My Incredible Great Aunt by Uncle Tom I retired from writing WE stories some time ago to devote all my creativeenergy to my regular job as drama critic. Since my heart attack and six-way bypass of last year I can no longer review plays so I have returned to WE writing with this story. My Incredible Great Aunt Yes of course I remember the first time I went to one of my Great Aunt Lucinda's Christmas dinner parties. I was 18, I went with my twin sister, Maria, and we ate her. Along with remembering the sensation of biting into a delicious slice of honey-roasted Maria, I remember how excited she and I were when we got the invitation to the dinner. Great Aunt Lucinda's Christmas dinner parties were famous in an underground sort of way, and people of importance and influence were eager for invitations. One of her invited guests was the Lieutenant Governor, and he was very puffed up and vain about it. The Governor would have loved to be invited, but unfortunately for him Great Aunt Lucinda thought he was an asshole. So when Maria and I got the invitation we felt very important, and honored. Of course we had no way of knowing that Maria was to be the main course, served up on a silver platter, roasted to a golden brown and with an apple in her mouth. Had we known we certainly would not have gone, or perhaps I would have seen if I could go without her. Maria and I were very close, as twins are apt to be. We had given each other our virginities when we were 14 and had had sex frequently after that. When she was 16 Maria tried doing it with other men, some of whom she liked better than others, and I had some successes with other young women, some of whom were better sex partners than others, but we still shared our bodies with each other frequently and enjoyably. Great Aunt Lucinda had been married five times and had had numerous other lovers. Two of her husbands had been elderly and had died shortly after sharing the marriage bed with her, each leaving her great piles of money. The other three had also lavished considerable worldly goods on her, as had most of her lovers. (One who did not was that same Governor whom she later wrote off as an asshole.) That and an ability to elicit inside information on the stock market and other financial transactions had left her, as she described it, with 'more money than God.' To this she always added, 'But He has more friends.' As a result of her five marriages she had all kinds of stepchildren and other relatives by marriage. She was always generous with these, having put several young people through college and helped hem get started on careers. For a time there were two stepdaughters who lived with her, their father having disowned them for being too free with their bodies. After that first dinner, where we ate Maria, I became a regular at Aunt Lucinda's dinners and came to know the history of them. It seems the dinners started out as elaborate feasts at which a wild boar was barbecued whole over a slow fire. Much wine was consumed, elaborate favors were given out and guests who had had too much to drink were invited to spend the night in one of the 20-some bedrooms in Aunt Lucinda's elaborate mansion, with no bed checks on who was sleeping with whom. Well, one year -- three years before the Maria dinner -- the wild boar died two days before the dinner of some disease that made it inedible. Great Aunt Lucinda had already issued the invitations and the invited guests -- movie and TV stars, business tycoons, political big wigs, champion athletes and the like -- were looking forward eagerly to coming. She asked, despairingly, what she could do and one of the stepdaughters, Malanie Dear, said, 'Why don't you roast Tamara,' Tamara being the other stepdaughter. Great Aunt Lucinda said,'Why you wicked girl, what an evil suggestion, but what a good one. Just for that, I think we will roast you.' She did, and it was her most successful dinner yet. Great Aunt Lucinda told Tamara, 'Don't gloat, young lady. You could be next if you don't watch your step.' And then she caught Tamara naked in the arms of a footman -- and Tamara WAS next. The dinner was equally successful, and established the pattern of young women replacing wild boars on the menu. For the following year's dinner Great Aunt Lucinda had a second cousin, Elbert Hoobard, whom she had bailed out of bankruptcy twice. He had a buxom daughter whom Great Aunt Lucinda requisitioned for the dinner and Elbert, well aware that he would probably need Great Aunt Lucinda's financial help again, gave her up willingly. The daughter, who called herself Salome the Enchantress, was an aspiring dancer and Great Aunt Lucinda had told her she was wanted at the dinner to entertain the guests with a dance of the seven veils. Salome obliged and when she had shed the seventh veil and stood naked before the applauding audience, Great Aunt Lucinda said, 'Marvelous, my dear. And now, for a sequel, a performance on the grill.' Two muscular footmen seized the girl, tied her hands and feet, than laid her on a grill over a sizzling bed of coals. The audience was entranced as Salome begged, pleaded, screamed and uttered un-lady-like curses while slowly roasting into a delicious main dinner course. (It came out later that Salome's mother, Mary Eloise, learning of the fate in store for her daughter, had gone to Great Aunt Lucinda and, citing a mother's love, begged her to spare Salome's life. Great Aunt Lucinda looked at Mary Eloise, still just in her early 40s and having a firm waist, great breasts and a wonderful ass, and said, 'Why of course, my dear, we will gladly spare your daughter -- if you will take her place on the grill.' Mary Eloise thought this over for a long moment, then said, 'Well, try not to burn her, and I hope you enjoy her. Don't use too much sauce,' and left.) So you can see how Great Aunt Lucinda's Christmas dinner parties were famous only in an underground way. None of the invited guests ever talked about them publicly, and since they included top people in the media fields, nothing was ever published or broadcast about them. And the high ranking public officials in attendance made sure there were no problems with the law. When Maria and I got our invitation all we knew was that there was something very special about them, and how lucky we were to be invited. The invitation said to be there at 2:00 o'clock. When we got there Great Aunt Lucinda said, 'Oh, I'm so glad you could come, children. Maria, I know this is an imposition but I'm asking a really big favor. Three of my maids are ill so could I impose on you to help out in the kitchen before dinner?' Maria said, 'Of course, Great Aunt Lucinda.' To me she muttered, 'Now we know why we were invited,' then went into the kitchen to 'help out.' Lucinda then invited me down to the game room, where she introduced me to a young TV starlet whose career was just starting out and who was excited to be invited and to meet a close relative of the famous Lucinda. So we had a pleasant afternoon of getting acquainted and servants kept pouring me wine -- which I was not used to drinking -- so by dinner time I was in a happy mental fog. That mental fog kept me from being shocked when I saw Maria laid out on that silver platter and then being carved and served. I didn't even object when I was handed a plate with a slice of Maria's right thigh, nestled in with some tender baby carrots and some nicely roasted new potatoes. Great Aunt Lucinda, at my elbow, said, 'You must try it, dear. It would be an insult to your sister not to.' So I ate it, and by golly it WAS good. So good that I gladly accepted a second helping from her right shoulder. Well, as I've said, from then on I was a regular at those fabulous Christmas dinner parties and I even had something of a hand in choosing the young women to be served. That is to say Great Aunt Lucinda encouraged me to become acquainted with my large number of female cousins or other relatives, and at times she would ask something like, 'What do you think of your cousin Greta?' or, 'How do you like that cute little Suzanne?' I would says something like, 'Oh, great kid' or 'I really like her.' Or maybe it would be, 'I think she's a spoiled brat,' and then somehow that spoiled brat would be on the next Christmas dinner table. Mind you, I never specifically recommended a girl to be eaten, or advised against eating one. But my opinions did seem to weigh in the selection process, enough so that when I met a new first, second or third cousin, one of my first thoughts would be how she would look on that silver platter. So that's what I know about my Great Aunt Lucinda's Christmas dinner parties. And if you want to know if I can get you an invitation to one of them, all I can say is if you have a sexy daughter, or stepdaughter, a sister or maybe your wife whom you would be willing to see roasted to a golden brown and served up on that platter, I might be able to help you. That is, of course, if that daughter, stepdaughter, sister or wife really deserves to be roasted and served. That's your call.