He shakes. The sound is muffled by his palm and grasping fingers. Inside the vessel they chime together, but outside ears receive only the wide peaks and troughs of the particular wavelengths that are able to escape. A millisecond's prestidigitation and they are free - bouncing joyously and noisily across the coffee-table top. His eyes follow them till their dance ends.

'Four and... three... seven,' he announces. The intrinsic magic of the number hides behind his disappointment; he'd hoped for more.

With her cupped right hand she shepherds them over the hard, elliptical surface till they fall off the edge and into the plastic cup he has just tossed to her. Raising it to her lips she blows on them for luck, oscillating her eyebrows like Groucho used to, eyes smiling mischievously. A series of quick up and down movements of the arm and away the spotted cubes race again. Now both their eyes are locked on them. Six... the other one still tumbles, finally coming to rest, precariously hanging over the edge.

'Oooh, that was lucky... if it goes on the floor it doesn't count, yer know?’

'What, it doesn't count at all? Yer can't shake it again?'

'No. Not in this game... anyway, I need you to save that wrist action for later,' and he sniggers. 'You win anyway. What will it be for starters?'

Her eyes had floated to the ceiling at his dirty comment, but his question pulls them back down to his face and they focus their hazel rays on him. She looks him over, in mock leering. He sits cross-legged on the floor; outwardly as serene as a yogi, hands on knees, waiting patiently as she chooses her booty in this battle of probability.

'Sock!'

He slowly, resignedly, sticks out one leg; she grabs the black woolly tip and pulls. It stretches, resists, then slowly starts to move, sliding down his shin and ankle, accelerating over arch and finally toes, to freedom. She holds up the trophy at arm's length, in faux disgust, then casts it carelessly over her shoulder.

'Your throw,' she says, passing him the cup with its recaptured occupants.

Shake, rattle, roll.

'Double-five! Beat that! Ha! ...It’s a magic number!' His fist is raised in triumph.

'Magic number...?'

'Oh... yeah, I forgot to say, there are 'magic numbers' in this game, and that's one of them - that throw gives you the right to kiss the other person anywhere you like - it's the only time in the game we can touch.'

'What?' She feigns outrage to start with, but then she realises he means it. 'We can't touch till the end, unless one of us shakes a ten? I've waited an age to get you here to myself and we have to play this... this game?'

'Not just