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SUMMARY: This is an introduction for Anna from the first Chapter of "Betrayed By God." The confusion for the reader is probably high, but it is also confusing for poor Anna, and especially for Emmanuel Nixon who experiences his Anna-ness through dreams.

Emmanuel dreams. He is walking through a house that has no walls. It looks like a Greek temple - or possibly Egyptian - with its imposing pillars of white stone supporting a coffered stone ceiling. The floors are polished marble. He can almost see himself in them.

He has damned dainty feet. They wear white shoes that match the rest of him. Thank god (Goddess? he wonders) the uniform has pants. He's a woman again, a revelation that even makes his dream-self confused and uncomfortable. This whole place is disturbing in a way he has a hard time naming. Everything is too polished. It is too courtly. What is expected of him is too much of what a princess should be and he is not much of a princess.

He finds himself running, flitting over the polished tiles in poorly treaded slippers.
Somehow he keeps to his feet as he hurries from wide room to wide room looking for her.

He does not know who she is. There is only the faintest vision of his ebony lover: her tinkling coiled hair, her wide white eyes, breasts so perfectly weighted, and skin so soft. She shines. The whole of her shines in silver. She is laughing, calling. "Come away with me, Princess!" And he wants to go - not just to escape this prison of linen and stairs - he would follow her anywhere He would die for her!

"Manny, wake up!" The voice is Clarisse's. "What're you dreaming about that plasters that foolish look on your face?"

He springs into reality with a pang of guilt over the infidelity. Clarisse is a beautiful woman. She is his wife, the mother of his children. He has no need for any woman other than her. It was just a dream. Maybe she was the woman he was looking for, anyway. But no, she was not, and he should be ashamed of himself that the lust for that dream woman still lingers.

He gets up from his recliner without a response to her question and stumbles toward the bathroom, rubbing thoughtfully on the back of his neck. It is mid afternoon and he meant to get up on the roof early so he could finish the gutters before sundown. He will have to get done what he can and finish the rest tomorrow after church.

He nearly trips over Ashley's extended legs. She is sprawled half off the low, cushioned bench across from his chair in the family room. At first he can only see her as a shadow below the golden glow of sunlight that fills the room. She is not trying to be annoying. Her eyes are closed. Her head bobs to the tinny faint music of her mp3 player. In a jumble of foreign words, she sings tunelessly to the barely heard lyrics.

It should be just nonsense. It normally is - the child's taste in music is appalling – but this time he recognizes something in the words. The faint song is almost familiar.

Her eyes flash open while he is leaning down to her, squinting against the sun's reflection in the glass behind her. She must not have known he got up, because her eyes widen in fright. "What is that?" he asks.

She gets over her shock quickly enough to reassert her teenage sarcastic persona. "Music," she says with a tone that says she is certain she is the only intelligent person in the room.

He ignores the jab, and her brother's snort from the other end of the bench.