I want to know more about this woman. Write a novel about her — begin immediately (I was a teacher too). I want to know if she always “fell” for fellas like this, or if she’s slipping from the edge. Seems to me you make it pretty clear from the outset, that the guy is damaged; particularly with the margarita (and to a slightly lesser extent, the fish taco) “Let’s remember who is in control here.” demonstration. It felt like she was aware of him doing that — being controlling, that is — but chose to file the experience away in the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet. She sort of seems irrationally desperate to be part of a “and they lived happily ever after” kind of relationship. And what makes it all so damned poignant is that her romanticised fantasy is only irrational because she knows — instinctively, experientially — better. You can feel that she knows better. Whether it’s something she feels only for herself or more generally, for all people in all romantic relationships, the awareness of certain, eventual doom, is omnipresent in her tone — or so it seems to me.

It’s a damn fine piece of writing though; and why wouldn’t it be coming from you?