“That’s it, Ryan, keep fucking me, go hard on my pussy,” Aisling moaned.

“You like that cock, don’t you?” I asked as I pounded it into her.

“Fuck yes, I love it. I love being your little slut. Why did we wait so long?”

“That’s on you. I could have been giving you this dick for years.”

“I’m so sorry. Keep punishing my pussy with your big cock. Make me regret not giving it up sooner.”

“And your big juicy titties?”

“They’re yours, any time you want.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my phone light up. It was a text message. It couldn’t be important enough to stop what I was doing.

“Remember the cottage, Aisling?”

“I do, and I’m so sorry. I’ll never say no to your cock ever again. I’ll be your personal fuck toy from now on. I promise, Ryan.”

The phone rang. Someone had the worst timing ever. There was no chance I was going to answer now. I moved Aisling to her knees and propped myself up behind her. I started rubbing the tip of my cock up and down the length of her slit.

“You want more of this big dick, baby?”

“Yes. I can’t get enough of it. I can’t live without your cock.”

“Beg for it then.”

“Please, Ryan, please. I need it so badly it hurts. My pussy is so hungry… please feed me your monster cock.”

The phone rang again, and again, one call after another. I thought it might have been an emergency. I took a few seconds to decide. What would be worse, getting bad news while jerking off, or getting it with blue balls? There was no choice really. I grabbed my phone with my free hand. It was Aisling calling.

“Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Ryan, where the fuck are you?”

“At home.”

“It’s twenty after eight.” She paused for a second. “Why are you breathing so hard?”

“Just working out.” I mean, technically I was.

“We were supposed to get a drink at eight,” she said. “Don’t meet me here. Just go right to the restaurant. Our reservation’s at nine.”

“Okay,” I said, still stroking myself. “Dolce Far Niente, nine o’clock.”

“Don’t bail on me. It’s important. And time-sensitive.”

“Sounds good.”

Forty minutes. Just enough time to shoot my load and get my ass over to the restaurant. Now, where were we, Aisling? Right, begging for my cock. I closed my eyes and let the scene come back to me.

“You’re late,” the real Aisling said when I got to the restaurant and sat down across from her. She looked good. Not doggy-style in my bed good, but good.

“Sorry, I had some really important business to finish off.”

“I thought you were working out?”

“I’m here now. Can we just focus on having a nice meal?”

“You were jerking off, weren’t you?” She knows me too well.

“You said this had something to do with my birthday? Time-sensitive?”

Aisling shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I told you it might be part of your birthday present.”

“Yeah, I don’t get that. What do you mean ‘might be’? It either is, or it isn’t.”

“It’s your choice. You get to decide.”

Aisling and I have been friends for about ten years, and I’ve wanted to fuck her since the day we met. She’s still my number one go-to when I jerk off. Anyway, to her credit, she’s been too smart to actually let me get with her. Although I’ve been working on myself lately. Maybe she's noticed. I didn’t help my cause any early on. I let her see what a walking red flag I am. I should say, what I used to be. I’ve changed, well, at least I’m trying. I'm not in my final form yet, but I’ve come a long way since I was younger.

“So my birthday is November first, and it was super important that we have dinner tonight, on the last day of September, so that you could give me something that might be part of my birthday present, and it’s up to me if it is or it isn’t?”

“Yup. That’s it exactly,” she said, looking at the menu. “Have you had the chicken parm here before?”

“It’s great. Get it,” I told her. I couldn’t get my mind off the gift, though.  “Are you going to let me open the bag?”

“Dinner first,” she said.

She went back to looking at the menu. I went back to looking at her. It’s been ten years, and she still makes me feel like the twenty-something idiot who spotted her on the dance floor at a nightclub. She looked up and caught me.

"What?"

"Nothing. You look good tonight."

"Thanks. You look like you got dressed in five minutes.”

"I would’ve had more time if you didn’t call me while I was... what did I say I was doing? Taking care of important business?”

“You’re a dork.”

“A cute one though, right?”

“Whatever.” She smiled.

We met at Coda when we were in our early twenties. I spotted her across the room and the second I saw her, I thought, “Yeah. That’s the one. I’m gonna fuck her tonight.” I hadn’t spoken a word to her, and didn’t know a thing about her, other than she was super hot and danced like she knew how to fuck. That’s all that mattered to me back then. But Aisling saw right through my shit and wasn’t having any of it. Luckily, her friend didn’t. I fucked her instead, and it was mostly out of spite. I really wanted Aisling.

“Is it a watch?” I asked. Aisling knew I collected them. The bag wasn’t very big, and I could see the outline of a box inside it. It looked like the kind of box a nice watch would come in.

“No,” she laughed. “But it definitely involves time.”

“Not a watch, but it involves time…”

“I’m second-guessing the chicken parm. Maybe I should have gotten the risotto.”

“The parm is good. You’ll like it,” I assured her. “What involves time, that isn’t a watch, and can fit into a box like that?”

I know younger me sounds like a bit of a prick, but all that confidence was based on success. I used to fuck a lot. I rarely had a girlfriend. I usually had two or three. And I didn’t give a shit about any of them. It was just pussy on demand for me. Ok, more than just a bit of a prick. But Aisling never fell for any of it, not even my best lines. That just made me want her more, and weirdly, respect her. Which is not something I had much of for women back then.

“Is it a fossil?”

“What?”

“In the bag. Is it a fossil?”

“Why would I get you a fossil?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve seen those old shark teeth or whatever. The box looks about the right size. They’re millions of years old, that’s related to time.”

“Eat your bolognese.”

There’s always been sexual tension between us, and I’ve never hidden the fact that I’d love to get into her pants. What's been harder to admit is that I want more from her. I think she’s interested too. She just knows better than to get involved. She’s seen me fuck and chuck dozens of women over the years. What’s that scorpion and the frog thing? She knows my nature. So we’ve had this flirtmance thing going for the longest time, but she’s kept herself at a safe distance.

I did nearly fuck her once, though. It was a few years back. We ended up in bed together up at my buddy’s cottage, and I thought it was going to happen. We were making out, touching and feeling. My shirt came off, her top came off, and things were getting steamy... then she hit the brakes.

“I can’t,” she said, getting up, holding her shirt up to cover her chest. Which was a shame because she has fantastic tits. “You’ll never love me. You’re not capable.” That was a fucked-up thing to say, but I didn’t turn into a jerk. I let her have the bed, and spent the night on the couch.

“Alright. Is it an hourglass?”

“No.”

“A meteorite?”

“Jesus Christ, Ryan. Stop.”

“You picked an Italian restaurant. It’s a Roman coin, isn’t it?”

“You’re not going to guess it. You’ll probably hate it.”

“Why would you get me something I’ll hate for my birthday?”

“Because it might lead to something you’ve wanted forever.”

When she told me that I wasn’t capable of love, I laughed it off. Of course I was. I’d been with tons of women, and even liked some of them. I just figured that I was waiting for the right one to come along and settle down with. And in the meantime? Yeah, I was going to fuck as much as I could.

I wasn’t really able to brush off what she said, though. I was still thinking about it a few days later, and it started to piss me off. How dare she say that I wasn’t capable of love. That was bullshit. Fuck her. I held on to that anger for a while. Then I slowly realized that I wasn’t her that I was mad at. It was the creeping suspicion that she might have been right.

“Can we skip dessert?”

“No. We’re going to have a proper meal. Then you can open your gift.”

“Okay. But it better be worth it.”

With the smile she gave me after that, I should have known right then and there that she was up to something.

“It might be. That’ll be up to you.”

“The amount of pleasure you get from driving me crazy isn’t your best look.”

“It’s all part of the gift.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

“You’ll see.” She flashed that same sly smile again.

I’d never admit it to her, but her comment about me not being able to love is what got me to start thinking about the way I’d been up until then. I didn’t change overnight, and like I said, I’m still working on some things, but I’m not the guy I used to be.

I wanted to prove Aisling wrong, so I started dating instead of just fucking randoms. For the first time in my life, I actually got to know the women I was with. I asked them questions and listened to what they had to say. Not to be mean, but part of that made me realize I was going after the wrong kind of women. It turns out I wanted something more than an airhead with big tits and a round ass. I wanted someone I could stand to be around, who had big tits and a round ass, like Aisling.

“Tiramisu for the miss, and for you, sir?” our waiter asked.

“Something quick.”

“Nonsense,” Aisling said. “He’ll have the chocolate hazelnut cake. A large slice.”

“As you wish.” The server nodded and made his way back to the kitchen.

“You’re really dragging this out,” I said.

She laughed and looked to the side for a second. “You don’t know how ironic that is.”

For all of my faults, Aisling hasn’t been perfect herself. She knew I wanted her and really seemed to rub it in my face when she was with someone. And it’s not like she was always making the best choices either. Half the time it seemed like she was picking guys just to make me jealous, and the other times? Christ. She had some near trainwrecks in the mix.

Like her most recent boyfriend, Brett. No offence to the guy, but she was way out of his league. Aisling is as close as you can get to being a ten without surgery and a team of Hollywood professionals. Brett? Dude was a seven on his best day, and a six on most. It didn’t make sense to anyone. And she stuck with him for two years until they broke up a few months ago.

“What do you see in him?” I asked her one night.

“He’s a great guy. He cares about me. He makes me feel special. He appreciates me. He—”

“No, really. Why?”

“He took a chance. He put himself out there. Brett treats me like gold. He puts me first.”

“Why him, though? Other guys would do that.”

“You’d never do that. You’ll never sacrifice anything for anyone.”

“I would for you.” That kind of just slipped out, but I meant it. That was the new me talking.

“You wouldn’t,” she said, shaking her head like she didn’t believe me. But the way she kept looking away, then right back at me, made me think that maybe she did. Or at least wanted to.

“All done?” the waiter asked, taking away our dessert plates.

“Two more coffees and the bill, please."

“Absolutely, Miss.”

Aisling pulled the bag over from the side of the table and placed it in front of her. She had the biggest shit-eating grin on her face. She slowly started to push it toward me. When I reached for it, she quickly pulled it back.

“Before you open it—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Aisling. Just give me the damn thing already.”

“What do you value more than anything?”

“I don’t know. Friends? Family?”

“Be honest.”

“You want me to say fucking, but I’ve grown up a bit.”

“That’s what I want to put to the test.” She pushed the bag forward.

I snatched it from her before she could fuck with me again. There was a box in the bag, just like I’d figured out. It was black and purple, no wrapping or tissue paper to cover it up. I lifted it up and read the side of the box. The Vice, the first inescapable male chastity device.

“What the fuck is this?”

“It’s a cage,” she said. “For your cock.”

I didn’t know what that was, but those words didn’t make sense together. I just knew it wasn’t something I wanted to be holding up in the middle of a fancy restaurant, so I shoved it back in the bag as fast as I could.

“A gag gift? For my birthday?”

“It's not a gag. It's a chance to give something up for something you've always wanted.”

“What’s that?”

“Me.”