I used to enjoy my lunch, until Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani started to join me; her and her many guests.

Few employees at the Vishkar Corporation are social enough to eat outside of their office. In the rare event of one of the even rarer extroverted employees inviting them to lunch, they’d use the excuse of needing to work through their break. Because of this, I often had the courtyard to myself to eat, which I preferred. Perhaps I have no place to judge my co-workers for their social skills. So, it was strange that Ms. Vaswani decided to start eating her lunch outside whenever I did.

Despite being a face for Vishkar, she is no more social than anyone else, probably less so. She was often seen as cold and aloof; despite many employees wishing they could get one “one on one time” with her. Yet with each day, she would find a seat closer and closer to me. It had even progressed to the point that one day she sat shoulder to shoulder with me. At first, I thought she was being shy, gradually working her way up to talk to me, the thought of which put butterflies in my stomach. Now I think she does it to gauge my reaction to her lunch.

The first few days I had no idea what she was eating, but soon it became clear: people. Tiny, squirming, completely alive people. Any thought being mistaken left when she was close enough that I could hear them screaming for help. She didn't even say hello when she sat down next to me. This Indian goddess, blasphemous as it may be to say, just sat down next to me without a word, like I was expecting her. Maybe I was.

I never got a good look into the box of tiny people she brought to lunch, only at the contents - one at a time. She began almost immediately after crossing those long legs, 3/4 wrapped up in black stockings with gold hems. If it weren't for the casual cannibalism, my eyes would be drifting toward the expanse of exposed thigh, reaching all the way up to her hip bone, rather than her mouth.

I had asked around, trying to see if anyone know about her doing anything strange, trying to be coy so as to not arouse suspicion. To not arouse her. I mean, not like that, but- anyway. Apparently, she had pitched an idea for an efficiency project that would address both the growing population and dwindling resources. She was all about efficiency, so the idea of her consuming those she found to serve little purpose in society wasn't farfetched. Yet, sitting there, watching her out of the corner of my eye, this initiative she had taken on was not about efficiency, it was about her own sick pleasure.

As grim as it was to think about, there were more efficient methods if one had to eat people. Convert them into a nutrient-rich paste, for one. There was no reason to consume them one at a time, plucking them from the box and depositing them into her mouth. Sometimes they would be pressed against her plump lower lip, gently slid halfway between her lips before her tongue would unceremoniously drag the victim the rest of the way in. Later into the meal she would occasionally tilt her head back and open her mouth slowly, dangling her 'food' above before dropping them in. Every so often she would press them directly onto her outstretched tongue, pulling the muscle back with the human pinned by her finger, her dark lips closing around the digit. The finger would then pop out seconds later, damp and occasionally connected to her lips by a thin rope of saliva.

There was no reason she had to swallow them whole, sending them to suffocate and burn in the pit of her stomach. It had to have been easier to just chew them up first. Less resistance going in, down, and inside. Less cruel, even though the act itself was cruel. But no. They went in alive. They were swallowed alive. The only explanation for so many inefficient methods was that she wasn't doing this for efficiency.

She was doing this for pleasure.

Now that she was sitting next to me, I could make out the subtlest, quietest, moans from her throat, assuming the tiny person wasn't screaming too much on their way down the slender, tight, passage. Gods, why did I have to hear them? Hearing them plead, beg, and curse just added a layer of reality to the situation I wasn’t ready for. Despite being too curious for my own good, watching as each person went in, I always tried to look away once she swallowed. In the rare moments I was brave enough to let my gaze linger, I could see the smallest upward pull on the corner of her lips after each swallow. Though perhaps a coincidence, I noticed she would only ever pick them up with her real hand, not the prosthetic she wore on the left side. My theory was this was so she could feel them squirm and fight in her grip before they did the same in her mouth, throat, and stomach. No doubt they had been screaming for my help the first time they saw me, however many days ago this nightmare started. It was until that day that I could hear them.

They weren't always clear, being so small, but when you know what words to listen for, it becomes crystal. “Help” is the most common, of course. Their cries only made me stare at my own lunch harder, not wanting to face the cruel reality any more than I had to. Then, I heard my name. I, like a fool, instinctively looked over at her. There, pushing his way out from between her lips, was a colleague of mine.

He wasn't the brightest, and was more lazy than hardworking, but he was a good man; funny and kind. Not attributes one needs for working at Vishkar, but quality qualities, nonetheless. Now he was doing what he could to push against the weight of her plump lips, trying to worm his way free and escape to an unknown fate. After my mouth opened, in slight preparation, but before a single sound could come out, her tongue washed over him like a wave, and pulled him into the darkness of her mouth. No more than two seconds later did she swallow with a gulp that I swear was exaggerated for my benefit.

"Would you like one?" she asked me.

"What?" I stumbled and muttered, unclear of how words were formed in a reality that I was becoming increasingly less trustful of.

"Would you like one?" she repeated, never taking her eyes off the holo-screen she had been projecting from the palm of her robotic hand since she started. She hadn’t even the lives she was taken the courtesy of looking at them in their last moments. A courtesy she also wasn’t extending to me.

She held up a randomly selected prisoner, dangling her near her own, pronounced, chest. This one I did not recognize, and I began to think not all of the members of her lunch were former workers of the corporation.

Even though I didn't know her, I knew she was still human. I thought about accepting, perhaps pretending to eat her but truly stowing her away until I could get back to my office and come up with a plan to fix her status, and that of the others. However, my concern for this woman did not exceed the concern for my own safety, no matter how much she pleaded.

I was always afraid of, though still attracted to, Satya Vaswani, and I did not want to upset her. Now more than ever.

She did not hold a position higher than mine, but her influence far exceeded that than most of the board members. She was held in such high esteem among the higher ups that upon her request, anyone could be hired, fired, or transferred (and now, worse) at her behest. I started to realize they, her superiors, in Vishkar position only, feared her too.

"No...no thank you..." I shamefully said, yanking my eyes away from the woman who had been so close to freedom, but because her fate was in the hands of a coward, she would not see another day.

"Very well," was all she said before casually bringing the kicking human to her mouth.

I swear she took longer to eat this one than the others. She held her longer in the hair, her mouth slowly opening, tendrils of spit breaking between those plump, dark, lips. Her tongue moved more slowly to wet them, but more importantly to signal the tiny woman’s demise. The victim was lowered slower than usual, giving her plenty of time to kick, to beg Symmetra for her life. To beg me for her life. She took extra time to place her gently on her tongue, pressing the woman down against the muscle. Her lips came together gently, but tightly. She demonstrated their lush fullness, how deathly alluring they were. I don’t know what was going on inside her mouth; perhaps she was savoring, perhaps she was just letting the woman sit there, moving on her tongue trying to find a way out, perhaps she was massaging her against her pallet as one would with a piece of hard candy. Whatever the process was for her, she, of course, took her time with this one. Was she doing this just to tease me, or was she trying to give me ample time to change my mind and accept her offer? Before I could answer that question, she swallowed.

Symmetra couldn’t slow down her gulp, I don’t think, but she certainly made it louder, more exaggerated, than before. She satisfied moan she gave post swallow was definitely louder than the other ones. More distinctly sexual. Her hand rested on her chest as she seemed to enjoy that one in particular. I shudder to think it was because I was watching her. Because I had essentially doomed that poor woman with my cowardice. It was in moments like that I cursed my overactive imagination; and my unscrupulous libido. Because as soon as I heard that clearly pleasured utterance that came past those deadly, but still oh so kissable, lips, blood rushed from my overworked brain to my underappreciated crotch.

I sat there, staring at my own lunch which I hadn't touched, when she stood up. My terrified trance was broken when I heard her saying my name, asking if I was indeed the person she thought I was.

All I could do was nod.

"You have a performance review coming up," she reminded me, even though she shouldn't have that information.

My eyes scanned up her statuesque body, stopping on those enchanting eyes behind the glasses she wore for work.

"Good luck," she mouthed with a smile before she walked off, the clicking of her high heels being the only sound in the courtyard as she left.