Toys

It’s a Saturday night. There’s a warm breeze circling through the darkened lounge room. There’s a faint hint of orange blossom and pepper in the air, courtesy of a furiously dancing flame under some carefully selected oils.

Tonight is date night.

I’ve stopped picking at the dips and olives long enough to have a shower and drench myself in some exotic woody fragrance to match the scent of the evening (not on the neck, he’ll end up choking on the fumes if we get that far).

Waltzing through the amber-lit kitchen for a final inspection, two glass flutes standing at attention, I decide to put on some gentle music.

I press the play button to coax the lounge music resting inside the player to life and instantly BANG-¦ Five in the air, let’s keep it together, Hi Hi Hi Hi 5-¦ I’m jolted out of the sway of the evening by the disc left in by the mini-men. A nervous giggle escapes and I remove the offending music quickly.

The door knocks and the bubbles flow. He is more handsome than I remember from last time we met (is the Shift really darker than my house?). Shirts hungrily unbuttoned and pulled apart, no choking on the neck -¦ it’s going well, so far.

Sunlight streams through the bedroom window highlighting four hairy feet at the end of the bed, the middle two just touching at the sides.

I look over and smile to myself. Smugly I concede I have captured extremely goodlooking trade for the evening, but there’s more to it than that. I recall the previous night when I opened the cupboard and out flew a large Fisher & Price road set with cars and little plastic people crashing on to the middle of the bed.

With slightly embarrassed laughter, I checked to see if my date found this funny. Not only was he hot, but had a great sense of humour. Later on we even played with the road set, until we brushed fingers at the make-believe lights. The new toy was quickly tossed aside again … and again … and again.