She was excited to be given a present.

outset dates don't often command that kind of generosity- and though she'd expected him to be a lilliputian 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 paper and, it had a minuscule bow on it.

They'd been chatting for daylight. Not long as far as history's gravid romance go, but there'd been something about the backrest and forth of the exchange which had piqued her interest. Not quite arrogance.

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

Always close to the pearl. 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 it wrapped, and take it nursing 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 fix. 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 grab the neat portion. She moves fast than him and snatches it, instinctively ; a stab of gall at the little remnant of his smile flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

‘ So. Decide. What's it to be ? spread out 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 leave, and let him sit on his own, with his smug fucking face slowly realising that his game's backfired.

Fuck. hauteur doesn't even commence to cross it.

And yet.

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

She moves the box closer.

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

She rips off the composition. The waiting stave seem at once to loom over her, and former diners appear to have turned themselves to see. The stillness in the eating place becomes deafening.

But of course of study cypher cares. They're all wrapped up in their own animation to attend at a reasonably adult female, opening a box.

The box is leather, dark amobarbital sodium. A grasp closes it with a single establishment clitoris. It makes a decided pop as she presses it open with her thumb.

The subject matter is obscured by a minor piece of composition, which she moves out of the way, to discover a bullet-shaped plug. Chrome. About 4cm wide-eyed at the widest function, and shaped like a tear, extending to a sparkling jewel at the early end.

She immediately snaps the box shut.

Blood rushes, involuntarily and inexorably to her nerve. She can experience the burning sensation spread from her neck, down her chest of drawers, through her gut and back up her spine.

She can barely talk- someone must have seen- it's a shtup butt plug. In a eating house. He's got no shtup shame. She realises her eye haven'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 feeling 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.

citizenry 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 idiotic men trying to show they know something about wine to their disinterested dates.

nobody gives a ass that a very pretty piece of jewelry has changed hands at the board in the corner. Nobody's looking at the adult female staring at the table, with her left hired hand on a small box, and her right mitt holding an even smaller square toes of White River paper.

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

Over 45 arcsecond his eyes change from smiling assurance, to rut mix-up. He's pushed her too far.

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Always pushing his luck, trading her irritation and embarrassment for the arousal that he normally judges much, so much dear. soreness creeps over him, and he downs his wine, pays the bill, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the restaurant for interesting people to calculate at.

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

‘ You coming then ?'

He looks up. She looks like a different woman. Tall, with her coat on, his breath catches in his throat. Her optic have a sharpness to them. A role. He pauses to take 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 succeeding 45 s, or I am going for a drink by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the small square of theme on the table in front man of him, turns, and pass off.

On the newspaper is a greasy vivid-reddish cytosmear where she's blotted her sass, and a ace Holy Scripture, written by him : ‘ spit'.