She was excited to be given a present.

First dates don't often command that form 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 mesa between them in the bar where they'd met. It was covered in uneven paper and, it had a pocket-sized bow on it.

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

OK, hauteur. A kind of brusque, charming offhanded manner that on one day left her wondering exactly how much he'd wanted her, then the side by side day was intense, head, piercing and irritatingly close to the truth, when he'd asked her questions about herself.

Always close to the bone. 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 fill it domicile 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 make. But then you need to afford it here .'

'Understand ?'

He smiles.

She bites her lip, eyes : down.

‘ No ? You don't want it ?'

He goes to grab the neat parcel. She moves quicker than him and snatches it, instinctively ; a knife thrust of resentment at the small leftover of his grin flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

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

First date.

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

Ultimatums ?

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

Fuck. Arrogance doesn't even begin to encompass it.

And yet.

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

She moves the box closer.

What could be so bang shameful that she'd need to work this variety of decision, now ?

She rips off the newspaper. The waiting staff seem at once to predominate over her, and other buffet car appear to get turned themselves to see. The hush in the eating house becomes deafening.

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

The box is leather, dour blueing. A clasp closes it with a unity brass section push. It makes a trenchant pop as she presses it open with her thumb.

The content is obscured by a minor spell of paper, which she moves out of the way, to key out a bullet-shaped plug. Chrome. About 4cm wide at the spacious parting, 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 at the stake aesthesis spread from her neck, down her chest, through her gut and stake up her spine.

She can barely talk- someone must have seen- it's a piece of ass buns hoopla. In a restaurant. He's got no fucking shame. She realises her eyes haven't moved off the box- and that now her face is flushed, and the small-scale beads of sweat are forming on her brow.

‘ Don't you like it ?'

She can't looking at 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 table tucked away in the corner. pair 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 screw that a very passably piece of jewellery has changed mitt at the mesa in the corner. nobody's looking at the woman staring at the table, with her left hand on a low box, and her correctly bridge player holding an even smaller square of whitened paper.

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

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

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

Fuck. fucking. Fuck.

Always pushing his luck, trading her discomfort and embarrassment for the foreplay that he normally judges much, so much right. aggravation creeps over him, and he downs his wine, pays the broadsheet, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the eatery for interesting mass to calculate at.

nix. He grabs his sound, and starts purposelessly clicking.

‘ You coming then ?'

He looks up. She looks like a different woman. Tall, with her coating on, his breath catches in his throat. Her eyes have a sharpness to them. A determination. He pauses to rent the image in- her perfume now assaulting his learning ability, 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 find us a taxicab in the future 45 bit, or I am going for a deglutition by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the belittled foursquare of theme on the tabular array in front of him, turns, and walking off.

On the newspaper is a greasy vivid-reddish smear where she's blotted her rim, and a single Good Book, written by him : ‘ expectoration'.