Friday, December 18, 2009

Chapter Two

Chapter Two


Shivering as if drops of ice water had fallen on the warm flesh between his shoulder blades, Paul struggled to get the last of the large books from the back seat of his '96 Camero.
Hurry. Hurry! Something urged him.
He looked over his shoulder to the deserted palm-lined street.
Nothing.
Still, he felt danger all around; palpable in his tight throat and pounding heart.
The melody he'd been trying to capture for the last two weeks echoed, then like the mysterious woman in his dream, disappeared.
"Damn!" he growled.
Paul staggered up the five brick steps to Dr. Wilbeth’s elaborately carved front door balancing all ten of the thick reference books. His breath congealed in the unseasonably cold night air. Anxiety squeezed his throat and twisted his belly. The woman gone, now, the melody.
"This s-h-i-t has got to st-ah-ah-ah-pp," he caroled through clenched teeth.
Re-balancing the books to work a hand free, he pressed the weathered bell. Fear raced through him. Nearly midnight, the witching hour. Can't keep on this way. Wanted to get that music down.
Not bad enough, Boyo, part of him observed.
Paul shivered and looked over his shoulder. Still nothing. But something was coming. Music, work at Eckerd’s, dreams, masters thesis, Magda. Something had to give. Gotta focus. Gotta. . . .
Dr. Wilbeth, eyes filmy with stale sleep, pulled open the heavy wooden door. He stretched out gnarly hands to help with the books and motioned his head for Paul to step inside.
"The new stuff on Mexico?" Dr. Wilbeth's voice was hoarse, slightly out of focus.
Paul nodded and stepped inside. Fear tugged at his throat. The sought-after melody pirouetted just out of reach. He shut his eyes and reached. It slipped away.
Josh took half the stack and shut the door.
Paul's taught shoulder muscles uncoiled.
"Thanks, Josh."
The professor grunted and turned into the dark hallway. The house moaned. Fear floated up from Paul’s stomach. He hugged the books closer. Worn floor boards creaked as they passed musty smelling rooms and emerged in the spacious, dimly lit study.
Paul exhaled as he put his stack next to Josh's on the printer table.
"Whew."
He slid his lanky body into the visitor's chair next to his advisor’s desk.
"I jog every morning, but this little bit of carrying wore me out," he said.
It's this house. Something’s here. Felt it the very first time.
Dr. Wilbeth settled himself into the executive chair behind his big desk.
"You haven't been getting enough sleep." He fixed Paul with an icy stare. "Have you?"
Paul gulped. His long youthful face flushed slightly beneath curly blond hair. He shook his head. Boy, what's with him tonight?
Dr. Wilbeth persisted. "It's that dream, isn't it?"
Paul flushed still more. Here it comes. His throat tightened.
The normally perceptive professor leaned his large 6' 2" frame closer, greenish-brown eyes gleaming eerily. "What can you remember?"
Paul shook his head, throat nearly spasming.
"Nada?” Dr. Wilbeth said. “Not even feelings? There are always feelings."
Paul squirmed.
"Ah!" Dr. Wilbeth pounced. "What kind of feelings? The sexy ones?"
Paul nodded, cheeks burning. Swarms of ice butterflies fluttered in his stomach.
"Was it . . . " Dr. Wilbeth hesitated as if he didn't want to ask, or hear the answer. " . . . Her . . . ? What about the smell, the incense. Was it there?"
"I think so . . . "
Paul’s cheeks cooled, his throat opened and the butterflies landed. Why?
"Damn!" Josh slumped back. "The same dream."
Paul nodded.
"We’re getting nowhere. You're repressing. Quit fighting and let it flow."
Embarrassed, Paul looked down. Why couldn’t he remember?
"You're right, Josh.”
Paul’s cheeks were burning again. He swallowed hard and lifted his eyes to his advisor's.
"You know I want to. I know how important. It's just . . . " He choked on his shame, unable to finish.
"It's okay." Josh’s voice was softer. His eyes still searched Paul's, but now they were less clinical, more compassionate.
Paul sighed. Thank goodness. Had the globe-trotting Dr. Wilbeth, international authority on dreams, ever been an over-sensitive confused graduate student? The idea energized him.
"Alright," Josh was saying, his tone resonant and soothing. "It'll come."
"But I'm frustrated, too, Josh. And afraid, sometimes. We've been saying 'it'll come, 'it'll come,' for over a year . . . . You think the dream frequency is involved?"
"Very likely."
Paul unwound, stretched his legs and slid back in the chair. He put his hands behind his head. "That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?"
The professor’s face seemed ominous in the glow from the computer screen. Paul swallowed hard. "Will you get the proof this trip?" He gestured to the stacks of books. "To connect the Goddess with the dream frequency?"
Josh looked away, hesitated. "Yes."
Paul sensed Josh needed to say more.
"I want you to take over the Group while I'm in Mexico City."
Paul tensed, feeling suddenly trapped; like the time he'd forgotten to lock the bathroom door and his mother had caught him masturbating. He pulled in his feet and folded his arms.
"I appreciate your confidence in me, Dr. Wilbeth. But I don't think . . ."
Josh cut him off. "Do you realize you only call me, 'Dr. Wilbeth' when your self esteem is low?"
Paul smiled. A warm glow of appreciation spread through his chest as he recognized the truth and loving care behind that observation.
"We've worked together for more than two years, Paul."
Josh leaned forward, a serious smile on his weathered face.
"I'm hard on you because I care and know what you're capable of. Your work's good, in spite of what you think. And, it's made a vital contribution to my own."
“Thank you, sir.”
Josh swiveled to face the cool darkness outside the window.
"There are things out there.” He hunched foward in his chair. “At the edge of our knowledge. Utterly frightening things.” He shuddered. “But, if we, I, can embrace them . . ." The professor’s voice tailed off. He swiveled back to face Paul. "Quit wasting time running yourself down. You're talented and the closest thing to a son I'll ever have . . ."
Paul hunched forward, too. Voice enthusiastic, grateful for the praise and happy to have the subject changed he said, "You could still have kids, Josh! Fifty-six's not so old." He wanted to do his mentor one better.
"You're right. I don't feel fifty-six or look it either. Notice we're back to 'Josh' ?"
Paul grinned and nodded.
"But we're not talking about me. We're talking about you."
Paul felt his face tense again.
"Don't give me that look," Josh said. "You can do it. Everyone in the Group knows you're my Graduate Assistant. Nobody but Phil and Rita Herring are likely to give you trouble, and maybe they won't either."
"I have to?" Paul’s head was cocked, voice tentative, offering his professor one last chance to change his mind. But, jaw set, forehead smooth, Josh looked steadily into his eyes, nodding. No choice.
"There's no sense talking about it, then." Paul’s voice was firm, gaze steady.
"That's the Paul Holcomb I've come to rely on. Thanks. It'll really help. I'm not leaving for a few weeks, the weekend before Thanksgiving, so we've got time. . . ."
The glow from the computer screen intensified. Josh’s eyes rolled back into his head. The lights flickered. A gurgling bubbling came from his throat. He sat rigid in his chair, hands clasping and unclassing.
Paul stared, jumped to his feet. Oh, my God. “Josh? What is it?” The professor’s body spasamed, his head thrust against the back of his chair. He choked, sighed, his eyelids slammed down.
“Josh?” The lights dimmed. Paul took the professor’s hand. It was cold. “Hey! You alright?” The flickering computer screen was the only source of light. Josh seemed to be thrashing, but wasn’t. He sighed. The lights came back. His eyelids fluttered up. The eyes starring into Paul’s were haunted,.
“Josh?”
The professor motioned Paul back to his seat. His mouth was slack, forehead wrinkled.
"I haven't been sleeping too well, either," he confessed. "My dreams have been . . . disturbed."
"Coatlicue?" Paul’s voice was a whisper. A tiny piece of the elusive melody murmured in the sound -- Coat li cue.
Josh rubbed his eyes.
“But even so, Josh. . . . How’s that explain what just happened?”
“Power surge. Nothing to worry about. The house has aluminum wiring.”
Paul wasn’t buying it.
"OK,” Josh said. “She scares me. . . a little. I'm nearly certain she is the dream frequency, and the Life Force, too. The Aztecs knew it. That's why they worshipped her, called her 'Great Goddess, Mistress of Dreams'."
Paul's eyes widened with sudden realization.
"You don't want to go!" he blurted out. "You're afraid of finding her, aren't you?"
The professor nodded.
Neat-o! Paul felt torn between a victory yelp and a sigh of concern.
"Wouldn't you be?" Josh asked.
"Hell. I'm afraid now, and I'm not even going."
Josh grinned. "'Mr. Chicken. But a self-aware, chicken."
"Aw, come on, Josh. That's not fair! I've come a long way since I got here from Dundeen. You said so yourself."
"You have. Miami's had a powerful effect. On me, too. Like a foreign country down here, isn't it? A far cry from your village in northwestern Pennsylvania. You're twenty-two. I was twenty-five on my first trip. It was here the Goddess' power -- or what I think of as her power -- became real for me."
He looked away. The lights flickered and dimmed. When he looked back at Paul, his eyes blazed.
"There's an urgency. Can’t you feel it?"
Paul nodded, but only to be polite. He had felt it, but not now.
Josh starred off into the middle distance.
"This Mexican trip is absolutely vital. Something is coming. . . ."
Paul was uneasy. He’d seen and heard too much tonight. Breaking the uncomfortable silence, he told the older man about the new citations he'd collected for his Master's Thesis. Half an hour later, fear gone and not a whisper from the elusive melody, he said goodnight and let himself out.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Process

New chapters will be posted here every other day or so. Feedback about how you enjoy the story would be greatly appreciated.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Introduction: A Novel of Metaphysical Suspense






For more info about purchasing this book, contact dr Steve. Queries from agents and publishers are welcome.

The Dream Group - Episode One - Gateways

Author's Forward

In America, as the Millenium dawns, how-to books and support goups are a way of life. In Miami, Florida, one such group meets weekly at the University to study their dreams. The metaphysical tale you are about to read, full of lucid dreaming and sacred sex, the marriage of spirit and flesh, is about them. It’s my story, too, for I’m a member of the group.

They asked me to tell it because I'm a writer.
Our Dream Group is part of a heritage that includes Christian Gnosticism, Hindu Tantra, the Sufis of Islam and the Kabbalah of Judaism. These traditions have empowered humankind for thousands of years by making it possible to experience dreams and sex as sacred parts of a sacred universe.

As you read this account of the Dream Group’s adventures, perhaps you too, will reconnect with these ancient truths, catch a glimpse of your divinity and the sacredness of your sexuality .

I began by interviewing each of the twelve Group members. When the first draft was done, we used three weekly meetings for review. Everyone thought I’d prettied it up too much. They wanted the kinky dreams and supernatural events described just as they'd happened. I hesitated because the draft already stretched the limits of mainstream fiction. Finally, I did as they asked.

What follows is the version approved by the Group. It begins with Paul Holcomb and is told mostly from his perspective. It is a tale of dreams come true, fear, hope, lust, love and salvation -- a story about life. It happened and is still happening. Just as life never ends though we seem to die, so this story continues though the book ends. Be happy for the people you meet here. They live on.


The Dream Group, a novel of metaphysical suspense, Chapter One

"We are guided, guarded and protected. One Spirit animates everything. Never alone nor separate, no matter how it seems, we are always being led toward love and wholeness."

Josh Wilbeth, Ph.D., Rhodes Scholar
Director, Dream Group,
Miami International University


Paul Holcomb had a desire to worship, the way they did in those old Hollywood biblical epics. His eyes drifted up and away from the thick reference book. To bow down, naked before, his hands tightened on the book, a gorgeous woman. His face flamed crimson at the admission. Enough.

To WORSHIP, to connect sensually, with an other, greater reality; to lose this hollow existence, submerge his consciousness and fill the aching emptiness. Oh, yes! He yearned for it even as he fought thinking about it; to abandon rationality and writhe in ecstasy.

He shivered and squirmed on the hard chair; touched his burning face.

Grovel! Abase yourself before Me. Praise and extol. The imagined commands echoed in his head.

His penis stirred. Paul cleared his throat loudly, smoothed back his blonde hair. Quivering, he coughed, leaned way back in his chair, gripping the desk for balance and stuck his head out of the cubical. The long aisle was empty. At the end, near the librarian’s desk, someone walked toward the exit.

What would it be like to worship that way, wanton and unafraid; completely lost to it? Bowing low, adoring the elegant symmetry of toes and arches?

Smell!

He looked down the dim aisle in the other direction. To sniff, then inhale; yearning beyond all caring only to smell and lick and kisssss?

He swallowed, tilted back into the cubical. The lump in his throat didn’t budge.How would it feel, afterwards? Sated? Guilty? Washed clean; boundaries dissolved, consciousness finally fit to mingle with Hers?

He swallowed again.

One thing was sure, mother would not approve, though it was she who’d inadvertently instilled the desire. Neither would his friends. But Antoinette. A smile curled Paul’s full lips. Yes, his sexy older sister would approve. But she was ancient history. Their last scene had been eight years ago. Now, when he thought of what they’d done, which wasn’t as often as it used to be, he was able to focus on other things. His new girl friend Magdalena Renaldo would approve and perhaps even his thesis advisor professor Joshua Wilbeth, might as well.

But Magdalena. Ah. Paul felt himself stiffening.

Just a few weeks before the Fall Orientation, he'd been preparing a group of juniors for their first class in Dr. Wilbeth's abnormal psyche lab and Magdalena was there, a new student just transferred in from Miami-Dade College. His radar must have been defective that day or simply overwhelmed -- there'd been so many beautiful women around -- because Magdalena had seen him, but he hadn't seen her.
As she told him weeks later, in bed, while they lolled in a dreamy post-coital haze, she'd seen him assisting the other students and was attracted by his courteous manner and blonde all-Americaness.

“But, as I got to know you, Amor,” Magdalena said, “I realized what really attracted me was your vulnerability and respectful gentleness towards women. And I have not been disappointed!” Magdalena’s brown eyes pierced his. He tingled as she reached up to stroke his cheek.

“Your responsiveness , your. . . .” She searched for the precise word; smiled proudly when she found it. “Chivalrous attention to my most personal needs, is amazing.”

She leaned closer. The calico sheet dropped away revealing a softly gleaming breast, its reddish-brown nipple erect. “And the sex. . . ." Magdalena caressed his naked thigh with the tips of blood-red finger nails. His entire body shuddered. ". . . is fantastico!"

Perhaps too fantastico, Paul thought, trying to return his attention to the book in front of him. Straight at first, it became kinkier as they revealed their most secret desires. Fantasies became ever more erotic, Magdalena more demanding, and now, even the occasional role-plays were not enough.

He recalled his first conscious contact with her at the Fall Orientation, on the warm September evening Magdalena and eighteen other new people crammed themselves into the Psychology Department's conference room for the Dream Group's Annual Fall Orientation. Magdalena and the others asked intense fearful questions which Dr. Wilbeth passed to Paul and the other "old timers" like Veronica Clarke, who'd co-founded the Group with him ten years earlier.

Paul had been out of it, worrying about his Masters Thesis as he waited for the meeting to begin. But his long thin face brightened and his blue eyes lost their hazy inward focus, when the husky accented sound of Magdalena's voice saying his name called him back into the room. Looking toward the sexy sound, he found the young woman's eyes staring archly into his own, demanding attention.
Who was this person? She seemed the very embodiment of that sensual sound. How come she knows me and I don't know her? Had "Paul" ever sounded like that, or meant as much before?

As he answered her question, she devoured him with her eyes. He'd never felt anything quite like it. Her smoky gaze resting first on his mouth, then on his broad shoulders, now penetrating deeply into his blue eyes. The sensation was somehow more potent than physical contact. She didn't seem to be listening to what he said, either. She just engulfed him with the intense smoldering consciousness pouring out of her eyes. She seemed to be there for him alone, not the Group.
But he was there for the Group. It was a big part of his life.

Paul had no sooner answered Magdalena’s question, then Dr. Wilbeth directed someone else's to him. Paul knew Josh used his old timers that way to show the newbies they could participate, too. Josh wanted the annual Fall Orientations to be just like the regular weekly meetings, informal and friendly. No application forms, no selection criteria; just enthusiastic people sharing and making progress.

The crowd settled down.

“Two fundamentals are behind everything in dream work.” Josh’s gruff voice was deliberately soft. The crowd got quieter and leaned forward to hear.
“First, dreams are always therapeutic, no matter how frightening. They’re always trying to heal and make whole -- to achieve physical and spiritual unity.
“Second, we are healthiest when head and heart cooperate, neither trying to dominate the other.” He smiled, his bushy grey mustache crinkling. Paul, sitting to his left, felt a deep warmth, a kind of grace, in the smile and sighed his comfort. “This Group, is about learning to use the energy in dreams to build that cooperation. We’re the thinking man’s, hmm,” he paused. “Excuse me, not politically correct, the thinking person’s alternative to this culture’s fear of intimacy."

Josh caught Veronica Clarke’s eye and gestured for her to continue.
Her voice was low and warm.
"As you listen to the dreams others share, reflect on your own. There’s a pattern.” She leaned forward. “When head and heart are forced apart.” She interlocked her hands then pulled them apart. “When love and sex are disowned, repressed and denied -- dis-ease follows.” Veronica let her hands fall into her lap. Paul thought she was the greatest. If she weren’t twice his age; but no, she and Josh were the perfect couple. “Love and sex become what Carl Jung - we talk a lot about him here, he was a great psychologist - called the 'shadow.' Shadow energy haunts the rest of the personality until it is embraced and reintegrated."
Veronica pointed to Paul. His turn to lead.

"For veteran Group members,” he said, “and 'veteran' means anyone who's come for three weeks in a row. . . ."
Everyone laughed.
". . . the most challenging dreams show the unnecessary split between head and heart Veronica was talking about. Dreams express the 'heart's thoughts' in exaggerated dramatic ways to overcome the head's censorship. That's why dreams are so strange. Why we have to interpret them.”
He opened his arms wide to include everyone in the room.
"All of us get involved. A lot of really good interpretations begin with insights from the Group. We use professional sources, too, like Ann Faraday and the "topdogs" and "underdogs" of Frtiz Perls' Gestalt Psychology.”
People groaned.
“Easy! None of these is hard to understand. If you learned to use a computer, you can learn to use Perls' underdog/topdog metaphor. Personally, I think Perls is easier."
More laughter.
Paul gestured for Veronica to take over. She went to the blackboard and drew a heart and a brain.
"Dreams are the heart’s way of provoking the head, the waking mind,” she said and drew an arrow from the heart to the brain. “Pushing it to re-integrate the power and joy in the separated shadow. To ignore a dream means not only losing the psychic energy of the shadow; it means leaving that awesome power unchecked to express any way it can.” She paused to let that sink in.
“You’ve all felt it, haven’t you? An awful, out of control feeling?”
Veronica gazed around the room acknowledging the nods. What neat technique, Paul thought
“Nasty, right?” Veronica was saying. “Unconscious compulsions driving pushing. Yech! This Dream Group can help you with that. Just look at Paul.” She turned to face him and he began to shudder and his tongue lolled out. “See how well it works?” A few of the newbies guffawed. “But seriously,” she said, “the separated shadow idea is so well accepted now, that quite a few religious scholars think it accounts for the things we associate with the Devil; including the man himself.”

Veronica walked to her seat. A few people applauded. She bowed. Josh stood and cleared his throat.

“I’m going to tell you about one of the first cases I ever had,” he said. “It’ll pull together what Veronica and Paul have been telling you.

“I was interning at Harvard. The client was a woman who'd dreamt she'd killed her entire family. She was forty-one, but looked sixty-one. You could tell she'd been beautiful, once. Good bone structure, attractive eyes. . . ."
He quickly glanced at Veronica then turned away.
". . . But now, her face was ashen and her eyes sunk-in, with big, black circles under them. Her once athletic body was bloated and sagged in on itself. She was barely able to sit upright in the chair next to my desk. Her regular physician sent her to me because the recurring dream had kept her from sleeping through the night for three months. And she was afraid of even going to sleep because each time she did, she entered the dream and re-enacted the grizzly murders.
"The first three sessions were difficult. But on the fourth, she finally told me how she killed them. With a long, sharp kitchen knife, stabbing each of them over and over, exulting. I saw it on her face and couldn’t believe it. Her husband first in the bed they shared, then her two daughters, ten and twelve, while they slept in their beds.
“She went through this horror -- awakening, going down to the kitchen, selecting the knife, testing the blade on her index finger, going buck upstairs, four, sometimes, five times a night. Remembering was bad enough, but the horror she felt, in the dream, as her exultation drained away and she walked from room to room gazing at the mutilated bodies through their blood as it congealed on her eye lashes and face, was what drove her to seek help.”
Josh paused, stood up and began pacing in a tight circle. He stopped, jammed his hands into his pockets and spoke, voice softer than before. Though he’d heard all this before Paul still felt his muscles tense.
"I'd just finished Fritz Perls' on Gestalt Therapy and was using his 'topdog/underdog' metaphor to interpret my own dreams. I immediately saw a parallel. Progress was rapid once she understood Perls' idea that the things we take to be sacred and decreed by God, aren't laws embedded in our brains and bones, but merely rules laid out by authorities such as parents, teachers and religious leaders.
"In two more sessions, she realized her horrible dream arose from a conflict between her inner authorities, Perls’ topdog, and her desire for appreciation, love and sex, Perls’ underdog.
“She came to understand that the greatest conflicts, awake or asleep, come when the culturally instilled topdog turns our basic human needs into ‘underdogs.’ According to Perls, topdogs are constantly and fruitlessly trying to impose their will on the rest of the personality, which, for a time, then acts like an underdog, sneaking around, being passive-aggressive, trying to keep topdog's approval and still get its own way.
"My client resented being treated like a maid by her husband and two daughters, and wanted to get her own legitimate needs for appreciation and affection met. But her topdog repressed her desire, saying that 'good' mothers were selfless and sacrificed their own needs to those of the family.
"At first, like most of us, the woman did topdog’s bidding. She rationalized and repressed, forcing her own legitimate needs to behave like underdogs. Alone late at night or in stolen moments, she allowed them to come out and be petted, but only after she’d taken care of everyone else.
"After years and years of this, her underdog was fed up. At last her time had come. She was going to get her way no matter what the topdog had to say. So, one dark and stormy night, her underdog performed the grizzly murders to free itself from what blocked it. She ended the repression, got even with the topdog and taught everyone a lesson they would never forget."
People shuddered and leaned towards Josh, anticipating his words. And he loved it. His gestures grew broader, voice more meliforous and his eyes shone.
"Thank goodness her disowned shadow energy wasn’t intense enough to make her actually kill them. But it was strong enough to make her hurt them in small mean ways, such as getting sick just before the annual vacation or 'accidentally' ruining a party at the home of her husband's boss. Eventually, she might have developed a serious disabling disease, unconsciously of course, all designed to force her family to provide the attention she craved and deserved.
"Horrible as all this was, the woman finally came to see her dream as a blessing, and as a warning she’d had the sense to heed. Now she sends me a birthday card every year.”
People smiled. Josh opened his arms to include every one of his rapt listeners.
“Dream work helps us learn not to be frightened by the vividness and passion. Dreams always express that way. For two reasons. First, as in the case I just told you, only extreme expression could get past the inner censor into consciousness. And second, the natural forces of wholeness, health and sanity deep inside are always working to resolve such conflicts.”
Josh paused and looked slowly around the room, making eye contact with each person.
“The purpose of this Group is to free those forces of wholeness; to allow them to work. My client’s dream, and who knows how many of yours, was an opportunity for her waking consciousness to heal the split between head and heart. Her heart/underdog's needs for love and appreciation and the head/topdog's need for to be a 'good' and ‘do the right thing’ had be connected. She couldn’t go on with the topdog condemning her heart's desires, preaching that good mothers shouldn't feel unappreciated and overworked.”
Josh looked at the drained expressions, then smiled.
"Relax!” he said. “Believe it or not, frightening dreams are the exception. The great mistake in dream work is to believe that only the horrible, unpleasant dreams are valuable. The truth is dreams are much more powerful as what Ann Faraday called 'revealers' of hidden talents, buried beauty and unsuspected creative energy.
"Dreams urge us to recognize that we’re actually a lot nicer and a lot more talented than we think we are. In dreams, the real hopes and possibilities of the dreamer, not idle wishes alone, are given body and force to move the dreamer to creative action."
Applause rippled through the crowd. Josh smiled and bowed. And Paul was again struck by the power and rightness of his mentor’s vision. Feeling inspired and guilty, he berated himself for not applying that wisdom to his own life and dreams.
“Right-on,” his topdog mumbled. “Heal thyself.”
“Easy boy-o,” underdog soothed. “You always teach what you need to learn.”
Ugh! Back-to-back cliches.
Paul stood, hugged Veronica, then searched the thinning crowd for Magdalena Renaldo. Instead his eyes came to rest on Angela Saunders.
The statuesque black lady stood regally, hands on hips, surveying the room. Paul’s breath caught in his chest. She was magnificent: high cheekbones, full lips, large breasts and gently curving buttocks. He felt a part of himself open before her royal pose and fleshy power. His penis moved.

Newnan’s massive Psychological Archtypes After Jung, all 2,050 pages of it, lay open before him on the table of his learning carol, his red pen resting in the spine between the pages. Paul rubbed his eyes. Angela knows about worship, too; about being worshipped. He starred at the stacks in front of him, but saw Angela instead. A goddess if there ever was one.