Chicken Kiev

'Artisan Chicken Kiev' had sounded so good on the menu - it had been painted to be a new take on a 1990's pub food staple. But when it came it looked like someone had dug deep enough in the freezer and found some original Kievs from 1993. Disappointing wasn't the word, garlicky was.  

It was only when Archie got back to the office that he remembered he had a date with Gemma tonight. Not just any date but a first date, not the kind of date you want to turn up  with pungent breath.
Extra strong mints, that was the answer, and lots of them. Archie spent the afternoon sucking his way through a pack of the strongest mints he could find. But they were doing no good, he could still taste the garlic and by the look on the faces of his colleagues his breath was still radioactive.
But he couldn't cancel his date because of his ill-conceived lunch, could he?
On the way to the bar he bought another packet of mints, he'd have them at the ready just in case there was a chance to lean in for the kiss but he hoped he wouldn’t need them, because Archie had a cunning plan.
He hoped to get Gemma to have a nice garlicky meal so they would cancel each other out, two pongs making a right. But Gemma said she didn't want to eat thus foiling Archie's cunning ruse and meaning he'd have to rely on those mints.
Despite his toxic breath, the date went better than Archie could have imagined and Gemma even accepted his invite to come back to his place.

He let them in and looked at this beautiful woman standing in front of him, her dark wavy hair falling over her shoulders, her small, black eyes sparkling, inviting him to kiss her. He moved forwards and rested a hand on her cheek, and smiled at her. 
But then his stomach let out a loud growl, and a spasm of pain nearly doubled him over. Colour ran from his cheeks like a cheap pair of jeans in a hot wash. His tummy yelled for help. He managed to push Gemma out of the way and lunge for the toilet, barely reaching it in time. As he was sitting there he remembered that mints had a slight diarrhetic effect, how many had he eaten? Sweat dripped from his brow, the worst was over but as he sat enjoying the silence he realised he'd been making more noise than a faulty espresso machine and the walls were so thin in this flat that Gemma must have heard.
He flushed the toilet, washed his hands, put some cold water on his brow and rather sheepishly went to face her and apologise. But there was no one there to apologise to, Gemma was long gone.