Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 14

Carmen leaned forward and kissed Shane softly on the lips. "All that doesn't matter now. What's important is we're together. And that you love me, and you realize it and can say it, and if it scared you, you managed to overcome that fear."

"I know ... but I think about how many times it could have gone wrong, how we might never have gotten back together. I think about the stupid stuff I did, and I think about the fact that it was you who kept faith in me. Even though you had that thing with Jenny, it was because I pushed you into it ... and I could have lost you to her."

"No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't have lost me, because I knew who I loved all along. And I even said how I was just marking time with her. I loved Jenny as a friend, just like you loved her like a friend, and we still love her that way, and that's fine. But I was never romantically in love with her, or she with me, and in your own heart I know you know that."

Shane nodded. "I do. I know that. And the thing I wanted to say ... ."

"What? You can tell me."

"I wanted to say ... thank you. Thank you for keeping the faith, for keeping it so we could find each other. Thank you ... for saving me ... from myself." Her voice choked. "Thank you for saving my life."

Carmen's eyes were full of tears that ran down her cheeks. She pulled Shane into an embrace tighter than anything either woman had ever felt. She rocked Shane and cried, and Shane cried too. They kissed, and kissed away each other's tears.

"I love you so much, Shane," Carmen whispered, holding her.

"I love you, too," Shane whispered back. "But ... "

"But what?"

"But sometimes ... I worry that I don't know how. Don't know how to love you."

"Don't worry, my love," Carmen said. "We'll figure it out."

In the corner of the bedroom, deep in the shadows, the female jaguar Ixchel lay on her side on the floor, blinked her eyes and sighed contentedly. She laid her head down, waiting until she heard the gentle snores coming from the bed, and went to sleep herself.

***

The pace of Shane and Carmen's sex life would likely have continued, but over the next month the real world and life itself intervened. First, one of the studios called Shane and asked her if she was available for a four- or five-day assignment with a film crew out in Bakersfield.

"You can't turn it down," Carmen urged her. "Go, go!"

When Shane came home she brought with her the flu, which had swept through the film production crew so fiercely that they'd had to shut down production for two days, extending Shane's contract and time away from home. She was feverish and achy when she walked through the door, and immediately confined herself to bed. Carmen was a wonderful nurse -- no one could have been more tender -- but at Shane's insistence Carmen was kept at arm's remove, in an effort to keep the flu away from her. Shane asked her to sleep in her own room, and there was no hugging, no kissing, and of course no sex. Carmen made soup and kept Shane hydrated and supplied with tissues, books, magazines, Tylenol, crackers, ginger snaps, whatever it took, but never came closer than two feet from the infected body. On Day Four Shane was feeling much better, but Carmen had a weekend DJ gig in Las Vegas, and then started her period on the drive home Sunday afternoon. By the time she got to West Hollywood she was grumpy and cramping and had a sizeable headache from the drive, staring for hours into the sun's glare and inhaling exhaust fumes during a back-up near Glendora. She walked in the door, wrapped her arms around Shane and gave her a kiss -- and went to bed early with a heating pad. The next day she, too, came down with the flu, and missed three days of work. Since Shane had just had it herself, she didn't have to quarantine herself away from Carmen ... but neither did Carmen want to make love, naturally enough. On Thursday, virus-free, they both got home from work at a reasonable hour, had a quick dinner, and then fucked their brains out all evening. On Friday Tina and Bette had an event, and asked Carmen to babysit Angelica for them, which she was happy to do. Shane came over, too, and kept her company. They watched TV together and made out on the couch, but between checking on Angelica, feeding her, changing her, and also being in someone else's house it just wasn't the same, and they were too tired to do anything when Tina and Bette came home after midnight.

On Saturday morning Carmen was off to a DJ gig in San Diego. When she got back early Sunday afternoon she came home to find a note from Shane saying the girls had all gone off to one of Dana's tennis matches, and wouldn't be back until late. Carmen had an early call-out on Monday for a production assistant assignment that turned out to involve four 14-hour days on Santa Monica pier. When she came home each night she was sun-burnt and exhausted, and she did her best to make love to Shane. On the third night she actually fell asleep during a sixty-nine when she was on the bottom, and Shane carefully got up, crept quietly to the bathroom, and brought herself off under the shower before creeping quietly back to bed and going to sleep beside the oblivious, naked dish in her bed. Carmen was embarrassed and apologetic in the morning as they hurried dressed to run off to jobs in opposite ends of the city.

After a month of it, Carmen had had enough, and Shane was hornier than she could ever remember being.

"This is nuts," Carmen e-mailed Shane from her laptop in a motel room in Las Vegas, where she had a DJ event that evening. "We hardly see each other and we live in the same house, in the same room. I love you so much and I miss you like crazy. I miss making love to you and going down on you. I am so hungry for your pussy I can't stand it. We have to do something!!! How about we make a pact to coordinate our schedules, so that we both have every other weekend off. From Friday at 5 p.m. to late Sunday night or Monday morning will be OUR TIME TOGETHER. No DJ gigs, no hairdresser assignments in Bakersfield, no babysitting Angelica (much as we love her), no ANYTHING -- except you and me. We're both working so hard and we're making good money, we can afford the time off. So how about this: every other weekend will be strictly Shane-and-Carmen Time. We'll take weekend trips, go to the beach, go to the mountains, make love in the forest in clear mountain streams, we'll build a bonfire on the beach somewhere and fuck like rabbits in the dunes. We'll go to Purple Roof bed-and-breakfasts and make slow, quiet love in old antique canopy beds and go shopping in the afternoons and then have high tea. ANYTHING!! We just have to get away and make time for OURSELVES!! Yes? You agree?? Please Please?"

Shane e-mailed her back an hour later: "Will thr b sex? Lots sex? Because if i dont get some hot mommaloving soon im going go mad!!"

Carmen laughed when she read it. "Yes, there will be hot momma sex. I promise you we will fuck continuously from Friday evening to Sunday night. How's that? That's 48 hours of continual orgasm. Okay? We'll be so cummed out that we'll have to drag ourselves to work Monday morning. We'll need special vitamin diets and we'll both be bow-legged. But yes, my love, my heart, my soul, there will be sex. Cross my heart. Cross my boobs. Cross my empty, aching twat. There will be sex. Tell your clit to get ready."

Two weekends later they packed overnight bags and left the house by 5 p.m. on Friday evening in Carmen's Jeep. They had a romantic, candlelit dinner two hours north of LA in a cozy seafood restaurant overlooking the Pacific. They drank white wine and stared at each other hungrily across the table as the waiter brought them blackened mako, grilled asparagus and shoestring french-fried sweet potatoes. Shane could hardly wait to finish, but Carmen made them linger over coffee, dessert wine, and a shared chocolate mousse. They arrived at the Victorian bed-and-breakfast Carmen had found on the Purple Roofs website that highlighted gay-friendly accommodations. She had made a reservation for 9:30, and by 10 p.m. they were naked in a huge canopy bed on the third floor in a cozy room that had actually been featured in a travel magazine. Fortunately the bed was well-built and made no noise, although they did their best to test its durability. After two orgasms each they were asleep in each other's arms by midnight.

On Saturday morning, they went down to the small dining room just barely in time to catch a leisurely breakfast, and were on the road by 10:30, heading north up the coast highway with no agenda and no plans. They stopped whenever or wherever they felt like it, and drove along the coast, stopping once to walk along a secluded beach in the shallow ocean water with their pants legs rolled up. They held hands and kissed, and walked, and looked at the ocean, and at each other. Late in the afternoon they turned around and headed south, stopped for dinner, and drank more wine by candlelight. Carmen had the broiled scallops, and Shane ordered a house specialty chicken pot pie that was everything it was advertised to be. They skipped dessert but had coffee and after-dinner cordials.

Carmen had decreed that during these weekend trips they start learning what they liked to eat and drink, and so on their weekend trips they schooled themselves on Frangelica, Drambuie, the Galianos, red Dubonnet, amoretto, brandy, cognac, and Irish coffee. They discovered they didn't care for port or sherry, but almost by accident discovered how much they liked a cheese plate for dessert instead of something sweet. They visited wineries and vineyards, and one Sunday afternoon in a very upscale cheese shop they were given an extensive tutorial about the virtues of aged Stilton, which Carmen discovered she loved.

"Ohmigod, Shane, taste this," Carmen exulted, holding up a small cracker upon which the shop owner had spread some really excellent blue cheese. "Just let it sit in your mouth and let the flavors come out." She fed Shane the cracker and watched her face as Shane closed her eyes and savored it.

"Oh, that's really incredible," Shane said. "I had no idea."

"We have to take some of this home with us," Carmen said.

On the next getaway weekend they went east, to the edge of the dessert, stayed in a rustic lodge and ate barbecue and Tex-Mex all weekend. There was a microbrewery in the lodge restaurant, and they sampled types of beers they'd never had any reason to try before. Just as they had learned about cordials and cheese and wines they learned about beer and ale and stout, and also some barbecue lore. Carmen had thought that her Mexican heritage brought with it a genetic knowledge of hot peppers, but she was humbled to learn many new things about Southwest cooking, and she couldn't wait to get home and show her mother all the new things she had learned.

Two weekends later they cruised to Catalina Island, where they rode a zip line and took a submarine ride.

"I can't believe I'm standing here," Shane murmured as they stood in line waiting to board the submarine.

Carmen was alarmed. "Why? What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Shane said. "We're just such ... tourists."

"Oh," Carmen said. "Um ... is that bad?"

"No, no, don't get me wrong. It's just I've lived in LA for what, ten or eleven years, but there's just so many places I've never been, like here, Catalina. I've never in my whole life stayed in a bed-and-breakfast and slept in a canopy bed until a month ago."

Carmen felt relieved, but only slightly. She reached out and turned Shane's head so she could look in her eyes. "You've got to tell me, Shane, are you happy doing all these things? Do you enjoy these trips? I know I've been the vacation planner for these things, but honey, I'm doing it for us. If you're not happy doing these things you need to tell me."

"No, that's the thing, Car. I am happy. I really love these trips. But see, that's the surprising thing. I just never expected that I would. I always thought, you know, being a tourist was ... I don't know ... ."

"Uncool."

Shane shrugged. "Well. Yeah, I guess."

"And un-lesbian, too. That is, if your orientation is the bar scene, and going clubbing every weekend and getting drunk and fucking some girl in a bathroom stall and waking up in a strange bed the next morning."

Shane shrugged.

"But see," Carmen continued, "what we're doing is what couples do. You and I are a couple now, and when you're a couple you start to do things as a couple that you wouldn't ever do as a single person, alone. If you didn't have someone in your life, would you ever decide to hop in the car, drive two hundred miles, stay by yourself, alone, in a bed-and-breakfast, and go to a wine tasting? By herself and all alone, Shane McCutcheon would never do that in a thousand years, and you know what? Neither would Carmen Morales. But together, as a couple, that's something we might enjoy doing together. And if we discover we don't especially like that one activity, we don't ever have to do it again. But there are simply some things in life you just can't really do properly by yourself. What's the point of having a dinner in a cozy, out-of-the-way restaurant with candles and wine and the whole deal if you're by yourself? It's not about the glass of wine. It's about holding up the glass of wine and seeing the light glint off of it, and you hear the sound of the surf nearby, and you gaze across the table into the eyes of the person you love, the person who makes your heart beat fast, who makes you feel happier than you've ever felt before, or even thought you could ever feel. That's what the candlelight and the wine and the ocean and the walks on the beach in the moonlight are about. They're about learning how to be lovers, how to be a couple."

***

Carmen worked diligently and creatively to keep their relationship ... interesting.

For instance, the first Tuesday of every month became Peach Cobbler Night.

The first one occurred spontaneously and serendipitously, after Carmen overheard Shane and Lara talking at The Planet one day about baking and making special desserts, and Shane saying that her all-time favorite dessert was Peach Cobbler a la mode.

"I've got a special treat for you for dessert," Carmen said to Shane as they finished up dinner one Tuesday evening.

"Cool," Shane said, standing up to take her dirty dishes into the kitchen for clean-up. "What is it?"

"It's a surprise. You'll see. After we do the dinner dishes go into the living room and read a book or watch TV or something, and when it's ready I'll call you. It's gonna take a little while."

"Okay," Shane said, not showing much interest. Ordinarily this might have irritated Carmen, but not tonight. Tonight Shane was going to pay dearly for her cool, casual, laid-back calmness. Oh, yes, she was.

After the dinner dishes were washed and put away Carmen pushed Shane into the living room saying, "Now, don't peak and ruin the surprise. Remember, I'll call you."

Shane grumbled with good humor, but she went and was soon immersed in an episode of Bones, idly speculating who she'd rather do first, Emily Deschanel, Michaela Conlin, or Tamara Taylor. Shane loved all three, but Tamara won as she usually did in Shane's mind. The woman had incredible eyes. On the other hand, Michaela's character on the show was bisexual, and had had an off-again on-again affair with an old girlfriend before eventually marrying the Jack Hodgins character. Not only was Michaela edible, so was the ex-girlfriend.

Speaking of edible, Carmen, meanwhile, got out three small bowls. In the first she put two tablespoons of brown sugar, the kind partly mixed with Splenda to save calories. She added to it a teaspoon of powdered cinnamon and a teaspoon of large-size sugar crystals, the kind used to line the rim of a glass, for texture and crunch. These three elements she mixed thoroughly with a spoon.

In the second bowl she placed a large peach she'd removed from the refrigerator crisper, and cut it in half, removing the pit. She sliced each half into four large slices, giving herself eight slices in the bowl along with their natural juice, which gathered in the bottom of the bowl. The third bowl remained empty for the time being. Carmen banged around the kitchen for another minute or two, just for sound effects and diversion, and then noisily opened and closed the oven door. She turned the oven timer to 30 minutes, but never actually turned the oven on.

"Don't open the oven or you'll ruin it," Carmen shouted into the living room.

"'Kay," Shane replied.

Carmen took the bowl of peach slices and the bowl of brown crunch into her bedroom and put them on the dresser. Then she took off all her clothes and padded down the hall to the bathroom, where she took a quick shower using a peach-scented shampoo for her hair and a peach-scented body wash for all the delicious rest of her. You want peach, you're gonna get peach, Carmen smiled to herself as she dried off. After she dried her hair she pulled it back into a high ponytail and wrapped a scrungie around it.

Back in her room, Carmen got two fresh, clean, oversize beach towels out and laid them on her bed cross-wise, with a foot of overlap. Things were going to get messy, and she was taking no chances. She picked up a bottle of top-quality Mexican vanilla extract from her vanity, and put a drop on her fingertip, and then painted the hood of her clit with the vanilla, as she very often did. She wet her finger again with another drop and painted the inner folds of her pussy. She put the top back on the bottle of vanilla, changed her mind, and painted a small drop between her breasts and behind her ears.

Just then she heard the "bing" on the oven timer in the kitchen. Good timing. Naked, she walked down the hall to the kitchen, made a little noise with the oven door, and then removed from the freezer a pint of vanilla Haagen Daz ice cream. She took a melon-baller tool and carved out a perfect ball of ice cream a little smaller than a golf ball, and put it in the third bowl. She put the ice cream back in the freezer, left the melon-baller in the sink for later use, and took the bowl to her room.

Carmen set the ice cream down on her dresser and picked up a butane lighter, going around lighting half a dozen candles artfully and romantically scattered around. Several were scented to smell like apple pie and cinnamon. She turned off the overhead room light and picked up the bowl of peaches. She dipped her index finger into the bottom of the bowl, wetting it with peach juice. Then she painted her left nipple with the juice, re-dipped her finger, and painted her right nipple. She set the peaches down on her nightstand and picked up the small bowl of crunch. She held it out in front of her and bent at the waist, lowering her now-sticky nipple into the brown sugar/cinnamon/crystal mix, very pleased with herself that the color of the crunch was very close to the natural cinnamon color of her aureoles. After she did the left nipple she did the right one, and then looked in her vanity mirror. Her tits looked fabulous and so edible-looking it made her light-headed.

She put the bowl of the remaining crunchy stuff on the vanity and took the bowl of ice cream with her to bed. She sat in the middle of the bed Indian-fashion with the ice cream next to her. She reached over to the nightstand and retrieved the bowl of peach slices. Slowly and carefully she inserted four slices into her pussy, one after the other, and left the other four peach slices in the bowl for later. She dipped her fingers in the peach juice and painted her mons with the juice, dabbing it into her closely trimmed bush, and then on the outer lips of her pussy. She put the bowl of peaches on the nightstand and picked up the bowl of ice cream. Careful not to spill it, she lay back on the bed with her legs out straight, on top of the two beach towels. With her fingers she carefully picked up the slippery golf ball of ice cream and set it down in her navel, and then she reached out and put the empty bowl next to the bowl of peaches. The ice cream had already begun to melt, and its coldness made her shudder. She picked up the bowl of crunch and sprinkled some on her mons and on the ice cream golf ball. Gently she pushed a finger down on her tummy just below her bellybutton, so the melted ice cream ran south toward her pussy and into her bush, rather than sideways onto the bed.