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."
