Chapter One
(October 2001, Lancashire)
Lorna was early into her third and final year of a mathematics degree and would soon be celebrating her twenty-first birthday. Her chosen subject suited her down to the ground and she was on course to get first class honours. Indeed everything in her life so far had been smooth as silk.
Yet suddenly here she was, knee-deep in a quandary.
Up until yesterday she'd firmly believed that she was straight. Okay, she had frequently admired other females, but always in an envious sort of a way. Being a blue-eyed blonde she liked to see green and brown eyes, amber, hazel or grey, wishing hers were a match. And she often wished that her hair was a bit longer or shorter, black or blue, bright red, light- or dark-brown or auburn. Appearances mattered to her as much as they mattered to everyone else.
And the possibilities were endless.
Admiration wasn't same-sex attraction, however, not by a long chalk.
The existence of same-sex attraction had never occurred to Lorna until she arrived here at university, ready for the joys of Freshers' Week. If asked as a sixth-former she would have firmly asserted there were no lesbians in her school. Yes, she would have admitted "women who have sex with women" did exist, but not in her alma mater. No way.
But then she found herself in a new environment; one where lesbians really were out loud and proud.
Perhaps her uni was exceptional but the societies were adept making themselves known everywhere. There in the Great Hall, waiting for inquisitive freshers, LGBT had a very prominent stand. So too did the Lesbians' Society, which also had "recruiters" all over campus, vigorously and humorously touting for new members.
What was that: "humorously"? Put it like this: those girls weren't at all backwards in coming forwards; any sort of rejection only encouraged them.
Lorna had easily resisted all the other recruiting approaches but felt obliged to sign up with the Girls' Society when it was created (at the start of her second year, by a young lady who strongly resembled Siouxie Sioux). Girls' Society meetings were timed not to clash with those of LGBT and the Lesbians' Society. And that particular society genuinely did represent female interests, even if a lot of attendees did seem to be into same-sex experiences.
In other words Lorna's new environment opened her eyes and continued to keep them open. Back as a schoolgirl she'd heard or read somewhere that lesbians accounted for less than one per cent of the world's female population. At the time she had taken that "fact" as gospel and supposed it explained why her sixth form was a gay-free zone. Early into Freshers' Week her preconceptions took a big sea change. One per cent! Here at this trusty learning establishment it had to be more like ten.
And that wasn't counting all the bi-curious girls.
Badges saying LUG or BUG were being handed out like candy.
Not knowing what the initials meant but shrewd enough to avoid LUG, Lorna had accepted BUG. And she'd had a zillion indecent girl-on-girl proposals within an hour of pinning it to her lapel.
Badge-less again, she had reconsidered her old schoolmates. Just how many secret pairs of "special friends" had there really been? Was it five or six? Or was it more? Her new suspicion was that those friendships were cover-ups. And the reality was that those involved had been straining at the leash, all anxious to be away from home and free to be out of the closet at last.
Yes, anonymity breeding freedom, and all that.
What would the percentage truly have been back at school? Six all-female couples would probably be five per cent. And that felt right. It felt in-line with what she saw at university, as an outsider looking in; about half of the obvious "women who have sex with women" were paired off while the rest played the field.
So ten per cent lesbians, half of them attached.
Plus Christ only knew how many bi-curious . . .
Like wow! As a mathematician the stats rocked her.
Although interested in all the goings-on Lorna had never been tempted. By Freshers' Week she'd had a generous selection of male lovers and, during her first year at uni, she had at least doubled her tally. Then, eight months ago, she'd met Matt.
Matthew stood two inches over six feet tall. He was just about as broad across his shoulders. A blind woman would have instantly identified him as a rugby player. And she would have been correct: Matt seemed to alternate between the university's first and second team. When he played for the seconds he was captain. Whenever the firsts had a loss or two, they called him in.
Hero-worshipping her lover from the side of some pitch or other was a weekly occurrence. Whichever team he represented Matt was always the alpha male. In fact the only reason he wasn't captain of the firsts was that he kept getting sent off for "overdue aggression".
Strange that; as a second string leader he could control himself; as a first team call-up he could not.
Nowt as queer as folk though, was there?
Normally Lorna and Matt shared the same bed three or four times a week. During the recent summer break they'd lived together for four whole weeks, spending a lusty fortnight "house minding" while her parents were away in Fuerteventura, and then yet another two weeks minding his parents' place while they were in Florida.
What an experience that had been! The "L" word had never been mentioned but they'd become closer than ever. And their relationship had always been tender. In spite of his behaviour on the rugby pitch, aggression was never an issue between them. Well, if anyone was overly aggressive it had been her, making urgent demands out of nowhere in the early hours . . . and never taking no for an answer.
In summary everything had been going swimmingly. Her first serious boyfriend honoured and obeyed her and they regularly reached the very heights of rapture. Better still, they could reach those heights in union, several times a night.
What more could a girl ask for . . . apart from wedding bells and two or three babies?
But then came yesterday, and everything changed.
*****
They'd spent the previous night in Lorna's bed and walked to uni together, calling in at a newsagent's shop as they passed. And, while she was dithering over the glossy mags, a would-be robber came in, brandishing an enormous knife and demanding money.
Matt reacted by grabbing her arm and pulling her deeper into the shop, away from confrontation, into a small group of other terrified customers. Fully expecting him to then react like he usually would on a rugby pitch, she went willingly enough.
He'll see me safe and sound and then he'll crush the ugly fat bastard, she'd thought.
And Matt could have, she was certain of that. The robber was large, fifteen stones or more, but out of his tree. Anybody could see that he was drugged up to the eyeballs. She'd regularly seen Matt smash guys his size, and deadly sober ones at that. Hell, she'd regularly seen him take on two, three or four opponents single-handedly. And he always won . . . if not always in the full opinion of the card-waving referee.
But not that time. That time he kept hold of Lorna's arm and cowered with everyone else, as far away from the action as could be.
Well, not absolutely everyone else . . .
The fellow-student she now knew to be Heather Hunter was no coward. Neither was Mr Khan behind the counter, on the receiving end of vile threats and the vicious slash of that terrifying blade.
Acting while others shivered and quite possibly crapped themselves, Heather put down her purchases almost routinely then attacked the robber from his blind side, karate-chopping him, slamming his wrist onto the counter, and hard at that, instantly disarming him in the process.
Knifeless, roaring foul insults, he charged at her. She threw him over a rack of papers and magazines.
Then, while Matt quaked and quivered like a scared little boy, Heather calmly advised the robber to go before she seriously hurt him.
