Forbidden Passion
Page 45
“Good thing that’s not what we are.” Sonja kissed Kim briefly, then rolled back to the side, against the will of the bed, and stood up. “But I don’t actually want to sleep right now. I’d rather have a look at the countryside. I’ve been looking forward to that the whole time.”
“We saw quite a bit of it during the drive,” Kim said.
“Oh, only through the car windows,” Sonja complained. “A boring point of view. No, I want to really explore the area. It’s already clear to me what attracted Rolf and Margit here, but I’d like to have a better look at it from up close.”
“I have no objections,” Kim said. “May I come along?”
Sonja gave her a mocking look. “No,” she said. “I drove here with you to be alone. You’re getting on my nerves every day at home.”
“Then I’ll stay here.” Kim folded her arms behind her head as if she were taking what Sonja said seriously. “I have no desire to disturb your solitude.”
Sonja pounced on her with one leap, and the bed did the rest: they rolled right on top of each other into the middle. Ultimately, Sonja lay beneath Kim, unable to move.
“I like this point of view better, too.” Kim grinned, bending down to Sonja and kissing her.
“Kim . . .” Sonja whispered. “We can’t . . . Rolf and Margit . . .”
“I could ask them if they object,” Kim said.
“Please . . . Kim . . . don’t do that to me,” Sonja whispered. “Rolf was my dearest colleague . . .”
“Mine, too. And my boss. But what does any of that have to do with us?”
“I can’t,” Sonja said, still quiet. “Please . . . understand . . .” She turned her face away.
“I do understand.” Kim struggled to her feet.
“No, you don’t understand.” Sonja had to downright scrabble her way out of the pit in the middle of the bed. “You think it’s because you’re a woman. But I wouldn’t do it if you were a man, either. That’s how my mother raised me. It has nothing to do with the gender of my partner.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” Sonja sighed. “Now I’ve outed myself as a really uptight person. Would you have thought that?”
“No.” Kim grinned. “But you tackled me, not the other way around.”
“Somehow, just coincidentally, you made sure I was on the bottom at the end. You seem to manage that pretty frequently.”
“That really was pure coincidence.”
“Our bed at home doesn’t have this kind of a pit in the middle.” Sonja arched her eyebrows.
“Sonja . . .” Kim gaped at her, flabbergasted. “Surely, you don’t mean to allege . . .”
“I’m not alleging anything, I’m just stating the facts,” Sonja remarked, grinning crookedly.
“You’re just trying to tease me,” Kim decided. “Because it’s not true at all.”
“Oh, yes, it is.” Sonja smiled. “But it doesn’t bother me. Otherwise I would’ve done something about it a long time ago.”
“I should hope so,” Kim said, half relieved, but also mildly out of sorts. “Don’t come down on me too hard. We’re on vacation.”
“Yes.” Sonja gazed out the window. “Our first vacation. We shouldn’t spoil it. We can fight at home.” She took a pair of shoes from her suitcase, since during the drive, she’d worn only lightweight summer sandals, and they seemed unsuitable for the rough terrain outside.
“We don’t fight.” Kim was taken aback. “Or do you think we do?” She looked a bit flummoxed. “Just because I objected to the tenth frying pan you wanted to buy?”
“We don’t have anywhere near ten frying pans,” Sonja said definitely. “Six at the most.”
“It seems like ten to me. And I don’t know what anyone needs six different frying pans for, either.”
“That’s because you don’t cook.” Sonja laced up her shoes. “You can’t use an omelette pan for meat.”
“That makes two.” Kim grinned.
“You need different sizes, too,” Sonja said. “You don’t know a thing about it.”
“I admit that.” Kim had also put on sturdy shoes. “I’ve never done as much cooking at home as I have since we’ve lived together.”
“You cook? That’s news to me.”
“When I stand next to you at the stove, I always feel like I’m just getting in your way,” Kim said sheepishly. “Like you’d rather just kick me out of the kitchen.”
“That’s true sometimes.” Sonja walked to the door. “You’re always standing right in my way, in front of the herbs, the refrigerator . . .”
“I don’t know what you’re going to need next when you’re cooking.” Kim defended herself as they left the house.
“Exactly. That’s what I mean.” Sonja linked arms with Kim as they strode onto the meadow where the horses stood, chewing contentedly. “You don’t have to help me cook.” She smiled at Kim. “Cooking relaxes me. It doesn’t bother me at all to cook for you either.”
“Cooking relaxes you?” Kim couldn’t remotely imagine that. She found cooking extremely stressful.
“Yes,” Sonja said. “It’s the opposite of my work in the office. I can be creative with cooking. At work, that’s generally undesirable.”
“You’re constantly being praised for your creative ideas about the reorganization,” Kim remarked, astonished.
“That’s a different kind of creativity. In fact, it isn’t even really that. It’s just drawing logical conclusions. Cooking is different.”
Kim sighed. “I’ll never understand it.”
“You don’t need to.” Sonja stood still and looked around. “Isn’t this gorgeous?”
It was already evening, since they’d spent all day driving, and on the horizon they could see the sun beginning its descent into sleep.
“Whenever Rolf told me about this, I tried to imagine it for myself,” Sonja went on softly, as if she didn’t want to disturb Nature’s preparations for its nightly rest. “And I did imagine it, and I’d seen pictures, but in reality, it’s much, much prettier.”
“That’s true.” Kim wrapped one arm around her. “It’s like a fairyland.” All of a sudden, she felt something soft and warm plucking at her hand. She looked around. A horse had apparently confused her with Margit and was looking for a piece of cake in Kim’s hand. Its muzzle was like velvet. “I don’t have anything,” Kim said. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” Sonja only now realized that Kim wasn’t talking to her. She turned around in her arm, leaned into Kim, and watched the horse with a smile. “Who would’ve thought that Margit’s cake could generate that kind of enthusiasm?”
“I don’t think that’s enthusiasm, I think it’s love,” Kim said. “Look at her eyes. The cake is only a pretext.”
Sonja reached out a careful hand, and the horse snuffled at it. It snorted softly. Then it licked Sonja’s palm with its long tongue. “That tickles!” Sonja laughed softly, so that she wouldn’t frighten the horse.
“Hey,” Kim told the horse, but equally softly, and with a smile. “That’s my woman!”
The horse turned its head and nudged Kim, as if to say: I didn’t mean it that way. Its friendly eyes left no doubt that it harbored no evil thoughts whatsoever.
“I should hope so.” Kim petted the horse’s muzzle gently. “You don’t mind if we stay here on your meadow for a while, do you?”
The horse shook its head, as if it had understood Kim. Its mane settled sleekly back around its neck.
“What gorgeous animals,” Sonja said, overwhelmed by the beauty of the view.
“Gorgeous animals, yes.” Kim looked at Sonja. “If you weren’t here, a person could think there was nothing more beautiful on the face of the earth.”
“Don’t exaggerate.” Sonja laughed softly. “Beside which, there are two of me, so you’d have to include Sandra in that description, too.”
“There aren’t two of you. No way. You are unique, and you always will be.”
The shadows behind the
horse grew longer, and Kim and Sonja turned around to send one final greeting toward the sun.
The horse appeared to have the same thing in mind, because it stayed with them, and so the three of them stood there together and watched the sun as it kissed the horizon with red lips before setting at last.
Two women who loved each other, and one horse that loved them, too, in the vastness of the Camargue.
THE END
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