Chapter 10 — No mercy, no pleasure, no sin (I stand guilty, loving you again)

Carmen opened the door of the Planet and pretended not to notice that her knees were shaking. 

She was wearing a simple black hoodie and tight blue jeans, and her long hair was tied loosely at the nape. A casual outfit, no trace of make up, just her face the way it was in the morning, when she would wake up and scratch her temple and then get up from the bed blindly, going straight to the bathroom and looking for her toothbrush. Nothing even remotely impressing, Carmen thought — and she was wrong.

As soon as the perfectly cleaned glass door opened, and as soon as Carmen put her foot on the floor of the Planet, a few heads turned and several pairs of eyes stared at her. 

Carmen felt naked and embarrassed at her own metaphorical nudity. For a split moment, she willed herself to spin on her heels and leave — after all, it was Shane’s desire to see her there, to have her there deejaying during Bette and Tina’s party, it was all Shane’s, that desire, not Carmen’s.

And that was, after all, the point. The bottom line of everything. Shane had asked — Shane, who never asked, Shane who would always struggle with words and means to express herself and her own feelings, had asked. And Carmen — her heart was too mild, almost liquid was her soul when it would land right into Shane’s hands. Carmen couldn’t do anything but oblige.

Shane wanted her to be there and there Carmen was, with all her load of insecurities and fears — coming back to surface, welcoming the whole world again into her secluded, very private life, just because Shane McCutcheon had asked.

Carmen inhaled a deep breath and decided not to look around. She decided, stubbornly, to ignore the ravenous look that a woman clothed in a flamboyant red dress was throwing to her ass. Instead, Carmen bowed her head and walked straight to the counter. She was looking for someone, and that someone had a name. 

It was Kit Porter.

Shane had talked about her, a lot. Carmen knew that Kit was Bette’s sister but she knew, above all, who Kit Porter was. Carmen had been into music since she was a little girl. She didn’t remember her father’s face — she would just remember old, old pictures of him, taken before she was born — but she knew by heart all of his records.