Shebang (short story)
by Larissa Thomas, 2024/26
“Pommy Milkers” dribbled down her chin. This was part of Natalie’s job. Selling people on taste-traversing dreams to tempt them into spending money at restaurants, bars and today an ice cream shop. The one she was slowly dragging her tongue across a creamy pomegranate-mango concoction inside.
Not bad.
She got paid to stick yummy things in her mouth, which was her passion. Living the dream. Writing for Canada’s Bitchin’ Kitchen. Ontario’s foremost taste-tester. Recently featured in Debbie Does Scallops. Today she was slurping treats in Lightning Bay’s newest ice cream parlor, “Cold Sweats.” Tomorrow she’d be in O’kanana drinking artisanal Lime-Aid and hoovering sushi burritos.
What motivated Natalie was the need to taste it all. Not just ice cream. She wanted to try every exotic fruit, rare spice and illegal meat. Her tongue reached into the cosmos yearning for things she couldn’t articulate, a hopeful proboscis in search of nectar.
What began as an average appetite became something all-consuming. Everything organized itself around fulfilling her appetite. Friendships were portals to a new culture’s cuisine. Boyfriends accompanied her to restaurants. Everything she purchased contributed to her Airmiles, which were used to fly her to places she’d never been for novel edible experiences.
But she’d read that taste buds progressively atrophied and shrank by the age of forty. Natalie only had a few years left and still so much to taste. Of course, she feared she’d gain weight, pig out, lose her edge and beauty. But she had solutions for that. Chew and spit. Binge and purge. 10,000 steps. Portion control. Calorie-tracking.
Today, her job had brought her to a middling parlor in a large, middling town.
“What do you think?” Scott, the Manager asked, somewhat desperately. His translucent, forty-something skin waxy under the fluorescent lights, washed out by a crisp, too-tight, white 50s style uniform. “It’s good right?”
“Four stars! Great work,” she said, smiling her practiced smile. Born with a wide mouth, big gums and a considerable tongue, she controlled her face to avoid becoming a visual symbol for gluttony. A big mouth was too literal.
He sighed with relief. Then, “Not five though?” He put his hand on her shoulder and then quickly removed it. Changing the subject, “Make sure to take a photo of our wishing fountain.” He gestured, “Just installed today. I haven’t even made a wish yet. Guess I should’ve wished for five stars, huh-huh-huh.”
Natalie dryly laughed and snapped a photo she wouldn’t be using. The fountain wasn’t particularly impressive; four feet high with a metallic ice cream statue mounted on top, where water gently dribbled out of a spout. Symbols she didn’t recognize engraved in the basin. Appeared to be made of stone, although it could’ve been fake.
“You can be the first one to make a wish, if you like! I can take your photo. I haven’t had the chance to read through all of the instructions and fine print yet, but you’re supposed to throw in a coin and make a wish. The caveat,” he enunciated, excited to use the word, “is that the wish has to benefit all. It has to be unselfish. I think.”
“Like ending world hunger?”
”Yeah. Like that.”
“What if I wish to end world hunger but then everyone turns to cannibalism?” Natalie yawned. She needed to go purge before she digested more of the various ice creams she’d tried. Go home, write her review and collect her cheque.
“Oh, I see what you mean. Maybe just make a small wish. Like, for example, that your article on ‘Cold Sweats’ is a success! That would benefit both of us.”
“But not everyone.”
“Everyone who reads it and comes to visit would be grateful.”
“Uh huh.” Natalie glanced at the fountain. “Sure.”
“Go ahead,” Scott urged.
“You expect me to throw in my money?”
“Right you are!” He grabbed a dull quarter out of the cash register and handed it to her.
“Am I supposed to make my wish out loud?”
“The instructions didn’t say. But—”
Before Scott could finish, Natalie chucked the quarter into the fountain, announcing her wish only inside her own mind: “I wish to taste everything!”
Quickly adding, “Without gaining a pound!”
Natalie couldn’t afford to add twenty pounds, lest it repel a potential dream-lover. This was her second priority. She loved to be eaten just as much as she loved to eat. A yin/yang thing. Law of Polarity, or something.
“What did you wish for?”
“For your business to thrive. May I use your restroom, please?”
“Of course!” Scott handed her the bathroom key off his hoop. “And thanks for your wish!”
Natalie breezed past him and made her way to the unisex, wheelchair accessible bathroom. Smelled like cheap, pink pump soap and urinal cakes. She tried to keep her lips pursed and breath shallow, lest she inhale the piss atoms and detergent and damage her aging taste buds further.
She planned to make herself puke up a few hundred cals from the various flavours she’d tried. She had a way of doing it without any sound. Without any fanfare. Her teeth were veneered, there was nothing to worry about. Her calcium levels were great. She could vom on command. Her throat muscles were trained. And yes, she did give excellent head.
While mentally preparing herself to purge, a strange flavour arrived in her mouth. As if she’d just licked cotton. Accompanied by a dreadful itch on the back of her calf. Like an insect in her pants. The kind of sensation you might have when a botfly lays its eggs in a bite and the larvae chew their way out. She slapped at her indigo jeans and something a couple inches long wriggled under the denim.
Augh!
Natalie sat on the toilet and yanked at the fabric. It was caught on something inside of her leg. Inside of her leg! She attempted to pull off her jeans, but they were stuck. She forcefully yanked it, leaving a rip in the side of the fabric.
Revealing what was within.
Confusion overrode raw nerve-endings.
Her issue resembled a gash, but it wasn’t bleeding. Its purple and red pulverized edges parted, revealing a set of sharp nibblet teeth.
It was a fucking mouth.
She screamed weakly, a string of nonsensical noises escaping her actual mouth.
The monstrous little maw stuck out its tongue, “Feed me.”
She screamed. For real.
It licked its dreadful lips. “Num, num, num.”
Feed it?
Where was the “food” going to go? Into her fucking leg? She’d just finished a round of cellulite treatments and tanning, and was smooth and ready to get fucked from behind, and now there was a goddamn two inch mouth on her leg!!!
And it was growing.
Whatever it was.
Had this been from her wish?
She stuffed some paper towel into the orifice, put her low-stretch denims back on and rushed out of the bathroom.
“You ok?” Scott asked.
“How do I undo my wish? How do I take it back?”
“What?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“To make the wish stop.”
“Uhhh…”
“Give me the manual,” she said through clenched teeth as Natalie began the process of becoming one with her low rise long & lean’s.
“Ok…” he said, slowly. “Just gimme a second.” He rooted around under the counter for a moment then handed her a small manual. “I need it back.”
Natalie jumped to the page under the words “How to Reverse Your Wish.” It simply read: No takebacks. No refunds. No alterations. No wishing for a new wish to undo a previous wish.
“No, that doesn’t make sense,” she said, her breath quickening.
“Did you change your mind?” Scott whimpered.
“Of course I did!”
“Why don’t you want us to be successful?”
“I have to take the money out, right?” There was only a single quarter in the fountain. Easy peasy. She stuck her hand in and grabbed it.
“Hey!” Scott shouted. “Are we still getting a good review?”
She ignored him and stepped out onto the sidewalk, heading toward her banana yellow ‘74 Pinto (an aesthetic, not practical purchase). “I unwish my wish. I wish to only have one mouth. I don’t need to taste everything! I’m good. I’ve tasted enough. Bread and olive oil, baby. Peanut butter sandwiches. Bland. Love that for me. Adore blandness! I’m good with what I already have! Thank you!”
Natalie sucked back a few Ibuprofens from the glove compartment and bolted. It was two minutes to the two-lane highway out of town. If she stepped on it she could get back to her apartment in less than two hours. She clutched the wheel.
“Hold it together, Natalie!” she slapped her face as she drove through the town.
She debated going to the hospital, but she had a bit of a track record. A history. She’d been flagged, because of her hunger. Food poisoning, injuries, carried away in an ambulance a few times. What if she was imagining the mouth? What if they restrained her again. She feared it was a one more strike situation. She’d be escalated to some kind of ward. Placed on a hold.
She called her most recent, but also not quite ex, ex. Straight to his voicemail. Followed by a “call you back in a few hours” text. She tried her bestie, who was mad at her for blowing off a thing she hosted to go to a thing that had better food. Straight to voicemail. Natalie contemplated calling her parents, but they wouldn’t understand.
Natalie needed to take control of the situation herself. She was micro niche famous and hated the optics. She could lose her career. Tarnish her reputation. The balut “mishap” had cost her jobs. She was sure she could reverse this issue, she just needed some time to think, get naked and assess the situation in private.
But home was far.
The mouth squirmed on the back of her leg under the fabric, tonguing the chunk it had already chewed out.
She swatted at it with a water bottle.
It shrieked.
Natalie accidentally hit the gas pedal, careening into traffic.
The other car swerved just in time, showering the road with honks.
She wasn’t going to make it home. She’d have to get a hotel. Some place where she could lie in a scalding hot bath and suffocate the thing. Probably things. They were colonizing, writhing under her jeans.
Could she drown them? Stab them? Caulk them? Poison them? Would it poison her? Would she drown? And what if she did all of these things and they kept proliferating? In the distance, Hollywood North Hotel was just off the highway. She could get there in less than a minute.
“I’m hungry!” Another one wailed.
Natalie ripped into the parking lot, and fumbled for her long, beige trench coat, grateful for her messy car and its various piles of things she was too lazy to take into her apartment. Something to add an extra layer of muffling, and cover any visible mouths.
She limped into the reception with her large tote. “Hi, I need a room for tonight.”
“Welcome to Hollywood North. Just you?” The receptionist, an unstylish but friendly young woman, typed on the keyboard.
“Yes.”
Click.
Tap.
Natalie could taste pants.
She could taste the shea butter she’d put on in the morning.
Click.
“Standard or upgrade?”
Tap.
She could taste polycotton.
Her shirt became tighter.
“Do any have a big bath tub or a jacuzzi?”
Click.
Tap.
“Yes, ma’am. We have a honeymoon suite available,” the girl eyeballed her. “Needing some R&R? TLC? Weekend away?”
“Yes. All the things,” Natalie said, slapping her card down impatiently.
“I’M HUNGRY,” a chorus of voices sang from inside her pants.
The receptionist paused, unsettled for a moment, then blankly smiled. “You’re in luck, we’re getting ready for dinner. There’s a room service menu on the desk in your suite but you’re also welcome to join us in the dining room.”
Click.
Tap.
The Ibuprofen was doing nothing for the burning, stinging, itching she was experiencing, but the anxiety over her beach bod, her future, her career, was much worse.
Natalie coughed over the chewing noises the mouths made as they gobbled up her jeans and shirt.
Tapped the counter with her nails over the muffled cries for “MORE!”
“Just a moment,” the receptionist offered.
Natalie cleared her throat to drown out the sounds of licking, chewing, consuming as her jeans disappeared.
“Third door on the top floor,” the girl said, still smiling. “If you have a visitor, just make sure they sign in.”
The receptionist handed her the room card and Natalie breathed a sigh of relief, “Thanks so much!”
She ran for the elevator. Hollywood North Hotel was a humble five floors. She pressed ‘5’ over and over until the doors closed. Almost there.
“Feed me!”
“I’m hungry!”
“Fill me!”
The door opened to a dingy, carpeted floor and she rushed for her room door.
She swiped.
It didn’t open.
Swiped.
Nothing.
Swiped.
“Open!”
Swiped.
“I’m hungry!!!”
“Need help?” A chipper fifty-something guy in a polo shirt and chinos approached from the other end of the hallway, his sunburn making his white teeth appear to be glowing.
“Nope I’m good. Just trying to get into my hotel room,” she said, attempting to position her body in a way that hid the mouths but she wasn’t even sure what was going on under the trench coat.
“Allow me,” he said and took the card from her hand, swiping it with a quick gesture. It unlocked. “I stay here frequently. You gotta swipe slow to medium. You were swiping too fast.” He grinned before his face twisted into a wolf’s sneer.
He looked down.
She looked down.
Her leg had wrapped itself around his leg.
“Lonely this evening?” he said, not removing her leg.
She hadn’t consciously done that. It had just happened. And her leg was trying to eat his leg. A dozen mouths had ripped through her pants and were attempting to gnaw through his.
“Hey!” he grunted and pushed her off, knocking her into the wall. “Miss me with that kinky shit.”
She thrust her way into her room and locked the door.
A large jacuzzi tub sat center stage overlooking the stunning parking lot. Romantic. Natalie turned on the water at full blast and attempted to peel off her clothing items, which were moth-eaten now. Her pants, practically non-existent. Her underwear miraculously intact.
“Feed me!”
“Fill me!”
“More! More! More!”
The mouths chanted.
All over her semi-athletic, expensively bronzed and toned body were screaming mouths. Some one inch wide, some four.
“MORE!!!”
She feared for the scars this would leave. Dozens of mouths all over her body. Many with teeth. Some with long tongues. She dared not look in the mirror.
When the tub had filled enough, she put her feet in. It was so hot she recoiled. The mouths screeched and bubbled.
“Fuck you!” She spat at them. The pain would be worth it. She lay down in the scalding water as it kept filling. She pinched her nose and submerged herself. Submerged them. Suffocated them.
Die, die, die.
It was scalding hot.
It seared.
Everything hurt to the point where almost nothing hurt.
Then suddenly Natalie wasn’t surrounded by water.
The mouths were drinking it.
Lapping it up.
Natalie sat up. Her body increased in volume but not weight, skin puffed up with water. She was expanding. Devouring. Sucking it all up. Just like she’d wished for.
She attempted to make herself puke. Visions of Dr. Pimple Popper, memories of food poisoning, the worst things she’d ever tasted - nothing worked. She could get rid of it, just like she always did. But nothing came out.
Nothing except a scream.
She punched one of the mouths on her leg. Covered it with her hand. “Die!”
It bit her finger.
It chomped down on bone.
It tore her flesh off.
“Mmmm num num num,” the mouths said in unison.
Natalie was now dining on herself. Bleeding everywhere.
She tasted like pork.
Undercooked. Unseasoned. Coppery.
Natalie tried waterboarding them, straight from the tap. Maybe she could choke some before they had a chance to swallow, and she rammed the mouth-hole on her left leg into the tap and it screamed and choked but all of the mouths around it compensated for the excess water.
Natalie was expanding. She was growing.
Her skin was stretching.
Her tits were aspirational.
But covered in screaming sores.
She wasn’t gaining weight or flesh, she was evolving. The wider the mouths grew, the bigger she got.
She turned off the tap.
Surely there was something else she could do.
“Yum, yum, yum,” the tongues lolled around for nearby flesh.
The mouths on her thighs turned on each other and consumed the neighboring flesh.
Her thighs stuck together in mutually assured destruction.
Blood filled the jacuzzi as she tried to pry them apart, stretched out as far away from each other as she could possibly manage. Spread eagle with a ceiling mirror front-row seat to watch what one ex called her “jam clam” rupture with teeth. The biggest mouth of them all.
It was game over for poor Natalie.
Then there were mouths on the soles of her feet. Those mouths started chewing into the bottom of the tub.
She buckled.
Surrendered.
That was the moment Natalie gave up.
She had always wanted more. Longed for expansion. Longed to taste it all, try it all, be it all.
She decided to lean in. If she was going out, she’d go out on her terms.
She threw the Twinkies, chocolate almonds, tiny booze bottles, overpriced pistachios on the bed.
And then called room service, through a chorus of gobbling.
“Lobsters. Meatloaf. Champagne. Caviar. Steak. Chicken Alfredo. Penne a la Vodka. Margherita Pizza. Aloo Mutter. Burgers. Fries. Sushi. Cake. Every kind. Send it all up. Leave it outside the door. The sooner it gets here, the bigger the tip.”
And send it up they did.
Natalie could barely walk, with every step the mouths took a bite or a lick of nylon cut-pile. She tossed her wallet out the door and closed it.
Natalie lay the banquet across her bed - an impressionistic masterpiece - and lay on top of the food, all of the different flavours, the calories, the wonders of the world.
She devoured.
And she was devoured.
She expanded, without gaining a pound.
Void matter.
A hole.
A vacuum.
She became something she’d always dreamed of - bigger than life. Bigger than everything. Something real special and unforgettable. The most accomplished taster there ever was.
But Natalie wasn’t really home anymore.
Natalie had left the building, metaphorically and then, literally.
Natalie was a mere vessel for the hunger.
She had succumbed.
Natalie ran out of space, out of skin, and the mouths became one.
And as the hotel fell, the patrons disappeared, the cars nearby crumpled.
The stores up the street.
The lights.
The road.
The trees.
The lakes.
The province.
The country—
There was no fighting it.
Expansion.
Growth.
Devour.
Everything.
The whole shebang.