Regina's Last Supper

         Regina slowly forced her way back into consciousness and immediately became aware of a blinding headache searing a path from her left eye straight through to the back of her skull. She was used to having headaches by now, and this one was hardly different, though perhaps slightly more intense. The headaches had become more and more frequent ever since she'd been dieting, but she believed it was merely a small price to pay for beauty. Just like women who squeeze their feet into too-small shoes for the sake of fashion, Regina told herself. Beauty is pain. No big deal.
         Regina smiled weakly and rolled her aching head across the pillow, focusing her bleary eyes on the night stand and its assorted accoutrements: hand-held mirror, hairbrush, various wadded-up tissues, carving knife, water glass. Instinctively, her cracked, bleeding tongue darted out in an attempt to wet her parched lips. She tasted metal.
         A sip of water would do me wonders, she thought vaguely. Regina stretched toward the glass, but her fingers slipped past it, leaving the glass and its contents to be toppled to the floor by the baggy sleeve of her flannel nightgown. She slouched back onto the pillow in defeat, muttering to herself about a newfound lack of depth perception.

*******

         Regina hadn't always been clumsy. A touch awkward, perhaps, and certainly she had never qualified as a graceful woman, but she was definitely not a klutz. She was a tad on the chubby side, which did make her a bit self-conscious, a little shy even, but she was by no means a behemoth. Regina was a cute, kindly young woman, with rosy cheeks and a disposition to match.
         "I want to be thin, Liz," Regina told her friend one Saturday morning over brunch. "Look at all these women," she continued, gesturing at a collection of fashion magazines splayed out before the two of them. "And look at you. I want to be thin and confident and beautiful like you, and I know how I'm going to do it."
         "Regina, I think you are beautiful and I'm sure I'm not the only one."
         "You're just saying that, Liz. That's what good friends say. Whatever. I mean, thanks, but you're just being kind. Besides, I'm not talking waif-like here. I just want to be a little slimmer, a little sexier, you know. And a little healthier. I'm going to give up meat."
         "Right. Gina, you love meat. How's that going to work?"
         "I've made up my mind, and that's that. You watch and see."
         Weeks passed and Regina's willpower held fast. Her strict vegetarian diet allowed for all manner of fruits and veggies, and the occasional bit of whole wheat bread or cereal, but no meat whatsoever. Regina noticed her clothes becoming baggier and relished the compliments heaped upon her by supportive coworkers. But she also noticed herself becoming edgier and more anxious than usual. There could only be one reason. Though buoyed by her success, Regina's craving for meat nagged at her constantly. She was hungry.
         "When did you start chewing your fingernails?" Liz queried one evening as the girls strolled out of the Old Bijou movie theatre.
         "What? I, uh," Regina stammered and peered down at her lithe fingers. Her fingernails were ragged and bitten down nearly to the quick. The skin around them had been picked at and chewed until it bled. "I'm not sure. I didn't realize I'd been doing it."
         "Nasty habit, Gina. Diet seems to be working, though. You look great! Still not missing the meat?"
         The young woman beamed as she cocooned her rumbling stomach within a long winter coat. "Nope. Not at all."
         Later that night, Regina sat on the sofa, inspecting her damaged fingers. A crusty, dried up piece of dead skin jutting from the side of a thumb solicited her attention. She began to pick at the skin, slowly at first, then faster and more aggressively. The small imperfection grew and grew, until there was a sizeable chunk hanging from her thin digit. She raised the thumb to her mouth and ripped savagely at the offending skin with her teeth. The coppery flavour of blood trickled into her mouth and made her tongue tingle with an odd, yet familiar sensation. Was it delight? she wondered. A shiver blossomed in the base of her spine and scuttled its way up her back. She swallowed the chunk of skin, then bandaged her bleeding thumb and went to bed.

***

         Regina shuffled into the living room and collapsed onto the sofa across from her laptop. She'd been so exhausted lately; she figured it was the weather. Her boss, Mr. Iversen, had suggested she take some time off from work.
         "You seem a little burned out, Regina. And you're so pale," he had said, a shadow of concern lurking in his voice. "Maybe you need a holiday."
         Regina assured him that she was feeling fine, she just hadn't been sleeping well, and that a vacation was completely unnecessary. Mr. Iversen was unconvinced, but reluctantly agreed to let her work from home for the next few weeks as a compromise.
         "Take it easy, Regina," he warned her. "I want you in tip top shape when you come back."
         That was two weeks ago today, and she hadn't left her apartment since, not even for groceries.
         Working from home suited Regina just fine. She enjoyed the solitude and now had extra time to devote to herself and her diet. Besides, she had become increasingly irritated by the stares of the other women at the office. Some of them had even suggested that she was getting too thin. Jealous bitches, she would often think to herself. You would think they'd be happy for me. She couldn't stand women like that. But she was now thin and beautiful and that's all that mattered. If those dried up old hags can't handle the competition, well too bad for them.
         Regina flipped open her work portfolio but soon found she had trouble concentrating. Hunger had rooted itself in her belly weeks ago and she was accustomed to its presence. But now it was as though the hunger had grown a long tendril; a tendril which wound its way up through her spine and around her brain, squeezing it in an excruciating grip she could no longer ignore. She sipped gingerly at a glass of orange juice, hoping to stave off the hunger, if only for a moment. The acidic liquid turned to fire on her lips and seared the inside of her mouth. She winced. My lips must be chapped again, she thought, a slow panic beginning to rise within her chest.
         So hungry.
         She gazed down at her bandaged fingers and toes. Ever since that night at the theatre, when she first realized she was chewing on her fingers, her diet had been somewhat altered. Whenever she felt a fierce craving for food, especially meat, she would chew a little on her fingers. It helped quell her cravings and the blood, she quickly found, tasted good. And because it was her own flesh, she wasn't really consuming any extra calories. That was the best part.
         Once committed to the new phase of the diet, however, Regina's fingers quickly became raw with too much nibbling. Thus, she began alternating between her fingers and her toes. And why not? she reasoned. Toes are just as clean as fingers after a shower and, anyway, no one else needs to know. Her lips and the soft, meaty lining of her mouth were the next body parts she cannibalized. Dry, chapped lips are not attractive, anyway, she told herself. And, as such, the behaviour had continued unchecked for nearly a month.
         Now her stomach snarled and gnawed at her from within.
         So hungry.
         Unable to resist her craving any longer, Regina tore desperately at the bandages, like an urgent lover longing to free a partner's forbidden flesh. She crammed the lacerated digits one after another into her mouth and sucked at them furiously, her eyes rolling back in ecstasy like a frenzied shark. A low moan rumbled in her dry throat, and she paused. It was not enough.
         Mired in the madness of her hunger and her bloodlust, the savage woman scoured the kitchen in search of relief. Her eyes landed on a razor-sharp carving knife on the counter and a sickening grimace stretched across her ashen face.

*******

         The blinding pain continued to thump through the left side of her head. Regina turned back toward the night stand and carefully reached out for the mirror which lay there. Her fingers connected, somewhat awkwardly, with the handle and she lifted the glass to her face.
         "I may be a little hungry," she rasped aloud, "but I am so thin. So thin and so very beautiful." She gazed lovingly into the mirror at her gaunt, blood-stained face, at her raw, bloated lips and, suddenly, her grey visage twisted into a maniacal grin. Her eye. Her right eye. Unblinking, she stared into the mirror. The bloodshot orb glistened sumptuously in her bony skull, urging her to salivate, yet she could not.
         Knock. Knock. Knock
         "Regina!"
         Regina's skeletal fingers closed around the handle of the carving knife.
         Knock. Knock. Knock.
         "Regina, it's Liz! Are you in there?"
         Focus. Remember the depth perception problem...
         Knock. Knock.
         "Come on! Gina, open the door!"
         ...there's no need to worry about that little issue any more.
         "Okay, Gina, that's it. I have the extra key you left at my place and I'm coming in. I need to see if you're alright. I haven't heard from you in over a month!"
         Liz paused, listening.
         "I mean it, Gina. I'm coming in. Right now. I hope you're decent!"
         At the sound of a key in the lock, Regina calmly dropped the knife and turned her head away from the opening door.
         "Gina, Are you in the bed- ...oh my ... oh my God." Liz gasped and fell back against the bedroom wall. Her eyes travelled over the length of her sick friend's blood-stained body. The meat of her hands and feet had been chewed raw. Chunks of flesh had been sliced from her arms and legs. Her lips were swollen and bloody and her face was shrunken. The little bits of skin not covered in dried blood were ashen and rubbery in appearance. "Gina? Are you conscious? Can you speak?"
         Regina slowly rolled her head toward the direction of her friend's trembling voice.
         "Your eyes!" Liz shrieked. "Where are your eyes? My God, Gina, answer me!"
         But Regina couldn't answer her friend just then. Whatever else she had become, one thing remained true: Regina had always been a woman of good etiquette and, as such, would never, ever speak with food in her mouth.