When we first drove into Madrid we stopped off to visit some friends of my friends before going to our hotel. It was very evident that the friends were openly lesbian. I looked around the room. The red-haired friend, Paci was on the sofa cuddled up to a small woman with a basin haircut and neat trousers with a pleated front. Pilar was perched on the arm of Mercedes chair. There was another fat, butch woman who talked about wind-surfing and smiled at me, and the very cute, very boyish Irma.

The unknowns were mounting, as I tried to figure out through the gist of the conversation, which was all my ability with the language gave me, the subtexts and undercurrents of the room. Did this mean that my friends were also gay and that it was something so obvious they'd simply never mentioned it? But how could I have missed it? And what then, did they assume about me?

When the woman with the basin cut had to leave, she pulled on a leather jacket, pushed back her hair a little and was suddenly transformed from neat secretary/earnest lesbian to urchin bulldyke. Quite suddenly I felt myself quite drawn in to the spirit of things. I looked at the large woman who was still flashing a come-hither smile and felt rather intimidated, but then I looked at Irma. In a flash I decided that if it came down to it, I would take Irma, and be well off into the bargain.

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