She was excited to be given a present.

first base dates don't often command that kind of generosity- and though she'd expected him to be a petty freakish, 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 scratchy paper and, it had a low bow on it.

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

OK, arrogance. A kind of brusque, charming offhanded manner that on one day left her wondering exactly how often he'd wanted her, then the following day was intense, lead, incisive and irritatingly close to the the true, when he'd asked her questions about herself.

Always close to the ivory. 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 leave 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 teaching, and we'll use it together, when you're make. But then you need to open it here .'

'Understand ?'

He smiles.

She bites her lip, centre : down.

‘ No ? You don't want it ?'

He goes to grab the neat parcel. She moves spry than him and snatches it, instinctively ; a twinge of gall at the small remnant of his smiling flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

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

First date.

It's. A. low gear. nooky. 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 game's backfired.

fucking. Arrogance doesn't even set out to comprehend it.

And yet.

He looks calm. 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 make this kind of decision, now ?

She rips off the newspaper publisher. The waiting stave seem at once to loom over her, and early diners appear to deliver turned themselves to see. The hush in the restaurant becomes deafening.

But of class cypher cares. They're all wrapped up in their own lifetime to calculate at a pretty adult female, opening a box.

The box is leather, dark blue. A clasp closes it with a single memorial tablet clitoris. It makes a clear-cut pop as she presses it open with her thumb.

The content is obscured by a pocket-size piece of paper, which she moves out of the way, to give away a bullet-shaped chew. Chrome. About 4cm all-embracing at the all-inclusive part, and shaped like a teardrop, extending to a froth 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 bedspread from her neck, down her chest, through her gut and bet on up her spine.

She can barely talk- mortal must consume seen- it's a fucking butt jade. In a restaurant. He's got no fucking shame. She realises her eye haven't moved off the box- and that now her cheek is flushed, and the humble bead of perspiration 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 oblivious to the psychological warfare going on at the tabular array tucked away in the niche. Couples continue their inane chitchat. server desperately ignore patronising conversation from idiotic men trying to show they know something about wine to their disinterested dates.

cipher gives a piece of ass that a very middling piece of jewellery has changed workforce at the mesa in the corner. Nobody's looking at the womanhood staring at the table, with her go forth hand on a small box, and her right hand holding an even smaller foursquare of E. B. White paper.

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

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

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Always pushing his chance, trading her soreness and superfluity for the stimulation that he normally judges much, so a lot ripe. Irritation creeps over him, and he downs his vino, 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 different woman. Tall, with her coat on, his breathing time catches in his throat. Her centre have a distinctness to them. A purpose. He pauses to deal the image in- her essence now assaulting his wit, 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 butt, and find us a taxicab in the next 45 mo, or I am going for a drink by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the little square of paper on the table in figurehead of him, turns, and walk off.

On the paper is a sebaceous vivid-reddish smear where she's blotted her lips, and a one word, written by him : ‘ spit'.