Chapter Twenty: Let Us Give Thanks
1.
"Are you busy?" Brenda asked, her voice reverently hushed, as if they were in a church instead of standing on Sharon's porch.
The older woman thought of saying yes, just for spite – but that would be a classic case of cutting off her nose to spite her face if ever there was one. She was busy eating the entirety of a pumpkin pie and downing red wine from the bottle while she watched Sophie's Choice, the most depressing film ever made and one that never failed to make her cry. She'd been welling up when the doorbell had rung, partly thanks to Meryl, but largely due to her own self-disgust. She was throwing herself a big ol' pity party, complete with engraved invitations, and while she couldn't seem to stop it, she was also rabidly angry with herself. For the hundred thousandth time in the last month she thought, This is not who I am. This is not what I do.
But it was, wasn't it? And she was doing it.
The willowy blonde was clearly taken aback by the fury snapping in those green eyes, and she hovered in the doorway like a child fascinated by a house fire and unable to run away. "Is it a bad time?"
"No worse than any other," Sharon snapped, and as brown eyes widened she grabbed Brenda by both arms and yanked her into the house, slamming the door.
"I missed you," Brenda began in a small, lost voice, and Sharon growled, "Shut up." She slammed their mouths together, kissing the smaller woman so forcefully that it hurt them both and she tasted the unmistakable metallic tang of blood.
Brenda's eyes widened hugely for an instant, like those of a terrified horse, and then she threw her head back, offering herself up as she grasped hard at the captain's sides.
That they were both desperate was painfully obvious. Brenda's shaking hands fumbled with the fine tooled leather belt encircling Sharon's hips, yanking awkwardly, as Sharon bypassed her mouth and bit at the tendon at the base of the blonde's slender neck. Her teeth abraded, her tongue stroked roughly, and fuck, Brenda was right here and she tasted as good as Sharon remembered – better – her floral perfume barely blanketing the spicy-clean tang of the soap she'd used, and Sharon wanted to devour her. Her tongue tingled and she opened her mouth wide, her teeth sinking into that pale cool flesh as she sucked hard, not giving a damn about politeness, half wanting to mark the deputy chief.
"Sharon," Brenda moaned, and then again, drawing her name out into a protest, a curse, a blessing. "Sharon." The long slender fingers at the taller woman's waist stilled, and then slid to grasp her hips, hanging on for dear life.
Everything inside Sharon swam red and hazy with heat and anger and lust and longing, and she needed to scream. She thrust her hand under Brenda's skirt, rucking it up around her thighs, her fingers diving inside the lacy scrap of the other woman's panties to palm the bare globe of her ass. Her skin was so hot that Sharon gasped, and Brenda took advantage of the moment to wedge one of her thighs between Sharon's and grind forcefully into her.
It wasn't enough, just a taunting reminder that what Sharon's body had been clamoring for during the last ten days was right here in her arms. Sharon's fingers throbbed with frustration and her core clenched tightly, and she knocked Brenda's ineffectual hands away on a swell of impotent fury. She grabbed at the button of her own trousers with clumsy, unnecessary force and heard it hit the floor, then jerked the zipper down and stripped her pants and underwear off together to tangle at her feet. Brenda's palm immediately slid along the curve of Sharon's thigh, insinuating itself between Brenda's own thigh and the juncture of the dark-haired woman's legs, trailing up to cup Sharon possessively. Sharon felt the muscles of her buttocks tremble and tighten responsively, and before her knees could buckle Brenda had spun them around and Sharon felt the cold, smooth wood of her front door pressing against her back.
Her heart pounding so violently that she felt dizzy, Sharon looked down at herself and whimpered in humiliation. Her feet were still tangled in her trousers, her muscles straining against the fabric bonds as she splayed her thighs as widely as she could, her hips giving violent little jerks she was powerless to stop as she moved against Brenda's hand, wordlessly begging those fingers to move, to stroke her, to enter her, to do anything to ease the urgent ache of sensitive nerve endings. Where had this come from, this sudden desperation? The captain felt a pang of self-loathing – where was proud, superior, insolent Captain Raydor? Who was this pathetic woman writhing against a door, all dignity forgotten as she begged her married superior officer to fuck her? – at exactly the same moment that she felt the thick, liquid rush of her arousal coating her where she was already wet, where she'd been wet since the moment she looked out and saw Brenda Leigh's car in her driveway.
Brenda's free arm tightened around her hips, lifting her ass away from the door and bending her backward until she was able to nuzzle into Sharon's breasts without losing that warm, wonderful place between her legs. Unwilling to change positions or take the time to dispense with buttons and layers, she bit at Sharon's nipple through her shirt and bra, and Sharon's own sharp cry filled her ears. A quick tingle of pain was replaced by a long, lingering throb of arousal, and Sharon tugged at Brenda's hair, but the other woman refused to budge. Her mouth moved to Sharon's other breast and she repeated the same treatment, biting and then sucking hard and then biting again, and Sharon realized that Brenda was completely holding her up now, that if she loosened her grip on the captain's waist Sharon would slide down to the floor. That was bad. This whole situation was bad, and she didn't trust Brenda to hold her up, not really, but at least the fingers between her legs had finally begun to move, gently toying with the oh-so-sensitive flesh just outside the entrance to her body.
She was going to come, she realized with perfect, shameful clarity. Just from that touch and the relentless working of her nipple, because she was so ready and so needy and so pathetic, because Brenda could do anything to her, could make her do anything, awful things, things that made her hate herself and attempt to hate Brenda. God damn it, Brenda didn't even have to try to make her come.
"Now," Sharon demanded, her fingernails raking across Brenda's back beneath her sweater, perhaps breaking the delicate skin. "Fuck, now."
Brenda stopped what she was doing just long enough to jerk her sweater over her head, yanking it into an impossible shape from which it would never recover, and then her hand was back, two fingers driving into Sharon's body as the other woman rode her palm. She pressed tightly into the cradle of Sharon's hips, leveraging her body against her own hand and driving it between her legs as she rocked into Sharon's body.
"Please," Sharon heard her whimper. "Please, I need –"
Almost vengefully, Sharon shoved the crotch of the blonde's panties out of the way and thrust two fingers into her, all the way in, harder than she'd ever dared to before. Brenda cried out, rough and guttural, and Sharon felt her tense with pain before she began to move, slamming her hips into the other woman's rough strokes. "More," she gasped.
Sharon added a third finger, twisting them, and Brenda rubbed hard at Sharon's clit, her knuckles bumping her own at the same time. Sharon tingled as if she'd been jolted with electricity, hot and cold and unpleasant, and her legs began to tremble uncontrollably. She gasped soundlessly, and Brenda's eyes fastened on hers from inches away as her muscles began to contract painfully around those thin, delicate fingers. Brenda slammed her hips into Sharon's, trapping her had in the hot, wet place between them, and then they were coming together, eyes wide open and staring, breathing harsh. It was too much and Sharon felt totally exposed, wishing she was somewhere else, that Brenda couldn't see her this way, that she wasn't this way.
They sank to the rug in a tangle of weak, trembling limbs, Sharon's pants and underwear still around her feet, her blouse open and her bra yanked down to display her breasts, Brenda in her bra and skirt. Sharon's head bumped the door and her elbow landed on the wooden floor. It was cold.
"Get up," Sharon managed after a moment when she was reasonably confident that her legs would support her. "Let me get up. This is uncomfortable."
Brenda disengaged her body and her clothing from Sharon's and awkwardly scuttled backward, like a crab. Sharon pushed herself into a standing position, grabbing the door handle for support, and it vaguely occurred to her that it would be entirely appropriate if the door flew open under her weight and she fell out onto her porch in this state.
Fortunately the latch was sturdy, even if its owner wasn't. Sharon righted her bra with stiff fingers. The silence between them was growing long and stilted, but what did you say after that?
"May I have a glass of wine?"
Sharon yanked her pants up and followed the younger woman's gaze to the uncorked bottle of cabernet on the coffee table. "Help yourself," she said shortly, fingering the empty space where a button was supposed to be. "I'm going to change."
When she reappeared a few minutes later, thoroughly insulated in jeans, woolen socks, and a UCLA sweatshirt that had somehow migrated to her closet and with her hair yanked back into a messy bun, Brenda was sitting on the sofa in her skirt and bra, chugging wine from Sharon's glass, the one she hadn't actually been using, like it was going out of style.
"Put your sweater on." The older woman scooped the pale blue garment from the floor and threw it in her direction. "You need to go. Where does your family think you are?"
Sharon heard how exhausted her voice sound and wondered briefly how Brenda, the brilliant detective, could remain oblivious to it. I'm too old for this shit, the captain thought, riding a newly familiar wave of fatigue and disgust.
Brenda smiled her peculiarly sweet smile. "Here," she said simply. "I told Mama and Daddy you weren't doin' anything today and I wanted to come over and check on you."
Sharon absently rubbed the back of her neck where it had begun to ache. "Well, thank you very much for making your parents think I'm a pathetic, friendless recluse. Your good deed for the day is done, and you can still be home in time for coffee and dessert."
Brenda looked startled and wounded, which made Sharon grit her teeth. She watched as Brenda took in her attire and her defensive posture, and then the blonde softly asked, "Hey, are you okay? Is somethin' wrong?" Holding the sweater, she stood and approached the captain, and Sharon forced herself to tear her eyes away from all that milky white flesh. Brenda's eyes were shadowed with concern.
Sharon felt like breaking things and screaming. My married lover came over for a fast fuck between the main course and dessert, she thought waspishly. What could possibly be wrong? Aloud she said, "Please don't come over here without calling first, Brenda."
The younger woman flinched, stung, and tried to appear unaffected. Considering that she based so much of her success at work on reading the secrets people unwittingly divulged in their body language, she was awfully easy to read herself. She tugged the sweater over her head ad fluffed her hair before saying, "All right. It won't happen again."
"It was presumptuous."
"Okay, Sharon," Brenda said, folding her arms defensively, and Sharon felt shrewish and petty.
"Okay," she repeated, and reflected that the only time she was more miserable and conflicted than when Brenda was here was when Brenda wasn't here. How like her, then, to send the deputy chief away as quickly as possible. "You can finish your wine."
"It's your wine. You finish it. Do you mind if I use the bathroom?"
"Of course not."
Sharon gulped down the rest of the wine. When Brenda emerged from the bathroom, she found her captain in the hallway, waiting for her. Her posture was rigid, her face expressionless, but Brenda seemed to see something in her eyes, something that made her come nearer and place her hand on Sharon's elbow.
"Was – was I too rough?"
"No." The older woman had been much rougher, but she didn't reciprocate the question. "You'll have bruises," she warned.
Brenda blushed as if the captain had given her an extravagant gift. "It's all right."
Sharon nodded. "Well."
"I guess I'll, um –"
"Yes."
Never had they been so awkward together. Those raw, frantic, desperate moments in Sharon's foyer had stripped away some protective covering, leaving behind scraped skin, awkward angles, and frightening possibilities.
"Happy Thanksgiving."
"Likewise."
They exchanged a crooked half-smile as Brenda let herself out, sharing a joke at their combined expense.
Sharon was loading the dishwasher when her cell phone rang. "Brenda?"
"Um, you got jumper cables, by any chance?"
"Brenda."
"All right, I'll call AAA. Think you could give me a ride home, or is it presumptuous of me to ask?"
Sharon didn't have time to be grateful that Fritz's car still wasn't home when she pulled into Brenda's driveway, because Willie Rae immediately came trotting out to the car.
"Oh, Brenda, I'm so glad you brought Sharon back with you for dessert." Willie Rae clasped her hands together and beamed at the dark-haired woman. "Hello, Sharon. It's so nice to see you, dear."
"It's nice to see you as well," Sharon returned in a constrained voice.
"Actually, Mama," Brenda pointed out as she climbed out of Sharon's car, "Sharon brought me back. My car's makin' that click-click-click sound –"
("It's probably the alternator," the captain interrupted sotto voce.)
" – and it won't start. I called AAA, but Sharon gave me a ride back."
"Yes, and now I really should be going," Sharon interjected.
"Nonsense. Dessert is sweet potato pie," the elder Johnson woman added temptingly.
"I don't think Sharon likes sweet potato pie," Brenda piped up, shooting the captain a sympathetic look. "She's a Yankee."
"A westerner," Sharon corrected, and the blonde shot back, "Same thing."
"Now, girls, don't be silly. Everyone likes sweet potato pie, and even if you don't, I guarantee you'll like mine." Willie Rae flashed a saucy smile that often graced her daughter's wide mouth, at least when Sharon was around.
Brenda glanced at her mother before her eyes settled on Sharon's. "Come on, Sharon," she said coaxingly, apparently trying to send the message that resistance was futile. She offered a sweet smile. "One piece of pie."
"And a cup of coffee."
Sharon telegraphed a clear message back to her lover: I will kill you for this.
In response, Brenda's smile widened, and she pulled open the driver's side door. "Now, come on, captain." She leaned down, offering Sharon a very intriguing view down the neck of her sweater. Sharon tossed up a prayer that her mother wouldn't notice. Mrs. Johnson seemed sweeter than her much-touted pie, but Sharon suspected the elderly woman would have some very pertinent questions if she realized her daughter was flashing her tits at her "friend, Captain Sharon."
"Here we go, Sharon. My feelin's are liable to be hurt if you don't try my pie." The frail woman was stronger than she looked; she practically dragged Sharon from the car before the captain had even managed to unfasten her seatbelt.
"I look awful." Sharon tried one last protest, shooting a furious glare at Brenda over Willie Rae's head. "I wasn't planning to go out today."
"Oh, don't worry about that." Willie Rae patted Sharon's hand, and then hooked her own arm though the crook of the brunette's elbow. "You're lovely. I've always liked the natural look best. And I think it's just terrible that your children couldn't be with you today, but they do have their own lives once they get to a certain age, don't they? But, now let's see, you told me two of them go to school here in California, so you must see them often. It's hard when your children are all the way across the country."
Accompanied by the deluge of Willie Rae Johnson's maternal patter, Sharon quickly found herself in what was, she decided right then, the last place on earth she wanted to be: sitting between Brenda and Clay on the deputy chief's living room sofa while Willie Rae occupied the armchair, all four of them balancing plates loaded with generous slabs of pie. Sharon supposed it was good, but hers kept sticking in her throat. Brenda's knee lightly brushed hers and, in very un-Sharon fashion, the captain nearly leapt off the sofa in her haste to avoid further contact. She kept imagining that Clay was shooting particularly loaded looks her way from beneath his thick eyebrows. She knew it was her imagination – or, more accurately, her conscience – but that didn't particularly make her feel better.
"Brenda told us about what's been happenin' to you over the last few months," Mr. Johnson said, momentarily distracted from the football game on TV, and Sharon spilled the scalding coffee she'd been gulping in a vain effort to soothe her suddenly dry throat. As the brown liquid slopped over her clothing and onto the sofa, she stared at Brenda in open-mouthed horror.
Brenda jumped up. "It's just a little spill," she clucked. "Don't worry, Sharon. I'll get a towel."
Sharon felt her eyes grow huge. Don't you dare leave me alone in here.
"Oh, my, you didn't burn yourself, did you?" Willie Rae fretted, and when Sharon insisted she was fine, Mrs. Johnson continued, "Yes, Brenda's been tellin' us all about that man who tried to shoot her and your – What's it called? IOS?"
"OIS, Mama," Brenda called from the kitchen, and Sharon began to breathe again. Jesus Christ. Clay's off-hand comment had nearly thrown her into a full-blown panic. The immediate crisis had passed, but Sharon's pulse was still uncomfortably rapid, and she felt light-headed.
She had to get out of there.
"It's a shame that it's takin' so long to get that sorted out, but it's bound to be resolved soon, right?" Willie Rae continued, and Sharon managed a dazed nod. "I know Brenda will be glad when you get back to work. And we like the thought of her havin' you there to back her up – Don't we, Clay?"
"We sure do," he agreed, obviously struggling to divide his attention between the conversation and the game.
"Not that the boys on her team aren't lovely, but there's nothin' like havin' a good girlfriend who really understands you." The silver-haired woman affectionately patted Sharon's knee. "That's why we were so pleased when we got to meet you last Christmas. I just can't tell you what a weight of my mind it is, as a mother, to know Brenda Leigh finally has a real, close friend out here, especially one who knows what that kinda job demands of a woman."
Willie Rae was beaming and still patting Sharon's knee, and the captain was going to vomit. She was suddenly so hot that she was sweating, unpleasant tingles racing up and down her spine and all her limbs, coffee and bile bitter at the back of her throat despite the sweetness of the pie.
"I'm sorry." She lurched to her feet abruptly, gripping the back of the sofa for support. "I'm not feeling very well. I think I need to go."
Willie Rae's murmured concern followed her as she rushed toward the door, but she couldn't stop to reassure her. Sharon knew she was going to throw up, that it was beyond her control, and she didn't want to do it in Brenda and Fritz's living room or in the bushes outside. If she could just make it to her car, just get out of the driveway –
"Sharon?"
Brenda's fingers closed around her arm as she stepped outside, tugging her back around so their eyes met. The blonde's widened with concern when she took in Sharon's drawn mouth and sweaty pallor.
"I have to go," Sharon gasped out, an edge of panic slicing through the words. "I have to – I can't do this."
Brenda's fingers unclutched abruptly and the taller woman stumbled, and then recovered her footing and bolted. Brenda's heart pounded and she clutched the doorframe as he watched the captain fling her car into reverse and back down the driveway. That look in Sharon's eyes – She'd never seen that look before, and it scared the life out of her.
Sharon made it to the next block before she pulled over and vomited Willie Rae's sweet potato pie into the ditch.
2.
"Bren?"
It would occur to her later that it had all happened because of the thick coat of steam blanketing the mirror, turning what it reflected into faint waterlogged blobs of peach and chrome. She stood there brushing her teeth, her wet hair dripping lankly over her shoulders, unable to see anything of her own reflection, seeing instead that desolate, stony look Sharon had worn when she'd said goodbye.
Fritz's voice, the door opening, the thought that the draught of cool air felt good on her overheated skin: that was all that happened for a moment.
Then Brenda became aware that the door was still half open and Fritz was standing there, completely motionless.
And then a blank, no thoughts at all that could be expressed in words, just the sickening void of horrified realization.
"Brenda."
She didn't have to see what Fritz was seeing because she could feel it. The scratch marks scoring her back began to throb with a rising heat; she expected them to glow, to illuminate the entire room like a giant red "A" blazoned across her pale skin.
They left no questions, but if they had, the bruise at the base of her neck – already a dark blob in the mirror as the steam trickled away – would have answered them.
And he couldn't see the accompanying bruises hidden beneath the frayed white towel, one on the inner curve of her right breast, the other adorning the protrusion of her pelvic bone. She had catalogued them in the shower, caressed them, cherished them like the holy relics of an arcane cult.
She stared at the sink, her toothbrush still gripped between her locked teeth. She couldn't turn around.
"Brenda." Fritz's voice was pleading now. "Tell me it's not what it looks like."
She couldn't turn around.
She couldn't tell him what he wanted to hear either. Oh, he wouldn't believe her; but somehow she thought he might accept it nonetheless. He was giving her a choice, wasn't he?
No, she couldn't form the words.
She couldn't form any words.
She couldn't do anything but stare at the moisture clinging to the basin of the sink, at a smear of toothpaste near the drain.
His voice shook with a strain she'd never heard before. "Put some clothes on."
The door banged and bounced open instead of catching, and then she heard the bedroom door close. Not slam; no. Just close quietly and firmly. Brenda would've slammed the door.
Brenda Leigh had never dared imagine how she might feel during these awful moments if ever they came; even contemplating the eventuality would seem to invite it, to tempt fate. The reality was that she felt nothing but numb.
It would be worse later, she thought dimly, when she absorbed that this had really happened to her, she had made it happen, and this was her life now. There was no way to go back. From here on out her life would be divided into before Fritz found out she was having an affair and after Fritz found out she was having an affair.
Brenda mechanically changed into the sleep pants and tank top that awaited her folded neatly on the closed lid of the toilet. She used the towel to squeeze the excess water from her hair. She lingered, staring at her reflection, at the enormous eyes swimming in her frighteningly pale face.
When she finally forced herself out into the cooler air of their bedroom, she still had no idea what to say to her husband.
One look at his face told her that was because there was nothing to say.
And that was when it hit her, not like a kick or a slap or a knife wound or a bullet; not like anything other than what it was: the dissolution of a marriage. Her marriage.
"Tell me one thing," Fritz said hollowly, fixing her with an expression that was no expression at all. "No, two things. How long?"
She stared, feeling utterly incapable of speech.
"How long have you been sneaking around and fucking someone else?" he elaborated, his tone entirely even, lacking any sort of modulation.
The words tumbled out, useless and senseless and pathetic, and with them the tears sparked by their futility. "I didn't mean to. I swear I didn't. I never meant for anything like this – I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Fritzi."
He stared at her.
He blinked.
He waited.
Brenda sighed, swiped at the tears that kept falling, and shoved a hand through her wet, tangled hair. "Just a few weeks."
"It started while I was in Fresno."
"Yes. No. I – We kissed."
"That night – when you got out of bed and left –"
"Yeah." Her voice was cringingly small as she told him what he already knew, what he must have known all along.
He nodded, his jaw tight. He wore exactly the same all-business look he turned on a particularly distasteful perp. "Who?"
At first she only stared. He already knew. Did he just need to hear her say the words?
"Who is he?" he demanded, his voice dropping rather than rising with the intensity of what he labored to contain. "Where have you been all the times you told me you were with Raydor?"
Oh.
"With – with Sharon," she stammered.
It took him longer than it should have, for he was a keenly intelligent man, an FBI agent. Horrified fascination kept Brenda's gaze riveted to his face, observing each nuance of the thoughts reflected there. We wasn't an FBI agent now, though, just a man, a husband. Initially he was bewildered. She watched him try to puzzle out the chain of events that would have led to someone he'd described as her 'nemesis' becoming her co-conspirator in hiding an affair.
There it was. Slowly, sluggishly, realization dawned. "Sharon Raydor," he managed, the pause between her two names lengthy. "You – and Captain Sharon Raydor. The wicked witch. The bitch from FID. Someone you despise."
A woman, he didn't have to say.
His eyes were wide and shell-shocked, a thick rim of white showing around the irises, like a child woken from a nightmare, except he'd woken to a nightmare.
He decided not to believe her.
"No, Brenda."
He stared. She stared.
"Come on, Brenda. Not Raydor." His voice was lighter now, almost coaxing, as if this was some terribly unamusing joke.
She stared.
"Did she – Tell me. Did she coerce you somehow?"
He'd stepped closer, reaching for her, and she instinctively stepped back. She could see that he already knew the question was a ridiculous one born of a diseased line of wishful thinking, and a quick burn of anger raced through her at the idea that he could think that of Sharon.
Brenda was breaking his heart, breaking both their hearts, and the first feeling to penetrate the numbness that had enveloped her was anger that her husband had slighted her lover?
She sat down heavily on the bed because her knees refused to support her.
He turned away abruptly, stalked over to the closet, and began pulling out work shirts seemingly at random. Brenda watched as he flung them onto the bed, as pants and socks and underwear joined the pile, each item making her flinch like a slap.
"I'll go to a hotel until your parents leave," he said, avoiding her eyes. "Then we'll decide what to do about the house."
"The house?" she repeated dully. "What about us?"
She was fixated on the way his shirt shifted over the rigid planes of his familiar back; she remembered slipping into the kitchen after her weekend in Santa Cruz and watching him the same way as he moved over the stove with relentless efficiency. She waited. This couldn't be it. There had to be more to this, to them, to their shared jokes and shared mortgage and joint cat custody and the dozens of fortune-cookie fortunes magnetized to the refrigerator door and the perfect symmetry of the way she picked the chocolate chips out of the ice cream and left the vanilla behind for him, than this.
"That's it?" she asked at last.
He looked fleetingly at her, the strap of his duffle bag clutched in one hand. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I think it is."
"You're growing to throw us away –" And she knew she was mercilessly, weakly shifting the blame – "because I made a mistake?"
Fritz stared at the carpet, rubbed his forehead, before lifting his shattered gaze to hers. "It's pretty goddamn obvious that this is what you want," he said softly, his voice deadened by exhaustion. "You wanted me to see the scratches, the bruise –"
She stiffened, taken aback by this. He was wrong. She'd never wanted this, never wanted him to see how Sharon had marked her, possessed her.
Had she?
The feeling of Sharon's mouth attached to her neck flooded through her, and Brenda relived the way she'd tangled the other woman's smooth hair between her fingers, not to push her away but to encourage her, to yank her closer. She remembered the fascinated way she'd had to look to see if her lover had broken the skin; she remembered how the sharp pain of those manicured nails raking over her vulnerable back had made her entire body instantly implode.
Oh, God.
Fritz's lips pressed together in a grim line. "You could've just told me," he said. "You could've at least done that."
And then he left, soundlessly closing the bedroom door behind him.
3.
By the time her doorbell chimed at 6:00 Monday evening, Sharon's stomach was tied in knots, roiling with a queasy tension worse than what she'd felt on her first day of high school, worse than she'd felt when she told her parents she had no intention of practicing law, worse than she'd felt, even, when facing the total ostracism of her peers when she'd conducted her first I.A. investigation. This case of pterodactyl-sized butterflies had been growing since she'd sat on Brenda's living room sofa, smiling and putting away bites of pie; and by Monday morning they'd emerged fully-formed from their chrysalis.
All day she'd told herself to pick up the phone, to call Brenda Leigh and tell her not to come here tonight. All day she'd made excuses. As clearly as she knew she had to end this affair, she also understood that she couldn't resist seeing the blonde deputy chief this one final time.
When Sharon Raydor made her mind up, she could be counted on to adhere to her resolve. But the dizzy desire she felt for the younger woman defied logic, reason, and all her past experiences. So when Sharon went to the door in old, frayed jeans, sneakers, and an LAPD sweatshirt, with no makeup and her hair tangled, it was her equivalent to donning armor in order to go into battle. Brenda understood that immediately, although she wasn't certain what it meant – or maybe she just didn't want to admit she knew. As soon as she saw the captain, whatever words she might've spoken petrified on her tongue, and she stood there like a statue.
"Brenda," Sharon said in a suppressed version of her Captain Raydor voice, stepping aside.
"Sharon?"
There was no sense prolonging this. Sharon met the younger woman's eyes steadily, never one to shrink from unpleasant encounters. "I'm ashamed," she began quietly, steadily. "For the first time in my life, I'm deeply ashamed of myself." She held up her hand, and Brenda closed her mouth on the verge of interrupting. "I'm not blaming you. I made my choices, and I knew what I was getting into. But I can't do this anymore."
"I'm not askin' you to." Her tone had those intense green eyes snapping to her brown ones. "He knows, Sharon. Fritz knows all about us."
The captain caught her breath, the blood leeching from her face. "You told him?" she asked breathlessly, bewildered.
"He knows," Brenda repeated.
Sharon looked down and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Well," she said quietly, her voice suffused with some emotion the other woman was afraid to try to identify, "then I guess you'd better come inside."