I softly close the door of the bathroom behind me and let out a huge sigh of relief.
My first impulse is to look for windows or doors or traps, anything by which I could escape. Nothing.
“I wouldn’t have done it anyway, I say out loud. That wouldn’t have been nice.”
I look at myself in the bathroom mirror, gasp, remove the leaf I have on my head, and start to work on the clam chowder moustache. While doing so, I brood.
His tastes, habits and ways of life are so exactly opposite mine, it’s like he’s a personalized hell. My notion of hell would be someone coming up to me and asking: what would you rather have for today, your feet in a pool full of sharks and your head in a bucket of spiders, or spending a day in his paradise? And everyday I’d be like, bring the pool and the bucket, please!
By the way, I am never eating clam chowder again.
The worst of all is that he is absolutely certain that I’m falling head over heels in love with him!
I frown at myself in the mirror. If only I could have some revenge. Order some profiteroles for him, and made him eat them. Just to make him understand how it feels!!
….
I’d have to make sure he really hates profiteroles first… Great, I have a profiterole craving now!
The only thing left to do is to invent time-travel, go back to the moment where he ordered the clam chowder, and while I’m sitting on my stool waiting for it, talking to the server and changing it for profiteroles. And eating them myself.
Obviously, there’s the problem that, by eating profiteroles instead of clam chowder, I lost the motivation to invent the time-travelling machine in the first place.
Or, I invent a way to manipulate minds, then force him to eat the clam chowder while I eat the cheese.
Seems really petty when I think about it… Well, first I stop all the misery of the world with my wonderful inventions, then I make him eat clam chowder. Or not, I guess I’d have other things to do…
…
Anyway, the evening is almost over. The most difficult part is to make sure I never see him again. The problem, you see, is that he will never believe that I don’t want a second date. The more my eyes get full of loathing and murder and time-travel mind-altering plots, the more he thinks I’m throwing him passionate, sexy glances, and the more he puffs himself up. His complacent wiggling of eyebrows is talking to me, and it’s saying: “The way you’re looking at me, you’re madly in love with me already, as all women are, because hey, who couldn’t fall in love with me?”.
Huuurrrh.
No, the only way is to make HIM never want to see me again.
That shouldn’t be too difficult! YOU CAN DO IT, Owl, You can do it. Be yourself. Go full British on him, that should do the trick.
I go back in, climb the stool, smile, and interrupts whatever he was saying by a strong:
“Did I tell you who my favourite author is?
-…No, I don’t read…
-Well, I love Charles Dickens. Do you know why?”
And I proceed to tell him why. As usual, I get somewhat lyrical, dramatically eloquent, and to the point of tears while describing in details what exactly I like about Charles Dickens. After some twenty minutes, when I start to cool down, he smiles uneasily and brings the conversation on reality TV.
It’s working – he’s showing less teeth now…
“It reminds me of Doctor Who”, says I, once again, not lying, everything makes me think of Doctor Who.
He looks at me warily and doesn’t ask what it is, but I don’t care. I ask him squarely, in the face:
“Do you know Doctor Who?”
And he has to say no. He tries to squirm out of it by saying that he heard of it or something, but I’m already gone at full blast.
This time, I get so absolutely heated and emotional that I stand on the table, vehemently gesticulating and screaming in pain when I tell the story of the death of the 10th Doctor and you know, he didn’t want to die – I even knock over his plate and throw it of the table in a fit of passion.
The best way to traumatize strangers.
When I stop, gasping for air, tears streaming down my face, he doesn’t smile anymore.
“You’re very passionate about it…
-I am! says I, going back to my stool and cleaning up the mess. Aren’t you passionate about something yourself?
-Not like that, but…”
He hesitates. I push him. He has lost his wolfish look, and seems so much nicer. I exalt inwardly and smile encouragingly. I knew there was someone likable behind that wolf! Some real feelings! Something that’s not shallow, and most certainly beautiful, as the soft light of a warm soul…
“I have a collection, very important for me…
-A collection? It’s great! Of what?
-Usually, when I talk of it, people… Well, people judge me…
-I wouldn’t judge you for that.
-I love them so much, I give them names, and dress them, even talk to them…
-Oh, that’s sweet… A collection of what?
-Of dolls, of Clown dolls!”
I try to disguise my flinching with a cough. My imagination reels, quails and falters. I regret my thoughts of soft light and tender souls.
“… Clown Dolls? Well, I’ve never heard of such a collection before!
-I think it’s the most complete in the world! And very expensive too! You must come and see them! Nobody wants to.”
He sighs.
“You know what I do for fun? When someone sleeps at my place in my spare bedroom, I place them all around the bed and the walls in the dead of night, and I film them when they wake up!! It’s so funny!!”
He laughs. My imagination couldn’t stop in time, already pictured the scene, is cowering in a corner, and will never be the same.
And now, neither will you. You’re welcome.
“Do you want to see pictures??”
No, I don’t. I can even say I desperately want NOT to see pictures. He looks eager, natural, and very sweet though, so I smile and rattle my brain to find an excuse while he looks on his phone and tells me details I don’t want to hear about the different clowns and the different dolls, and the different clown dolls.
At this moment, the waiter appears.
I look at him once again, as a camel would an oasis. A camel who knows this oasis saved him from being scarred for life.
“And for the bill? asks the waiter.
-I insist on paying, says the wolf, looking his wolfish self again. A gentleman always pays for a lady, especially on a first date!”
He winks. I mumble, no no, he insists, and winks again.
He even suggests that I go back right now to his place to see his collection, and wiggles his eyebrows.
The waiter comes back with the bill. The wolf looks at it and whistles.
“God that’s a salty one! Well, the cheese platter was very expensive. It’s better if we split the bill anyway, isn’t it? I mean, equality of the sexes and all that!”
He laughs with all his teeth.
I sigh. Of course I’ll pay for the clam chowder I didn’t want and the cheese platter I didn’t eat.
We go out, at last.
“I’ll drive you home, says the wolf.
-Oh no thanks, I’ll walk, I’m right around the corner.”
That’s my first lie of the evening.
“What do you want to do now? asks the wolf, wiggling his eyebrows.
-I want to go home and look at pictures of dromedaries and camels.”
Thank God.
And that last one, dear readers, is definitely not a lie.