Gourmand by Lemoine Drake
from Seven Deadly Sins: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
The first course arrived. A foie gras terrine that glistened under the candlelight.
He sank in the knife, releasing a blood-dark port reduction. He couldn’t help but think of Charles and the way his ribs cracked under the shovel.
The second course was escargots in garlic butter. Extracting the meat with tongs, he took his time to admire the device, how it contrasted with the pliers that pulled out Charles’s teeth.
The entrecôte arrived, rare, with a bordelaise so dark, he was instantly transported back to the barn, to the pooling blood and the tedious butchery. After one bite, he waved to the waiter, ordered a second piece of meat and another bottle of Pomerol. This time the ’96 Château Lafleur.
He’d put Charles into the ground, still breathing, and it was on the following day, reworking the field with the old Poclain excavator that he read the restaurant’s reviews. After strewing salt by hand across the field, he drove back to Paris and made his reservation.
Dessert was chocolate fondant, the molten center collapsing under the spoon’s first gentle touch. It was so good that he ordered a second, onto which he sprinkled a pinch of fleur de sel.
This story appears as part of Seven Deadly Sins, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series, originally published July 2025.
Bio
Lemoine Drake was born in Los Angeles. He is a filmmaker/writer, currently residing in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
PUNK NOIR, the online literary and arts magazine that looks at the world at its most askew, casting a bloodshot eye over the written word, film, music, television and more.
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I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Gruesome but cute