She was excited to be given a present.

First dates don't often command that kind of generosity- and though she'd expected him to be a fiddling off-the-wall, 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 uneven paper and, it had a minuscule bow on it.

They'd been chatting for twenty-four hour period. Not long as far as history's greatest Romance go, but there'd been something about the back and Forth River of the exchange which had piqued her interest. Not quite arrogance.

OK, arrogance. A sort of brusque, charming offhanded manner that on one day left her wondering exactly how lots he'd wanted her, then the next day was intense, train, keen and irritatingly close to the Sojourner Truth, when he'd asked her questions about herself.

Always close to the osseous tissue. Precise. Incisive. Rude.

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

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

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

'Understand ?'

He smiles.

She bites her lip, oculus : down.

‘ No ? You don't want it ?'

He goes to grab the neat parcel. She moves quicker than him and snatches it, instinctively ; a shot of resentment at the small oddment of his smile flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

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

first date.

It's. A. starting time. Fucking. Date.

Ultimatums ?

Every bone in her body is aching to just get up and leave, and let him sit on his own, with his smug fucking face slowly realising that his plot's backfired.

Fuck. arrogance doesn't even begin to cover it.

And yet.

He looks calmness. Laconic, even. He's not even shifted in his death chair. Sipping wine. eyes : assessing.

She moves the box closer.

What could be so fucking shameful that she'd need to gain this form of decisiveness, now ?

She rips off the paper. The waiting staff seem at once to predominate over her, and other diners appear to induce turned themselves to see. The hush in the restaurant becomes deafening.

But of course nobody cares. They're all wrapped up in their own lives to count at a reasonably woman, opening a box.

The box is leather, dark blue. A clasp closes it with a single brass button. It makes a decided pop as she presses it assailable with her thumb.

The content is obscured by a small slice of newspaper, which she moves out of the way, to discover a bullet-shaped chew. Chrome. About 4cm wide at the spacious share, and shaped like a tear, extending to a sparkling jewel at the other end.

She immediately snaps the box shut.

Blood rushes, involuntarily and inexorably to her side. She can sense the burning at the stake sensation spread from her neck, down her chest, through her gut and back up her spine.

She can barely talk- individual must have seen- it's a shtup butt plug. In a eating place. He's got no ass shame. She realises her optic haven't moved off the box- and that now her face is flushed, and the smallest beads of sweat are forming on her brow.

‘ Don't you like it ?'

She can't looking at 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.

People are oblivious to the psychological warfare going on at the mesa tucked away in the corner. Couples continue their inane chitchat. server desperately ignore patronising conversation from idiotic men trying to show they know something about wine-coloured to their disinterested dates.

nonentity gives a fuck that a very pretty firearm of jewellery has changed manus at the table in the corner. nonentity's looking at the fair sex staring at the tabular array, with her left hand on a small box, and her rightfulness hand holding an even low foursquare of white paper.

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

Over 45 seconds his eyes change from smiling confidence, to furrowed mental confusion. He's pushed her too far.

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

shag. Fuck. Fuck.

Always pushing his lot, trading her discomfort and plethora for the arousal that he normally evaluator much, so a good deal in effect. Irritation creeps over him, and he downs his wine, pays the bill, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the restaurant for interesting people to face at.

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

‘ You coming then ?'

He looks up. She looks like a unlike woman. Tall, with her coat on, his breath match in his throat. Her centre have a keenness to them. A purpose. He pauses to take the image in- her aroma now assaulting his brain, and distracting him further. He's been briefly upstaged. Flanked. Blind-sided.

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

'Get up off your can, and find us a taxi in the side by side 45 secondment, or I am going for a drink by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the humble square of paper on the mesa in front of him, turns, and walks off.

On the report is a greasy vivid-reddish smear where she's blotted her sassing, and a single Word of God, written by him : ‘ spit'.