l) Ask yourself if you basically like working alone, can encourage and sustain yourself.  If not, you may be able to work with a friend.  That was not for me and fortuntely I knew it.  I like working alone and often being alone.  Contemplating my emotional navel is one of my best diversions.

2) Are you prepared to treat this the way you’d treat any business.  You have at least a small amount of money set aside.  You’re prepared to map out your time, leaving enough for rest, sleep, self-care and recreation. 

3) You’re truly into this publishing thing.  Yes, books that should have been edited, proofed and otherwise vetted are coming out without any of these.  But do you really want this for your book?  They live forever, you know.

4) Can you take disappointment and rejection as well as success.  This is an absolute necessity, because all this is out there lying in wait for you before you reach your long awaited success.

If you can weather the above, then Google and begin to study.  I had writing courses in college and on the job, but I constantly read and take new courses.   The independent field is a fascinating one, changing constantly now, rewarding some and denying others.  Stick with it and I think in time you’ll find what you’re seeking, but you’ve got to work at it long and hard.

I’ll be having guest bloggers who have done more of it than I have.  I’m preparing my second indie book and trying to decide whether to do print or e-book.  The market will probably decide for me.

Next tine I’ll tell you about Amazon’s CreateSpace that publishes your books for free and give you tips on how to find out if it’s for you.  Here’s hoping you’re here with me next time!

Is Independent Publishing For You? originally appeared on Francine Craft on January 31, 2012.

Hopefully this will go thru as a note.  Someone wrote asking for help with addresses to get grants.  Their comment couldn’t go thru.  Info on grants is available on Google.  Make sure you phrase it well.  Librarians are very helpful.  Contact info at Smal Business Administration – SBA.  This will help.

* * * * * *

Changes are happening fast and furiously in the field of publlishing. You’ve read that over the past year or so, far more e-books have been published than paperbacks. Now, studies have found that people seem to be in love with e-books as never before.  Kindles, Nooks, and other e-readers abound. And it is presently the age of the $0.99 e-books to fill those readers.

What does this mean to and for you? Well, several things. If you’ve always yearned to self-publish, now may be the time to get in the swim, or at least swing your legs over the side of the pool, studying what’s going on; something I recommend.  Help with independent — indie — publishing has never been better.

To digress, I would advise that right at the beginning you get engaged to and marry Google.  Do it right and it will become one of the most useful tools in the universe.  I will give tips at a later time to make your life easier here.  At this time, I just want you to know the field is wide open, it’s interesting, not easy, but not impossible either, and you can run the race and win, trust me.

This time I’ll throw out a few very helpful places.  Begin with Google to get a fuller listing.  At the outset, if you’re an independent soul, choose a place that will advise you and let you set your own prices, with a warning that they must be reasonable.  Publishers are in business to make money and make it they do.  With my own experience and talking with others, I’ve come to like Amazon’s Createspace, which I’ve found  phenomenal, the UK’s Lighning Source, which a friend swears by, and Lulu, which others swear by.  They’re all reached by adding .com to the name.  I’d suggest that you get online and study their literature.

By all means, don’t run, walk carefully.  CreateSpace will publish your book free.  They make money selling the copies you order, as do the rest, but others do charge an upfront fee.

Let me warn you at the outset, if it’s big, easy money you’re looking for, go elsewhere.  It ain’t coming from here.  Here again, I’m going to refer you to Google to tell you what the average neophyte- published book earns.  But writing is like anything else, you generally get out of it what you put in

The very first thing you’ll need to do is study the literature, Google, go to your library and talk with your librarian who is often knowledgeable about independent publishing.  Go deep into yourself and take your very good time finding out if this will work for you, or if you’d rather bake cakes or play your video games.

These blogs will be several weeks apart, and in the future I’ll tell you more about my experiences and that of others and some will be guest bloggers.

In the meantime, let me remind you that excerpts for the coming-in-2011 Solomon and  Sheba, a biblically-based romance,  and the on-sale-online Dying on the Edge, a voodoo mystery, have several excerpts on this website for your enjoyment.

I’d love to see you here next time!

You and Independent Publishing originally appeared on Francine Craft on January 14, 2012.

A few weeks back, as excerpts to Solomon and Sheba (to be released in October 2012) were coming to an end, I wrote that I would be giving you tips, help, encouragment with indie (independent) publishing you’re doing, on the verge of doing, or simply want to do. I’ve studied self-publishing for 20 or more years before doing it. Now I’ve been there, done that and I’m altogether willing to share what I’ve learned. It’s neither a thing of glory nor a can of worms. It’s something some do far better than others.

I couldn’t begin because my computer had sprung a gllitch. Hopefully that’s behind me and no later than February (early), I’ll be bringing youu these blogs. Meanwhile, remember there is on this site l segment of what Solomon and Sheba is about. (It’s based somewhat on the biblical Solomon and Sheba and keeps its intensity and heat.) There is a prologue and there are 5 chapters for you to read and decide whether you want to continue. Then there are six chapters from my voodoo mystery, Dying on the Edge, with a partial Haitian background.

I hope you’ll join me in the days to come. There’s plenty on this website for you to read until I begin the blogs. As I said at the beginning: Happy New Year! I look forward to your being here.

Wishing You The Happiest of New Years – 2012 originally appeared on Francine Craft on January 1, 2012.

From time to time until S&S is published in either July or  October 2012,  I will excerpt other chapters that I think you’ll find engrossing.  This chapter will stay on for approximately 6 weeks. 

I certainly hope you’re with me in this.  The topics I tackle in this book are so much a part of our world today.  We sorely need to feel the love of God and His blessings in our lives.  What better then than one of the Holy Bible’s most intense and treasured love stories.  Timeless love can be ours too.

*****                                                                                    

The trip to New Orleans had been uneventful, but Sheba and Marty were both nervous.  He rapped with the door knocker on the black grilled, white  door of the redbrick  house on Gentilly Boulevard, a house  that  he had slowly passed many times when he lived In New Orleans with his great uncle Charlie Cartier, his mother’s uncle.  Marty drew a sharp breath and held Sheba’s hand tightly.

The door opened quickly and they faced a beigeskinned sixtiessomething woman with close-cropped black curly hair and an oval face.  She was very attractive, but she held her lips in a bitter line as she invited them in, her eyes never leaving their faces.

“So you made it,” she said.  “I should be civil and ask about your trip, but you’ll find I’m not the most civil of people.  Come in and sit down and tell me exactly what you want from me.  I certainly know you very well, Martin, although I’ve only spoken with you by phone, and that  lately.   And I know  you, Sheba, from your beautiful voice when I listen to Marty’s sermons.  Yes, I do listen from time to time.  And you obviously know a little about me.”

Marty breathed a sigh of relief.  At least she was partially civil. The blinds in the big room were only half open.  The room itself was pleasantly furnished with old Victorian mahogany  furniture and the floors were highly polished. 

“You know my name and I know yours, have known it all your life, Martin.  So you want me to give you permission to have a sample of Christian’s DNA drawn to see if even dead  he can change your life?

Marty nodded.

“Why in hell are you doing this?  You were born White so far as anybody knows, you had a good father in Rob Solomon.  Oh, I checked him out as I checked out everything about you.  You’re growing famous.  White famous.  Why give up that glory now.”

Marty and Sheba glanced at each other.  He cleared his throat.  “As you can see, we’re going to have a baby.  So many things can happen.  Illnesses where the background of both parents can be helpful when available. . .”

“And you didn’t think about changing your luck before?  It could change to bad, you know.”

“We’ll take our chances.  I have thought about it – since Vangie, since my mother died.”

Lillian closed her eyes for a moment.  “I remember that.  I also remember  I sometimes used to go to Charlie Cartier’s church, although we’re Catholic.  I might have joined had I not been so bitter. When you came to live with him after Evangeline died, I watched you try to destroy yourself, then take hold”  She paused, shaking her head.  “I hated Evangeline Cartier Solomon for what she did to my brother.  I can’t let you do what you want to do, but I will tell you why if you can bear to listen to a vicious diatribe against a woman you probably love the way so many men loved her.” 

Lillian’s breath was ragged then.  “We were a very close-knit family.  New Orleans Creoles, and no, we don’t call ourselves Black Creoles, just Creoles.  Let the White ones do what the hell they will.  I’m the darkest member of my family, but we prided ourselves on not being prejudiced against anyone darker than we were.  We’re descended from the very white Tommy Lafon, the passe pour blanc  philanthropist…”  Her face lit up a bit.  “And there’s also my wondrous great grandfather from Santo Domingo, Martin Dominguez.  That man was and is my heart.  He was darker than I am, mixed blood. A master forgeron whose gorgeous iron carving graces half the mansions of New Orleans’ richest families.

She looked thoughtful here, frownning as she remembered. “When I was twenty and at LSU, a White student from Texas and I fell in love.  Before either of us could graduate, we ran away and married.  My parents were kind.  His were also kind, but they made it plain they hated the marriage.  I lost  a child for him and he said it was surely God’s will.”  She paused and glanced coldly at Sheba’s belly.  “It tore me up and I filed for divorce and came home.  I’ve never remarried.  I mention this because my brother might have been following my lead.  I was 14 years older than Christian.  My mother was sickly and I mostly took care of him.  He was the only child I wanted after I lost my baby.”

The expression on her face was amazing then.  At first, glowing with love and memory, then changing to a hag’s hatefulness.  “Christian became the heart of the Moncrief family.  Everybody loved him.  They wanted  him for a friend, a son-in-law, you name it.  He was brilliant, gifted and he was in medical school at twenty-four when he met Evangeline.”  Breathing faster, she went on.  “My brother became a god  bestriding Mt. Olympus.  He was in love and I was furious.  I knew what hell  interracial couples could go through.  I pleaded with him, I even got down on my knees because I knew he loved me.  But Evangeline won.”

Marty shook  his head.  “I’m sorry this caused you such pain.”

Her laughter was a hag’s cackle then.  “Why in hell can’t you let sleeping dogs lie.  You know the old saying, and it’s said because some dogs when you rouse them will take the hide off you.  This can happen to you,  Martin.  Are you thinking clearly?”

“I believe  I am.”

“And you, Sheba?  Has nobody told you about the hell a mixed marriage child can go through?  Oh, you’ve done the deed now, and there’s no going back.  Abortion perhaps?”

“No,” Sheba said quietly.  “We believe in God and we know that we are all  His sons and daughters.  We will be all right.  We believe that with all our hearts.”

Lillian closed her eyes as if she hadn’t heard Sheba.  “When I lost Christian to Evangeline, I railed again the heavens.  I had seen her often at church with her uncle,  Rev. Cartier, and had admired her beauty, her beatific face.  But there were tales about Evangeline.  Men prostrated themselves at her shrine, and she fostered it.  There were boyfriends and gossip said,  lovers.  The Crescent City loves its romantic intrigue. I invited her to lunch in the French Quarter and asked her to give Christian up.  She flatly refused.  I left in a rage. . .”

Lillian’s body was tense with memory then, anger making her features hard.  “Already the affair was affecting my mother’s health and it hurt her that Christian would not listen to her either.  When I told her that I had talked to Evangeline, she went into a trance that in days became a coma and she never recovered.  I sat in a darkened room knowing my mother was dying and why and I called your mother every filthy name I knew.  I have never known such hatred, before or after, but  that hatred keeps me from dying of grief.

“Then one night Christian came home after our mother died, and he looked at me with loathing.  ‘Why did you do it, Sis?  You’ve caused me to lose her.  Vangie told me about your lunch with her.  She’s a tender woman, Lil, and she wants love in her life, not hatred.  She knows what you mean to me.’  He cried then, and I hadn’t seen Christian cry since he was a child.  It tormented  me , but I was happy too, fiercely grateful to God for giving  him back to me.”

They sat transfixed and the woman looked at them through tear-filled eyes that she tried to brush away with the back of her hand.  “Did I say I was happy?  Well, it sure as hell didn’t last long.  He told me he begged her to reconsider, but she wouldn’t.  And the night he told me was the beginning of the end.  My beloved brother began his descent into hell that same night.  He didn’t come home until morning and the cops brought him to me then, a bloody mess from a fight in the French Quarter. My peaceful brother who really believed in turning the other cheek.   He died in an automobile accident six weeks later.  And in that time, he had had five automobile accidents.  Accidentally on purpose. 

“From the time he railed at me about my lunch with Evangeline, he barely spoke to me again.  Our mother died and was buried.  I’m not sure he was ever sober enough to realize it.   “Shut up!” he told me once, “hasn’t your vicious mouth and bigoted mind done enough damage.  You got what you wanted.  I hope to hell it lasts  you all your life.”

For a long moment, Lillian seemed about to choke on her own tears, then she forced herself to rally and crossed herself.

“I’m so sorry,” Marty told her.

“Not half as sorry as I am.  You both had other marriages with more appropriate people.”

“My first wife was half-Mexican.”

Lillian shook her head.  “Hardly the same thing.”

Marty smiled a little.  “We love each other and we believe in God and in each other.  We’ve been happy.  We plan to stay that way.”

“So did I when I married my White lover.  You loved your mother very much.”

“She was my heart.”

“My grandfather Martin was mine, then Christian.  I kept up with Evangeline.  I was obsessed with the woman. I hired a private detective who followed her from time to time.  In a short while after Christian’s death she married your father.  It was a quiet wedding and I guessed there might be a baby on the way.  She had tried to call me and I refused to take the call.  I followed her with my spies’ eyes  to Marigold where she settled in with your wealthy father.  In due time you were born, then your brother, Pete.  Your photos were in the Marigold paper and here.

“You look so much like Christian it breaks my heart, but this tells me nothing.  The resemblance between those two was incredible.  I used to call them to his face ‘the devil’s twins.  He alway smiled when I said it.  I could say nothing that bothered hin at that time.”

She sighed heavily then. “He had so much to offer and she took it all away,” she said abruptly.  “Did she ever tell you how they met?”

Marty nodded.  “She never talked about it until she was dying.  She said it was at a Billy Graham service.”

“At the convention center.  I was there, too, and I saw it happen in a lightning flash.  She had that beautiful lyric soprano voice so like yours, Sheba.  She sang that night as if to God Himself.  They met and seemed to be consumed by their own passion.  He took her home and arranged for a friend to take me.”

Very slowly Marty said, “Vangie always said love knows no boundaries.”

“I believe fear sets up boundaries in a love like theirs.  Like yours. They both blamed me, but I think she was too cowardly to face what they would face.  She maried a rich White man like her rich uncle who’d raised her and she told you about it only on her death bed.  Doesn’t that tell you something?”

Marty shook  his head, “Only that we are not perfect and we all make mistakes.”

Lillian excused herself and went out.  Marty leaned over and brushed Sheba’s lips with his.  Her eyes were moist and shining and sad. 

Lillian came back holding two framed photos.  First she showed them the one of Christian in  his coffin.  The undertaker had not been able to erase the terrible pain mirrored on his face.  Then the one of Christian that she said was taken a month before his death, when he was happy on top of his mountain.  Both Marty and Sheba gasped because the resemblance to Marty was so striking.  She only let them study the photos a few minutes before taking them away.

Sitting down and placing the photos on a table, she drew a deep breath. “I was in the back of the church in Marigold when they buried Evangeline,” Lillian said.  “I rejoiced.  Oh God,  hatred is a terrible thing, but it can keep you company when you have nothing else.”

For long moments they were all silent, digesting the still present grief.  Lillian closed her eyes when she spoke.  “Christian loved children.  He  was going to be a pediatrician and he had wonderful dreams of setting up clinics for the poor and underserved in Louisiana and elsewhere.  Huge dreams.  I began to lose faith when Papa Dominguez died; nobody was ever able to explain that to me.  A child sees God as his parents or beloved caretakers.  By the time Christian died, I had little, if any, faith left.  I didn’t because I’m not that bold, but I wanted to curse God and die as Job’s wife advised him to do.  Christian did my believing  for me.  He was an absolute Christian; no one had more faith.  He used to say if he didn’t want to be a doctor so much, he’d have become a minister.

“With my grandfather’s death, I asked God why and I never got a satisfactory answer.  Christian’s faith made him happy, filled him with love, but also with the love that killed him.  I have no faith.”  She spat the words distinctly.  “I will never have faith again.  I said to God. ‘He wanted to live and he believed in you the way few others ever have or can.  You took him.’  Now, my brother would have said it was God’s will.  But what about his, Christian’s, will.  Didn’t what he wanted matter? Shouldn’t his faith have protected him against loving Evangeline and hurting himself?  No pastor, whatever else, I will never be duped by the lies of faith and belief again.”

Marty sat with saddened heart.  Nothing in his training, in his life,  in Charlie Cartier’s love and training had prepared him for this minute.  It seemed to  him a test of everything  he believed  himself to be capable of.  He wanted to help and he was helpless to help.  Had God momentarily deserted him the way Lillian thought  He had deserted her?  But he shook his head slowly and he spoke in a voice he didn’t altogether recognize as his own.  “Faith has to be blind at times, Lillian.  We do not, we cannot understand God’s ways every moment, his every trial.  We can only be certain that if we will wait,  at some point those ways will become crystal clear, that He loves us and we can never lose Him.  But we can throw Him away.”

Lillian’s laugh was a parody of laughter.  Harsh and shrill it rasped in her throat.  “I must ask you to leave now.  I”m truly sorry I couldn’t help you because you look so much like Christian.  Perhaps he is your father, but I don’t want to have to look at you except at those times I masochistically torment myself with memory.  You could also be the child of the man who raised you.  I only know that I live without faith and I always will.  It’s  the only way I can give my brother up.  If I believe, then I fall into the same damned trap he fell into, absolute belief.  It didn’t save him and it won’t save me.  I have to ask you to leave now.  And I am sorry.”

She rose and they got up slowly.  Both extended their hands and she shook each hand firmly.  “There may come a time when you’ll know like Christian found out that faith and  belief cannot save you, not always anyway.  I live without it openly.  The hypocrites of this world live without it, even as they lie.  I have come to be something of a monster I suppose, but at least I expect nothing I am not reasonably certain I will get.”  She paused and looked at Sheba’s belly and her eyes were moist and unfathomable.  “Good luck with the child,” she said softly.   “It might have been different for me had I not lost mine.”

*******

That night in their hotel room in the French Quarter, Marty and Sheba were mostly silent as they’d been since leaving Lillian Moncrief.  It was as if by not discussing the disappointment they could deny it.  They had sadly toured the Ninth Ward of the city, the most devastated,  and each had imagined the treacherous  muddy, swirling waters that had destroyed so many lives.  But other sections were rapidly being rebuilt.  Only the poor had lost bigtime; the wealthy had fared so much better.  The government was doing a poor job of managing the disaster.  Where was God in all this Sheba and Marty both wondered.

Very thoughtfully, Sheba said, “She used the word ‘hell’ so often.  I think it’s where she lives now, Marty.  Has lived for a long time.”

He nodded. “She’s a tormented soul.”  He began to say something else, then stopped abruptly.

Their hearts had been  heavy as they had walked earlier, as they ate in a swanky French Quarter restaurant and picked up snacks they didn’t want as they hadn’t wanted their dinner.  They picked up two bottles of expensive sangria that Sheba favored and the brandy from a good year that Marty liked.  All that afternoon they had touched each other often as if each one was afraid the other would disappear.

Finally in nightclothes and robes, Sheba turned to him as they sat on the sofa watching an old movie,  Suddenly Last Summer.  “I know how disappointed you have to be.  I’m disappointed too.”

“I was prepared for her refusal, but I had hoped against hope.”

“But sweetheart, something is eating you beyond that I feel.  What is it?  Lillian said harsh things about Vangie, but her hurt is still shattering .  Just overlook it as you often counsel me to overlook things.”

He spoke only after a long silence.  “Know something, Shee, my blood ran cold when she talked about the days before Christian died.  After Vangie had said she couldn’t marry him.  She could have been describing my life after Vangie died, after she told me. . . .”

He was even tenser then and he moved closer, drew her into his arms and held her tightly.  “I know now I have not truly let myself think clearly about Vangie’s death in all these years, love.  I’ve  held it in, swallowed it,  gone past it and moved on to my former life and the life I have with you.  Her saying what she said brought it all back.  What she’s feeling is the way I felt for so long.  Unlike her, I wasn’t afraid to curse God and I did — many times.  Had it not been for Uncle Charlie I would have killed myself the way I wanted to do.  He saved me from myself, and  he helped me to realize that I was letting God save me, and it had to be for a reason.

“When Vangie was dying and she told me about Christian and my possible paternity,  I. . . . Oh God, I loved her so and I hated her for what she told me.  I was horribly  mixed up.  Talking with Mark has helped me a lot, but the pain is deep and it just doesn’t seem to go away.”

He was crying then, tears of hurt and anger from the past and now the present.  He clung to her as a hurt child to its mother, but with the strength of a man to his mate.   His sobs were terrible and wracking.  She stroked his back and pressed her slender hands to his face.  “You have God’s love,” she said softly.  “We have each other.  Let that comfort you.  Darling, I know how much you hurt.  This has hurt you, but you’ve gone on in worse times.  We have so much.”

Sitting up a bit, he pressed a hand to her belly and felt for the first time the movement of their child and it seemed almost  a miracle.  She felt it too as he slowly and carefully took her onto his lap and stroked her body, his tears momentarily stopping.  His breathing was quick and ardent.  Very quickly he untied her robe and pulled the beautiful periwinkle gown over her head and threw both garments  aside.  How beautiful her satiny brown body was with its swelling belly, luscious  breasts and wide hips.

She didn’t miss a beat as she slid partially off,  stripped him and smiled to herself that he was engorged, hard and totally ready to enter her yielding body.  Placing her astride his lap so that he could watch her beautiful face, he entered her easily and slowly, coming home to comfort and heavenly sustenance, no matter his pain. 

 ”Oh God, what have you given us in each other?” he said huskily.  She didn’t need to answer.  His ardent mouth went to suckle her breasts, tenderly at first, then almost savagely.  He was her husband, her child, lover, friend.

“I love you,” she told him.  “I’ve never loved you so much.”

He filled her completely, throbbing, hurt and alone somewhere within himself.   In a place that she could not entirely reach, he was with his God.  But he deeply  felt her presence and it gave him some measure of peace, even with the searing pain of the memory of Vangie’s death and the hell he had known in his youth.  He took his mouth from her breasts, brought his mouth onto hers and slowly licked her lips, outlining them with his tongue, then going deep into her hot mouth and kissing her as if he would meld with her.  

The flames that licked them both were like the fire that the lover in the Bible’s Song of Solomon spoke of so ardently.  His big hands were on her naked, firm buttocks then, pressing her down onto his penis,  filling her with himself and feeling her hot walls grip him with a passion that rocked  his very soul.  They would dance this dance again in the coming hours with an intense need that floored them both.  But for right now, he felt her body tremble as she came with rhythmic gripping and releasing again and again.  And as she did, his body exploded with love and  lust-ridden passion until both were tightly  bonded in a passionate love that brought them both release and satisfaction that transcened all else, even pain.

*******

 Where do Marty and Sheba go from here?  Does he end his paternity quest?  Will Lillian have a change of heart?  And what  new troubles troubles face them and their passionate interracial marriage?  Watch this space for future developments.  So there you have it, for the time being.  Solomon will be a series of many stories about Marty and Sheba, their church, their lives and their congregation.  There are wonderful couples of the same race and different races.  Marigold is an interesting town, intent on being multicultural at its best.  How do they fare?  I hope you’ll follow them in  their victories and their defeats.  Theirs is  a fascinating list of stories.  And remember, from tine to time there will be more excerpts.  I hope I continue to see you here!

Solomon and Sheba – Chapter 12 originally appeared on Francine Craft on September 29, 2011.

Early December.  Dusk with an early moon.  Sheba thought the Chesapeake Bay had never been lovelier.  Greenish and rippling in the wind, that body of water had always been one of her favorites.  It was a cloudy day, warm for December and  she turned to Marty as they stood on the deck of Mark and Marguerite’s small yacht, The Heller.  “Hey, this is living,” she told him. ” I love being alone with you, but somehow I wish, too, that the whole congregation could come with us for a while, the children who need it most anyway.”

Marty nodded.  Right now he felt he only needed his wife; they should grab more time together with just the two of them. “I guess I hadn’t realized how tired I am. Last night’s sleep leaves me rested though.  It’s a good thing I got my Mother Vangie’s genes and her energy.”  Marty always seemed thoughtful when he spoke of Vangie.

“Sweetheart, don’t forget Rob.  He’s got that quiet, slow energy that lasts forever.  Ah, dinner was good.  I’m still tasting all that great roast beef,  sour cream potatoes,  veggies and  cherry cheesecake.”

Marty grinned and winked at her.  “”Should’ve been oysters, don’t you think?  For the aphrodisiac effect?”

Sheba threw back her head, laughing, “You are an aphrodisiac, sweetie.”

“And you object?”

“You know the answer to that one.”

“We’re well matched, you and I, and I thank God for that.  Lord Shee, I feel sorry for people who despise sex, see it as a curse and a burden instead of the gift from God it is.  I’m never going to stop trying to change that.”

Sheba’s face was solemn then. “You’re right of course, but Roman Pittman is going to fight you to the bitter end.”

“Im afraid the man is a hypocrite.  His right hand has never known what his left is doing.”

A brisk wind came up, making it cooler.  Marty drew her to him.  “Why don’t I put my jacket around you?”

Sheba smiled.  “I’m comfortable.  I guess it’s your heat.  Know something, love.  You turn me on mightily, and I’m glad.”

“Me too.  We’re a great match.”  Marty often thought that Sheba had one of the tenderest faces he’d ever seen.  Martina had been tender too, but Martina was a woman very much of this world, living it, wresting every moment from it.  Sheba was laid back.  Looking at her, you knew she saw beyond this world, saw things others didn’t see.  So often, he wanted to simply reach into her world and share what he could never share, see what he could never see.

They walked the deck and talked for a while to the captain who had planned this beautiful, romantic trip, played a  game of shuffleboard and took a dip in the  swimming pool.  They stayed aboveboard until the early stars were out and a full moon shone steady.  Suddenly Marty drew her body fulllength against his own, his erection pressing into her.  His mouth was hard against hers and his big hands roved her back.

Sheba giggled.  ”Honey, we’re still on deck.  What’s gotten into you so suddenly?”

“Been there all the time.  You oughta know by now, the moon does that to me often.  Yeah, the moon and holding you.  We’ve got to work harder on getting us a baby, love.”

Sheba nodded.  “You miss Kaya and Martina so much, I know.”

“I do, but I’ve got you and I’m grateful.  I know you miss Scott, but we’re making it together, with God’s help and blessing.”

Stars had brilliantly spangled the sky by then, infrequently covered by clouds as they went arm in arm to their cabin.  Throwing the door open, Marty whooped, “This is a second honeymoon.  Look at this spread!”

“Um, I see.  Beautiful, isn”t it?”  The crew had filled the large room with Birds of Paradise, roses and gardenias flown in from Chile, along with sliced honeydews, big luscious bananas, cherries, bunches of  huge grapes and chunks of fresh pineapple.  A scrumptious table covered with cream-colored damask. gleaming silver,  and set with crystal and china held ham, roast beef, chicken, hot breads, salads and several desserts.

For a moment Sheba drew away and went to the refrigerator, “I just know there’s got to be ice cream here.”  And there was chocolate, French vanilla, strawberry and rum ice cream.  “We could almost feed a large portion of the church with all this.”

But mostly they had eyes for each other, deeply drawn and thrumming with the moon’s glow, night air and ease from the vacation.  Surrounded by food, they only sampled it and drank champagne with sliced strawberries.  Marty put CD’s on the Bose record player,  loaded it  with Barry White and last with Wagner’s romantic  liebestod from Romeo and Juliet .  As the sensuous sounds of Barry’s breathing and his tender sighs covered them, Marty sat on the bed and drew Sheba down onto his lap. 

“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we’ve got.  Let’s make the baby here.  You’re a great romantic.  What d’you say?”

He thought Sheba looked noncommital.  Didn’t she want a baby, after all?  She’d often spoken of her fear of having a child and losing it as she had lost Scott’s child.  Lord, his heart swelled with pure love, lust and joy at the thought of pouring his seed into her womb and having it turn to a living miracle.  His mouth on hers was like fire as he licked her lips, outlining the tender curves and opening her blouse.  His experienced hands quickly found the firm brown mounds of her breasts and he laved them fierccely as she moaned, stroking and kneading his scalp.

“You’re so beautiful,”  he said softly.  “Song of Solomon talks about  wearing the loved one as a seal.  That’s what I’d like to do with you.  They said a seal upon the heart and  arm.  I wear you as my seal  on my soul.”

Through heavy breathing, Sheba told him, “Yes, and he also says that love is stronger than death and jealousy as cruel as the grave.  I’m jealous of you sometimes.”

“You bet you are, because I’m jealous of you.  We”re not fools about it, neither one of us.  I think we’re grownup enough to handle it.”

Without words, he began to undress her then, stroking as he did.  With her thong still on, she began undressing him and did not realize how swiftly her hands moved.  When both were naked, he took her into his arms and massaged her back as she lay passively.  He knew well that at such times he would find her inner walls on fire for him, her heavy, syrupy juice flowing smoothly and her body trembling with desire.  Marty’s own body was raw with an almost desperate need.  He lost himself in her body and felt consumed with a passion that went far beyond the ordinary.  Some part of him knew very well that this was a yearning for fatherhood the way he had felt it before. His mind closed on that thought.

Sheba moved languidly after a moment to get up, as he asked, “Where’re you going?  Don’t!”  He wanted no interruptions.

She placed a soft hand over his mouth.  I want to turn the lights down.  They’re so bright.”

In answer he held her fast, his voice husky.  “Let the lights  stay bright.  I want to study you with my eyes blinded with love.  Stay still, Shee.  Remember Song of Solomon and that gorgeous imagery.  Lord, if only we believed in the earthy magic of the Bible as our creator did.”  He grinned wickedly then.  “Be still, my woman, while I give it all to you.” 

“Okay,” she whispered.  But after moments, her body moved gently and rhythmically under his.  A gift from God, he often said and she agreed.  What hurt and disappointment worked within so many to keep this from being available for their  use?  She arched her back and lifted her hips and he went deeper.  She cried his name then and clutched his body fiercely.  How would he react to the secret she had to tell him at any moment now?

Slipping out, he roved her body with tender all-over kisses as she moaned softly.  Sounds of love they made and Barry’s heated, passionate music filled the room.  When he had stopped for a minute, she kissed and stroked him, revelling in the hard, muscular strength of him, as he  revelled in hersoftness.

This time when he entered her inner walls clutched him tightly and she cried out, beginning an orgasm that shook her to her core.  She felt him jerking inside her in  only somewhat delayed ejaculation that thrilled them both.  He stayed inside her as they stroked each other.

Then lying beside her, momentarily exhausted, he was drifting to sleep as she propped herself on an elbow by his side.  It beat him how he could be so worn out and she still seemed full of energy.

“That was so-o-o good,” she said softly

“Yeah.  We only have the good, better and best and they’re all intertwined.”

She wanted to talk and he wanted to sleep.  He grinned a bit to himself, always pleased when she seemed so satisfied.  She brushed kisses across his forehead.  “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

“You’re being cruel.”

“Um-m-m, I know.  Cruelty sometimes goes hand in hand with passion.  Don’t you know that?”

“If you don’t let me sleep, you won’t get anymore.”

“Sleep then and wake up and I’ll tell you a secret.”

His eyes opened wide then as he looked at her beatific face and knew.

“Sweetheart,  I think I’m pregnant.  I took the e.p.t. before we left and it says yes.”

He caught her in a bear hug then and held her, his eyes misting with tears.  “You made an appointment to verify this with your doctor?”

“I wanted to see when you’re free to go with me.”

“Any time at all.  Lord, Shee, I could dance on the deck all night now.  I’m one happy man.”

“So am I.  Now I’m sleepy.”

He held her then and after a while he slept in her arms.

Sheba couldn’t sleep.  Maybe there wasn’t a baby, but a false positive.  Did she want it to be positive?  Remembering how she’d hurt when she lost Scott’s baby in the accident-perhaps-on-purpose, she still hurt.  It didn’t help that before they were married,  Marty’s bigoted brother, Pete, had come to the church when Marty wasn’t there.

“I hope you two know what you’re doing,” he’d growled.  “Preacher or not, old Marty sowed a lot of wild oats before he married.  From what I’ve heard, you’ve been pretty quiet.  You two could make it, I guess, but what if you get pregnant?  I never heard anybody say that mixed blood  kids have anything other than a  hard time.”

“We’re all mixed, Pete.  You ought to know that.  Think about it.”

Pete had turned beet red.  “Just trying to help since you’re in the family.  I’ve got a hellfire happy life married to a white woman,  and I reckon I just want others to have the same.  I don’t think you’re headed that way.”

She had excused herself and walked away.  She had thought about what an interracial marriage would mean to a child, but then from the beginning Marty had told her about Vangie’s deathbed confession:  that he might have black blood.  Something else she hadn’t thought about.  She’d walked away from Pete because she was seeing him with that graveyard haze for the first time.  This was what she called the aura of light that had surrounded Scott again and again before he died.  And had surrounded Uncle Luther.  She shuddered.  No, she wasn’t going into that again.

After an  hour had passed with Marty sleeping, she leaned forward and gently blew on his eyes until he came awake.  “I’m craving ice cream in several flavors and I want company while  I stuff myself.”

“I was having a dream about you.”

“Oh?”

“Repeat performance.”

“Insatiable.”

“And I love my partner in crime.”

He sat up and brought her to him, feeling the swift beat of her heart.  “I think we ought to read some  of Solomon’s Song tonight, considering those two got there long before we did.”

When Marty looked at her the way he did now, Sheba felt light and happy..  She had felt this way with Scott, and look at the suffering she’d known.  She shook her head.  It wasn’t wise.  She was too old for this sweeping surge of sexuality and sensuality.  Nonsense, she chided herself.  Sure, she was 41 to Marty’s 34, but neither fit the molds of certain ages.  Look at Papa Joe and Miss Addie.  And Papa Joe and her late grandmother had been lovers she was certain until her grandmother died.

The different flavors of ice cream were delectable, rich and fattening.  Well, she thought, they both usually watched their diets.  Marty fed her and she fed him, with cold ice cream kisses in between.  He laughed.  “This ought to cool some of the heat.”

“I doubt it.”

He placed a spread-fingered hand on her belly and smiled with  his eyes closed.  Then his face grew somber.  “Shee, I’m going to calll and write to Christian’s sister, Elizabeth, my aunt if he proves to be my father.”

She drew in a sharp breath.  “But why now, love?  You’re going to hurt Rob, you know.  He doesn’t want you to.”

He shook his head.  “I’ve got to know and it really hit me hard sleeping just now.  There’s the matter of genes and illnesses passed on.  Even if I didn’t need to know and I do need to know, this kid will need it.  Neither of us would ever forgive ourselves if some disability developed and we didn’t know enough about  my true heritage to heal it.  Rob will understand.”

His eyes were distant again and she wondered if he thought of his unknown father, or of Vangie, but most likely, she thought, it was of Martina and their fabled love.  Had she been stupid to marry him?

“It could have been so different,” she said sadly.  “With Martina, it was different.  Your life was safe and comfortable.  Now I’ve brought danger into it.  We don’t know where this will lead.”

He didn’t miss a beat as he caught her to him fiercely. “Danger, Shee?  I’ve led a hell of a life, sometimes with death and madness surging in me so bad it scared me senseless.  No, you brought life and sanity back the way I knew it as a boy.  Vangie didn’t believe love knew any boundaries.  Now I believe with all my heart it doesn’t.”

“You had a great love with Martina and a great family with Kaya.  You can’t deny that.”

“And I never would, but you had the same with Scott, or it would have been complete in a few months.”

She had watched him from the moment she spoke of his marriage and the same shadow lay on his countenance that was always there when she sought to talk about his life with Martina. Damn it, they needed to talk about that!  She talked with him about Scott and he responded well.  But it had come to seem that his life with Martina was a closed book; no, a locked book, she amended.  Lying here, they had made love with all their hearts.  She had told him about the possible baby, and he had seemed overjoyed.  Yet, in some part of himself, he might as well have been a million miles away.

What does lie in store for Sheba and Marty?  Can their love survive the differences of what lies in their hearts as much as race?  Next time, Marty and Sheba visit New Orleans and Elizabeth Moncrief, sister to the African American man who may be Marty’s father.  On the phone she had agreed to see him, but had not been cordial.  Will she let him have the body that he wants for DNA to prove his parentage?  Rob can take it, Marty assured Sheba.  It seemed to her that Pete, his brother, was the only winner, because he stood far more certain to win the prize of his father’s wealth than ever before if Marty’s father proves to be Christian Moncrief.

I really look forward to seeing you here again for this installment of Solomon and Sheba.  Do be my guest!

Solomon and Sheba – Chapter 7 originally appeared on Francine Craft on August 18, 2011.