Effie could lose herself in a puzzle like the best of them, even if Hanna always seemed more intense about them; but Effie only half-heard the question from where she was busy sorting certain pieces into smaller piles, and looked up curiously as she digested it.

Scandalous. Effie paused, brow furrowing slightly in spite of herself. She did not have any experience with scandal, nor condoned it – but she was determined, always, to be a good influence on her friends. So she could surely indulge a question.

“Ask me anything,” she said, purposely light, head tilting to observe Hanna, “as long as you don’t presume that I have all the answers. I’m – not an expert.” (She presumed.)

---

Effie – didn’t know what she had been expecting, but that had not been it.

She startled where she was sitting, eyes widening at Hanna, who was... all academic curiosity, it looked like. Where in God’s name had this come from?

Effie feigned confusion and a cough, the latter mostly because it felt like her throat had closed up in absolute betrayal. “What do you mean, being with?” she asked, cautiously. Her friend might have a habit of directness, but it would be worse if she was mistaken, and Hanna wasn’t actually asking about...that.

---

She must be sweating. She felt as if she were sweating, but sitting in this discomfort she was suddenly too aware of herself in general – second-guessing every instinct to flinch or blink or avert her gaze or shift in place, in case Hanna made something of it. Fortunately, Hanna glancing down gave her enough courage to actually answer.

“Yes,” Effie said finally, putting the words together as carefully as she had been selecting puzzle pieces, “I’ve heard of that. Of, er, people who – prefer their own sex.” She was trying to be matter-of-fact, because – Hanna had said men, after all, so she clearly wasn’t – like Effie in that way, or aware of Effie’s preferences. (This was a relief, of course, but also – perhaps – vaguely disappointing? Not that she liked Hanna that way, but she wasn’t... unattracted.) She shoved these thoughts down, and instead tilted her head worriedly. “... why do you ask?”

---

“You probably shouldn’t listen to gossip,” Effie said, soberly; as far as she could tell, gossip never did anyone much good. Still – she decided that if this was the kind of thing Hanna was hearing, it was far better Hanna was talking to her than to anyone else. So, in spite of her mild scolding (and because – privately – she was unusually invested in this particular gossip), she asked, “Well, what else did they say?”

---

Why was Hanna smiling about this? And why was she making those gestures?! “Hanna,” Effie said, wide-eyed, trying to sound appropriately horrified and scandalised by her; but as she swatted Hanna’s arm gently, she couldn’t quite keep a straight face either. Better that her friends were too invested in other people’s scandals than in getting into their own, after all... in spite of Hanna and Annie’s best efforts to get into trouble, Effie was still perhaps more liable of ruining herself in society’s eyes, if she was ever indiscreet.

“I don’t know what men do,” Effie started emphatically, trying to shake her head (and shake the awful mental image she now had), but she also couldn’t bring herself to shut down the conversation by simply lying to Hanna, either. “But I know there are more ways to – er, be intimate – than the – usual way, for procreation.” They were close friends, but this was a new degree of mortifying – Effie could feel her face burning. “And I suppose there are... other,” she coughed, “...orifices?”

---

Effie spluttered audibly at Hanna’s knowing tongues, forgetting to feign the appropriate confusion at the idea. “Excuse me, how do you –” she began in surprise, and then, realising her voice had gone to a higher pitch, dropped to a whisper, “know about tongues?”

Effie knew enough of the mechanics of the expected intercourse between a man and wife – her mother had informed her plainly years ago, back when she’d first had vague hopes of marriage – to think this odd. And she knew something about these other variations on illicit activities because she had supposed them principally inverted, in the peculiar way that she was. So she hadn’t thought such things would apply much to Hanna’s case, because – well, she had always assumed heterosexual men just didn’t have the inclination or the creativity for that sort of thing.

---