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August was reading a book.
She had the dustjacket off, and was trying her best to hide the spine.
It was a book on kink and fetish.
Each chapter was dedicated to a different kink or fetish, all from the perspective of the author and others that the author had interviewed in her time. Reading the table of contents for each kink or fetish discussed, August had a pretty good idea of what chapters she would like, and which she wouldn’t.
While she wasn’t particularly concerned with people reading the title of what she was reading, she didn’t know how others would react to her with her pen and highlighter annotating a book very obviously on sex. That wasn’t for everyone, and she knew that. So she was hiding the title.
Until she got home.
That’s when she told Jane everything she had read and what she found fascinating.
“So the chapter on cannibalism.” She started when she walked into the apartment to Jane in the kitchen cooking them dinner. “I really want you to read it.”
“Uh huh.”
“It’s so interesting.” August didn’t even hear Jane’s response. “She talks about how people with a cannibalism kink just push the eroticism of eating your partner into the realm of body horror. Like she talks about how sex is just a sensory experience, and cannibalism just takes it to the next level almost.
“She also said that it’s not violence, like a lot of other kinks that are more taboo aren’t actually the taboo thing, like CNC isn’t actually assault. It’s done consensually in a safe environment, and so is this. She says it’s all about the erotic metaphor of exploring annihilation and all.”
Jane finished what she was doing, and turned to August who was flipping through the book finding quotes she highlighted and wrote notes on. Jane started, “So-” and promptly got interrupted.
“There’s also talk about how it’s not really far off from all the metaphors of eating someone’s heart out. It says, and I quote, ‘Erotic cannibalism is all about consuming or being consumed by the object of your lust.’ It’s so interesting.”
“August Landry, are you telling me you understand a cannibalism kink?”
At that, August finally looked up from her book. She felt her face heating up, and decided it was best to just look back down at the book. “I just think the chapter is interesting.”
“Why’s that?”
“Becuase it talks about the taboo of kinks and how so much isn’t bad if it’s done in a safe consenting manor. She just talked about the extreme of one kink and how that can be done in a safe way. Just as long as every party agrees that it’s hot and they’re doing it consensually.”
Jane narrowed her eyes for a second. “Why is this chapter sticking out? You’ve talked to me about other chapters, sure, but none to this degree of enthusiasm.”
“I - I don’t know. It’s just fun to read about.”
“So do you think you have this kink? I thought when you started reading this book you said you knew all your kinks and that you’d know which chapters you’d like to read about and which ones you wouldn’t. Didn’t you specifically say that this chapter wouldn’t be as fun as the fisting chapter in terms of what you’d be enthralled by?”
August mumbled a quick “I changed my mind.” while getting her shoes off and walking into their bedroom.
Jane followed close behind, straddling August from where she lay face down on the bed with the book hiding under the pillow. “Why don’t you wanna talk about the chapter anymore? I thought you were super enthused about it?”
Shrugging, August removed her glasses, and flopped her head into the pillow.
“Mhm. So say I just…” Jane bit lightly at August’s exposed shoulder, leaving August to let out a moan. It was muffled by the pillow, sure, but Jane heard it just as clear as she needed to. “But no cannibalism kink?”
“First of all that could be from other things. Biting people and the horror of cannibalism are two different things.” Then she sighed. “Would you be turned off if I said I think I might be into the latter?”
“Not in the slightest.”
August groaned, lifting her head out of the pillow. “I don’t even know if I would say I’m into it. I just… get it.”
“How would you react if I started saying things to line up with that then? If I started saying that I wanted to eat your heart out for example? Or that you’d be the best meal I’ve ever had? If I could eat you just for a chance to be closer to you than anybody else could even dream of?”
August squinted up to Jane. “Have you thought of this before? That came to you way quicker than it should have.”
“Maybe.” Jane admitted. “It doesn’t sound unappealing at least. Something I’d be willing to try if you were.”
Challenging Jane, August asked “And what about you? What kink would you be willing to try that you’ve never told me about before?”
“No way. You haven’t even admitted to being into this yet.”
“Becuase I’m not!” August flopped her face down, feeling herself go red again and not wanting to admit to this. She wasn’t even sure of it, and how could she have been? She’d just read a chapter on this, how could she know if she was into it? “At least I don’t think I am.”
Jane rolled over, laying beside August and facing her. “If I admit to something I find hot, will you admit to having this kink? Or another one maybe if you genuinely don’t think you have this one?”
“You’re an open book.” August turned her head to face her. “What would you even be into that you’ve been hiding?”
“Hands.”
August’s eyebrows scrunched up. She racked her head to try to make sense of what Jane meant by just saying hands, before she just gave in and asked, “What do you mean?”
“Hands.” She repeated. “Your hands specifically, but hands in general are just hot.”
“In general just hot?”
Jane nodded. “Your turn. What do you think you’d be into that you haven’t told me before?”
Hiding her face again, August took a minute to respond. “I think you know.”
“Is it cannibalism?”
Shrugging, she replied “I just think it could be hot, I don’t know. Just the metaphors of it all, but I don’t think I’d want to participate in like… an extreme way.”
“So you just wanna talk about it?”
August shrugged again before delving into it. She admitted that before reading the book, she had never thought of it, and if she had she had the thought of it being taboo. Something that she couldn’t imagine herself being into. “Like when I read the chapters of the book and basically marked off the ones I thought I wouldn’t be into.” She explained. When going to read the book she initially wrote it off as some horror, something she couldn’t be into even if she tried.
But then actually reading the premise of what cannibalism kinks were about, or at least what they were about to this author, she thought that they couldn’t actually be that bad. Maybe she was into it. Maybe she just needed someone to explain to her what it was actually about before dismissing it entirely.
By the end of her spiel, August was saying “I don’t know if I would say I have that kink, but maybe. I’m not… opposed I guess. It doesn’t seem impossible that I’d be into it after it was explained to me.”
Jane stayed nodding along to what August was saying, taking in everything she was explaining and wrapping her head around her girlfriend maybe being into body horror as a kink.
“What else was the book saying about it? What else have you highlighted?”
August propped her head up, opened the book, and started reading off some quotes she highlighted. “The last thing I have highlighted in that chapter is ‘we try to absorb one another in order to know one another’ but that’s among a larger quote.”
“Is that the part that got you?”
Thinking for a minute, August replied “Maybe.” before looking back to start the next chapter of her book.