Forbidden Passion

by Ruth Gogoll

  “I know,” Kim said with empathy. “That’s why I’m not demanding that you –”

  “But you can demand it of me.” Sonja opened her eyes again. “In fact, you have to.”

  “I don’t have to.” Kim leaned over Sonja and brushed a kiss onto her lips. “I have time. And I have patience.”

  “You’ve had those for a long time already.”

  “I can be patient for much longer than this . . . if you’re with me.” Kim ran a gentle finger down Sonja’s face. “You are with me. That’s all that matters.”

  “I have so little to offer you . . . Even now.” Sonja looked at her unhappily.

  “You give me so much.” Kim bent down over Sonja and kissed her. The kiss was like a melding. Proof for both of them that they belonged together.

  Sonja’s tongue snaked in between Kim’s lips, ever farther inside, as though she wanted to thrust deep inside Kim and never let that melding dissolve. Suddenly, she broke away. “I want to be with you, to stay with you . . . I don’t want to think about what tomorrow will bring.”

  Maybe it’s better that way, Kim thought. She suddenly remembered Uwe’s call. Good thing Sonja didn’t know about that. “Tomorrow isn’t Friday yet, of course, but how about dancing?” she asked. “You don’t have to think while you’re dancing.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” Sonja smiled. “Why not?”

  “Sandra will be happy.” Kim smiled, too.

  “Sandra will probably have a thousand twin-tricks in store again.” Sonja grimaced. “She loves that.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I’ll never get used to it,” Sonja said.

  ~*~*~*~

  “Ha! Wasn’t that fun?” Sandra laughed, beaming.

  “Because no one knows who’s who anymore?” Sonja’s face didn’t show the same enthusiasm as Sandra’s.

  “I bet you’re the older of the two of us,” Sandra said. “You’re the natural big sister.”

  “I had to be,” Sonja said. “But we’ll probably never find out which one of us is older.”

  “All right, you jokers, what do you want to drink?” Susi asked from behind the bar. “Now that you’ve completely confused everybody . . .”

  “Twins don’t come around here that often, do they?” Kim asked, amused, sliding onto a barstool. “Give me a beer, please.” She laid a hand on Sonja’s shoulder. “What would you like?”

  “Mineral water,” Sonja said. “I’m confused enough already.”

  “One of you two has been here before.” Susi looked from one twin to the other, trying to figure out which was which.

  “Guess who.” Sandra shot her a cheeky grin.

  “You,” Susi said. “You already feel right at home here.”

  “I’ve only been here once before,” Sandra said.

  “So it was you.” Susi grinned, too.

  “Clever woman. You caught me.”

  “I know what’s what,” Susi said, “twins or not.” She slid the beer across the counter toward Kim. “And for you?” she asked Sandra.

  “Hm.” Sandra looked at her.

  “I’m not on the menu,” Susi said. “Not for anyone here. I ought to put up a sign.”

  “Maybe you should.” Kim laughed. “That many offers?”

  “Millions.” Susi rolled her eyes and sighed. “In movies, the barmaid is always easy to get. That confuses some people here.”

  Kim looked at Sonja. “I think the same thing happens in other establishments.” She was trying to draw her into the conversation, since Sonja seemed very quiet.

  “I’ll drink something later,” Sandra said. “First, I’m going to dance. I’ve been looking forward to it for days.” She glanced at Kim. “I assume I can’t talk you into it?” She let her gaze wander over to Sonja. “Or you?”

  “If we dance together on top of everything else, no one will know which way is up,” Sonja said. “Better not.”

  Sandra laughed and strolled off toward the dance floor.

  “Have a seat.” Kim indicated the stool next to her. “We can always dance later. And if you don’t want to, that’s not so bad, either.” She watched Sonja with some concern. “Or would you rather leave right now?” Sonja really seemed extraordinarily quiet.

  Slowly, she shook her head. “No. All of this is just knocking the wind out of me a little. It’s a lot like it was at the wedding, but –”

  “But it’s different.” Kim laughed. At the wedding, everyone had behaved fairly conservatively, but here in the women’s café, things were different. It was more of a meat market. “I’m sorry. I hope it’s not too shocking for you. You’ll get used to it. When I came into a place like this for the first time . . .” She sighed deeply. “It was pretty bad.”

  “Why?” Sonja asked. “After all, everyone here is supposedly –”

  “Interested in the same thing,” Kim finished her sentence. “Or ought to be. It just doesn’t always feel that way. Pretty rarely, unfortunately.”

  Sonja shook her head, uncomprehending. “They’re like men,” she said, observing a group dressed in leather, sitting together at a table. “But they’re not. Why do they act like that?”

  “I don’t know, either.” Kim shrugged. “We just aren’t that feminine.”

  Sonja looked at her. “I didn’t mean you. You’re . . . different.”

  Kim smiled and looked Sonja up and down for a moment. “But not as different as you are.”

  A woman approached Sonja and leaned in very close to her face. “Want to dance?”

  Sonja shrank back slightly. “Um . . . no, thanks.”

  “Sure?” The other woman didn’t seem to want to give up that easily. “You just were dancing.” She looked toward the dance floor, apparently confused. Then she grinned at Sonja again. “Looked good,” she added suggestively. “You’ve got some hot moves.”

  “That . . . ah . . . was my sister,” Sonja said.

  “Oh.” The woman tried to spot Sandra on the dance floor, but there was too much going on. “Then maybe I oughta go try her,” she said, departing.

  Kim laughed.

  “Apparently, people don’t care which twin they dance with,” Sonja remarked, rather irritated.

  “Looks that way.” Kim looked at Sonja. “But I care.”

  “They probably don’t play waltzes here,” Sonja said.

  “You like to waltz?”

  “It was nice at the wedding.”

  “Wait a minute.” Kim slid off her stool and went over to the DJane. Shortly thereafter, she returned, and she’d barely reached Sonja when the first notes of the Blue Danube sounded. Kim bowed before Sonja. “May I have this dance?”

  Sonja’s lips twisted. “I haven’t been invited so gallantly in a very long time.”

  “That just goes with a waltz,” Kim said.

  Sonja smiled, linked arms with Kim, and went with her to the dance floor. “This waltz is awfully long. I don’t know if I have the endurance for it.”

  “We’ll see,” Kim said.

  It was too crowded to fly across the dance floor as Kim would’ve wished, but it was wonderful to dance with Sonja. Right from the start, she closed her eyes and went soft in Kim’s arms. The initial problems they’d had at the wedding were absent.

  “Hey.” Sandra appeared next to them with a woman who wasn’t the one previously speculating about a dance with her. “Did you two request the waltz?”

  Sonja opened her eyes when she heard Sandra’s voice. “I’m crazy about waltzes.”

  “Me, too,” Sandra replied with a chuckle. “What a surprise.”

  “Yeah, really.” Sonja laughed.

  The woman who was dancing with Sandra looked at Sonja, then back at Sandra. “Is this some kind of joke?” she asked.

  “No, twins,” Sandra said. “You’d better learn to tell us apart. Because I get very jealous.”

  The woman seemed quite taken aback, but didn’t say anything.

  “You’re mean, Sandra.” Kim chuckled. “No one can te
ll you two apart if you don’t want them to.”

  Sandra laughed and danced away with the still-baffled woman.

  When the waltz ended, Kim and Sonja went back to the bar remarkably quickly. Kim finished her beer in one go, and Sonja did the same with her water.

  “Awfully long,” Kim gasped. “Like you said.”

  “Yes.” Sonja’s breathing was similarly heavy. “Wonderful.” Her face had lost its serious expression. She was now beaming just like Sandra. “I thought I was going to blast off when you spun me around like that at the end.”

  Kim looked at her. “I thought I was in heaven, with the woman of my dreams in my arms,” she said tenderly.

  Sonja leaned into her. “We could do that again right now.”

  Kim laughed. “I don’t think everyone else wants to dance waltzes exclusively.”

  “I can dance to other things, but the waltz is, of course, the jewel in the crown.”

  Kim embraced Sonja and danced a few steps with her along the bar. “We’ll just have to make our own waltz.”

  Sonja laughed. She stood still and looked at Kim. Kim felt like she was being pulled into a vortex, into Sonja’s eyes, into Sonja’s deep soul. She sank into an intimate kiss.

  “It’s so wonderful with you,” Kim whispered when she resurfaced after the kiss.

  Sonja’s eyes sought Kim’s face, but she didn’t say a word.

  “Well, you two? This isn’t a waltz.” Hours later, Sandra was dancing next to them again. In the meantime, they’d hardly seen each other, since Sandra kept disappearing again and again, with a different woman every time.

  This time, Kim knew the woman Sandra was dancing with. She looked at Sandra in astonishment.

  Sandra gave her a peculiar look in return.

  Kim smiled. She observed that through the next few dances, Sandra no longer switched partners. She was dancing exclusively with Felicity.

  Sonja noticed too, but said nothing until they were standing at the edge of the dance floor. “Do you know the woman Sandra was dancing with?”

  Kim laughed. “That would be overstating it, but I know her name, at any rate. It’s Felicity. She’s one of Jennifer’s . . . uh . . . she was with Jennifer once.”

  “She looks so young,” Sonja said.

  “She is.” Kim tried to catch a glimpse of Sandra and Felicity, who had kept dancing when Kim and Sonja had stopped. “Very young.”

  “And I get the feeling that Sandra likes her,” Sonja added.

  Kim chuckled. “I get that feeling, too.”

  A while later, Sandra came up to them.

  Kim grinned at her. “Where’s Felicity?”

  “She’s coming. She just wanted to get a drink.”

  “She seems to be a good dancer,” Kim said innocently.

  “Oh . . . uh . . . yeah . . . well, she’s okay,” Sandra replied indecisively.

  “So that’s not why you’ve been dancing with her,” Kim stated. “For some time, without interruption . . .”

  “Um . . . no,” Sandra said.

  Kim grinned.

  “Yes, fine, I like her,” Sandra admitted rather grudgingly.

  Kim gave her an inquisitive look. There was something else here . . .

  “She told me she’s attracted to older women.” Sandra rolled her eyes.

  “Older women?” Sonja gaped at her in disbelief.

  “Yes, sister . . .” Sandra smiled, composed. “To people under twenty, that’s what we are.”

  “Oh my God.” Sonja looked utterly appalled.

  “Can’t be helped.” Sandra sighed once again. “But she’s not just attracted to older women, she paints, too.”

  Kim chuckled. “And she’s slightly nuts,” she added. “So she’s exactly your type.”

  Sandra took a deep breath. “I’m afraid so.”

  ~*~*~*~

  “That was a wonderful evening,” Sonja said as they arrived back home. “I haven’t done anything like that in such a long time.” She looked reflectively at Kim. “Maybe never.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it. I did have a few reservations.” Kim hung up her jacket.

  “Yes, it was definitely strange,” Sonja said. “The atmosphere really . . . takes some getting used to.”

  “I don’t even notice anymore,” Kim said. “I’ve been there so many times.”

  “Have you met all of your . . . acquaintances there?” Sonja sounded conspicuously uninterested.

  “My girlfriends, you mean?” Kim smiled slightly. “A few. But not exclusively.”

  “Does everyone go there for just that reason? I got the impression that some people were there as couples, but a lot –”

  “Yes, a lot of them are looking for a woman when they go out dancing. There aren’t that many opportunities to do so – in public like that.”

  “Presumably,” Sonja said, pensive again.

  “You’re used to something different.” Kim nodded. “I know.”

  “Well, yes, but somehow . . . I’m not. Granted, I’ve never –” Sonja laughed. “I’ve never been hit on by so many men in one evening as I was by women today.”

  “I think that was mostly Sandra’s fault.” Kim grinned. “She tore through the scene like a whirlwind. And of course, some people couldn’t tell who was who anymore. And then, when they saw you, they thought you were Sandra and they wanted to grab their opportunity.”

  “Quite seriously, in some cases.” Sonja sighed. “I’m really going to have to have a talk with Sandra. Either that, or not go out with her anymore.”

  “I suspect that issue has resolved itself for the moment. Felicity isn’t exactly the sharing type.”

  “But she only just met her today.” Sonja went into the living room and sat down on the couch. “It can’t be that serious already.”

  “With Felicity?” Kim shook her head. “With her, it’s serious from the very first minute, if I’m any judge. But Sandra should know that. She witnessed Felicity’s scene with Jennifer.”

  “She made a scene with Jennifer?” Sonja asked.

  “Not just one. And after they’d only once – I mean, they hadn’t known each other very long.”

  “And you really think Sandra is interested in that?”

  “You tell me. You’re her twin.”

  Sonja seemed to think about it. “I couldn’t say,” she decided after a while.

  “You can’t, or you don’t want to? I know that you – I mean, I don’t want to step on your toes.” Kim broke off, embarrassed. Why did she always have to meddle in such nonsense?

  Sonja looked at her. “You’re wondering whether what Sandra did today might also be my usual M.O.? When I’m traveling alone?”

  “I . . . no . . .” Kim squirmed uncomfortably. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Yes, you did. To you, Sandra is my mirror image. Which she is, of course, on the outside. And then –” Sonja sighed, “you remembered a thing or two, besides.”

  “I . . . Sonja . . . that was all such a long time ago . . .” Kim slumped with increasing unhappiness. She wanted certainty – but then again, she didn’t. Depending on how the certainty was going to turn out.

  “Not that long ago,” Sonja said. “And you witnessed things that . . . that I now wish you hadn’t seen.” She took a deep breath. “And that I wish I hadn’t done.”

  “That . . . that was none of my business then, and it isn’t now,” Kim said. “What Sandra does is her concern. And it doesn’t justify any inferences about your behavior. That’s clear.”

  “To you, maybe, but not to me. Sandra is in fact my . . . alter ego. She brings things home to me that I hadn’t been aware of before.”

  What things? Kim thought, but she didn’t say it out loud.

  “Yes, that, too.” Sonja twisted her mouth slightly. “That above all.”

  “Sonja . . . I . . . I don’t demand anything of you, you know that.” Kim sat on the couch next to Sonja and looked at her. “Please, don’t feel obligated . . . or forced . . .
into anything. I can wait . . . and I will wait, as long as you need. All of this must be horribly confusing for you, and I understand if you want to clear up other things first. Sandra, your father . . .”

  The corners of Sonja’s mouth twitched. “And you should come last? One of these days? After everything else has been sorted out?”

  “I . . .” Kim laid her head in her hands, then ran her hands through her hair. “I’m afraid, Sonja, terribly afraid. I love you so much,” she whispered.

  “Oh, Kim.” Sonja rested a warm hand on Kim’s shoulder. Her hand slipped down and caressed Kim’s back. Sonja leaned over and kissed Kim’s throat, pushing her gently down onto the sofa. “We can’t just be afraid all the time,” she whispered, sliding on top of Kim and kissing her.

  Kim closed her eyes. She felt Sonja’s weight on top of her, that light, intoxicating weight, that wonderful feeling of being together with her. Sonja’s hair caressed her face; Sonja’s scent caressed her nostrils and spread its beguiling effects. “Sonja . . .” she whispered.

  Sonja rested her face on Kim’s shoulder. “If you only knew how I feel when I’m with you,” she said softly. “Especially now that I . . . live here. I know it won’t be forever, but I feel so at home here . . . as if I’d always lived here. Everything is so natural. I come home from work, we eat together . . .” She laughed. “. . . or not. We sit on the couch and watch television; sometimes we just look at each other and know what the other is thinking. We don’t have to say anything. As if . . . as if . . . I don’t know . . . as if we were living in a cocoon that protects us. From everything bad that comes from the outside.”

  “I would like so much to protect you from everything bad,” Kim whispered, embracing Sonja and squeezing her tight. “So that no one could ever hurt you.”

  “You don’t need to protect me. You just have to –” Sonja let her hand slide up and down Kim’s thigh and kissed her once more.

  Kim’s heart began to beat faster. Sonja’s hand left warm trails on her thigh that wouldn’t cool down again. Sonja’s kiss caused hot flames to flare up inside Kim, from the tip of her tongue all the way down into her belly. “Sonja . . .”

  Sonja abandoned Kim’s mouth to nibble at her earlobe, then let her lips glide back across Kim’s cheek to her mouth. “Kiss me,” she whispered when she’d arrived there. “Kiss me hard. I need you.”