She took a couple of hesitant steps toward me and stopped. Her hair had been brushed out and she had on an almost transparent robe that was floor leng...h. Under it was a tiny white triangle of silk between her legs, with a pair of similar pieces covering her breasts. It was all trimmed in lace and white fur, and I could see the fine hairs on her legs. She let me stare for a moment, then took a couple more steps in my direction.I breathed, "My God, you are beautiful!" You like it?" Oh yes! I like. " You mean the ritual to commit to you? Right?" Yeah. That's part of it."While they stared at each other silently, just looking, their faces unreadable, the rest of us sat, Kathy's eyes wide with fear, Hannah looking confused. I felt dismal.Then Chloe answered, speaking slowly, clipping each word. "There's no fucking way I'm committing to you."Renee sat back with a smug look. "Then you can't really sit here."And they stared. And we sat, waiting for something to explode."Fuck you." Chloe said.. The ‘ice-queen’ they whispered behind her back. All the compromises and unacknowledged loneliness had led her here. Now she finally was in a position to reap the benefits of all those sacrifices. India was the largest emerging market in the free world and she had the chance to run the entire region. That she could handle herself in the boardroom was by now well known. What she had to still prove to them was that she could handle the complexities and challenges of a place like India. Despite. It was nearly eight o’clock when our gang trudged wearily home, on the last exhausting day of the harvest. As we turned into the village Tommy said I could walk at the front, “Your Dad would be so proud son.”Women came out from their cottages offering glasses of ginger beer and cigarettes. There was talk of a bumper crop, the best since the old war.When Tommy and I got home, Mum waved a tiny Union-Jack; last seen on VE day. “The harvest is home,” she cried.The radio blasted out Glen Miller.