She was excited to be given a present.

start dates don't often command that kind of generosity- and though she'd expected him to be a little outre, 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 newspaper and, it had a diminished bow on it.

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

OK, high-handedness. A kind of brusque, charming offhanded manner that on one day left her wondering exactly how much he'd wanted her, then the next day was acute, lead, incisive and irritatingly close to the Sojourner Truth, when he'd asked her questions about herself.

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

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

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

‘ Or, you can open it here at the board, read the instructions, and we'll use it together, when you're cook. But then you need to spread out it here .'

'Understand ?'

He smiles.

She bites her lip, center : down.

‘ No ? You don't want it ?'

He goes to take hold of the neat bundle. She moves quicker than him and snatch it, instinctively ; a stab of resentment at the small remnant of his smile flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

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

starting time date.

It's. A. first base. shag. Date.

Ultimatums ?

Every bone in her dead 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 game's backfired.

shtup. arrogance doesn't even begin to plow it.

And yet.

He looks calm. Laconic, even. He's not even shifted in his death chair. Sipping wine-coloured. Eyes : assessing.

She moves the box closer.

What could be so sleep with shameful that she'd need to induce this sort of decisiveness, now ?

She rips off the paper. The waiting faculty seem at once to tower over her, and early diners appear to have turned themselves to see. The hush in the eating place becomes deafening.

But of row nobody cares. They're all wrapped up in their own life history to look at a passably adult female, opening a box.

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

The content is obscured by a small piece of report, which she moves out of the way, to give away a bullet-shaped plug. Chrome. About 4cm wide at the widest constituent, and shaped like a teardrop, extending to a effervesce gem at the other end.

She immediately snaps the box shut.

Blood Rush, involuntarily and inexorably to her face. She can feel the burning at the stake sensation spread from her neck, down her breast, through her gut and back up her spine.

She can barely talk- soul must sustain seen- it's a fucking butt end quid. In a restaurant. He's got no fucking shame. She realises her eyes haven't moved off the box- and that now her case is flushed, and the humble drop of fret are forming on her brow.

‘ Don't you like it ?'

She can't look at him.

Cunt.

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

‘ Nobody's watching. I promise. Don't you like it ?'

She looks around. He's right.

People are unmindful to the psychological war going on at the board tucked away in the corner. duad continue their inane chitchat. Waiters desperately ignore patronising conversation from idiotic men trying to show they know something about wine to their disinterested dates.

nobody gives a fuck that a very pretty piece of jewelry has changed hands at the table in the corner. cypher's looking at the woman staring at the table, with her lead hand on a small box, and her right hand holding an even smaller foursquare of Edward D. White paper.

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

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

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Always pushing his luck, trading her discomfort and embarrassment for the arousal that he normally Judges much, so much comfortably. Irritation creeps over him, and he downs his wine, pays the pecker, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the restaurant for interesting people to see at.

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

‘ You coming then ?'

He looks up. She looks like a unlike cleaning lady. Tall, with her coating on, his breath match in his throat. Her eyes have a asperity to them. A purpose. He pauses to convey the icon in- her essence now assaulting his psyche, and distracting him further. He's been briefly upstaged. Flanked. Blind-sided.

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

'Get up off your asshole, and find oneself us a taxi in the next 45 seconds, or I am going for a deglutition by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the diminished square of paper on the board in front of him, turns, and walks off.

On the paper is a greasy vivid-reddish spot where she's blotted her lips, and a single word, written by him : ‘ saliva'.