Naomi

In the end, it all turned out rather fucking wonderful, as my mother used to say. Its been three years now, and Emily and I are still together and still stupidly in love. She moved up to London with me, when I went back to Goldsmith's and my mum and Kieran fronted the ridiculously high deposit we needed to rent a flat together. There was no way I was going to let Emily stay with anyone else, she was still pretty fragile at first, but the alternative, of sneaking her into my student hall was totally impractical. The hall porter might have been susceptible to a glimpse of Katies nipples, but he was never gonna fall for that trick nightly. We needed, no I needed us to be together permanently, and a small one bed flat near the Elephant and Castle was the best we could come up with. It was on the top floor, had rising damp and falling plaster, but it was ours, at least as long as my mum kept sending the £1000 a month to rent it.

Exorbitant? Yep...but thats London for you. Stupidly high house prices, fuelled by the sort of people that mindlessly vote Conservative every time, and even higher rents, made possible by landlords having an inexhaustible supply of tenants who couldn't afford to buy a place of their own. Its called supply and demand, yeah? Well, it is, if you're a merchant banker or a landed Tory gent...

Sorry about the soapbox, but politicians get away with saying that house price inflation is a good thing...well, I suppose it is if you actually have a house to start with, but people like us...me and Ems...are never going to be able to save up £100,000 deposit for a rat hole in Brixton, let alone afford the £1500 a month mortgage. Bastards...

But enough about money grabbing landlords and venal politicians. I got my first class degree at Goldsmiths. Emily enrolled in South Bank Uni, and finished her studies too. She;s going to be an English teacher, and she'll be brilliant at at. We moved out of London straight after she graduated. Too fucking expensive, and too fucking..I dunno, London, I suppose. We enjoyed the night-life, at both Uni's student bars and further afield. Being two gay girls in the capital wasn't a big deal...Bristol was far more provincial about things like that. We didn't stand out as much there, although we got the usual sexist taunts now and again. Guys, on general principle, don't like the unattainable or obviously unfuckable, and as I think Emily and I had had our one and only encounters with male erections early on in our sex lives, we were firmly off limits.. We were, and are completely in love, and thats enough. So we learned to blow them off casually, and for the most part, they listened and backed off. When they didn't...I still have the Campbell death glare, and it works pretty good.

Effy offered to let us live at her house in Bristol when we decided to move back there. Her mum had more or less left home, and was living with the guy she worked with, and had an affair with, when she got divorced from Effys Dad. They signed the house over to Eff and Tony, but as Tony was abroad, in Canada, and not likely to come back except for Christmas and stuff, there was acres of room. Ems and I moved into Anthea's old bedroom and Effy stayed in hers. Her drug fuelled hedonistic days were over, and she was seeing a guy called Mike from Bath, where she stayed most weekends. Pretty perfect really. My mum was delighted to see me back in town, and as she loved Emily as much as me, we spent a lot of time in each others houses. Emily's mum, of course, wasn't such an easy nut to crack. She tolerated me rather than anything else, but to be honest, that was good enough for me. I had no wish to suffer beetroot and artichoke soup ever again...I always made sure I was the seventh invited guest. Six seater table...?

Katie turned out to be the biggest surprise. Would you believe she's my best mate nowadays (apart from Ems, of course)? Well, its true. Her homophobia was always a bit of a device she put together to hate me with. Once she got over the fact that Ems and I were an item, and that I had no wish to break their twin bond, she changed completely. She'd seen how Emily had suffered being apart from me, and she had first hand experience of how I'd been utterly broken without her sister. So, after Emily and I moved in together in London, she'd been a regular weekend visitor, all through Uni. Of course, she cut a swathe through the male population of South London, just as she had in Bristol at college, but she's calmed down a lot now. Still has a strange preference for animal pattern outfits, but a bit more restrained than the lurid pink leopard print she used to go for.

She even had a brief, but I hear happy, 'experimental' period of her own. When she came up to our flat one July afternoon in the summer break with this stunning curvy redhead called Maisie, Emily and I nearly collapsed with surprise. Turned out to be just a holiday fling...but really? Katie Fitch, tipping the velvet? Civilizations have fallen for less.

I cornered her alone in our tiny kitchen when Emily was chatting to Maisie in the lounge.

"You're having a fucking laugh Katie...aren't you?" I said in amazement "Please tell me this isn't what it looks like?"

She turned to me with a smirk and flushed slightly.

"Thought I'd try and find out what all the fuss was about. We met in Selfridges a couple of weeks ago...and got chatting...and it sort of...grew" she grinned "Problem?"

"Not at all" I goggled back "So, Katiekins...now that you're a proper 'sister'...how is it with...Maisie?"

She ducked her head and looked at her shoes.

"Fucking good at the moment...but don't be getting any ideas Campbell...its early days...I'm not about to start wearing dungarees and Doc Martens"

I couldn't resist, well you can't blame me, can you?

"So now that you've tried muff...will you admit the sex is way better than with guys...and...err...does Maisie like to..."

I leaned over and whispered a long, filthy and descriptive sentence into Katies startled ear.

She jumped away from me like she had been scalded, a look of horror on her pretty face, which just made me double up with laughter.

"You, Campbell, are a degenerate perv. I have no idea what my fucking sister sees in you. Keep your strange sexual habits to yourself, OK?"

I raised my eyebrow and we both giggled for a bit. Like I said, Katie has changed. A lot.

I started to carry the tray of drinks back to the lounge, but she stopped me with one hand on my arm, just before I got to the door. She leaned over and whispered in my ear.

"For your information, Naomi...she fucks me royally, all night long, with and without battery powered help...and...now Maisie has a new camcorder...so afterwards we have some interesting evenings in, watching TV together..."

I nearly dropped the fucking tray and all the glasses. Bitch. I looked at her as if she'd grown two heads. Fuck me...if things had got that far, me and Ems needed a trip down to Anne Summers, pronto.

I think Katie took that round on a knock out.

It fizzled out, her and Maisie, after the summer break. Katies with a guy called Curt at the moment, but I live in hope...once you've tried it and all that...

But now things are great. I got a job with the Post, writing articles on local politics, Emily's finishing her teacher training course, and things couldn't be better. We live together, laugh together and love together. The past is the past. The three years we were away has let the dust settle in Bristol. The old places look strange now...Alfred Road seems like a house I only vaguely remember. My mum sold the place while we were in London and bought her old house back. I loved that little yellow chalet, and Ems and I feel more at home there than the other house. Too many bad memories of that blue door...

My old bedroom is pretty much the same as it was, just the wallpaper has changed, and my mum did a good job making it familiar. I'm never going to live there any more but, its nice to sit in the kitchen and remember how things were. The endless house guests, the chalk boards and weird wall decorations...laying on the bedroom floor with Emily, pretending not to know what lesbians do...Memories...most of them happy ones. I'll settle for that.

Cook is out now...and seeing Karen McClair again. I don't think that Freddies dad is too impressed, but they're happy together. Cook started up his own courier service in town, and I think its doing well. I strongly suspect that some of the packages being delivered aren't strictly kosher, but hey ho...Cook was never gonna change that much. Uncle Keith died...which was sad, but Cook got his start up money from the sale of the Fishponds Tavern. We never go in there any more. Its a fucking gastro pub now...awful tiny food on huge plates and braying, wine swilling, clientèle. Poor Keith would be horrified. Progress, huh?

So thats us. Emily Fitch and Naomi Campbell. Was it all worth it? The heartache, the breakups, the tears, loneliness and the pain?

Fucking right it was. I got my girl, and thats all I ever really wanted. Sometime next year, after Emily qualifies, we're going to get married. Then Emily wants to start a family...and I always give Emily what she wants. And you can take that any way you like!

End

Thanks for reading!