Chapter 4 – Losing sensation for you, my love

At seven o’clock p.m. Shane had already emptied her fourth Corona, and now she was staring outside the window, an ear metaphorically leaned toward the corridor and, more specifically, toward Carmen’s apartment.

Shane was acting like a jealous bitch and she knew it, at least from a merely subconscious point of view. But her will was strong and deaf to the true sensations of her heart, and that same will was now busy in its stubborn activity of evangelization.

“I just want to know if she’s alright”, Shane would keep on repeating to herself, checking the cars passing by on the streets below, waiting to see who was the person that Carmen was going to see, and waiting to see how Carmen was going to greet that person.

The sun became a reddish, flaming ball behind the city. Then, it became a cloudy hemisphere, and Shane uncapped her fifth beer, leaning her forehead against the window, an unlit cigarette dangling from her pouty lips.

And the car came, as if it had been dragged there by an invisible hand. It was an old Corvette. Its shape and the light blue color of its bodywork made it look like a crumpled metal candy.

Shane narrowed her eyes seeing the Corvette stop right in front of her building. The headlights went off, the engine stopped rumbling, and the driver door opened.

Shane’s breath became slightly

– but just slightly, because she wasn’t jealous, she was just checking if everything was okay with Carmen’s visitor. Right? Right –

uneven when she realized that the driver was a gorgeous woman around thirty-five. The woman had long, dark hair that reached her shoulders and beautifully slender legs. She wore a white t-shirt and tight-fitting blue jeans, and something, in her features, made Shane think that she was Mexican, or maybe Native American.

The car key spun on the stranger’s forefinger as she made her way toward the main entrance of the building.

Right then, Carmen ran out of the front door, excitedly happy, and hopped right into the woman’s open arms.

Shane clenched her jaw and her green eyes – those same green eyes that could look so sweet, so tender – turned cold, almost Antarctic. She tapped her fingers on the windowsill, nervously, as the two women cupped each other’s faces, her foreheads touching.