~CAKE~
By the time we leave the boutique, my body feels like it has been wrung out and folded back into itself.
My feet hurt. My shoulders ache, and my head feels too full.
Not once did he offer me the cake. Not once did he ask if I wanted a drink, even though there were two glasses on the table and only one of them ever touched wine.
I did not ask.
I refused to give him the satisfaction.
The staff are smiling too hard as we step out. That tight, strained kind of gratitude people wear when money has been thrown at them in obscene amounts. One of them thanks him again, says something about a complimentary gift for shopping at that level.
Shopping.
As if what just happened was normal.
They hand me a box. Then another.
A Louis Vuitton heel. A matching handbag. I stare at it, briefly
