Work Text:
I'll use my eyes to draw you in
Until I'm under your skin
I'll use my lips, I'll use my arms
Come on, come on, come on
Give in to me
*
makeup
Raydor is shadowing them again. Still. Indefinitely. Brenda has moved past feeling irate about it, worked through her annoyance, and now is in a phase of dull acceptance. Major Crimes is her and her team and now Raydor, a barnacle on her hull.
She hates her, hates her, right up until the moment Will makes it clear that Brenda is on her own and then she hates him instead and it’s like she just can’t generate enough hate to hate them both with the whole of her. And then, because all her hate is currently earmarked for stupid smarmy backstabbing Will Pope, it’s like she can see Raydor clearly for the first time. Like slipping on her glasses and the world crisping up and making sense.
Raydor isn’t all that happy to be shadowing Major Crimes either. Brenda feels struck dumb for a moment, ashamed that she hadn’t seen it before because it’s all right there, clear as day in her body language. The way she hesitates for a moment, steeling herself before she walks in every morning. The flicker of hurt on her face when Flynn and Provenza make some dig at her or when Julio just ignores her. The obvious boredom.
Brenda finds her in the break room transcribing notes, typing furiously into a silver laptop. Brenda walks to the coffee maker, warms up her cup. Raydor doesn’t react to her entering and Brenda studies her a moment even though she knows that Sharon knows that she’s looking.
Finally Raydor breaks and says, “Something I can do for you, Chief?”
“No,” Brenda says. “That’s just a pretty color on you.” She points to her own lips. It’s a berry red, not too pink but not so ostentatiously red that it’s inappropriate for the workplace. And it somehow doesn’t clash with her hair. Now that she’s thinking about it, Sharon’s makeup always looks good. Brenda’s never seen her without it but has also never registered it as too much. It’s the kind of makeup that looks like she might not even be wearing it except there’s always something that she features. A red lip, a winged eyeliner. A pearly pink blush.
“Tarte,” Sharon says.
“‘Scuse me?”
Sharon smirks. “That’s the brand. Of the lipstick? It’s by Tarte.”
“Well it’s real nice,” Brenda says and hustles herself right out of there.
On a Thursday afternoon, Sharon comes in with a form that needs Brenda’s signature, and her eyes are so bright and green that Brenda feels her heart speed up. It’s the dark liner that makes everything else look so much more dramatic, thick and winged out sharp.
“Do you use a pencil or a liquid liner?” Brenda asks, signing the form and handing it back.
“Oh,” Sharon says. “Cream pot and an angled brush. It’s a little more forgiving of wrinkles.”
“Thanks,” Brenda says dismissively because she’s embarrassed that she even asked. Sharon nods, walks to the door and hesitates.
“I like the Maybelline one.” And just leaves.
It’s ninety degrees in early June and they’re all in bullet proof vests, waiting behind a detached garage for the rest of the team to clear the house, guns in hand. Brenda is sweating like a hog; she feels her hair curling up all over and frizzing out. Sharon is obviously hot too, but it looks less sweaty and has more like a dewy, luminous glow.
“What kind of devil foundation you got on that you don’t even sweat through?” Brenda demands.
“It’s not the foundation,” Sharon says. “It’s the powder and the setting spray that holds it all together.”
Brenda snorts, jealous and overheated.
“Laura Mercier translucent setting powder,” Sharon says. Their walkies buzz with the all clear and Sharon holsters her gun and moves away. Brenda curses at not getting the brand of the setting spray.
Late one night Brenda goes into the ladies room to find Sharon Raydor already in there, standing at the sink and looking at herself in the mirror. But she doesn’t look good. Actually, Brenda is surprised to see her because she’d heard there was an incident up in Internal Affairs - gunfire and then the whole floor had been locked down. Brenda’s got her own investigation going and so she hasn’t thought much of it but now she wants to know more, wants to know what the hell happened that Captain Raydor is standing in her ladies room looking haggard and scared.
“Captain?” Brenda says.
She looks at Brenda in the mirror, doesn’t turn her head to actually look at her which is unusual. She’s generally over the top about following protocol where Brenda is concerned.
“What are you doing in our bathroom?”
Brenda tries to be nicer, she does, it’s just that she’s bad at it. It’s just that what sounds normal in her head comes out rude.
“Someone killed themselves in ours,” Sharon says. She pats at her face a little with a crumpled up damp paper towel and pulls it away again.
It’s well past dinner time, close to nine o’clock now. Brenda’s been working, staring at her murder board, calling credit card companies, trying to catch people at home during dinner, but it’s hard to get people to talk over the phone.
“I’m real sorry about that,” Brenda says. “Why don’t you go home, Captain? It’s late.”
“I still have work to do,” Sharon says. “I just came to wash my face.”
Brenda stands there, unsure of what to do.
“Go ahead,” Sharon says, waving at the stall behind her. Brenda hesitates - feels strange having the Captain listen to her pee. She could use the men’s room, probably, and get away with it but who knows what horror show she’d find in there. “Don’t worry,” Sharon says. “I won’t tell anyone that you’re human.”
Something in that shames her into doing it, going into the stall and yanking a seat cover out of the holder, though she generally doesn’t bother with them. She still wads up a ball of toilet paper and drops it in so when she pees, it’s not as loud.
Sits there feeling weird about feeling weird. She can hear Sharon rustling around in her bag.
She wipes, stands up and the toilet flushes automatically. Everything in this new building is automatic - the paper towel dispensers, the sinks. And it was built to be green, too, so the automatic sink spits out what could graciously be called a drizzle. It’s a hard sink to wash your face in.
When she comes out, Sharon is wiping off her makeup with a moist towelette. Brenda can’t help but watch as she washes her hands. Off comes everything, staining the towelette beige and pink and black. And when she’s done, when all that is off and gone, it’s just Sharon’s face and Brenda is devastated to find that she’s still very, very beautiful.
“Guess I’m human, too,” Sharon says. She thinks it’s supposed to be sarcasm, but it just sounds sad.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Brenda asks. “Go get a drink?”
“Chief, I told you-”
“It’ll all hold,” Brenda says. “It’ll all hold until tomorrow. Let me buy you a drink.”
Sharon watches her, searching for any sign of subterfuge Brenda thinks, but she’s just being as sincere as she can muster. She could use a glass of wine without her husband watching her drink it. Without brushing her teeth and then swigging with mouthwash so he can’t smell it on her, without catching hell for leaving the glass on the coffee table overnight.
“I guess it will have to,” Sharon says. “All right. I accept.”
She turns back to the mirror, tucks a thick lock of hair behind her ear.
Brenda turns away to dry her hands and when she looks back, Sharon’s got her makeup bag out of her purse and is rummaging through it. To Brenda, it’s like seeing the holy grail. She scoots up next to her, peers into the little patterned bag. Sharon stiffens up, looks at her warily.
“Sorry, sorry,” Brenda says. “You always got such good stuff.”
Sharon surprises her then by picking up the whole bag and gently dumping it onto the counter. Compacts and tubes come rolling out, three different brushes, a couple things that could be eyeliner or lip liner, hard to tell right away. Sharon sorts through it lightly with her fingertips and picks up a narrow tube of concealer.
“I’m not so vain that I can’t go into public without it, you know,” she says, unscrewing the tube and pulling out the wand. “I just don’t want how tired I am to be the first thing people notice.” Her hand trembles slightly as she dabs the concealer on and then presses it into her skin with her fingers. Brenda reaches into the pile and pulls out the only powder in there, a Covergirl pressed powder in ivory. Sharon takes it with a murmured thanks and pats it into her skin with the little puff.
“What next?”
“Blush, I think,” Sharon says.
Brenda looks over her choices and finds a small travel sized Nars compact with the word Orgasm printed across the top. Brenda swallows and says, “This?”
“That’s the one,” Sharon says, picking up a fluffy little brush. She dusts the blush onto her cheeks and yes, it does give her a healthy, blood pumping glow. Brenda files that away for another time. “Mascara?”
There’s a black tube with a pink top and Brenda hands it over. Sharon swipes some on.
“Good enough I think,” Sharon says, sticking the wand back into the tube.
“What about lipstick?” Brenda asks. She feels a little dizzy, like her heart is beating too fast. Like she ran up a flight of stairs to get here.
“I think I just have red,” Sharon says. “That’s too much.”
Brenda looks down at the little pile and says, “Ain’t this gloss?” Picks up a tube of something pale, pale pink. Anastasia Beverly Hills is printed on the tube in black lettering.
“All right,” Sharon says, and swipes some of it on. Her lips shine. Brenda stares at them.
They walk two blocks away to the nearest bar. It’s a little too pricey to be a cop bar, so they won’t run into a bunch of familiar faces, no matter the proximity. They sit at a hightop table and Brenda’s wine comes in a large glass with a delicate stem. Sharon’s whiskey sour comes in a short glass with a heavy bottom. She drinks it out of a narrow straw so her lips stay glossy.
Brenda orders a second glass of wine - by the time she’s finished it, Sharon’s had three of hers. Their conversation started off with work, moved to family, circled back around again when Brenda says, “You think we could start over, you and me?”
Sharon shrugs, “I’m honestly not sure.”
“If you were gonna do my makeup,” Brenda says, straightening up in her hard, wooden chair. “How would you do it? What would you change?”
“Chief-”
“Brenda.”
“Brenda,” Sharon says hesitantly. “Your makeup is fine.”
“But if you could do me like you,” Brenda presses. “What would you use?”
Sharon rolls her eyes. “I’d cool it on the hot pink blush, that’s for damn sure.”
Brenda reaches up to touch her own cheeks and Sharon sucks in air between her teeth.
“Sorry, I’m… sorry. I lose my filter, sometimes, when I drink.” She does look contrite.
“It’s okay, go on,” Brenda says. “I can take it.”
“I’d love to see you in false lashes,” she says, studying Brenda critically. “A peach blush or a coral. Just a hint. A nude lip.” Sharon nods, as if the picture is clear in her mind. “Men would try to eat you alive. I suppose they already do.”
“Less and less,” Brenda says.
Brenda pays the tab with cash. It’s something she’s started doing since moving to California. Since getting married, actually. Carrying cash and being more careful about the sorts of trails that she leaves. She spends her working life following the trail others leave behind. She wants someone to work at least half as hard at following hers.
They walk back towards their building, a little drunk and mostly quiet. At the entrance to the parking garage, Sharon says, “I’m in here.”
“I don’t think you should drive, Captain,” Brenda says.
“It’s Sharon,” she says. Brenda smirks. “Then come up and sit with me. We can wait it out.”
Brenda is tipsy on expensive, dark wine and feels heavy, stuffed like shoving a week’s worth of clothes into an overnight bag. She’s not sure what she’s full up of, exactly, besides the usual things - doubt and hunger and desire - but whatever it is, it has to do with Sharon - her shadowing the division, her pretty skin, her big brain. Brenda is tipsy and full but not so out of it that she doesn’t recognize the invitation for what it is.
And even if she hadn’t, the fact that they both slide into the backseat of Sharon’s car is more than telling.
There’s an awkward beat where they both lean in and things don’t align exactly but then Brenda forces herself to slow down, to take control and she kisses Sharon who tastes like whiskey and lemon and shiny, expensive gloss.
Sharon pulls away and says, “I fired someone today and they killed themselves in the bathroom.”
“I know,” Brenda says. “That’s really shitty.”
“I don’t want to feel like this,” Sharon says. “It’s too much, it’s awful.”
“Let me help you,” Brenda says.
Brenda hates Captain Raydor for lots of reasons - because she’s following around the division, because she’s pretty, because she doesn’t play nice but as Brenda slides her hand up Sharon’s skirt she realizes that none of those are good reasons. That all her hatred has been all along is misunderstood desire.
Sharon slinks down low in the seat so she can part her knees a little. Brenda strokes warm thigh and then slips her fingers under lace and cotton. Sharon shifts, holding her breath. She puts her head back and closes her eyes, one hand braced on the armrest of the door. Like anything, she’s gotta feel her way through it. Sharon is warm and willing, but it takes a few long moments of stroking and finding a good angle before Sharon’s breath hitches and Brenda feels it - a gush of moisture. It certainly makes things easier.
She pushes a finger inside, going nice and slow. She doesn’t know Raydor’s life or her business but it seems like maybe it’s been awhile for her and she doesn’t want to hurt her. Sharon lifts her hips slightly to accommodate it, inhales sharply.
From somewhere within the garage, there’s a quick honk, like the sound of someone locking their car. Brenda hesitates, looks over her shoulder. They’re toward the back, nowhere near the elevator and the closest light source is not so near that they’d be visible from anywhere on the floor, but still.
“Don’t you dare stop,” Sharon says, thrusting against Brenda’s hand. Brenda smirks, pulls her finger out so slowly and just as slowly slides it back in. Tortures her with a few more of those slow strokes before speeding up, hooking her finger inside, searching. She catches Sharon by surprise, her knuckles white on the door, her neck curved, exposed.
Manages to say, “Not like that, not like… I want…”
“Take ‘em off,” Brenda says, though she does help, regretfully pulling out of Sharon so she can use both hands to shimmy the damp panties down her legs. She drops them on the floor of the backseat which Sharon frowns at but she can’t be that mad because she keeps her knees as wide as the skirt allows and even puts one foot, encased in a shiny black heel, up on the divider between the front two seats.
Brenda’s whole arm practically disappears up the skirt and she has to sort of kneel over her, but it’s okay because it gives her a view down her blouse and she watches Sharon’s chest rise and fall as she circles the swollen nub. She’s doing something right, it seems, because Sharon is struggling to maintain her silence. She keeps letting out these little almost moans, just the start of a sound before she forces herself quiet.
The leather seats squeak as Brenda shifts. She’s searching for a little more leverage - wedges her foot down against the door and manages to lower her mouth to the bit of exposed skin showing where Sharon’s blouse has gapped. She presses her lips against the soft skin just under her collarbone, tastes her with just the tip of her tongue. When she raises her chin, Sharon surges up and kisses her, her tongue against Brenda’s lips, her teeth, her tongue.
She grinds her hips again, thrusting against Brenda’s hand.
Brenda squeezes her own legs together.
When Sharon comes it’s as dignified as it could be, considering who it is and where they are. No theatrics, no shouts. She comes gently, like late afternoon light melting into darkness.
After, when she’s pulled her skirt down and smoothed it out, when she’s straightened her glasses and her blouse and ran her fingers through her hair, she picks up her panties from the floor and tucks them into her purse. Brenda hears the crinkle of plastic and then Sharon is pulling out another one of those fancy makeup wipes. She reaches out and circles her fingers around Brenda’s wrist.
Pulls her hand in and uses the towelette to wipe Brenda’s fingers clean.
*
fritz serves divorce papers without notice
“Force Investigation, Raydor speaking,” Sharon says, tucking the phone against her shoulder.
“Captain Raydor, ma’am, it’s Detective Julio Sanchez.”
“Oh, Detective Sanchez, I just cleared you last week, please don’t tell me you shot someone again,” Sharon says, closing her eyes. She can already feel the phantom pain of where her headache is going to settle. She’d had to give Julio his own file drawer with the last investigation and it was going to start getting really difficult to protect that division any longer if they didn’t start reining the incidents in.
“No, ma’am,” he says. “We just wrapped up our investigation.”
“Then what can I do for you?” she asks. It’s not like Major Crimes to call her without wanting something and she’s not sure Sanchez has ever called her at all.
“It’s the Chief, ma’am. We… we don’t know what to do.”
“Did she shoot someone?” Sharon asks, sitting up straighter.
“It’s not that,” he says. “It’s just that ever since Detective Daniels left…” He pauses and there’s some whispering she can’t make out until he says, “Shut up, Flynn! Sorry ma’am, but since Irene left, there’s not another woman in the division and I think we need a woman to help us.”
“You’re calling me because I’m the only other woman you know?” she asks, confused.
“Flynn thinks we should call D.D.A. Hobbs but I want to keep this all in the family, you know what I mean?” he says.
“I can honestly say that I don’t, but I’ll come down,” she says.
“Thank you,” he says. “Please hurry.”
She’s a little bit worried that Brenda’s gotten herself into something illegal. Again. She slips on her jacket and puts her cell phone into her pocket.
She tells her sergeant that she’s got to go down to Major Crimes, but she has her phone.
“Good luck,” he says dryly. She feels a pang of irritation. She can complain about the division all she wants but they’re actually really good detectives and Brenda does her job well - she doesn’t like when her team complains about them.
Downstairs, practically the whole division is waiting for her at the elevator. She hesitates before stepping off and then does so carefully.
“What exactly is going on here?” she demands. She sees Gabriel, Sanchez, and Tao do a complicated sideways glance exchange. Provenza rolls his eyes and Flynn is the only one missing but she can see into the murder room that he’s in on the phone.
“Chief Johnson is in there,” Tao says, pointing to the door of the ladies room.
“So?” Sharon says.
“She’s been in there for an hour and a half,” Gabriel says.
“Maybe she ate some bad fish,” Sharon offers but Sanchez just shakes his head.
“Flynn went into check on her, actually went in and she threw him out. He said…” He leans in and lowers his voice. “She was crying.”
“Okay,” Sharon says, waving her hand in front of her as if to clear away smoke. “All of you get back to work because whatever it is, you hovering out here isn’t going to help.” She shoos them with her hand again. Everyone disperses except for Gabriel who hangs back a little. “What is it?”
“I don’t know for sure,” he says. “But I think something happened at home.”
Sharon waits for him to go on.
“Atlanta? Are her parents okay?” Sharon asks when he doesn’t.
“Oh, yeah, no the Johnsons are fine,” he says. “But her and Agent Howard have been… I don’t know for sure, but I do know she sleeps here sometimes.”
“In her office?” Sharon asks.
He nods.
“Okay, thank you,” she says. She turns, faces the bathroom and then, squaring her shoulders, pushes her way in.
At first she doesn’t see anything at all. A row of white sinks, the slate gray stall doors. And then she hears it, a sniff from the handicapped stall. She walks slowly toward it, her heels echoing on the tile floor. She stops just in front of the stall door.
“Go away, Captain,” comes her watery voice.
“How did you know it was me?” she calls.
Brenda gives a dry laugh. “Only you wear those pretty shoes.”
“Can I come in?” Sharon asks.
“It’s open,” Brenda says. Sharon pushes forward the door slowly. Brenda is sitting on the floor, tucked up into a little ball and her face is red and swollen. She looks up at Sharon and it breaks Sharon’s heart.
“Are you all right, Chief?” Sharon asks. “This isn’t like you.”
“Isn’t it?” Brenda says. “I think the only person who has seen me cry more than my mama these days is you.”
“I’m honored,” she says. “What if we find somewhere else to talk?”
Brenda shakes her head, wells up again. “I can’t.”
Sharon sighs. “Okay.” She walks over to the toilet and pulls one of the seat covers out from above it and then sets it on the floor next to Brenda and sits on it. “Not a lot of people I’d sit on a bathroom floor for, for the record.” She stretches out her legs and thinks about burning her nylons later.
“I’ll never forget the sacrifice,” Brenda sniffs.
“So,” Sharon says. “You have those guys out there pretty freaked out.”
“They’re fine,” Brenda says.
“Julio Sanchez called my office directly and called me ma’am four times,” Sharon says. Brenda looks down at the wad of toilet paper in her hand and runs it across her cheeks. It’s already so wet that it doesn’t do much good. Sharon reaches up behind her and pulls at the roll of toilet paper, ripping off some more squares and handing them to her. Brenda takes them and gives her the old wad, just like her children used to do with used tissues and chewed gum. Sharon takes it, tosses it into the toilet bowl.
“Nice shot,” Brenda says.
“I’m a woman of many talents,” Sharon says. “Now, what’s going on with Agent Howard?”
Brenda exhales a shaky breath. “This mornin’ I got served divorce papers.”
Sharon is silent for a moment, surprised, but finally manages an “Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well,” Brenda says, before starting to cry in earnest. “It’s probably what I deserve,” she wails.
Sharon sighs, lifts her arm and wraps it around Brenda’s shoulders. Brenda curls into her, sobbing.
After several minutes Sharon says, “Did you tell him?”
“No!” Brenda says. “That’s the worst part. I never said a word.”
“And you’re sure he didn’t…”
“I didn’t tell him about you,” Brenda says fiercely. “I’ve never told anyone.”
“I believe you,” Sharon says. “I’m just saying do you think he saw us and didn’t say anything?”
“You think he saw us on your balcony? In your shower? You think he saw us in the parkin’ garage?” Brenda says.
“No,” Sharon says. “But there have been times… here… that we have been less than careful. He has friends here.”
“Sharon,” Brenda whispers. “I think he’s seein’ someone else.”
Sharon stares at her and then, when it seems like Brenda isn’t going to following that up with some insightful revelation, says, “That’s almost good news, right?”
“How can you say that?” Brenda asks.
Sharon leans in and stage whispers, “You’re seeing someone, too.”
“We’re not seein’ each other,” Brenda says hotly. “We’re just…”
“Fucking?” Sharon says finally.
“No!” Brenda says. And then, “Well, it’s not like we can help it. It’s just so… god, it’s so good.”
“Really, really, extraordinary.” Sharon agrees. “A real shame.”
“Very inconvenient,” Brenda says. “You know, Fritz and I used to have great sex. All the time, everywhere. He’s got a real big di-”
“Don’t finish that sentence, I don’t want to know,” Sharon cuts her off sharply.
“Anyway, when things started gettin’ rocky, we sort of stopped and then we couldn’t… we never clicked again. The last time we tried it was like pushin’ rope and I felt so guilty, like it was me? I was broken? But turns out he’s been stickin’ it to some other broad and my sex havin’ parts work just fine.”
“I can vouch for that,” Sharon says.
“I guess sex was all we had,” Brenda says.
“But why are you sitting on the bathroom floor, Brenda, for Christ’s sake?”
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she says. “I can’t go home.”
Sharon sighs, curses under her breath and gets herself up and off the floor, using the metal bar installed in the wall to help.
“It’s eleven thirty in the goddamn morning, Brenda, pull yourself together,” Sharon says. “Finish your work day and when it’s done you’ll come home with me.”
Brenda looks up at her with her big wet eyes, mascara running down her cheeks. “Really?”
“Really,” Sharon says. “We can even have sex. Not car sex, not hallway sex, not office sex, just regular, plain old, boring missionary sex in a bed that isn’t a secret from anyone.”
“Are you sure?” Brenda says. “Can I be on top?”
Sharon rolls her eyes. “If you stop crying, yes.”
Brenda sniffs a big sniff and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, stands up and smooths her skirt.
“Okay,” she says. “Thank you.”
Sharon exits the restroom while Brenda washes her face - Sharon has real, actual work to do, after all. But when she opens the door, Brenda’s team is still hovering and they all look at her hopefully.
“Get back to work,” Sharon snaps. “All of you. The Chief is not going to be happy to see you hovering.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sanchez says with a slight smile. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She touches his arm. “You’re welcome, Julio.”
Turns out missionary sex with Brenda is still good. It’s great. It’s resplendent. She comes three times.
She doesn’t even mind being on the bottom.
*
overstimulated
“Since when does she get migraines?” Brenda asks.
“Since forever,” Rusty says. “I guess - I mean, I think they’re mostly triggered by stress.”
“Oh,” Brenda says. She’s only been part of their life again for a few weeks. Had weaseled her way back in somehow, had managed not only to be forgiven but to be welcomed. And when Sharon had kissed her out on the balcony just like the first time, almost shyly, she’d felt like pinching herself. She is determined not to screw this up again, to do it all fair and right and above board. She’s given fifty years of her life to disappointing men and she doesn’t feel guilty about leaving them completely behind.
Brenda knocks lightly on Sharon’s closed bedroom door.
She’s used to Sharon being put together, well-tailored and coiffed. What she finds is Sharon sitting on her her bed, jammed up against her headboard with her knees to her chest and her head on her knees. Her long hair has been pulled up into a ponytail and she’s in her camisole and a little slip. Her clothes are crumpled on the floor.
“Oh dear,” Brenda says, quickly closing the door behind her. “What can I do?”
She says something that Brenda can’t make out.
Brenda comes over to the side of the bed. It’s awkward, a little. They’ve been getting closer but Brenda hasn’t spent any time in Sharon’s bed or even her bedroom. They haven’t made it off the couch yet, and this is easily the least amount of clothes she’s seen Sharon in since they started over. Even when they took Rusty and Gus to the beach last week, Sharon wore a full cover-up over her one piece and a huge straw hat.
Still, she reaches out and touches Sharon’s bare shoulder. “Say it again.”
Sharon lifts her head. Her eyes are swollen and red. “I said I told him not to call you.”
“He didn’t call me,” Brenda said. “It’s Tuesday. We were supposed to have dinner. I came to pick you up.”
“Shit,” Sharon says and puts her head back down. She mumbles something that sounds like “I forgot.”
“It don’t matter now,” Brenda says. “What can I do? Water? Ice? Heat?”
“I need to take my pills,” she says, lifting her head and wiping at her face with her hands.
“I’m gonna get you some water,” Brenda says. She leaves her heels in the bedroom and rushes into the kitchen. Rusty’s sitting at the dining table, typing on his laptop but he pauses to look up at her expectantly.
She just shrugs. “I don’t know anythin’ yet,” she says. “I’m gonna get her some water and make her an ice pack. Y’all got those little sandwich baggies?”
“Bottom drawer,” he says.
She finds them and of course they’re the nice ones. Name brand with the tops that actually zip closed. She fills it with ice and takes one of the dishtowels hanging on the handle of the oven. It’s beige and is printed with an illustration of fancy pears.
“Put this on the back of your neck,” Brenda says when she returns to the bedroom. She extends the bag of ice all wrapped up in the dishtowel. Sharon squints at it - her glasses are a forgotten memory on her nightstand - and then gets a sour expression.
“Is that my kitchen towel?”
“It’s an ice pack,” Brenda says patiently.
“I’m not having heat stroke,” Sharon says but she reaches for it anyway and holds it against the back of her neck.
“I know that,” Brenda says. But this is as overwhelmed as she’s ever seen Sharon and Sharon shadowed Brenda and her division for a year so that’s saying something. “Where is your medicine?”
“In the medicine cabinet,” Sharon says. “The box of imitrex and the painkillers.”
Another layer of intimacy achieved. Brenda has breached the bedroom and now gets to gaze into the woman’s medicine cabinet. Sharon is obviously going through something right now but if she weren’t, Brenda might feel pretty proud of herself. Sharon, though being the one to truly initiate this odd relationship shift, is the most guarded person she’s ever met. Rusty had told her that Sharon had dated Detective Flynn for over a year, that they had off and on lived with one another, even, and Sharon had never actually had sex with him, not once.
“She told you that?” Brenda had asked.
“God, no,” Rusty had said, sticking his tongue out in a disgusted pantomime. “But that’s what he yelled at her when they were breaking up.”
Brenda has been seeing Sharon again for three and a half weeks and has already made out with her several times on the sofa, has managed to get her hand up her sweater, even. Take that, Andy Flynn.
Sharon’s bathroom is neat and tidy. There’s a hairbrush on the counter and a colorful set of facial cleansers by Clinique up against the mirror. She’d kill a man to go through the drawers but instead she finds the medicine inside the cabinet on the shelf next to her toothbrush and toothpaste and grabs it.
Sharon takes the pills gratefully and lies back, moving the ice pack to her forehead and closing her eyes.
“Okay,” Brenda says. “Please let me know, or Rusty, if you need anything else.”
“Will you stay?” Sharon asks, blindly reaching her hand out across the mattress.
“Sure, honey,” Brenda says. She sits on the edge of the bed and then when Sharon pats the mattress, lies out flat next to her. She crosses her feet at her ankles and listens to Sharon breathe for a few long minutes.
If she listens hard she can hear the air conditioning churning out cool air, Rusty moving around outside the closed door, the ice in the plastic baggy shifting as it melts underneath the towel from the heat of Sharon’s skin.
“You want to talk about what happened?”
Sharon mulls this over for awhile. “I got a headache.”
Brenda rolls her eyes. “I can see that,” she says.
“I guess… we went to this crime scene at this kitschy store that was full of incense and essential oils and flowers and it was tiny. It had this sitar music playing so loud and there were a lot of witnesses and we were all in this dark, smelly, loud shop and I just… I got…”
“Overstimulated,” Brenda suggests.
“I should’ve known,” Sharon says. “I woke up this morning and everything seemed over the top.”
“How do you mean?” Brenda asks.
“Lights too bright… things that don’t usually bother me were somehow way too loud. I was irritable. Those were clear signs of… well, I didn’t put it together until I was throwing up in the parking lot.”
“Yeesh,” Brenda says. “How long until the medicine helps?”
“I can feel the painkiller already,” Sharon admits.
“Good,” she says. “You know, overstimulation doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
Sharon pulls the ice bag away and gives her a squinty glare.
“I just mean that if your body is oversensitive to pain, it means it can be very receptive to pleasure, too.”
“Are you using my headache to hit on me?” Sharon says, though she laughs, a little.
“I’m just using science to plead my case,” she says.
Sharon snorts and says, “Science.”
“I used to get such bad cramps in my twenties, the kind that would keep me in bed all day,” Brenda says. “One of the only things that would help would be an orgasm.”
Sharon stills beside her.
“The pleasure was the only thing that could overtake the pain. It would trick my brain for awhile, anyway.” Brenda wiggled her toes and looked up at Sharon’s smooth, white ceiling. There was a flurry of noise and commotion out in the living room and then the sound of the front door closing and the deadbolt turning.
“Rusty leaving for class,” Sharon murmurs.
“Hmm,” Brenda says, reaching a hand out in front of her to inspect her nails. She’d never bothered with manicures when she was on the force because the latex gloves made her skin a dry nightmare so there was no point in spending money on her nails when everything else looked ragged. But now that she’s working a desk job she goes every two weeks and this time she got a dusty rose that she thinks she might keep for awhile.
Sharon rolls her head on her pillow to look at Brenda. Brenda rolls her head to look at Sharon and gives her a soft smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Sharon says. “Sorry about our date.”
“Totally okay,” Brenda says.
Sharon’s eyes drop down to Brenda’s mouth and then dart back up. “Hey, do you think… never mind.”
“No, what?” Brenda presses. “Do I think what?”
“Do you think your cramps solution might help my headache?” Sharon whispers. Her eyes look a little glassy. Brenda thinks the painkillers are maybe already helping more than Sharon knows but she’ll happily give this beautiful woman whatever she wants.
“Could be,” Brenda says. “Could very well be.”
Sharon chews on her bottom lip for a moment in thought. “I don’t usually… that’s not something I do very often.”
“Have orgasms?” Brenda says.
Sharon narrows her eyes again but Brenda hasn’t been afraid of that glare in a long time.
“You should have more orgasms, Sharon,” Brenda says. “Life is just better that way.”
“I meant to myself,” Sharon says.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Brenda says. “Either I can leave and you can give it a try or you can let me help you. Either way, I suspect you’ll feel better. At least for a moment.”
Sharon takes the ice and drops it on the floor next to her.
“Um,” Sharon says. “How would you start? Just so I can know what to expect.”
Brenda rolls onto her side and props her head up with one arm. She studies Sharon - her ivory slip is twisted a little; she can see one of the seams running down the middle of her thigh. Her camisole has wrinkled at the bottom and has risen up just a little.
“I’d touch your arm,” Brenda says.
“My arm?”
“Yeah, real softly. Just to see how you respond to the stimulation,” Brenda says. “Want me to show you?”
Sharon swallows and says, “All right.”
Brenda extends her fingers with their dusty rose nails and touches Sharon’s shoulder lightly. Just with the pads of her fingers and the tips of her fingernails, she runs her hand over Sharon’s bicep, dips into the soft, creased skin of the inside of her elbow and stops only at her wrist where she draws little circles over the bluish veins. It’s the wrist Sharon reacts to the most, inhaling quickly at the sensation.
Brenda does this three more times. Shoulder, bicep, inner elbow, wrist.
“What would you do next?” Sharon asks, her voice a little thinner than before.
Brenda considers her options and then says, “Collarbones, I think.”
“Collar… really?” Sharon asks.
“Mmmhmm,” Brenda says, scooting a little closer to Sharon so she can reach all the way across her. “I see this part of you-” She hovers over the bare skin of Sharon’s chest and says, “May I?”
“You may.”
“I see this part of you,” she says, lightly touching the skin between her collarbones and running a single finger down to the very top of the dip between her breasts. Sharon sighs and shifts. “But I don’t usually see your collarbones. They’re covered by your blouses or your jackets.”
She uses three fingers to touch the protruding bone. One along the top, two on either side. She goes back and forth and back and forth and then lowers her hand until the three fingers drag across the slight swell of skin that, any lower, would be breast.
Sharon lets out a gust of air and says, “Mmm.”
“It gets a little… well, a little personal after that,” Brenda says.
“Does it?” Sharon asks, eyes closed.
“It does, so we can stop if you want,” Brenda offers.
“Or,” Sharon says. “Or… you could just explain it to me?”
“Sure,” she says. “I’d push your shirt up so I could see your ribs and your stomach and I’d take the slip off all together. Seems like you’d be more comfortable that way.”
“I’d probably be more comfortable with both of them off, honestly,” Sharon admits.
“Would you like me to help you do that? To take those off?” Brenda asks.
“Okay,” Sharon says.
Brenda’s own clothes - a cotton, flared skirt and a lightweight, ribbed t-shirt - make it easy enough to move on the bed. To kneel next to Sharon and help pull the camisole over her head, wispy strands of dark hair coming loose from the haphazard job Sharon had done at getting her hair up and out of her face. She tosses the shirt to the floor. She’s careful to only grab the slip and not hook her fingers into Sharon’s underwear. Sharon lifts her hips and the silky material of the slip is all too easy to slide free.
Brenda’s hands tremble as they graze Sharon’s thigh, the soft skin of her belly. She circles her little belly button and walks her fingers up her ribs. It’s easier now to see how Sharon’s chest heaves, how her skin reacts to the touch. Goosebumps, rushing blood.
“You’re not too cold?”
Sharon shakes her head.
“And how is the head?” Brenda asks.
“I think I could do with a little more of your therapy,” Sharon says. “Since it is backed by science, after all.”
Brenda smirks. “Well, what I would do next is-”
“Don’t explain it, just do it,” Sharon demands, closing her eyes.
Brenda feels a little burst of pleasure of her own. She does everything she wants, slowly so Sharon can stop her at anytime. She pulls down the soft cups of Sharon’s beige bra, exposing milky white flesh covered in light freckles and pink, hardened nipples. She kisses Sharon’s shoulder, her collarbone, the fleshy top of her breast before running her tongue over a nipple.
Sharon groans.
Brenda kisses down ribs, dips her tongue into a belly button, noses the soft skin just above the elastic of her underwear. She kisses skin, elastic and lace, the cotton of the pair of briefs. Sharon is breathing fast and hard. Brenda so slowly eases herself between Sharon’s legs, so carefully lifts one leg to rest on her shoulder. So, so slowly lowers her mouth to the damp fabric that covers Sharon before licking a hot line along it.
Sharon’s open hand slaps down on the mattress beside her and she says, “Oh!”
Such a dainty, feminine response, her little gasped Oh! Brenda wants to hear it again, wants to hear more. She licks again, pressing the flat of her tongue hard against the now wet fabric. She feels Sharon’s heel against her back as it moves, feels pressure against her mouth as Sharon thrusts against her. Brenda presses both lips against Sharon and blows hot breath.
“Off,” Sharon gasps. “Off, off, take them off…”
Brenda ignores the plea but does bring one hand up to offer some relief. She keeps her tongue high but uses one finger to slip underneath the scrap of fabric. Sharon is so, so wet. Her finger slips in so easily. Near her head, Sharon’s fingernails scratch at the sheets. Brenda rotates her wrist so her palm is up and the finger twists inside of Sharon. She slides it out again and works another finger up under the fabric and inside while using her tongue to apply steady pressure.
Sharon thrashes, her head moving all over the pillow, and her hand flies to the top of Brenda’s head.
Brenda glances up, past the smooth freckled skin of her belly, past her exposed breasts and long neck. She curls her fingers and Sharon moans again, looking down at Brenda. She shudders with her whole body when she sees Brenda watching her.
“Please,” she begs. “Brenda, please.”
Brenda prefers to be a tease, to drag it all out, to make it last, but this isn’t a normal situation. She’s supposed to be making Sharon feel better, not to torture her, so she gives in, yanking the panties down far enough that Sharon gets one foot out of them. Then she parts Sharon’s lips where the hair is matted and wet and lowers her face again, licking enthusiastically.
Sharon groans loudly, one arm flying across her face, the other hand back in Brenda’s hair.
She licks until her jaw is sore, thrusting her fingers inside of Sharon.
“Almost,” Sharon pants. “Just a little…”
Brenda moves her tongue faster across Sharon’s swollen clit, ignoring her own pain and it’s enough, Sharon clenches around her fingers, spasming. Brenda licks her through it and then, when Sharon has stopped twitching, Brenda lifts her head but keeps her fingers moving lazily. In and out, in and out.
Sharon is panting when she pushes herself up onto her elbows and says, “I can’t believe we just did that.”
“No?” Brenda says, her fingers still curling and moving. Sharon hasn’t told her to stop, after all. “Where did you think all those late night petting sessions were headed?”
“We were just going to move slower than this, this time,” Sharon says and she seems genuinely perplexed as to her own behavior. “Remember?”
“Well,” Brenda says, pressing her fingers in deep and putting enough pressure that Sharon falls back with a soft moan. “I can be very persuasive.”
*
desperation
“Come on,” Rusty says.
“No,” says Sharon.
“Dude, come on,” says Rusty.
“No, Rusty,” says Sharon.
“Come on, mom, this is totally unfair!” Rusty says, his voice cracking a little at his high, whiny tone.
Brenda, who is sitting in the living room leafing through the latest Redbook, says to no one in particular, “Is this what I’m missin’ out on by not having kids? Doesn’t seem like that much of a loss.”
“Not helpful,” Sharon says to her. She turns back to Rusty. “You’ve been very lucky in your schooling and have come out of it debt free. I can’t tell you not to take a gap year because that’s a perfectly valid option, but I can tell you no, I’m not going to pay for it.”
“I’m not asking you to! I’m just asking for a loan!” Rusty says.
“And I’m saying no and also heavily implying that you will enjoy your travels more if you’ve earned the money to pay for them,” Sharon says.
“Yeah but Gus is going to Paris for an entire year and what am I supposed to do if I can’t see him for a whole year?” Rusty demands.
“No one is saying you can’t see Gus for an entire year,” Sharon says calmly.
“Kiddo, flip burgers for six weeks, buy a ticket, and worry about the rest when you get there,” Brenda says.
“Or, come up with a similar but much better plan,” Sharon adds.
“You have your degree,” Brenda says. “They have the news in France.”
Sharon extends her hand at Brenda in agreement. “They do. You could even use your very fancy degree.”
“You guys have no idea what it’s like for someone like me,” Rusty says. He says this while stomping down the hallway and punctuates the sentence by slamming the door to his bedroom.
“I think we’re uniquely suited to know exactly how he feels,” Brenda says, turning another page in her magazine.
“You were not at all helpful,” Sharon accuses.
“You told me you didn’t want to give him money for this,” Brenda says. “So we didn’t.”
“That’s what you consider helpful?” Sharon asks.
Brenda shrugs, tosses the magazine down. “You know how it is when you’re in love,” she says. “If you left, I’d do anything to get to you. I’d be desperate.”
They haven’t been doing this for very long. They’ve been fucking each other for years, now, but that had always been an affair. This is a relationship and it's halfway living together and it’s new.
She’s still not used to the matter of fact way Brenda speaks of her feelings. She’s used to it when they’re in bed, hot and heavy and willing to say anything, but here they are in her living room. Brenda still has her shoes on even. Brenda in a suit and shoes, causally telling Sharon how she feels.
“I’d be desperate, too,” Sharon says.
“Well there you go,” Brenda says. “Maybe we put ‘no’ up on the shelf and try to find a way to work with the boy, hmm?”
Sharon blinks, stunned into silence.
Brenda goes back to her place because she says she wants to give them space to work it out and doesn’t show up later like Sharon is convinced she will. Brenda doesn’t like sleeping alone. She doesn’t like the duplex, mostly empty without Fritz’s things, she doesn’t like waking up alone. Sharon is fine sleeping alone but has been indulging Brenda because that’s what people do for Brenda. They indulge her. Sharon included.
She does call just after ten, Sharon’s phone buzzing on her nightstand where it’s already plugged in, where it will charge through the night.
“Hi,” Sharon answers. “You downstairs?”
“What?” she says. “No, I’m in bed.”
“Oh,” Sharon says, slightly disappointed.
“How’s Rusty?” Brenda presses.
“Good,” Sharon says. “We calmed down, we talked it out. He agreed to use ad revenue from Identity to finance his trip and I promised that I’d stop nagging him about getting a job and he said that he’d be home by his birthday.”
“If he had the money, then why all the water works about borrowing it?” she asks.
“He’s very… he’s careful about money. A byproduct of growing up without it. He doesn’t like his savings to dip below a certain amount.” Sharon looks into her lap and tries to imagine Brenda is there with her, not across town. “I told him that we were his safety net. That no matter what happened, he’d never end up on the street again.”
“Hard to believe something like that for him, I bet,” Brenda says.
“Yeah,” Sharon agrees.
“So,” Brenda says. “What are you wearin’?”
Sharon laughs. “The same thing I was wearing when you saw me last.”
“That’s no fun,” Brenda says. “You want to know what I’m wearin’?”
“Always,” Sharon says.
“The pink thing,” Brenda says.
“With the lace?” Sharon asks, feeling her face grow a little warm.
“With the lace,” Brenda confirms.
“That’s my favorite,” Sharon says. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed but now she unplugs the phone from the charger and swings her legs up onto the mattress so she can lie back.
“You could come over,” Brenda says. “Untie the little ties. Peel it off of me.”
Sharon groans. “Tempting,” she says. “You could come here.”
“It ain’t the same when we can’t be loud,” Brenda complains. “I like to be loud.”
“I’ve heard you be quiet,” Sharon says.
“I like to make you be loud, too,” Brenda says.
“How about you be loud there and I’ll be quiet here,” Sharon says. “A compromise.”
“Not as good as the real thing,” Brenda says. Sharon can hear the sound of wood scraping as Brenda pulls open the drawer to her nightstand. “But I’ll take it in a pinch.”
“Going for the toys already, Brenda Leigh?” Sharon says.
“It’s late and I’m an old lady,” Brenda says. “I don’t have time to waste, honey.”
Sharon giggles, a wave of affection overtaking her. Who would have thought after all this time, all these years. Brenda Leigh Johnson, all along.
“You coming with me or what?” Brenda asks.
“Go ahead,” Sharon says. “I like to listen.”
She can hear the buzzing through the phone and Brenda says, “Suit yourself.”
Sharon can tell the exact moment the toy makes contact from just the change in Brenda’s breathing. She really is content to just listen and enjoy Brenda’s pleasure as an eavesdropper but she finds herself squirming already. Brenda makes these little noises that make doing nothing a strain.
Sharon’s got a hand on her own breast as she asks, “Which one?”
“The purple one,” Brenda says, her voice as thick as honey.
“Oh right,” Sharon says. “The day I learned you can buy vibrators on Amazon.”
“Baby, you can buy - ah - anything on Amazon,” Brenda says.
“Mmmhmm,” Sharon says. “You have your panties on still?”
“No,” Brenda says.
“Good,” Sharon murmurs. “Inside or out?”
“Mmm, you tell me,” Brenda says.
That answers her question well enough. “Put it in,” Sharon instructs. “Are you wet enough?”
“I wouldn’t have called if I wasn’t,” Brenda says. “Ahhh, god.”
“Good girl,” Sharon says. “Turn it up a little.”
“It’s… too fast…” Brenda complains. “Won’t last.”
“Turn it up, Brenda, that’s an order,” Sharon says, adopting a stern voice.
“Oh, fuck,” Brenda says. “Okay. Yeah, okay, okay, good.”
Sharon slides her hand down, uses her fingers to ruck up her own skirt. There’s not enough space for her hand to fit in the waist without undoing the back of the skirt and she doesn’t have enough time for all of that. Brenda is panting into the phone, moaning each time she pushes the vibrator into herself. Sharon gets her hand into her panties just as Brenda starts to really suffer.
“Please, please,” she breathes. “Please let me.”
Sharon rubs hard at herself, tries to play a little catch up and only when she feels the first flutter of pleasure does she say, “Okay, honey. You can do it.”
Brenda pulls the vibrator out of her and holds it against her clit and Sharon rubs at herself until she hears Brenda cry out and she comes too, back arching, the buttons of her blouse straining until her body relaxes.
It takes longer for Brenda to recover. She likes to milk her orgasms for every drop, to hold the toy against herself long after Sharon would have thrown it off the bed. Brenda is a junkie for pleasure. For sex, for chocolate, for competition. Sharon listens to her come and come and then finally she hears the thump of Brenda giving in, the toy hitting the wooden floor next to Brenda’s bed.
Just heavy breathing across the open line.
“You still with me?” Sharon asks.
“Yeah,” Brenda says, though her voice is a little raspy. “Always, honey.”
“Will you sleep here tomorrow?” Sharon asks, caught up in the moment because she misses the after part fiercely, the part where they cuddle up and fall asleep.
“When Rusty’s in Paris, we can do this every night but in person,” Brenda says.
Sharon chuckles. “That’s the sales pitch he should’ve gone with.”
Brenda laughs and it helps, a little, the loneliness of the empty bed beside her.
*
a scenario in which brenda and sharon must share a bed
Sharon really isn’t sure about this. She looks around the room, one hand still on the handle of her rolling suitcase. Brenda hasn’t noticed that she’s stopped and walks right into the back of her and then says, “Well for heaven’s sake, Sharon, go.”
She’s trying to be patient with Brenda’s short temper. The whole reason she came out to this dumb flyover state is for Brenda. She swallows her sharp reply and goes all the way into the bedroom so that Brenda has space to drag her stuff in behind her.
Sharon looks at the bed and says, “That’s small.”
“It’s a trundle,” Brenda says, flopping down on the narrow mattress pressed up against one wall.
Of course it is.
They’re the first to arrive.
Brenda has three brothers, one married, one divorced and Brenda’s favorite brother, Jimmy who has been living with his partner for longer than he hasn’t at this point. Sharon knows all about Brenda’s family but has only ever met her parents and her niece Charlie.
Charlie lives with Brenda and Sharon, now, in Rusty’s old room now that Rusty is grown and on his own. Charlie has a final that she can’t skip because it’s her last semester of grad school; Charlie swears she’ll make it out on time.
And now, both of the Johnsons are gone.
So the brothers are a mystery but they won’t be for much longer. They’re all coming in to figure out what to do with the house.
“We’ll put Frank and Jimmy in mama and daddy’s room,” Brenda had said on the plane. “Bobby and Joyce can take the guest room. You and I can have my room - well, it’s more Charlie’s now than mine.”
“What about Clay Jr.?” Sharon had asked.
“He lives half an hour away,” Brenda had said.
“What if he wants to spend the night?” she'd pressed, thinking he might not want to leave his family once they’re all back together again.
“He can have the couch,” Brenda had said a little spitefully.
Sharon hadn’t pressed any further.
“How much longer until the rest start to arrive?” Sharon asks, letting go of her suitcase. It’s a little front heavy and it tips and leans against the wall between the bookcase and the nightstand.
“We’re supposed to call CJ when we get in. Bobby and Joyce fly in later tonight.”
“And Jimmy?” Sharon asks.
Brenda perks up at this a little, enough to open her eyes and says, “Any time now.”
“Then let’s wait for them to get here before we call CJ,” Sharon says and Brenda nods her head, closes her eyes.
Sharon finds the bathroom down the hall on her own and then stares at her own reflection, standing at the aged vanity with the shell-shaped sink. The hand towel that hangs there is blush pink and the end is edged in frayed lace. When she touches it, it’s dusty.
The hospital bed was still in the living room when they arrived, but an email Brenda had received from one of her brothers had said that they’re supposed to come pick it up in the morning. Either way, it’s clear that Clay hadn’t been up the stairs of his own house for quite some time. She shakes the hand towel out and folds it the other direction. It’s exactly the kind of thing Brenda would notice, that dust, and is exactly what Sharon doesn’t want her to have to think about.
In fact, while Brenda naps in her old bedroom, Sharon makes herself very familiar with the upstairs, going room from room and making sure things look normal and lived in. The master bedroom still smells like sick and so she strips the bed and opens all the windows. Tosses the linens over the banister where they fall down and land in a heap on the hardwood floor. She sweeps empty pill bottles into the nightstand drawer where they fall on top of reading glasses and bookmarks and an old tattered bible.
She’s down in the kitchen, scrubbing out the refrigerator while the washer chugs and churns at the bedsheets when the front door opens and two men come in with bags.
“Honey,” says one of them. “There’s a beautiful woman in your parent’s kitchen who is not your sister.”
She plasters a graceful smile onto her face, as graceful as she can with her hair pulled back and yellow, rubber gloves on both her hands. Brenda’s brother looks like he could be Brenda’s twin. He’s got the same compact, wiry frame, the same sharp eyes, the same coloring as Brenda. As Willie Rae.
“You must be Sharon,” Jimmy says.
“Hi,” Sharon replies, tossing the sponge into the sink and pulling off the gloves. “Sorry, I was just…”
“I’m Frank,” says the other man.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Sharon says, extending her hand. Jimmy takes it and uses it to pull Sharon in for a hug. And then Frank hugs her too and says, “I’m so glad I’m not the only one in the family anymore.”
Sharon goes rigid and Frank feels her freeze up.
“It’s all right,” he says, stepping back. “We know Brenda Leigh has yet to come clean about you but there’s no sense pretending, right?”
“I’m…” Sharon tries to tuck her hands into her pockets only to find that she has none and crosses her arms instead. “It’s just…”
“Don’t out the poor woman thirty seconds after you’ve met her, Jesus Christ,” Jimmy says. “Where is Brenda?”
“Resting upstairs,” Sharon says. “I was just trying to make things more manageable for you all when you arrived.”
“Go get her, Franklin,” Jimmy says. “I’ll mop up the wreckage here, as usual.”
Frank grins at them both and takes the stairs two at a time. Jimmy sheds his coat, leaves the bags by the door.
“Sorry, honey,” he says. “Frank isn’t into subtlety.”
“It’s fine,” Sharon says, waving it away like so much whatever.
“Brenda hasn’t said anything but I know her pretty well, so we just… assumed.”
“You know what that does,” Sharon says with a dry laugh and he grins.
“Brenda hasn’t ever brought anyone home without a ring on her finger, before,” Jimmy says. “That’s all.”
“No one left to disappoint, now, I suppose,” Sharon says. Then, “I’m sorry, that was crass.”
Jimmy shakes his head. “He was real sick and lonely without mama. It’s better this way.”
Sharon nods sympathetically. “Well. We thought perhaps you’d take the master upstairs. The sheets are in the wash, though.”
“Bobby in the guest?” Jimmy asks.
“Yeah.”
“Brenda likes a plan,” Jimmy says. “What about you two?”
“We’re in her old room,” she says.
“Charlie’s room?” he asks. “You must like each other.”
He winks at her but there isn’t more time to interpret that because she hears feet on the stairs and then Frank appears, followed by Brenda who still looks so tired. The skin under her eyes is thin and puffy. She’d been crying up there while Sharon cleaned downstairs. But she smiles at Jimmy, shoves Frank aside to run at him and leaps into his hug, wrapping her legs around his waist.
“God you’re fat,” Jimmy says.
“Kiss my ass,” Brenda replies, kissing him right on the mouth. “You big dumb homo.”
“Pot, kettle, black,” he says, dropping her back to her feet.
“I’m sure I don’t know to what you refer,” she says.
Sharon watches this exchange, working hard to not let the surprise show on her face. This is a side of Brenda she’s not seen before: Brenda with her brothers. Brenda’s a tease, she’s always been a big tease especially where Sharon is concerned but she’s not generally this carefree. It’s good to see. Brenda’s been distraught about Clay and this bit of lightheartedness Sharon finds reassuring.
They go out to dinner before Bobby and Joyce arrive. Jimmy calls Clay Jr. and he meets them at the restaurant. Sharon stays quiet, watching the interaction and cataloging it all away for later inspection. Frank chastises her once for being shy and she responds, “Who could possibly get a word in edgewise in a room full of Johnsons,” and they all burst into laughter and no one teases her about her silence again.
They get a long booth, Brenda sits next to her and keeps her hand on her thigh under the table.
CJ is the eldest and looks like Clay, not Willie Rae. Sharon is fascinated to see which side of that fence Bobby will fall into but she suspects that since Charlie looks enough like Brenda to pass as her daughter, CJ will be the only one who takes after Clay the senior and that is fitting.
Jimmy asks about Sharon’s family, asks after Rusty which she finds kind, considering this trip is not in any way about her or the life that she and Brenda have stitched together back in Los Angeles. When it turns to the topic of sibling rivalry - CJ and Brenda fighting over the last of the guacamole - Sharon admits that she has only one brother, and three sisters so the dynamic is different.
“And we’re Catholic so it’s much more…”
“Spiteful,” Brenda suggests.
“Subdued,” Sharon corrects, glaring at her. Brenda’s two and a half margaritas deep and forgets about their particular audience. She leans in and kisses Sharon fondly. Just a little peck.
Frank whoops. Jimmy rolls his eyes. CJ says, “How’s Fritz?”
“He knocked up his secretary, Clay Jr., but I’ll let him know you asked after him,” Brenda says sharply.
CJ has at least enough good grace to look slightly ashamed.
Sharon drives them all home as she’s the most sober. CJ shakes her hand when they part in the parking lot and says, “I’ll come by in the morning.”
“All right,” she says.
“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance this evening,” he says which is more than she expected when they’d booked the tickets to come out here.
“And yours,” she says.
Frank sings loudly for most of the drive home while Jimmy tries to get him to stop and Brenda laughs so hard that she makes several loud sounds somewhere between a honk and a gasp and there are tears streaming down her cheeks.
They’re three blocks from home before Sharon realizes that Brenda isn’t actually laughing anymore.
“Oh, honey,” she says.
The boys in the back quiet down. Brenda manages to get her hands up to her face and tries to hide behind them. They all just let her cry until Sharon parks. She twists around in her seat and looks at Jimmy and then Frank.
“Go on inside,” Sharon says. “I’ve got it.”
Brenda cries until headlights catch their attention. It’s the rental car. It’s Bobby and his wife Joyce, Charlie’s mother.
“Okay,” Brenda says, wiping her face with her sleeve. “Okay.”
It seems a travesty that Sharon hasn’t ever met Charlie’s parents. Charlie’s been with them nearly a year and Sharon loves her, loves her as if she were her own niece. She’s smart and she’s kind and she’s pretty and she brings out the best parts of Brenda, the parts Sharon knows are inside of Brenda but that aren’t always easy to see.
“Let them go inside,” Sharon says softly. “We don’t have to ambush them in the driveway.”
It’s hard to see him clearly in the dark but Bobby is tall and lanky but has broad shoulders. Perhaps the best of both of his parents, a scenario Sharon had not yet considered.
Everyone is tired and the happy mood from dinner hasn’t survived the trip into the house. Joyce has a headache and goes to bed right away. There’s something between Bobby and Jimmy that’s uncomfortable though Sharon has no idea what it could be. Perhaps they’re in middle of a disagreement suspended only to deal with their father’s death.
There’s one full day before the funeral. The children are supposed to decide what to do with the home.
Sharon suggests around midnight that everyone goes to bed and they all fall in line even though Sharon has no standing in this family. She’s a mother and a boss and everyone just listens.
The bed is not, in fact, a trundle bed. Sharon had her suspicions from the moment she set foot in that room.
“It used to be,” Brenda says, as if that is helpful now.
“I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep,” Sharon says. “I can sleep down on the sofa.”
“We can fit,” Brenda says desperately. “Sharon, we can fit.”
It’s been a long time since Sharon shared a twin bed with someone else, someone who wasn’t her child. They do fit, sort of. They lie in the dark and Sharon holds Brenda tightly, her bony back against Sharon’s front. Sharon had worried, once upon a time, that Brenda never ate, that she did everything running on empty and that’s how she got so reckless, but she doesn’t worry about that anymore. She’s seen Brenda eat. She’s just skinny.
“What if it always feels like this,” Brenda whispers. “What if it always hurts just exactly like this?”
“It’ll get further away,” Sharon promises.
Brenda rolls over and kisses Sharon. Sharon thinks fleetingly that it’s a bad idea - this small bed, this small room, a house full of people. But she’s never been great at telling Brenda no. So she kisses her back, their mouths parting, their tongues touching.
Brenda sits up first to pull off her shirt and kick her panties down her legs. She reaches for Sharon’s hand and places it against her breast.
“Tell me,” Sharon whispers against her lips. “Tell me what you need.”
“Don’t stop kissin’ me,” Brenda begs and Sharon is happy to oblige. She squeezes Brenda’s breast, she reaches down with her other hand and slips her fingers between Brenda’s legs.
She remembers her own father dying, not long after Brenda had left and she’d taken over Major Crimes. Everything had seemed so bleak then - a division of people who didn’t trust her, a foster kid dumped into her lap, her last parent passing away. She’d worried she’d never get up out of that.
Now here she is, not alone as she’d thought she’d be. Jack is gone, Andy a thing of the past, but Brenda is here. She has Rusty, she has Ricky. She has Emily with a baby on the way. She even has Charlie, Miss Charlie who gets up early to sit at the breakfast bar with Sharon and drink coffee while Brenda sleeps another full hour.
Brenda finally gets slick enough that Sharon can slip a finger inside of her. She slips one and then two and then when Brenda is whimpering into her neck with every thrust, stretches her out enough to fit three fingers and Brenda moans into Sharon’s mouth. She tries to turn her head away but Sharon doesn’t let her. She keeps kissing her and thrusting.
“I feel so full,” Brenda says, nearly a cry.
Sharon tweaks one nipple and says, “Touch yourself for me.”
And that’s how Brenda comes, with Sharon’s hands all over her and in her and her own fingers on her clit. She surprises Sharon, arching up off the bed, her mouth open and soundless, her neck exposed, her beautiful breasts, her flat stomach, those hips that drive Sharon wild in tight little skirts. She comes and comes, tight around Sharon’s fingers until she can’t take it anymore. She yanks at Sharon’s hand and Sharon slips out. Her body relaxes and comes back down and Brenda’s fingers web with Sharon’s, sticky and hot.
She pulls their hands up to her chest and holds them there, still trembling.
“Even the pleasure hurts,” she whispers.
Sharon nuzzles at her neck. Nothing to say to that, really, that won’t come out sounding hollow.
Brenda releases their hands and reaches for Sharon’s underwear, tugging at the hip so Sharon will take them off.
“We don’t have to,” Sharon says. “I’m fine.”
“Please?” Brenda says.
So she obliges, shimming out of her underwear and then Brenda pulls at her knee until she can slip her thigh between Sharon’s legs. Sharon feels bad for sighing at the contact in pleasure. Feels guilty for feeling anything good while Brenda is hurting so but she can’t fight the slide of flesh, can’t help but rock against Brenda. Brenda holds her tightly, stealing kisses, stroking her hair, tweaking her nipples through her soft, thin sleep shirt.
Sometimes Sharon thinks of their first time together in the backseat of her car and it’s enough to push her over the edge when all she has is friction. But tonight, as she rides Brenda’s toned thigh, she thinks of their first time back together again, the way Brenda had so lovingly stroked her, the way Brenda had cared for her, the way Brenda’s mouth had felt against her after so much wasted time apart.
Sharon gasps because it’s enough, imagining Brenda’s talented tongue and she comes, squeezing Brenda’s leg between hers.
“Shh,” Brenda says, her hands in Sharon’s hair. “Oh honey, shhh. So good to me. Love you, love you so much.”
Sharon returns the sloppy kisses, the little aftershocks making her twitch. The room smells like them, like their lovemaking, and at least that is familiar to Sharon. She tries to stretch out a little and feels only the edge of the bed. So she curls back into Brenda and closes her eyes.
Brenda hangs on tight the whole night through.