Chapter 13

Settling into a new city felt strange, after all these years living in London. Things had definitely changed, and it felt odd to try and reenter circles that she'd stepped away from a decade before.

But a large number of her university friends still lived in Brighton, and they welcomed Rachel back with open arms.

And besides, she hardly had time to consider how scary a new beginning was, because so much of her time was taken up with planning for the Littles' Market.

Cat had handed over the topic of vendors to Rach, and she'd thrown herself into it wholeheartedly. Isla's referrals—Wyn, Aubrey and Skylar—had all been super enthusiastic about the prospect of being involved, and Morgan—Susie's kink carpentry recommendation—had sounded surprised, but pleased to be invited.

One of her friends from university, Emma, had set up a jewelry business, and made day collars on the side, and she seemed a perfect fit, and very keen to have a stall.

Then it was a matter of speaking to friends, getting recommendations, and trawling through a whole load of websites and FetLife profiles to find vendors with the right kind of vibe. They'd added a corset designer, and someone who made onesies and baby clothes for adults, before Cat pointed out that they needed some more stalls that weren't just Little- specific.

In the end Rachel managed to find vendors specializing in rope, floggers, harnesses, pet play and sex toys who were all openly queer. It was shaping up to be a really fun event, and she was looking forward to meeting everyone in person and possibly spending too much of her own money at each and every stall.

Even with all the organizing, Cat and Rachel found that it was pretty hard sorting everything else out on their own, and Emma had offered to help.

"I don't really have any experience with Littles," she said. "Other than the two of you, I'm not sure I've even met any before, but I imagine that we're going to need to have some fairly strict rules about behavior and dress codes. It's on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of Brighton, and you don't want the businesses surrounding the hall to complain. That's the biggest problem with events like this—the neighbors are always way too nosy, and then equally as outraged when they discover what's going on."

That made sense, especially when Rachel considered how some of the venue managers had responded to their proposals. "So perhaps we need a changing space? That way people can change if they wish to, without causing wider consternation in the community."

Cat mumbled something about fragile vanillas needing to get a life, but she was half joking and agreed to the proposal.

That meant going back to Tel and working out how to manage that aspect of it.

"We've got individual toilets in the basement," said Tel. "There's about 20 of them and they're all single-entry rooms, and are all-gendered, so that might work?"

"And we'll need one of your security guards working that area as well then, just in case of any issues—you know what some people can be like," Cat pointed out.

"I think," said Rachel, "that if transphobes attend this event, with all the marketing and packaging that I'm doing, then they will be well aware of the kind of space this is, so we need to prepare for the fact that they might try and crash it with the intention of causing issues."

It was a risk that they were all aware of, especially with the proposed new school guidance fanning the flames of transphobic rhetoric; banning any discussion about gender identity in schools felt like a return to Section 28, when it was illegal to ‘promote' gay activity in schools and thousands of teachers in the 90s were forced back into the closet or face losing their jobs.

"We have a responsibility to our attendees," agreed Cat. "We need to make sure that this is a safe and inclusive space, and that means being hypervigilant about the kind of attention that it might attract."

Emma, who'd worked with a couple of other queer kinky events in London, had helped sort out the ticket sales online, and they'd made sure that it said everywhere that it was a ticketed event and attendees needed to bring id with them.

"There'll be people on the doors, both at the entrance to the venue, and at the main entrance to the hall," Tel had pointed out. "We've got this."

The four of them were in a pub garden, having some lemonade in the sunshine, although Rachel was sat beneath a large garden umbrella, trying to keep out of the sun so she didn't burn.

"I think it's the intersection between queerness and kink," said Emma, thoughtfully. "One thing inflames one group of people, and the other another. Together it's potentially explosive, but that doesn't mean that we're going to give in to bigots."

It had been a while since Rachel had been part of a conversation that felt so charged. She hadn't thought of the Littles' Market as particularly radical when she and Cat came up with the plan, but she saw now that being so explicitly inclusive was making a statement. And it was a statement she was fully behind.

"Well, we want everyone in our community to be welcome, and we have trans and nonbinary vendors, so we have to make sure that their safety is prioritized." She sighed. "How crap is it, that this is a key part of our event planning?"

"it's good that you're considering it though," said Tel. "I often have to explain so much of this to events, and it gets exhausting explaining day after day how my government wants to pretend that people like me aren't around. That they think that my mere existence is so terrible that it shouldn't be discussed in schools."

Rachel hugged them impetuously, and they smiled at her ruefully. "Thanks. Let's talk about something else. What are everyone's plans for the weekend?"

Cat was going to a music festival, Emma was working at a craft fair, and Rachel?

"Isla's coming down for the weekend," she said, trying not to blush.

The others all made appropriate teasing noises.

"It seems like she practically lives down here on the weekend," said Cat.

"Yeah," said Rachel. "It's really nice. She tried to give me a bit of money toward the bills as well, because she's round so often, but I pointed out that she's got the travel costs."

"Don't you go up there, at all?"

"Not really." Rach had been feeling funny about that, but Isla had reassured her that she much rather come down and stay with Rach.

"I can drive," Isla'd said. "You don't want the hassle and expense of having to deal with trains."

"How do you feel about her coming down all the time?"

"It's actually lovely, but whenever she leaves I get a bit sad. It's so lush, playing house together, that when it comes to an end and she has to go home all those miles away, it's pretty difficult."

"So what you're saying," said Cat, "is that you want her to move to Brighton."

"No no!" said Rachel. "I could never ask her to do that."

Emma, Cat and Tel all exchanged looks. "Why not?"

"Because moving to a new city, just because you're dating someone, isn't a good idea. It can go wrong, and when it does…"

It had been awful. Rachel had actually met Isla because she'd been crying in the supermarket, and Isla had walked over, taken her shopping, and let her cry on her shoulder.

Rachel remembered looking into those green eyes through eyes brimming with tears, and blinking said tears away to see if those eyes could actually be that green.

"You are not your ex," said Cat. "And you and Isla are in a solid relationship; I don't think she'd hate the idea."

"Maybe not," said Rachel, "but it has to come from her. I can't push her into doing something that she might regret."