Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 12

"My God, are you all right?" Carmen asked.

"She's fine," Bette said, "but her water just broke. Would you do me a favor and tell everybody we had to leave?"

"Sure, I'll tell them, but let me help you first."

"Okay, take her other arm and we'll get her out to the street."

Carmen and Bette between them got Tina to the sidewalk, and Carmen stayed with Tina while Bette ran to get their car. Carmen helped Tina get in and watched them speed away. Then she went back inside the Wiltern and trotted down the aisle to find Kit.

"Kit, Kit, Kit. Hi,"

"Hey," Kit said. "What's up, girl?"

"Okay, um, Bette wanted me to tell you that she and Tina had to leave, and that everything is going to be okay."

"What happened?"

"Tina's water broke!"

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God. Come on, we've got to go," Kit said, turning to David.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," David said. "Mom, mom, mom, sit down. They've probably got hours to go."

"Yeah," Carmen chimed in. "Plus she said that she wants you to stay, and she wants you to enjoy the concert, and that she's going to call you as soon as she can. Okay?"

"Okay," Kit said, grinning.

"Oh, congratulations!" Carmen remembered to add. "You're gonna be an aunt! How great is that!" Carmen hugged Kit and gave her a kiss on the head, and Kit laughed excitedly.

Just then the house lights went down, and Carmen hurried to find her seat next to Shane. The MC came out on stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special evening of music and performance to benefit the Ms. Foundation for Women," he said. "Please welcome this evening's host, Gloria Steinem!"

The crowd stood and cheered. Steinem came out from the wings and stood behind the podium. She smiled and waved at a few people, and laughed, acknowledging the crowd and the applause. She cleared her throat and waited for the crowd to quiet down. Then she began.

"Remember when Emma Goldman said, 'If there's no dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming?'" The audience chuckled and nodded. "Well, tonight we have both. Thanks to Betty, thanks to Kinnie Starr, thanks to Heart, we have the music, and thanks to all of you, we have the revolution." The audience broke into cheers at that. "And we are going to need it, because there is a guy in the White House --" here the audience booed -- "who represents all those religious extremists that people came to this country to escape."

Someone in the back of the room hooted a "Whoo!" sound.

"But that's because there's a backlash against all the great social justice movements, and if we hadn't had a frontlash, we wouldn't now be having a backlash," she said, and waited for the cheering to die down. "So we're just going to keep going and do it more and better. We're going to not only vote, but reform the way we vote." Cheering. "We're going to contribute not only when we're asked, but every time we pay our bills. We're not only going to change women to fit the world, but change the world to fit women." Much cheering. "And we are going to become the change we want to see in the world. So, first tonight, then the world!"

The crowd cheered and applauded as Steinem applauded them back as she left the stage. Kinnie Starr came on stage and after the applause that greeted her began to recite her poem Buttons.

She's got a mother, a daughter, and a lover. You tell me why she should now save cover. Yeah, she's got a mother, a daughter, and a lover. Boy on the street's got his eyes pinned onto me.

Shane and Carmen sat together, watching. Shane leaned over and whispered into Carmen's ear, "Do you think you might want to come over after this? For a little while?"

Carmen didn't know how to answer. She moved slightly, which happened to be away from Shane, who was confused by the movement and the silence. After a moment, she pulled back and resumed watching the stage, thinking something had gone wrong somewhere, somehow.

Shape, sizes, handprints, shoe fits the shapes, Sizes, handprints, shoe fits and off with the underwear,

Kinnie recited. Carmen leaned over to Shane and whispered in her ear. "For a little bit," she said, still watching the performance. Shane nodded, and slowly broke into a grin.

***

For reasons neither of them quite understood the vibe between them had changed after the concert. As they walked out to Shane's pickup on the top deck of the parking garage, Carmen said, "That was really terrific. Thanks for inviting me."

"You're very welcome," Shane said. "Heart was really fantastic."

"I know."

Shane opened Carmen's door for her, and waited to close it after she was in. It was awkward for both of them. Shane wondered, is this the time I should kiss her? How do I do this? This shit is complicated.

Carmen leaned over and unlocked Shane's driver-side door. She'd read once in a magazine that's how you know whether a girl is a keeper or not.

Shane got in, and they talked desultorily about the show on the way back to Jenny and Shane's house.

"Any word from Bette about Tina?" Shane asked.

"No, nothing yet. But it's only been a few hours since her water broke. She might not have even started labor yet. The first birth usually has a long labor."

Shane grunted. She actually knew very little about labor and childbirth, having never been closely exposed to the process before. Carmen, on the other hand, had cousins with children, and seemed to know a great deal about pregnancies and childbirth. A lot of it had to do with the tattoo around her waist, and the jaguar heads just above her wonderful ass. Carmen had said the jaguar represented a fertility and health goddess named Ixchel, or something like that.

Should I kiss her? Carmen asked herself. Or should I wait for her to kiss me? What's the drill here? How girlie-girl does she want me to be? She's opening doors for me. What am I supposed to do? How does she want me to act? Are we going to do it? Does she want to make love to me? She's so damned tentative and scared and clumsy tonight, and I don't know where the confident, laid-back Shane went. Why is this so fucking difficult? In the sound room that day she was all over me. Now it's like I'm some fragile porcelain doll she doesn't want to break. If we were in some crowded dyke bar she'd just hustle me into the last stall of the john and fuck my brains out. Now it's like we're Ken and fucking Barbie. Sex is easy. It's dating that's hard.

When they got to the house they stood in the kitchen awkwardly while Shane got a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator and searched for the wine-bottle opener. She found it and opened the bottle, thinking, this is a fucking disaster. I have no idea what to do. There's a reason I don't go out on dates: I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I fuck women, I don't date them. Now I know why. And she looks so good, and I'm almost certain she's not on her period, and I just want to throw her on the floor and suck the front of her panties, but I know that's absolutely the wrong fucking move. Shit, shit, shit.

"This should probably breathe," Shane said, handing Carmen a glass of red wine and feeling like a complete, total idiot. She set the wine bottle down and looked nervously at Carmen, looking for all the world like a beaten hound dog.

Carmen sipped the wine tentatively, and made up her mind. This was a charade. She had no idea what was in Shane's head, which was odd because usually she could read her every mood, every expression on Shane's face. "I'm gonna go," Carmen said, putting her glass down on the table. "Okay, bye."

Carmen turned away abruptly and headed for the back door. She had completely forgotten Shane had picked her up at her house, but she didn't care. She'd fucking walk home.

But Shane gently grabbed her arm, stopping her.

"No," Shane whispered.

Nothing happened, and then Shane turned Carmen around. "I don't want you to go."

Carmen looked at Shane's tortured, pain-filled face. Shane began to lean in toward her. Was she going to finally fucking kiss her like she fucking should have done ten minutes ago? Yes!

No. Shane seemed to hesitate at the last second, and pulled Carmen into a hug instead.

Fuck! Goddammit shit fuck fuck fucking fuck. Carmen realized that Shane simply didn't know how to do this.

"I miss the way you smell," Shane whispered. It was pitiful, but Carmen knew it was the very best Shane could do, and that she meant it, every lame, pallid word. Weak and pathetic as it was, it filled Carmen's heart, and she breathed out happily. She smiled, and a tear ran down her cheek.

Shane pulled back, and Carmen thought Shane was finally going to kiss her. But no -- once more, Shane pulled her into a hug. Carmen started to cry. Shane pulled away, surprised Carmen was crying. She leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, then on her lovely neck. Shane inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with Carmen smell. Carmen gasped.

They stared at each other for a moment. Then Shane wiped Carmen's tear away and leaned in for a kiss. Carmen hesitated, but let Shane kiss her. It started out tentative, a half-assed, awkward, sixth-grader's kiss. How the hell could a lesbian who'd fucked nearly a thousand women not know how to kiss somebody? Sweet Jesus! But Shane persisted, her lips still tentative on Carmen's, but the longer they stayed there the warmer the kiss got. And next thing Carmen knew, it had turned into a proper kiss. She didn't know what had happened; she didn't care. But now her own mouth was locked on Shane's, and there was passion. There was heat, and more heat coming. There was softness, and wetness, and a little hint of tongue.

Now there was hunger, and want. It was like whatever logjam had been causing Shane's tentativeness and hesitation had suddenly given way and now the river was free to flow madly. Whatever noise had filled Shane's brain had quieted down dramatically, for once Shane became engaged in sexual behavior all the sounds disappeared and there was only the gentle rustle of the breezes. Meanwhile, inside Carmen's head her old, familiar theme song began to play: Quiero, quiero ...

Slowly Shane backed Carmen up against the refrigerator, her hands fluttering around Carmen's waist and back and sides, not knowing where to land and never settling, but it didn't matter because the kiss stopped and resumed and stopped and resumed, her mouth on Carmen's, her lips seeking Carmen's. Sometimes she kissed her cheek, or slipped down her neck or went back to her ears, and sometimes the kissing remained mouth-to-mouth with no need of resuscitation.

Carmen had no real awareness of the refrigerator magnets underneath her shoulders and back; all she knew was she was deliriously happy. None too gently she pushed off from the refrigerator, coming at Shane with her breasts and hips and thighs and hands, Shane backpeddling slowly until they crossed the small space between the refrigerator and kitchen table, Shane feeling the table nudge her ass but her attention never wavering from the woman she was kissing. Somehow they continued, Shane walking backwards around the kitchen table, not sure if she was pulling Carmen along with her or whether Carmen was steering her, or whether either woman had any idea where they were going or why, which was the truth of it. All Shane knew was she remembered how wonderfully this girl kissed, how hungry she got, and how warm, and the sweetness of her taste and the wonderful hard softness of her body as Shane clasped her again and again, walking backward until they collided with a wall and somehow turned to Carmen's right, past the kitchen table and into the hallway where Carmen backed Shane up against a framed art poster hanging there, their fingers locked together and rising up over their heads as Carmen pinned Shane to the wall, kissing, kissing. And somehow they came away from the wall and the poster and turned, this time to Carmen's left, backing Shane down the hall, kissing, kissing, kissing, until they came to the entrance of Shane's room and the choreography switched as they spun, Shane now leading and Carmen walking backward through the doorway. For a second they came apart, staring amazed at each other, Carmen's eyes wide with wonder and want and glistening, and Shane thought she'd never seen any woman looking so beautiful and so desirable.

She pushed Carmen back onto the bed, but it was a push that had no force because Carmen went backward onto the bed so willingly Shane stood looking down at her, but then somehow she was transported, now she was on the bed straddling Carmen and leaning down to kiss that wonderful mouth again, to kiss and lick, and inhale. A second later, still kissing, she became aware of Carmen's hands at her waist, reaching to unbutton Shane's jeans, fumbling with the zipper, and then Carmen's hands struggling to push her jeans down over the rise of her ass but not working because Shane was pressing down on her, lying between Carmen's spread legs, Carmen's strong thighs grasping Shane's hips. Shane abruptly came to her knees and grasped the bottom of her shirt and pulled it over her head. She wore no bra, of course, and there they were, the finest set of nips in all of California. Carmen reached up and pulled Shane's shoulders down so Shane once again straddled her, but this time above her so Carmen could take Shane's left nipple into her mouth and love at it with her tongue, kissing, licking, sucking hungrily, and then the other one.

Her hands meanwhile continued pushing Shane's jeans down her legs, bunching them up at her knees but Carmen's hands slipping down Shane's back and going right underneath her panties to cup the naked cheeks of her ass, kneading the flexing, hunching muscles and pushing the panties down, too, Shane being topped from the bottom up. She pulled up again onto her knees and grabbed for Carmen's crotch, unsnapping the button and pulling her pants apart as Carmen arched her bottom off the bed to let them slip down. Shane backed off the bed and stood, kicking off her shoes quickly and stepping out of her jeans and panties until she was naked. Carmen sat up and pulled her top over her head as Shane pulled her shoes off and then pulled off Carmen's jeans and panties and threw them behind her. Carmen would have removed her black brassiere except that Shane had climbed back on the bed so quickly and was on top of her now, pressing her down, resuming the torrid kisses on her mouth, but this time with Carmen's legs spread wide and Shane between them, undulating, starting to fuck her, slowly, fucking Carmen, Shane's wet pussy on Carmen's, clit to clit, fucking easily and confidently, luxuriating in the feel of Carmen's hot skin under her, still kissing that mouth, that neck, those shoulders, the lovely ridge of collarbone starting to grow moist with sweat, a sheen coming to coat Carmen's luscious copper skin, one of Carmen's firm, cut arms around her and pulling her in, the other arm bent and her hand cupping Shane's tit, the thumb loving the hard jellybean nipple laminated between them, Shane rocking slowly, feeding her wet swollen clitoral hood between Carmen's wetter labia, feeling the rise of Carmen's hips as they welcomed that which they had desired for so long. Carmen's splayed thighs humping up and then the legs crossing behind Shane, sliding up the backs of Shane's thighs until they locked behind Shane's ass, pulling the cheeks in and down, locking Shane and her thrusting pussy in place and never letting her go, not until this feral, tribadical pussy rubbed her clitoris to its rapidly approaching climax, for Carmen, often langorous in sex, was hotter than she had ever remembered, because this was Shane fucking her finally, tribbing her, Shane whom she'd longed for all those nights, hugging her pillow while her vibrator buzzed inside her cunt where Shane's fingers or tongue ought to have been, the memory of the taste of Shane's modest pussy structure and pink clitoral hood in her memory, climaxing on her lonely bed.

Carmen's breathing switched from deeply rhythmic to small irregular gasps and grunts and cries as Shane tribbed her, humped and pumped her, thrust into her, Shane's left hand disengaging Carmen's right leg and lifting that leg straight up into the air, widening the lovely crescent harbor of Carmen's cunt and thighs and giving Shane an even better anchorage as she drove her clit against Carmen's, their crotches soaked and welling with love slick, engorged parallel labial mounds welded together but still sliding, Shane feeling the rasp of her own breath. Her upper half pulled away from Carmen as Shane went up on her elbows to give herself better purchase, no longer able to kiss that wonderful face but instead burying her head in Carmen's neck, her shoulders hunchbacked as she felt the familiar tingle begin to generate from somewhere deep in her ass, and below her Carmen's cries coming quicker and turning into moans as she came to understand Carmen was almost there, almost there, almost there, Christ! yes! grunting, giving Carmen what she wanted as Carmen lost it all, coming, the liquors of her climax gushing out against Shane's soaked nethers, Carmen coming crying crushing climaxing with every thrust because Shane was now nearly there too her clit on fire as it sensed the twitches and shivers and pulses from the adjacent clit throb, two clits embraced two shiny ocean pearls nestled abed in the sweet chlorine-perfumed ejaculate of oyster smell and para-urethra spurt and pussy brine, twat foam and thrashing beaver spume, Carmen's coming only half a minute ahead of Shane, two faces twisted into masks of lovely loving horror, grunting, twenty seconds, thirty seconds, a minute, waves of endorphins like schools of dolphins fucking their dolphin brains out, crashing surf on the beach, release release release subsiding Carmen slowly opening her eyes and wondering why Shane was no longer kissing her but seeing Shane's slack face above hers, looking down at her, Carmen wondering please Jesus will I ever get to do this again? and then the answer coming like another orgasm, Shane looking at her with awe, and then the words, as Shane had no control over what came next out of her well-kissed mouth, the whispered pirate treasure words, "I love you."