A Trust Machines Story

by grapehyacinth

 “I'm sick and tired of turning you and your stupid wife into food. I hate the damn Venn Machines! I wish they never existed! It's not normal to want to be transformed into food and then eaten! What if the Venned person is claustrophobic?”

Rob took a deep breath. It was a special night, his anniversary, and his wife and he had been planning it for months. All his cousin Patty had to do was go with them and change them in the Venn Machine. “I think Mona's a bit claustrophobic, but it's different when you're food. You want to be used. You want to be eaten.”

“Do you hear how disgusting that sounds? Used? Eaten? Yes, I know, you make sure the machine changes back before you get digested too much, but it's still gross! Who wants to sit in someone's stomach?”

Rob smiled. He loved the feeling of sliding down his wife's throat, then being all comfy inside of her...

“You like it! God, you're sick! I swear there's something wrong with you! And you've gotten Mona into it too now! I'd be panicking if I was locked inside someone!”

“Patty, I'm not asking you to do it. I'm asking you to do it to us. Please! It's our anniversary!”

“Damn it, Rob! I actually have a date tonight! Can't you get someone else to?”

“Patty, we gave you so much advance warning!”

“I have a life too!”

“It doesn't take that long!” Rob was growing angrier and angrier. It was his ten-year anniversary. He would not have his plans ruined. And there were other people who were counting on them. “Patty, he'll live if you're late. Honestly, I wouldn't call Renn Burrows a date, anyway. He's desperate for anything that moves.”

There was silence on Patty's end of the line. Rob could hear her two dogs barking far off, but his cousin was silent. Finally she murmured, “You bastard. Not all of us are lucky enough to find a woman willing to turn into someone's stomach contents. I'll meet you at the god-damned Venn Machine at five, you stupid asshole.”

***

Parked near the transformation machine, otherwise known as a Trust Machine (or Venn Machine), was a truck with the words, 'VennCakes' emblazoned on it. Below the lettering was a picture of a perfect cake, with a pair of winking eyes in the middle. Patty stared at it, ignoring the driver who stepped out. “I'm looking for Rob and Mona?” he called to her.

“Yeah, I'm the sucker who's changing them. Why can't you do it?” Patty grumbled.

“I'm just a driver. I'm not licensed to change people.”

“What the hell? You have to be licensed to program the damned machines?”

“Hey, lawsuits...they happen. We're running a business here.”

“Oh, damn you, Rob.” The two then stood in silence, Patty kicking at the sand with her shoe.

“You know, some say being a wedding cake for someone is a lovely sentiment. It's good luck,” the driver pointed out.

Patty made a disgusted face. “Oh, they hardly know the couple. It's someone Mona works with, and they're gastros too. Gastros – you know, people who like to be turned into food and eaten...Yes, I assume you know since you're in the business... Anyway, Mona volunteered to be the cake for her as part of their wedding gift. In fact, most of the food at this wedding is going to be Venned people. Can you imagine? Well, I guess you can, since once again, you're in the business.”

The driver merely watched her with interest as she went on.  Finally it was his turn to respond, which was a simple, “Hardly. I'm just a driver. I'm not gonna be someone's grits anytime soon.”

Rob and Mona drove up and emerged from the car, hanging off each other like newlyweds. “They make me sick,” Patty mumbled under her breath. The driver picked this up however, and chuckled.

“To each his own,” he smiled. He raised his voice, calling to the couple. “Get on in, kids! You've got a whole wedding to feed!”

“They said the ceremony starts at seven. We have plenty of time,” Mona uttered.

Rob gazed into her eyes. “The sooner the better.”

Patty grew worried. “Wait! Don't you care about the timing so you change back before you get digested?”

Neither Rob nor his wife answered.

“Oh, holy hell, you guys! Don't you dare...oh, that's...” Patty was beside herself. They were seriously going to turn into someone's wedding cake, be eaten by a hundred different people, and then digested and... excreted?

“It's a whole adventure,” Rob said sheepishly.

“Oh, no way. No way in hell are you doing that! Mona, is he forcing you?”

Mona shook her head. “No, I'm going to try it once. Rob said it'll blow my mind.”

“Being crapped out? Yeah, I bet!”

“No, being in all those places at once.”

“Patty, stop being such a bitch and ruining our night!” Rob yelled at his cousin. “I don't care how the hell you feel! Just do it, damn it, so you can get to your pathetic date with that loser!”

Mona inserted, “Rob, let's go ask Claire at the Trust Motel. She could take a few minutes to help us.”

“No! Why the hell can't my damn cousin do it? She's right here! You want to ruin someone's wedding, Patty? Get in the damn machine, program it, and turn us into a fucking wedding cake already!”

Deathly silent, Patty entered one side of the machine, and Rob and Mona sauntered into the other. As they waited for Patty to program their change, they embraced tightly. “I think we'll be the most beautiful cake ever known to man!” Mona giggled over Patty's mumbling to the voice-activated part of the machine's system.

“Well, at least the most beautiful cake that was once a man...”

“And woman...”

Wondering what was taking so long, Rob craned his neck and tried to pick up Patty's instructions from the other side of the machine.   “What is she..." he paused, and then a horrified expression came over his face.

"Dog food?!  Nooooo!!” he screamed, and all went black.

***

Mona felt round, thin, and hard. She could not quite understand this. She had been cake before, both regular and ice cream, and she knew very well she was neither of them right now. And when Rob had yelled 'dog food', she thought that Patty was playing a trick on them. But she was definitely not soft, or crunchy, for that matter, so she could hardly be food. Yet she had the oddest sensation that she was filled with something...

***

Bitch! You bitch, Patty! Rob seethed, sealed in his can. He was quite aware that Patty had turned him into wet, mushy dog food. The way his form felt only confirmed this. He was packed into a can, which made him take the shape of it, but he was of a moist, meaty texture. The perfect meal for a dog - of which Patty had two.  Was Mona also part of him, or was she the can?  He wasn't sure if Patty could control the machine enough to do that or not, but he himself was definitely not part of the can...

Oh, God! She can't let the dogs eat me! That's just disgusting! The whole idea is disgusting!  I was going to be the centerpiece of someone's wedding, but instead I'm going to end up coming out the wrong end of a dog...

***

Standing in the doorway of the machine, Patty could not stop laughing. “That is so funny! You guys came out awesome! I wish you could hear me in that form!” she held up a can with a nondescript label stuck to it that read, “Doggie Dinner”. She rubbed at the label. “I bet you're loving that, huh, Mona? Well, I still think Rob the sicko bastard pushed you into this crap, well, at least, the becoming crap part of it, so you get to be a can to hold him. Well, at least I hope that's how it worked out.  Someone told me since you're lighter than him, you'd probably turn into the can.  If not, and you're both can and food, well, it is what it is!"  she chuckled.  "I do hope you're just the can.  That way Rob's all nice and packed inside of you until Spotty and Barkley look for their food. Then he goes on the adventure that you sicko gastros dream of.”

“Hey, lady! Where are you going with my cake?”

Patty had forgotten all about the VennCakes man, who now stood there angrily, his hands on his hips.

“It's not your cake. It's my dogs' dinner.”

***

Mona could feel something lifting her up. Whatever she was, she kind of liked it. She couldn't see or hear, but she definitely feel the warmth of flesh against her cold form. Then fingers were rubbing her, and she was pretty sure that was Patty, trying to reassure her that everything was okay...

She hoped.

She was thrown down onto a hard surface, and suddenly something was attacking her top. Teeth cut into her edges, pulling and tearing at her all around, and then the whole top part of her was pulled away.

This top part was dumped unceremoniously beside the rest of her, and she could have sworn that she felt her 'insides' twitch. She was filled with something that was not her, and then she felt what could only have been the tines of a fork removing these insides. For some reason, this made her feel sad, like someone was taking away a beloved toy...

***

Oh, God, no! Leave me inside of Mona! You made her my can! Don't take me from her!

But a whistling Patty continued to scoop bits of Rob into a doggy dish. “You know, why should I dirty two dishes when Barkley's small enough to eat you right out of your wife?” Patty realized in delight. "Yes, I'm pretty sure that's how you guys were changed.  I was reading about Venn Machines on a website."  Smiling at how X-rated her previous sentence sounded, she set Mona down in front of Barkley, while placing the bowl with the rest of Rob in front of the larger Spotty. And the dogs began to dine.

***

When Mona felt the rough tongue scooping the softness from inside her, she finally put two and two together.

I'm a can. A dog food can. Rob is the dog food.

The idea, as horrid as it sounded, was also surprisingly creative for someone like Patty. Mona wondered how long she had been planning this 'revenge' out. She knew Rob annoyed the hell out of her, and she could see they had been incredibly naïve to think that Patty would Venn them into a cake without any problem. She was lucky that Patty had been a little bit more lenient with her. Being eaten by a dog and going through its digestion... She tried to shudder at this thought, but forgot that she was made of metal.

Sadly, she had been looking forward to being a wedding cake. To be changed into such a soft, delicious form, to sit in front of a crowd and impress them with her perfection...

She hoped the newlyweds had found some other volunteers to become their last-minute cake.

***

NO! NO! Don't eat me!

Rob knew his pleading was pointless. No one could hear dog food, even when it was protesting as loud as he was in his mind. All he could do was sit back, and be the best-tasting, juiciest dinner he could be. And he was pretty good at that, he had to admit.  He always became a great pizza, as his wife often mentioned.

***

“My cousins taste delicious, don't they, Barkley and Spotty?”

Spotty licked his lips and barked, and a piece of Rob mixed with drool rolled from the corner of his mouth to the floor. Rob tasted so good to Barkley, the dog didn't even pause to look up.

“Yes, yes. Good boys. Finish up and we'll take you for a nice walk so you can crap out my cousin.”

Barkley made a saddened whine, pushing the empty can towards Patty. Patty picked it up, studying it carefully. “You ate all of the Rob out of Mona!” she laughed. “Good boy!” she continued to examine the can in awe. “It's so amazing that this flimsy thing of metal is a real, living person!” she placed it back down on the counter. “Now, Mona, you're recyclable, so I really should put you in the recycling bin, but if you turn back in the recycling center, it might be awkward. So hang out here a while, and enjoy your svelte, shiny form!”

***

Rob was getting digested. As horrible as the next step would be, he was still trying to enjoy the process at hand. Before the first time he had become food, he had never imagined how good it felt to have his very substance dissolving away. It wasn't painful or uncomfortable; it was just mind-blowing and amazing.

He just wished he didn't have to go through what came after the digestion process. Not in a dog.

***

Patty walked the two dogs through the woods, murmuring to them quietly. “I love that Rob's inside of you both. That must be weird for him. You guys just work on digesting him and getting him ready for his big exit...or his grand entrance to the world!”

***

Oh, God! Oh, God! It's going to happen...

Usually this part of the experience was the mind-blowing one. When his wife ate and digested him, he was part of her. He was everywhere in her body, flowing through her, and yes, part of him was being converted into waste, which didn't seem as disgusting until the very end...

But now he was in dog bodies. He wasn't part of Mona. He was Spotty. And Barkley.  

And Spotty was squatting...

Oh, my God no...!!

And then, completely human, he was suddenly standing beside a shocked Patty. Barkley and Spotty nosed at him, wagging their tails. For a moment, he simply inhaled deeply, amazed at his good fortune. He had made such a narrow escape that it was mind-boggling. But the look on Patty's face made it all worth it.

He bent down and petted Spotty. “You recognize your food, guys? Yes, I make a tasty can of dog food, huh?”

Patty finally spat, “You weren't supposed to turn back until after!”

Rob straightened up. “Well, what did you program the machine for?”

“I don't even know what time it was for. I was so busy programming the changes and making sure you didn't notice...”

“Well, you screwed up, Patty.”

“Hardly. I still enjoyed every bit of it. I even canceled my date with Renn. Well, actually he canceled on me...”

“He's an ass, you know.”

“I know.”

***

They found Mona standing in the kitchen, a dazed look on her face as she gazed into the approaching night. “I can't believe you did that to us, Patty,” she said without looking at her.

Patty felt slightly guilty. “Well, at least I didn't make you food. Well, you weren't, were you?" she asked with concern.  "They said-"

Mona cut her off in a low voice.  "I was the can."

"I thought you like being inanimate objects,” Patty countered defensively.

“But we trusted you, and we let down a whole wedding.”

“I'm sure they found someone else to be their cake. Honestly, they could just take one of the people who volunteered to be pies or something. They'd probably love to be spotlighted as the actual cake instead.”

Mona actually paused. It was true. There had been a lot of interest in becoming the cake by many people. Most had ended up as other food or desserts instead.

“Doesn't matter,” she uttered in response. “I can't trust you anymore.” She walked to the front door. “Come, Rob. Turn me into a cheesecake. You always say I make a good one.”

Rob gulped. Normally he would be the one to be angry, but he thought Patty's idea of revenge was kind of funny. Yet Mona seemed to take it very much to heart, and which did leave him somewhat annoyed with Patty. He went over to his wife as she opened the door and slid his arm around her neck. “Let's go to the machine and change you.”

The door slammed behind them. “Poke me a lot. I like when you stick your fingers in me. It feels so good when I'm a cheesecake.”

He hugged her, inhaling the fresh night air deeply. “I'll poke you plenty, and I'll savor you in my mouth.”

Mona did not even laugh at the possible deeper meaning to his words.  “I can't believe Patty did that, Rob.”

“I can,” he chuckled. “She can be a mean bitch when she wants to be. Don't worry. We'll get her back.”

“How will you ever get her into a Venn Machine?”

“I'll figure out a way.”

“What will you make her?” Mona asked excitedly.

“You know, she is a 'Patty'. Why don't we have ourselves a little barbeque?”