Mantodea Takeout (Short Story)
Shipprex and Solesham were in love. As such, it was routine for them to go out and feed together almost every night. The rest of their time was spent sleeping, wrapped around each other in dark spaces, overfed bedbugs with an unearthly glow. Because the boys weren’t human. They were monsters who had carved themselves human skins. And very attractive ones at that.
“I miss mullets,” Shipprex groaned, and Solesham scoffed as he curled a french fry along his forefinger. They were dragging themselves across the beach, as they often did on uneventful Autumn nights, watching the sun slip beneath the ocean waters with greedy anticipation. Tourism had waned in the past few years but the boys could see a couple boats pulling themselves back onto the shore.
“I miss eating pedophiles,” Solesham replied, rolling his eyes, “Doesn’t mean I want the eighties to come back.”
“Why you gotta spin it like that?” Solesham simply raised his eyebrows at his boyfriend, deciding to focus on the night’s menu, which was drawing itself closer and closer. Shipprex sighed.
“Okay correction! I miss your mullet.”
“Yeah.” Solesham tucked his mate under his arm, smirking,
The boys, now adjusting to the early night fog, could make out a figure, pulling down the sail. It was a man, all bristles and skin marks, with long wavy hair down his back. He reminded Solesham of a younger Shipprex, right before he shed his very first skin.
“Well would you look at that?” Solesham chuckled. Shipprex gave a devious grin, fangs glistening, his second skin becoming more artificial by the second.
“Careful baby,” Solesham warned, pulling his own costume higher, “Your pincers are showing.”
“Fuck my pincers! Let’s eat!”
Twenty minutes later, Shipprex was complaining about sand getting in his pants. Blood spurted from his jaw, staining his second favourite shirt. The sailor lay on the ground beside his attackers, an arm here and a leg there. Solesham had devoured the man’s face, picking apart the base of his scalp and the dark shadow of his jaw. Shipprex, bitter, had taken control of the torso, tearing up the guy’s guts and placing them around him like morbid party streamers.
“Hey! Says the guy who's out in the open!”
Solesham looked down to see his second skin raw and abandoned in the sand.
“Oh shit!” He grabbed at his antennae with his pincers. They met greasy, wet scales. Shipprex rolled his eyes.
“It’s fine! Sole, really it’s okay. No one’s around.”
It was true. All the other boats had decided to moore on another bay after seeing how thick and dangerous the mist was. Really, they were extremely lucky that anyone had landed at all. Solesham cast the sailor’s skull aside and crawled over to his boyfriend, who was in the process of discarding his disguise too.
“We need a fresh pair anyway,” Shipprex complained, “They were starting to get mouldy.”
“You sure it’s the skins?”
“Old geezers,” Shipprex agreed half heartedly.
“Two old men lost to time.”
“You say that as if you want something more.”
“No, I want nothing else. Just worried about you.”
At this, Shipprex grabbed Solesham’s arm.
“I love you more than anything else. I’ve never wished for more. Not even for a moment. From the second I met you, that was it!”
Solesham sighed for a final time, letting all his old, dead weight fall from his back, just like the men who he used to eat before he gained control over his hunger. Then, at last, he gave his boyfriend a small, tired smile. Shipprex gave him a giant grin, teeth sharp, blood still falling down his chin and down his throat.
“Let’s go home baby. We’ll go catch some Nazis tomorrow hmm?”
