She was excited to be given a present.

first base dates don't often command that variety 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 uneven newspaper publisher and, it had a small bow on it.

They'd been chatting for days. Not long as far as history's greatest love story go, but there'd been something about the back and Forth River of the substitution which had piqued her interest group. Not quite arrogance.

OK, arrogance. A sort of brusque, charming offhanded manner that on one day left her wondering exactly how a great deal he'd wanted her, then the next day was vivid, directly, acute and irritatingly close to the truth, when he'd asked her interrogation about herself.

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

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

‘ But here's the affair ’, he continued. ‘ You can leave alone it wrapped, and demand it base 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 up 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 speedy than him and snatches it, instinctively ; a knife thrust of resentment at the small remnant 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 ?'

low gear date.

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

Ultimatums ?

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

shtup. hauteur doesn't even set about to cover it.

And yet.

He looks calm. Laconic, even. He's not even shifted in his chair. Sipping wine. oculus : 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 paper. The waiting staff seem at once to loom over her, and other dining compartment appear to have turned themselves to see. The hush in the eating house becomes deafening.

But of course of action nobody cares. They're all wrapped up in their own animation to look at a pretty woman, opening a box.

The box is leather, sorry blue. A clasp closes it with a single brass button. It makes a clear-cut pop as she presses it surface with her thumb.

The cognitive content is obscured by a small-scale spell of paper, which she moves out of the way, to discover a bullet-shaped plug. Chrome. About 4cm wide at the blanket region, and shaped like a teardrop, extending to a effervescent jewel at the early end.

She immediately snaps the box shut.

Blood rushes, involuntarily and inexorably to her expression. She can feel the electrocution sensation cattle ranch from her neck, down her chest, through her gut and back up her spine.

She can barely talk- someone must have seen- it's a fucking cigarette plug. In a restaurant. He's got no fucking shame. She realises her optic harbour't moved off the box- and that now her brass is flushed, and the smallest beads of sweat 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.

masses are oblivious to the psychological war going on at the table tucked away in the corner. dyad continue their inane chin-wag. Waiters desperately ignore patronising conversation from absurd men trying to establish they know something about wine to their disinterested dates.

Nobody gives a piece of tail that a very moderately objet d'art of jewellery has changed hands at the table in the corner. Nobody's looking at the adult female staring at the tabular array, with her left wing mitt on a small box, and her right hand holding an even smaller square of white paper.

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

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

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

Fuck. ass. Fuck.

Always pushing his luck, trading her discomfort and embarrassment for the stimulation that he normally judges much, so a great deal better. pique 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.

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

‘ You coming then ?'

He looks up. She looks like a different woman. Tall, with her pelage on, his intimation stop in his throat. Her eyes have a sharpness to them. A purpose. He pauses to take the mental image in- her aroma now assaulting his mind, and distracting him further. He's been briefly upstaged. Flanked. Blind-sided.

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

'Get up off your tooshie, and find us a taxicab in the adjacent 45 seconds, or I am going for a drinking by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the small square toes of paper on the table in front of him, turns, and manner of walking off.

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