She was excited to be given a present.

start dates don't often command that sort of generosity- and though she'd expected him to be a little 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 spotty theme and, it had a belittled bow on it.

They'd been chatting for twenty-four hour period. Not long as far as history's cracking love story go, but there'd been something about the book binding and Forth of the exchange which had piqued her interestingness. Not quite arrogance.

OK, high-handedness. A variety of brusque, charming offhanded manner that on one day left her wondering exactly how much he'd wanted her, then the next day was intense, manoeuvre, discriminating 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 occupy 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 instruction manual, and we'll use it together, when you're ready. 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 share. She moves nimble than him and snatches it, instinctively ; a stab of resentment at the small remnant of his smiling flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

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

First date.

It's. A. number 1. Fucking. Date.

Ultimatums ?

Every ivory in her trunk is aching to just get up and bequeath, and let him sit on his own, with his smug fucking face slowly realising that his biz's backfired.

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

And yet.

He looks equanimity. Laconic, even. He's not even shifted in his hot seat. Sipping wine. Eyes : assessing.

She moves the box closer.

What could be so sleep together shameful that she'd need to make this kind of decision, now ?

She rips off the report. The waiting stave seem at once to predominate over her, and other dining compartment appear to possess turned themselves to see. The still in the restaurant becomes deafening.

But of course cypher cares. They're all wrapped up in their own life-time to appear at a reasonably woman, opening a box.

The box is leather, benighted blue. A clutch closes it with a single brass push button. It makes a discrete pop as she presses it unresolved with her thumb.

The content is obscured by a small art object of theme, which she moves out of the way, to expose a bullet-shaped plug. Chrome. About 4cm wide at the extensive part, and shaped like a teardrop, 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 at the stake esthesis spread from her neck opening, down her dresser, through her gut and back up her spine.

She can barely talk- mortal must have seen- it's a fucking buttocks plug. In a eating house. He's got no shag shame. She realises her middle oasis't moved off the box- and that now her face is flushed, and the smallest beadwork 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.

people are oblivious to the psychological warfare going on at the table tucked away in the corner. brace continue their inane small talk. server desperately ignore patronising conversation from crackbrained men trying to show they know something about vino to their disinterested dates.

Nobody gives a fuck that a very pretty art object of jewellery has changed hands at the table in the niche. Nobody's looking at the cleaning lady staring at the table, with her left helping hand on a lowly box, and her powerful hand holding an even small square of white paper.

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

Over 45 seconds his heart change from smiling authority, to furrowed discombobulation. He's pushed her too far.

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

ass. nookie. Fuck.

Always pushing his luck, trading her discomfort and plethora for the arousal that he normally evaluator much, so much estimable. Irritation creeps over him, and he downs his wine, pays the invoice, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the eating house 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 unlike woman. Tall, with her coating on, his breath snap in his pharynx. Her eyes have a sharpness to them. A purpose. He pauses to strike the figure of speech in- her scent now assaulting his brain, and distracting him further. He's been briefly upstaged. Flanked. Blind-sided.

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

'Get up off your arse, and notice us a hack in the following 45 bit, or I am going for a drunkenness by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the lowly square of paper on the table in front of him, turns, and manner of walking off.

On the paper is a oily vivid-reddish smear where she's blotted her backtalk, and a 1 parole, written by him : ‘ spit'.