Caroline was sitting in a quiet corner of the pub waiting for Gillian. A decent drop of red was open and she relished the taste of it as she swirled it around her mouth. Her thoughts now free to roam, they lingered over her night with Annafrid and the sensations of memory travelled over her body like a storm. The visage of the freshly f**ked attached itself to her face and was noticed straight away by the observant Gillian as soon as she arrived.

"So tell me all about it. Spare me no details old girl." Gillian took off her jacket and placed it on the back of her chair before sitting heavily and pouring herself a glass of wine. She smirked trying not to be jealous. "Who is she and what happened?"

Caroline looked up, shaken out of her memory. Her eyes darted to Gillian, not quite sure just how comfortable Gillian really was with her being a lesbian. She seemed to run hot and cold; sometimes she was fine and other times she seemed stuck in a homophobic track from the 1980s. She regarded Gillian cautiously.

"Well, let's just say that it's changed my outlook somewhat."

Gillian looked at her. "And..."

Caroline stared back at her, not knowing how much to say.

The waiter picked this inopportune moment to interrupt them with menus. Eager to get on with their conversation, they ordered their usual meals and waited until he was just out of earshot before continuing.

Caroline looked at Gillian. Part of her wanted to share the story; she'd really like to discuss aspects of it with someone and Gillian would be a good option, but she wasn't sure her sister-in-law was open to it.

"I don't really want to talk about the details of it. It was..."

"Oh come on Caz. I tell you just about everything, so what do you think you can tell me that I haven't already done, and probably worse?"

Pushed, Caroline's bluntness came to the surface. "I'm not entirely sure you're really comfortable with me being a lesbian sometimes. And I don't want to push the friendship by talking about s*x. I find it awkward enough as it is, between friends."

"Okay. I get that. Look.." She leant further forward, "I haven't told anyone, but I have actually been with women too."

Caroline's mouth dropped open and she stared at Gillian. "What?"

"Yeah. It were ages ago, so you've nowt to be embarrassed about, not with me."

"When? Why am I only hearing about this now?" Caroline was completely stunned by this little revelation. What more could possibly come of out this woman's mouth to completely capsize her understanding of the farmer?

"It were so long since it didn't seem relevant. Not that I've told anyone else. It weren't like it were any of their business. And my reputation is bad enough as it is without adding women to it."

"Really? More than one?"

"Yeah. A couple actually, but it were when I were young."

"Wow."

"Yeah. So go on then. Tell me."

"Oh, after you I think. Go ahead." Caroline holds her ground. "I can't believe I didn't know this." She waves her hand over the table, "You have the floor."

Gillian looks at her, while she sorts out the story in her head. She takes a large sip of wine and starts the tale. "Okay. The first were when I were in school, before Eddie. She were one of my school friends and we sort of practiced with each other. More fun than Robbie though." She has another sip of wine and sits up a bit. "The second one were different. I were with Eddie then but it were near the end. He wouldn't let me see any men friends, but thought a woman would be okay. He didn't know that she were...well, she were special. It weren't until he saw how special she was to me that we had to stop. I thought he were going to hurt her, so I told her not to come around again, but he never knew it all."

Caroline's face had gone from breezy to deadly serious with the mention of Eddie. Her voice dropped lower and quieter. "So you saw her when you were with Eddie? Oh god. How did that work?"

"She used to come to farm sometimes, and other times I'd see her in town. We never had long, unless Eddie went away on his bike for motocross or something. Then we'd have more time.

"She were lovely. No one ever spotted it, but she were so kind. She kept me going for a while there, when it were really rough with Eddie."

"What was her name?"

"Jane. She lived in Hebden Bridge, but she worked in Halifax so I'd see her in supermarket. That's where we met. It were horrible when he suspected. He really took it out on me but thankfully he left her alone." Gillian shivered. "I never saw her again. I couldn't. I were terrified he'd hurt her."

"Jesus." Caroline always knew there was more depth to the nasty sh*t that Eddie had done, but it was always shocking. For all his faults, living with John and his sad ineptitude hadn't prepared her at all for what it might be like to be married to someone as violent and vicious as Eddie. The comparison was stark.

"That's why no one ever knew."

Gillian seemed to shrink into her skin whenever she talked of Eddie and then, like she'd made a choice to stand tall, she'd sit up straight and her fists would clench, ready for the fight. It was something to see, the fight in Gillian. It made Caroline respect Gillian so much. She was in awe of such strength.

"That makes sense. I can't imagine what that might have been like for you. Horrible to lose someone so special, and even worse to have them threatened." She never really knew how to respond when Gillian talked of Eddie. It was so far outside her understanding of the world she had no idea how to help Gillian deal with it. However, she could see that this trauma informed every decision that the farmer made, so could forgive her nearly anything. She wondered about the woman who had attracted Gillian, unreasonably jealous. "What was she like?"

"Jane were tall and elegant. Naturally so. She had a way with children and animals and she really loved them all. She were kind. That's what I remember most. She were kind." Gillian seemed lost in thought, sucked into her past, the good and the bad of it.

"Anyway, enough of that for today." She brightened consciously, sloughing off the memories that clung like rust to her skin, sharp and rotten and dangerous. "Tell me about you!"

Caroline paused to get her head together. She was still stunned by this latest episode in the Gillian saga, and it hadn't sunk in properly yet. She'd have to process it later. Now she really was sounding like a lesbian, she thought. She looked at Gillian, waiting a moment longer in case there was more to the story.

"Okay. Well. Remember that woman from school I told you about? She and I had meeting about a student this week. Anyway, after the meeting she asked me out for coffee. Turns out, she didn't want coffee at all." Caroline leaned forward and lowered her voice. "This is the part that I'm still grappling with; She took the lead but it basically turned into a negotiation about s*x. In my office. In the middle of the afternoon. And I can't even believe I'm telling you this, let alone that I did it! Part of me is still wondering what the hell happened." She shook her head in disbelief.

"Something has shifted. Sex used to be tied to love for me. I couldn't really separate the two, but now, since Olga, it seems that I'm coming out in more ways than one. It was like I was finally able to take time for me, for my pleasure. My life always seems to be about duty and responsibility and looking after everyone else, but this was just for me."

"Wow Caz." Gillian looked at her and smirked a bit. "So, you're saying that you had a night with the enchantress from school and you don't even feel guilty about it?"

Caroline glared at her. "Oh f**k off."

Gillian cracked up.

"So you negotiated what were going to happen, before it happened, in an adult way. And then you got on with it? That sounds pretty adult to me, Caz."

Caroline sat there blinking, taking it in. "I guess it is. I hadn't thought of it like that. It's just so foreign to me. There's normally no negotiation at all. We just work it out as we go along, but it's always been connected to how we feel about each other. Slow and over time. And this was completely different. I feel like I should be feeling guilty about it, but I don't. I feel really good about it."

"So it worked out. It were a good night?" Gillian wiggled her eyebrows like a loon.

Caroline laughed, as Gillian intended. "Yep. It was fun. Very different, but freeing in many ways. I don't want to do it again and there were bits I wasn't keen on, but I learnt a lot about myself. I feel like I'm coming into my queerness, if that's a thing." She paused to reflect for a moment. "When I was with Kate, it was like there was still so much to come to terms with, and now, it's like I feel like I'm owning it, like I'm owning my s*xuality. God, it sounds so naff." She sighed.

"It's a tough road. No one ever really thinks it takes work or that it takes time." Gillian was really seeing the change from the woman who couldn't book a hotel room for her and her lesbian lover two years ago, to someone hooking up for a night of adult, negotiated s*x. "Think about this as if you were straight. Can you imagine that you might do this with a bloke; not the s*x bit, but the negotiation bit?"

Caroline looked at her. She was right of course. That's the bit that she'd missed. She'd suspected that Gillian might be the key to helping her understand this. She sighed in relief. "You're right. That's what I wasn't seeing. Thank you." She sat back, her shoulders relaxing for the first time in days.

Gillian looked pensive. "Of course, you got lucky Caz. It doesn't always end like that. It's not always fun and good."

Caroline tilted her head, trawling through her memory of Gillian's s*xual partners to see who might fit the bill of 'fun and good', because they had all sounded fairly terrible to her, including John. John had been attentive rather than inspired as a lover with her for most of their 18 years and she'd enjoyed s*x with him, but Gillian hadn't even got that from what Gillian had said.

"What I mean is, looking at what I've done and the mistakes I've made, sometimes it's been fun, but probably it's more of a disaster, to tell you the truth. And it so often comes back to bite me. A little bit of fun to take my mind of things and it..." She paused, trying not to pour too much ice on it. "So take it from me Caz; it can go wrong too."

Caroline looked at her dinner companion, thinking of all the complications that had been caused by Gillian's shenanigans. Gillian was right; she had been lucky this time. Mind you, it had been really educational. A sly grin took over her face. Gillian just raised her eyebrows, waiting.

"Well, the other bit was that she liked me being..." Caroline didn't even know why she was saying this, but something about Gillian made revealing intimacies easier than it normally was for her.

Gillian leaned forward, eager for crumbs about the details of this complex woman and what she might like in bed.

"Well, in control." There, she'd said it. It felt like an admission.

Gillian almost started laughing. "So, this woman, who works for you, likes you being in control." She snorted. "How is this different to every other relationship you've ever had?" She looked a little aghast that Caroline, who was normally so smart, would be so unaware of her own predilections and started laughing loudly.

"Oh sh*t. You're right." Caroline blushed.

"You pillock." Gillian was cackling now.

"Cow." And Caroline started laughing too. The laughter couldn't be contained and they kept setting each other off by simple eye contact. It was several minutes before they caught their breath.

The women were still chuckling when their dinners arrived a few moments later.

The topic of conversation shifted to more mundane matters, such as when Celia and Alan would move from one house to the other and how Raff and Ellie were going with their jobs and schooling.

"Raff is finishing his A-2s this year. That's the same as Lawrence, isn't it?" Gillian asked.

"Yep. He's struggling to focus, but then he always has. I'm not happy that he's living with John, who never pushes him to study. I don't think he's doing enough and I think it will limit his options. Who knows what he'll wind up doing at the end of it. I don't think he knows either."

She looked at Gillian. "Does Raff know what he wants to do when he's finished?"

"He's going to Uni, to Leeds, that's for sure. His grandad would have a fit if he didn't. We think he'll do something medical. It's something that he's really keen on, but I'm not sure which bit."

"Plenty of options there. Good for him." Caroline sighs. "Lawrence is coming tomorrow for the weekend. I haven't seen him for two weeks, so perhaps I'll know more then. Or perhaps not. He can behave like such a sh*t sometimes, I'm half dying to see him and half dreading it."

"Yeah." Gillian didn't want to say too much more. She thought Lawrence had been a real tw*t to his mum and needed to pull his head in, but it wasn't her place to say it. Caz had enough on her plate, she reckoned.

"I'll pop in tomorrow with some of Calam's old toys for Flora. She'll love the puzzle with animals on it."

"That would be great. Come for lunch if you like."

"That would work. I need to pick up some drench on the way home. I'm nearly out."

Caroline smiled at Gillian with great affection. She adored the contrast of this mercurial woman and the sheep farmer who doted on her flock.

Gillian loved these moments between them too, when Caroline blessed her with one of her affectionate smiles. They were rare and she felt like she was basking in the glow of a bright star. She knew a silly grin had appeared on her face, but there wasn't much she could do about it. Another treasure to add to her good memories, she thought.

They paid the bill and wrapped up before heading out into the cold. A quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, then they separated for the long night before lunch tomorrow.