeling of morbid fascination that had griped him and compelled him to watch every detail of the previous episode has eased. But, even at its height, it had not been so overpowering that it kept him from also experiencing other emotions. Seeing the body of a member of his proud sex succumb to such humiliating and atrocious treatment being performed by a women, while others watched, had caused him to feel extreme shame and embarrassment. The muscular physique and, especially, the impressive endowment being humbled and manipulated with such ease had only served to make the shame and embarrassment that much greater. John has no desire to stay and watch the body of yet another member of his sex lay passively as it also submits to the same gruesome procedure.

     He steps away from the glass with his mind dwelling on the fact that a different woman is now standing behind the table. This observation makes him even more convinced that he is correct in assuming that the women in the processing room are members of the general population. He is also convinced that the pelts of pubic hair, being prominently displayed on living room walls, are souvenirs from male bodies that were personally butchered by the women living in the households.

       It is almost beyond John's comprehension to accept that an average, everyday, women, even in a society such as this, could possibly bring herself to perform such a grisly activity. Yet, there can be no denying what he had seen. The beautiful young woman that had just finished had performed her task with extreme efficiency and had obviously enjoyed herself immensely. Her actions, along with those of the others he had noticed, make him question his earlier belief that these women still contain a basic nature of compassion. There is certainly not any compassion being shown toward the recently slain bodies of the unfortunate young men on the other side of the glass wall. The whole episode has left him humiliated, baffled, and more confused than he had been the entire day.

       He moves away from the glass and slowly manages to regain some of his composure. He intently searches the face of one woman after another in an attempt to find some clue that might give any insight into what their actual feelings might be. They are obviously in good spirits, but they are not laughing hysterically as the previous audience had been doing. The only laughter he had been aware of had been when sex organs were being subjected to ridicule.

      In studying women’s faces, John sees that they display looks of pride. This is one reaction that does not surprise him. The members of this female society obviously consider themselves far superior to males and enjoy seeing it being demonstrated.  And, he has to admit, he has seen nothing the entire day that demonstrated their total dominance as dramatically as what he had just witnessed.

       John sees another emotion also being displayed but, at first, does not recognize it for what it is. This is primarily due to this particular reaction being the last thing he would have expected to find in an atmosphere such as this. Realization suddenly dawns, but he finds it hard to believe and searches the faces looking for some other explanation. None can be found. In addition to looks of feminine pride, the women's eyes flash with a look of excitement that is entirely different in nature. Most are either lightly nibbling at moist, lips or running the tips tongues over them. Their partly open mouths contain unmistakable looks of desire. He had seen this same expression on the faces of women he had seduced in the past not to recognize it. He is looking at a group of women that are in a state of obvious sexual excitement. Any lingering doubt is dispelled when he sees that many are pressing a hand between their legs. There are also pronounced bulges of erect nipples outlined beneath blouses and sweaters - some of which are being lightly massaged. He is totally dismayed, but there is no denying what he sees. The sight of men’s bodies being butchered is actually sexually arousing the women spectators.

       He has no idea how long he continues to stare in amassment. He can not believe this type of reaction being possible under such brutal circumstances. He is finally able to gain some semblance of control and realizes that nothing will be gained by gaping in disbelief. He looks around and tries to decide which way to go. There is an opening at the far end of the room, and he had noticed women periodically going in that direction. This can mean only one of two things. The women that left were either headed for an exit, or they were on their way to witness yet another event. There is only one other event that he can think of that would be taking place, and the mere thought that it might also be conducted in public makes his blood run cold. A short while ago, he would have thought such a thing would have been impossible, but, after what he has witnessed, he can no longer be sure of anything.

      John hesitates and wonders if he has the courage to proceed in that direction and find out. The more he thinks about it the more he realizes that he has no choice. He knows it would be difficult to live with himself if he backs out now. These women have proven themselves to be highly capable of defeating the men of this future era, but he can not allow them to also defeat him by mere default. He must prove that he, at least, is capable of being a man in this society even though no one will know it but himself. Regardless of what may lay ahead, he has to proceed and find out what it is. With this determined thought in mind, he strides purposefully toward the opening at the far end of the room.