The Beautiful Cannibals

[vc_row][vc_column][title type="subtitle-h6"]Charlotte Kazlauskas[/title][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width="11/12"][vc_column_text]I wake with a start, naked and cold, on a Saturday. Heat usually emanates from my crooked radiator, but it's silent now, and further out, in the hallway and down the stairs, it’s quiet, too. There is an unfamiliarity about my body when I begin to move. A new center of gravity, perhaps, or a precursor to vomiting? Nay, I discover when I go to rub my eyes: my skin is gone. My hands touch my bare eyeballs instead of eyelids. When I shift in bed, I feel smaller, or that my hands don't weigh as much as they once did. Underneath the covers are swaths of muscles snaking their way around my legs, and a pair of my girlfriend's underwear. This is when I realize that my slippery body is alone. My girlfriend, along with all of my skin, has disappeared.Our kitchen is in ruins. Beer cans and bottles cover most surfaces, and, as I soon discover, are suctioned into place by a crystalized layer of Sprite and liqueur. A roommate of mine is examining a disembodied door on the floor. He jumps when he sees me."What the fuck?" he says, peering into my face. "What happened to you? You look freaky without eyelids. Who knew that the eyeball was that enormous?""Me," I say. "I learned it in second grade. Have you seen Jessica?"He scoffs. "I don't pay attention to ladies under an eight, no offense. Did Britta leave last night?" I shrug. "Goddammit, that ass. I could have sworn that we were headed to the bedroom."Together we use the bottoms of liquor bottles to hammer the door hinges back into place, but when we step away, it's terribly crooked, and backwards."I gotta get out of here, man," I tell my friend. "Let me know if you see Jess.""Bro, I won't, I told you that already," he says, and I leave him rubbing lube onto the hinges of the motionless door.Another one of my roommates is asleep in his bed, mouth agape, with one hand clutching his cell phone and the other tangled in the hair of the little sleeping female next to him. "Hi, guys," I say, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. The girl stirs. "Good morning. Jake! Hi! Wake up!" I prod his stomach.The girl opens a bleary eye. "Hi," she says."Who are you?" I ask."What," groans Jake. He lifts his head. "Oh, this is, um, Reva.""It's Rebekah," she says. She giggles. “You look weirder than I thought.” Rebekah suddenly whips out of bed, clothed already in her dress from the night before, and flies down the stairs, calling, “See you later!” as she went."What?" I yell after her. "What?" I say again, this time to Jake, who is not listening because he has just noticed that I have no skin."My god!" he says, and prods one of my naked arms. "Crazy! Craziest shit ever! Do you think you could get onto TV? I think you could, but only if you do something about the eyes. No eyelids do not look good on you, dude.""That's what everyone keeps saying," I reply. "Do you know if Jess left last night?"He laughs. "Does it look like I've kept track of your girlfriend? Does it look like I've kept track of anything? The only reason I ended up sleeping with Rose was because I thought she was Caitlin. You know, the ten? The bunny from Halloween?"I say, totally, even though my mind is far away, searching last night’s blank spots for Jessica’s droopy, strange face. Then I do remember Caitlin, the bunny from Halloween.“It was her nipples,” I say. “Perky, all night.”After a few hours of searching my room and the wreckage of the rest of the house, I discover that my cell phone is nowhere, my skin is nowhere, and neither is my girlfriend. The only useful item that I find is my bathrobe, which is soft, even on my tender muscles. It helps to cut the wind outside.Jessica's house is two blocks away. When I knock, a tiny girl opens the door. She scowls when she sees me."No boys allowed," she says, and shuts the door. I knock again, calling, "Hey! What the hell? I know Jessica! I'm her boyfriend!"The door opens once again, and the same girl is peering at me through narrowed eyes. "Why do your eyes look so fucked?" she asks."Because someone took my skin!" I explode. "I don't have eyelids, okay!?"Suddenly, Jess appears behind the girl. "It's okay, Ruby," she says. "He's the one."Ruby gives me one more snarl and then flits back into the darkness, letting the door swing open. Jess hugs me with one arm and ushers me inside."I have something pretty cool to show you," I say to her as we travel through the downstairs hallway. I snake my hands around her waist. "Want to go upstairs?""No," she says. "We're going to the kitchen."Though I am always astounded at the level of hygiene with which these women maintain their living spaces, there is an odd aroma about the house today. Jessica lives in an old, enormous house with twenty of her closest friends, and this morning, it looks like every single one of them is milling about in the kitchen. I see Britta from last night and another hot one whom I recognize, both wielding spatulas in front of four pans, crackling with oil. Britta is clutching a familiar looking phone in one hand."Is that my phone?" I ask her."Yes," she says, and smiles. "Would you like some, um, something to eat?""No thanks," I say, and then, "Shouldn't you have the vent on to help with air circulation and smell?""No!" says the other hot girl. "The smoke is really excellent for you."I am about to inform her that smoke is not, in fact, excellent for any part of your body, when I notice a little sliver of color simmering in the pan. The blue is unmistakable, because it comes from a tattoo of a shark on my left forearm, and this is when I realize that the funny smell isn't burnt potato, or even burnt chicken, but burnt skin. Burnt me.I must have looked horrified and they must have been waiting for it. As soon as I look up into the crowd of girls, they burst into a laughter I have never heard before, screaming, starving, sinister."It's the newest beauty regime," explains Jess. "All the celebrities are into it.""I'm going to have a six-pack!" yells one girl from the crowd."I'll never have a pimple again!" calls another.Britta, fanning fumes towards her roommates, says, "Eating men is actually anti-cellulite. Megan Fox said that she's hasn't had to work out for even one day since she's started."What does any of this have to do with me?" I cry. "Look at my eyes!""We thought you would be a nice test run," says Jess. She shrugs. "And you were so wasted last night that the opportunity was just too good to pass up. The flesh, for maximum elasticity benefits, should be allowed to breathe while maintaining blood flow for at least six hours.""Twelve is best," adds Britta, nodding, peering into a glossy magazine. "And you did what, like ten?" She picks up the magazine and holds it to my chest, comparing. "See here? You're going to be so flaky with the butter." Then Britta holds my phone up to my face and snaps a flash photo, blinding me momentarily. "My blog is going to be lit after I post this.""Excuse me?" I stutter. The women are all around me. "Jess, what about us? What about our love? We have reservations at Graze tomorrow night."Jess sighs and turns her mediocre, asymmetrical face up towards mine in a last, hungered look.“Love? What good has love ever done us? Look at how close we are to being beautiful. This close.” Jess puts her hand on my arm. In her other is a bottle of barbecue sauce. “We’re touching.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]