She was excited to be given a present.

get-go 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 board between them in the bar where they'd met. It was covered in scratchy paper and, it had a modest bow on it.

They'd been chatting for days. Not long as far as account's neat romances go, but there'd been something about the book binding and forth of the interchange which had piqued her pastime. Not quite arrogance.

OK, arrogance. A variety of brusque, charming offhanded fashion that on one day left her wondering exactly how much he'd wanted her, then the adjacent day was intense, conduct, penetrating and irritatingly close to the verity, when he'd asked her questions about herself.

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

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

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

‘ Or, you can give it here at the tabular array, read the statement, and we'll use it together, when you're prepare. 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 quick than him and pussy it, instinctively ; a knife thrust of resentment at the minuscule leftover of his smiling flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

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

kickoff date.

It's. A. First. Fucking. Date.

Ultimatums ?

Every osseous tissue 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 game's backfired.

piece of tail. Arrogance doesn't even set out to spread over it.

And yet.

He looks tranquilize. Laconic, even. He's not even shifted in his chair. Sipping wine-colored. centre : assessing.

She moves the box closer.

What could be so have intercourse shameful that she'd need to make this kind of determination, now ?

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

But of course nonentity upkeep. They're all wrapped up in their own lives to look at a moderately woman, opening a box.

The box is leather, dark blueing. A clasp closes it with a single brass instrument button. It makes a trenchant pop as she presses it spread out with her thumb.

The content is obscured by a small art object of paper, which she moves out of the way, to disclose a bullet-shaped plug. Chrome. About 4cm wide at the widest part, and shaped like a teardrop, extending to a sparkling jewel at the other end.

She immediately snaps the box shut.

Blood rushes, involuntarily and inexorably to her face. She can feel the burning sensation scatter from her neck opening, down her thorax, through her gut and plump for up her spine.

She can barely talk- someone must have seen- it's a screw keister plug. In a restaurant. He's got no fucking shame. She realises her eyes harbor't moved off the box- and that now her cheek is flushed, and the smallest string of beads of effort are forming on her brow.

‘ Don't you like it ?'

She can't smell at him.

Cunt.

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

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

She looks around. He's right.

the great unwashed are oblivious to the psychological war going on at the tabular array tucked away in the nook. Couples continue their inane chitchat. server desperately ignore patronising conversation from idiotic men trying to testify they know something about wine to their disinterested dates.

cypher gives a screw that a very reasonably piece of music of jewellery has changed hands at the mesa in the corner. Nobody's looking at the woman staring at the board, with her left hand on a small box, and her right hired man holding an even diminished square of Patrick Victor Martindale White paper.

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

Over 45 seconds his eyes change from smiling sureness, to crease confusion. He's pushed her too far.

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

Fuck. nooky. Fuck.

Always pushing his chance, trading her discomfort and plethora for the arousal that he normally judge much, so much better. Irritation creeps over him, and he downs his wine, pays the handbill, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the restaurant for interesting hoi polloi to look at.

null. He grabs his phone, and starts purposelessly clicking.

‘ You coming then ?'

He looks up. She looks like a different charwoman. Tall, with her coat on, his breath catches in his pharynx. Her eyes have a keenness to them. A purpose. He pauses to bring the image in- her perfume now assaulting his brain, 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 receive us a cab in the next 45 seconds, or I am going for a drinking by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the small square of paper on the tabular array in front of him, turns, and walks off.

On the paper is a oily vivid-reddish smear where she's blotted her brim, and a single news, written by him : ‘ spit'.