I watch her as she leaves for the day, putting on her coat, laughing and joking with Kevin and Janet. Apparently, they are planning to go out for drinks and forget to invite Godzilla, as they frequently do. She is looking breathtakingly beautiful as usual, her dark hair in ringlets and black eyes flashing with mirth. I try my best to concentrate on the files I´m supposed to be filling out about the case we just solved, but my brain has gone blank. All I can think of are her hands as they run over my body, her soft lips against mine, the way she moans when she comes...
"Boss?" Rachel is standing in my doorway, I was too immersed in my thoughts to notice her.
"Yes?" I turn to her, take off my glasses and rub my temples. Instead of replying, Rachel moves behind my desk and cradles my cheek with her hand. I quickly turn to look out the windows of the office and note that everyone is gone. I relax visibly and allow Rachel to direct my face back into her line of vision.
"Can I come over later?"
"Last night wasn´t enough for you?" I arch an eyebrow questioningly.
"No," the brunette teases me, allowing her thumb to gently caress my cheekbone. I nod in response and promptly her hand falls to her side. She turns away and walks out the door, following the others.
When Rachel is gone, once her footsteps have faded out, is the time I am consumed by the emptiness of her exodus. I feel her absence almost like a painful physical disability, like a knife stabbing at my chest. I struggle to catch my breath. When she is near, sitting at her table within my field of vision, I can breathe easily once again.
I lean back in my chair and think back on the night it all started.
Rachel and I had been staying in a hotel due to our interrogating a scum of a serial killer called Jeremy Leach. We sat up one night in her room discussing the case and in the middle of an arguement about guilt and innocence where we were polar opposites, as in so many other cases, Rachel leaned in and kissed me. I was taken aback to say the least, and made a quick escape, pleading some excuse or another as to why I couldn´t stay. After fortifying myself with a few drinks down at the hotel bar, I made a rash decision. I had been attracted to Rachel since the moment she had joined MIT and at the moment, both of us were single. A consensual shag between two willing adults never hurt anyone, did it? I knew I could trust Rachel not to tell anyone. Therefore, I headed up to her room and knocked on the door. She answered the door in her silken teddy. The night is a blur after that. It was only afterwards I realized Rachel wouldn´t ordinarily have packed such an item of clothing if she wasn´t sure she was getting laid. Damn, sometimes I hated being so easy to read.
What had been supposed to be a merely one night shag had exploded into something quite beyond my control. We had continued to see one another after that night in the hotel, a silent agreement was made between both of us to not discuss our encounters outside the walls of the bedroom. Sammy lived with his father at the moment, and therefore Rachel could come over unobstructed. The pace of our encounters had gradually come to change. In the beginning, Rachel would merely come over, we would shag, she would get dressed and leave. Then she started stopping longer for tea, coffee or a nightcap before going home. For the last month or so, she had been staying the night four times a week. Last night, she had been at my house before I was, letting herself in with my hidden spare key and used my kitchen to make us dinner. She kept it hot until I came home at midnight, tired after doing endless battles with idiot Dave. We ate together in companionable silence and I found myself thinking that perhaps it could always be like this. This morning, I awoke with Rachel cradled in my arms, whereas usually we slept on our side of the bed, backs turned to one another.
A further change was the physical contact between us. At the beginning, we had only touched one another for sexual purposes, to get off. Kissing had been a rare occurence between us if we weren´t in the middle of a shag, but now Rachel would kiss me before handing me coffee or leaving in the mornings. She would cradle my cheek with her hand as we spoke or rest her head onto my shoulder when we watched movies together. When we were alone in the car heading to a scene, she would often reach over and put her hand on my knee. I revelled in these moments, this illusion of being loved.
A knock on my door startled me out of my reverie. In the doorway stood Julie Dodson, my best friend. Her hands were crossed over her chest and she was glaring at me. "What the hell are you playing at, Gill?"
It took me a moment from the anger in her face to gather the fact she had seen Rachel and me interacting earlier.
I was stunned into silence as Julie closed my door behind her and sat down on one of the chairs across the desk from my own. "You´re playing with fire. How long before she babbles, the entire department finds out and you get the sack?"
"I know." It was all I could say.
"You aren´t only risking your own job but the future of this syndicate should anyone find out. The press and lawyers would have a field day if they got hold of this information. All the bastards you convicted together might have the chance to get their sentences revoked, seeing as there was clearly conflict of interest." Julie leaned forward. "I hope you have a darn good reason for risking everything we´ve worked for all these years. Give me one reason for not marching down and reporting you to the Chief Con right now."
I looked into Julie´s piercing blue eyes and the words came to me easily, even though I´d never said them before. "I love her."
Julie sat back in her chair, this time she being the one stunned into silence. "Well, I never..." Then she stopped, unable to even finish the sentence.
The red-head finally seemed to gather her thoughts enough to comment quietly on the situation at hand. "I didn´t even know you were gay."
"Neither did I until I met Rachel." I had flings in high school with girls, nothing more serious than a little hanky panky, but decided to give that up once I joined the academy since it was frowned upon, and it was difficult enough to be a woman in the police force without adding homosexuality to the mix. Then I met Dave, got up the duff and we decided to get hitched. I never questioned it because I thought that was what people did.
"She´s changed you, hasn´t she?" I nod in response and Julie gives a sardonic smile. "Who would have thought Gill Murray could ever fall in love?"
I move to sit in the chair beside Julie. "We´ve spent our lives in service to the system. This job has sucked every last drop of blood from my veins. I lost my husband, my son. I gave it all up for this." I wave my hand around the office for emphasis.
"I save people on a daily basis. Yet, if I´m stabbed I will bleed. I´m not a fucking superhero. If I´m hurt, I´ll retalitate. I´m only human, not a fucking robot. Now, I´ve found something that gives me, if not a sense of peace, at least the illusion of it. The ties upstairs would take even that away?"
"They take everything away, and when you have given all, they will demand even more." Julie Dodson had been a happy mother of two when she signed up to join the police force. Five years in, her hubby got sick of it and left, taking the kids with him. They lived in Scotland somewhere, rarely saw their mum and Julie´s only comfort was to buy shoes and her Spanish toyboy, Diello.
Julie took my hand and squeezed it. "You know it won´t last?"
I nodded. "When she finds someone else more exciting I´ll bow out with the little grace I have left."
"I think you know what to do." She pats my hand reassuringly before letting go.
"Yes." I recognise what Julie wants me to do, and yet, for me it is unthinkable.
My friend arises from her chair, stops in the doorway to shoot me a wave and a comforting smile and is gone.
As I drive home, Julie´s words ring in my ears and I recognise their truth. By continuing this illicit affair, I´m not only endangering my own career and Rachel´s, but putting the credibility of the whole syndicate at risk. By the time I park outside my house, I am certain of what I must do.
I enter the house, and like yesterday, Rachel is already there with takeout. We eat in companionable silence and I retire to my study to catch up on some work while Rachel does the dishes. When she is done, she seeks me out in my refuge.
I hear her footsteps in the hallway and turn my leather chair around to face the door as it opens.
I look at my lover, her face framed by the electrical light in the hall. "This´ll never work, will it?"
"No," returns Rachel. "I could never love an old bugger like you."
She enters the room, closes the door behind her. She walks up to me and straddles me in the chair. "You can always dump me," she suggests.
Her dark eyes meet mine and I recognise this is a test. She is calling my bluff and she knows it. At one time, I could have conquered the world. Now, I don´t have the courage or the will to refuse her.
Rachel smiles as she leans down and plants her lips onto mine. Soon, she is out of the chair, pulling down my pants and all coherent thought is lost as her head disappears between my legs.
An hour later we are lying in my bed, Rachel is lying with her head on my arm. I look down on her sleeping face and know true contentment in that moment. One last thought occurrs to me before I fall asleep.
Even stupid old buggers have their rays of sunshine.