Emily grinned maliciously at the inevitable pained expression on Naomi's face. Her so called partner was hovering just outside the circle of 'friends' Emily had surrounded herself with. Standing in her default position. Hugging herself miserably in that horrible 'desperately needs a wash' stripy granny jumper she seemed to have on every single day, her hair unwashed and with no make up to disguise her red rimmed eyes and pale complexion.

Punishment...that was the only dish Emily served nowadays. There might be greasy burgers and fat sausages sizzling on the garden barbecue, entree to the inevitable booze, drugs and music to come. But Emily was only serving up family sized chunks of despair for Naomi to digest.

It had been 6 weeks now. 6 weeks in which they had traversed the slopes of the emotional mountain called betrayal in every way it was possible to do short of total breakup. After reluctantly moving back in after her initial tearful flight to her Dads, Emily had ignored, sneered at and castigated Naomi for every fault she possessed, and some she didn't ever since.

Naomi had taken it all. Consumed with guilt and remorse, she had meant every word of that stupid yellow card she'd left on the door. She really would 'do anything' to make it right.

But it wasn't working. Not even a little bit.

At first, Emily had demonstrated pure, cold anger. Then silence, avoidance of any sort of physical contact and bitter contempt. Attempts by the blonde to apologise were met by a sneer. Crying was greeted with indifference. Studied indifference granted, but to Naomi's red rimmed and flowing eyes, it was all the same. She begged, she pleaded and she promised, but nothing worked.

After a week, Naomi stopped trying to sleep in the double bed with Emily. Each time she crept in late, praying her girlfriend was asleep, hoping to curl up beside her and, with just her body warmth, persuade the redhead to forgive, she was coldly rebuffed. In the end, Emily would just huff angrily, fix her with a cold stare and get out of bed herself, taking a pillow with her to the spare bedroom, leaving Naomi to sob alone.

So the blonde moved into the spare room herself. It was easier than bearing the icy response of Emily at first hand. They slept alone, one bitter, angry and unforgiving, the other tired and despairing. Naomi had no idea how long this would go on, she just knew it was killing her...inch by painful inch.

After three weeks, things had progressed, if thats the right word. Emily gave curt answers to Naomi's attempts at small talk, preferring to bury her head in her final year books and pretend to study. Well, at least when she wasn't out. Any Emily went out a lot...an awful lot.

At first it was 'studying at my friends house'. The emphasis on friend didn't escape Naomi. She was no longer classed as one of those. More a necessary evil...a sort of live in teenage landlady who cooked, cleaned and took no rent. Then it progressed to "Going out with x or y...Don't wait up...its an all nighter again"

Naomi thought she had suffered up to now, but the thought of a freshly made up and revealingly clothed Emily out all night nearly drove her mad. She had no illusions about the attractiveness of her girlfriend. Gone was the timid, over made up bookworm, constantly overshadowed by her sluttier, bolder sister. Now she was confident about her looks, her appeal to members of both sex's. She was hot...and Naomi tortured herself nightly about what Emily was up to and with who.

Emily didn't give her any clues when she got home, usually at silly o clock in the morning. She might look trashed, stoned and slur her words, but no obvious signs of sexual activity could be seen. Naomi consoled herself with the tiny miserable thought that perhaps Emily was just spreading her wings, not her legs, punishing Naomi by staying out all night, dancing, drinking...but not taking the final, terrible step of cheating..

That was until Mandy turned up. A tall, Asian looking girl with a confident look about her and a preference for not wearing a bra under her silky dresses. Not that Naomi spent a lot of time checking her out, but it was hard to avoid the unmistakeable movement of unfettered boobs under the succession of loose tops and dresses she wore. Naomi burned some more. An attractive 'friend' was just what she feared now.

"Just a friend Naomi'...like a friend, OK?" Emily had replied to her timid question about their status. "Not all of us feel the need to shag the first attractive woman they meet..."

That hurt, as it was meant to. Sophia left a long shadow, despite her suicide. That stupid, thoughtless finger fuck on the carpet with the late Sophia Moore cost Naomi more than she thought she could ever repay.

So she accepted this Mandy for what she was represented as. But it felt an awful lot like she was being used as the housekeeper. Watching as Emily took extra care on her makeup and outfits before the doorbell rang and the 'friend' arrived to take Emily out. One night turned into two, then it was three times every week. Each time Emily came back late, giggling from the alcohol, smelling of a perfume she didn't own. The last time it happened, Naomi was sure that Emily's lips looked puffy...bruised. Like someone who'd been doing a lot of open mouthed kissing. With a someone who wasn't her.

She lost it then. Friend be fucked, this wasn't any kind of friendship she recognised.

She stopped Emily from escaping straight upstairs, knowing she would just disappear into the bathroom for half an hour, emerging showered and wearing the long night time tee she kept under her pillow. Teeth scrubbed and any evidence of infidelity rinsed away. She had to know.

"Emily...please" she said weakly, hating the way her voice broke on the last word. "I'm not asking for your forgiveness...I know I don't deserve that. But I don't deserve this either. You're seeing that Mandy...its obvious you're not just friends. You can't do that and still come back here every night, treating me like I don't matter at all...I'm your girlfriend"

There was a few moments silence before Emily answered. Just for a second Naomi saw something else but hatred and contempt in Emily's eyes, unease?. But then it was gone and they hardened again.

"Bit late to play the jealous partner Naoms?" Emily's lip curled. "Should have thought about that when you were going down on the dead girl..."

Naomi flinched visibly at the brutal words. She knew she deserved the rebuke, and for a moment, considered telling Emily that it wasn't like that...had never been like that. There had been no languorous mutual oral sex, no whispered words of love and passion during her encounter with Sophia. More a desperate attempt to prove to herself she wasn't trapped...that it wasn't just Emily who could make her feel like that. But after she'd made the other girl come with stiff fingers and hard kisses, she'd ushered her out of the house like the guilty secret she was. She'd scrubbed herself and any surface they might have come into contact with obsessively afterwards, terrified that Emily would detect the infidelity just by smell alone. She'd been wrong, of course. It took a public suicide and and a strange, overprotective older brother to bring the whole thing crashing into their lives.

But telling Emily that would do no good. She knew it. So she settled for more pleading.

"We can't go on like this...you acting like you're single, seeing someone else, then sleeping here, in my house...we just can't"

She ended with a sob. She didn't have any other weapons, any other arguments. She was weak, tired and just about out of hope.

Again a short silence, while Emily regarding her stonily.

"Fine...I'll move out then...Mandy has a spare room. Her mum likes me...I'll get my stuff ready in the morning and..."

"NO!" Naomi almost shouted. That wasn't what she wanted at all. She knew with a cold dread that if Emily did move out, that was it. There would be no happy ending for her. She couldn't allow that to happen. She found herself lurching forward, taking Emily's hand in hers and weeping uncontrollably.

"No...I don't want that...please Ems...I just want..."

"What?" Emily said flatly, pulling her hand away from Naomi's with something like disgust. "Forgiveness...is that what you want"

"Yes...I want you to forgive me. I love you...always have, always will. Life without you is pointless...if you go...I'd..."

"No!" This time Emily almost shouted "You don't get to play that card Naomi. Didn't help Sophia much did it?" she finished stonily.

At that second Naomi realised that she might never be forgiven. At one time the thought of a world without her in it would have shattered Emily. But not now, apparently. Her stomach lurched with the small amount of alcohol she had allowed herself this evening. She knew she was seconds away from losing the contents.

"Ems, please" she begged "Stay here...I won't complain, I promise...just...stay"

Emily gave her a short nod and pushed past her on her way to the stairs. Naomi caught the distinct whiff of a foreign perfume as she did. It was enough to finish her...she lurched towards the kitchen. The sink would have to do...

XXX

And now she was standing in her own garden, hosting a barbecue she hadn't even arranged, watching her supposed 'girlfriend' flit from one crowd of complete strangers to another. Pouring drinks, touching arms. Laughing at jokes. Generally fucking with her head whilst appearing to be the perfect partner.

Naomi saw the surreptitious passing of a small wrap of silver foil from one long haired dark skinned guy to Emily as she topped up his glass with neat vodka. She saw Emily down whatever tablet it was in one quick move and whisper something into the dread locked guy's ear. His face opened in a wide grin and he ogled Emily's tits as she leaned over him. She was wearing that tight black singlet she used to wear to turn Naomi on. Only this time there was no bra underneath it. Naomi could see Emily's nipples standing out against the taut material. Words formed in the blondes head, words she would never articulate.

"Emily...stop that...you're gay for fucks sake...he thinks you're putting him on a promise...what are you doing?"

Instead she bit her lip and looked miserably down into the half empty vodka glass in her hand. She didn't seem able to get pissed nowadays. Just went from cold sobriety to unconsciousness without any sign of pleasure. When she looked up again, Emily was whispering in the guys ear again, looking brazenly at her while she did. Naomi's stomach lurched again when the guy reached down and squeezed Emilys arse in his big hand. What the fuck was she doing? He was a total stranger...just some random who'd appeared at the party with a crowd of people she only vaguely recognised from Roundview. People they had never bothered with up to now. Emily was letting this cunt feel her up, right there, in front of her...

Emily eventually detached herself from the guys groping hands with a light laugh and, giving Naomi a triumphant smile, necked the remaining vodka in her glass. She held it out towards the blonde silently, arrogantly.

Great, Naomi thought, now I'm the fucking waitress. She moved over to the trestle table beside the grill and pulled another fresh bottle of vodka from the cardboard carrying case on it. Fuck knows who had bought it all, there must have been a hundred quids worth of booze. Nicked, probably, from some wine warehouse. If Cook had still been out, instead of languishing in Wandsworth Prison as he was, she would have guessed it would be his sort of party gift. But he was currently 'enjoying' life in a 8x6 cell and vodka would be in short supply for the next couple of years in the Cook universe.

She twisted the cap off and went to walk over to where Emily was still holding out her empty glass. Just as she did, the bottle was taken from her hand by someone who had appeared beside her. The "Oi" in her throat died when she saw who it was.

Effy Stonem.

Effy smiled thinly at her and, removing the arm of some leather jacketed acolyte from around her waist, looked first at Emily, then back at her.

"Still punishing you then?" Effy said, so quietly, only Naomi heard it. She nodded at the slim brunette miserably. Fresh tears, which were always close to being spilled, brimming in her eyes.

"I think enough's enough" Effy said flatly "This is getting a bit fucking old to be honest"

Emily was looking at them strangely. The arm holding out the glass was now pointing downwards, drips of clear liquid disappearing into the scrubby lawn.

"Emily" Effy said brightly "Long time no see...how come I didn't get an invitation?"

Emily smiled thinly, but her eyes remained wary. Her sister might have been the one hit by a rock, but it seemed she retained a healthy respect for the waif like girl in front of her all the same.

"Since when did you need one Eff?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

"Quite right" Effy smirked "Never been necessary"

She held out the vodka towards Emily, who walked the three steps needed to reach it. If psychological warfare had been declared, Effy had just made the enemy come to her. The redhead took the bottle and stood awkwardly, waiting.

"Looks like Naomi's paid her dues Em...I think she's had enough of this shit" Effy said quietly.

Emily's eyes flashed then .

"Actually none of your fucking business Effy...this is between me and... her" she pointed at the now quietly crying Naomi.

"No...I think its a bit of an unequal fight now, don't you?" Effy said firmly "I think your guests are getting restless without their hostess. Best you get back to Bob Marley over there, he looks like his hard on is ready for you now. I just hope you know what you're doing little Fitch...if you smash all the china in the shop, there's nothing left to eat on" she finished in her usual oblique way.

Emily's fists clenched, but her hard stare was returned in spades. Eventually the petite redhead dropped her eyes, taking one last look at Naomi before speaking.

"Fine...she's your problem now then. See ya"

She spun on her heel and walked back to the crowd of guys behind her. When she got there, the tall guy with the dirty hair circled her waist with a possessive arm.

Naomi looked at them with undisguised misery.

"She's fucking gay Eff...what is she doing?..." she whispered, almost to herself. For one millisecond she almost wished Mandy was here, she could at least understand that.

"She's proving a point Naomi" Effy replied "JJ said Emily once said she's lots of things...just before she gave him that pity shag..."

Naomi's wince made Effy feel bad for a second...but she'd made her point. Emily was trying and succeeding in provoking a response from Naomi...the sex of the potential suitor was irrelevant.

"Come on..." Effy said shortly, turning to the random behind her who'd been standing there dumbly while the little drama played out. "You're giving me and Naomi a lift back to mine. I think she needs a little holiday from this bollocks"

The guy grumbled but waited obediently whilst Naomi and Effy bagged up some clothes from the bedroom. When they came back downstairs, they could hear raucous laughter from the garden. It didn't look like their exit had spoiled the party. Naomi went to speak, but Effy propelled her to the door without letting her. It was only when they were in the guys battered Mini, driving over to Effys place that she broke the silence.

"You need a rest from that shit Naomi. And Emily needs to learn a lesson of her own. Using some random guy to make your girlfriend jealous is one thing, ritual humiliation is another. We need to talk...or rather, I need to...and you need to listen"

Not another word was spoken on the journey.