"To Live is to Dance, Despite Storm Clouds A-Rumbling"

Society's forces of oppression build as William and Julia face devastating tests of their relationship while they work to solve a crime. This story takes place amidst the backdrop of the evils and hardships of racism as experienced through the minstrels of the early 1900s. It takes us with the couple as they journey to learn that to be alive is to be true to your nature, and that it is the same with true love, for true love is to love another FOR their nature, not despite of it, come what may. You are invited to come along as we see whether William's suspect can help them to grasp that the real treasure in life is to come to revel in being who you are, to take joy in being loved for who you are if you are that fortunate, and to cherish loving another for who they are if granted the chance… and that THIS is what is most precious in all of life?

It was the night of big affair, of the big to-do dinner being held by the Chair of the Surgery Department of her University. Being the only woman on the faculty, Julia wondered to herself whether William would find himself oddly one of the 'wives' pulled off to the side, bored with the detailed medical talk of herself and the other professors. She had left the morgue early to come home and dress for the event. Now, she found herself standing in front of her closet full of gowns, primped and ready for the outer shell, feeling gorgeous and sexy in merely her corset and stockings. Her eyes settled, made their subconscious choice… And her heart thumped as she said it to herself in her mind in a sultry whisper, "The black one."

Oh, she was most surely tempted to put on THAT dress, the one that made him soupy in the brain, and so lusciously soared him in the groin. The one that made him jealous. The one that might get his attention, might bring him back to her.

She felt it at first as a frown, a frown above the threat of tears, and she decided not. No… It would not be that one. But, my God, it hit her so hard in that moment, she missed him, she missed him so. Could it be that she had done the one thing they could not heal from?

She reached to stroke at the tender skin at the suprasternal notch of her neck. She would wear the rainbow necklace, she knew it then, the one he had adhered to their bedroom wall where the sunlight sparkled and glowed through the blinds at morning's first light each day, each day of the hardest times, when she had been lost in the darkness of having had miscarried their unborn child. He had placed it there for her to see, when she was ready, that even through the darkest of storms there could be hope. She chose a newer dress, one that also showed off her figure, but did so with enough elegance to escape scandal.

The front door sounded downstairs, followed by the gleeful pitter-pattering of children's feet rushing to leap into their father's arms. She could see the joyful scene in her mind, in her memory, and it made her smile and her heart warm with a glow that could soothe the world. The moment dissipated as she heard herself sigh, and the burn of tears again threatened behind her eyes. "He's home a bit late," she thought to herself as she tried to find something to attach to in the immediate world, something else to distract her from the hurt she felt looming with the threat it could drop her. She realized, with the simple, fact-based thought, that she had been worried, worried that he was punishing her still, that he was not going to go, that he might not come home at all. And now aware of her own unconscious fear, she had an explanation for why she felt so knee-weakeningly relieved to hear him arrive, to hear him greet their beautiful children down in the foyer, and then to straightaway head up the stairs, to softly open their bedroom door, and now to see him standing there before her.

William's eyes darkened and widened, in a delightfully notable way, as he took in the sight of his wife, her shapely form, her beauty, in her evening dress. Her supple and ample curves, her pink and cream skin, her big, pale-blue eyes, such breathtaking magnetism, such that sometimes it struck him like a lightning bolt, had drawn his attention, and so he had missed it – the rainbow crystals that revealed her deepest wishes to be close with him again, hinting from above her cleavage.

Fleeting, however, was his aroused and wanting look, for he remembered what it was that he had to tell her, and his heart bumped with a heavy sinking. He took a deep breath and said it plain, "I'm not planning on going, Julia."

Disappointed, her mouth tightened sourly. Unfortunately it was unavoidable, the bitterness that sounded in her tone as she answered him, "I must admit, I had thought better of you." And with that, Julia poked her chin up high into the air, and she turned on her heal, and she headed for the door.

William's head spun and dizzied with a wallop of sudden panic. His voice sounded from behind her as she marched away, his words a bit rushed in an effort to save, to correct, to minimize the damage done. "Julia…" he paused her heart in her chest, he caught her, "I will go."

Her motion stopped, and from behind he watched her breathe and re-steady herself. She turned back to him, smiled, and then approached. Close to him, close enough to set off a physical reaction, a tingling and a warmth that was both familiar and exciting, she stopped. A swallow first, a shy glance, "Thank you, William," she said.

"Shall I wear a particular suit?" he asked her, pushing the lure to temptation away, taking to the matter at hand in its stead. Clarifying he added, "Is there one you'd prefer?"

The dryness in his tone had betrayed to her that her seductions had moved him, and in knowing it, her insides stirred in that delicious way that both melted and surged her at the same time.

"I think perhaps the brown one – it will go well with my dress…" she replied, her mood tantalizingly erotic as she wiggled, sultry, at him, and tucked her pink cheek down towards her creamy bare and sumptuous shoulder, and she added, "And the warm chocolate color does something so delightful with your eyes, detective."

He huffed, annoyed at her flirtation while things were so strained between them, his disapproving look checking her. She had gone too far.

"Sorry," she quickly conceded.

You see, William had discovered that Julia had been risking teaching certain things, certain illegal things, in her University classes. He learned of this when he found her research on her desk. She had been conducting a secret study on a new method to safely block pregnancy by implanting a copper device inside the womb, to stop fertilized eggs from adhering to the uterine lining – an idea that had been stimulated by her thoughts about the scarring in her own womb from her own near-fatal abortion all those years ago, and its resulting, (nearly – it had turned out to their mutual joy), in her sterility. Upon confronting her about it, he learned that there was even more. Julia had taught her University students how to perform tubal ligations, thus permanently stopping women who secretly requested the procedure from being able to bear children. And worst of all, astoundingly terrifying to him, she had been teaching her students how to perform safe abortions. All of this had been going on behind his back. Shocked, furious, betrayed to find that she would risk so much, that she had already risked so much, now he battled with the distasteful feeling that he could not trust her, as she furied, indignant, that he was trying to control her, just like Darcy had done. And as a result, they were at a stalemate, wholly and thoroughly stuck, stuck apart, and they had been so for over a week.