Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 08

Chapter 8 Beating Yourself Up

Jenny was nestled snug and warm in Carmen's arms on Monday morning. Her bare butt was tucked into Carmen's lap and Carmen's breasts pushed gently into her shoulder blades. The backs of her thighs were nestled against the fronts of Carmen's. The soft, quiet, whisper-snores of Carmen's breathing lightly brushed the back of her neck. The wet spots on the bed had dried, yet again, although the sheets were definitely going to have to go into the wash before nightfall. It had been almost exactly twenty-four hours since their first love-making, and twenty-two hours since their second. On Sunday afternoon Carmen had to DJ a bar mitzvah, and she didn't get to Jenny's house until almost 10 p.m., shortly after which their third love-making took place. The fourth and most recent had taken place about 5 a.m., when Jenny awoke to find Carmen crouched between her legs. Before long they were in a languid sixty-nine, after which they both fell asleep when Carmen reversed herself and pulled a limp, satiated Jenny into her arms again for a short nap that actually lasted three hours. Something made Jenny wake up, and with one open eye she glanced at the clock/radio.

Jenny suddenly realized what day it was and what time it was. "Oh my God, I've got class!" she shrieked. Her shout scared the shit out of Carmen, who sat bolt upright in Jenny's bed, the sheet falling down off her naked body. She saw Jenny naked and hoping about on one leg trying to put on her panties.

"I forgot to set the alarm last night," Jenny moaned. "I've got my writing class in thirty-five minutes! I gotta run!" She scrambled for the rest of her clothes, while Carmen climbed out of bed and began to dress with less urgency. Now that they were awake they could hear rock music blaring from somewhere in the house. Carmen cocked her head, listened, identified it as the song Apology, by Nasty On, from the Fistful of Rock 'n' Roll anthology, volume 12. Somebody had it cranked way up. She fastened herself into her bra, couldn't find her panties, climbed into a pair of sweatpants, and threw on her top. Somewhere in the house the telephone started ringing.

So much for the possibility of some good, leisurely morning sex, one of Carmen's specialties.

Jenny hurried down the hall to the living room, where she found Shane, rumpled, still dressed, but asleep on the couch with her hand over her face. The phone was ringing and Apology was blaring from the stereo. Jenny balanced on one foot then the other, struggling to put her shoes on. "Fuck, fuck, I'm so late for school! Fuck!" Then she picked up the phone. "Hello?" She covered her other ear so she could hear. She shouted, "Yeah, hang on a sec! Shane! It's for you!"

Carmen came into the living room, assessed the situation, and went over to the stereo and turned it off.

"It's Veronica Bloom!" Jenny shouted at Shane, who might actually have been dead, based upon the total lack of movement on the couch. Finally her hand moved, and she squinted up at Jenny.

She yawned, rolled over, and muttered, "Tell her she can kiss my ass." She appeared to go back to sleep.

"Um! She's not around right now," Jenny said into the phone. "Can I take a message?! ... Okay! Bye!" Jenny hung up the phone and began looking for her school notebook. "Shane! She would like you to please call her back!" To Carmen she said a fast "Good-bye!" and blew her a kiss. Carmen waved as Jenny ran out the door. She stood, leaning against the door frame, regarding the corpse on the couch.

"She can kiss --" Shane mumbled again.

"-- your ass," Carmen finished for her. She leaned against the door jamb leading into the kitchen, her arms folded across her chest. Carmen's face was that of a traffic cop who'd just stopped you for doing eighty in a thirty-five school zone.

Shane looked up at Carmen. Carmen rolled her eyes. Shane's head was throbbing, and her mouth was dry and tasted like the inside of a rabbit hutch. And she knew something bad was coming.

"You wanna know something?" Carmen finally asked.

Here it comes, Shane thought. She rolled onto her back, sat up, put her head in her hands, tried to ignore the cascading roar of noise, the Niagara Falls of sound pounding inside her head.

"You've been getting away with this shit for far too long," Carmen said. "I don't know what that poor, ass-kissing woman did to piss you off. You know, maybe you guys were walking down the street one day and she smiled at you too sweetly by accident! Okay, but maybe -- maybe she bought you a gift to let you know that you're kinda special to her!"

Then Carmen started to cry.

Shane looked up, startled. What the fuck was Carmen talking about? She started off talking about Veronica Bloom, right? Then, the crying. WTF?

"Or just maybe ... maybe she really liked you," Carmen said, making no effort to hide or even stop the tears running down her face. "I think that... that's something ... that you just don't know how to handle right now," Carmen nodded, affirming to herself, "...and, uh ... " she wiped away some tears, "...and I also think that ... that we sweet... simple folk..." she smiled, " ... will not go around kissing your ass forever."

Shane was stunned. Carmen looked at her for a long minute, her face so perfect, so beautiful...but so sad and so hurt. Then she went back down the hall to Jenny's room and slammed the door closed. Shane laid back down on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.

"Fucking fuck me," was all she could say.

***

Late that afternoon Mark was sitting at his computer console in his studio office/bedroom behind the house editing a tape when his cell phone rang. He paused the tape, which showed Shane bare-ass naked on her bed, humping some chick named Courtney a couple nights ago, and answered the call.

"Hello? Hey, Shane!! How you doing? I didn't recognize your number. Um ... you know, I think Jenny just left. But um ... " he rose and looked out the window, and saw that Jenny's car was gone. "Yeah, no, she's not back... Is everything all right? You sound kinda spacey... Hol - hold on, slow down, slow down. I can't hear you. Say it again? ... I - um - listen, it's - that's totally normal. Just, just... be cool. Tell me exactly where you are, okay?" He picked up a pen and jotted something down. "Uh-huh. Yeah, of course, but - but where, specifically? ... On Venice. On Washington. Okay... on the Washington side. So... the phone booth right by the alley. Okay. I want you to just sit down, right there, and I'm gonna be there in like twenty minutes, all right? And just, just be cool, and um ... just, just don't move from there, okay?"

Still holding the phone to his ear, he reached for his jacket lying on a chair near the door and struggled to put one arm in a sleeve. "Um, you're not drinking too much water, are you? 'Cause I heard this thing about this guy who was, uh, at the Burning Man Festival --" he grabbed his car keys off the computer table – "OD'ing on X, and, uh, he wound up drinking all this water - you know what, just - I'm gonna be there in, like, twenty minutes. Just - don't drink a lot of water."

Mark thrust his cell into his pocket and ran out the door.

Traffic was heavy and the afternoon rush hour had begun. What might have taken fifteen minutes at 2 p.m. took him twenty-five in rush hour to get to the block in Venice Beach Shane claimed to be calling from. He circled the block twice, looking for Shane or a parking spot, whichever came first, and got lucky on the second circuit, turning a corner just as an SUV up ahead was pulling out of a metered spot. Mark waited for the SUV to clear and head down the street, pulled up, and then paralleled back into the opening. He jumped out of the car, ignored the meter, and looked up and down the street. He saw the phone booth by the alley -- empty. Fuck it! Where was she? Shane could have wandered off anywhere; she could even have been arrested or something.

"No more, you fucking crazy bitch!" Mark heard some guy yell behind him, across the street and down the block. He turned and saw two men come out of a club, dragging a struggling and pugnacious Shane between them. Shane tried to kick one of the guys but missed as he dodged out of the way, still grasping her arm and trying to subdue her, or at least keep from getting attacked.

"Fuck you, Mel!" Shane yelled at one of them as Mark jumped between two cars, ran into the street, dodged traffic, and ran to where Shane and the two men were fighting.

"Get out of here, you little freak!" the man called Mel shouted at Shane, releasing her arm and pushing her away.

"Fucking lay off!" Shane yelled at him, charging him and trying to land a punch, but she was intercepted by the other guy.

"Little freak!" Mel hissed at her as she tried to kick him in the nuts. "She don't look like no fucking girl!"

"Eat shit!" she yelled at him. The guy restraining her spun her around and punched her in the face, and Shane went down hard. A second later, Mark slammed into the guy, knocking him right off his feet. When Mel went after Shane Mark yelled, "Get off, man!" but Mel ignored him, and a second later found himself in a headlock, his head under Mark's arm and Mark's free fist delivering a couple of body blows that took the wind out of Mel's sails. He collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. Mark turned to see Shane and the other guy going at it, the guy dragging Shane to her feet in order to punch her out again. He had his arm back, cocked to deliver the punch when Mark came up behind him, and sent the guy into some kind of flip with some cool-shit Jackie Chan ninja move. The guy hit the ground, tried to stand and charge, and got another cool-shit Jackie Chan leg kick to the chest that sent him backwards into Mel. Mark stood, Shane behind him on her knees. He watched the two men, who slowly stood up, panting and bleeding. He could take both of them; they knew it, and he knew it.

"Fuck you! Fucking cunt!" Mel said to Shane.

Mel started to go toward her and around Mark, but the other guy held him back. "No more," he said to Mel and Mark both.

"Fuck you, Mel!" Shane yelled from behind Mark. She attempted to come past him to go after the two guys again, but Mark held his arm out and kept her behind him. She had nothing left, though, and dropped to her knees, her head down.

"Fuck off!" Mel yelled at her.

"All right, all right! C'mon," Mark said, trying to settle everyone down and keep them apart.

The other guy dragged Mel down the street into the open door of a store a couple doors down.

"Piece of shit!" Shane murmured on her hands and knees, spitting blood onto the sidewalk.

Mark turned and helped Shane to her feet. She spit more blood on the sidewalk, and doubled over in pain. Mark wrapped his arm around her waist, and draped one of her arms over his neck. She groaned. One eye was already starting to swell shut, and she had blood coming from her nose and the corner of her mouth; it was smeared all over one side of her face and all over her chin.

"You're all right now," Mark said quietly.

"Ugh," Shane said, closing her one good eye and letting her head slump down.

"All right, you're okay. I got you now," Mark said. He helped her cross the street and gently put her into his car.

***

Just about the time Mark was scraping Shane up off the sidewalk Carmen found a parking spot a block and a half from The Planet. She and Jenny jumped out of Carmen's Jeep, Carmen fed the meter, and they began walking to the coffee house.

Jenny had been telling Carmen all about the assignment Charlotte Birch had given her, to become actor Burr Connor's ghostwriter and literary amanuensis, dogsbody, confidant, and insofar as was possible, his conscience (someone had to do it).

"Charlotte is pushing me," Jenny said. "And I'm really freaked out because she's intimating there's some kind of mysterious challenge in all of this for me."

"Okay, well, can I tell you what I think about Charlotte? I think--"

"What?"

"You have a crush on her."

Jenny stopped walking, and Carmen turned to look at her. "No, I don't."

"I think you do and I think it's totally okay," Carmen said, "and I think that you are allowed to have a crush on your teacher. And you know what? I think you should go for it. Totally go for it."

"Fuck you," Jenny said.

"What?" Carmen said, her grin finally betraying the fact that she was pulling Jenny's leg. "You want me to be jealous?"

Jenny nodded, and stuck out her lower lip in a pout. Carmen knew enough was enough. She came forward and slowly kissed her on the lips. "Well," she whispered, "if you think about fucking her, I will kill you."

Jenny smiled and kissed Carmen in return.

They went in and found Alice and Dana at the table where all the Friends usually gathered. Not surprisingly, Alice was her usual manic self.

"Hey, guys! Dana, Dana, can I please tell them? Pretty please?"

Dana rolled her eyes and blushed. "Oh, sure, go ahead," she said, smiling.

"What's up?" Jenny asked.

"Lemme ask you guys first, check your calendars and datebooks. What are you guys doing on the 16th to the 20th of next month?"

Jenny and Carmen looked at each other. "I dunno. I've got class every Monday, Wednesday and Friday," Jenny said.

Carmen looked in her PDA. "I've got a gig on Saturday the 22nd," she said. "I won't know if I have any production assistant work until much closer to that date. Why? What's up?"

"What's up is our friend, here, the incomparable tennis phee-nom Miss Dana Fairbanks, here, has been invited to be a special guest speaker and panelist by Olivia Cruise Lines. They're having a special cruise for women --"

"For lesbians, actually, Alice," Dana corrected.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, there's gonna be a cruise for all these dykes, and Dana's gonna be on this lifestyle leadership panel along with Phoebe Sparkle and some other celebrity lesbos --"

"It's called Lesbian Dynamics, Love, and Friendship," Dana shoehorned into the conversation.

"Who is Phoebe Sparkle?" Jenny asked.

"Who is ...? Jesus, Jenny, where have you been all these years?" Alice asked.

"Skokie, Illinois," Jenny said. "Living the life of a straight, sheltered, suburban, middle-class Jewish girl."

"Okay, sorry I asked," Alice said. "Anyway, Phoebe Sparkle is the fab lez sex educator and writer. She has this sex column in Lickety Split magazine, and she goes around the country giving lectures on female masturbation techniques and 10 Tips for Better Cunnilingus, and stuff like that. She's fucking famous and totally off the wall. I love her madly," Alice said. "I wanna be just like her when I grow up."

"Okay, I know who she is," Carmen said. "And Phoebe's bi, not lez. She does guys as well as girls. And congratulations, Dana. What's this got to do with us?"

"Well, here's the thing--" Dana began, but Alice cut her off like a New York cab driver.

"You guys get to come along!"

"What?"

"Yes! Here's the deal. Because Dana is getting all this super VIP treatment as a guest speaker on this cruise, Olivia is giving her not one, but TWO free staterooms. The extra stateroom has three berths in it, so three people get to come along, all expenses paid. Besides, me, of course, but I'm staying in Dana's stateroom, naturally. So we thought we'd invite you two guys and Shane, since you are the Three Musketeers and all."

"Three Musketeers?" Jenny asked.

"Well, yeah, you know what I mean," Alice said.

"Dana, it's very nice of you to invite us along," Jenny said. "I accept. Carmen, what do you say? I don't see how we can turn down a free vacation, a cruise on a boat full of dykes, and presentations by the fab Dana Fairbanks, do you?"

"I'm definitely in," Carmen said.

"What about Shane?" Alice asked. "Where is she?"

"I don't know, it's not my turn to watch her," Jenny said.

Carmen shrugged. "I don't know where she is either. But I don't see why she wouldn't want to come along. I mean, she's known you guys forever, and you know how she roots for Dana when she's playing in tournaments. And an entire ship full of lesbian pussy ... wow, no way is Shane not gonna jump at an opportunity like that!"

Everyone laughed.

***

When Shane woke up she was still dirty and grungy and still wearing the clothes she'd been wearing late yesterday afternoon when Mel and Lenny had beat the crap out her. She'd been drunk and more than slightly stoned on oxy and X, and had been belligerent, obnoxious and argumentative, anything to drown out the noise in her head and the pain that had been building day by day in her chest, in her heart. She sat on the side of her bed, slowly stood, dropped her jeans to the floor, gingerly pulled her T-shirt over her head. There was blood on the front of it. She tossed it toward her trash can, missed, didn't give a shit. She opened a drawer in her dresser, grabbed a pair of clean jockies, and staggered down the hall to the bathroom. She dropped her dirty jockies, climbed into the bathtub, turned on the shower, let it beat down upon her. She adjusted the temperature, found one that was tolerable, and let herself sink down into the tub. She let the water rain down upon her, and did something she hadn't done since recovering from her rape nine years earlier. She had herself a good cry. No, it was more than that. Like nine years ago, Shane was wracked by deep, powerful sobs whose depths knew no bounds. Her very soul hurt, and it had nothing to do with the beating.

***

Shane spent two days self-confined to her room. She told Jenny through the door that she had some bug, the flu, and Jenny and Carmen even went so far as to make Shane a tray of toast, chicken noodle soup, some cheese and a glass of ginger ale. Carmen took it into Shane's room and sat it on the dresser while Shane huddled under her bed covers, all but invisible and pretending to be sick. Shane mumbled "Thanks" from under the covers. Carmen stood and regarded her thoughtfully and with real concern.

"Do you think you might need to go to the doctor?" Carmen asked. "I'd be happy to drive you."

"No," Shane mumbled. "But thanks."

"Okay." But Carmen still didn't leave. "I'm really worried about you, Shane. This isn't like you. You're usually healthy as a horse."

"I'll be fine," Shane said. "I just need to rest."

"Okay. Well, you let us know if you need anything, 'kay?"

There was no response, and Carmen finally left. And then Shane just felt all the worse for lying and deceiving. Among all the other feelings she also didn't know how to deal with.

On the third morning she got up, took a shower, and got dressed, all without running into Jenny. She put on a pair of sunglasses, walked out the back door and was headed toward her truck when Mark happened to come out of his studio, headed for the house. "Shane! Hey," he called.

Shane knew she was caught. She stopped and turned. "Hey."

"You're alive," Mark said. "I haven't seen you around. How've you been?"

Shane nodded.

"How's, uh ... ." He point toward her eye behind the sunglasses. A bit of purple bruise was still visible below it, what people called a "mouse."

"Oh, it's uh ... it's better, thank you." Shane turned to walk away.

"I've been worried about you," Mark said.

Shane turned, kept walking backwards toward her truck. "Thanks."

Mark was undeterred. "Um. So where you off to?"

"Work."

"Hair job, or Veronica Bloom job?"

"Hair job. It's a day call," Shane said, opening her truck door.

"Um. Well, have a good one."

"You, too," Shane said as she got in. Mark nodded as she started the engine and backed out of the driveway. He watched her go, then went into the house.

***

That evening was a Friday night. Carmen and Jenny had agreed to get some Chinese take-out and watch Burr Connor flicks. Jenny hadn't gotten home yet, so Carmen made herself at home as she often did. She walked down the hall to use the bathroom when Shane started to come out of her room. The moment she saw Carmen coming down the hall she went back into her room and closed the door, but she knew it was too late.