They’d bought a flat together, talked about getting married. How could it all unravel like this? Blaming it on a lack of sex was a huge cop-out, but it was all Max could handle right now. She wasn’t ready to face what she knew, deep down inside, was really wrong. So she had focused on the lack of sex and wondered if there was something she could do about that. Maybe, if she could get this out of her system, she and Sue would be okay.

She’d discovered the club purely by chance. After a late night at work, heading home on the Tube through the West End, she’d picked up a magazine left on a seat. The front featured two women in a semi-naked embrace. It was a gay magazine, one she’d never even heard of, such was her distance from the scene since finding committed bliss with Sue. She flicked through it as her train trundled on and came across an article. She’d read every word and found herself surprisingly turned on by the descriptions of the clubs. Clubs that offered a new variation on the darkroom scene—for women, by women.

Over the next few days, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the article. One club in particular, located in Manchester, was seared into her brain. She’d deliberately not registered the names of the two clubs in London—she’d never take the risk of running into someone she or Sue knew. The one in Manchester sounded like it was a cut above what she expected—classier, if that were possible. It even had a code of conduct to ensure that everyone had a fun yet safe time. After tormented thoughts that kept her awake over many nights, she finally took a minute to look it up on Google Maps. It was centrally located, easy to get to from a train into Piccadilly station, if one was travelling up from London.

Another few weeks of thinking about it. Another few weeks of doubts and questions with very few answers. Another few weeks of getting herself off in the shower in the morning. Another few weeks of justifying the plan to go—she wouldn’t really be cheating on Sue if it was anonymous… If it was just a quick fuck… If it was just to scratch an itch…

It would be fulfilling a need, similar to the way eating a meal fulfilled hunger. It would be getting this damn sex thing out of the way, once and for all, so that she could focus on what was important between her and Sue.

Too bad she couldn’t quite remember what that was.