Alain was quiet for a while, sipping his drink, while Hannah leaned her head against the wall with her eyes shut.

"Hannah, you asleep there or something?" Alain asked eventually.

"No."

"Okay." Alain looked around the room. He cleared his throat.

"Oh, god . . ." Hannah groaned when she heard him. "You're gonna ask me something and I'm gonna have to open my aren't I?"

"Well . . ."

"Oh, get on with it then." Hannah opened her eyes and leaned forward to take a swig of her cocktail.

Alain waved his arm around the room. "Can you tell . . ." he asked, unsure of how to phrase it, "Can you tell, just by looking, which of these girls here is straight, and which isn't?"

Hannah looked at him. She was tired so she decided to leave the lecture about the stereotyping of sexual preferences for another time. She looked around the room.

She pursed her lips in a little smile. "Well I know she's not" she said, indicating a tall blonde woman by the bar. Hannah's smile broadened into a smirk. "Last time I checked, anyway."

Alain looked at the woman. "Okay, but I mean the ones you don't know."

Hannah's smile faded. "What's the point of this exercise?" she sighed.

"I'm curious."

"You want to find out which girls here you have a chance with, don't you?"

"Maybe . . ."

Hannah shook her head. She took another sip of her drink and turned to Alain. "Sit down, my child" she said in a deliberately patronising manner.

"I am sitting down."

Hannah stopped what she was about to say. "It's a figure of speech." She continued: "Now, I'm gonna tell you something. I move in slightly different circles from you, and I can tell you that not everyone in this happy little gay and lesbian fantasy-land that you seem to think I live in can be identified immediately. Now it's true that sometimes you can tell straight away, but there are just as many times when you can't. Okay? We're just people for fuck's sake."

"Okay, okay, I'm just asking." Alain took another sip of his drink "Hey I'm almost out. Wanna buy me a second round?"