"So..."

She screams.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

"Why aren't you unconscious?"

I shrug as much as the bindings allow me. "Did you mess up the dosage?"

She stares at me for a second. I make a popping sound with my lips, looking around.

"I guess the candles and rope threw me off. Totally misread what was going on here, didn't I?"

"Big time. You are not my type. But she will love you." My date, who introduced herself as Tabitha but might have been lying about that as she did about everything else, points at a statue of a woman.

"I'm not a virgin, by the way."

"What are you talking about?"

I clear my throat. "If you need a virgin sacrifice. It won't work. I'm not a virgin."

She laughs. "I didn't think you were a virgin."

"Ok, that's great. Cause I'm not."

"Ok"

"Ok"

There's an awkward pause. The sound of a mortar fills the air for a couple seconds.

"She'll like you because you are a linguist, by the way." Tabitha is trying to make conversation. I appreciate it, it's not like I can do a lot while tied down, so at least we can talk. She continues. "You have no idea how hard it is to find someone in your field. No one puts it in their bio! What am I supposed to do?"

"You could have made a false work ad, couldn't you? Would have had the linguists coming to you."

"Oh." She leaves the mortar and looks at me. "Didn't thought of that."

"Kinda wish you did." I shrug again. We laugh. Our conversations usually went smoothly. We have a lot in common. Not everything, of course, but we have a similar sense of humor.

"Ok, seriously." I ask her. "What's in this for you?"

"Power, mostly. She gives boons to people that send her good sacrifices."

"Bullshit. How do you even know that?"

"Excuse me?" She puts her hands on her waist, cocking an eyebrow at me.

"Don't try to tell me you've done this before. You barely knocked me out and you've been stirring that mortar ever since I woke up. It's mush already, there's no point in stomping on it anymore. You are just trying to kill time while you re-read your ritual notes."

She blushes. "Not!"

"You have your phone right there. I can see it from over here."

She covers it with her hand.

"And what's that font size? Are you blind?"

"Yes, I am. I was wearing glasses our whole date!"

"Oh" I must admit, I don't remember that.

"Come on, dude, really?" I smile briefly, but she is not buying it. "Do you even remember what I'm wearing under this cloak?"

She spreads her arms. I think I see a glint of white in the hood. Was she wearing a white top? Jeans? I can't remember. She is waiting for an answer, I won't get out of this one.

"White top, flower pattern, jean shorts." Even to myself I don't sound convincing. She sighs and turns away.

"You are all the same."

"Oh, don't be like that! I have a lot in my mind right now."

We laugh again.

"Hey, last thing, I promise."

"Uh-hm" she doesn't turn back to me.

"Next time, do a better job on the knots."

She drops the mortar and phone, rushing over to check on my hands. They are still tied up tight, so ss she gets close, I headbutt her in the nose. She falls on her ass, bleeding, but gets up quickly.

"What was that?!"

"Not gonna lie, I was really hoping you'd pass out."

"That's not how any of this works!"

"Sorry, it's my first time headbutting someone into unconsciousness!"

She lifts her face and holds her nose with two fingers. Her voice sound messed up. "Who am I to complain, right? You should be unconscious too."

We laugh again, and she chokes a bit on the blood.

That's when the police knock down her door, guns blazing and what not. I would only learn a neighbor saw her dragging me in later. For now, I'm panicking and screaming as much as everyone else.

Tabitha doesn't put up much of a fight, mostly because I weakened her. A mustachioed officer unbinds me, and asks:

"Are you alright?"

"Not my worst date, stay off Tinder my dude."

I look down at the white table cloth, my index finger involuntarily tapping out its impatience. Twenty-five minutes late, I think, and an exasperated sigh escapes my lips. I clench my teeth as I scan the room for new faces. The gold and blue color scheme of the restaurant all of a sudden feels claustrophobic; I can hear the dull padding of the servers’ feet on the cheap wooden flooring as they cruise through the straight lines between the tables. Why am I so nervous? It hasn’t been that long since my last date, and it didn’t go poorly at all.

My head shoots up before I can consciously register the high pitch giggle emanating from the front of the restaurant. She’s here. She seemed cool enough on Tinder. She had an even mix of pictures, however banal and uninspired: a photo of her petting a tiger (We’ll let that slide), a group of girls on the beach (Which one is she?), and finally one of just herself (Looking out over a cliff at the ocean).

To top it off, her quote: “Better to have loved and lost that to never have loved at all”

I would have swiped left on principle, but there was something about her expression that really drew me in; her eyes had a hunger to them. Maybe it sounds corny, but she captured me with that face, those eyes. They sparkled with intensity, deep brown and luminous. They had depths, you know?

She rounds the corner from the maître de, and floats towards the table. We make eye contact as she recognizes me from across the restaurant, but almost instantly I retreat for fear that I would never be able to look away. For a split second her eyes seemed to grow to almost the size of her face, and I had the most overwhelming feeling that they wanted to devour me. I heard wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Gristle crunching and tearing between rough metal plates, gears pulling apart tendon and ligament until they separate with a greasy snap.

She reaches the table and I stand up to hug her. Her eyes once again find mine, and within lies nothing but innocence and kindness. What happened before?, I wonder. I mentally shake it off as we politely embrace, and sit back down. The next 15 minutes flow by without incident as the experience of her eye contact fades from my mind. She is delightful. She is in the middle of an anecdote about her job as a veterinarian, when the server comes to take our order. We tell him to give us another minute, as we’ve been so engrossed in conversation we have barely looked at the menu.

“What will you start with, do you think?” I ask.

I tell her I’m most likely going to get the Caprese Salad as it’s Fall, and the tomatoes have been incredible lately. She looks up at me, and for a split second two things happen that I only noticed in retrospect. Her eyes seem to double in size, pulling in the space around them like a whirlpool, and her face curls in on itself with a profound look of loathing and disgust. Then, back to the menu, and nothing.

She purses her lips in concentration, scanning the list of options. “Oh my god, they have squab! Have you had squab? It’s like, so damn tasty!”

“Is that some type of pigeon?” I ask.

“Yes actually! Wow I’m surprised,” she purred, leaning in towards me across the table. She reached out and took my hand and I got a waft of something, which I can only describe as Chanel No. 5 on a corpse. I lean back, distracted, and wonder where the smell is coming from.

“Not many people know that squab is a young pigeon,” she continued. “There are like, so many pigeons in this city, I think most restaurants don’t want to serve it because of the association. But I love it because it’s so fresh.” She smiled knowingly at me. “Ok it’s settled, I’ll get the squab and you get the salad, and I’ll get the suckling pig for my entree. Do you want to share?”

I shake my head, and reply with a smile, “No thanks I’m a vegetarian. I’ll have the mushroom risotto.” She freezes. Her eyes widening, and with her voice suddenly very deep and serious she says, “Okay. I see. Fine. Let’s order.”

We signal for the server, who comes over immediately. “And what would you like this evening?”

“I have a question first if you don’t mind,” she says. “How old is the squab?”

The server is almost imperceptibly taken aback, but very quickly replies, “Two days old ma’am, and killed on the premises.”

“Ooh!” She claps her hands dramatically, failing to contain her excitement. “Can I kill it myself?”

My mouth drops. The server takes an involuntary half step back away from the table. There is a long pause as the air around the table seems to crystallize. After what seems like a lifetime, the server replies.

“That’s not usually how we do things here, but I can ask the chef.” “Yes! Please do, as I need to do it myself. I like to know the animal personally before I sacrif-- eat it.”

The server walks off at speed, seemingly excited to get as far from our table as possible. I don’t know what to say. We simply look at each other for a moment before she smiles at me.

“I’m just trying to be the responsible consumer, you know? I think it’s better if people have a closer relationship with their food,” she explains.

“Uh, sure,” I respond, “I guess that makes sense. Farm to table, right?” I chuckle nervously.

At that moment the server comes out of the kitchen, striding over to our table with a woman who appears to be the chef. She gestures to my date, and very calmly suggests she follow her to the kitchen.

“No, no. Sorry! I thought I had explained,” my date says. “Please bring the squab to the table.”

Too stunned to say anything, I just stare at her. As does the chef, and the server. All three of us don’t move for what feels like half a minute. Finally, about the time I realize I’m no longer sure about a second date, the chef takes me by surprise.

“This all seems a bit unorthodox, but sure, why not!”

I gape at the chef. “Seriously?” The word escapes before I realize I’ve said anything. My date narrows her eyes at me and with a voice dripping with contempt says, “You don’t have to watch. I didn’t expect you to be so squeamish about it, geez. It’s just a squab.”

We sit in silence while the chef and server depart for the kitchen. All of a sudden I feel like I’m on the subway playing the no-eye-contact game. She continues to stare at me, and I can feel her gaze like a physical touch. I simply can’t look at her; somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I know that if I do she might want me instead of the squab.

The chef returns with a small wicker basket. There is a soft cooing from within, as she places it down in front of my date.

“Excellent. Thank you so much!” She says with a bright, sing-song voice. “I’m going to give your restaurant such a great review!”

Beaming, the chef gives a small nod, and turns to me. “Your Caprese Salad will be out momentarily,” she says before she walks off. I don’t really hear her. I just stare back and forth between my date and the basket.

“You like, don’t have to watch, you know.” She says to me accusingly. I can’t respond. I just continue to stare at her blankly.

“Fine, whatever, suit yourself,” she says, pulling the basket slightly forward towards her.

The soft cooing from within suddenly grows in volume as she lifts the lid of the basket, the bird sitting innocently in front of her. She reaches her hands down underneath the bird and pulls it out onto the tabletop, knocking the basket to the side. A tiny, helpless looking brown bird sits on the table, looking about as confused as a bird can look.

“Bone appetit,” my date croaks, her voice dropping several octaves. Her eyes start expanding into the enormously deep brown pools I had seen earlier, until they are almost the size of her whole face. The light around our table dims perceptibly and what seems like a shadow grows behind her head, drawing in all the light of the restaurant.

She leans forward, and my head is again filled with the overwhelming noise of violent ripping and chewing, as if someone put a microphone next to a lion’s kill. Her mouth started expanding to match her eyes, rows of uneven sharp teeth glistening in the candlelight. She lowered her cavernous maw to the table and pushed it forward, closing down over the bird’s body in one sickening crunch.

I scream. Tripping over myself, I run towards the exit of the restaurant, glasses tumbling and silverware falling as I bump into the tables of other diners on the way to the door in my overwhelming need to leave the scene. Just as I see the exit, I hear a deep, booming, crunching voice coming from behind me, as if a person was grinding boulders in their mouth. It starts laughing uproariously and with a disgusted tone gets the final word in:

“Hey wait! I thought you said you were a foodie!”

Seems as though humans love following trends. I bet if you go far enough back you'll find a caveman doing something stupid, then having other ones follow him, each one thinking they were the one being original.

These days the Internet has really taken us for a ride, at first trends became global, the Internet letting everyone know what was in at the time. Now things have gotten bigger as they also became more fragmented. As you read this there are trends in small, niche communities that you'll never know about.

That's not always the case though, in some cases it seems like everyone has the exact same hobbies. Like hiking. On every dating site these days it seems that everyone is a hiker, "if you don't hit the trail you're not getting any tail" my best friend, Kyle, had said after a few beers.

He had laughed at his own joke then "come on man, you're fit already, you love exercise. You're always hitting the gym and shit, what's the difference between hiking and an elliptical?" Kyle wouldn't get the difference, as far as I knew he never had been to a gym, or gone hiking. He'd married his highschool sweetheart, started working at his dad's business and gotten fat right out of college, he never dated.

I didn't say that though, of course I didn't, he's my friend and I do like him despite his flaws. "It's very different, a gym is climate controlled. There's no bugs, no dirt and no chance of rain. Best of all, if I decide I don't actually want to exercise I can just go home, can't do that half way up a fucking mountain can you?"

You may be thinking now that me and Kyle are both dumb, sure plenty of women had hiking as a hobby, if it is a trend surely not all of them hike. I thought so too, so I went on a couple dates, lying about my love of hiking. No girl lasted more than two before they asked the question "so, wanna hike next weekend?"

The first two took it okay when I said that I didn't really want to hike. I'm an honest guy and I didn't have anything I felt I'd need for a hike, not even good shoes for it and I didn't want to spend the money on it. If I'm being honest with you, the reader of my strange tale, I didn't feel any real connection with either of them, so when they clearly lost interest after my response, I wasn't bothered.

That changed with the third girl, Julia. She was beautiful, red hair and freckles, legs for days and sun kissed skin that should have warned me (or maybe it should have been all the pics of her hiking on her insta, we'll never know). She had the best sense of humor too, laughing at her own jokes with abandon and laughing at mine, even when they weren't that funny. I was smitten with her, when she said she wanted to go hiking with me, take me to her special place in the woods, I readily agreed.

She had smiled then, true joy cracking across her face. A moment later her arms were around my neck and she was giving me the best kiss of my life. That's no exaggeration, as our lips touched I lost time, the busy dive bar patio disappeared and I was transported away, somewhere that smelled of pine and of the peculiar smell of clean water. I could almost hear the sound of a stream, close by, surely no more than a few feet away.

She broke away from me then, her green eyes seeming to sparkle for a moment, like sun filtering through leaves. I couldn't help but look around after the kiss, expecting for a moment to find myself in a fantasy clearing in the woods. No, there was no woods, just drunks smoking cigarettes and eating greasy burgers, like the one I could suddenly feel very clearly in my stomach, like a lead weight

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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