Inside Mia D.
written by: E.I. Aida
As she started the engine of her brand new, green, Mini Austin, Mia couldn’t help but check her mental list for the fourth time that day, as she did every day. Did she forget to put any piece of meat or fish in the freezer? No, she could see herself having to move the chicken legs she had labelled as ‘Friday eve’ to find room for ‘Sat. ?’ – roast beef – and ‘Adam’ – fresh hake her son adored. Had she eaten anything raw or badly cooked today? No, the restaurant David and Joy had picked for lunch specialised in barbecue meat and she had insisted for her lamb chops to be cooked at least one whole minute at a 60°C temperature, and surely restaurants respected their clients demands, didn’t they? Maybe she should have opted for the vegetarian option. That was her oldest struggle: liking the taste of meat that much and yet being so aware of the risks that came with eating it.
Being so paranoid, would correct Adam whenever he had a chance. How could she pretend she loved the taste of meat if she ate it over-cooked? He had started pointing at her foibles for little more than a year now. After the divorce, John had made him taste blood and, as Adam claimed from the top of his thirteen-year-old lungs, there was no turning back.
Mia had hoped that John would have their son over tonight, but he was on a seminar himself and she had left Adam dozens of notes and instructions spread all over the kitchen, living room and bathroom, plus a ‘Goodnight darling (hopefully it’s at least two hours before midnight when you read this) Xoxo, Mum’ note on his pillow.
She had had a long day herself and she wished to be back before midnight as well, but there was no telling how it would turn out and she wouldn’t be caught leaving first. She was this close to being the first woman of their firm to be named head executive of the Judicial Department. She was a harder worker than Daniel was, had always had better results, it would only make sense that she would be picked before him. Yet she knew just how important social niceties were, especially to their CEO, and no matter how ridiculous she had found the thought of having to have dinner with Daniel and his wife at the CEO’s house, no matter how convinced she was that no brain-functioning adult would ever base their decision on how a dinner went over on how either Daniel or her actually worked, she couldn’t dismiss the thought that there was a reason for inviting them both over and she had to make her best impression.
Mia had bought a dress especially for the occasion. A sober, deep blue dress, that looked very professional, she thought, and flattered her pale complexion. She had managed to tie her thick, unruly black hair into what she hoped looked like a perfect bun, and had opted for black eyeliner and red lipstick, for once. She may not be as funny as Daniel was, but she knew she was a beautiful woman, and that had to count for something.
Mister Galino’s house sat at the end of a large alley made majestic by the Lombardy poplar trees that crowned it on each side, giving the guests a taste of Italy. Daniel’s car was already parked beside the marble stairs that led up to the big, rounded white entrance door. ‘Fuck.’, whispered Mia as she locked her car and started climbing the stairs. She had hoped to be there first.
She was greeted by Gina, Mister Galino’s wife. She was asked to put her phone away in a box where four phones already were stored. Gina explained they wanted to have a nice diner party without any of them having to be the slave of their phone. Mia nodded her approval as Gina locked the box away, and brought her to the living-room to meet Daniel, his wife Cécile and her CEO, in the living room where they were already drinking a glass of Bellini each. Mia wasn’t much of a drinker but she took the glass she was soon handed with a smile and proceeded to sip on it. The alcohol did help her relax a little. Daniel was delivering jokes upon jokes, more often than not targeted at women, the French, and French women. His French wife smiled only half-heartedly, which was already twice more than Gina or Mia ever did. Mia, on the other hand, had several drinks – which may not have been the best of ideas since she never could handle her alcohol – but she started several discussions that mister Galino himself called ‘fascinating’, and she couldn’t have felt better when they finally got to the dining table.
Gina had insisted on dressing the table and cooking herself. Mia thought she had done a nice enough job – if you were into black and white. The black plates and cutlery – impressively sharp knives and delicate-looking forks – contrasted with the white table, the wine glasses were made of black glass, filled by snow-white towels. A black centrepiece was adorned by a black vase holding a huge bouquet of white anemones, set at the exact centre of the table. On either side of it, every ten centimetres, a white pearl decreasingly smaller than the one before finished decorating the table. Nothing was left to chance. Everything was spot clean. That comforted Mia who always had an uncontrollable fear when it came to eating somewhere new.
Gina brought a starter course. She had cooked a soup she called pasta e fagioli. It was pretty rich and Mia couldn’t get to the end of it, afraid she might then not be able to honour her host’s cuisine next. Gina sounded understanding when she brought a half-eaten bowl back to the kitchen, but looked rather hurt and even though she wasn’t involved in the firm – at least that Mia knew of – she was afraid she was starting to lose points. Daniel winked at her when he saw Gina’s suddenly closed face as she walked out of the room. Mia decided she would now force herself to eat whatever came out of this kitchen next with so much enthusiasm that Gina would completely forget about her soup.
Except next Gina brought Carne Cruda all’albese. Tartar. Raw meat. Possibly teeming with worms waiting to feast on their guts.
Suddenly she became excessively aware of her surroundings. On her right was Daniel, offering loud ohs and ahs to their host as he turned his plate and examined it under every possible angles. Raw. Meat. How did that even count as cooking? Daniel was beaming: he was the only one around this table to know of Mia’s fear of parasites. On her left, at the end of the table, Mister Galino was telling Cécile, sat in front of Mia, how this was his favourite meal ever, and how his wife did it even better than his mother used to. Bloody. Raw. Meat! Nothing to boast about was there? Anyone could go buy it and put it on a fucking black plate, didn’t necessarily make them a chief, did it!
Gina sat back down once all her monstrosities had been distributed. Mia could sense she was being observed as she stared in silence directly at the meat.
‘Are you ok, Mia?’, Gina asked with genuine concern in her voice.
Mia raised her head and tried her best to hold her host’s gaze. Was she imagining it or was Daniel chuckling?
‘Yes, all good.’, she replied, with a forced smile.
‘Are you a vegetarian maybe?’, Gina turned to her husband, seeking an answer.
‘Oh, no, Mia loves meat!’, chanted Daniel, with a smile that ate away half his face.
‘Is it because it’s raw? Sergio, I told you it was risky to serve raw meat to a table of British people. They’re not used to it!’, Gina said, leaning over the table to catch her husband’s eyes.
‘Nonsense.’, decided Mister Galino. ‘She just haven’t tested it yet, but I’m sure she’ll love it. Just has to overcome her fear of the unknown.’ He patted Mia’s left shoulder and she hoped the mask of amusement she was trying to sew over her face was convincing enough. ‘You sometimes have to leave your comfort zone, right, Mia?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you sure you’re going to eat it?’, asked Daniel, with malice in his eyes. ‘As otherwise I’d gladly take your share, you know? This looks delicious!’
The vision of Daniel playing teacher’s pet settled it for Mia. She was going to eat the damned Carne dell whatever it was, no way she would let him under the spotlights.
‘Yes, I’m sure, Daniel. Sorry to disappoint. I might even be the one to ask for more, who knows?’
‘Who indeed.’, replied Daniel in a whisper.
This is between me and this filthy red thing, thought Mia. How many times did Sergio and Gina eat this thing, and they’re not dead yet, are they? She grabbed her fork, and realised they all had been waiting for her to do so, to start eating themselves. She quickly looked around the table with her best try at a confident look. They were all back to joking and chatting, but somehow Mia couldn’t focus on what they were saying. Mister Galino and Cécile were already chewing on the raw meat and that was all she could hear at the moment.
The drawing the minced meat was painting on her plate, intertwining every little red snake together to form a steak, looked like worms already, dancing and fucking in a horrifying orgy.
‘Mia?’, Daniel startled her, calling her with a soft voice and his hand on hers, her fork still inches away from her plate. ‘You don’t have to do it if that’s too much for you, you know?’
Mia couldn’t believe it was genuine concern she could hear in his voice.
‘Of course, I have to do it.’, she grunted for his sake only.
She dug her black fork into the red, spongy meat. It made a wet noise that filled the room, she thought. She resolutely took the biggest piece she could manage to put in her mouth: the quicker she would be done with it the better.
All noises ceased as she raised her fork back up to her mouth. Eight pairs of eyes were staring at her intently, holding their breaths. Could they see the drops of sweats that were running down the back of her neck, making her shiver on their way along her spine, and had already soaked the back of her dress?
The fork was now in her mouth and she really had to close her lips around it quick if she didn’t want to look any more stupid than she already did. The metal felt cold on her tongue. She tried hard not to think about the disgusting consistency of the meat hitting her palate and teeth with every jaw movement. Remembering to smile through it was the hardest thing she remembered doing since giving birth to Adam, thirteen years ago.
The Eyes were still hanging at the corner of her mouth, Mia felt their weight with every bite she took. It made chewing that much more difficult, having to lift them up every time she unclenched her teeth. She had to swallow if she wanted to play pretend and make Them look away. She sunk her teeth into the insides of her cheeks as she let the muck pour itself down her throat, sunk them until she could feel her own blood mingling with that of the dead beef.
‘Oh, Mia, you’ve got some…’, Cécile waved her hand around her own mouth and Mia stained the spotless white table napkin with blood – her own? The meat’s? A worm’s? Maybe she managed to behead one on its way to colonise her insides. Good.
‘I’m sorry about the stain.’, apologised Mia, turning to Gina.
‘Never mind it! How did you like it?’
Mia opened her eyes wide and nodded enthusiastically, the napkin pressed against her lips, covering her nose.
‘Did you taste the parmigiano, mixed with it? It’s good, isn’t it?’
‘You’re a great cook, Gina.’, Mia managed to articulate, but all she could think of was the multi-headed hydra she had allowed in her body.
Luckily, her little comedy seemed to have soothed her hosts enough for them to go back to their mindless chatter, or whatever it was they were now doing instead of smothering her. Tears at the corner of her eyes were fighting their way out, her quick breath made her breasts move just as fast, up and down. She surely did feel something moving in her stomach, didn’t she? Something was twisting itself on the insides of her stomach.
She tried to forget about it and join the World around her. Now Cécile and Gina were lost in a conversation about Paris’ wonders. Apparently, the Galinos would be flying over to the French capital for a weekend next month, and Gina wanted tips on what was worth doing besides the Eiffel tower and Notre Dame. Cécile was giving her an entire itinerary.
The worms were not all in her stomach yet. One was having a party in her throat. She had to do something about it quick or she would be throwing up all over the beautiful black and white table. She still hadn’t finished her plate yet, she had managed to stop after the first mouthful without anyone appearing to notice. So far.
She grabbed the glass of water before her and gulped it down in a heartbeat, trying to drown the bloody parasite, or at least, sweep him out of her oesophagus.
‘Are you ok, Mia?’, asked Cécile, leaving the beauties of the Quartier Latin floating in the air. ‘You look rather pale.’
‘I’m fine, after a certain hour I lose all my colours, that’s all. Cinderella lost a shoe after midnight, I lose any shade of pink after 8.30 pm.’
They laughed, the four Mouths of them laughed and revealed fangs, some near as white as the table, some tainted with coffee and cigarettes. Mia had to compose herself if she didn’t want to end up being the worm in each of their stomachs.
Cécile took Gina from the Quartier Latin to the Quai de Seine, while Daniel and Mister Galino resumed their considerations on the firm’s future. How had she paid more attention to fucking French niceties than to her future position being discussed with such a dumbass as Daniel.
Damn, the worms made her more and more vulgar, didn’t they? Maybe one of them already had made its path up to her brain? No, it probably had to be digested first for that to happen, right? Digested. The mere thought made her sick and she had to run to the bathroom.
‘I’ll be right back, wait for me!’, did she manage to say, or shout?, before leaving the room.
She opened the first door she could find once in the corridor. It was the kitchen, but Mia couldn’t hold it in any longer, she bent herself over the sink and vomited the entire content of her stomach. She scrutinised carefully the filthy pile of puke before she rinsed it away, looking for worms, but she saw none. Too late. They already had left her stomach and were now having a walk, or rather, a crawl, in her bowels, probably.
She looked down at her dress to check that she hadn’t puked on herself, and she was sure she could see waves deforming it, just under her rib cage. Voices in the dining room were calling for her, but if she went back they would all see the monster in her belly. And how could she then pretend to get the job she wanted so badly?
‘I looked for you in the bathroom, are you looking for something here? Salt maybe?’
Gina startled her. She turned around, ready to face the horror that was sure to spring to Gina’s face when she would see something visibly zigzagging underneath her dress. Yet Gina, either out of politeness or lack of attention, didn’t seem to notice it.
‘Yes, salt, I was looking for salt.’
‘You should have asked me to come get it for you.’
‘I didn’t want to be rude and make you to think your cooking wasn’t salted enough, sorry.’
‘Yeah, well, sneaking around in my kitchen to spare my feelings isn’t any less rude, is it?’
Gina grabbed the salt and gestured her out of the kitchen. Mia could barely walk, her bowels were moving this way and that and seemed to press hard against her spine, pushing it as if the gang of maggots was trying to have it popping out of her back. She wobbled her way back to her place where the three-fourth of her meal was still menacing her. Gina handed her the salt and she poured it all over her plate.
‘Wow, you do like your salt indeed.’, exclaimed Gina, loud enough for the Eyes to focus on her once again.
‘Guilty.’, Mia muttered, more to herself than anything else.
The worms were hungry and demanding. How could they already be controlling her after just that one mouthful? She fed them immediately, and despite herself her hands took hold of her knife and fork, taking a big piece of meat that they then shoved down her mouth. She swallowed it before she even started chewing this time and gagged on it. Daniel had to give her big strokes on her back so she could breathe again.
Inside her, the worms were now so numerous that it felt as if a hundred little goblins were trampling up and down the tortuous path her bowels made. She scanned the room, looking for help now, not able to care anymore for appearances, but the Eyes were looking away and the Mouths were wide opened, laughing, eating, threatening. Eat or be eaten, was it?
‘LEAVE ME ALONE!’, she shouted, not sure at whom, as she got up again from her chair, making it fall on the ground with a loud bang. Eyes and Mouths were now targeted at her. Daniel made a movement to touch her arm but she couldn’t let him get to her so she grabbed her knife and kept him away from her. ‘DON’T COME ANY CLOSER, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!’.
All of them were standing around her, trying to make her give them the knife, now. Gina and Mister What’s-his-name were talking but she couldn’t understand them anymore. They sounded like pure noise. Was it that her ears were filled with parasites as well, or did they speak a different language all of a sudden? Maybe Italian? French? Both? Maybe they had had so much raw meat in their lifetime they now were just walking worms with a human envelop?
‘You did it on purpose, didn’t you?’, she asked Gina’s husband. ‘You asked her to infest me too so I’d join your group but I won’t let you win, you hear me? I won’t let you! I’LL FUCKING STAB THE SHIT OUT OF ALL OF YOU IF YOU STEP FURTHER CECILE!’, she warned as Cécile had leaned in and had raised her hand towards the knife. Cécile moved her lips but no words were formed that Mia could hear.
‘See! See! Look at it, look at what you’ve done Gina! Can you see it move! My belly. Can you see it move? Oh God oh God oh God oh God it’s going to eat me alive from the inside… Oh God…’.
Mia looked horror struck as she now was turning the knife’s blade towards her stomach. Tears, sweat, frothing bathed her from head to toe. She used all the willpower she had left to look at the Faces around her. None of them were looking at her moving, growing bowels, they were all focused on her hand. And the knife.
‘But can’t you see? Can’t you see?! One of you please save me, please! Please! Daniel! Daniel, please take that thing out of me! PLEASE!’, Mia looked for Daniel but he was nowhere to be found. She turned around and saw him in the corridor, with a phone in his hands. How did he get his phone out, did they give him the keys? Were they all against her?
‘WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’ She pushed Gina out of the way and rushed to get to Daniel before the phone would be on his ear. Before she realised what she was doing, the knife was through his hand, hitting the phone. His Mouth was gaping in what she supposed was a shout. Behind her, Cécile was held by the waist by Gina and the other man. She looked like she was about to jump on her. And Mia couldn’t even protect herself now the knife was stuck in her colleague’s hand!
She ran to the kitchen, closed the door, pushed as much furniture as she could against it and picked the biggest meat knife she could find. If no one wanted to help her get those monstruous parasites out, she would help herself.
‘Just wait, you bastards, I’ll chop your heads off!’, she growled at her belly that had swollen beyond the size it was the day she gave birth to Adam. Another birth was due, now.
She didn’t manage cutting through her clothes so she undressed in a hurry, dropping her dress down at her feet. There she stood, completely naked if it hadn’t been for her silky blue panties, a kitchen knife in both hands, aiming at the form she saw undulating under her skin.
The blade felt cold but somehow the sharp pain of it helped her gain composure. She would face her enemies with her head high and her chin up. Once she got used to the sensation of the metal pressed against her bare skin, she raised both arms high and struck them back down, just above her belly button, with the cry of ‘DIE, MOTHERFUCKERS, DIE’.
The knife penetrated her, opening her bowels as she pressed it deeper and deeper, as she hit again and again. She howled and proceeded to tear herself up to her ribcage. It wasn’t a smooth ride, she met resistance, had to leave some indented bits and pieces.
When she was done, she fell on the floor and leaned against the cupboard, smiling, one hand still holding the knife firmly, the other cupping her guts, looking for the worms’ corpses. The sneaky little shits had managed to disappear, maybe falling down into the void of her gutless belly?
The furniture before the door were trembling. Someone or something was trying to get in. Mia kept looking for the worms, fiddling obsessively through her organs, without any luck.
‘Where are you? Where the fuck are you?’ The furniture moved by an inch, the door was now ajar.
There was a pain in her chest. Breathing was hard. She felt dizzy. She had to rest but she needed to be sure she had killed them, needed to have the proof that she was rid of them.
Something hit her feet, was it, a chair? There was more light but everything was blurry. A form was standing above her then kneeling beside her. It touched her arms, something was thrown over her naked body. Was someone embracing her?
There was flesh against her lips. The floor beneath her was removing itself and she was falling, falling in a deep well that twisted and turned like bowels…
She was becoming a w…
- Inside Mia D. - November 21, 2024
