Couch Cuddling

The food was delicious.

The dinner, so expertly prepared by Violora, was the best meal that Arthur had ever had the pleasure of enjoying, and only weeks ago he had taken Cheryl to the best restaurant in the entire city. Saris glowed under the praise he heaped upon her over the course of the meal.

After dinner Arthur carried everything away to the kitchen and together they set about packaging away the leftovers and cleaning dishes, until everything gleamed. And although Saris protested, Arthur overrode her.

"Saris, you went through all the trouble of preparing such a lovely meal. What kind of guest would I be if I didn’t do my fair share? Besides, " He flashed a grin. "I'm not a stranger to the kitchen."

After dinner clean up Saris was suddenly at a loss. What to do now? Is the date over? She thought to herself. As the evening had progressed every moment spent in Arthur’s company had her losing more and more of the tension she seemed to have carried for years. They had talked over dinner of things that she never would have considered sharing, she couldn’t help it, she just felt so open and unguarded around him. A small twinge of unpleasantness moved through her at the thought of him leaving.

"You know, Saris, there's been a movie I've been meaning to catch. If you want we can stay in, maybe take our dessert to the couch?"

Sudden relief filled her. All of her experience dating told her that this was a flimsy pretense, but she didn’t care. He's making his move. Her heart fluttered. Though she confined her expression to a pleased look as a trill of excitement ran through her.

Her screen was larger than Arthur’s wall in, as she had described it that morning, his dingy hovel that he called home.

She passed him the remote, and went back to the kitchen for the dessert, a cake that released the scent of citrus and rum from the Sun Coast when she cut into it with a long thin knife.

When she returned, Arthur had logged into his Scrollflix account. He grinned.

"You can mooch off mine if you want." His tone was joking, since she could probably buy the entire site if she wanted.

"Yes, the password sharing policy doesn't take effect until next month."

His mouth opened and closed as he recovered.

"Do you... own Scrollflix?"

"Brightforge does. We aquired it a few months ago. The password sharing was proving to cut into the sites profits, so..." She shrugged, "new policy."

"If I can offer another perspective, those policies are all terrible. The users hate them and you're going to lose paying subscribers and site traffic. Scrollflix had a massive advantage by being first on the scene and they've lost alot of ground other services. You should be walking back on those changes and focus instead on producing and actually marketing your original works and keeping your catalog from shrinking further."

Saris nodded.

"Hmm. Alright. I'll send a email in the morning."

Arthur blinked.

"Just like that?"

Saris shrugged.

"How can I say no to you?"

"Well in that case, my consulting fee is 12 million Crown notes."

She nodded.

"Of course. So what's this movie you wanted to show me?" She said, apparently considering the matter closed.