Chapter 5

Shane closed her eyes when Carmen slammed the door. She was holding her breath and she didn’t even know it. She felt insanely upset and excited. She felt troubled. She felt torn. And she had an instinct. Her instinct said to run after Carmen, to grab her by her wrist, to make her turn around – she was so easy into Shane’s arms – and to kiss her again until the end of time. Shane’s instinct said that Carmen wouldn’t say no.

Shane ran her hands on her face, then through her hair. Her eyes were still closed, and she found herself imagining a crying Carmen. She felt Carmen’s guilt for a second and she shivered. What was that? What was guilt? Shane didn’t know. Shane didn’t remember at all.

Shane knew how to rule her life. Shane would get laid whenever she wanted, Shane would screw everything up whenever she wanted, Shane would cheat on whoever she wanted. She didn’t care. Shane was the Goddess and master of her universe and now she was shivering. And she didn’t know why.

“What the hell is happening to me?”, she whispered to herself, her face still buried into her hands, “What the hell is she doing to me? Why am I letting her do this to me? Am I becoming such a pussy? Christ. Fuck”.

Her silent words sounded like a confession, like a prayer, maybe even a mantra. She held her breath, again, and tried to listen. Nothing. Carmen was gone. She wasn’t pressing her back against the closed door. There wasn’t just a few inches between the two of them.

“Is that what you’re hoping?”, Shane asked to herself, in a painful moan, and exhaled. She pulled off her jacket and threw it on a chair. She was sweating. For the very first time since she could remember, she thought something incredible – al least for her standards. She thought: maybe I’m in trouble.

”The first flush of youth was upon you when our eyes first met
And I knew that to you and into your life I had to get
I felt light-headed at the touch of this stranger’s hand
An assault my defenses systematically fail to withstand…”

Meanwhile, Carmen was in her car. She held the steering wheel tightly, so tightly that her knuckles were becoming white and her forearms were trembling. She clenched her teeth together and tried hard to get rid of that unbearable heat spreading over her lower abdomen. Maj. Charm had fucked Lieutenant Sex Appeal big time.