Tess was tired and feeling nauseous. Back in the apartment, she made herself a cup of peppermint tea and stood sipping it by the dining room table. Raul was already head deep in the Yellow Pages scribbling a new set of telephone numbers and addresses of abortion doctors.

Resolved to tell Raul her thoughts, Tess began again, slowly, cautiously, “Raul… what makes you think that it’s okay to force me to have an abortion against my will? I have rights, you know!”

Before Tess could utter another syllable, she barely saw Raul take a few giant steps toward her. His fist landed squarely in her eye. She saw flashes of bright lights, not quite the stars that people compare being punched in the eye looks like. She was screaming for him to stop and he hit her with a one-two punch combination in and about her head. She started walking backwards into the living room attempting to escape the fury of punches. Tess tripped and fell, landing hard on her back. He kicked her in the shin, then in the stomach. Her loud cries stopped him from abusing her further.

Tess lay wounded, weeping like an injured animal. Raul reached down and grabbed her onto her feet. “Go clean yourself up!” he ordered.

If Tess was afraid of him before, she was terrified of him now. As she walked slowly past the large mirror in the dining room, she was astonished at her reflection. Her left eye was already turning colors and there was red where there should have been white. Her bottom lip was busted and blood was dripping onto her blouse. Every part of her body hurt. She wondered if her baby was all right.

“No, get away from me! Pleeease!! Don’t hurt me, Raul! Stop it! Oh, God stop it!” Tess was screaming, crying, and fighting in her sleep. This was, by far, the worst of the nightmares. She sat straight up in bed and cradled her pillow. She held it tightly to her body as if it were a pregnant woman’s protruded belly. Seeing her baby boy several hours earlier made her realize that she had made the correct, yet difficult, decision not to allow Raul to force her to give up her baby.

Tess was not able to go back to sleep. Tortured, she felt drained and exhausted. The series of nightmarish dreams was her reality. She had lived through some rough moments in her life. Men, the people that she considered her protectors, had been anything but.
Excerpt from Chapter 42: I No Longer Color My hair Release Date: October 19, 2009 See profile page for ordering details.