Jane’s hair was severe – an angry hat – and her eyebrows lunged at you like Stanley knives. This was by design. Jane would prefer you to feel uncomfortable, and would make no effort to alter her expression from its natural sulk as she stared into your harried first-world problems, urging you to hurry up and select a sausage.
Jane worked in an esteemed artisanal deli. She refused to wear the rubber gloves. Although she found the sensation of cured sausage against her skin utterly repellant, she persevered gloveless on a daily basis for the small amount of satisfaction derived from witnessing a customer internally debate whether or not to chide her re: handling meats sans protection. Customer would invariably suppress germophobia and accept tainted food with a thank you like a disappointed whimper. On such occasions, Jane would smile grimly and offer a sarcastic “goodbye”.
When business was slow, Jane could do her favourite things. She would use the meat-grinder and sausage-compacter to make her own recipe sausage: “Poncemeat” (marketed as “Special Grade Iberico King Pork Gold Standard Matured”). The recipe for each Poncemeat was 16 Peperamis. It was more expensive than any of the other exotic meats, and the best-selling product.
Sometimes she would use the flat end of a salami like a grease-pen to draw yonic shapes on the inside of the glass counter. She dreamed that one day a heating malfunction would cause the glass to steam up and stage an impromptu art exhibition. In darker moods, she would fantasise about using the appendages of lovers who had wronged her as ingredients in a new Economy-priced addition to her Poncemeat range.
Phil was a prime candidate. The way he had bullied her – never hit; he was wisely too scared to try that – constantly needling under the guise of “banter”, asking idiotic questions designed to undermine. “What you vegetarian for? D’you want anaemia?” or “Why you in a sausage shop? S’like a lesbian working a blokes’ prison,” or “Think looking moody makes you sexy? Wrong”, the last one timed perfectly with her being naked and attempting a smile.
The only reason it hurt was that she sort of liked him – the way he looked, dressed, carried himself – and subsequently hoped in vain that his outer prick had an inner nice person held hostage, like hers does. Apparently not. Over time, her fantasies of Phil’s face when she finally broke through his bravura façade to the hidden softie; of him collapsing tearfully into her arms with gratitude; of him saying “I’m sorry… I love you,” over and over again – they faded. She replaced them with fantasies of the look on Phil’s face when he awoke to find himself Lorena Wayne Bobbitted to the nines, viscera leaking from his crotch, his arms and legs thrashing at the floor as he wept like an angry toddler, having just learnt that his cock and balls had been sold to an old woman in Notting Hill for 29p.
Phil sensed the change in her demeanour, moving on before he pushed her too far. He had remarkable intuition re: saving his penis, even if he wasn’t sure from what.
So Jane never had to face up to whether or not she’d have done it. But it remained a great comfort to her that should the mood strike, she could press a man’s genitals out of a meat-grinder, like so much clay falling limply from the angular holes in a Play-Doh Fun Factory.
Jane loved her job, even if her face claimed otherwise.