rude gestures towards the cameras. Slamming the door behind me. Moving on; never looking back. Packing. Walking. Packing. Walking. Never looking back. And then what? I’d heard stories about how he’d had a mistress before me - perhaps installed in the very same flat. A princess locked in an ivory tower. She’d left him, they said. Packed her bags. Walked out. Moved on. A few months later, she turned up dead. She’d taken an overdose of sleeping pills and spent her last moments in the waiting room of a shabby coach station. The poor girl. She was a talented analyst with a degree in computer science who’d left university with a string of job offers. After she joined Sybernika, she was the prey of a constant stream of head-hunters. Other companies tried every trick in the book to get her to jump ship. And then she began an affair with Robert and suddenly nobody wanted to know. When she jilted him, he sacked her and she found herself in a job market that had no call for her talents. That’s the story I’d heard. And I believed it. I pictured myself packing and walking. And walking and walking from one pointless job interview after another until I found myself in a coach station with a stomach full of pills. Robert made love to me. I didn’t want him to but I didn’t try to stop him. What would have been the point? His every thrust caused me pain. He took my gasps and screams as signs of ecstasy. Afterwards, as was his habit, he washed himself, paying special attention to his penis. And then he proposed to me. I said yes.
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