First time smoking with my boyfriend. Funny thing; when two potheads click so well, they immediately must smoke test their new best friend. Town had been dry a few weeks, though, and we were both short on our favorite sacrament. Usually you can't pick up a new significant other without trying out stoned reality with them a few times, but you know. Extenuating circumstances.

Smoking one-on-one with someone you've had glorious, unabashedly amazing sex with is a little awkward the first time, especially when you plan it out to the details. It's like the first date all over again.

So I pack a bowl, hit my little bubbler, and pass it over with a contented smokey sigh. He takes the pipe and examines it.

"Nice glass," he remarks, turning it around in his hand. He takes the lighter and peers at it too. He isn't even high and he's spacing out, I'm thinking. I like my bowls smoked short and sweet, less pontificating between hits, more enjoying the high later. Why's he stalling?

He glances up at me. I watch him through a thickening layer of high.

"You gonna hit that?" I asked with a genteel tip of my head.

"...you're watching."

"..."

One of those pauses while I wait for him to qualify or at least elaborate. He seems to be waiting for something.

I flick my eyes up, grin, and casually observe the rumpled sheets. I hear the pipe start to bubble, and glance up at him, locking him with a direct tractor-beam stare. He stops like a skunk in headlights. He carefully, slowly, inchingly finishes the hit, his eyes never leaving mine.

"Dude, it's like pissing in public. It's weird when you watch me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like a maniac cat about to bite my ear off."

I reclaim my pipe, and unceremoniously take a good deep toke. I hold the hit contemplatively, then blow it out decisively. In a quick movement, I grab my shoe from beside the bed and chuck it past his head, startling him. So skittish. The shoe, a well-placed shot (rare for me), squarely hits the light switch, abruptly turning the room to pitch black. Hooray for windowless basement rooms.

"There you go."