Disclamer: All characters belong to the owners, producers etc of the "L Word." This story does not make a profit in anyway.

Paring: Cherie Jaffe and Shane M.

Warning: This story is rated M, depicts a relationship of a sexual nature between two consenting adult female characters. There will be mentions of substance abuse, infidelity, explicit sexual content, as well as some offensive/racist talk (kept to a minimum) and dubious consent within an heterosexual relation (very brief and not very explicit)

Author's notes: This is another Cherie Jaffe POV, dealing with her feelings for Shane and her dislike of Carmen. This would take place a few days after the unforgettable "pool scene". It is based on the idea that Cherie never really got over Shane and has somehow kept an eye on her all this time. It tries to shed some light over where has Cherie been all this time and why has she returned and searched for Shane.

Comments, criticism etcetera are deeply appreciated. Hope you enjoy this story

Such an insane idea in such an ugly world

Reflections

White wine glass on the counter-top, she sits contemplating herself in the mirror. She was still beautiful, but once upon a time, she had been gorgeous... An epitome of temptation on red stiletto heels in her twenties - she could had anyone and everyone if she so desired.

Still, the years were merciful on their toll, although to be fair, she did spend great sums of time and money to tend to her looks. She hated when she was complimented as "beautiful for her age" it was pretty much the same as saying "you're so thin for a walrus"... "looked dignified" another hated term, as if she were an old monument in need of minor restoration.. a relic of past aesthetics...

Her hand twitches before reaching the wine glass, never take her eyes of the mirror. Here and there, well hidden as they may be, were the telltale signs of aging. She denies them, she loathes them but they remain victoriously mocking her. In moments like this she finds herself wondering "would it have been any different if she were younger?"

Maybe she would have run. Eloped straight into poverty, losing her birthrights to "shack up" with a girl. Would her parents even have let her? Their only child and heir a renegade deviant...they would have hunted her down to the corners of the Earth. But maybe she would have tried anyway.. she was more hopeful back then, less bitter less jaded.

As it was, she to this day still has nightmares about their conversation. The way she could see the girl's heart break... right there in front of her. But she wasn't kidding.. he really would have killed her. Her bastard of an ex, had money and power enough to hurt her beyond repair, to kill her even without breaking a sweat or staining his shirt. She swallows back a sob remembering what she had to do to appease him. To diffuse his murderous intentions. Of course it had been a passing fancy, how could a little dyke of a girl be any match for a "real man" like him?

It took a lot of alcohol to endure the longest minutes of her life. And afterwards, endless showers crying alone on the cold tiled floor.

The only thing as painful was getting Shane to believe that what they had had was nothing compared to houses in East Hampton, black tie galas and trips abroad. But she knew the stubborn girl would never back off if she knew of her feelings.
And then of course, there had been her daughter Clea's infatuation with Shane.

Cherie might be a cold heartless bitch, God knows she had done quite enough to earn the title and it was a reputation that she lived up to. But she was a mother. It was one of the most shattering moments of her life. The way her daughter looked at her when she figured it out that her love interest was in love with her own mother... it made her whole world freeze in place.

With Steve, she didn't really care about what he thought of her, like he didn't care about what she thought about him, as long as appearances were kept and marital obligations upheld on occasion - one of the perks of their lifestyle was that there weren't many occasions to be alone together and in the mood. Specially if you could bourbon your husband to sleep.

All her rage at Shane, hitting her, sobbing like mad – for a moment she really had believed, knowing of Shane reputation, that she had already moved on to find a new conquest. In her cold calculating mind it even had made plain sense... she had already gotten closer to a wealthy family, why not take the chance of "marrying into it", and with some much leverage over her future in-law... But one look at the girl that stormed straight into her house, desperate, crying begging her case, holding her tight in her arms while she slapped and hit wildly at her, and she knew the girl was true to her. She often hoped that she hadn't been, that she had proved to be just a scheming gold-digger after her money. It would have been so much easier to deal with that kind of pain.

How could she have done that to her daughter? How could she consider staying with the girl that Clea loved with the maddening obsession of youth? She would lose her position, her status, her money – although with the dirt she had on her beloved husband.. that might have not been so much of a problem, since she was sure there were things Steve would gladly negotiate to avoid scandal and even jail... But to lose Clea, who would surely never forgive her.

She did take the girl to Paris, then Rome and England. The latter for her to enroll in one of the best universities. For quite sometime their relationship had remained strained, bitter and hateful specially on Clea's part, but truth to be told, she also had felt resentful at her daughter for ruining what she had with Shane, and even a certain jealousy for knowing the feelings she harbored.

During this time, Steve had been on and off with them as usual, always on pursuit of business connections, he had hired a young bookkeeper in Paris, to help him manage things, a young pretty and ambitious little creature that Cherie would soon be grateful for, once she started sensing that the affair would not take the usual course of her husband's liaisons with his bodacious female staff...

As soon as they moved to England, Steve's visits started to gradually dwindle and become few and far between, even for his usual. Cherie herself had fit in better in England, having met and befriended Peggy Peabody and her daughter Helena, she took a bit more to the elder Peabody and to Helena's wife Winnie. Helena was a bit too naive and almost as petulant as a child,for her liking but still, as they say, she had the looks to pull it off.

Peggy Peabody was however a great company to have around, and they had quite a few interests in common. The woman was considering at the time to make an investment in art overseas,and was considering the US, and Cherie remembered a Porter woman that curated an art Gallery, maybe they were looking for new patrons – these places always are since they cannot live on the artists...

It was also in England that Clea found the new love of her life, a young ambitious red haired girl with beautiful green eyes. Her approval was instant as soon as she saw the smile on her daughter's face, something that she hadn't seen in a while and feared to have been gone for good. She was thankful that times had changed since her youth, and that her daughter would not incur on the prejudice and persecution that would have awaited her by pursuing a relationship with another women, even if they were of the same status. Homosexual relations were not conducive to conceiving children, and after all children were the assurance of lineage, legacy and all that the elite so strives to preserve. She still recalled the horror stories of girls that had tried to face the music back in the day and did not elope.. awful sadistic tales of torture passed as "treatment" on shady hushed clinics, and even "corrective therapies" that would make any woman prefer the electric chair.

Steve's approval of his daughter's suitor was also instant – he instantly approved after checking the girl's background! Connections to royalty, her family reeked of old money, complete with ownership of property on a Loch or Lach in God-knows-where-and-how-its-pronounced, Scotland. Not a "slum hairstylist" as he had put it, and as she had sadly recalled... how she missed her.

She had of course, secretly kept tabs on the girl, having a private detective checking on her now and then, at first to make sure that her husband kept his promise of leaving the girl alone, and afterwards , well she just couldn't resist it. She even had a little informant, of sorts, and older women hellbent on pursuing an acting career – which she could help to a certain extent. This woman Lenora, was the mother of one of Shane friends, Alicia or Alice... And since both mother and daughter had an natural penchant for gossip, everything felt neatly into place. She would casually contact Lenora to check on her career, and would innocently ask about that daughter of hers and her inseparable gang of friends, and from there discreetly direct conversation to a particular friend...

It pained her to know the suffering Shane was enduring, the need to embrace the oblivion of drugs and liquor and anything in between that might offer sanctuary against conscious thought.

Cherie herself had sought it, Paris and Rome had been outlets of her excess and debauchery, at time giving herself to every feeling and pleasure, other times seeking desperately the drug and alcohol induced numbness of all senses.

She had learned some restraint in England, not only with the help of the presence of Peggy, who was at times almost a mother, and did not care for such excess – at least not frequently. And also, sensing her impending divorce she prepared herself in order not to give anything Steve's lawyers might use against her, or to turn her hard earned daughter's trust against her.

She took solace on every treasured bit of information that she could get, about Shane, her sadness, her excess, the countless and nameless one night-stands, and to her surprise, she started hearing about some mexican girl that was her girlfriend?! At first she thought Lenora was mistaken, but soon enough pictures of the girl with Shane and consistent rumors emerged. Well since she was read y to return to the States, she would have to check this out for herself.