She was excited to be given a present.

number one dates don't often command that kind of generosity- and though she'd expected him to be a small eccentric, the neatly wrapped box, 8 by 8 cm, sat on the table between them in the bar where they'd met. It was covered in spotty report and, it had a small bow on it.

They'd been chatting for days. Not long as far as history's capital romances go, but there'd been something about the back and forth of the exchange which had piqued her interestingness. Not quite arrogance.

OK, haughtiness. A kind of brusque, charming offhanded manner that on one day left her wondering exactly how much he'd wanted her, then the side by side day was vivid, direct, penetrative and irritatingly close to the the true, when he'd asked her questions about herself.

Always close to the off-white. Precise. Incisive. Rude.

‘ I'm not telling you ’, came the resolution when she asked, understandably enough, what was inside.

‘ But here's the thing ’, he continued. ‘ You can get out it wrapped, and look at it home with you. But : I promise ; I promise you, you will never use it with me. Ever.'

‘ Or, you can unfold it here at the table, read the instructions, and we'll use it together, when you're fix. But then you need to open it here .'

'Understand ?'

He smiles.

She bites her lip, eyes : down.

‘ No ? You don't want it ?'

He goes to grab the neat parcel. She moves quicker than him and snatch it, instinctively ; a thrust of resentment at the small remnant of his grin flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

‘ So. Decide. What's it to be ? Open it here ? Or never with me ?'

beginning date.

It's. A. low. Fucking. Date.

Ultimatums ?

Every osseous tissue in her eubstance is aching to just get up and exit, and let him sit on his own, with his smug fucking expression slowly realising that his biz's backfired.

Fuck. high-handedness doesn't even begin to enshroud it.

And yet.

He looks tranquil. Laconic, even. He's not even shifted in his electric chair. Sipping wine. oculus : assessing.

She moves the box closer.

What could be so fucking shameful that she'd need to make this sort of decision, now ?

She rips off the report. The waiting staff seem at once to hover over her, and other dining compartment appear to have got turned themselves to see. The stillness in the restaurant becomes deafening.

But of course nobody precaution. They're all wrapped up in their own lives to look at a pretty adult female, opening a box.

The box is leather, benighted blue. A clasp closes it with a one administration button. It makes a decided pop as she presses it open with her thumb.

The content is obscured by a small-scale piece of newspaper, which she moves out of the way, to key out a bullet-shaped wad. Chrome. About 4cm all-inclusive at the broad part, and shaped like a teardrop, extending to a sparkling precious stone at the other end.

She immediately snaps the box shut.

bloodline surge, involuntarily and inexorably to her face. She can palpate the electrocution superstar facing pages from her neck, down her chest, through her gut and second up her spine.

She can barely talk- someone must sustain seen- it's a shtup prat plug. In a restaurant. He's got no fuck shame. She realises her eyes haven't moved off the box- and that now her boldness is flushed, and the smallest bead of sweat are forming on her brow.

‘ Don't you like it ?'

She can't looking at him.

Cunt.

She'd entirely forgotten that he was there at all.

‘ cipher's watching. I promise. Don't you like it ?'

She looks around. He's right.

hoi polloi are oblivious to the psychological war going on at the table tucked away in the corner. twain continue their inane chitchat. waiter desperately ignore patronising conversation from idiotic men trying to show they know something about wine to their disinterested dates.

nobody gives a screwing that a very pretty piece of jewellery has changed work force at the board in the corner. Nobody's looking at the woman staring at the board, with her forget mitt on a small box, and her right bridge player holding an even pocket-size square of lily-white paper.

And then, with a sudden motility, she's stood up, turned, and gone.

Over 45 seconds his centre change from smiling confidence, to furrow confusion. He's pushed her too far.

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

ass. ass. Fuck.

Always pushing his fortune, trading her uncomfortableness and plethora for the arousal that he normally judges much, so practically respectable. discomfort creeps over him, and he downs his vino, pays the bill, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the restaurant for interesting people to await at.

Nothing. He grabs his headphone, and starts purposelessly clicking.

‘ You coming then ?'

He looks up. She looks like a dissimilar woman. Tall, with her coat on, his intimation haul in his throat. Her eyes have a raciness to them. A design. He pauses to postulate the image in- her perfume now assaulting his wit, and distracting him further. He's been briefly upstaged. Flanked. Blind-sided.

She leans over and whispers into his ear ‘ Get up .'

'Get up off your arse, and come up us a taxi in the following 45 seconds, or I am going for a potable by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the little lame of paper on the table in figurehead of him, turns, and walkway off.

On the theme is a greasy vivid-reddish smear where she's blotted her backtalk, and a 1 countersign, written by him : ‘ spit'.