Novel Excerpt

I've been waiting for just the right moment, and I think this is it. I'm sitting on the balcony watching a sparrow drag a twig bigger than he is to the pile he's making in the corner. I hear doves and some other birdsong I can't identify. The air is cool but not uncomfortably so. Prolly 60 degrees or so. I want to share something with y'all. I'm writing a novel. A story of a young wife's spiritual and sexual awakening. Deanna is not me, but we do have a lot in common. I'd like to have her for one of my girlfriends. If Deanna had a blog, it would be in my blogroll.
I offer you Deanna's Eureka Moment, the moment where she experiences her sexuality as good and alive and believes that her husband's prayer might have something to do with it. You go, girl!
~
Excerpt from Awakening Deanna's Eureka Moment copyright Shula Jackson all rights reserved

Tom,
you would not believe how much fun I am having with that latest song you sent me. When I saw the song title Michael Buble “coming home baby” I smiled and when I saw it was a duet with Boys 2 Men, I rolled my eyes but I have to tell you Tom, the groove and the harmony got to me right away .

For the first time since you left, I pictured you not in the desert but in an airplane seat checking your blackberry and emailing your admin about next week’s meeting, then sitting back and enjoying a Pauli girl thinking carnal thoughts of me. I picture your eyes gleaming with mischief as you settle back In the seat as the fasten seat belt light comes on. It felt so normal. So doable to think of you coming home to me now, or at the weekend. Tom, it was such a relief to picture you on a voluntary business trip wearing a suit instead of shipped off to the desert wearing week a grimy uniform and and a sandy sunburn. Such a relief to imagine you in Bruno Maglis instead of army boots. so familiar and safe and such a relief and relief quickly fanned into longing. But a longing unsullied by sorrow. Just pure want. Before I knew it, my hands were slithering down my torso reaching for my thighs. For about two seconds I felt pleasure then that feeling of being ridiculous hit me like a wave, cold and shocking.

So I swallowed a few times and took a deep breath and lay there and closed my eyes imagining carefully the scenario of you sprawled in an airplane seat. This time I fantasized a first class seat. I figured as long as I was fantasizing we may as well give you an upgrade. In my fantasy, you called me and I heard that hungry purr in your voice that made the hair on my arms stand up and felt my nipples harden. I imagined telling you they were hard and I saw the red flush on your earlobes as you told me how hot that was. I giggled and told you to keep your voice down someone on the plane might see you hear you overhear us talking. You told me to graze my fingernails over my stomach and I tightened my abs involuntarily. When I traced my fingernail over my ribs and belly, my nipples got even harder and this tight sweet longing started to swell in my breasts, wanting you to touch me. I swirled my fingernail tracing circling patterns over my ribs up to my breasts. As soon as I cupped the curve of my breast in my palm I felt so ridiculous and absurd and pitiful. Tom I told you in my fantasy I whispered into the phone "I’m sorry baby I just cant do it. I just feel so ridiculous." The thought of letting you down hurt my heart so I abandoned the idea of touching myself while talking to you on the phone and I just enjoyed the music. “I’m pressin’ on baby now I wanna feel you hold me tight” and that didn’t feel ridiculous at all. And the music had so much heat and so much unashamed energy.

I stood up on the wood floor in my sock feet and began to sway my hips and sashay around the room. Getting wilder and wilder as the dance over took me and and before I knew it, a new fantasy occurred me to me. I pictured you sitting crosslegged in on the foot of the bed watching me and instead of my flannel pajamas, I imagined myself wearing a cute shorts outfit with my ponytail through the loop of a baseball cap just the way you like it. I danced over to the closet and dug through until I quickly found a pair of denim shorts and a jogbra. On impulse, I grabbed one of your good white dress shirts that I hadn’t taken to the cleaners. The good one one of the good hoarded ones that still smell like you. I grabbed a ballcap off your closet shelf and threaded my ponytail through and for the full effect, I put on my old comfy New Balances and strode into our room as though I had just returned from a quick shopping trip. I pressed the repeat button on the ipod and turned up the volume on the docking station. This was going to take longer than once through.
I felt energy surge into my thighs like it did after the warm-up of a workout. So stared hard at the rumpled bedclothes imagining you sitting there. I stepped into the open doorway and grinned at you and you grinned back. Your eyes taking in the my glimpse of my exposed midriff below your shirt knotted and tied Maryanne style. A little of surge of joy shot through my heart at the thought of you seeing me and checking me out like that. I felt the calm and powerful emotion of seductive sexy wife taking hold in my mind and heart. I began to dance and sway in the doorway, never breaking the tractor beam of eye contact. I reeled you in with my eyes and didn’t let you go. I began to smile without trying and you began to sweat. A trickle of sweat turning your blonde hair brown and curly at the temples.
I began to dance and sway and move my feet and swing my hips in time with the music. I kicked off my shoes and twirled and spun with the my sock feet gliding effortlessly over the wood floor. I closed my eyes and let the song take over. I spun and stepped and shimmied my shoulders and that timeless feeling took over. All I could think about all my awareness was over the joy of moving in time with the music and the secret sweet joy of feeling you watching and feeling your delight and sensing your arousal. Tom, in my mind I just KNEW deep in the pit of my stomach that you not only accepted my sexy wife persona but you LIKED her intensely and it was that glorious sweet combination of love and lust perfectly blended that I only get from you.

Your desire and acceptance and delight gave me courage, Tom, and picturing you there and I began to strip. My confidence and joy growing steadily then surging as I untied your shirt and shimmied my shoulders out of the sleeves and pulled it off in one fell swoop, tossing it over my shoulder. I began to sweat and my dance took on a beautiful fury. I unbuttoned my shorts without thought and continued to dance in my jog bra and bikinis. Before I knew it Tom I was naked and proud and not one teeny bit ridiculous. Joy was as certain as the twinges of exertion I felt in my calves. I finished the dance with my arms overhead in a ta-da posture with my hair spilling down my back. I felt so alive and so free and so unbearably gorgeous. I felt that marvelous certainty down in my belly that I could lead you around the room like a ring through your nose but using only eyes to draw you. I guess you could say I felt my feminine power. I drank it in, reveled in it. And in my fantasy you swept me into your arms and took me standing in the shower. This wasn’t hard to imagine as I shimmied and rocked against the jets in the Jacuzzi tub. Oh Tom. I wish you could have seen me. I’m such a hottie, Tom. I really believe it baby I do. Just like you’ve known all along but now I believe. Every time I take in a breath I feel this unbearable sweetness knowing who I really am as a powerful gorgeous woman who is miles away from ridiculous. Don’t quit praying now, Tom cause it might be working. Ya think?

Goodnight darling. I’m limp as a wet noodle and I want to shut off the laptop and hug your big feather pillow and drift off to sleep. I love you baby.

Your sexy wife,
Deanna

Spirit in the Senses

I experienced the loving presence of Spirit tonight, talking to me in the things I know, talking to me through my senses, in the visual serenity of our beautiful room, in the warm glow of candles, in the soothing heat of the Jacuzzi tub, in the scent of bubble bath, in the beautiful music playing on my earphones. I was alone, but I wasn’t. Loving and living the Sacred Romance. Delighted Husband walked in and smiled when he saw me so blissed out. DH wasn’t the main attraction, but he doesn’t mind being pre-empted by Himself.

Sweet Breeze on My Face

Sense of touch and hearing today went straight to my heart, my friends. Sweet breeze filtered through tall trees and touched my face while this song was playing on my phone. Enjoy.

My first SexyMamaMoment

When our first child was born, he spent the first few days of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital. Delighted Husband and I were there with him nearly all the time. This was before my awakening so sexy wasn't usually on my radar. I had not yet cultivated my worldview that I was a sexy woman. But I had this moment. And I want to share it with you.

Beloved Child was a bit premature, and fussy, so the pediatrician suggested I open my blouse and give my baby skin-to-skin contact. They had these beautiful pale yellow privacy shades they placed around my rocking chair. Feeling a little awkward but hungry to hold my baby and let him know mama was there, I unbuttoned my maternity blouse, unwrapped my little darling (he looked like a little burrito in that white hospital blanket!) and laid my sweet baby against my abdomen and covered us both with a blanket. He was jaundiced, so he looked so foreign next to my skin. But in his face he looked just like me and in my heart he felt like mine! mine! mine! It was a peaceful, quiet moment amidst all the beeping chaos of the NICU.

Then I looked at his father.

Delighted Husband was looking at me and Beloved Baby like we were all that was precious in the world. And then I caught it..that quick tiny sparkle in his eye. Just like that, I was lost in the tractor beam of Delighted Husband's gaze. Without words, we remembered what we did to create this child. A blush crept over my cheeks and I looked at Delighted Husband with this self-aware heat in my eyes. My eyes said, "We made love. It was fabulous. You made me pregnant, and now I have this amazing little person nestled up against my skin. Oh my God."

In that moment, Delighted Husband snapped a picture.

And in an instant, the moment was over. The nurse walked up to draw blood from Beloved Child and crying and chaos pushed in and drowned out the moment.

Weeks later, I went to the store where I had gone for the film to be developed. When I got to that SexyMamaMoment photo, I was elated. Standing there in the pharmacy all disheveled and sleep deprived, I looked at that photo and thought, "oh my God, is that really me?" and it was. I didn't feel sexy there in the store. At all. At all. At all. But in my trembling hands I held photographic proof that my moment had really happened.

I put it in the photo album, along with all the other photos of Beloved Child's first six weeks. When friends from church asked to see baby pictures, I didn't think twice about handing over the photo album while I went to go boil some water for tea. I don't remember what he said, but I remember one of our church friends coughing and looking at me in an embarrassed putdown way and swiftly handing off the baby album like it was contaminated. I was flooded with embarrassment. I didn't have much confidence then. And I was Southern and here was a guest in my home offended by something I had given him. I was seriously infected with the disease to please. When our friends went home that night, I took out the picture of my first SexyMamaMoment, and I tore it up. To this day, there is a blank spot in that baby photo album. And oh I would fill it if I could. I have searched for the negative and I cannot find it. I have tears in my eyes just remembering what has been lost. How I would love to see that picture today!

There's a lesson here, my darlings. Don't let anyone look down on you for owning and recognizing that you are a sexual being. Don't let others erase your beautiful defining moment or put down your identity as a beautiful sexual creature created by God. Hold on to the good in your life. Hold on tight! Stretch marks and mortgages and fatigue and soccer leagues and teacher meetings and client meetings and HOA meetings will try to push in and take those moments from you by encroaching on the time those moments can occur. But hold on tight!

Looking back, I realize that man was an illmannered prude and I was a naive woman who gave away her validation card quite too easily. Not any more.

Like most of my aha! heartfelt moments, this was inspired by another blogger who generously shared their heart in a post. So thank you Mama of Romance for your beautiful post Feeling Beautiful: It's Up to You.
She says, "Because I feel like I am beautiful, it shines through.
It's so much easier to enjoy sex, to be passionate, and to love making love when you feel beautiful.
Being a woman is an incredibly powerful thing.
The curves, the soft skin, the feminine features.
Giving birth, having a baby, motherhood - it's all a beautiful thing.
Mother's are beautiful."

Amen, sista!

I would add: when you do have a moment when you feel beautiful, don't let anybody talk you out of it. Nobody but you and God have the right to decide whether or not you're beautiful. And God has already voted Yes.

Love,
SW

Carry the Torch

Back in the day, if you said he's carrying the torch for her, you meant "he's in love with her". It's a brief beautiful way to say, "there's a flame in my heart burning for that special someone."

Well it came to me yesterday, that passion and desire is a flame we carry inside our hearts. And if we live long enough, and are married long enough, we will experience a difference in the level of our sexual desire and the sexual desire of our spouse. Not so much whether or not they desire us as a person.

I mean that everyone's libido goes through ups and downs depending on lots of factors including:

• their hormonal health (thyroid, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, dopamine, serotonin)
  
• the amount of stress in their life
• the amount of cardio exercise in their life
• the amount of strength training in their life
• how much they work out (working out at intense levels over a several months can cause some women to stop ovulating)
• their emotions and attitudes about themselves
• their emotions and attitudes about their sexuality
• their emotions and attitudes about their spouse
  
• their emotions and attitudes about their spouses' sexuality
• how often they cultivate their eroticism by reading sexy poetry, daydreaming about past lovely memories of lovemaking, etc.
• how often they experience and notice nonerotic pleasure
• how well they know their own body's capacity for pleasure and know how to experience that alone or with their spouse
  

Lots of factors play into libido. And these are just the ones that came to mind today! There are probably more. Y'all speak up if you can think of any more factors that influence a person's level of libido. Oh yeah! Like medications! Some medications have a documented side effect of reducing the sex drive.

So back to the torch idea. Torches flicker. The flames dance and move and change.
So does desire.

And it hit me yesterday, that one of the ways we can carry the torch for our spouse is to cultivate our own desire, the flame inside of us. Even if our spouse's torch flickers and wanes. Especially then.

What does this look like?
I'll give you a possible scenario.

Say a husband goes through a verrry stressful period in his work. Maybe he's a CPA and it's tax season. Maybe he's a doctor and he's on call a lot. Maybe he's a lawyer and he's studying for the bar exam or he's got a case that's gone to trial and he's working 16 hour days. Maybe he was the innocent victim of a round of layoffs at work and he lost his job. Whatever it may be, he's under a lot of stress. And depending on his own body and personality, it may be that his desire for sex is temporarily decreased. This has happened to Delighted Husband before.

And it occured to me yesterday that if these times of lower drive come into his life again, I can carry the torch for him. I can carry the torch of desire FOR him. I can keep the flame of love and desire from going out in my marriage my keeping my own pilot light lit.

Sometimes there's a fine line between partnership and codpendence. Our own skin is a boundary that says what's inside this skin is me and what's outside this skin is not me. We each have to own our sexuality. It's part of our self. However, when you get married there's this beautiful partnership. We take on the role of steward over not only our own sexuality but also for our spouse's sexuality. It's my pleasure and responsibility and delight to meet Delighted Husband's sexual needs. It's his pleasure and responsibility and delight to meet mine. But when one of us has our libido flicker or wane because of one of the factors mentioned before, we have to keep our own sexuality alive in healthy ways. We have to carry the torch. Keep the home fires burning so we have hot coals ready to reignite the fire in our spouse.

If you live long enough and are married long enough, you will each have a turn at being the spouse with the higher libido. Delighted Husband has certainly had his turn as the higher drive spouse. So have I. Keep your own heart alive. Invite your spouse to rejoin the party.

As I write, I am thinking of my friends who have shared their stories with me. Husbands and wives whose hearts are filled with sorrow and pain because their spouse has rejected them sexually on a long term basis. My love for my friends and my awareness of the reality of their pain makes me afraid to say anything on the topic for fear that the positive tone of my post will come across as glib or dismissive. I don't want to disrespect anyone or their pain.

I will say this. When my beloved was going through a tremendous time of stress from crushing external circumstances that caused his libido to flicker and wane, keeping my own pilot light lit by rehearsing sweet memories in my mind, remaining aware of my own pleasure, pursuing my husband and seductively drawing him back into the warm erotic playground of our bond is one of the most godly things I have ever done.

Awakening Song