Brenda reflects on Sharon Part 2

Brenda's viewpoint

Standing in my apartment's small kitchen, I busied myself with making coffee as I tried to think through what I'd worked out.

Sharon had watched me become aroused watching two lesbians kissing.

Sharon had come to the conclusion that I was interested in their lifestyle.

Sharon was a lesbian or more likely bisexual, given she had kids.

Sharon was interested in me and was flirting with me.

Sharon wanted to pursue a relationship, a lesbian relationship, with me.

Yes, well. I let that series of thoughts wash over me, accepting them as likely the truth.

What the hell happens now?

I walked back to my sofa, coffee in hand and stared into the darkness outside my window.

Well, where did this leave me? And what do I do about it?

My initial thought was to tell Sharon at the first available opportunity that she was wrong and I just wanted her to be my friend.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. I could imagine that conversation and it wouldn't be pretty.

I'd be lucky to salvage a friendship out of it and it would be her fault.

Wouldn't it?

I sat there, thinking that question over and over again as I sipped my coffee.

If there was one thing that the death of my marriage to Fritz had made me do, it was realise how little honesty I had shown myself.

I'd realised at the end of the first week, when he hadn't called, when I truly comprehended that he wasn't coming back, that I had deluded myself, refusing to face the truth.

I'd convinced myself that everything would work out, that we could make it work, when in fact we were just ignoring the elephant in the room, that what we wanted were entirely different things.

He'd looked after me, taken care of the house and the bills and Joel and keeping the place clean and being the dutiful husband, because he needed a wife to look after. In return I was supposed to become the mother of his 2.5 children and one cat, give up work and become a happy home maker.

I snorted at that, looking around at the disaster my unit had become over the months. I hadn't really taken proper care of myself before; it had become much worse since I'd been alone.

He wanted happy families and white picket fences and children and a wife to come home to at the end of the day.

I wondered when he realised that was never going to happen. How long had he stared into that particular abyss before he walked away from it. At least he had realised the truth and faced the consequences of it.

I had been happy to keep deluding myself, that Fritz would be happy with what I was willing to give him, unwilling to give up the life I had, the fact that I was Deputy Chief Johnson, head of Major Crimes at the LAPD before I was Brenda Leigh Johnson.

On that terrible day, when I realised that I was really alone, that he wasn't coming back, I'd spent the better part of it getting incredibly drunk, interspersed with crying jags, fed by even more alcohol. I'd ended up crying myself to sleep, or passing out, I wasn't sure which.

When I came to, I'd found I had vomited all over myself in my sleep. Somehow I'd managed not to choke to death on it while paralytic drunk, but that had been little consolation.

I'd been incredibly hung over, felt like I wanted to die and was still alone. I'd rung in sick and taken the next few days off.

I hadn't touched alcohol for a week after that and had not even been close to drunk since.

Once I recovered, I'd taken a good hard look at myself and how much of what had happened had been my fault. I guessed more than half had been mine; I'd refused to admit that Fritz wanted what I wouldn't, couldn't give. I'd also refused to see that he wasn't going to be satisfied with what I was prepared to give him.

The end result of that particular personal deceit was where I was now, alone in a darkened apartment, lonely and tired and confused.

I had found it ironic, I was lauded by my colleagues for my ability to discern the truth from the deceptions, but hadn't even been able to face the lies I'd been telling myself.

I'd sworn an oath that from that day forward I would be brutally honest to myself, no matter what.

Now it was time to live up to that oath.

Was it Sharon's fault? That she had sought out more from me than just friendship.

On one hand it was, I'd been happy to have her as a friend, to be the supportive friend to her and have her be mine. Her decision to push beyond that for a relationship had changed that between us, probably forever.

When she looked at me now, what did she see, Brenda, her friend, or Brenda the potential lover? Could I look at her as a friend, or would I see her wanting to be… intimate with me?

On the other hand, Sharon had not done anything in the more than a year we had been friends, nothing to make me think that she had seen me as anything other than a friend, so it was obvious to me that she had respected boundaries, even though she must have been attracted to me on some level.

That had only changed when she had witnessed my reaction to how the couples had behaved yesterday. I had failed to control my reactions to what was appropriate, instead showing that I was aroused by their behaviour.

Without those cues, I doubt the situation would have arisen, Sharon would still be just a friend, we would still have our boundaries and I wouldn't be having this late night introspection session.

In a way, it meant a lot to me that Sharon was willing to take a chance, risk our friendship, to pursue something more with me. She must care for me more than I realised. She's no fool, Sharon must have understood what she was risking when she made the decision to open herself up to me, but she thought I was worth it.

I smiled gently; it was nice to think that someone cared for me enough to do that. I liked Sharon, she was smart and strong and beautiful and sexy and I really liked the side of Sharon that I had seen recently. But I wasn't a lesbian; I wasn't looking to sleep with her.

I wasn't a lesbian; I'd never desired a woman before, never really even thought about it before.

Oh I'd seen things on television or on the movies where it had been implied or explicitly shown that characters were lesbians, usually very attractive actresses. You were supposed to find them desirable and attractive and they were usually shown to be interesting and engaging characters, so you would find yourself empathising with them as part of the show.

I remembered seeing that movie about ballerinas with Natalie Portman, which had included her in a lesbian scene, which had been quite… intense now that I thought about it.

There were shows on television where major characters were gay, plus that show on cable where all the female characters were lesbians. I hadn't seen it but I'd heard about it, apparently even straight people loved the show.

I'd seen women walking together, hand in hand; I'd idly taken note and promptly forgotten about it, not really engaged with it; but now…

I sighed, this whole mess had started because I had stared at Maura and Jane, then got all hot and bothered by Anastasia and Natalie. If they hadn't been so…

No, that wasn't their fault either. I knew what I was getting into when I accepted their invitation to come to their place, for a pool party no less. I knew that Maura and Jane were lovers, even if they weren't 'out and proud'. So I shouldn't have been surprised that they were open about their sexuality in their own home.

Natalie and Anastasia were 'out', so I had even less excuse there than with Maura and Jane. I'd been to their home for god's sake, seen them together, seen them behaving like a normal couple, so I could hardly blame them for behaving like that at the home of their friends, who were also a couple.

They'd done nothing wrong. The only person who had done something wrong was me, I'd been the one gawking at them.

Why had I done that? I knew that they were both lesbian couples, so why had seeing them kissing like that affected me so much?

Well, I was lonely, I had to admit that. With the exception of the comfort that Ana and Natalie had given me when I'd broken down at their place, Sharon's touches and hugs were the most human contact I'd had in the year since Fritz walked out. By necessity I'd learned to cope with the loneliness but I didn't enjoy it. I missed the contact, the intimacy, the sheer feeling of humanity that came from another's touch.

I'd become aroused watching them because they had something I didn't, love and happiness and intimacy and comfort and everything that came from a loving partner. I missed that and I wanted it. God, I didn't want it, I needed it.

The fact that both of them had been beautiful had made it even easier to be aroused, to watch two beautiful women loving each other. It had been easy to let myself be carried in the moments, watching both couples.

I'd watched them and imagined myself in their place. It hadn't been an 'I wish I was kissing Natalie now' thing, just a visceral wish that it was me being kissed, being loved.

It had been patently obvious that Natalie and Anastasia's behaviour on the pool steps was just a prelude, like their intimacy on the couch as they told us about how they had got together. They were going to go home that night and make love, just like they kissed, deeply and lovingly.

Maura and Jane were going to do the same thing, which was patently obvious as well.

Basically both couples were going to fuck their brains out later and there was nothing wrong with admitting that I wanted exactly the same thing.

I hadn't taken what I was thinking to its logical conclusion I suppose, which was realising that there were going to be two women making love, naked, intimate. What would it be like; slow, gentle and loving or hard and sweaty and intense?

I could imagine Jane would be all about power and passion, Maura seemed softer and sweeter, so I could imagine it would be gentle and slow.

With Anastasia and Natalie, I imagined that it would be intense; their personalities were a lot more similar than Jane and Maura's. Neither really struck me as a slow and tender type, Natalie was outgoing and exuberant while Anastasia was strong and powerful. The thought of their bodies wrapped around one another came to me strongly and I blinked.

Dear god, was I getting aroused again thinking about it? I bit my lip. Oh my lord I was.

The thought of them together was an enticing one. I tried hard to block the images out of my mind, to try and get back to what I was thinking of.

I had to admit though; the images had come almost unbidden, probably because it was the closest I had got to anything like real sex in more than a year. I took care of myself when I needed it but it wasn't a patch on the real thing.

The thought of having someone's body entwined with mine sent tingles through my body, I was needy and lonely and watching two women doing what I wanted to do had turned me on.

Damn, now I was thinking about what they would do together. My mind had obviously fixated on them because they were right there in front of me. Sighing I leaned back, closing my eyes and thought about it.

It must be different. Unlike sleeping with a man, where it was all drive and power and feeling hard muscles under your hands and hardness inside you, two women would be all soft bodies and curves and breasts. Without a cock to impale yourself on, you would have to spend time on each other's breasts and search out your partner's erogenous zones.

It would have to be different because every guy I ever slept with wanted the same things, to have me go down on him and to get his cock inside me.

Without a cock to fixate on, women must be more about the whole experience. The emotional side as well as the physical, mind you the physical must be pretty good too. Good enough to keep those two couples together and interested.

I wasn't oblivious to how good they looked or the reactions they got from everyone who saw them. My squad, other officers, the senior officers of the LAPD, all had been affected by them. Each of them was beautiful in their own way and could have their choice of men. Even Jane, probably the least 'feminine' of them, got heads turning when she strode into a room; she had energy and power about her that others found compelling.

I'd seen her in a way that no one else at work had, wet and laughing by the pool and looking lovely. Anyone who cared to look past the fierce, 'don't mess with me' façade could see the beautiful woman underneath, anyone who saw that would want it.

So they all could have anyone they wanted, but they chose to be with another woman. Why?

I don't think they were born gay, from what both Jane and Natalie had mentioned neither had been with a woman before their respective partners, so they had consciously chosen to love a woman instead of a man. What had changed their minds and their sexuality?

Was it simply that they were able to look past labels to see the person offering love, ignoring the physical for the emotional. Well, not ignoring it, but realising that the sex of the person mattered less than the worth of the person within the skin?

Anastasia and Natalie had obviously found love in each other, they equally obviously didn't care that their partner was a woman; the important thing, looked like the only thing really, was that they had found love and weren't afraid who knew it.

Jane and Maura had survived things that could have destroyed a less solid bond, they had each other and that was what mattered, not that they somehow conformed to society's expectations of what 'appropriate' love was.

Besides, it was the 21st century; surely we could put that particular prejudice behind us, the same as the one about what skin colour we wore mattered. Cut each of us and we all bleed the same colour. I'd seen enough dead people to know that. Same with gays and lesbians, they were ordinary people trying to live their lives, looking for happiness just like the rest of us.

I understood that some people found gays and lesbians threatening, it challenged their worldview or their moral values or their religious upbringing. I'd never really had a position on them; it hadn't really been an issue before my current situation, before four beautiful lesbians strolled into my life a few weeks ago and changed it in ways I was only now realising.

Looking at them now, I had to admit I liked them for who they were, not what they were; for the fact that they had offered me their friendship, not for the fact that they worked with me. The fact that they slept with women was irrelevant to how I saw them. I respected the jobs they did well and their choice of bed partner had nothing to do with to that.

They were wonderful people and I was very happy to have them in my life.

To be completely honest, I had to say I liked both partners in each relationship. In many couples I had met I had liked one of the people, but not really been impressed by the other partner; with Jane and Maura and Anastasia and Natalie I could honestly say that I liked all of them as people.

Maybe it was because they were all women; they all had their emotional side, which they could show without any macho posturing. They were also confident enough in their relationships that they could be silly or foolish or open or emotional in front of others and they didn't seem to care.

I smiled as I remembered helping Maura throw Jane into the pool, we'd all been laughing fit to burst, even Jane, and no one had cared that they might look silly or foolish while doing so.

Same when Natalie and Anastasia were explaining how they came to be together, it had been at times an emotional story but they had shared that with all of us openly, confident we wouldn't judge them for it.

All of them were admirable people, people I happily called my friends, their sexual preferences didn't matter to me. It wasn't like they wanted to sleep with me. I snorted; they had much more attractive alternatives anyway.

Sharon on the other hand…

Sharon did want to sleep with me, wanted to be intimate with me, have a relationship with me.

She obviously found me interesting and attractive and desirable, which I found very flattering. After a year alone having someone want you is nice, especially if it's someone attractive, which Sharon undoubtedly was.

She must have decided that after a year, given I wasn't seeing anyone and had made no move to see anyone, that she would have to be the one to make a move. We were close enough that I'd have told her if I was interested in anyone, so she knew I wasn't.

She now knew that I found other women arousing, thanks to what had happened yesterday.

I had to be honest, I had found them arousing. Seeing beautiful women together had left me longing for what they had. I'd rationalised that it was due to the fact that I was lonely, but it had been more than that.

I'd little personal knowledge of lesbians, their lives, their personalities, their lifestyle, then Natalie and Ana and Jane and Maura had walked into my life and I'd been exposed to them in ways I'd never experienced before.

Honestly, they were lovely people, who just happened to be into women rather than men.

I shook my head, if my experiences were anything to go by they may have made the right choice. My first husband, Dave, had done enough damage to my psyche that it had taken me years before I trusted another man enough to have more than a polite conversation with them. Then there had been that mess with Will, which had dogged my career and my life all the way out here to LA.

The thing with Fritz had started out full of good intentions but had ended badly, and I hadn't found a decent man in between all of them to look at as much more than an emotional pit stop.

Most of them hadn't really understood me, preferring to see the pretty exterior and ignoring the reality of what I did for a living.

I sighed, given my past history, it's a wonder I hadn't sworn off men all together.

Maybe Sharon had. She'd been married and it had ended badly, leaving her with a couple of kids. Maybe she had foresworn men afterwards and that was why she was into women now.

So Sharon was either bisexual or a lesbian. That didn't change who she was, I still liked her; her choice of bed partner didn't change that. What had changed was that she wanted me as that bed partner.

I'd reacted poorly to that idea when I'd first realised that was what she wanted. Why?

It wasn't like she was unpleasant or pushy, at least not with me anymore; plus she was definitely not unattractive. I liked her a lot and she obviously liked me a lot as well; liked me enough to want to be more than friends.

Was it the idea of sex with a woman was distasteful? I had to admit that I knew almost nothing about lesbian sex, but it couldn't be more 'icky' than sex with men. I'd take sex with Sharon or Natalie or Maura or Anastasia or Jane over climbing back into bed with Will Pope any day.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, still wondering what the hell I had been thinking back then, how I could have been so stupid to be his mistress, to actually believe his promises to leave his wife and kids for me.

"Aah!" The thought alone was enough to make me slightly ill now.

So I was willing to admit that sex with a beautiful woman was more desirable than sex with Pope. Did that make me a lesbian or simply intelligent?

Closing my eyes, I thought back to what I had seen yesterday. Jane and Maura, so different physically, Jane; tall and lean, striking and full of power and intensity, while Mura was softer, glamorous, sunny and captivating. What would they be like together? They would look so different lying naked wrapped together in the sheets, olive skin on alabaster, dark curls and honey blonde spread out and entangled.

Hands wrapped in each other's hair, pressed together kissing like yesterday, expressing their love and passion physically, it would be so hot.

I felt a familiar heat starting to settle in my groin, the thought of them together was arousing me again; I licked my lips, which were suddenly dry.

Well, there was proof that it wasn't the idea of lesbian sex that was unattractive; in fact I was having a hard time dragging my mind away from the images of them together.

Shifting uncomfortably on the sofa, I thought of Natalie and Anastasia together. I don't know why, I obviously had no issues with the concept of lesbian sex, I didn't need to keep going, but I found I didn't want to stop.

Natalie, all striking features, a lush mouth, long golden hair and a lovely body, she would stoke most people's fantasies. Anastasia, those wonderful grey eyes you could lose yourself in, her wickedly curved body, enticing breasts and a smile that could melt snow.

Oh yes, those two together would be beautiful, I could imagine them as they explored each other's body's. Having been together so long they would know exactly how to draw maximum pleasure from each other; the room would be full of moans and gasps, as they moved as one, touching and kissing each other, dragging out the others pleasure.

I gasped; I was suddenly hot, aware of my body's ache and I was so aroused it hurt.

"Well, that answered that question" My voice was loud in the silent room. Indeed it did. The thought of either couple together had been incredibly arousing, to the point that normally, if I was this aroused, I'd try and relieve the ache myself.

I tried to tell myself it was because I was so lonely that the thought of sex in general would do it, but I realised that I was kidding myself.

Being in close proximity to both couples had done it; I had been taken in by their love for each other, the easy intimacy, their warm sensuality, all had combined to draw me to them, to the point that I not only envied what they had, I wanted it too.

I wanted to be wanted, to be desired, to be loved.

I didn't want to continue on the barren path I was on now; I looked around at what my life had become, a small, solitary apartment, a job that consumed me and a cold bed each night.

I wanted the same thing they had and, if that mean the love of a woman well, I could do a lot worse than Sharon Raydor.

Sharon, those knowing deep green eyes that saw so much, that raised eyebrow and the sardonic quirk of her lips, the warm, rich voice and the sunshine of her laugh and the softness of her skin.

I realised I had enjoyed the closeness we'd had yesterday and tonight, the touches and the flirting and the smiles and the sideways glimpses and the intimacy.

I wondered what Sharon would be like in bed, her hair all mussed and her eyes so soft and that lovely body stretched out across the sheets. After yesterday I had a much better idea of what she would look like. That swimsuit she had worn had made it clear that her body was a work of art, well that and damned hard work.

She would look lovely; all that shining auburn hair spread across a pillow, or cascading around her face as she leaned over you, that voice, oh that voice would sound like honey in your ear, or pure sex moaning in ecstasy.

I stopped, realising that my imagination had run away with me. Not only was it picturing what it would be like having sex with her, I was finding it was turning me on.

Sharon Raydor wanted me. She wanted me to be her lover, to take me to bed and make me hers.

Did I want that? It seemed it was there, on offer if I wanted it. But did I?

I wasn't sure if I wanted it. I might, but I wasn't sure. That was the plain and honest truth.

This was a pretty momentous step, a step into the unknown. Frankly it scared me, on several levels.

If I went this way, and it didn't work out, I might lose a friend, not that I had a surplus of those to go around. Mind you, if I tried to stop it now and confronted Sharon, I might lose that as well, for nothing.

I wasn't sure if I could be with a woman, if I was capable of being with one. Men were easy, give them the physical release what they wanted and they were happy with that, I expected a woman would want a lot more than straight physical intimacy; it would have to involve a lot of emotional intimacy as well, something that would require me to give away a lot more of myself than I had with most men.

To be that intimate meant being open, letting barriers and defences come down, I wasn't sure how well I could handle being that open and vulnerable. On the other hand, there weren't too many people I could be that open with; Sharon was probably one of the few.

If I was to step into a relationship with a woman, what did I want?

I wanted love, intimacy, to be held and cuddled and told I was desirable and beautiful and to have someone who really meant what they were saying.

I wanted to hold someone, someone who wanted me and who I wanted back, to be vulnerable and comforted and who would be vulnerable to me and let me give comfort in return. To be able to tell them that they were beautiful and loving and worthy of being loved in return, to be able hold them and cherish them.

I wanted a lot more than a one night stand that was for sure. Mind you, I couldn't imagine Sharon would go to all this trouble, risk so much, for a one night stand either. I'm sure with her looks and confidence she would have no trouble finding someone for that with little effort, instead she was making the effort to draw me in, to seduce me. She wanted me for a relationship, not a fling.

Could I be what she wanted? I didn't know. I didn't know enough to make that decision, to know that answer.

I realised that I needed to talk to someone about this, someone I trusted. Normally I would have chatted to Sharon, danced around the subject until she pinned me down and dragged it from me, she'd done that before, but I couldn't talk to her about this, for obvious reasons.

The number of other people I could chat to was severely limited, even more so given the subject matter and the implications.

Reviewing the options, I realised there was really only one person I could talk to about this, but I understood that she would treat it with the utmost confidence and discretion, plus she was a part of the problem, but would be logical about what it meant.

I needed to talk to a doctor, but not just any doctor, my doctor; Doctor Maura Isles.