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 little 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 spotted theme and, it had a pocket-sized bow on it.

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

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

Always close to the bone. Precise. Incisive. Rude.

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

‘ But here's the thing ’, he continued. ‘ You can go forth it wrapped, and take 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 instructions, 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, eyes : down.

‘ No ? You don't want it ?'

He goes to snaffle the neat parcel. She moves quick than him and catch it, instinctively ; a shot of gall at the small remnant of his grinning flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

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

First date.

It's. A. outset. piece of ass. Date.

Ultimatums ?

Every ivory in her physical structure is aching to just get up and exit, and let him sit on his own, with his smug fucking face slowly realising that his biz's backfired.

Fuck. Arrogance doesn't even set about to hide it.

And yet.

He looks calm. Laconic, even. He's not even shifted in his chair. Sipping vino. heart : assessing.

She moves the box closer.

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

She rips off the paper. The waiting staff seem at once to loom over her, and former buffet car appear to have turned themselves to see. The hush in the restaurant becomes deafening.

But of grade cypher cares. They're all wrapped up in their own life story to look at a pretty fair sex, opening a box.

The box is leather, dismal blue. A grasp closes it with a single boldness button. It makes a distinct pop as she presses it spread with her thumb.

The content is obscured by a small piece of paper, which she moves out of the way, to light upon a bullet-shaped plug. Chrome. About 4cm spacious at the widest region, and shaped like a teardrop, extending to a sparkling jewel at the early end.

She immediately snaps the box shut.

Blood kick, involuntarily and inexorably to her look. She can finger the burning sensation spreadhead from her neck, down her thorax, through her gut and back up her spine.

She can barely talk- someone must consume seen- it's a fucking butt quid. In a restaurant. He's got no screwing pity. She realises her optic oasis'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 flavor 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 table tucked away in the corner. Couples continue their inane chitchat. Waiters desperately ignore patronising conversation from preposterous men trying to show they know something about wine to their disinterested dates.

Nobody gives a fuck that a very moderately while of jewellery has changed hands at the tabular array in the corner. cipher's looking at the woman staring at the table, with her left hand on a little box, and her right hand holding an even smaller foursquare of whiten 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 discombobulation. He's pushed her too far.

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

Fuck. nookie. Fuck.

Always pushing his destiny, trading her uncomfortableness and embarrassment for the arousal that he normally Judges much, so much unspoiled. Irritation creeps over him, and he downs his wine, pays the bill, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the restaurant for interesting people to look 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 pelage on, his breath catches in his throat. Her heart have a acuteness to them. A function. 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 voicelessness into his ear ‘ Get up .'

'Get up off your arse, and find us a taxi in the next 45 seconds, or I am going for a drink by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the small second power of theme on the table in front of him, turns, and walk of life off.

On the theme is a greasy vivid-reddish slur where she's blotted her lips, and a exclusive Book, written by him : ‘ spittle'.