When You Finally Realize - Excerpt from Shuttered Vision

“Ok Mr. Abrams.” Cody started tartly.  “You don’t have my blessing yet but I won’t actively stand in the way.” Cody declared.

Colan looked at him. “Why not?” He asked. “I thought you were still at camp StayAwayFromHer.”

Cody laughed. “I was. And trust me this FBI cluster is still pending investigation for me. So is the questionable decision to take her out after what she’d been through. I know though that you had things to do and seeing you after she was attacked I know you couldn’t let her out of your sight.”

Colan nodded cowed a bit.

Cody paused as he looked out at Fiona. “Damned if I can’t admit it though she’s blooming.” He said simply.  He put down the glass he was holding and looked at Colan intently. “You did something with her today that I’ve never seen before.”

Interested Colan looked at Cody. He tilted his head and asked, “Which is?”

Cody mimicked the gesture of holding his hands open as he had watched them do with each other. “Even as angry as you were, and you were Oklahoma redneck pissed, you didn’t disrespect her agency. You still took the time to ask for permission to touch her.” Cody paused his demeanor darkening as he continued, “I’m not going to go over some of the less savory aspects of her sexual history with you. That’s something for her to decide to share with you if you two get there.” He shook his head slightly. “As the person she turns to and usually bares her soul to I tell you that alone is very impactful. You want me on your team you keep that up.”

Colan listened to what Cody was saying and the hint of someone taking advantage of Fiona had made him see red for a few minutes. He almost missed how Cody ended his speech. He looked out at Fiona on the phone with her mother.

She painted in jeans and shorts.  She liked dresses though. Pretty frilly flirty sundresses. The one she was wearing now looked perfect for a beach. The way the sun and ocean were positioned behind her was almost a perfect ad to sell the dress. It was a blue and green handkerchief dress that teased her curves, lifted and settled on the wind. Her hair was braided. She hadn’t had time to really deal with it and she slept with it braided.  Her skin was a brilliant deep bronze sun kissed and glowing. Her face was serious but cracked into a smile often as she spoke to her mother. He watched those full lovely lips move and his heart flipped at the flash of white between her lips when she smiled.

Then he thought about the ugliness he had witnessed. He thought about how she retreated from physical contact almost immediately when the spell of their intimacy was broken. He thought about how she had not complained later about being sore after the officer had assaulted her. Not a single grumble. He thought about how she had frozen when he had first kissed her any idea of sexual desire ripped away by pure fear.

He thought about how Cody was never physically forward with her even though he was big enough. Even after the attack he hadn’t run to her and grabbed her. He had stood back called to her and let her come to him. It was the actions of a man used to dealing with someone who needed extra care from experienced trauma.

“She’s been sexually assaulted.” Colan practically whispered.

Cody looked at him wondering how this man had gotten so far understanding so little. “Colan, she’s a woman.”

Colan looked at Cody and was taken aback by the way he said the statement she’s a woman. It reminded him of him yelling at him about remembering she was black. The unmentioned rules behind those statements becoming clear. In this equation expecting to be treated a certain way by people based on race was expected. Sexual assault was so common for women that it was to be assumed that just by dent of being a woman she had experienced sexual assault.

Colan felt his reality warping a bit and he put a hand to his forehead.  His mind stretching as he saw scenes in movies that pushed the idea the narrative of taking women. Doing what you wanted with them as objects and accessories.  Seeing himself suggesting more aggression and pushing for rape plot devices.

Cody watched him and called to him, “Colan are you ok?”

Colan took a few deep breaths and focused on Fiona. Not her pain but on her.  He waved Cody off as his mind started to settle guilt flooding through him.

“I’m ok.” He bit out.

He focused and looked outside at her. He had thought after the attack what a miracle a survived life was. Now he stared at her in a new mystified awe. She carried so much.  How did she manage? He remembered her declaration. No rest for the weary. She had to manage because this was the world she lived in. It was either survive or die. She didn’t have time for his sensibilities and his laziness in regards to understanding why she had to be how she was. She was living breathing walking inspiration. The day was long and she had many to reach.

“Goddess.” Colan breathed. “I asked her before what she was.  I left out the one she is.”

Cody put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re slow but you’re getting there.” 

The Power of Invocation - Clair's Burden

“Goddess.” Colan breathed. “I asked her before what she was.  I left out the one she is.”

Clair felt a rush of wind at the spoken words. Her eyes opened as she sat straight up.  Her husband Sergei stirred near her.  She absently rubbed his shoulder and back.  She looked down and his ice blue eyes were glazed over.  Then they were stark and with her.

"Did you expect that to happen?" He asked Clair in a sleep hazed voice.

Clair shook her head. "No these two are progressing much faster than anyone anticipated." She admitted as she settled back in next to her husband snuggling into him.

They kept odd hours due to the planes they could travel.  They slept when they could and worked when they could.  Luckily they both had careers that let them set their own schedules. After the Virgin Launch project Sergei left corporate life and went into teaching.  His patent would take care of them as long as money was a valued resource. She didn't play as much anymore because the power in the music was hard to control. She still struggled in controlling the effects. She had known the price she would pay would be high.  She just had no idea how much would be taken from her as she tried to become what she needed to be. Or how much would be given, she thought as she pressed a closed mouth kiss to her husband's collarbone.

So much had changed since that day that Max had come to see them for the first time. Clair pursed her lips thinking about him.  Had she known then what she knew now. She pushed the thought aside.  If she thought about the rascal too hard Sergei would get into a fighting mood again.  She was still not sure if they could trust Dalen anymore than they could trust Max.  The redhead had an odd way about him. But she was worried about what she saw could befall her first couple.  If he was willing to babysit she was not going to argue. They might need some extra muscle after everything hit the fan. Which she had guessed would be happening very soon.

"When?" Sergei asked in a distracted fashion as he pulled Clair closer to him.

"Soon like in a day or so." Clair responded evenly.

"Can she handle it?' He stressed the last.

She thought about it.  He wasn't talking about the mess they were in because of Colan. He was talking about the invocation Colan was about to unwittingly commit. It was an odd thing invocation. If one person declared someone a goddess it didn't do much beyond a blip of power.  However the power of individuals has never been equal. Colan was not a normal man.  He made movies.  So while an invocation from a single man would not stir much, the invocation of a man that influenced so many manifest itself in power fitting the scope of influence. His vision influenced millions of people.  He will soon unwittingly send Fiona into a magical wellspring.

Clair traced all the major events in Fiona's life.  Her first experience with her latent abilities.  Her father's death. Meeting Cody. She also saw the scars from her first loves before Colan.  The ones that had hurt her. She watched what she did with her power.  Fiona was damaged, but ultimately kind even when it wasn't deserved. She was her first choice for a reason.  Max's opinion of her be damned. They did have a difficult road. That she did admit to.  But having faith meant having faith.  If she was going to do this right, faith was going to have to bear the heavy load, especially in these early days.

She shivered in her husband's arms.  He tightened them and kissed her lightly on the forehead. He could feel what she was thinking about.  The echos of the horrors to come. The weight of her deal with The Council  to save some.

"We'll get through love." He whispered. "You're going to make it right I know it."

* * *

Find Clair and Sergei's story in So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar.

Then continue the tale with Fiona and Colan in Shuttered Vision.

What they don't get - From Shuttered Vision Now Available

“You don’t get it. Other populations know white people better than white people know themselves,” she said in a candid hushed way.

His eyes snapped to hers. He was oddly still as she continued. He couldn’t help but catch the humoring pitying head shake from Cody as she continued.

“See America isn’t built where you have to figure out how to constantly avoid people of color, or LGBTQs, atheists, Muslims. Name a none Christian religion or sect, or even women. Your spaces are already set up that way. Just the hint of having to tolerate or stomach another sends average over 30 white folks into a tizzy,” she threw out casually.

She then pinned him with the intensity of her eyes as she finished. “However, every corner and facet of staying alive and living as free as I can manage has literally depended on how well I can navigate straight white Christian male spaces. Looking like this.” She loosely gestured to herself.

Colan stared at her. In that moment, he couldn’t really imagine anything or anyone to be more beautiful. She rendered him speechless. He didn’t know how to relate that. The gumption of the woman was stunning in a number of ways. She stood in his house serving him his booze and then shot out her truth regardless of the consequences.

“You are exhausting,” he finally admitted.

“So, I’ve been told,” she countered. “What I just said is long speak for no rest for the weary. I don’t get to turn it off or tank it down. Look where I’m standing.”

He did just as she asked. He could find no reason whatsoever as to why she shouldn’t exist or be in his house. However, he was honest enough to admit that there were a ton of people who could and would actually think it was valid that she not only shouldn’t be there but that she literally shouldn’t exist. It sickened him. Mostly because he had gotten to be the age that he was and it had never crossed his mind. He had done what was easy. He had rendered himself blind just like the masses of ‘polite’ white folks that pretended not to see color. The thought was actually the most offensive thing when you really thought about it.

“I see you, Fiona,” he said in a low measured tone. “I see you,” he repeated forcefully.

Stunned Fiona just stared at him as she felt her heart expand and her eyes tear. She didn’t know why that sentence was so impactful. Right now, it was almost enough to drop her into a puddle on the floor. She could see it in his eyes. They were a clear grass green. They met hers without flinching and without shame. No true judgement, not looking down on her, not pitying her. He just looked at her as another human being with thoughts dreams goals and more than all of that with inherent value. Cody clinked his martini glass to hers. That finally broke the spell.

“As usual these are delish, love,” he said sweetly which gave away how he felt about what happened.

She looked over at her best friend. He countered with an even sweeter smile. She returned it and he leaned over to kiss her cheek.

Colan turned and grabbed the popcorn. He went to sit gesturing for the two of them to come over. “This is a new one opening in a month and a half starring Dwayne Johnson,” he tempted.

Fiona lit up. “The Rock? Hell yeah.”

Colan smiled. “I did expect the Texas girl to know him as a wrestler,” he said densely.

“I’ve been to shows where he was the main event,” Fiona confirmed.

Cody was staring at the heavens. “Dear God are you also a wrestling fan?” he asked in an exasperated fashion.

Fiona clucked. “Cody is originally from Michigan, he doesn’t get it.”

Colan smirked, “I did think it was just state policy in Texas.” He watched Fiona with barely banked appreciation and asked. “So, you have no problem watching one of his films?”

Fiona plopped next to him in one of the leather recliners with Cody hot on her heels. Cody looked at her in an expectant fashion. She squinted at the challenge in his eyes.

Non-plussed she responded like she often did when they talked about the man known as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. “I’d watch that man make toast,” she said with relish.

Cody smiled and whispered, “The balls on my girl,” then gingerly sipped his martini.

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New Paranormal Romance Release Shuttered Vision

I started Shuttered Vision about 8 years ago. Then it was intended to be a love lost letter to a man I knew I'd never have or ever be with.  When I started it I outlined the pervasive issues that were the problem of us ever ending in mutual bliss with each other. Those issues in my eyes were race, class and media bias. I've been a dark girl in white spaces for most of my adult life.  My assumption was that for the man to end up being a man that could overlook or readjust to these differences, love was not going to be enough. What this book started was a journey for me that I didn't realize I needed until of course it landed me right here.

8 years ago I was an administrative assistant for a college in Baltimore. I was pursuing my undergrad in video game design and planning to create a game engine to beat all game engines.  My plans changed mostly because I so needed to answer the question posed to myself due to falling for a man that would never be able to see value in me due to my race, my poor upbringing and the avid brainwashing media intentionally and unintentionally sustains with pervasive anti-blackness. That observation by the way is not up for challenge.  I will allow no one to disavow my lived experiences.

During this investigation of the whys of American racial discourse I learned from those around me. Social Sciences professors teaching History, Political Science, Sociology, Women's Studies and Teacher Education.  What I ended up building was a need to confont the problem on the ground floor. I started to research game based learning and ended up pursuing a Masters by 2011. This halted my writing until roughly around last year.  As my life started to change again I went back to what had sustained me the first time my life fell apart. Writing.

After 8 years and more experiences Shuttered Vision morphed.  It became too important to waste on a man who willfully choose to disavow me as a potentially worthy partner. I learned that it really is his loss.  I also learned that there are some people you reach back for and some you don't.  Something I constantly ignored in previous years for that hero narrative I wanted my life to reflect. I saw an opportunity in this book to truly be as authentic as I can imagine and to add a narrative to the growing ones being built by female authors of color.  Romance as a genre has not always embraced nuance, however this is changing.  I would like to add to that change.

Shuttered Vision then became a love letter to me and to all women who had to get passed that moment of feeling not good enough for reasons that are so beyond your own control.  Its a love letter to those in the trenches, bound in the struggle.  Its a love letter to those who have lost not just love, but freedom and their lives to narratives that refuse to allow basic humanity.

The message is keep creating, keep building, never surrender and be at all times your authentic self.  Because that is what actually defines humanity.

Fiona and Colan have born the weight of realization and discovery for me. They have given me so much of myself back that I adore them. I hope you come to love Fiona and Colan as I do.

Always w/love,

Sue

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The Art of Discrimination

All of my journey and my striving to be better than I was yesterday was never really for me. It was and it wasn't. It was about love. All of my life because of what I am and being influenced by American ideologies about women specifically dark women, I've sought to be better than that description because I never wanted to find myself in a situation where I loved someone who wouldn't see me as being good enough to love. It has been my worst fear since the day I found out that I was not the kind of person who deserved love. For me that happened when I was very young the age being impressionable as I was told by many many people in positions of power that people who looked like me didn't deserve love. So I wanted to make sure that I was extraordinary in some way. I wanted to achieve and be able to say to the world I too deserve love do not deny me because of my race, my economic status, my gender. Identity politics as it were at its finest. It wasn't called that then. It was just the way the world was. I thought that if I could be something other than what was normally expected I could change that. I was naive.

I learned that the way I saw it isn't how discrimination works. Discrimination is about deciding things like this about people without considering who they are individually. Discrimination is about setting values to a human being that mostly dehumanize them by implying that they don't need or deserve the very basic needs for sustaining a human life where they can act in love, care and compassion for others. Its about determining that they do not deserve to have the same rights others enjoy. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized that. The trick of discrimination is it doesn't matter who I really am, what I fight for, what I care about. The person discriminating never cared enough to find out. Its the ultimate catch 22 because its like deciding that a box contains nothing but garbage because its wrapper is green and you've never actually opened a green wrapped package assuming its all garbage. How do you break through that haze of misinformation when the person who believes in it believes so fully that they refuse to even test it once.

In a lot of ways I believe that's what we are experiencing in a wide array of ways in this post election environment. We've had reputable news outlets determined as garbage. Whole populations of people determined as garbage. Ways of life and loving declared garbage. Its exhausting to live each day knowing that there are people within your vicinity in your grocery stores in your neighborhood that believe that some people and their lives are garbage. You can feel it in them. In the way they look at you. In how they search for the parts of you that confirm that you're the garbage they were told you are. They negate that any perceived faults are merely human ones that we all suffer and battle with. They usually judge you on a different scale not allowing even the slightest bit of error. The benefit of the doubt means nothing because you never deserved it. Its not that far of a step to be so entrenched in the idea that even the best possible people are muted and muddled because of your need to view them as garbage.

I have so much hurt in my soul and my spirit for us as people. We stare at each other from across a cavernous gulf that literally does not exist. Each side yelling the exact same thing each getting louder trying to be heard and never noticing that they are yelling the same thing. They are yelling "I'm human, I hurt I bleed I matter. I matter." 

A lot of these issues are sparking fresh for me as I write my next book which examines that very extreme juxtaposition between a creative minority female and a privileged rich white male.  I always found the seducing the millionaire books lacking because they ignore a very fundamental aspect of socialization which is social groupings. Its not easy to disengage from one social grouping and become fully accepted in another. Its even harder to pull off the love it takes to make the person perceived as less then seem worthy. Love can begin to bridge this gap but we are social and social circles greatly effect the way relationships are conducted maintained and thrive. I know its fiction, you say. Yes it is but if a fairytale has no hope of coming true then why tell it?

In confronting this I realized that there was only a few ways to dig deep enough that a true love could grow. So I did a terrible thing to my male lead. I showed him the absolute truth of his lifestyle. And now he's going to turn around and show my female lead the absolute truth of hers. Its not going to be an easy thing to write because all of my misgivings about beauty, protection and the state of trying to be a joyful carefree black girl in the south will be right at the surface. In many many ways I am her. Weird, artsy with strong headed opinions and a lack of fear that is utterly appalling if you care for this person. The male lead, the idea the person that I've been told all my life I have to find a way to matter to. The person I have to convince that I'm human and deserve love.

I've rarely gotten through my tougher scenes without needing to stop and weep. I feel like now more than ever its so important that I get this out. Lance the wound and let out the infection that has haunted me and crippled me for most of my life. Because you realize one day that you haven't spent your life trying to prove to 'him' that you're human and matter. You were never fighting the masses for your humanity. Discrimination and representation are much more insidious than that. Because some days you ask you really wonder am I really less than human? Is that why joy seems so far away so removed from my life. Are they right? Has God decided that people like me only deserve hell and scraps from the table of humanity like a dogs.  Did He just create us to suffer at the feet of those who will never treat us with the care and concern we have always given them? The problem in those questions is that you aren't looking for those answers from those other people.

The trick is that the arguments and the positions the situations are so compelling you start to think it must be true when you are beat with them everyday for hours on end in almost every encounter in almost every instance of life. You know in the deepest part of yourself that to deny the teachings is in its own way denying reality. Others who need to keep this as a reality beat it into the ground using repetition to control your pattern based brain to guide it to their designs. But then you learn and you grow and understand reality is not a static instance, the use of repetition is folly within itself as the proof that the narrative is incomplete and must be false.  Reality is ever changing, no single moment is identical to any other moment, sunrise sunset and it is ultimately a tool that shapes life.  Like any tool it can be used to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others.

When you reshape and re-purpose the tool you see where the trick really lied. It told you that you needed them to acknowledge that you were human and deserving of love when the first and finest principles of philosophy had already given you that power. I think therefore I am. When you unmask the wizard and pull back the curtain you see yourself staring right back at you. You've spent a life time trying to prove your humanity to yourself. That is the only person who needs to believe in your dignity, your grace, your humanity, your right to be loved as you are is you.

When you're newly freed you shed that reality and that world and you began your own alchemy.


Images:

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So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar - Now Available

I think I've been very wordy regarding what this book means to me.  So I felt the best way to express that was to write a Samhain blessing to accompany its release.

I shed the skin of who I once was to carry the form of who I am to become
I release those bound to me by dislike and doubt to let our harm be done
I ask that grace releases our dark desires and opens our hearts to another power
I declare there be peace between us as this time slips away in these next few hours
Leave our pain and sorrow our ill will and ill words on the pyre to disperse as it burns
Let the renewal of hope and faith take root in those spaces as the witching hour turns
I fondly send away those who lost their lights in this cycle leaving the world dark in their wake
As I prepare a place for those who will now shimmer to shine to burn for thier namesake
Honor to who came before whose bravely lived lives have hollowed the path that I pace
May the passion the fevor the will of their purpose and light forever be reflected in my face
I am who I will be, as I am what I was
I am who they were for being is what one does
Blessed be to those who light the way
Blessed be as we share this new day

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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