Chapter Text
Sharon was sitting in a waiting room, staring blankly at the white ceiling as she was contemplating the dreadful events that had led her to this place.
Lydia and she had been hopelessly in love once, and for years, they had been terribly happy together. All the holidays, the birthdays, the parties, the emotional intimacy, the way they had been ruling the orchestra together as maestro and concertmaster… Not to mention the incredible sex, and the fact that they had adopted a child together, for heaven’s sake… Did that mean anything to Lydia at all? Did she think about Petra when she was fucking all those stupid little sluts from the Accordion? Did she think about Sharon at all? Sharon, her wife to whom she had promised the world?
She had left them just like that, Petra and her, now a single mum with a broken heart. Tár might have been dead, for all she knew. She hadn’t heard of her in months, and she had no idea where the hell she might have been; no one did. She was not in Berlin, that she knew for certain.
Sharon thought she might have forgiven the cheating eventually. She liked to think that they were stronger than that; that she, Sharon was stronger than that. Their relationship might have been transactional, but their love had always been unconditional. Well at least Sharon’s love for Lydia was unconditional, but the way the maestro had just left overnight, without leaving a single trace, was something that she could not possibly forgive, ever. She had been so devastated that she had had to spend two whole months living with her sister, two months where she just didn’t have it in her to take care of Petra on her own. Petra who was constantly asking about her father. Petra who had been having the most terrible night tantrums ever since Lydia’s departure. Petra who was getting bullied at school, again, and had no longer a father to give her bullies a fright.
Sharon was strong, but she was not that strong. There was only so much anyone could take over a given period of time… However, she was doing much better now. She had been seeing a therapist for nearly six months, and she was slowly going back to being the person that she once was; the caring friend, the loving mother and the passionate musician. She had lost her seat as concertmaster, but the orchestra had still welcomed her back among them.
Sharon had always been making up for Lydia’s lack of social abilities – the maestro didn’t know how to make herself liked at all - and she had always ensured that people in the orchestra saw the best side of her, because Sharon was the only person who saw the good in her. That’s how their relationship had worked. That’s why it had worked. The transaction was plain and simple; Sharon had made sure that they were always on Lydia’s side, and Lydia had offered her a seat in the spotlight with her. It was all over now, but people still liked Sharon for who she was; a talented violinist, and a warm person, and she was ready to start over new – at last! – and if that meant filing for divorce, then so be it.
“Miss Goodnow?”
Sharon was brought back to reality by the voice of her lawyer, standing by the door of the waiting room. She inhaled deeply before she stood up, walked into the other woman’s direction, and shook her hand.
“I’m Johanna Wilson.”, the woman said, inviting her in.
“Sharon Goodnow.”
Johanna Wilson was a middle-aged blonde, slightly older than her, very elegant in a black knee-length dress that fitted her slender body perfectly, and as they made their way into her office, Sharon caught herself thinking that she found the other woman very attractive. The thought made her blush, for she hadn’t looked at any woman ever since she had married her wife, the very same wife that she was here to unmarry. Not to mention the fact that she had discussed the matter with her therapist already, and they had both agreed that Sharon was too vulnerable to be thinking about seeing someone else just yet.
This is a business meeting. This is a business meeting, she kept repeating to herself.
“So, Miss Goodnow…”
“You may call me Sharon if you like...”
Sharon realised that the way she had interrupted Miss Wilson was everything but appropriate, that her palms felt terribly moist, and that her legs were shaking uncontrollably under the desk. What was she thinking? Lawyers probably never addressed their clients using their first names anyway…
“I’m so sorry miss Wilson… I’m… nervous.”
And she was nervous indeed, and not only because she had come here to discuss her failure of a marriage – or whatever was left of it since Lydia’s disappearance, but also because Johanna Wilson was staring at her with piercing blue eyes, so intense that the ground under her feet suddenly felt dangerously unstable. It had been a long time since another woman had looked at her this way, a way that was so characteristic that she immediately identified it; the gaze Johanna was laying upon Sharon was the exact same as that of Lydia upon their first encounter.
Shit… It’s bad. No. It’s not bad. It’s terrible.
“It’s quite alright Sharon. You may call me Johanna. I’m here as your consultant, not as your lawyer. You won’t be needing an actual lawyer since the other party is untraceable. It’s only a matter of filing the case and sending it to a jury. So now Sharon, you may tell me everything. I already know some things; I read the news, as everyone did, but I need you to explain the whole affair with your own words. I’m not here to judge, I’m here to help.”
Johanna’s voice was so warm and comforting that Sharon felt her body relax instantly, to the point she even smiled, and Johanna smiled back, still staring at her, and Sharon thought about how amazing it felt to be with a woman who truly looked at her. In the last months of their relationship, Lydia had been terribly distant, never touched her if she could avoid it, and barely looked her in the eyes, thus breaking their transaction and making Sharon feel starved, for Sharon Goodnow craved attention like she craved air, and being with Johanna made her feel like she was breathing again after she had been holding her breath for over a year.
You are not on a date… You are not on a date, so keep your shit together Goodnow.
And so, Sharon told Johanna everything Lydia had put her through, up to the point where she had left eight months ago, without a single word for her or her daughter, without ever getting in touch with them the entire time. She left out the fact that, even though she was clueless as to the details of Lydia’s sordid affairs, she had known something was up the entire time. How could she have not, knowing Lydia like she did, like they were two sides of the same coin?
Johanna handed her a tissue, and only then did Sharon realise that her eyes had grown tearful as she was telling her story, and she felt truly embarrassed, but the other woman was looking at her with so much empathy, that she didn’t feel half as bad as she might have, had the lawyer not been so understanding. Sharon grabbed the tissue and wiped her face with it, and Johanna kindly laid her hand upon hers, gently rubbing her knuckles with long elegant fingers. Sharon was so unprepared for it that the other woman’s touch made her skin burn, and the warmth spread to her whole body, making her feel instantly flushed. Hell, she wished she could just dissolve into thin air…
“Thank you” she managed to utter.
“You’re very welcome, dear. You’ve been through an awful lot, and it’s ok to let yourself go. Then again, I’m not here to judge you.”
Johanna told her she would receive her bill by post mail, and that she would be keeping her updated about the progression of the case, to which Sharon thanked her warmly. She was about to leave, when she heard herself ask:
“Johanna, would you like to go out for a drink?”
Damn it Goodnow… You’re an idiot.
“Yes, sure! You were my last appointment of the day. There’s a bar across the street. I’ll join you once I’m finished tidying the desk.”
Sharon knew full well that it was the worst idea that she had come up with in a very long time, and yet, she could feel her body shudder with excitement at the prospect of spending the evening with the beautiful blonde. Heike was picking up Petra at school, and she quickly texted her sister, telling her that she needed her to watch over her daughter for the whole night. “Have got a date.”, she texted, knowing that Heike would be so pleased that she wouldn’t even try to argue.
Sharon entered the bar and went straight to the bathroom, where she let her hair down, fixed her make up, readjusted her bra, and unhooked a couple of buttons from her blouse. She looked at herself in the mirror, cursing herself for not wearing a skirt, but then, she told herself her ass didn’t look too bad in those jeans after all… She went back to the bar and took a seat by the window, her heart pounding so hard that she thought she was about to have a stroke. Why the hell was she making such a big deal out of it? It was just a drink, with a beautiful woman. But she couldn’t silence the small voice in her head that kept on telling her that what she was doing was wrong, and that she was no better than Lydia. An unfaithful wife…
But Lydia is no longer part of the picture… Why should I even bother?
As she was waiting for Johanna, all her memories of Lydia came back to her in a stream of thoughts that took her back to their first date. Lydia had brought her coffee from the café across the concert hall, and they’d drunk it on the secret rooftop of the Philharmoniker, looking at the Berlin skyline, and Lydia had made her waltz, and they had laughed… It had felt so… special. As Sharon would later notice, her wife was lousy at routine, but she knew how to make special occasions feel truly special. Lydia was such a performer, and Sharon smiled fondly at she remembered their first wedding anniversary, when her wife had lit hundreds of candles in their garden and played Nino Rota’s love theme from the Godfather, Sharon’s favourite piece of accordion music.
Stop thinking about her, for heaven’s sake…
“Hello again, Sharon. I’ll go and order from the bar... What are you having?”
Sharon felt her body flinch, for Johanna’s hand was lightly pressing on her shoulder as she spoke to her, and she had serious trouble adjusting to the woman’s unexpected touch. It made her feel things, sparked a want for things that she thought she would never want again. Why was her body betraying her in such a way? She thought about Dr. Adler, and what he would be telling her if he were there, and it sounded like something along the lines of “You’re still young Sharon. And it is legitimate for your body to feel certain needs and for you to want those needs fulfilled. You’ve got plenty of time for this. Lydia’s leaving doesn’t have to mean the end of your sex life”.
Oh god… Sex… The mere thought was enough to make Sharon feel nauseated...
“I’ll have a double scotch please.” Sharon replied, and for a brief moment, she regretted her choice. She desperately wanted to make a good impression, and the last thing she needed was for Johanna to think she was an alcoholic, but if she wanted to have at least a chance at surviving the evening in her company, she was going to need a lot of alcohol… However, she actually felt relieved when she saw Johanna come back with two glasses of scotch.
Sharon ended up having a very pleasant evening in the other woman’s company. Johanna was smart and funny, the conversation was interesting, with just the right amount of flirt, and Sharon managed to talk and think about things that were not related to You-know-who, putting away all these dreadful thoughts into a small corner of her brain. Johanna told her that she was just emerging from the throes of a divorce, and her ex-wife, international law specialist Karen Friedmann had been unfaithful too, but she quickly skipped to another topic of conversation, and Sharon felt grateful that exes never got mentioned again for the remainder of the evening.
“I have to confess that I’ve not been on a date with a beautiful woman in ages. And you make me really nervous, Sharon Goodnow. “, Johanna said, bluntly as she was accompanying Sharon home, and it sparked a wave of heat at Sharon’s core, which quickly spread to her neck and face. So, this was an actual date. And Johanna had called her beautiful.
It is fine. It is fine.
And suddenly Johanna’s arm was around Sharon’s waist, and the younger woman was finding herself melting into her touch.
It is everything but fine.
“I do find you very attractive. You are smart and funny, and I really like you, Johanna… But…”
“You don’t think this is a good idea… do you?”
They had stopped, and they were now standing face to face, looking at each other with a burning question in their eyes, as the distance between their bodies seemed to be closing ever so slowly. Sharon’s heart was pounding faster than the drums in Ravel’s “Bolero”, and she felt the air leave her lungs as she was suddenly captivated by Johanna’s mouth. When the older woman eventually caught her lower lip softly between hers, Sharon felt something stir inside her.
“Was that alright?” Johanna asked, after their lips parted.
“I don’t know. Maybe we should give it another try.”
And Sharon pulled her into another burning kiss, her tongue initiating a thorough exploration of the older woman’s mouth. Johanna moaned against her lips, which only encouraged her to kiss her harder, her hands suddenly grabbing her ass and pulling her tight against her lap. … Hell, she wanted this. She had missed it, so bad.
However, they knew better than to have sex on their first date. They didn’t do it on their second date either, and they had to wait until their third night together, for Sharon to make it to Johanna’s apartment where they spent the whole night fucking each other to an endless number of orgasms. The sex was very different from what Sharon was used to, but it was good. With you-know-who, she was used to ending up at the bottom most times, whereas it was more of an even battle with Johanna, which she didn’t mind, at all, for she found equal enjoyment in both the top and bottom position.
Her face stuck between Johanna’s legs, eating her out and fingerfucking the life out of her, as Johanna was squirming extaticatically and so hard that she had to pin her hips down onto the couch, Sharon was very happy to note that she had not forgotten how to please her woman. As for herself, she hadn’t had an orgasm in such a long time that the first time she came, she thought she was having an actual heart attack, but she quickly recovered from it, until she had a second orgasm, and a third, and a fourth, and then she gave up on counting.
She might not have been head over heels in love with Johanna as she had been with Lydia, the sex was definitely not as soul shaking, and the other woman would never get her in the way that Lydia did, but Sharon liked her a lot, and it was by far the healthiest relationship she had had in her entire life. If not happy, she was at least content, for happiness required a transcendence of some sort, and Johanna was not the kind of person who could provide her with that. Only one person could, and, then again, that person was no longer part of the picture. On the other hand, Johanna was offering her stability, security, and a truthful relationship, as many needs that you-know-who had been unable to fulfil.
Less than a month later, Johanna had moved in together with her and Petra, along with her fourteen-year-old son, Andreas. “U-Haul lesbians will always be U-Haul lesbians...” Sharon had commented, as they were unboxing Johanna’s books, making the older woman laugh out loud, and Sharon thought that the flat hadn’t been so cheerful a place in years.
Petra had been very reserved at the beginning, but Johanna had known how to make Sharon’s little girl feel comfortable, for she was patient, sweet and emotionally attuned to children, in such a way that Sharon had initially felt jealous when Petra had started confiding in her new girlfriend instead of her, but she soon realised that the other woman’s presence, even though it could never replace that of Petra’s father, had a positive impact on her child. Andreas was a teenager, and things were a bit odd between him and Sharon at the beginning, but as it turned out, they both played the violin, had long talks about classical music, and the young boy was delighted to have Sharon teach him new music tricks and take him to the Philharmoniker with her every now and again.
They were like a happy family, Sharon thought, as she and Johanna were strolling through the streets of Berlin, holding hands, enjoying the comfort of each other’s company in the uproar of the city in the evening, and her heart grew full of warmth at the thought.
“Sharon?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.” Johanna said, plain and simple, and Sharon desperately wanted to say it back, but the words got caught in her throat, and she simply ended up kissing her girlfriend, putting an end to their conversation. Johanna was taken aback and hardly responded to Sharon’s kiss. Of course, she had expected her to say “I love you too”. That’s what you did when your girlfriend of four months told you about her feelings, and Sharon felt suddenly terribly stupid and ashamed of her ungratefulness, but in her defence, she did realise that what she had with Johanna was good, but for years, she had lived in greatness, and it just didn’t compare.
She knew they would discuss it later, but for the time being, they resumed their walk in awkward silence.
Accordion music was playing. Nino Rota’s love theme for the Godfather. And Sharon suddenly felt inexplicably drawn to the music. It had an air of déjà vu, she thought, as she started looking for where the sound originated from, her heart pounding madly in her chest.
It simply cannot be.
She entered a small cabaret, closely followed by Johanna, and she felt her heart drop down six feet under, and her mind slowly yield to a state of sheer panic that quickly turned into anger and disbelief.
On the stage, wearing a white suit and a black top hat, sitting on a stool with an accordion in her lap, was none other than Lydia Tár.