Forbidden Passion

by Ruth Gogoll

  She heard voices coming from the kitchen, next to the living room. They were Uwe’s and her mother’s.

  “What’ll happen if Sonja really takes the gloves off?” Uwe asked.

  “She knows nothing,” her mother replied.

  “And if it comes out?” he asked.

  “How would it come out? The only ones who know the truth are the two of us. I’m sure you can keep your mouth shut. It’s in your own interest, after all.”

  “More in yours,” he said. “You were driving the car. I’m the one in a wheelchair.” All of a sudden, his voice sounded bitter and discontented.

  “It was your idea,” Elli said. “How was I supposed to know you’d be standing in the middle of the street?”

  “I just wanted control over her, but you wanted a respectable daughter,” he said. “Who could’ve known it would turn out this way? No one can ever give me my legs back.”

  “Then you go to the police,” she sneered. “I’ve gathered up all the evidence. Not just the picture from the traffic camera, where I’m wearing the wig that made me look like Sonja, but the things that apply to you, too.”

  “If she ever finds out that she wasn’t driving the car, that you got her drunk and then took her home, that you ran me over to fake an accident and things went wrong, then we’re done for,” Uwe said. “She can never find out. Otherwise we’re the ones who’ll go to jail, not her.”

  Sandra retreated and went back to the front door. Sonja was sitting in her car across the street, probably still suffering from all the humiliations. What had she said? Her mother wasn’t a gangster’s moll? Yes, she was – that, and much, much worse.

  Sandra got in. Sonja sat on the driver’s side, leaning against the steering wheel. Her eyes were red.

  “How do you know that you . . . ran over Uwe?” Sandra asked.

  “Mother showed me a photo. From a speed trap. I’m sitting at the steering wheel,” Sonja replied wearily. “The camera box is on Uwe’s street. It was exactly the same time as the accident.”

  “Hmm,” Sandra said. “Our mother looks quite a bit like us, don’t you think?”

  “What –” Sonja turned and stared at her. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’d say we ought to drive to Kim’s first,” Sandra remarked. “You need to recover a little.” She smiled. “I’d gladly offer my place for you to spend the night, but I think you’d prefer Kim’s apartment. You’re not going back to yours again, is that clear?”

  Sonja grimaced. “I –”

  “Believe me, it’s not a problem. Nothing is going to happen. I’m absolutely certain about that.”

  Sonja stared at Sandra in disbelieve.

  “Scoot over,” Sandra said. “Let me drive. You look a little overwhelmed. I’d like us to get to Kim’s in one piece.”

  ~*~*~*~

  “That’s what I heard,” Sandra concluded. “If I understand correctly, it happened like this: Mother got Sonja plastered, then she put on a wig and made herself up to look like Sonja. The speed trap might have been a coincidence, or it might have been done intentionally, but at any rate, she acquired the photo as proof that Sonja was driving. In the picture, no one could see the difference between her and Sonja, and she would definitely have driven Sonja’s car.”

  “She wanted to run Uwe over so that Sonja would feel guilty and marry him. Of course, they didn’t intend for him to be so gravely injured; it was all supposed to be a kind of farce. But then, something went wrong. Sonja’s mother lost control of the car and nearly killed Uwe. She called an ambulance, took Sonja home, and convinced her that she’d run him over. That’s it. For the last five years, that was enough.” She took Sonja’s hand and smiled encouragingly at her. “But not anymore.”

  “But . . . but . . .” Sonja couldn’t fathom this. “But I have –”

  “What do you have?” Sandra asked. “Some sort of real proof? You believed what your mother told you. But it was all lies.”

  “That . . . that can’t be,” Sonja whispered, shaken. “All these years . . .”

  “It’s true,” Sandra said, “believe me. And now I also understand a dream that I had. Of course, I never dreamed about an accident, because you had nothing to do with that, you weren’t even there, but I dreamed about a threat. Like a sword of Damocles, hanging over me. But it wasn’t me, it was you.”

  “I feel like it just dropped,” Sonja said.

  “It evaporated.” Kim smiled and pulled Sonja into her arms. “Forever. You’re free.”

  “Free.” Sonja repeated it, uncomprehending, as though the meaning of the word were utterly unknown to her.

  “It’ll probably be a while before she really grasps it.” Sandra shook her head. “How could a mother be so gruesome? Uwe Kantner is a pig, but . . . well, he just is, but our mother . . .” She observed Sonja, who sat next to Kim, entirely lost inside herself. “She gave birth to us, she had Sonja with her every day, took care of her, watched her grow up . . . and then she did this to her? To her own child?”

  “I don’t understand it, either,” Kim said.

  “We’ll probably never understand it.” Sandra shrugged. “I’m going to take Sonja to visit our father, as soon as she wants to, and then she’ll see what it means to have a parent who loves her.”

  “That your mother could just walk away and leave you with your father back then, that alone shows what she’s like,” Kim said.

  “I think she would rather have left both of us with him,” Sandra said. “Then she would’ve had a better chance of finding a new husband, which clearly meant a lot to her. But then, Pops would’ve been happy about that, he would’ve been glad to have both of us, and she couldn’t allow that. She kept Sonja on principle, not out of love.” She shuddered. “It could’ve been me.”

  Sonja looked up. “Love really is just a word to her,” she said quietly. “She never felt it. At least, that’s what I believe now.”

  Kim looked at her.

  “I know.” Sonja sighed. “I told you the same thing. But . . . I just didn’t want to get your hopes up.” She sighed again. “Or mine, either.”

  “The whole situation must’ve felt like you had no way out,” Sandra said. “I can understand that.”

  “I . . . I kept searching for a way out. My first infidelity –” Sonja broke off and laughed aloud. “Now it seems silly to me to even call it that. I was never really properly married, so there can’t have been any infidelities. Anyway . . . well . . . I was searching for something . . . something different. I just couldn’t endure it . . . nothing but . . .”

  Kim pulled her close and caressed her. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “Don’t think about it anymore.”

  “It wasn’t what you think,” Sonja said. “After the . . . wedding night, we never slept together again. He . . . Uwe got nothing out of it. That’s why he got even angrier. And he took that out on me. He . . . tormented me, demeaned me, berated me. He blamed me again and again for what he said I’d done to him. We never even slept in the same room. I’d often leave early in the morning when he was still asleep, and I didn’t come home at night until he was already in bed. But that was bad enough. If I’d gone home during the day . . .”

  Kim recalled Sonja’s expression of horror the time she had suggested taking her home, on the day she’d slept in Kim’s apartment.

  “Often, of course, he slept during the day – he was always home, after all – so he could stay awake at night and keep me up. He particularly enjoyed that.” Sonja shivered. “Sleep deprivation is the worst form of torture. I didn’t think I could take it anymore.” She looked at Kim. “At the beginning, when I first joined the company, he wasn’t there for a while. He had gone to a rehabilitation clinic for treatment.”

  “That’s why you used to laugh so much then,” Kim said.

  “Yes.” Sonja swallowed. “It was like a vacation. A marvelous . . . vacation.”

  “It will always be like that now.” Kim looked affectionately at her.r />
  “I think I’d better go.” Sandra stood up and glanced at the two of them. “I need to think about my new family some more, too.”

  “Sandra . . .” Sonja looked at her, pleading for forgiveness. “I am so sorry. I –”

  “You couldn’t help it,” Sandra said. “It’s both of our family, and we can’t choose our family.” She smiled. “Look forward to Pops. He won’t disappoint you.”

  “I am looking forward to that.” A cautious smile crept across Sonja’s face.

  “Have a good one, you two.” Sandra sighed expressively. “If you ever go on vacation, Sonja, will you let me borrow Kim?”

  Sonja arched her eyebrows.

  Sandra waved it off and laughed. “Just asking . . .” She left the kitchen.

  The apartment door fell shut, and Sonja looked at Kim. “I feel kind of funny,” she said. “I keep thinking I’ll have to go any minute now.”

  “You can . . . if you want,” Kim said. “Sandra is there for you, too.”

  “She did offer.” Sonja nodded. “I’m homeless.” She took a deep breath. “I could spend the night with Sandra, but it’s not my apartment. And at my mother’s –”

  “I should hope that’s not even up for debate,” Kim interjected, appalled.

  Sonja exhaled again. “No, it isn’t.”

  “Is that awful for you?”

  Sonja didn’t answer right away. Then she stood up and went over to the window. “She is my mother.”

  “She didn’t treat you that way,” Kim objected.

  “Unfortunately, that doesn’t change my feelings toward her. She is and remains my mother. I’ve had her around me almost every day of my entire life.”

  “But you aren’t responsible for her. Certainly not for what she put you through.”

  “The Big Sister Syndrome.” Sonja let out a hollow sound. “I’m responsible for everything.”

  “No, you’re not.” Kim approached her. “Only for yourself. For your own acts. And you haven’t done anything wrong, even if she tried to convince you that you did.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” Sonja said softly. “That I didn’t do it, I mean. That it was all just –” Her face contorted. She tried to control herself.

  “You’re welcome to cry. You have reason enough.” Kim embraced Sonja, pulled her close, and stroked her back. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Everything will be fine now.”

  Sonja rested her head on Kim’s shoulder. “It’s going to take me a while to get my head around that. And then . . . I won’t have a family anymore.”

  “You have us,” Kim said. “Sandra and your father and me and . . . well, the lesbian family. It’s pretty big.” She laughed softly. “You saw that at Jo and Jennifer’s wedding.”

  “The lesbian family . . .” Sonja repeated thoughtfully.

  A sharp pain stabbed into Kim. That was a subject she shouldn’t have brought up, it seemed to her. “It’s . . . I mean . . . I didn’t mean to imply . . .”

  “Yes, you did.” Sonja looked at Kim and smiled. “To you, every woman is a lesbian until proven otherwise, right?”

  “Well, now . . .” Kim didn’t know what to say. “Ninety percent of all women are straight – statistically speaking,” she rescued herself.

  “And I’m one of them.” Sonja pulled away from Kim. “At least, I used to think so.”

  Kim took a deep breath. She had to ask the question. “Do you still think so?”

  “I don’t know,” Sonja said.

  Kim had a mild feeling of vertigo. Of course, Sonja had sought some sort of escape, she had had affairs with men – exclusively with men – and one single one with a woman. What did that say about her?

  “My life has run completely off the rails,” Sonja continued. “I think I need to get a number of things back on track first.” She rubbed her forehead. “It would be better if I went to Sandra’s.”

  Kim swallowed. “If you think so,” she said with an effort.

  “I would insanely love to sleep with you right now,” Sonja said quietly, watching Kim’s face, “but I have to ask myself whether that’s just another kind of escape – like it was all along. Things always got worse, the more closed in I felt.”

  Kim swallowed again. “I’ve noticed.” She folded her hands. She felt hot. Her own wish to sleep with Sonja grew ever stronger, and now the two of them were standing there, philosophizing over whether or not they ought to. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She ran a hand through her hair. “I . . . Sonja . . . please, go to Sandra’s if that’s what you want, otherwise –”

  “Otherwise?” Sonja looked at her. Then, suddenly, she leaned forward, found Kim’s lips, and thrust inside them before Kim even knew what was happening. “It’s impossible,” she whispered hoarsely. “I can’t – I don’t have to decide what I am. I don’t need a label.” She pulled Kim’s T-shirt up over her head and kissed her breasts.

  Kim moaned. “Do you want to go to Sandra’s afterward?” she asked with an effort, while hot lightning shot through her nipples and down between her legs. Sonja’s supple lips drove her crazy.

  “I don’t think so,” Sonja whispered. “Sandra’s just going to have to wait a while.” She unfastened Kim’s pants and slipped one hand inside.

  Kim moaned anew. She caressed Sonja’s breasts, hugged Sonja, kissed her. She felt the tips of their tongues meet; the pleasure was so strong, she sighed in Sonja’s mouth. Tiny flames wound their way up into her lips; Sonja’s tongue called them back and sent them forth again; they spread out, encompassing skin and hair, leaving everything tingling. “Oh, Sonja . . .” Kim whispered

  “I need you so much,” Sonja breathed.

  Slowly she slipped down Kim’s body . . .

  ~*~*~*~

  Kim heard a sound and awoke. Or had she woken up first and then heard the sound? She didn’t know.

  She opened her eyes. Her bed was empty, as it always was in the morning, except of course for herself.

  She sighed and stretched, yawning.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Sonja stood in the doorway, dressed, and smiled at her. She came in, bent down over the bed, and kissed Kim gently on the lips. “Good morning.” Still smiling, she straightened up.

  Kim gazed at her, as if she were dreaming.

  “I always go to work this early, you know that . . .” Sonja said. “The early bird catches the worm.”

  “Um . . . Yes, I know.” Kim pulled herself together.

  “You’re welcome to go back to sleep. I don’t want to disturb your rhythm.” Sonja smiled again.

  “If you . . .” Kim cleared her throat. “If you wait five minutes, we can go to work together.”

  Sonja arched her eyebrows. “I could even wait longer than five minutes.”

  “We could have breakfast together, too.” Kim swung her legs out of bed. “Although I don’t actually know whether I have much here for breakfast. I don’t normally eat breakfast.”

  “You don’t have to go to so much trouble.” Sonja seemed to chuckle.

  “This is a little unfamiliar. It’s the first time that you . . . that you’re here in the morning,” Kim apologized, embarrassed, and stood up.

  “I know.” Sonja looked at her earnestly. “Maybe it’s best if I go now. Then I won’t disturb you, and you can do what you always do – in peace.”

  “I’m not peaceful,” Kim said. “If only because you’re here. You confuse me.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s all a little confusing for me, too.”

  “Then perhaps we should have breakfast together first,” Kim suggested. “To relieve the confusion.”

  “If you put something on . . .” Sonja grinned, eyeing Kim’s naked body from head to toe. “Otherwise my confusion is only going to grow.”

  “Oh . . . excuse me . . .” Kim stammered, taken aback.

  “I’ll go to the kitchen and make coffee. I think I figured out how the coffeemaker works.” Sonja turned around and went across the hall.
>
  Kim watched her go and marveled for a moment that such a beautiful woman should be in her apartment in the morning. She took a few things out of the closet, put them on, and followed Sonja into the kitchen.

  Sonja had set the coffeemaker in motion and was standing in front of the kitchen cupboards, taking out cups and plates to set the table.

  Kim watched her. It was an unfamiliar sight, and it produced a very peculiar feeling in her. “You know, you’ve never done that before . . . in my . . . in my kitchen.” She went to the refrigerator and took out the butter.

  “Of course not. We’ve never had an everyday life.” Sonja looked around. “Where are the teaspoons?”

  “In this drawer.” Kim pulled open the drawer.

  Sonja came over and eyed the silverware. “Is this all you have?” She selected two spoons and two knives and took them out.

  “Yes . . . I guess I’ll have to wait for my wedding to get the hundred-and-twenty-four-piece silver set.” Kim bit her tongue. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s true, though,” Sonja said, remarkably calm. “I got a number of things like that for my wedding. It’s just customary.” She laid the knives next to the breakfast plates and the spoons on the saucers. “What’s missing?”

  “Fresh breakfast rolls.” Kim shrugged. “A problem at this hour.” It was still dark outside.

  “I always freeze them.” Sonja looked inquisitively at Kim.

  “I’m not that good of a housewife.” Kim felt like she was on display. A display of her incompetence.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Sonja chuckled.

  “I could scramble an egg – I do have some eggs,” Kim said unhappily.

  “I prefer mine boiled.” Sonja chuckled even more. “Do you have orange juice, by chance?”

  “Yes.” Kim was relieved that she at least had something. She took the orange juice out of the refrigerator. “Ah, there is some bread in here. I didn’t remember that I still had any.”

  Sonja raised her eyebrows in deep skepticism.

  “No, that doesn’t mean anything,” Kim assured her frantically. “I immediately forget about it when I put it in the fridge. I’m sure it’s not moldy.”