Happy to hear! Thanks for the feedback

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!”