Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 07

Chapter 7 The Silence of the Lamb, and Then the Lamb Won't Shut Up

Jenny Schecter had a sex crush on Carmen Morales, it was that simple.

Not that anything was ever very simple inside Jenny Schecter's head. The crush wasn't very romantic, it was mostly sexual. From the moment Jenny had seen Carmen's perfect butt – clothed in those SupahLovah fire-engine-red jockies and bending over in her refrigerator looking for something to drink after a day and half a night of sex, – she was attracted to Carmen. In fact, Jenny's desire for Carmen was much the same as Shane's had been just two weeks earlier in Arianna Huffington's dressing room, but this was even worse. In Arianna's dressing room, Carmen had not reeked of pheromones, hormones and two women's post-orgasmic fluids she'd not yet had a chance to shower off. But in the kitchen that night the reptile part of Jenny's brain had picked up Carmen's scent, and her nostrils had flared like a chihuahua in rut.

Jenny found Carmen not only exotic and attractive, but also sexy in a way that her first lesbian lover, Marina Ferrer, was not. Oh, Marina was exotic and sexy, all right, in that smokey, smoldering, cold-eyed way. Carmen's sexiness was the open, sensuous kind, lots of curves and what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Marina smoldered; Carmen laughed. Marina seldom smiled; Carmen's smile was as infectious as pinkeye in a day care center. Marina was dark drama; Carmen was rom-com. Marina had hard, cold, squinty eyes; Carmen had wonderful, deep, warm lamps, and when they shined on you, you felt yourself smile back. Marina was a mind-fucker, a sexual chess player, and in her own way a predator. There were no games about Carmen, no bullshit, no attitude.

Jenny had just broken up a few days earlier with a woman named Robin who had been nothing but head case. Jenny wasn't especially looking for anybody to be with, but if she would have been, it would be somebody open and friendly, casual and low maintenance. Somebody like Carmen, for instance. The question of Carmen's availability wasn't at issue. Jenny knew Shane's habits by now. If Shane had slept with Carmen last week, then that was last week's news; Shane never kept a lover for more than a day or two. So, by definition, Carmen was clearly available.

And God knows, Carmen was sexy. After Carmen had gone back to Shane's room, Jenny had rushed to her own room and masturbated furiously, imaging herself kissing Carmen and pulling those red jockies down, burying her face in what she'd imagined Carmen's bush looked like. After Jenny came onto the fingers she'd pushed tightly into her warm, wet slot, she fell asleep curled around her pillow, dreaming of being held by Carmen, and seeing that lovely face between her thighs.

If Jenny had starred in a Disney movie, she'd have been the one who had a cartoon devil on one shoulder and a cartoon angel on the other. But this was the real world, and what Jenny had weren't happy woodland cartoon characters, they were just demons, artifacts from Something Very Bad That Had Happened to Her when she was little. Unlike Shane, Jennie had never received any help, any counseling or therapy, and so the demons lived within her still, often submerged, often deep in the underbrush of her psyche, but never gone.

Jenny was smart, cute, and out-going, and had these big blue eyes, which even as a child had been her most successful feature. She had made friends easily enough in school; it was keeping them that had been the problem. Granted, there were few things more vicious, cruel and mean in the world than a 9-year-old girl, and Jenny had been only an aspiring welterweight in that ring. After the Very Bad Thing That Had Happened, though, her promising career as a princess evaporated. Understandably, she withdrew from the field of battle, kept to herself, nursed and festered her wounds in private, as best she could. She became the class weirdo, the Strange One. Par tattletale, part suck-up, she always turned her homework in on time, and got straight A's not because she wanted to be a goody-goody, but instead to piss everyone off. Even the other odd girls, the wallflowers and the homely ones, didn't like her. Given that, young Jennie had nowhere to go for human warmth except toward the boys. The enemy, perpetrators of the Very Bad Thing. In college she was buying the popularity she could earn no other way with blowjobs and handjobs, and used her straight-A scholastics for cover. Still, she was nobody's punch and nobody's slut, and she wouldn't fuck just anybody. She honed her manipulative skills to work her way up the social ladder. She sucked her freshman English professor's cock and wrote a class-assigned short story about it. He was terrified and outraged when he read it, but when he calmed down he decided to give her an "A" for the class because he was frankly afraid of her and what else she might do. Fortunately, she met Tim that semester, and so his dilemma resolved itself.

***

When Jenny answered the doorbell she found Carmen standing on the doorstep, smiling brightly.

"Hi! Good morning! I was supposed to work today, I had a production assistant gig, but they canceled at the last minute. So I ran home, changed, and thought if you weren't doing anything, we could go do something together, go window shopping or looking in antique stores, or whatever. I called, but you didn't answer your phone."

Jenny, still dressed in her bedtime undies, huddled behind the door and made a severe frowning face at Carmen, pointing to her mouth.

"What? Are you sick? Do you have laryngitis or something? Can't you talk?"

Jenny shook her head frantically, no, gestured for Carmen to come in, and ran to get her notebook and pen. Carmen came in and closed the front door, and found Jenny at the dining room table, scribbling a message in her notebook. Then she handed the notebook to Carmen.

"Not allowed speak. Writing class assignment from 3B. Can't talk 24 hour. Sorry. Yes love go shop but not best day?"

Carmen read it out loud, then asked, "What's 3B?"

Jenny grabbed the notebook back and scribbled, "Writing class professor. Charlotte Birch. Butch Bitch Birch. Call her 3B. Homework: write story -- day of silence."

Carmen read. "Okay, I see. So you can't speak all day, huh? Well, do you still wanna go do something? Remember the other night, we talked about getting together, so this can be, like, our first date. And I talk enough for both of us."

Jenny mimed an exaggerated frown.

"Oh, come on, it'll be fun. We can invent our own sign language and everything. And you need something to write about, you can't sit home alone for 24 hours. Go, put some clothes on. There's these two really cool vintage clothing shops in Venice I thought we'd check out. And Surfing Cowboys has its annual Hippie Folk Funk Art Show going on."

Jenny laughed, quickly hugged Carmen, and ran off to her room to get changed.

As Mr. Rogers once said, it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and they rode to Venice in Carmen's Jeep with the top rolled back and the side curtains off. They went to one of the vintage stores first, and Carmen found a small 1920s-era chain-mail purse she liked, but not too much else. They decided to hit the Surfing Cowboys shop next for a change of pace. As advertised, the art show was funky and hippie and folky and fun. About quarter to twelve Carmen started to think about lunch, and asked Jenny if she was hungry. Jenny made the Italian hand gesture, palm down, wagging side to side, mezza mezza, maybe a little.

"I know a great place I've always wanted to try for lunch," Carmen said, "called La Playa Venice, but I think we'll need reservations." She got out her cellphone, got the number from information, and punched it in.

"Hi, I was wondering if you could fit two people for lunch today? I know it's really short notice, but I thought maybe you might have a cancel--." She paused, listening. "Are you sure you don't have anything? This is Carmen Morales, I'm a production assistant at Showtime, the cable network? I'm trying to make a reservation on behalf of two of our actors. Maybe you've heard of them? Mia Kirschner and Sarah Shahi? They were shooting this morning and just got out, and asked me to see if you had anyth--yes, I'll hold."

Jenny made a horrified face and scribbled something in her notebook, and held it up for Carmen to read. "We don't look like them!!!"

Carmen shrugged, giggling. "One-thirty? Yes, that'll be great, thank you, I'll tell them. Oh, one more thing, you know how celebrities are, I'm sure. They'd prefer not to be recognized, you know, no special treatment or anything, just a small table out of the way would be fine ... yes. Thank you. What was your name? Paolo? Well, thank you very much, Paolo. They'll see you at one-thirty."

Jenny could hardly stop laughing. She scribbled in her book, "Ur shameless!!!"

They killed time at Surfing Cowboys until a little after one, then jumped in Carmen's Jeep. La Playa Venice was only a mile away up Abbot Kinney Boulevard, then over Main Street to the intersection at Navy Street. While Carmen gave a valet her keys and got her parking stub, Jenny scribbled in her book, "This looks expensive! I don't think I can afford this!"

"Don't worry," Carmen said. "This is my treat, right? I asked you out on a date, so let your date pay for the meal. Anyway, how about we split something, that way we can go crazy on dessert. What do you say?"

Jenny smiled and leaned to give Carmen a peck on the cheek.

"Are you Paolo? Miss Morales called in a reservation for us, I think," Carmen told the maitre'd. "Kirschner, party of two?"

"Ah, yes, right this way, please," Paolo said, leading them to a small table in the front window, where everyone in Southern California could see two famous, gorgeous actors eating lunch.

The girls were already half giddy, and it didn't help when Carmen ordered each of them a raspberry mojito. They decided to split the Sushi Omakase platter for their lunch, which was fabulous, and then Carmen browsed the dessert menu.

"Oh, my God, Jen. Here it is. How about we split one of these?" Carmen turned to the waiter. "We'll have two coffees and we'll split one order of the macademia nut ice cream profiteroles with Hawaiian chocolate fudge, two spoons," Carmen said. Jenny covered her face with her hands, shaking her head as though in agony.

"Great choice," the waiter said, laughing. "Be right back."

Jenny put her hand to her forehead as though she were suffering. When the dessert arrived she looked at the three puff pastries filled with the ice cream and drowning in hot fudge.

"This will be death by chocolate," she wrote in her notebook.

"I know," Carmen said. "The EMTs are going to be pumping insulin into us out on the sidewalk in half an hour."

Hunched over almost head to head, they leaned over and slowly savored their way through the dish, one or the other of them groaning or moaning, eyes closed.

Carmen dredged up some hot fudge onto her spoon and held it up to Jenny's face, weaving it slowly back and forth in front of her.

"Can you imagine" Carmen whispered, "if I spread this hot fudge all over your nipples and pussy, and then slowly, slowwwwwwwleeeeeeee licked it all off?"

Jenny closed her eyes and mimed a crying face.

"And then I take a spoonful," Carmen whispered, "and I drizzle a trail, from my mouth, down my chin, down my neck, between my boobs down to my bellybutton. And I fill my bellybutton, and then I drizzle the trail down past my little flower box – you've never seen my flower box, have you? – down past my flower box, and I put one or two spoonfuls inside my tunnel of love, and then I lie there while you kissed me, and then you'd lick me all the way down to my bellybutton, and you'd suck this hot pool of luscious hot fudge sauce out of my bellybutton, and then ... ."

Jenny, whose eyes had been clenched shut in delirium, waited for Carmen to say what came next, and when nothing came she opened her eyes. Carmen's mischievous, smiling face was right there, flirting and playing with her. Jenny mimed grabbing Carmen by the throat and throttling her, silently speaking the words, "What? What? What?"

"... And then, after you licked ... and sucked ... and kissed ... all that fudge out of my navel, your tongue ... slowly ... resumes its journey southward ... licking ... the trail of delicious ... sensual ... warm ... hot fudge ... down to my Garden of Eden ... licking ... my pubes ... my thighs, smeared with delicious chocolate ... Oh, my! Look at the time! Gotta run!"

Carmen sat bolt upright, and Jenny, mock crying in frustration, dropped her head to bang it on the table as Carmen laughed. The waiter came over and discreetly sat the check on the table. "Any time you ladies are ready," he said. He had no idea what they were laughing about, but assumed it was the sugar rush talking. He'd seen it all before.

More as a matter of conscience than anything else, they knew they had to walk it off, so arm in arm they strolled to the second vintage clothing store.

While they had waited for the waiter to come back with the credit card paperwork, Jenny had scribbled a note: "Whats flower box?"

"Oh, right," Carmen said. "You've never seen my tattoo. Well, it goes around my waist and some of it's in a very girly place, and I don't let just anybody see it. I'm not gonna tell you where it is, but I'll tell you this much. 'Box' is a big clue.'" Jenny covered her mouth, laughing, her eyes wide. Then she pointed to the word "flower" she'd written in her notebook.

"Oh, you bet there's flowers," Carmen whispered, leaning close. "Let me know anytime you want to stop and smell the roses, even though they aren't roses." Jenny laughed and blushed and bobbed her head up and down, yes, she wanted to smell those roses.

Jenny couldn't believe how horny she felt, or how badly she wanted to have sex with Carmen. Seeing Carmen in her SupahLovah red jockies, even though they weren't what anyone would have typically thought of as "sexy," had nevertheless triggered Jenny's libido more than anything she could remember, more, even, than the notion of having sex with Marina.

Their walk helped them digest lunch. "I'm never gonna eat again as long as I live," Carmen said. Jenny nodded her head in agreement.

They made their way back to Jenny's house through a golden afternoon rush hour. Carmen pulled into the driveway, and got out to walk Jenny to the door.

"So when does your silence assignment end?" Carmen asked. "I had a really great time with you, but ... I think I wanna do it again when you are a little bit more verbal."

Jenny stopped at the door and faced Carmen.

"Is that cool with you? Doing it again?" Carmen asked.

Jenny hung her head. Gently, Carmen put her hand under Jenny's chin, lifter her face and kissed her on the lips, gently but romantically. When Carmen pulled away, Jenny's eyes were still closed. Carmen smiled and put her hand on Jenny's cheek. Jenny opened her eyes, and smiled.

"Okay," Carmen whispered.

***

Shane could hear the tantrum even in the corridor as she walked down the hall to the suite where Veronica Bloom had her office. She opened the door and entered the suite from which the divine Ms. Bloom regularly exploded. Veronica was in her office off the big reception area, the door open, waving a script in her hand and yelling into the phone as four of her toadies sat and waited her out.

"Fucking fuck, fuck, fuck! He gave me his fucking useless word!" Veronica yelled into the phone at somebody.

Aaron, toady-in-chief, saw Shane come in and went out into the reception area to intercept her.

"Marty just dropped out of the project," he explained to Shane. Marty was Marty Kaufman, the director. Veronica was talking to his agent, somebody named Richard. Shane nodded, not really knowing or caring. She was only vaguely aware that Marty used to be Veronica's husband, once upon a time, poor bastard.

"The air hostess is producing it?" Veronica yelled. "Jesus!" She flung the script at a vase of flowers on her desk. One of the toadies scrambled to start picking them up.

Shane could hardly believe what she was seeing and hearing. She looked at Aaron, who shrugged.

"Let me give you some advice," Veronica hissed into the phone. "No. You listen to me, Richard. If you want to keep Marty as a client, you will pull him off this deal now, because a year from now he is gonna fire your sorry ass for blowing off Veronica Bloom in favor of the air hostess who's sucking his cock!"

"The air hostess is Marty's new wife," Aaron whispered to Shane. "The project is going to fall apart without Marty. She's taking it especially hard because they used to be married, you know."

"No, Richard, you and your client--" Veronica held the phone in front of her mouth – "better get a fucking grip!" She threw the phone at one of her assistants, bouncing it off his chest. She sat down at her desk, took a Tootsie Roll Pop from a bowl of candies on her desk, savagely tore off the wrapper, popped the lollipop in her mouth. Oral gratification – sooo good. She sighed.

Aaron walked back into Veronica's office, Shane trailing along reluctantly. Shane went and sat in the corner on a couch, out of the line of fire.

"Uh, maybe we should go to Night," Aaron said to Veronica. "He's apparently looking to do a period drama, and you know--"

"You want me to go from Marty to M. Night-fucking-Shyamalan? Where were you educated?" Her voice rose an octave and a dozen decibels. "Do you even know the difference between War and Peace and a Marvel fucking comic book? Get out! Unless you have something to say, get out! You're all fucking useless! Just leave me alone!"

All the toadies fled, including Aaron. Shane stood and began to shuffle toward the door, still a little shocked at what she'd seen. She hadn't even had her morning coffee yet, and she was in the middle of Apocalypse Now.

"Not you!" Veronica snapped. Shane turned to see that she was the one being addressed. "You stay."

Shane had no idea what to do next. She asked quietly, "Can I get you something?" Like maybe a revolver.

Veronica calmed down. She looked depressed. In the space of three seconds she went from raging diva to pouting child.

"Why do people always let you down?" she asked, a quiver in her voice. Shane thought Veronica might just cry, if such a thing was possible. "No matter how much you have done for them. Don't you find that to be true?"

"That's why I try not to need anything from anyone," Shane said softly. She sat down in one of the chairs in front of Veronica's desk.

Veronica stared at Shane, obviously moved. "I want you to teach me how to do that." She stood up. "Let's go out. Let's go make ourselves feel better."

Shane followed Veronica out to the elevator bank, down to the lobby, and out of the office building, where Veronica's Maybach was parked right out front in a spot reserved for her with a small plaque that said "The Queen Bitch." Veronica drove off the studio lot and six blocks down to a ritzy spa and beauty salon. An hour later Veronica was lying on a treatment table wearing only a robe and with a towel around her hair. Shane sat in a robe nearby, having had a massage and a session in the eucalyptus sauna. A pretty Asian technician hovered over Veronica's face, peeling away dead skin stuck to some kind of pea-green mudpack covering most of Veronica's face. Shane was completely grossed out, not only watching but being forced to watch. Did this woman have no boundaries? Shane knew the answer.

"So, why shouldn't I become a lesbian?" Veronica asked. The Asian technician pretended not to hear.

"Uhh. Because women are intense," Shane said. "They're a lot of work that can suck you dry."