Another chapter. A chapter where Holly tells a story about a horse or two (I guess you'd loosely call this character development, too) and no one has sex or is kidnapped. Sorry.

The next day, in one of those lazy, sated moments between bursts of sex and food and stories, Gail brings it up.

She is, for some reason completely unknown to Holly, lying on her back on the floor between the television cabinet and the bedroom door. She has her hands tucked behind her head and her legs stretched up straight above her, resting against the wall in a strangely yogic L shape.

"I have … a question." She announces, tipping her head back toward Holly, who is leaning against her bench, flipping through the newspaper and contemplating whether another coffee would be a good thing or an entirely bad thing.

"Of course you do," Holly tells her, vaguely, wondering if looking at the weather page will be too depressing.

"Am I supposed to say I am gay now?"

Holly lifts her head. Oh. It's that kind of question. She had wondered if or when this would come up. She closes the newspaper, walks over to Gail and slides down the walls until she is sitting next to her legs, facing her.

"Is that something you are worrying about?"

"You know, I don't really even care. It's just..." Gail bites her lips. "I was thinking if that if one of my friends… if Traci or Andy, for example, told me they were dating a woman..." She stops in her tracks, blinking. "My God, imagine Andy dating a woman- as if she doesn't complicate her love life enough without having double the choice."

Holly has absolutely no idea what is so weird about this particular idea or this Andy person, so she waits patiently for Gail to remember what she was actually talking about.

"Anyway," Gail continues eventually, inspecting a fingernail and frowning. "I just know if a friend told me she was dating a chick, the first thing I would ask is 'so, what, are you gay now?'" And I have no idea how to answer that."

"So don't." Holly shrugs.

"I just don't want people to be spending that much time wondering about my love life, you know?" Gail bites her lip and looks up at Holly.

"Well, two things there." Holly says, reaching out and sliding her hand under Gail's top where it can rest it on the soft skin of her belly. "One, they probably just want to know about your love life because they are your friends and they care about you. And two, they are probably might ask you a question like that because that's how most people think. Sleeping with woman means lesbian. We're all so in the habit of needing to name what we are."

Gail nods, silent.

"It was easy for me to call myself a lesbian." Holly continues. "I wasn't into men. I was systematically into women. I just had to do some math and knew I could say I was gay it would pretty much be true. But some things are not that concrete. But it's like we always feel like we have to have a name for everything that we are- 'I'm gay, I'm bisexual, I'm a lawyer, I'm a hippy, I'm a type A, I'm a well-adjusted mid..."

"I have never called myself well-adjusted, that's for sure." Gail says.

Holly chuckles. "You know what I mean."

Yeah," Gail sighs, "I know all of this. I do. I know nothing's black and white, blah blah and I don't even care." Gail rolls her eyes. "I'm just…"

"Over-thinking things as usual?"

"Probably." Gail shrugs and stares up at the roof, biting her lip.

"You know," Holly tells her, stroking the curve of her belly. It might just be her favourite part of Gail. "I think you are probably more worried about people asking those questions because you're insular and closed-off and don't want people knowing things about you— not because you are having a sexual identity crisis."

"Probably." Gail says again. Then her eyes narrow. "Jeez, insular. Closed off. You make me sound so cold." She looks hurt.

Holly turns around so she is facing the wall too and lies down next to Gail, facing her. She reaches over and stroking her cheek, prompting Gail to turn toward her. "I don't mean to." She tells her. "You're not. Well, not when you don't want to be. You're just … I think you're just private … and cautious with people knowing things about you."

Gail doesn't answer. She just stares past her, clearly mulling over Holly's words, deciding whether to believe the version of herself that Holly has offered.

Holly sighs. Gail really fixates on things too much. Sometimes the constant over-thinking is a good thing, and Holly is pretty certain it is why she's so smart, and so oddly and evilly insightful. But other times it seems like it just feeds her many and myriad insecurities.

She also senses Gail needs to take a break from herself more often than she does at this point in her life, otherwise she is likely to backspin into crazy from another bout of her sometimes obsessive self-doubt.

So she leans in and deflects Gail's most recent tide of thoughts with a kiss and tells her, "Hey, I thought of something, by the way."

"Thought of something what?" Gail asks, her forehead creasing.

"Something bad about me." She replies, taking Gail back to this morning's bizarre conversation.

Gail lifts her head, eyes wide. "Ooh, what?"

Holly grins. That was the easiest distraction ploy, ever.

"I hate horses." She announces.

"You … hate … horses?" Gail repeats slowly.

"Yep."

"But what's so bad about that?" Gail asks, frowning. "I hate lots of things."

"Yes," Holly insists. "But people love horses. You know, how they are all beautiful and wild and free and flight over flight and symbolic and never hurt anyone."

"Uh," Gail frowns. "Have you ever head the term 'trampled by horses'?"

"Well, okay," Holly shrugs. Gail is clearly not going to give this to her easily. "But you know what I mean. It's pretty uncool not to like horses. You are supposed to write songs and paint pictures of them. I mean, do you hate them?"

"No," Gail frowns, "But that's because I'm a normal person and horses are awesome."

"Ha. Ha." Holly tells her. "And that's a stretch- you being a normal person, I mean."

And, so" Gail ignores her and returns to the subject. "Have you always hated these poor, innocent creatures?"

"No, only since I was about twelve and I was on camp…"

Gail interrupts before Holly can launch into her story.

"Was this camp by any chance a… science camp?" She raises her eyebrows and awaits Holly's response, smiling as if she already know exactly what it s going to be.

"It may have been." Holly admits, smiling. Gail is going to find out the depths of her geek roots at some point. It might as well be now.

"You adorable nerd." Gail says slowly, wrapping an arm around Holly's waist and grinning.

"Shuddup." Holly tells her, kissing her just to wipe the grin away. "Anyway," she continues. "At this camp, there were all these awful outdoor activities as well as labs and stuff- I guess they didn't want to return us home too pasty at the end of summer."

"But I thought you were all sporty?" Gail interrupts again. "With the baseball and the plaid. I thought you'd have loved that stuff."

"Well actually," Holly confesses, "Just to, you know, live the cliché, the baseball kind of timed with the lesbianism."

"There you go- another reason not call myself gay. I do not ever want to play baseball again in my life." Gail says.

"Ah, for one, I think we both know it's not a rule that you have to play or anything," Holly teases, "And well, after seeing you bat, I am pretty sure no one would ever let you on their team."

Gail frowns and looks like she is about to snark. Almost immediately though, her face relaxes as she clearly realises the futility in protesting when they both know Holly is speaking a truth that would most likely be universally acknowledged.

Holly smiles at the point won and continues.

"Anyway," she goes on, "One of the activities on this camp was horse riding. And I had never really been near a horse before. My parents were, well, academic. We didn't even have pets, really, except this one hugely fat cat my mother seemed to love more than my Dad. The outdoorsiest thing we did was going on drives in autumn by the lake. And we certainly didn't go horse riding."

"Oh, well, the Peck family definitely did," Gail sighs. "But then I grew up in what was basically a cross between an episode of Survivor and a military camp for wayward teens. I'm lucky we weren't made to wrestle alligators on our weekends."

Holly chuckles. Gail's childhood sounds terrifying every time she mentions it. No wonder Gail is like she is.

"Anyway, so what did this poor, defenceless horse do to you?" Gail teases, tapping Holly on the chest.

"Defenceless?" Holly scoffs, half-joking, half the teensiest bit serious. "It bit me."

"It bit you?" Gail repeats, incredulous. "Where did it bite you?"

"Right here," Holly tells her, leaning forward and pointing to the back of her left shoulder. "Not really hard or anything. More like a nip. But it hurt and I was traumatised. And there was no freaking way I was getting up on that thing after that."

Gail laughs, leaning her head against Holly's shoulder. Holly smiles, wondering if the joy she gets from the sound of Gail laughing will ever wear off.

Eventually Gail recovers enough to ask, "So, did they make you ride it?"

"They tried." Holly grins, remembering the frustrated camp counsellor, an outdoorsy redhead who seemed to like the horses a hell of a lot more than she liked the kids at camp. "But I refused point blank to get up on that horse or any other horse after that. They made me go to the arts centre instead and paint pine cones every riding session after that."

"That's all you deserve." Gail tells her, poking her in the chest again. "Wimp," she says with relish.

Holly grins. "Don't be mean. I was all of twelve-years-old, a good year from puberty, short, skinny as a rake— knock-me-over-with-the-slightest-breeze science geek skinny, and this great hulking brute of a horse just reached over, right while I was picking some grass for him to eat too, and bit me! You'd have been a little upset, too."

"I'd have been pissed, I guess" Gail admits. "And so now, because of one bad egg, you hate the whole species?"

"Oh, it doesn't end there." Holly tells her, relishing this story now. "So, I pretty much kept my distance after that, until…" She lifts her left leg, reaches up and yanks off her sock, pointing at her big toe. "That."

"What?" Gail turns to look. When she sees what Holly is pointing to she grimaces. "Ew. That is gross."

Holly contemplates her foot and nods. She completely agrees. Her poor big toe is indeed gross. There is a huge crack across the centre of her nail and the skin under the nail is a deep purple-black bruise.

"How did I not notice that before?" Gail asks, looking back at it, clearly half-repulsed and half-fascinated.

"Uh, well," Holly turns and grins at her. "I don't think it's my toes you have been looking at."

"True." Gail smiles a small smile and then looks back at the foot, which Holly is still holding aloft. "Please put that away now."

"Okay," Holly complies. She lets go of her foot, and lies back on the carpet, tucking her hands under her head. She looks toward Gail, sly. "Don't you want to know what happened?"

"So, I am guessing it has something to do with a horse." Gail says slowly.

"Yep." Holly says, smiling. "Stepped on me this time."

"Wow." Gail says, raising her eyebrows. "How did you even get close enough to one to let that happen? I mean…" She turns toward Holly, leaning on an elbow, looking at her with phony eye-wide sympathy, simpering. "…after all you have been through?"

"Well," Holly ignores the Tone. "I wouldn't have, except that I went with some friends to stay in this house put near Niagara last summer and their little girl, who has grown up in inner Toronto all of her life, is super excited about this ancient old horse the neighbours have. The neighbours, this sweet old retired couple offer for her to take a ride on him. Of course Lexa jumps at the chance, and of course it is Aunty Holly who has to take her."

"Aw, Aunt Holly" Gail repeats, her honeyed tone genuine this time.

"Then, as soon as the kid gets on the horse, she becomes totally terrified and wants me to, you know, just keep a hand on her. I don't think she realised how high she would be off the ground once she was up on its back. So I am holding her, she's squealing and then the horse gets a fright when the dog runs into the yard and takes a step sideways, instead of walking forward with her. And I'm so busy trying to keep Lexa on the horse that I don't realise my foot is between the horse's hoof and the ground. Well, you can guess the rest." Holly tells her, recalling that speechless, blinding pain she had felt as she tried to keep one hand on Lexa and to yank her foot out from under the horse's hoof with the other. It was excruciating.

"Ouch." Gail winces. "Okay, now I can kind of see how you would be less into horses than the average person."

"Which is why now," Holly tells her, "When I see some image of wild horses running through a field, I don't think of freedom. I'm not all taken with their wildness and beauty. I just think how the are going to hurt me next."

"Uh, maybe a little paranoid, don't you think?"

"Probably," Holly shrugs, playing for drama. "I don't care. They are, I am convinced, out to get me."

Gail grins, telling her. "Okay then, but you do not get to call me insane for at least twenty-four hours now- not after that statement."

"Deal." Holly agrees. She knows the horse thing is kinds of nudging at the edges of irrational. "Anyway, see? I told you. There are even two bad things about me in there. Horse phobia and I have an unseemly big toe."

"You do have an incredibly gross toe." Gail agrees, wrinkling her nose. She slips and hand into Holly's singlet, sliding her hand slowly up her side. "Lucky the rest of you is so … seemly." She says.

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