TRIGGER WARNING: graphic depictions of violence, blood, gore.
My craft is forks and knives. The art of the butcher:
The blade is part of you now. Handle smoothed by years of heat and blood, the steel kissed dull and re-sharpened a thousand times. The same weight as your hands. You learn the body by breaking it. From the feel of the tendon under your blade, the weight of a carcass swinging on a hook, still warm, steam rising from the open cavity. Don’t flinch. You’ve stopped seeing death. Just structure. Form.
Always start at the spine. Running your knife along the bone like you’re tracing something holy. The blade catches, skips. Adjust your wrist slightly—just enough—and then it slides through, smooth as breath. There’s a rhythm to it. You find the seams, the natural lines where flesh wants to part. When you cut, it doesn’t fight. It opens. Obedient. Shoulder, loin, round. You follow the order out of respect. The body tells you where to go if you pay attention. Muscle separates, fat curls, tendons pull beneath the surface. You feel them snap and recoil. Your hands steady. Your mind quiet. The sound of it is real—wet, intimate. The grind of blade on bone. The pop of a joint. The sigh of skin slipping free.
There’s blood, of course. It runs thick and heavy, warm as milk. Honest. The smell rises–salt and metal, fat and marrow. It fogs up your nose, clings to your skin, settles into your clothes. Like a shroud of death. The best part is the fat. Yielding and soft, glistening, buttery against the edge of the knife. Peeling away in clean strips, laying over the muscle like silk. Softening the chew.
Station clean, blades wiped, hands washed. Blood sluiced off the table in wide red swirls. Not because anyone’s watching. Because it matters. Because precision matters. You don’t hack. You carve. You understand what you’re touching. The tough cuts need more care–brisket, neck, shank. The parts that labored, that held weight, that bore tension. Work slower there. Gentler. By the time it’s done, there’s no animal left. Just meat and blood. Steaks. Ribs. Bones stacked like castles. The body becomes a product. Most people see plastic wrap. They see price tags.
But we see it all. We see what it was, what it became, what it gave. We have responsibility.
The bell above the shop door gives a lazy chime. I didn’t look up at first. Busy trimming a lamb shoulder, paring the fat with long strokes, the way I like: clean, deliberate, like peeling skin from fruit. The room smells like cold flesh, steel, and rosemary. Then the scent of blood filled my nose, clogging it. Not cologne. Not sweat. Blood. Faint, but fresh. Not the blood of a man who cut his finger or nicked his shaving blade. No. This is iron. Deep. Hot. The kind that hangs in the air and doesn’t leave. It makes me flicker, low in the chest. Recognition. Or warning, I can’t decide.
The first thing I notice about him is his average height and build. A button-down shirt tucked neatly into jeans. A canvas jacket, faded at the seams. A face you’d forget if you weren’t so sure it’s the last last thing you ever see. He walks slowly through the shop. Doesn’t browse. Doesn’t look at the cases like other customers do. Just moves, straight, like he knows the layout. Like he’s been here before.
“Morning,” I say, voice steady. Stake and knife in hand.
He smiles. Small, polite. “It’s colder in here than I thought it’d be.”
I nod. “Meat keeps better in the cold.”
“Mmhmm,” he hums in agreement.
I pause. That tone–it’s not a joke. Not really. He steps closer to the counter, eyes skimming the selections.
“Looking for anything in particular?”
“Mm.” He taps a finger against the glass. “Something with a little muscle. Not too lean. Something that’s been worked, but not worn out.”
“You a butcher?” I ask.
He meets my gaze. “No. I just know meat.”
There’s a beat of silence. The air hums between us.
I glance down at his hands. Clean. But the nails are too short. The knuckles, scraped raw. There’s a small stain at the hem of his sleeve. Fresh.
I reach beneath the counter and wrap a cut in paper. “You cook a lot?”
“Only what I catch myself,” he says.
I laugh, once. Sharp. “You hunt?”
He shrugs. “Something like that.”
I hand him the package. Our fingers brush. Cold. His eyes hold mine a little too long. He pays all in cash.
“Thank you,” he says, courteously.
He smiles again and walks out, the bell above the door singing behind him.
My eyes follow him out, every movement, long after he’s gone. I still smell blood, tasting it in my gums.
A taste of something I haven’t killed yet.
He left a note with the cash he paid with.
Begging me to kill him. Me. He doesn’t want to wait for cancer. He wants quickness. Dignity. He knows that’s what I specialize in.
He had heard of me, evidently, of my practices. Of the cows and pigs that have bled out on my floors. He thought I could give him a clean death. A noble killing, euthanasia, but I’m not in that business. I know how to butcher, not kill. He thinks himself prey, and me the predator. But I’m no predator. I respect the cow that gave its life to be your dinner. Does he want to be my dinner? I’ve always wondered how humans taste. Maybe I can do him this one favor. Cross the line –just once.
He came in again, later that day. To hear my answer.
I motioned that he should follow me and I took him into the walk-in freezer. This would be the best place to do it, easy to clean and drain the blood.
He didn’t scream. That was the worst part.
He didn’t even flinch when the machete was against his throat. Eyes catching mine in wait and want. In calm acceptance. Most people would cry or beg, their bodies betraying them. Not him. He just gave me a sad smile, like he trusted me. I saw the blade leave a thin line—a whisper of red, nothing more. His eyes never left mine.
“Don’t hesitate-”
I pressed into the blade as he spoke–ruining the moment. Proving myself. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t. Why did he want to be prey? Why did he think that he was just meat and bones waiting to be harvested, no more than any other cow? I pressed harder. The machete bit in. Not a clean slice. It caught on something–cartilage, tendon. His eyes on me, still. Then the blood came fast. Hot, thick, arterial. It sprayed across my chest, soaked into my collar, and hit the wall behind us in a wide arc. My breathing was shallow in excitement. Revulsion. Need.
He fell, knees first, hands reaching for me. I stepped out of his grasp and stood over him. Waited for the stillness, watched the color drain. Except there was a noise in my head that wouldn’t stop. A static. A buzzing. Eyes on my back. I disposed of the head first, but saved the eyes. I ate them raw. Only then did the buzzing subside.
I dragged his clothes off and started the process. Gloves on, boots heavy, apron stiff from older work. I laid him out on the stainless steel table, arms at his sides, neck jagged. His blood was already cooling. Less steam. Less resistance. I checked his pockets out of habit, practicality. A wallet, thin and efficient. No photos. No cash. An organ donor. Perfect.
Then I found a folded piece of paper inside his jacket. “Best with a little bit of rosemary and lots and lots of butter.”
Of course. He wanted me to fulfill every aspect. It wasn’t enough for me to kill him. He wants me to eat him too. He didn’t just want death–he wanted me. He wanted the dignity of death I give my cows, the pigs, and the lambs; a clean, humble death. Responsibility. Obligation. Devotion. I stood there, note in my hand, listening to the hum of the refrigerators pressing in around me. Watching the fluorescent lights flicker above the cutting table, my hands itching. He wasn’t like the cows, who pleaded and begged for my mercy. He wanted my blade, a death only I could offer. A type of love only I could offer. He was solitary in understanding yet loud in his wants; consumption, a massage with oil and spices, and to roast in the oven. He knew what to smell like. Knew what to sacrifice. My blade sliced with reverence, love, and attention. It was intimacy. A vow.
He wanted a death of duty, of tender ruin. I gave him everything he asked for and more.
It was the closest thing to a marriage I ever got.
A bite, tender and juicy. Red dripping down my fork and pooling next to my mashed potatoes. The knife sinks in with soft resistance, separating the seared crust to reveal a ruby red center. Rare. Blood spilling from the center, obscene, dark, and rich. The fork lifts to reveal a sizable piece, jagged edges, and pepper. Strings of muscle clinging together. It enters my mouth, and I chew with gentle violence. Tender. Iron flavor coats my tongue, smoke and flame. A slight char of butter. A warmth spreads in my mouth, slick and velvet, coating my mouth and resting in my canines. Another bite, muscular threads pulling at my knife, strands getting caught in the spaces between my teeth. Juice gushing, spilling in my mouth, gnawing on tender red flesh. Knife slowly cutting pieces, getting through the sear first and then easing into the red flesh. Smell of smoke and salt. Swallow. Carve another piece, spear it, admire, consume. Red juice intoxicates me, drooling down the sides of my mouth, surrounding my gums. Sinking inside me. I chew slowly, savoring the metallic spice. The napkin leaves a streak of red. Guilty. Strands of fat pull at my knife, rubbery and full of flavor. Rosemary and fire. Trembling with heat and blood, practically pulsing. Another piece. My knife catches on a ribbon of fat–rubbery, glistening. It stretches, then releases, melting in the heat of the blade. The blood spills forward, obscene in its richness, dark as garnet, streaking across the plate in slick ribbons. A burst of juice floods my mouth—thick, briny, and hot—filling every crevice. I gnaw the edges, scrape the fibers with my molars. The sear gives a satisfying crackle before yielding to the soft, pliant interior. The meat collapses between my teeth. Each bite lingers.
After my meal, I feel different. It wasn’t the meat. He was perfect. Not like beef or pork. Nothing like the others. He was something else, rich and sharp, like copper and cream, like smoke soaked into velvet. The kind of taste that coats the back of the throat and doesn’t leave. That lingers. Stains. He was honest, blunt. The muscle tore like it wanted to be eaten. Fat melted across my tongue like it had been waiting for me. There was no resistance. No chew. Just surrender. My plate was empty, and my mouth was wet and warm and wrong. Lips sticky. Jaw slack.
I think I hate him. I hate that I’ll never have anything as good as him. I hate that he came to me as an offering. I hated that now—now—I know I’ll never find better. I hate that he wanted me. That there was a ghost of a wedding ring on my finger. I hate that he didn’t fight, didn’t flinch. That he fell to his knees like an animal begging to be put down. I hate that he made it easy. I hate that he released something inside me. I hate that there’s no more of him in my freezer.
I devoured him whole. Who will be next?