Annis (short for "Anastasia") noticed the dark leather collar around his neck. From the collar hung a dull metal ring with a dark iron key. "Some kind of fashion statement," she supposed, identifying it to herself. The collar emphasized the paleness of his skin, and the deep colour of his short curls. She would have called his hair brown, but only because the word "brown" reminded her of the fertile earth, of the bark of trees, of the river after the rains, and of the distant mountains. Not of her own skin, the colour of coffee, or her own eyes, the colour of mud. He had hazel eyes with long, dark lashes.

She noticed him because he had colour. Not in that "coloured person" sort of fashion that would have shocked her mother and amused her father, had he still been there to hear it. Oh, there was colour here and there: a plant that wasn't made of silk and plastic, a bouquet of flowers on a white desk, the rainbow of hobbies set on top and on the screens of monitors in the off-white cubicles, a child's smile providing contrast on a flat board of chintzy metals.

The key looked heavy, and did not move with him, laying flat and blatant against his chest. It caught light and then released glints, like some sort of itinerant fisher, hooking glimmers and finding them not to his liking. It didn't fit, playing the albatross. Was he marked for something? Had he, perhaps, forgotten his house key so often that it needed attention?

"Maybe it's some kind of popular hint to being into discipline play." The naughty voice in her head made another suggestion. She felt the blush creeping up the back of her neck as he smiled at her and maybe strutted a step or two. She heard the snikt-rattle as he placed a couple quarters in the pop machine.

"Soda or Pop?" he asked her.

She made a confused noise. This, combined with her expression of ignorance, must have been impressing him to no end. "And why impress him?" the voice asked, teasingly.

"Do you call it soda or pop?" he asked, patiently. He had ears that were almost pointed, and a puck-like chin. His skin was more than pale: it was pearlescent in the florescent light of the corridor. He seemed alien, beautiful, out of place against industrial carpets and artificially darkened windows, the colour rising like a splash of knowledge in a world of ignorance. A cola rolled out of the machine as if offering punctuation to his patient silence.

"Soda when I'm ordering, pop when referring to the machine," Annis was honest. "I don't really know what the rules are, although I know there certainly are some."

"There are always rules," he agreed. "One comes to mind right now, in fact. It's the one that says it would be a terrible breach of hospitality not to offer you a can while I'm standing here, using up your lunch hour with trivia."

Annis demurred, feeling awkward. One hand dove into her pocket for her change.

"No, really. What, you only drink diet? Here, you have this," he gestured to the can, "and I'll have..." he slid a dollar into the computerized receptacle, "one of these." A sparkling juice of some sort rolled over the other can. "You can take it, be rid of me, and then recycle it. Pass it on."

He still hadn't reached in for either can. "The juice is mine," Annis decided, with just enough noblesse oblige to suggest she had a backbone, but not so much as to be devoid of humour. Her cousin would have said it with attitude, proprietary. She saw the difference as she reached down for both sodas, and offered him the cola with a flourish.

He took it, and clicked the tab with the familiar popping noise. "Cold aluminum," he suggested, with a smile. He wiped the dew from the can with a sleeve of his oversized white sweater. "I'm Troy." He held out his other hand, the one without the soda.

"Like the city?" Annis asked. She clasped his hand gently. She'd found that sometimes men could be frightened off with a firm clasp, but that unless the hand was limp, a "clasp petite" (as she called it in her head) was best.

He trailed his fingers across hers, then gestured to the lunchroom tables in a way that made her think of water, of magicians. "Better than the movie," he seemed to agree. She looked at his hazel eyes again, seeing the blue more than the green, the tides of places like the Caribbean rather than those of the sordid California coast. There was just a hint of honey in those eyes.

"And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, to have my love to bed and to arise," Troy said.

Annis shook her head, the spell broken. "What was that? Midsummer Night's Dream, right?" She didn't want to sound like an idiot. She cultured her tones, made them less rap and more reggae.

"Belike," he smiled. "Come, your sparkling soda awaits. Or is it pop?" he asked, turning around so he didn't see her answering smile.

He parted a crowd of people merely with an outstretched hand beckoning to her. She followed, uncertainly, stumbling into a nameless co-worker, mumbling apologies that were lost to a background of murmured echoes and Babylon's children. Just another clumsy moment. He took a long sip from the can, looking satisfied at the conclusion. With a metallic clap, he set it on one of the faux wood tables. He sat down with long legs askew on another chair, somehow looking as comfortable as a cat.

He watched her. She looked at the key.

It occurred to her as to why he was waiting. "Annis. Anastasia."

"A lovely name," Troy said, "and it suits. Black Annis. I do not disparage your race, but more that you look so hungry as if you might eat small children."

She did not quite understand the reference, but she was hungry. "I was going to get some lunch," she said.

"Oh, today's specials are small children with ketchup in a bun, small children on a stick, boys and girls with eggs, and the piece de resistance?," he gestured as if pulling up the cover to a plate, "toddlers a la mode." He laughed, and Annis was forced to laugh with him. "I have learned well not to get between a woman and her appetite, let alone a big man and his. Choose your feast carefully, and bring it here. I shall," he smiled, as if racking up another favour in some hidden ledger, "save you a seat."

"I'd like that," she said, shyly. "And then you can tell me about the key."

His face fell, the smile struggling to remain at his lips. "Ah." He moved her on, his expressive hands pushing her to be somewhere else, but not too roughly, and not too demandingly. His eyes were now the sad olive of marsh flats and the blue of a hot summer's sky.

She didn't look at the colourless food she had placed on her tray, her card sliding through the register with a dull beeping noise. Food. A word suggesting sustenance, but not flavour. A word that brought memories of generic vegetables from cans, and mashed potatoes out of a box.

She sat next to him and began eating. He finished his pop, probably able to survive like a teenager on nothing more than sugar, CO2, and caffiene. She didn't say anything, and he offered companionable patience and silence.

He sat like a king on a throne. She could see him from anywhere in the cafeteria, apart from the crowd. He didn't belong there. He was an enigma, a cipher. She needed... a key.

"I think I understand," she began. He said nothing, but nodded. He pushed her can of juice towards her, and she began to see it sparkle, a splash of additional colour in the lunchroom.

piece de resistance?

toddlers a la mode