The Cleaning

We walked through the autumn night, her hand finding mine. It didn't feel like romance—the way she gripped my fingers felt more like securing livestock, checking the gates. I dismissed the thought as paranoia. She was beautiful, interested, and mysterious. This was what college was supposed to be about.

The warehouse loomed ahead—four stories of brick and shadow, windows dark except for a faint glow from somewhere deep inside. It looked as if it had been abandoned for decades, then suddenly inhabited by someone with very specific tastes.

"This building was a slaughterhouse," she said as she unlocked a side door, her keys jangling in the darkness. "Back in the fifties. I've kept some of the equipment. For ambience."

The cargo elevator groaned as we descended, the cables singing a metallic song. When the doors opened, I stepped into a museum of butchery.

The corridors stretched before us, lit by Edison bulbs that cast everything in amber and shadow. Restraint cages lined the walls—iron bars thick with rust and something darker. Overhead, bleeding rails ran along the ceiling, hooks dangling at intervals like silent question marks. We passed deboning tables, their surfaces scarred by decades of blades, and hoists with shackles still attached, chains coiled like sleeping snakes.

"Dehairing machines," Lamia said casually, gesturing to a hulking apparatus that looked like it could strip flesh as easily as fur. "Sticking knives. Blood-catching troughs." She ran her finger along a blade as we passed, and I saw it—dark stains that looked fresh, catching the light like wet paint. "I find it charming, don't you? The history. The function."

"It's... something," I managed, my athlete's confidence wavering in this temple of disassembly.

We turned a corner, and there it was.

The room opened into a chamber that might have been a processing floor once. And in the centre, gleaming under the single spotlight, stood a spit roaster—massive, industrial, built to turn something large over an open flame. The metal was polished to a mirror shine, the rotisserie mechanism clearly functional, and the fire pit beneath it dark but waiting.

I approached it despite myself, drawn by the obscene craftsmanship of it. My hand reached out, finding the long metal spit rod that ran through the centre. I jerked back immediately—the metal was hot, impossibly hot, burning my palm. Why was it hot? I thought, surprised.

"Careful," Lamia said, suddenly besides me, her voice soft with concern that seemed almost genuine. She took my wounded hand in both of hers, her cool skin a shocking relief against the burn. Before I could protest, her head bowed, and I felt it—wet, impossibly quick—the back of her head obstructed my view, but I felt her tongue darting across my palm, lapping at the reddened skin with small, eager sounds.

I tried to pull away, but her grip was iron. She licked and dabbed at my hand for a full minute, her dark hair falling forward to hide her face, her movements almost reverent. When she finally looked up, her lips were wet, her eyes dilated to black pools ringed with ice.

"Back home," she whispered, still holding my hand, her thumb tracing circles on my palm, "we have a tradition. Before a feast, we taste the meat. Just a little. To appreciate what we're about to consume."

She brought my hand to her lips again, not to heal but to savour, her eyes locked on mine with an unmistakably sexual expression—and unmistakably hungry.

"You really are perfect," she breathed against my skin. "Lean. Strong. No fat to speak of. Athletes make the finest meals. All that discipline. All that... *tension*.

The room seemed to tilt. The chains overhead swayed in a draft I couldn't feel. The spit roaster gleamed, waiting, its rod still warm from some recent use.

"You're shaking," she observed, standing now, her hand sliding up my arm to grip my shoulder. "Don't be afraid, Robert. This is what you write about, isn't it? Being consumed? Being taken completely?" She smiled, and this time I saw them—her canines slightly too long, sharp as the blades we'd passed in the corridor. "I'm going to give you the most authentic research experience of your amateur career."

She stepped back, raising her arms, and the shadows in the room seemed to move with her, coalescing into shapes that clicked and dragged across the concrete floor—restraints activating, the hoist above us whirring to life.

"Welcome to dinner," Lamia said, her voice dropping octaves, becoming something ancient and ravenous. "Don't worry. I'll make sure you feel everything. That's part of the tradition too."

The last thing I saw was her eyes—those glacier eyes—melting into blackness as she moved towards me, and I realised with perfect, terrible clarity that I had finally found a reader who would truly devour my work.

The spit was still hot from this morning…

I almost fainted.

…

"Come with me," Lamia said, and her fingers wrapped around my wrist—not a request this time, but a command. Her grip was cool and unyielding, guiding me through another corridor, away from the spit roaster and its waiting heat.

We emerged into a kitchen that seemed to belong to another time period, like stepping into a different century. Copper pots hung from a rack overhead, gleaming dully. A butcher block stood in the centre, scarred by decades of use, and along one wall stretched cabinets of dark wood that seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it.

She released me only to pull open a cabinet, retrieving two wine glasses—heavy crystal, the kind that felt substantial in the hand. Then she moved to a wine rack built into the wall, her fingers dancing along the bottles before selecting one. The label was worn and illegible, and the glass was dark with age.

"This one," she murmured, almost to herself. "I prepared it myself."

She uncorked it with practised ease, and the sound that emerged was wet—thick, viscous. She poured, and the liquid that filled both glasses was not the typical red wine as I knew it. It was crimson, yes, but wrong somehow—too opaque, too heavy. It coated the crystal-like syrup, leaving trails as it settled.

Lamia turned away, setting the bottle down somewhere I couldn't see, her body blocking my view. I heard the clink of glass and the pour of liquid, but when she turned back, both glasses were full again, with that sticky red substance reaching the brim.

"To you," she said, raising her glass, her eyes catching the dim light.

"To my dinner," she added, her smile sharp.

I took the glass she offered. The liquid was warm against my palm, warmer than any wine should be. I brought it to my lips and sipped.

Metallic. Salty. Sweet underneath, like overripe fruit. The texture coated my tongue and clung to my throat as I swallowed. It was thick. Wrong. But I drank anyway—perhaps from shock, perhaps from something else, some compulsion in her gaze—and emptied the glass in three long swallows.

A bit rude, I thought dimly, draining it like that. But she only took the glass from my hand, smiling, turned away again, and when she faced me once more, my glass was full again.

"Drink," she whispered, lifting the glass to my lips.

I tried to resist, but she tilted it higher and higher, the rim pressing against my mouth until I had no choice but to open and accept. The warm, coppery liquid flowed down my throat, and with each swallow, I felt myself drifting—numbness spreading from my core outward, my limbs growing heavy, my thoughts slowing to a crawl. Did I drink too much already? I wondered.

"Come," she said, and her fingers found my wrist again.

The world tilted as she led me from the kitchen, my bare feet stumbling on concrete that felt miles away. We stopped in a bathroom tiled in white—old-fashioned, pristine, dominated by a big clawfoot tub on four curved legs that looked like animal bones.

"Have a bath," she instructed, her voice coming from far away. "Clean yourself."

I didn't need to—I was clean, I'd showered that morning—but my mouth wouldn't form the words. My body moved of its own accord, or perhaps at her unspoken command, stripping away my clothes until I stood naked before her.

Lamia's eyes travelled over me, appraising, cataloguing. "Nice calves, meat," she purred, and I dimly noted that she'd changed my name, claimed me, and renamed me like livestock. "They look delicious."

She turned the taps, filling the tub with steaming water, and from a jar on the shelf, she sprinkled handfuls of rosemary into the bath. The scent rose—herbaceous, clean, masking something else beneath.

"Come, Robert," she whispered. "Enjoy your cleaning."

I stepped into the water, sinking down, the heat enveloping my sedated limbs. She knelt besides the tub, producing a scrub sponge from somewhere, and began to work.

She started at my feet—rough, efficient strokes that removed nothing because there was nothing to remove, yet she scrubbed as if polishing silver. Up my legs, over my knees, her fingers pressing into the muscle of my thighs. She reached my hips and my stomach, and I realised with distant embarrassment that I was hard—fully, achingly erect from her touch, from the warmth, from the wrongness of everything.

Lamia didn't pause. She wrapped her hand around my cock, the sponge rough against sensitive skin, washing me with the same methodical care she gave the rest of my body. Her grip was firm and controlled—bringing me to the edge but never over, careful, so careful not to let me spill.

"Not yet," she breathed, feeling me twitch. "Not yet."

She moved to my chest, my shoulders, my arms—scrubbing every inch as if removing a layer of skin, preparing the surface. "Sit up," she commanded, and I obeyed, boneless, compliant.

She scrubbed my back with the same attention, the sponge scraping against my shoulder blades and down my spine. I could feel her breath on my neck, her presence behind me like a shadow with teeth.

"Lean back," she whispered, her lips against my ear.

I sank into the water, the rosemary-scented steam wrapping around my face. My eyes closed, heavy, so heavy.

"You are now clean enough for the preparation," she said, her voice the last thing I heard before the darkness took me.

The water lapped against my chest, and somewhere far away, I felt her lift my arm, checking the pulse, satisfied. I feel as if I am about to black out.

Then—nothing.

To be continued.