All that Glitters

“Katie, please do not leave.”  Katie’s mother’s eyes brimmed with tears as her daughter attempted for the fifth time to zip up the bulging bag of possessions she had just carried from her bedroom.  The news that her only child was flying to London in a matter of hours to start a new life had acted like a bombshell to the poor woman, and she was still in a state of utter shock as the girl who to her would always remain just that, fiddled with the few belongings that had that been thrust into the garish pink bag apparently hours ago in preparation of this specific time.

Katie herself, fuelled with nervous energy and deaf to anything except the blood pounding in her ears, rearranged a couple of books and tried the zip again, careful not to put it under too much strain.  It had arrived four glorious days ago as a free accompaniment to Beatrice’s latest offering of Cosmopolitan magazine, along with, far more importantly, the letters and official looking documents that finally spelt Katie’s way out of her personal hell.

She was almost free!

If it had taken a huge effort to inform her mother of her plans this morning, then the effort required in withholding the news for the past four days had been at least twice that.  Time after time she had come close to revealing all, but a tiny voice in her head had warned her of the consequences if her stepfather had found out, and she couldn’t risk that.  She had told only her closest friends of her plans and had done all her goodbyes with them two nights previously, giving them strict instructions to tell nobody and to refrain any urge to see her off on her day of departure.  And then finally this morning, when that vile man had sloped off to the shops, she had hastily packed her few possessions, sat her mother down and told her what she was doing and why, knowing she only had a five minute window in which to act.  This, Katie had known for a long time, would be the hardest part, and so it had proved – her mother had been as stunned as Katie had anticipated, but there was no time for over-sentimentality she had explained, given her time limit before her stepfather returned or the Lusaka bus departed.  The act of finally baring all had been both a gut wrenching and an intensely liberating experience, and had also, for the first time since the conception of the plan, allowed the truth of the matter to finally sink in.

“I should head home,” Sophie said, lust overcoming common sense within seconds.  “It’s been a long week.”  She reached down to pick up her handbag, but Mitch’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“Please, Sophie, it would really make my night.”  She looked into his eyes and thought back to the story he had told her.  With an acquiescent sigh she left her handbag on the floor.

“All right,” she said, consoling herself with the fact that she was supposed to be ending these one-night forays with Nick anyway, not constantly treating him like one last cigarette.  “One dance,” she added.  They made their way to the dance floor where Sophie closed her eyes, the drink and the music intertwining and transporting her to the Caribbean.  After a couple of minutes she opened them again to find Mitch writhing and wiggling in front of her, lost in a world of his own a million miles from this one, his legs and arms moving to a beat no one else was hearing.  To his credit however, Sophie thought, he just didn’t seem to care.  He caught her eyes and grinned at her, shrugging.  She couldn’t help grinning back.  There was no way he’d faked anything tonight, that much was now abundantly clear.

The song began to fade into a slower one and, when she saw Mitch moving towards her and preparing for a joint effort, Sophie decided it was definitely time to go.

“I’m going home,” she mouthed to Mitch, keeping enough distan