Turkey Day

“Yağmur, I promise it’ll be fine. My family will love you!” Kendall insisted sunnily as she rang the doorbell.

“Are you really sure, Kendall?” Yağmur fretted, scratching her arm nervously. “It just… feels a little weird to be meeting your family this early. We’re only dating two months!”

“It’s fine!” Kendall reassured. “Yeah like, ideally we might wait a little longer, but my parents know I’m gay, and I mean, you’re just coming for dinner, for the holiday break, right? It’s not like you’re asking them for permission to marry me or anything.”

Yağmur looked at her like a deer in headlights for a second or two. “Would—”

“No, Yam, you would not have to ask them if you wanted to marry me.” Kendall laughed. “Though that is one that’ll have to wait longer than two months. And frankly you’d be obliged to tell them if you did, my mother would absolutely insist on being involved at every stage.”

“So would mine!” Yağmur laughed, relieved at the broken tension. “I mean, I think she’s putting on brave face about having a lesbian daughter, but weddings are too serious business, even gay weddings! We would only do it wrong on our own!”

Kendall laughed too but was interrupted by the door opening to reveal a woman in a plain white apron with enormous pearl stud earrings and a blonde curly bob that Yağmur thought she had seen in an episode of Mad Men.

“Kenny!” the woman exclaimed, throwing her arms around Kendall and pulling her into a hug. “How are you baby? I missed you so bad!”

“Hey Mama.” Kendall said sheepishly, returning the hug until the requisite amount of time had passed to be released.

Mrs Graves turned her attention to Yağmur. “And this is… wait, don’t tell me… You’re Yammer, right?”

“Yağmur, Ma’am. But yes.” Yağmur flushed shyly.

“Oh I’m sorry! Yağ…mur. Hm. I think maybe the difference is a little tough for my tongue, but I’ll do my best!” Mrs Graves beamed. “It’s a lovely name in any case. Where’s it from?”

“T… Türkiye Ma’am. I’m from… Turkey.” Yağmur stammered.

“Oh…” Mrs Graves raised an eyebrow and adopted an odd tone of voice, turning her head to look at her daughter. A simple, secret look passed between the two for a second that bewildered Yağmur. “I see…”

“Um… is that a problem? What…?” She asked uncomfortably.

“Oh no problem!” Mrs Graves’ head snapped around violently enough that Yağmur jumped a little. “It’s just that… well, Kendall had told me about you, of course, and also that she had met somebody from Turkey. I just didn’t make the connection that that was you!”

“Yeah… sorry Mama.” Kendall grimaced in a weirdly performative fashion. “I coulda been clearer.”

“Well anyway.” Mrs Graves said. “It is you in any case, Yağmur dear, and you simply must call me Dianne, there’s only so many Ma’ams I can take in a day. Come in, both of you, you’ll catch your death of cold and there’s plenty of preparation I still need help with.”

Kendall looked at Yağmur behind her mother’s back and rolled her eyes as the two of them followed her into the house.

As they entered the living room, a well-built man with a receding hairline stood up from an armchair, threw his newspaper aside and spread his arms wide.

“Kenny!” he said warmly, engulfing her in a hug. “And this must be the Turkey girl you brought. What’s her name?”

“Yağmur, Sir.” Said Yağmur.

“Well isn’t that nice. Yağmur. Rolls off the tongue. Does it mean anything?”

“It means ‘Rain’, Dad.” Kendall put in.

“Ah, well, that explains it then. Damn good name, Rain. You know you were almost called Rain, honey?”

“Yes, Dad. And I was also almost called Mona, Eartha, Hallie, Jade, Amber and Raven. You always tell this story and it’s about you being indecisive in the hospital!” Kendall laughed.

“There were so many good names, and I only ever got to use three!” Mr. Graves laughed.

“And you spent one of your shots on ‘Joel’?” Kendall asked with mock incredulity. “Where is the big lug anyway?”

“He’s out the back in the shed, I think.” Mr. Graves said offhandedly. “But enough about him, let me see this dearly beloved of yours.” He stepped around Kendall to look down at Yağmur and stuck out a meaty hand.

“Nice to meet you Yağmur. I’m Ray, but you can call me ‘Dad’ if you want to make everyone else really uncomfortable in a way they can’t quite say anything about.” He said with a smirk.

“Um, thank you.” Yağmur murmured. “But I think I stick with Ray. Or Mr. Graves.”

“Now now.” Ray admonished. “Mr. Graves passed away ten years ago. Damn shame really, Dad really loved the holidays. And all the kids. He spent some time in your neck of the woods, my father. On an airbase in Adana, in the sixties. It’s where he met my mother. In fact, their time there’s where a few of our family’s holiday traditions started, so maybe you might recognise a few things from home.”

“Oh, maybe I do.” Yağmur said pleasantly. “Well, I would love to help out, so that I’m not, um, a burden.”

“Not a burden, Yağmur, never a burden!” Ray said sharply. “I think you’ll find soon enough that you’re very important to the whole operation. But before all that, have you met Kendall’s siblings yet? You’ve really got to meet them.”

“She does.” Agreed Dianne, returning from the kitchen. “But first- I’m sorry Yağmur, I poured you a glass of wine without even thinking to ask if you drink.”

“Oh, that’s okay Dianne, I do. Very kind of you.” Yağmur smiled, taking the glass from Dianne’s hand and bringing it to her lips. She almost thought she saw Dianne and Ray share a brief knowing smile as she sipped, but by the time the glass was away from her face there was no sign of such a thing, so she decided she must have imagined it.

“Yeah, come on Yam, let’s go and find Joel and Kristen.” Kendall took Yağmur by the hand and led her into the dining room and from there into the conservatory.

Sitting there on one of the sofas inside was a woman who looked very much like Kendall. Her hair was brown instead of blonde and done in a bob instead of a fringed ponytail like Kendall’s, and as Yağmur gawked she realised this girl had a different looking nose and a pointier chin, but even then, the resemblance was uncanny.

“Hey.” The girl said in a nasalier version of Kendall’s voice.

Kendall looked to her left and laughed. “Close your mouth, Yağmur sweetie. Yes, there’s two of me.” She looked back toward the sofa. “Hey Kristen, this is my girlfriend Yağmur. She’s from Turkey.” There was an oddly meaningful stress on the last word, but Yağmur was too deafened by the sound of blood rushing to her ears to notice.

“Oh wow.” Kristen said. “A whole-ass girlfriend, you’re serious about this lesbian thing, huh? Or I mean… well, kinda serious at least, what with her being from Turkey.” She returned the weird stress and Yağmur had picked her jaw enough off the floor to catch it this time.

“What is that meaning, exactly?” She turned to Kendall, a little hurt. “’Kinda serious’, because I am from Turkey?”

“I don’t know, what is that supposed to mean, Kristen?” Kendall threw the question to her sister with a knowing smile.

Kristen squirmed a little and shot Kendall a dirty look. “It means, um… well I mean you’re a foreign student, right Yağmur? Are you planning on staying here with Kendall after you graduate? I don’t know what your status is like here, guess I was a little presumptuous, sorry.”

Yağmur relaxed a little. “Oh I see. Well it’s early still. We are dating only a few months. So maybe big decisions like that aren’t for making yet. But at the moment, yes, I would like to stay in this country with Kendall. I like her very much.”

“God knows why.” Kristen stuck her tongue out playfully. “Though I guess since I’m straight the superior choice of twin was off the table.”

“Oh shut up.” Kendall laughed. “I’m sure Yağmur finds the maturity and experience that comes from being the big sister magnetically attractive.”

“All seventeen minutes of them.”

“Naturally. Hey, where’s Joel by the way? Dad said he was out here.”

“He’s in the shed, I think.”

“Okay. Come on Yam.” Kendall tugged on Yağmur’s arm and led her out of the conservatory doors into the brisk winter air.

As the two of them made their way down the paved path toward the shed at the bottom of the garden arm in arm, Yağmur turned to Kendall.

“You’re a twin? You never told me.”

“Yep.” Kendall nodded. “Just fraternal twins, but we look super similar anyway, right?”

“Definitely.” Yağmur nodded. “Though you are cuter.” She leaned across and kissed Kendall on the nose.

They reached the garden shed, just as the door opened and out stepped a beefier, younger-looking version of Ray in a baseball cap, his hands calloused and dirty.

“Kenny!” He exclaimed, grabbing hold of Kendall and bodily hauling her into the air. “Aww how are you sis? Missed you and Kristen so much. And who’s this?” He turned to Yağmur as he placed Kendall back on the ground. “A friend?”

“This is Yağmur.” Kendall smiled. “My girlfriend.”

“Oh god, out five minutes and she’s already got more game than me.” The guy joked. He stuck a meaty hand out. “Hey, I’m Joel, Kendall’s big bro. Yağmur, huh? How’s that spelled?”

“Uhh, Y-A…” Yağmur started. “Then it has a yumuşak ge… I don’t know how you call this in English, maybe a “soft g”? It’s like a g with a little upside-down hat, but it’s ok, it doesn’t make sound, it’s there to tell the other letters how to sound. Then M-U-R. Yağmur.”

“Cool.” Joel said. “So wait, what language does have that yoomooshak thing?”

“Turkish!” Yağmur said brightly. “I am Turkish, sorry.”

Joel looked strangely at her for a moment.

“Oh! Right.” He said, a little cryptically, and his eyes shot to Kendall, who nodded.

“Hm?” Yağmur looked between the two of them. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing.” Joel said. “Don’t worry about it. Welcome, anyway Yağmur. I see our darling mother’s already got a drink in your hand. Speaking of which…” He closed the shed door and busied himself with locking it. “…I could murder a beer. Let’s go inside.”

---

Back indoors, Kendall and Yağmur peeled off as Joel, Kristen and Ray sat down to watch TV and drink together. As they were sitting down at the table, Dianne poked her head out of the kitchen.

“Oh bother.” She said, half to herself. “Kendall?”

“Yeah ma?”

“I could really use another pair of hands in here.” Dianne mused. “But I’ve just remembered somebody needs to go up the road to pick up the eggs from Hilltop Farm. Can you go do that, hun?”

“Sure!” Kendall stood up, but then caught herself and looked at Yağmur. “You’ll be okay here, right sweetie?”

“Sure!” Yağmur smiled. “And maybe I can help you in the kitchen, Dianne, if Kendall’s busy?”

“Oh how kind of you, Yağmur.” Dianne poked her head out of the door. “Yes, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d be glad of it. I just need some help with the pan for the roast.”

Yağmur nodded and followed Dianne into the other room.

Everything in the kitchen was so large that it rather flabbergasted Yağmur. The high walls were covered floor to ceiling in cupboard storage. A gargantuan oven, wider than any Yağmur had ever seen even in restaurant kitchens, took pride of place on the far wall. In the middle of the room was a large sturdy kitchen island, on which sat an enormous, person-sized roasting pan filled with vegetables.

“Um, Dianne?” Yağmur asked. “I thought we are cooking a turkey. Why is the pan too big?”

“Oh you’d be surprised at how big the Turkey roasts we have in this house end up being, honey!” Dianne said cheerily. “Now then… how tall are you?”

“Uh… tall?” Yağmur looked surprised. “I am, ah, one hundred and sixty-two centimetres. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Oh…” Dianne’s eyes widened for a second. “I… just wondered if you’d have trouble reaching the cupboards in here. You know it is for the holidays- lots of kitchenware I don’t really use the rest of the year needs to be pulled out, and of course Ray and Joel are so tall that we built the kitchen to accommodate them- some of the cupboards are quite high. We might need the stepladder from the laundry room.”

“Oh, I see.” Yağmur relaxed. “Shall I go get that then?”

“No, we don’t need it yet in any case.” Dianne waved her off. “Do have another glass of wine, by the way darling.”

“Oh I shouldn’t…”

“I insist. None of the others drink this stuff, but I think it’s absolutely divine and it’s so nice that Kendall’s brought me someone who can really appreciate it.” Dianne said, refilling Yağmur’s glass.

“Well, ok.” Yağmur giggled; and returned to sipping from her glass. “So what do you need my help with?”

Dianne didn’t answer, instead she just stared at Yağmur intently.

“Dianne?” Yağmur asked nervously. “What’s going on…?”

“Oh nothing dear.” Dianne said in a slightly sinister tone. “Don’t even worry about it.” Her voice was beginning to sound murky and distant, like she was underwater, and the edges of Yağmur’s vision turned dark and hazy.

As Yağmur’s legs went out from under her, she saw Dianne turn to look over her head and smile, she watched the falling wine glass snatched out of the air by a deft hand from behind her, and she felt herself being caught in a pair of large, muscled arms, saving her from cracking her head on the tiled floor. After that, she saw and felt no more.

---

Yağmur awoke to multiple sensations of great discomfort. She was contorted into an odd and painful position, lying down with her arms and legs folded under her; something tight and painful was rubbing against and seemingly restraining her wrists and ankles; and her entire body felt very cold and wet. On top of that, she felt an odd sensation of stimulation down at her pussy, which as the definition of her sense of touch returned she recognised with a pang of horror.

Kristen extricated her mouth from Yağmur’s moist cunt and made a tongue-baring twitching expression a little like a cat that had been splashed with water.

“Nah.” She said decidedly. “Definitely not for me.”

“Ah, well.” Dianne replied from behind Yağmur’s head. “At least now you know. I’d prefer you try in the house, you know?”

“My turn.” Joel said, stepping forward with a malevolent gleam in his eye and unzipping his fly.

“Absolutely not!” Dianne chided, crossing the kitchen into Yağmur’s vision and batting at Joel with a spatula.

“What, Kristen gets to but I don’t?” Joel sulked.

“Kristen used her mouth. I’m not having you contaminating the meat.” Dianne shot back, smacking at Joel’s shoulders with the spatula until he retreated to the kitchen door. She turned to look at Yağmur and smiled. “Speaking of… seems like she’s back in the room.”

The fog in Yağmur’s mind cleared a little and she looked down at herself in horror. She had been stripped completely naked, and her body was damp, warm and sticky with some kind of oil or marinade covering her head to toe and worked into her nooks and crannies. She realised she was lying on her back in the giant roasting pan on the kitchen island, nestled among the vegetables with her wrists and ankles tied behind her with some kind of cord or rope, resting on the cold metal of the pan.

“Be with you in a moment, Yağmur dear.” Dianne said sweetly. “The oven’s not quite up to temperature yet.”

“Wha…” Yağmur felt a panic rising in her chest. “What’s going on? Dianne? What have you done to me?”

“Shhhh.” Dianne walked over and put a finger tenderly to Yağmur’s lips. “Just relax, Yağmur. I assure you I’m very experienced. I’ll make sure you turn out absolutely delicious.”

“She will too.” Kristen said smugly from the doorway. “Ma’s a great cook, especially on the holidays.”

“Cook!? What!?” Yağmur cried.

“Out of the kitchen you two, you’re scaring her.” Dianne said. “The meat’ll spoil with too much of that.”

“MEAT?” Yağmur wailed.

Dianne ignored her. “Go on, shoo!” She yelled, advancing toward her children in the doorway. Joel and Kristen giggled and scampered away, leaving Dianne and Yağmur alone in the kitchen.

“Right.” Dianne said briskly. “Sorry about that. I’ll be with you in a moment, Yağmur. I just have to go and take the compost out while the oven heats up.” She pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, grabbed the kitchen bin and hauled it out the back door, ignoring Yağmur’s protests the entire time.

Yağmur was left alone, lying immobile in the pan in the empty kitchen. She thought about calling for help, but she had already seen the attitude of three of Kendall’s family toward her predicament- she didn’t hold much hope that Ray would be her saviour.

The sound of the back door opening again caught her attention before she could consider any further, however. Yağmur tried to crane her neck to see who had entered, but trussed in the pan as she was she couldn’t lean back far enough.

“Hello?” Came the sound of Kendall’s voice. Relief washed over Yağmur as Kendall herself, still clad in her coat and earmuffs, stepped into view with a plastic bag of eggs in her hand, looking around the empty kitchen.

“Kendall!” Yağmur cried.

Kendall looked down at the pan, seemingly seeing it for the first time. “Yağmur!” She said, surprised.

“Kendall please, your family are crazy! Your mother tied me up like this and left me in the pan, I think she’s going to cook me in the oven like a meat roast or something, and your brother and sister too! They did horrible things to me Baby, please, you have to believe me, I know they’re your family but look at me! Look at the cords, I couldn’t do this to myself!”

Kendall was silent for a moment, then a smile crept over her face that Yağmur did not like so much.

“Oh dear.” She smirked. “Silly little Yağmur. You know, it took me a couple of weeks to realise it wasn’t all just the culture shock and the language barrier, you really are just a little dim and slow on the uptake. Of course I believe you, sweetie.” She walked toward the island, stopping at the bottom edge of the roasting tin. “But… maybe you should think about why you’re even here. Mama didn’t even know you were the Turkish girl I’d been talking about. Dad didn’t know your name. So how did you get here? Who was it who even invited you in the first place, Yağmur? Who was it made sure you’d be here in this kitchen on this very special day?”

Yağmur’s blood ran cold.

“Kendall no…” She whimpered. “Not you too!”

“My family’s had a Turkey roast every single year since I was very small, it’s part of why we live round here, the Turkish community’s large enough here that one disappearance a year is just a tragedy rather than a neighbourhood scandal. But you know, you’re my first catch, and I’m so glad I got one in before Kristen. I was sure she was going to find someone before I could, she works retail so I was sure her job would put her in the path of a lot of immigrant communities one could just carefully prune a straggler off- but then I get to college and go out to lesbian bars, not even thinking about sourcing Turkey Day dinner until just my luck, a perfect little Turkey lesbian so far from home her folks won’t even know how to look for her drops into my lap!” Kendall’s salivation was audible in her speech now.

“No!” Yağmur screamed. “That’s sick, it’s disgusting! I’m a human being, you can’t kill and eat me just because my country’s name it sounds like a poultry bird!”

“Of course not, Yağmur.” Kendall smirked condescendingly. “We kill and eat you because we know that you’re fucking delicious. The name thing is barely a pun at this point. It’s just tradition.”

“It’s murder!” Yağmur wailed. “You would murder me, your girlfriend, just to have a meal with your horrible family?”

“No.” Kendall shook her head. “That’s not how it works, Yağmur. To be the best roast you can be, you need all your juices as fresh as possible right up until the last second.”

“No…” Yağmur writhed in horror around the roasting tin. “No Kendall you can’t! Not alive! What kind of insane freaks are you?”

“The kind of freaks with a lot of experience, Yağmur.” Kendall said coldly. “And a lot of attachment to our family traditions. You’re not the first to find out this way, you won’t be the last, and just like them knowing won’t do you any good. Yes, you’ll be roasted alive, and frankly, I don’t care how you feel about it. All in all, I’m rather sick of pretending to care about how you feel in general.”

Tears streamed down Yağmur’s face, mixing with the marinade she was coated in. “You disgusting heartless bitch.” She hissed. “I should have waited to date until I was back in Türkiye, I thought it would be better here but a Turkish girl would never do this!”

“You know.” Kendall said, wincing a little. “I’m really kind of tired of hearing what you have to say, Yağmur. Why don’t we fix that?” She stepped forward up to Yağmur’s hip and reached into the pan, looking pensive for a moment before picking out a large hard potato.

“Open wide, Yağmur.” She said, although she didn’t give Yağmur a chance to respond before grabbing and pinching her nose.

Yağmur clenched her mouth shut in defiance for a few seconds, but it was no use. She’d never been good at holding her breath and the moment her mouth opened, the potato was forced inside, pushing past her teeth such that her jaw was held completely, painfully open. She tried to bite down on it, but raw as the potato was and straining her jaw as it did, making any kind of headway was almost impossible, especially since if she did succeed at biting through it she would only be choked by a huge chunk of tuber.

Kendall smiled, satisfied. “Good, that’ll shut you up until you’re in the oven at least.”

The sound of the back door opening again caught both women’s attention. Yağmur heard Dianne’s voice.

“Oh hello Kendall.” She said, walking into view and replacing the kitchen bin in its cradle. “I see you’ve been getting familiar with the roast. Presumably she knows now that you were the architect of her fate here? Was it as delicious as you hoped?”

“Sure was, Ma.” Kendall said simperingly. “But nowhere near as delicious as she’s going to be.”

“You said it.” Dianne looked down into Yağmur’s terrified eyes with an expression almost like condescending adoration. “Speaking of which, seems like the oven’s ready, and if we leave it any longer I’ll be behind time on all the other dinner preparations. Help me get her into the oven.”

Yağmur screamed and bawled into her potato gag, wriggling and writhing desperately in the pan trying vainly to escape, but with a chillingly practised skill, the two women had her pan quickly hauled off the island and slid into the waiting open oven. The door closed beside her, and Yağmur was alone inside the enormous sweltering appliance.

The experience was agonising. Yağmur quickly lost track of time in the oven, the progression of her torment measurable only by the steadily increasing pain of the scalding pan beneath her and the suffocating heat of the air around her. She continued to writhe in agony, unable to extricate her roasting flesh entirely from the surface of the metal. The unceasing pain eventually overcame her entire nervous system and it was all she could do, potato or no potato, to scream. Yağmur screamed and screamed, her mind going white with agony until she could hear, feel and think nothing but her own screaming.

---

Suddenly, Yağmur’s eyes snapped open and her scream stopped. She was no longer inside the oven, or in the Graves’ house. Instead, around her she saw the dark but familiar confines of Kendall’s dorm room, and the shape of Kendall herself stirring in the bed beside her.

“Yam?” Kendall’s voice asked blearily. “What’s wrong?”

Yağmur glanced around the room at the gloomy but familiar shapes of the painted breezeblock walls, the simple wooden desk with Kendall’s laptop charging on it, and the door to the tiny en-suite; and sighed with relief.

“Nothing, aşkım.” She murmured contentedly. “I have a nightmare, that’s all.”

“Hm?” Kendall looked over. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I dream I go home with you for the holiday, and your family are very nice to me and fill me with wine, until I’m so drunk I can’t stop you all from putting me in the oven, because you’re all cannibals and I am the Turkey girl for Turkey Day. It’s very silly. I think I’m just nervous about family or something.”

“Huh.” Kendall mused. “Well, I promise you my family are nice for real, and we eat normal turkey for dinner. You can come home with me for the holiday if you want and see for yourself.”

“Really?”

“’course. I bet it’s expensive to go back to Ankara for such a short time, and you’d only be lonely here with everyone gone.”

“And nobody will mind?” Yağmur began to relax back into the pillows behind her. “I mean, we’re only dating two months, maybe it’s a bit soon…”

“No way! My folks will love you.” Kendall reassured. “You’d be very welcome. Very welcome indeed.”

“Ok. Then I’ll come.” Yağmur smiled. She tried to turn over into a more comfortable position but found that the duvet was swaddled too tightly around her.

“Kendall, Honey? Can you release the covers please? I’m too hot and uncomfortable in this position.”

“Too hot?” Kendall’s voice was surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I think they’ve got the heating on too high in the dorms.”

“Yam, the dorm heating is broken, remember? The caretaker said it wouldn’t be fixed until the middle of next month. That’s why we have all these blankets.”

Yağmur frowned. It was true, the caretaker had said that. “Then why am I so hot? Why am I—”

And then she woke up.

The walls of the oven swam back into view, the restraints on her hands and feet became painfully real again. A delicious scent reached her nostrils; the delectable, sizzling destruction of her own oiled flesh. In that moment Yağmur knew it was too late. She was done for, and soon she would die. Her family back in Turkey would never know what happened to her, and if they ever came to look and got close enough to the truth to find out they would risk suffering the same fate as she had. The last sensation she ever felt before she drifted off into eternal slumber was the feeling of her own tears evaporating off her face in the searing oven heat.

---

“Well.” Said Ray, putting his cutlery down on his plate and patting his swollen gut. “That was, I must say, another absolutely delicious Turkey dinner. Congratulations are in order for Dianne for cooking it, and for Kendall for sourcing it, I think!”

Joel and Kristen concurred and mumbled congratulations were passed around the table, in the middle of which amongst the wreckage of various side dishes, crumbs of roast potato and a half-empty bowl of cranberry sauce, lay the picked clean skeleton of what had once been Yağmur Asker.

“I volunteer Joel for bone-grinder duty.” Kristen said hurriedly, looking at Yağmur’s identifiably human skull on the platter.

“What do you think I was setting up all morning in the shed, dummy?” Joel tousled her hair. “That puts you on dishwashing, and I don’t envy you this wreckage.”

“Don’t fight, you two.” Dianne chided. “There’ll be chores enough for everyone. It’s always the way of this holiday, I cook all yesterday and today and it’s always gone in an hour, and without fail in the aftermath…” she caught her husband’s eye with a slight smile.

“…the house always looks like a crime scene.”