Chapter 2: The Main Course
The shift from the cloying floral perfume of the common room to the cafeteria’s atmosphere was a physical shock. Here, the air was a layered assault: the acrid sting of over-steamed vegetables, the ghost of yesterday’s meatloaf, and beneath it all, that same rich, musky undertone Bambi was starting to recognize. It was stronger here, mingling with the scent of damp linen and something subtly chemical, like lavender-scented lubricant.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, their harsh glare glinting off Formica tables and plastic trays. The room should have been depressing. Instead, it throbbed with a low, relentless energy.
The residents, the same cohort of grinning women from the common room, were arrayed at long tables. They weren’t eating so much as devouring. Forks scraped, dentures clicked with alarming speed, and thick soups were slurped with guttural enthusiasm. Their eyes, however, weren’t on their food. They were fixed, uniformly, on the table edges, on the space below. A collective, hungry focus.
Bambi, holding a tray of juice cups she was meant to distribute, felt her skin prickle. This was her second day. The initial, dreamlike shock of yesterday had settled into a humming, electric curiosity. She hadn’t dreamed it. This was her fresh start.
“Over here, sweet pea!” a voice called. It was Granny May, patting the empty bench space beside her. “You look parched. Sit, take a load off.”
Bambi obliged, her tight pencil skirt hiking up as she slid in. The bench was warm. “Just delivering juices,” she chirped, her voice a little breathy.
“How… dutiful,” Mrs. Delaney said from across the table, not looking up from her rapid dissection of a gelatin cube.
A napkin, pale green and utilitarian, fluttered from Granny May’s lap to the floor beside Bambi’s feet. “Oh, clumsy me,” Granny May sighed, not sounding clumsy at all. “Be a dear?”
Bambi nodded. Setting her tray aside, she slipped from the bench and crouched down to retrieve it. The world under the table was a forest of veiny, stocking-clad calves and swollen, slip-on shoes. And the smell—that musk was overpowering here, warm and animal.
Her fingers closed on the napkin. As she moved to rise, a hand—Granny May’s, liver-spotted and strong—pressed firmly on the crown of her head, holding her in place.
“Just… stay there a moment, honey,” Granny May said from above, her tone conversational. “You’re better off. Drafty down there on the floor.”
Before Bambi could process the command, the loose floral robe above her parted. Not fully. Just enough. What emerged from the shadowed, powdered folds was a thick, flushed shaft, already fully erect and straining. It was massive, veined, and glistening at the tip. It bobbed gently, mere inches from her face.
A choked sound stuck in Bambi’s throat. Her mind blanked, then flooded with a single, coherent thought: More.
From her left, another robe tentatively opened. Then another from her right. In seconds, her vision was filled with them—a gauntlet of engorged flesh, each unique in its girth and curve, all sharing the same impossible vitality. They bumped gently against her cheeks, her forehead, leaving damp streaks.
Above, the conversation continued, utterly mundane.
“Think it’ll rain later, Mabel?” Mrs. Delaney asked.
“Barometer’s falling,” a voice Bambi recognized as Mabel’s replied. There was a soft grunt, and the cock before Bambi’s lips twitched. “My joints are screaming. Means a big one’s coming.”
Bambi opened her mouth. She took Granny May in first, the heat and salt-skin taste filling her senses. She worked, bobbing her head, her hands coming up to clumsily cradle the base. A low, approving rumble vibrated through the bench above her.
“Pass the salt, would you?” someone said.
A plastic shaker scraped across the table.
Bambi pulled off with a wet pop, turning her head to take Mrs. Delaney into her throat. This one was thicker, and she had to relax her jaw, tears springing to her eyes as she pushed herself deeper. The hip against her cheekbone jerked.
“Did you see the new crochet pattern in the bulletin?” Mabel asked, her voice strained.
“Mm-hmm. For a toilet roll cover. Looked complicated.”
Bambi became a living conduit. She moved from one to the next, a rhythm building. Lick, suck, swallow. The world narrowed to heat and pressure and the ragged, controlled breathing from above. The mundane chatter was a bizarre soundtrack, a stabilizing anchor in the surreal storm.
“My digestion is finally back on track,” Granny May announced proudly. “Had a movement this morning like you wouldn’t believe. Took twenty minutes. Felt like giving birth to a cinder block.”
A snort of laughter. “Lucky you. I’m all plugged up. Prune juice does nothing.”
Bambi felt the first pulsing against her tongue. Granny May’s fingers twisted in her platinum hair, not yanking, just holding. A hot, bitter flood hit the back of her throat. Bambi gulped instinctively, the viscous release seemingly endless. Before she could recover, she was guided to the next, then the next.
The cafeteria sounds—the chewing, the clinking—never ceased. Each woman, as she finished, would give a contented little sigh, her hips stuttering against Bambi’s face, and then recede back into her robe. The conversations about weather, crafts, and bowel functions never missed a beat.
Finally, spent and dripping, Bambi found herself with empty air before her. She knelt, dazed, her makeup smeared, her throat sore and full. The pressure on her head lifted.
“Found that napkin, did you?” Granny May asked brightly.
Bambi swallowed, a final, thick reminder of her work. She clutched the crumpled green paper in her fist. “Yeah,” she rasped, her voice rough. “Got it.”
She backed out from under the table and stood on trembling legs. The fluorescent light was blinding. The residents were now picking at desserts, smiling placidly, some dabbing their mouths with their own napkins. They looked like any other group of elderly ladies.
“You’re a good girl, Bambi,” Mabel said, offering a wink that was both sweet and deeply, profoundly knowing.
Bambi picked up her juice tray. Her knees felt weak, but a profound, satiated warmth spread through her core. This wasn’t a nightmare. It was the most bizarre, the most secret, the most wonderfully demanding job she’d ever had. She took a shaky step toward the next table, where a new set of eyes watched her approach, their smiles sharpening under the buzz of the hungry lights.