Tits à la Flambé
Paulette Pierce
When Skyler dined on their own tits, it wasn’t a statement of any sort, although many people co-opted the act for their own purposes later, assigning something reactionary and radical to it. A metaphorical consumption made literal, “a cross-section of motherhood, gender, nourishment, and the invisible labor of the caretaker, a movement,” supposedly.
But truth be told, Skyler was just fucking hungry, and the fridge was barren that night, cobwebby as a cartoon fridge Tom the cat might open, pupils morphing into empty dinner plates. Besides, the tits were theirs, and it seemed a shame to let them go to waste.
When they’d had their surgery intake and found out the lumps of flesh and fat would be destined for a trash can after removal, languishing amongst the discarded viscera and god knows what else, they demanded to take them home.
“Well … that’s not really done,” their surgeon’s PA had said, eyes darting to the nurse to enlist her counsel. Back me up here.
Skyler tried to mention the Rocko’s Modern Life episode with Rocko burying his jarred appendix in the backyard (why was everything so cartoonish in their head these days?), but the reference didn’t land. In the end, they didn’t need any further justification. It turned out there wasn’t anything strictly prohibiting it. Not unless it was radioactive material or a vector of infectious disease, and since it was neither, Skyler came home in a stupor of painkillers and tossed the plastic bag, cinched tight with a zip-tie, in the freezer next to a bag of peas and forgot about it. Until now.
A few hours submerged in a pot of cold water, and the tits were thawed. Skyler marinated them in a mishmash of victual fragments, scraping the bottom of the crisper drawer and the allium bowl for one squishy lemon, a shallot, and two cloves of garlic. They opened a Ziploc bag and squeezed the juice from the lemon into it, putting the diced shallots and crushed garlic on top. A few glugs of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, pepper, paprika, and cumin. A few dashes of cayenne for a little kick.
They Instagrammed the meal; “Tits à la Flambé!” read the caption, the breast tissue, scorched in whiskey and bathed in a sauce made from pan drippings, laid next to a small pile of nicely browned potato coins.
That’s when it began. The messages pouring in like a thousand bodies pressed to their apartment door, bending the hinges until it gave way and let them in.
So brave!
Omg, like… they’re feeding you now, the NEW you, the TRUE YOU! You’re honoring your former self to become the person who was always within *soft awestruck eyes emoji*
Within hours, Skyler’s post had been shared 1.2 million times and notifications crowded their phone, overlapping bubble after bubble until it looked like a virus-addled 90s PC. Then came the thinkpieces, the tweets, the obnoxious headlines that presumed so much and spoke about Skyler’s meal like it belonged to everyone, as though a collective experience was occurring. “Skyler Peters and the Meal that Fed the Entire Internet,” “What We Can Learn from Skyler Peters: Dysphoria, Patriarchy, and Taking Back Ownership of Our Bodies,” “Fame-Hungry Stunt or Queer Movement? Why the Skyler Peters Thing Matters.” It felt like they’d lost their identity yet again. Placed their own body on a plate only for all of society to dissect it as they pleased.
But then something unexpected happened. More people demanded to take their tits home after surgery. It started slowly and then kept expanding, a contagious phenomenon of joy. They made gourmet meals with them, forged bisques and broths and rich cream sauces, laid their bodies on beds of spring greens and nests of homemade pasta, sprinkled garnishes and ladled au jus, always documenting and tagging it #ThankYouSkyler. People shared preparation tips, mishaps and triumphs alike. They made events out of it, celebratory dinner parties and date nights. There were clubs formed in solidarity, people finding one another through the posts and becoming friends, champions of each other in a way Skyler never could have anticipated the night they opened their freezer door.
“Grateful that the parts we discard can still fuel who we become,” one caption said, a trans man named Alec smiling through happy tears as he ate his carefully crafted dish, friends linking arms with him on both sides, and it finally didn’t feel like greeting card nonsense to Skyler. It just felt like the most logical thing in the world. The body, the blood, the bread. Communion redefined. Bon appéfuckingtit.
Paulette Pierce is a queer Pittsburgh-based writer currently trying to find a home for their first novel and to preserve their local film community in their off hours. Their work has appeared in Maudlin House, SFWP, No Contact, and Anti-Heroin Chic.