Unraveling Metamorphosis

Book excerpt: Shalamaine Reicher is a comely girl from the other sides of the tracks. Luck favored her with a rescue by a compassionate woman from the streets who cleaned her up and fostered her. They created a phony genealogy to acquire legitimate identification so the girl could be enrolled in school, giggling over the ease of the process, and settled on the name Shalamaine Reicher – as good or as bad as any she could have chosen from the repertoire of her mother’s lovers (clients) – and now Celeste is her official aunt. After graduating college and earning a master’s degree, she got a job in journalism at the local newspaper, a profession for which she found a passion and bettering herself in the newspaper business. But she was sorely disillusioned (left for dead) by a brutal rape and beating by her “peers.” She was still a party favor! Picking herself up again, she relocated to survive, “butching” up her image being tall and strong, diminishing her feminine attributes, and concentrating on her mental skills and ability in journalism. But a man, her new boss, offers friendship, affection … and deep down she still wants to believe, even trust, until her carefully manufactured metamorphosis starts unraveling.