Would You Keep Reading?

Years ago I started a murder mystery and wrote 25 chapters. This was the first chapter. I found it the other day while working on the another story that I want to write. I had promised you that I wanted to share something with you so here it is. I totally re-wrote it and I think I like the other first chapter better. My question to you is if you picked up a book and this was the first chapter would you continue to read it or toss it aside. Honesty is what I am looking for in your comments. I promise you will not hurt my feelings or keep me from writing. I let a girlfriend do that to me after I sent the whole 25 chapters to her and her reply plus Wayne leaving kept me from continuing with this story. Do I continue now are trash it?

Adults only should continue

Chapter 1  

She lay helplessly beneath him as he continued to squeeze the life from her. His large hands felt good wrapped around her throat. He found it amusing how her brown eyes grew larger and darker the harder he squeezed her. He could feel how warm and sweaty her body was up against his.

He regretted that the fun was almost over because he liked the way she had fought him. At one moment she had almost succeeded in giving him a swift hard kick in the balls.

Now the only sign of life were her eyes reeling with hate and fear as she grasped for another breath.

He was listening for her last breath….when suddenly he was awaken by a loud voice calling out his name.

It was the voice that keeps his mother reaching for her pills every morning. The pills that help her get through the daily routines expected of a preacher’s wife. His mother believes only three people know about her pills. Herself, good ole Doc. Burdick and Jay Kettler, the pharmacist.

The voice that caused his sister Tabitha to runaway to Dallas on a Greyhound Bus two years ago this month. Calling home eight months later to tell their mother about her new grandchild.

The same voice that causes the old pane windows in the Twin Oaks Baptist Church to rattle every Wednesday and Sunday during worship service.

The loud voice that he has grown to hate over the past seventeen years.

Like most Sunday mornings the voice made him wish he had either stopped after the first six pack of Bud or never quit drinking at all.

He laid there, listening to the voice preaching to his mother about how the sinners of the world were still sleeping at this hour on the Sabbath. He knows this sermon and many others by heart.

No doubt this is the same sermon; Faye Jones has had to endure since she and his dad were joined together in Holy Matrimony over twenty years ago.
The thought of his dad and mother being joined together in any way made him feel like he was going to loose his last nights supper. Supper was the usual on Saturday nights, a burger basket down at the Dairy Queen with a local girl, Sarah Roberts. She was his steady date on weekends and just thinking about her made him feel if he moved that very moment he would barf. He found almost everything about the Roberts girl objectionable. Sarah and her family were members of the Twin Oaks Baptist Church and every Sunday without fail would drop their weekly tithe into the offering plate and nothing made his dad smile more than a plate that runneth over.

As long as he can remember his dad had talked about the Roberts family coming from Old money and that Norman, Sarah’s dad, never worked a day in his sorry life. Dating her met with his dad’s approval therefore he rationalized if spending a few hours with her on Saturday nights eliminated one sermon in his life then so be it.

He usually tired of Sarah easily and after taking her home, he would spend the rest of the night drinking with his buddies, Melvin Rogers and Tommy Oliver. Melvin and Tommy have been his close buddies since they fought over the little weevil wobble people in the church nursery.

Melvin’s old man, Johnny Rogers, deserted his family when Melvin was only five leaving his mother, Shirley, to raise him and two sisters alone. His other buddy Tommy wishes some days that his dad would hit the same road that Melvin’s dad had taken twelve years ago.

Saturday nights were about the same in Leona as most small Texas towns. The old saying that the sidewalks rolled up at sundown held especially true in this little East Texas town, population 499 on most days. The local Dairy Queen parking lot, on Main Street , was where you will find the local teenagers most nights of the week. Like this Saturday night the streets of Leona are really a sleep because most of the teenagers have all driven thirty miles to Huntsville .
This East Texas town is home to Sam Houston State College which of course means a party town for the surrounding local teenagers. Especially for the females since Huntsville also is the home for the Texas Criminal System where thousands of young men seek jobs in Criminal Justice.

Except for catching a movie or going bowling, he and his buddies had given up on Huntsville a long time ago, too much competition to suit them. They preferred hanging out and getting drunk, at Tommy’s old mans fishing camp located about five miles out of Leona on FM 630 near the best fishing hole in the county. Last night was no exception and he had managed somehow to drive home and sneak into his room without waking up his old man.

His old man was awake now and hollering for him to be dressed and downstairs in ten minutes. He could hear the boards in the hall way creak and knew that his old man was now coming to his room to check on him.

Lifting his head from the pillow reminded him of his pounding headache and his dry fuzzy mouth. Lucky for him, that he managed to reach his bathroom door at the same moment he heard his bedroom door open.

A long hot shower is what he needed along with a few aspirins that he found on the bottom shelf of his small but handy medicine cabinet. While swallowing the aspirin he stepped into the steamy shower and let the hot water run down the sides of his throbbing head and realized that his hair actually hurt. My God how many beers did he and his buddies drink last night.

Reaching for one of the blue towels hanging near the tub, he lost his balance but somehow managed to keep from falling. He pulled himself back up and managed to grab the nearest towel.

While drying himself off he was muttering, “Why in the hell do you suppose he insist I sit and listen to him preach every sermon when it’s as obvious as a Herd of Bird Dogs flying over that these sermons are directed at sinners.”
Like most guys his age he knew the biggest sin he ever committed was in the back seat of the family car trying to get a handful of Judy Marshall’s big breast. But hell all the guys in Leona , Texas were getting more than just a handful of Judy’s breast. He did not see any of them knocking the doors down to the Twin Oaks Baptist Church .

Brushing his teeth the voice he hated almost as much as his dad’s voice was back again. Whispering to him the voice said, “What about the crazy dreams you have been having time after time? I bet that ole man of yours would give you more than one of his sermons, if he knew about your dreams. Why only dream of bad things that you can do? Isn’t it about time to give the ole man something to really preach about?”

Why not he thought while pulling up his pants! He figured even if he started sinning today, he could never make up for the 1,768 sermons he has set through the last 17 years.

He then realized buttoning his pants that he had suddenly gotten a woody on just thinking about the ways he could sin.

YES, it was time, he heard himself saying out loud.

Just at the same moment the church bells began to ring.



If your interested I will post the other chapter that I wrote just recently thinking maybe it should be the first chapter and not this one.

Have a wonderful weekend

Love to all

Maggie

Please know that I have two different copy rights to my post so please do not copy. Thanks