I remember a date gone wrong...

This fellow had asked me out on a date. He was an acquaintance of mine, not somebody I had my eye on, but there was no real reason to say no. He seemed nice enough, a bit of an artist type.

I don't remember what we did. Dinner? I think that was it. We were walking around after we ate, and he suggested we head back to his apartment for some ice cream. This request seemed completely innocent to me, and I love ice cream, so I agreed. He had a little squalid apartment; old fridge, hot plate, tipsy table and chair in the kitchen, and in the other room, a messy bed, a thread-bare easy chair and a dresser. I noticed a fascinating little purple box on top of the dresser, so pretty and out of place amongst the clutter. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

We were having pleasant enough conversation. We ate ice cream, sitting in the other room while we waited for the tea to boil. At this point, he made a move to embrace me. Embrace is a nice word, I don't think it works. He tried to grab me. I moved away quickly, and told him to cool it. He informed me that he bought me dinner, he fed me ice cream, and now it was time for me to "put out". He used those very words.

I jumped off the easy chair, grabbed the pretty little plastic box from on top of the dresser, and ran out of the apartment without a backward glance. I know for a fact that if I had stayed, I wouldn't have had an option about putting out or not. I couldn't believe it, that I had been so naive and that he was such a boor. I didn't think people like him actually existed except in novels and movies.

I still have the little black box with the trippy purple lid. The purple lid is holographic, and it looks like you can see deep inside the pattern...but the box itself is only about 1/2 an inch deep. I keep my guitar picks inside. Every time I look at the box and gaze into the misleading lid, I remember that shallow people can appear to be very deep, and that I am easily fooled by pretty wrapping.

Note: I have edited this piece after reading everyone's comments. It should be a bit clearer now why I took the box.