"The darkness. It keeps me safe. No one can see me there. No one can see me as I am. Ruined and imperfect. I could be anything in my mask of ambiguity and indefinability. I could be anything. I could be delectable. I could be beautiful. In the dark, someone might even fall in love with me." — Sue Zhao
The next time — coincidentally that same day — Sharon answers her phone for something relating to Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, it's without looking. It's quite late, late enough that she's about to get ready for bed, and doesn't expect a call from any Johnson at all. Though given the past few weeks, she probably should have.
"Raydor," she answers, expecting it to be work related.
"Captain Raydor—Sharon!" It's Charlie Johnson, who sounds distressed, immediately gaining her attention. The last time she called her, it was the middle of the day from a hospital where Brenda had left her without her phone. "They're going to send me back. You can't let them send me back!"
"Slow down, slow down," Sharon sits up more fully, already looking around the room for her purse, coat and shoes. "What's going on, Charlie?"
"Grandpa Clay came to get me a-a-and I'm not ready to go home yet. I begged Aunt Brenda to let me stay, I've c-changed, I've done so good. I've been good. I'm good, right?"
"Oh sweetie, you are. You are good, okay? Charlie, take a deep breath. I'm coming over, okay? I'll talk to your Aunt."
Charlie sniffled on the other end of the line. "Are you sure? You won't get in… in trouble with Uncle Fritz or Aunt Brenda? Fritz l-left to go to a meeting. They fought about me staying last night after Grandpa said it was up to them. I don't think they e-expected me to convince him."
"Don't worry about a thing, Charlie," Sharon said, turning the ignition in her car now. "I'll be right there."
She hung up before Charlie could continue and dialed Brenda's number. It rang for a few moments before it went to voicemail. She knew it wasn't going to be easy, but she still tightened her grip on the phone in frustration.
"Deputy Chief Johnson, pardon the late hour. I'm on my way to your home because—well, Charlie called me. Hope you're up to talk."
She threw her phone on the seat next to her and gunned it to Brenda's house, practically rushing up the steps when she pulled into the empty space next to Brenda's car. The door was yanked open before she was really even on the porch.
"What are you doing here?" Brenda hissed, her eyes red rimmed and a glass of wine clutched tightly in her hand. Her sweater was hanging loosely off one shoulder, she had her hair in a low bun but had flyaways.
Sharon took it all in silently and asked, "Where is Agent Howard?"
"At a meeting. Why are you here?" She repeats, looking as frazzled and strung out as Sharon's ever seen her.
She thinks about the file she'd flipped through after Brenda went to inform Jesse Ray Moore that he was under arrest for murder in the state of California. All those girls, the confessions Brenda had had to sit through for seven hours before coming home to, apparently, a warzone. She sees the cracks beneath Brenda's veneer and wants to be the lacquer that fills them together, like kintsugi*.
"I called her," Charlie says, hovering behind them, and Brenda bursts into fresh tears.
"Oh, Charlie, I'm so sorry," she puts her glass down and turns to wrap her arms around her niece. "I don't want to send you back, sweet, I don't."
"Then don't, Aunt Brenda, please," Charlie sobs into her Aunt's arms. "No one understands me like you guys do. Like Sharon does, for heaven's sake!"
Sharon stood awkwardly in the doorway. "Why don't you let Brenda and I talk for a while, Charlie?"
Charlie nods against Brenda's sweater and pulls back, wipes her tears with her sleeve. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
She lunges at Sharon and wraps her arms around her tightly. "Thank you," she whispers.
"For what?" Sharon asks, patting her back gently.
"For coming."
Charlie quietly slips back to her room and the sound of soft sniffles resumes the minute the door shuts. Brenda turns to face Sharon and it's a natural response for the Captain to open her arms.
Brenda's face crumbles and she lets Sharon gather her in her arms while she cries, and then lets herself be guided to her own couch. Sharon pats Brenda's hand comfortingly while she dabs at her face with tissues.
"I don't want to send Charlie back. Fritz and I fought about the marijuana the night after… He signed for her care package, I guess," she sniffles and tries to wipe her smudged mascara with the back of her hand, but it's useless, because it just smudges it further across her cheek. "Charlie heard us fighting… came out and told Fritz that it wasn't her fault he was a drunk when he brought up how she jeopardized him being in A.A."
Sharon tensed, squeezing Brenda's hand in support. "How did he take that?"
"He broke a plate. Threatened to send her home. He actually booked her a flight the next day, but I wouldn't let him send her back. I made her apologize, though."
"And then?"
Brenda inhales deeply. "Fritz and I talked when Daddy came to get Charlie… he's asleep in the guest room right now. He told me when he said he wanted kids, he meant his own, not someone else's."
Sharon gasped. "He didn't."
"Oh, he did," Brenda mutters darkly, not meeting Sharon's eyes. "I gave him hell for it, too. Told him it wouldn't matter since he hasn't been showin' me I wanna have kids with him, anyway."
"I can't imagine that went over well," Sharon replied, eyebrows raised.
"We fought until three a.m," she fiddled with her wedding ring, sniffling again. "It seems all we do nowadays is fight."
"Well, rough patches are common for any couple…"
"I don't think this is a rough patch, Captain." Her voice was watery. "Unless you count our entire relationship as a rough patch."
"Come to dinner tomorrow night. You and Charlie, Agent Howard is welcome as well," Sharon replies, ignoring her lament.
"I don't know… if he'll be up to that," Brenda hesitated, looking at her hands.
Sharon impulsively puts her hands on Brenda's upper arms. "Please?"
"Okay," Brenda whispers, looking into her eyes now, drawn in.
I could kiss her, they both thought.
(Brenda thinks of Eve in the garden again. Of sticky sweet fruit and temptation. Of hot days in Bible study on Sunday in summer and silly drawings of Eve with snakes for hair.)
But neither did. They sit there quietly, Sharon's hands dropping to hold Brenda's between her own, rubbing gently until the back door suddenly slams open. Brenda leapt off the couch, a deer in headlights, her hair the golden halo of light around her startled eyes.
"Sharon, you have to go," she looks genuinely fearful, and Sharon can't help but wonder what goes on behind closed doors, another part of Brenda that she seems to hide away so well, another perceived weakness or failure that she would never let the other people in her life see.
"I think I'm fine here, Brenda," she replies steadily, drawing her back to the couch, holding her hand.
But Brenda's gaze was locked on where Fritz Howard had just walked into the living room to find Sharon sitting on the couch with his wife, patting her hand gently.
He scoffed, clearly still worked up. "What is this?"
"Charlie called me tonight, Agent Howard, so I stopped by," Sharon replies cooly. "In fact, I was just extending a dinner invitation to you, Charlie and Brenda at my house. Tomorrow night."
He raises a skeptical eyebrow now, looking between the two of them. "Don't you hate each other?"
"We've come to more amicable terms," Sharon replies before Brenda can stick her foot in her mouth, where it seems to permanently reside, "Don't be late, Agent Howard! Five sharp. Brenda, would you walk me out?"
When they get to Sharon's car, she glances to see Fritz leaning against the doorframe. Just waiting. Probably to initiate some sort of fight as soon as she leaves.
She leans down to Brenda's ear. "If you need me, Chief, you know where to reach me."
Brenda chuckled. It was wobbly, but warm. "Thank you, Cap'n. But I think my Daddy and my gun can protect us just fine tonight," her accent was thick as she looked back at her husband looming in the background. She clutched her arms tightly, shivering in the cool L.A. night.
Sharon pulls off her blazer and wraps it around Brenda's shoulders, stepping into her car before she can protest.
"Goodnight, Brenda," she murmurs, the car turning on moments after.
"Goodnight," Brenda replied quietly as the door slipped shut.
Brenda watches her pull away before she clenches and unclenches her fists, turning to face the music. Or more specifically, her husband.
"So, what? You and Raydor are best buds now?" He sneers as she approaches, mockingly touching one of the buttons on Sharon's blazer.
I'll have to return this at work. Oh… it smells like her. Maybe I'll forget it in my car for a few days.
"She's nice when you get past everything else," Brenda huffs to keep up the facade, shutting the front door much more quietly than Fritz had closed the back one so as to hopefully not wake up her Daddy. Thankfully he sleeps through mostly anything nowadays.
"That's not what you've been saying for the entire time you've known her," he says it sounds just on the edge of accusing and she spins on her heel, fuming.
"You wanted me to get along better with her, didn't you? And besides, it's Charlie I'm nice to her for, anyway."
"About that," he says, and now she knows she's in some sort of trouble, because he moves from where he's leaning on the sink and comes to tower over her at the kitchen table, her hands bent awkwardly on it as she backs away. "How does she know Charlie?"
"Um…"
"Because I kept thinking, Charlie hasn't been to your office much yet. And not when Raydor would be there. So she had to have met her at the house," he looks at her, waiting.
"Sharon stopped over—"
"It's 'Sharon' now?"
"For God's sake, Fritz, she's been in our house! We're on a first name basis, yes!" Brenda whisper-yells, rolling her eyes. "She stopped over the day of the uh, incident, with the brownies. To pick up some paperwork she needed for a mutually shared case. I was supposed to deliver it to her, but I forgot."
Fritz seemed to be getting incensed by the reminder of that day, so she sped along, "She talked to Charlie when she was here because I wasn't coherent and gave Charlie her number if she ever needed it. That's it."
"That's it?"
"That's it. What is your problem, anyway?" She narrows her eyes on him, and then it dawns on her. "You're jealous of Captain Raydor?"
"That's ridiculous," Fritz sputtered, "I'm not jealous of anyone. Why would I be? You're my wife."
She didn't like the possessive tone in his voice or the implication behind his thought process, but said placatingly, "Right. I am. I'm with you," she wrapped her hands around his neck, looking up at him from below her lashes in the move that always got him hook, line, sinker, and he pressed his lips to hers.
She knew this dance, could do it with her eyes shut, slipping her fingers through his belt loops and pulling him more firmly against her.
"I don't wanna fight anymore, Fritz," she murmured against his lips. He softened, brushing hair stray from her bun behind her ear. "I don't want my niece to go home yet, either. It ain't fair to send her away."
He opened his mouth immediately, ready to start another fight and she pressed her lips to his again, more firmly this time, silencing his argument and looking up at him with wide eyes. "Let's talk about it in the morning, okay? Take me to bed, Fritzi."
"In the morning, Brenda," he says almost like a warning that he wasn't going to forget before he lifts her up into his arms.
They've never had trouble with passion - they have an abundance of that. They're quiet on their way back to the bedroom and Fritz sits on the bed with her in his lap.
She felt him grow harder beneath her and despite trying so hard to ground herself in the moment, she felt her mind drifting. Imagining different hands. Different hair. Different lips. Started imagining it was Sharon's lap she was grinding on, and not her husband's.
The idea of imagining Sharon while her husband did these things to her made her feel horrible shame, her cheeks burning and tears prickling the corner of her eyes, but also made her unbelievably wet.
Which, of course, made Fritz confident. So she didn't dissuade him otherwise. Just let him groan when he ran his fingers through her wet heat and connected their lips fiercely again as he began to work her up.
The lights are off and she feels more comfortable pretending in the dark. In the dark, Fritz could be Sharon. His wandering fingers could be Sharon slipping into her, making her body light up.
"Mmm…" she tries to bite her lip. "Please, Fritz. Inside?"
She's on her back the next second. That move has always worked on him. She hears his pants hit the floor and he sits back on his heels to prepare himself and her before pushing in, barely giving her time to adjust, but it's the way she wants it.
"Fritzi," she moans into the pillow she bites to muffle the noise, pulling the comforter around them. "More, baby, more," she wraps her legs around his waist.
When Brenda's like this - wonton and desperate - it always seems to do something to Fritz, who connects their lips and fucks her exactly the way she wanted - hard, fast, and bruising.
They share brief kisses but she spends most of it with her head pressed into the bed and her back arched, raking her fingers down his back, her mouth open. She finds herself feeling particularly self destructive, for the fantasies she was having while with her husband, for thinking about the soft fingers that had brushed against her cheek, but ultimately rejected her.
For just wanting to feel truly and wholly wanted as she is. For reaching towards the forbidden.
For being the snake in her own ear, for wanting to be Eve in the garden, choosing between forever and freedom.
"Fritzi… in me," she begs as quietly as possible. She meets his eyes so he knows she's serious.
His thrusts stutter and he slows, earning an immediate low whine and clenching muscles from her. "Brenda… y-you're sure?"
She raises an eyebrow and hooks a foot around his leg, using his momentary distraction to flip him. Fritz looks up at her now, at her mercy, making her feel like a woman on top of the world. She clenches around him and rocks her hips with purpose, her eyes rolling back into her head.
"Brenda," he warns, his hands gripping her hips to try and slow her, but she won't be deterred. "Are you sure, Bren? I don't want you to—"
Brenda, with a devious smile, reaches her hand in front of her and rubs her clit while riding him, her breathing becoming more labored. Fritz can barely breathe from the visual. And then she does something almost entirely unheard of, even in bed: Swears.
"Fritz, please, cum inside. Fuck, baby, please," she begs, rolling her hips. He has to fight not to release in her right then.
He sits up and hugs her to him, thrusting with her rocking hips. "You want me to? Really?"
"Yes!" she moans a little louder than she probably should've and then lowered her voice, cracking with pleasure. "I want you to cum in me. Please, baby—"
Her voice petered off into a low moan and Fritz couldn't hold it anymore — he attacked her neck with his mouth to muffle his own moans as he came in her and Brenda clamped down around him, cumming so hard he had to cover her mouth with his hand. She saw stars.
Brenda lay there breathing heavily, regretting her decision already while Fritz was pretty damn pleased. She knew she'd go buy a Plan B tomorrow. Just in case.
Fritz snuggled up behind her, and when she found herself wishing it was Sharon despite how much she supposedly despised the woman, her cheeks burned with shame again. This is your husband, her brain reminded her.
Once again she was reminded of Eve, reaching towards temptation. She had resisted, was resisting. But it was always right there, even when she was being intimate with her husband. She wonders, briefly, if Eve ever felt this conflicted, or if she simply reached and didn't look back. A pretty idea, but not an option for her.
When she slips into the bathroom to clean up, feeling his semen between her thighs, she gags into the toilet, her eyes burning. She falls asleep that night with how disgusting she feels in mind.
Fritz is in a pleasant mood the next morning; he gives her a long, slow kiss and smiles at her lazily, "Good morning."
"Mmm, good morning," she blinks at him, looking at the alarm clock. 5:54 A.M.
"I thought about it, and she can stay for a few more weeks, Bren. How does that sound?" Fritz gave her a half-smile.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid on his chest. "Thank you, Fritzi."
She presses a kiss to his cheek and then sits up, stretches, and then reaches for her phone.
First she sends a text to Charlie - Good morning doll. Unpack those bags. You're staying :) Two more weeks, sweet.
Then she hovers over Sharon's contact, someone she's never once texted, and decides, screw it. Good morning, Captain. Charlie is staying. Sorry I didn't call ya, still in bed.
She got a response from Charlie immediately, exclamation points and thank you's peppered throughout her message. Sharon took longer to reply, and it was much shorter.
Good. See you soon, Chief.
Brenda shook her head and closed her phone with a sigh. Oh, that woman!
*kintsugi or kintsukuroi is a Japanese form of pottery where broken pieces are put back together using powdered gold, silver or platinum in the lacquer
chapter title from curses by the crane wives