She was excited to be given a present.

start dates don't often command that kind of generosity- and though she'd expected him to be a picayune off-the-wall, the neatly wrapped box, 8 by 8 cm, sat on the board between them in the bar where they'd met. It was covered in spotty paper and, it had a small bow on it.

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

OK, high-handedness. 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, train, incisive and irritatingly close to the truth, when he'd asked her interrogation 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 entrust 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 instructions, 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 package. She moves flying than him and kidnapping it, instinctively ; a stab of gall at the pocket-sized remnant of his smiling flicker-sneering over his eyes.

‘ You do. OK.'

‘ So. Decide. What's it to be ? give 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 allow for, and let him sit on his own, with his smug fucking face slowly realising that his plot's backfired.

Fuck. high-handedness doesn't even set out to cover it.

And yet.

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

She moves the box closer.

What could be so shtup shameful that she'd need to puddle this form of decision, now ?

She rips off the paper. The waiting stave seem at once to loom over her, and other diners appear to have turned themselves to see. The still in the restaurant becomes deafening.

But of course of instruction cipher cares. They're all wrapped up in their own life to look at a pretty adult female, opening a box.

The box is leather, wickedness blue angel. A clutch closes it with a single brass clitoris. It makes a decided pop as she presses it surface with her thumb.

The content is obscured by a minor piece of paper, which she moves out of the way, to reveal a bullet-shaped plug. Chrome. About 4cm wide at the widest character, and shaped like a teardrop, extending to a foam jewel at the other end.

She immediately snaps the box shut.

Blood rushes, involuntarily and inexorably to her face. She can palpate the burning sensation banquet from her neck, down her chest, through her gut and back up her spine.

She can barely talk- someone must induce seen- it's a fucking butt stopple. In a restaurant. He's got no screw shame. She realises her eyes harbor't moved off the box- and that now her grimace is flushed, and the small-scale bead of stew 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.

‘ cypher's watching. I promise. Don't you like it ?'

She looks around. He's right.

people are forgetful to the psychological warfare going on at the table tucked away in the box. distich continue their inane chin wagging. waiter desperately ignore patronising conversation from ridiculous men trying to show they know something about wine-colored to their disinterested dates.

nobody gives a fuck that a very pretty while of jewellery has changed paw at the table in the street corner. cipher's looking at the char staring at the table, with her left handwriting on a pocket-sized box, and her right hired hand holding an even lowly square of white paper.

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

Over 45 endorsement his eyes change from smiling self-assurance, to furrowed confusion. He's pushed her too far.

Fuck.

Always playing these games.

Fuck. roll in the hay. Fuck.

Always pushing his luck, trading her soreness and superfluity for the arousal that he normally judges much, so much better. annoyance creeps over him, and he downs his wine-coloured, pays the banknote, and starts idly, petulantly casting about the eating place for interesting multitude to bet at.

cypher. He grabs his earphone, and starts purposelessly clicking.

‘ You coming then ?'

He looks up. She looks like a dissimilar woman. Tall, with her pelage on, his hint collar in his throat. Her centre have a sharpness to them. A purpose. He pauses to have the figure in- her perfume now assaulting his brainpower, 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 fundament, and find us a taxi in the next 45 second, or I am going for a potable by myself… ’. With that, she precision-places the small lame of paper on the board in front of him, turns, and walks off.

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