”What I have found
Is a wasted land bound to another shadow
Of my empy mind because of your
Unexpected getaway
Your unreflected holy image
Your uncompleted overthrown
Cheating on me until I’ve lost your game”

Carmen extracts the car keys from her pocket.
“Come on, get in the car”.
Shane opens the door, hesitating, and sits on the passenger seat.
Carmen turns on the engine and pushes the gas pedal.
She drives smoothly, slowly, her eyes fixed on the road before her.
She doesn’t look at Shane and she doesn’t talk.
Shane takes a peek at her, furtively, and suddenly she realizes.
Carmen is different.
Carmen is not the woman she was about to marry, not anymore.
And she can’t say if it’s all her fault, if she’s the one to blame.
She is too drunk, now – potty picked fried sloshed – to feel really guilty about something she did or someone she hurt.
She’s floating into her inebriating cloud and what she feels is only a pale reflection of guilt, shame and mistrust.
She can’t think rationally and now, glancing at Carmen, the only feeling she has in an unexpected, deflagrating arousal.
The fever pitch makes her sizzle, makes her think about naughty, naughty things.
After all.
After all that’s Carmen.
That’s Carmen and Carmen has never refused a kiss or a love-making or sex session.
Even that night
– their only night after Whistler –
she let her come in.
She was pissed as hell, she was hurt, she felt abandoned but she allowed her to say her cliché statements. And then to kiss her. And then to fuck her in desperate, circular waves of pain and excitement.
The morning after, Shane felt so dirty. She felt so wrong.
She felt so incredibly guilty that she didn’t leave a note, and she didn’t call.
She never called her back.
And she never contacted her again.

”I hate the way
You make me ail
I hate the way
I’m falling again”*

Flashback

A knock at the door.
Carmen Morales slumped on the couch, drinking distractely a cherry-flavoured milkshake. Even after so many months, she still felt the most humiliated woman on the face of the planet.
Her dark living room enlightened by the TV and that heart-breaking movie she was watching.
Yeah she was in that masochist phase of her life.

Knock, knock, knock.

Frantic wild delirious.
Carmen got up and motioned towards the hall. And honestly talking, she was out in the left field about who was standing beyond the door.
When she turned the door knob and saw those familiar, magnetic green eyes staring at her, she felt lost in an outer space for a second.
“What do you want?”.
Shane’s eyes puffy and reddened, a hood covering her head.
“Please Carm let me in”.
“No. Go fuck yourself”.
“Please let me in”.
Shane’s hand was resting on the door, pressing gently.
Carmen moved a step back and stared at the floor while the person who broke her heart entered her precious, secretive
Secretive? Ah!
new apartment.
Shane closed the door and grabbed Carmen’s shoulders.
“Carm… Carmen… Please look at me”.
“You stink. You stink like a distillery”.
“I know but please look at me”.
“Fuck you Shane, just fuck you!”.
“Carmen, I need you, please…”.
Slap.
Straight in the face.
Shane’s eyes popped out in surprise.
Then she kissed her.
And.
Carmen pulled away.
And.
Slap.
Another one.
There.
All for you, Shane.
“Carmen… I feel so alone”.
Carmen narrowed her eyes.
“But… are you listening to yourself? Who the fuck do you think I am? Your confessor?! You’re so full of shit…”.
“He took him away from me, please, I need to feel something, anything…”.
Whining tone.
Every other person would be pissed at Shane’s behaviour, but not Carmen who was still under her spell.
Carmen was pissed, but also touched – even if she wouldn’t admit it easily.
Aw, Carmen… You really don’t practise what you preach.
“Who? Who are you talking about?”, she asked with a grimace.
“My brother…”, Shane answered with a croaky voice.
Carmen was speechless. It didn’t happen ofter, but Shane was good at it.
“Ok, look. I was going to bed. You gotta go out now”.
“No, no please”.
“Shane, I don’t want to see you, and I don’t want to hear what you have to say”.
“Listen, I am so very sorry, please, I don’t wanna go home and I don’t wanna see anybody either. Just let me stay here for tonight. I promise I won’t bother you anymore”.
Carmen remained silent for a while, her jaw tensed.
“Okay, but you’re sleeping on the couch and keep your fucking hands off me”.
And something like ten minutes later you would only hear oh yes, oh god, I hate you, I hate that I love you, oh please, fuck me, fuck you, bite me, scratch me, make me feel something, anything, please more, right there, harder deeper faster.
Aw, girls…