The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.
Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman. Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune. She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.
Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.
Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.
Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective. The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.
While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.
Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?
Chapter 32
For some reason I was nervous, anxious of a sort. Regina had been in Chicago since late Monday and I hadn’t done a good job of occupying my time. I hadn’t heard from Ginger. I hadn’t called her either. About all I had done was teach my night classes. I wanted to talk with Regina about my new job offer. I should have done it last weekend but didn’t for more selfish reasons. We had talked last night, and she had told me she had made a big decision and would share it when she got home.
Her airplane was delayed, and she didn’t arrive in Huntsville until 8:30 p.m. She called me on her cell as she was picking up her luggage to let me know that she was safe and should see me soon. “I can’t wait.” She had said.
At 9:45, I heard her drive up. I met her on the back porch. She had never been more beautiful. Her hair was pulled back and her face glowed with happiness. “You must have learned a way to automate your job at the newspaper, you look so refreshed, or something.” I said.
She smiled and reached out her hand as she climbed the porch stairs. We kissed, and she gently pushed me backwards into the house. She closed and locked the door behind us. I started to talk, and she pressed her right index finger over my lips while her blue eyes poured into mine. “Make love to me.” She whispered into my ear. Again, I almost said, “are you drunk, what’s going on?” when she pulled my head into hers and kissed me, well, like she never had before. I didn’t know what was going on, but I wasn’t against it at all.
She took my right hand and led me upstairs into my bedroom. She walked over beside my bed and turned off the lamp. The bedroom was semi-dark, the only light was coming in from the bathroom and a partially opened door. “Walt,” she said, standing holding both my hands, “the only thing I want and need to say is that I’ve missed you and have, this week, come to truly know, how blessed I am to have you in my life. I feel you share the same feelings. We are finally one in heart and spirit. Now keep your mouth closed unless it helps you show me how much we are in love.” By the time her words fell silent, I was so excited I couldn’t say a word. I did manage to smile and sound out a tiger’s growl, or maybe, it was a kitten’s purr. I’m not sure.
She started unbuttoning my shirt. She pulled my head down to her mouth and whispered, “undress me.” I complied. By the time we stood facing each other, naked, we were both breathing hard as our bodies touched, naturally for the first time. We lay across the bed and forgot, no, were unable, to engage in foreplay. Our union, at first, was certainly physical. At first, I was reserved. Until she whispered, “Walt, my baby, love me like you’ve been showing me, I’m yours.” It was like I had been given permission to let go and be myself. It was like she commanded me to push my feelings, the pent-up loving desires, the ones I had made myself suppress ever since I had seen her last December in Walmart, the first night I had arrived in Boaz.
I can’t explain it, but the physical quickly graduated into the mysterious, into something strongly akin to a spiritual journey. Our bodies were doing what every other loving couple does, but as she guided my face above hers and asked me to open my eyes and look at her, our movements became a song, almost a rhythm of praise and promise. It was an experience I had never had. During all the years with Jennifer, we had only had sex. I never complained. I enjoyed it. Although, after a few years, it became more a physical duty, almost like having to eat every day. That was that, and this is infinitely unique.
As I looked at Regina and smiled, she alternated between pulling my face in for a deep and sensual kiss and whispering, “I love you.” My mind transformed. It was like I believed I was in a dream. This cannot be real. I am making love to the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I am making love with the woman who loves me and is, for the first time, sharing her sexy young-adult shaped body with me. I didn’t want the dream to end.
“Walt, baby, wake up.” Later, Regina told me that as our bodies ran out of steam and fell silent and still, I had dozed off, continuing to lay, with all my weight, on top of her. She said that she had wanted to stay right there, right there with me and her, our bodies naked and sweating, all night. But then, she said, trying not to grin, “suddenly,
I had to pee.”
After her little trip to the bathroom, we stood again by my bed and held each other. A little kissing, but mostly just with me laying my head on her shoulder and swaying to a wordless song that no doubt was playing in both our heads.
“I’m starved. Can you promise me one thing?” Regina said.
“Now, I see. You take advantage of me, teasing me that you are giving me the keys to the kingdom, but it was all for a purpose, a very sinister purpose.” I replied.
“No, goofy. Promise me that our love-making isn’t going to make me fat. You can’t drain every cell in my body and then go feed me pancakes and bacon.”
“I promise, but, this time, are you hungry for pancakes and bacon?”
“Yes, I told you I was starving.” Regina said putting on her bra, as I was trying to pull her back down on the bed.
“I’m starving too. But, not for pancakes and bacon. I will never get enough of you. Can I ask you something?”
“Yes but make it quick.”
“What happened here tonight, you’re not going to give me the greatest gift of my life and then take it back, are you?” I said.
“That’s the dumbest question I’ve ever heard. After what we just experienced, you’re acting as though this was a one-way street. Walt, my baby, I am the lucky one here. I am the one who has received the greatest gift of all. Now, come on, let’s go to Waffle House. There, I will try to explain to you what it means, what I meant, when I said I love you.”
The Pencil-Driven Life 