Re: Good diner: Max and Gwen
"There have been lots of things in history that aren't perceived as a danger until decades after introduction and consumption," she said eagerly, as if the topic was totally abstract and had nothing to do with the potential health of the man behind the counter. "Arsenic, for example, was thought to be harmless. Victorians used it in everything, especially wallpaper, because they liked its green color. Oh! And radium is an even better example. Edwardians thought the way it glowed was super groovy, and all those girls that painted watch hands developed radiation poisoning from licking their little paintbrushes. People would even bathe in the stuff, because they assumed that its cancer-treating usage meant it was medicinal. It totally wasn't medicinal, sir."
She watched as he cut the large piece of pie, and she suffered only a momentary twinge of conscience at the thickness of the piece. Her diet in the facility was extremely controlled. Her handler allowed her sweets, but ingestion was always carefully documented, along with resulting body response to absorption. But this pie wouldn't be going onto any list, because then she'd need to answer questions about how she'd gotten out here to eat it. But the twinge, tiny as it was, passed without much of a ripple at all, and the girl with the cornflower eyes just regarded the approaching slice of pie with the kind of attention a soon-to-be unleashed dog gave a bone.
She rubbed the thick linen napkin between her fingers, enjoying the new sensation of waffled and scratchy fabric, and she didn't have the experience to know that the napkins should be cheap paper. She leaned forward on her knee, and she took a forkful of pie and barely chewed it, which resulted in needing a drink super badly. She made a gesture that indicated a glass, fingers cupped in the air and her head tipped back, as if she was holding a container of drinkable liquid.