You plunk two cute little shrink-wrapped Han Chinese boys down onto the counter. Their nutritional information labels state their race and ages – twelve – but not their names, if they even have them. Colleen's ridiculous self-imposed rule about younger men thankfully doesn't apply to stock, though you're sure she'll get over it long before she's your age.

A pre-packaged and nukable Chicken Chow Mein for Matthew joins the two shrink wrapped boys. It's the pleasantly packaged good stuff, rather than the plain white 'food's food' basics range, because he's your son and you love him.

Personally, you've no idea how it might taste.

The clerk smiles approvingly at the bulging belly which makes it clear you're not buying for yourself. “One of your girl's will probably have eaten that,” the clerk says, nodding at the Chow Mein and meaning Matthew. You shrug non-committally. Nicole indeed might, but if she has you'll tan her eleven year old butt when you get home. Not for voring her brother – you'd had one yourself once, in the dim and distant past – but for not letting you know before you brought home two unnecessary meals.

The boys suffers in silent dignity as you haul them out of the seven-eleven, but there eyes are bright and fearful within their shrink-wrap. They know what's happening to them. And there's a delightful little whimper of fear as you close the trunk on them.

You drive gentle but swift. You don't want your daughters' meals getting bruised up, but neither do you want to keep your girls waiting for them. When you arrive, you find that one of the boys has worked his hand free from his packaging. He's using it to hold his stable-mate close, gently stroking his hair.

It makes sense that they've never know a mother's comfort. And they've had plenty of reason to be fearful of any woman they might've encountered. It's telling that he hasn't tried to use it to escape. He must know it'd be futile, if the idea of freedom is something he can comprehend at all.

But the only route out of the brutality of a life lived as stock is through a woman's digestive system.

Colleen's and Nicole's, respectively, one for each of them.

Your eldest meets you at the door, gleefully and gratefully taking one of your little burdens off your hands, before rushing off into the kitchen. Naturally, she takes neither of her sibling's meals.

Teenagers.

By the time you get in and into the kitchen yourself, Colleen's got her shrink-wrapped Han opened, and is casually seasoning him with a few spicy condiments. One hand is quite enough for her to keep his small body under control, even if he does have all the flexibility and litheness of youth.

It doesn't help him. She bodily picks him up and tilts her head back, her jaw stretching more than wide enough to accommodate him. Now his fate's before – and as she lifts him above her head into line with her oesophagus, below – him, he does weep and wail.

Your daughter drops him into her gaping maw without the slightest sign of mercy.

When she eats someone, say a cute college boy, you know Colleen takes the time to play with him first. Occasionally, she even lets one go. But she just doesn't think of stock as people.

Nor, for that matter, do you.

You think of people as stock.

Tommy's hardly wriggling at all anymore.

The boy's screaming abruptly cuts off, as Colleen's jaw snaps closed over the tips of his toes.

Nicole wanders in from the lounge, looking up from the DS game she's playing: Animal Crossing. Meet and eat your friends, online via wi-fi.

“Hey, Mom,” she calls. “Did I hear dinner?”

She...