Forbidden Passion

by Ruth Gogoll

  Sandra’s closeness made Kim feel weak. Sandra felt like Sonja, she smelled like Sonja, she was just as seductive as Sonja.

  Sandra’s lips parted, and her tongue gently caressed Kim’s lips so that Kim could no longer resist. She let Sandra in, and they kissed for a long time. Kim closed her eyes. She had been yearning so much for Sonja. It was a desire that had never diminished, even when she tried so hard to suppress it.

  Sandra’s tongue explored her mouth, and Kim followed its arousing movements. Sandra took a step forward. Her hand rested on Kim’s breast and began to caress it. Her kiss deepened.

  Kim wrapped her arms around Sandra and pulled her closer, right up against her. The kiss carried her away, Sandra’s presence confused her, she knew this wasn’t Sonja, and yet –

  “No,” she said all of a sudden. She pushed Sandra cautiously away. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

  Sandra looked at her. “Sonja?”

  Kim shut her eyes again and took a deep breath. “Yeah,” she said when she opened her eyes again. “You’re so much like her, but –”

  “But I’m not her.” Sandra nodded. “Unfortunately.” Her mouth twisted slightly. “You want to be with her, not with me.”

  “Sandra, I –” Kim looked unhappy.

  “It’s okay.” Sandra smiled. “Too bad for both of us.”

  “Do you . . .” Kim cleared her throat, “do you have a girlfriend?”

  Sandra sighed. “I did. Until I moved here.”

  “She didn’t come with you?” Kim was trying to defuse the excitement that Sandra’s kiss had provoked in her, and that was still raging inside her.

  “I . . . well . . .” Sandra stepped aside and went over to the couch. “I didn’t want her to come with me.”

  “You didn’t want her to?” Kim remained standing and looked at Sandra.

  Sandra shook her head, obviously lost in her own recollections. “Can you picture anything from this description: crazy artist?” She looked up. “Multiply what you imagined by ten, and you have Patrizia.”

  “Your weakness for the crazy type?”

  “Yeah.” Sandra inhaled and exhaled deeply. “It just wasn’t working anymore. I don’t think she would have come along even if I had asked her. Her friends in the art scene were much more important to her.” Again, she sighed. “She wasn’t my first in that circle, as you can probably imagine. My weakness hasn’t exactly brought me a great deal of success.” She gazed into an unfathomable distance.

  “You’re so . . . down-to-earth,” Kim countered, rather bemused by Sandra’s preference, “if I may say so.”

  “You may.” Sandra looked up. “And I am. That’s probably why I’m so attracted to the unusual, to the eccentric. But it’s not particularly healthy for my psyche to keep tripping over it and falling flat on my face.”

  “I’m not especially . . . eccentric,” Kim said. “At least I don’t think so. But you like me anyway.”

  “Yes.” Sandra looked at her. “I like you . . . a lot.”

  “Perhaps I do have something eccentric about me that I just haven’t discovered yet.” Kim laughed. “But I don’t really think so.”

  “Your eccentricity is your masochism,” Sandra said with a smile. “Maybe that’s the reason.”

  “Masochism?” Kim frowned.

  “Please . . .” Sandra laughed. “Sonja, of course. It seems to me that a person has to be very masochistic to stick it out with her.”

  “You don’t know her. She is –” Kim considered Sandra’s face. “She’s exactly as sweet as you are.” She smiled tenderly.

  “Too bad that smile wasn’t really meant for me.” Sandra surveyed Kim, seeking her eyes. “I can’t talk you into staying here tonight, can I?” she asked quietly.

  “I think I’d better go now.” Before I lose myself in those eyes, Kim thought. They were Sonja’s eyes, and when had she ever been able to resist those?

  “Maybe it would be better that way.” Sandra nodded and stood up. “I’m not sure if you –”

  “Yeah.” Kim looked at her. “I’m not sure about that, either.”

  ~*~*~*~

  “I knew it!” Sandra burst in on the middle of a conference call that Kim was conducting with two other department heads who were in charge of customer support for two subsidiary branches.

  “One moment, please.” Kim muted the conference. “I’m in the middle of a conference call, Sandra!” She whispered even though she’d muted the line. Somehow, she felt like the others could still hear her.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait.” Sandra took a deep breath. “Twins!”

  “Uh . . . what?” Kim was missing some context here.

  “Sonja and I are twins – not just real, true sisters, but hatched from the same egg. That’s why we look so much alike.” Sandra was breathing heavily and dropped into the visitor’s chair in Kim’s office.

  Kim stared at her, then turned back to the telephone and pressed the button to reactivate the call. “Pardon me, please,” she said. “We’ll have to end the conference. An emergency has come up. I’ll call you back.” She cut the connection. “What did you just say?” Once more, she stared at Sandra.

  “We’re right out of The Parent Trap.” Sandra’s face beamed. “Our parents got divorced when we were both still very small, which is why we don’t remember each other. My father actually wanted to keep both children – but our mother, who Sonja grew up with, was apparently quite the harridan. He couldn’t keep us both, so he kept me, and Sonja stayed with her mother.”

  “But . . . but you said your mother was dead.”

  “She is. The woman I knew as my mother. My father never told me that she wasn’t my birth mother; even after her death, he kept that to himself. The way my father describes my biological mother, I seem to have won the jackpot with my . . .” she hesitated, “stepmother, compared to Sonja. She was really wonderful.”

  Kim was still staring at Sandra in disbelief. “That . . . that . . . Sonja and you . . .”

  “Twins.” Sandra laughed. “Imagine: I have a twin sister! I was an only child, never had any siblings, and I always wished I had some, and now I actually have a twin!” She was terribly excited. “I have to tell Sonja right away. Will you call her, or shall I?”

  “Um . . . I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” Kim furrowed her brow.

  “I already talked to her once on the phone, I know how she is,” Sandra said. “And to be honest . . . I recognize it in myself, too. Now I understand why. People often like least about other people the things they don’t like about themselves – and as twins, Sonja and I naturally have a great deal in common.” She tilted her head to one side.

  Just like Sonja, Kim thought, and now she finally knew why.

  “I think it’d be better if I call her. After all, this is about her and me. You, not so much.” Sandra pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “Or I’ll tell her in person. I waited to see you, too, because I wanted to tell you in person.”

  “In person?” The smooth skin on Kim’s forehead folded into even more skeptical wrinkles than before. When Sonja felt backed into a corner, she could get mad as hell; Kim had seen that often enough already. A telephone allowed the necessary distance. And she could simply smash it to bits if she felt like it.

  “I think news like this should only be delivered in person.” Sandra put her cell phone away again. “I’ll go see her. Her office is in the building next to the cafeteria where we met her?”

  “Yes.” When Sandra stood up, Kim added: “I’d better not go along. You two need to sort this out on your own. But maybe you should call Jo ahead of time and ask whether Sonja is even there. She’s out on the road a lot.”

  “Yes, true.” Sandra seemed undecided.

  “I’ll do it.” Kim picked up her receiver and dialed Jo’s number. “Jo,” she said when Jo answered, “is Sonja there?”

  “Should I put you through?”

  “No, no.” Kim answered quickly, before J
o could press the relevant button on her phone console. “Sandra’s coming over. She wants to talk to Sonja. That’s why she wanted to know if Sonja is there.”

  “Sandra?” Jo sounded blank. “You’re calling for Sandra?”

  “Yes,” Kim replied impatiently. “So is she there, or isn’t she?”

  “She is. And she’s not in a good mood today, just to warn you. Mondays are usually pretty bad for her.”

  “Can’t do anything about that,” Kim said, already imagining Sandra getting nailed to the wall by Sonja. “She’s probably going to be in an even worse state shortly, but it’s necessary. Sandra’s coming over, and she’ll explain everything.” She hung up. Jo was probably quite bewildered now, but Sandra could worry about that when she was in her office. “You haven’t picked yourself a good day,” she said to Sandra. “Sonja is there, but in an exceptionally bad mood, Jo says.”

  “Perhaps you would like to accompany me, Helicopter Mom?” Sandra grinned.

  “Actually, I would like to.” Kim nodded. “But like you said, this is none of my business. Most likely, that would only make things worse, because then Sonja would accuse me again of concocting the whole thing. Or do you want me there for support?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  In that regard, too, Sandra was just like Sonja. But why shouldn’t she be? She was her twin sister. Kim still couldn’t quite believe it.

  “It’s really better if my sister and I –” Sandra fell silent. “My sister and I . . .” she repeated with an undertone of yearning. “How long have I wished I could say that?” She looked at Kim. “I always had the feeling that I wasn’t alone. Sometimes it was really weird. As though I were seeing life through the eyes of another person. And when I encountered Sonja for the first time – back then, I didn’t think anything of it, but it was as if I’d already known her forever. But there was so much tension between the two of you, it obliterated everything else.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kim said guiltily.

  “You don’t have to be sorry.” Sandra smiled. “The feeling was so different . . . I had to stop and think about it first myself. I’ve stood in front of the mirror so many times . . . and sometimes it was like Sonja was standing next to me. I almost saw her, as though she were there. It was a little frightening. But now . . . now I know what that was. It was the thing that connects us as twins. We’re not made to be alone, but to be a pair. Sonja must have felt exactly the same way, even if she never talked about it.”

  “She’d never admit that,” Kim said. “I think she’ll dispute everything. This is going to turn her whole life upside down.”

  “I think her life is already pretty much upside down,” Sandra replied thoughtfully. “I’ve felt that for a long time. Long before I saw her for the first time. There was always something . . . a threat . . . something dark. Of course, I thought it had something to do with my life. But in my life there may be a great deal of chaos, but nothing that could be described as a dark secret. There really isn’t.” She laughed.

  “You mean, Sonja’s hiding something?” Kim had always had the same feeling, but given her relationship to Sonja, she’d tended to blame it on the strange three-way configuration in which they found themselves. In truth, she had thought Sonja was hiding the fact that she loved her husband. Even though he tormented her. That sort of thing happened, after all. But Sandra had nothing to do with that, and spoke of the same sensation, so it couldn’t be that.

  “In any case, I felt that clearly. I’ve even dreamed – no,” Sandra laughed sheepishly, “dreams are lies, I don’t believe in that sort of thing. It was my dream, not Sonja’s.”

  Kim didn’t want to inquire. “I’m curious what Sonja will say.”

  “She’ll probably scream.” Sandra laughed in reply. “I would, in her place.”

  And Sonja did, in fact, scream. “Get out of my office right now, you liar!”

  Jo heard this through the closed door and wondered whether she ought to intervene.

  But then she heard Sandra’s voice, which was loud enough to stand up against Sonja’s. In truth, she couldn’t have said for certain whether it was Sandra’s or Sonja’s voice – they both sounded the same.

  “Sonja, this isn’t exactly easy for me, either, but our father –”

  “Our father?” Sonja glared at Sandra. “You dare, madam –?”

  “Oh, stop that,” Sandra replied. “We’re sisters. Twin sisters, no less.”

  “There is no proof –” Sonja began.

  “You know that would be easy to produce. We just need to have a DNA test done,” Sandra interrupted. “Of course, this photo here doesn’t prove much.” She placed a photo of two babies, lying side by side in a crib, on Sonja’s desk. “Papa says that’s the two of us.”

  Sonja was shaken to her core. She stared at the picture, and finally – after she’d jumped up in anger when Sandra had told her the news – she sank back into her chair and calmed herself down.

  “I needed some time to recover from the shock myself,” Sandra said. “When Papa showed me the picture, I could hardly believe it.” She sat down across from Sonja in a visitor’s chair. “Hello, sister. Nice to meet you.” She grinned broadly.

  Sonja slowly raised her eyes. “I don’t believe it,” she said dully.

  “That’s certainly your right.” Sandra shrugged. “Give me a couple of your hairs, I’ll add a couple of mine, and in a week, we’ll know the truth.”

  Sonja’s eyes wandered over Sandra’s facial features, examining them again and again.

  “We could stand in front of a mirror,” Sandra said. “You don’t really see it here. You just see me, and I just see you. We don’t see ourselves.”

  “That was Kim’s idea.” Sonja recalled that Kim had suggested something similar – after the first encounter with Sandra.

  “No, it’s mine,” Sandra contradicted, “but it’s so logical, anyone could think of it – Kim, too, obviously.”

  Sonja sat there, deep in her own thoughts. She remained silent.

  “Didn’t you feel it?” Sandra asked. “Back then, when we met outside the cafeteria . . . I had such a strange feeling. Didn’t you?”

  Sonja snorted. “I had any number of strange feelings right then; that particular one must’ve escaped me.”

  “Feelings about Kim. I understand.”

  Sonja’s head shot up. Her eyes flashed at Sandra.

  Sandra smiled. “I like Kim, too.”

  “Why should I care about that?” Sonja turned away.

  “I think you do care.” Sandra watched the back of Sonja’s head attentively. “We’re twins, and that means we probably like the same people.”

  “That makes no difference to me.” Sonja turned back toward Sandra in her office chair and looked at her angrily. “I don’t want to hear about it.” She let herself sink back into her chair and laid a finger on her cheek.

  “I always do that, too, when I don’t know what to say next.”

  Sonja’s gaze, which had been directed toward the table, shot up.

  “I could name a few more things that I think are the same for both of us.” Sandra laughed softly. “The list is probably endless.”

  Sonja stood up, walked over to the window, and turned her back to Sandra.

  “You can’t ignore it.” Sandra stood up likewise. “We’re related to each other, whether you want to accept it or not.” She went over to Sonja and stood behind her. “Can’t you imagine anything positive coming out of this?”

  Sonja didn’t stir.

  “I never had siblings,” Sandra said. “Neither a brother nor a sister. That’s probably why I’m so glad to have found you now. Aren’t you happy at all?”

  “What am I supposed to be happy about?” Sonja didn’t turn around; she spoke to the window instead. “Even more problems?”

  “I don’t want to cause you any problems. That’s not my intention at all,” Sandra replied gently. “I’m convinced that you’re my sister. That we’re twins. Everythin
g points to that.” She sighed. “I was terribly excited when I found out . . . when Papa told me. He certainly took a long time getting to it.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Your mother never told you anything?” Her gaze traveled along the nape of Sonja’s neck, which stretched before her like a fortress wall. “Our mother, I mean. Since she’s obviously mine, too, even though I don’t know her.”

  Sonja laughed dryly. “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled!” She turned around and gave Sandra a peculiar look. “Did you grow up without a mother?”

  “No, I had a wonderful stepmother, although I always thought she was my real mother.”

  “Had?” Sonja arched her eyebrows.

  “She’s dead.” Sandra squinted slightly. “A long time now.”

  “I had a stepfather.” Sonja swallowed. “He’s still alive, but he’s not with my mother anymore.”

  Sandra laughed lightly. “That seems to be a specialty of your . . . of our mother. Not living with one man for very long, I mean.”

  Sonja’s eyebrows drew together.

  Sandra raised her hands. “She’s my mother, after all, but I don’t know her. You’re right. I shouldn’t make that kind of comment.”

  “No, you shouldn’t.” Sonja’s brows relaxed. She took a deep breath. “We ought to do this properly.”

  Sandra looked inquiringly at her.

  “The DNA test, I mean,” Sonja continued. “I set no store by speculations or conjecture, I need proof.”

  “Papa’s word is proof enough for me,” Sandra replied, “but you don’t know him, so I understand that it’s not enough for you.”

  “No, it’s not enough for me.” Sonja went back to her desk and sat down again. “I don’t build skyscrapers on sand.”

  “Or on a photo.” Sandra laughed once more. She waited a moment, and when Sonja said nothing, she added, “How should we proceed?”

  “As you suggested.” Sonja looked very ruminative. “A couple of hairs from each of us will be enough, you think?”