Dinner goes poorly

Soft music is playing, something jazz-adjacent, just loud enough to help muffle the various conversations so that while the place is crowded the acoustics and lighting make it feel intimate. Colin came back to take your orders and deliver an appetizer “compliments of the Chef.” Now the two of you are noshing on something delicious involving quail and blueberry(?) sauce on a bed of something you can’t pronounce.

“I hope you won’t take offense but are you sure you can afford this? I can’t imagine the garage pays you extravagantly.”

“Heh, you’re not wrong. But I can handle the occasional special occasion.”

“Well I am not accustomed to letting men pay for me, so at the risk of bruising your Fragile Male Ego…” her voice makes the capitalization obvious, “I insist on at least paying half.”

“Hey you’re the rich Princess, you can pick up the whole tab if it helps your girl power shtick.” Diana opens her mouth to say something, then closes it and nods her head.

Colin arrives with your entrees. Further conversation is delayed while you sample the dishes and make yum yum noises.

The food is amazing. You make small talk, she laughs politely at your funny stories, and puts up with your fan boy questions. (Is Batman as badass as he seems? Are Power Girl’s boobs really that big? Are all the Amazons bi or lesbians? Etc.) At some point you realize you’re doing too much talking and not enough listening, and you try to switch gears, but by that point she seems somewhat checked out. She was so much easier to talk to when you had her tied up!

Once the plates have been cleared away it’s time to address the elephant in the room. “So. We should talk about the other night.”

Diana takes a sip of wine, “We should.”

“You said you would think about what happened.”

“I did,” she replies, her even tone giving nothing away. You pause to see if she wants to say more but she stays silent, studying her wineglass.

You try and prompt her to say more, “I know a part of you enjoyed it, don’t pretend otherwise.”

She sets her wineglass down deliberately. “A part of me did. I have been bound before but never found it the least bit arousing. Perhaps because I was always focused on escaping. The stakes were usually too high to let myself…”

“Get off?” you offer with a wicked leer. She gives you a pitying look. “But you thought the stakes were lower with me? I’m insulted.”

She scoffs, “Vile as you are, you are nowhere near on par with Ares or Darkseid or the Joker. You weren’t looking to blow up the city or conquer the world or hurt anyone really, not even me. It was obvious the only threat from you was sexual.” She looks up at you and her face is hard, “Which is not to minimize the wrongness of what you did!”

“If you say so,” you shrug.

She looks away again, “And then you asked me questions no one had ever asked before and the lasso **** me to think about it, and I couldn’t lie to myself about how I felt.” She pauses to take a sip of wine, “As furious as I was, that anger only fed the sensation more. I had never felt anything like it.”

She pauses for a long moment, then meets your gaze. “I may decide to explore those feeling further sometime. However if I do, it will be with someone I can trust.”

“But that defeats the point!” you throw your hands up, “Where’s the thrill in giving up control to someone you know is safe? Ask me, you need a bad boy to treat you and mistreat you.”

Her mouth curls in a sneer, “Think what you like. But either way I can never forgive what you did. I said I would have dinner with you and I have. But this is as far as we go.” Her voice is hard and her eyes are pitiless. “Once we walk out of this restaurant, do not attempt to contact me again or I promise you will regret it.”