I’m finishing up part two of Flesh Pets. For those of you who are in the preview club, you’ll be getting a parcel in the mail containing four pounds of words.

The last section will be the shortest, and the strangest, as the full effect of my main character’s actions will begin to populate the book. I can’t wait.

Here’s a section from near the end of part two, in which the main character is shot outside of the state capitol building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by a man of deep, deep convictions…

The bullet went through my upper chest and shattered a glass door behind me. I remember turning around and thinking, holy shit, someone just fell through that door! The capitol steps were infested with journalists and legislators, occluding my view of the glass. Every one behind me seemed just as bewildered by the crashing noise and craned their necks to see the door. When I turned back towards the street, I noticed two security officers chasing after a man, and I began to feel more perplexed. I thought it odd that security would chase after a man who just fell through a door.

Then the man turned and fired towards the officers. A news director by the name of Murphy Townsend, who was standing next to his van conversing with someone on his mobile phone, went down like a bundle of marshmallows, his phone never leaving his ear.

“That man is hurt,” I said to Peter, taking a step forward. The security detailed fired back at the shooter, popping rounds into his bullet-proof vest and knocking him flat on his back.

I took another step towards the fallen news man, and noticed a tickle in my leg, the kind you might associate with a pinched nerve or loss of equilibrium. I lowered myself onto one knee, suddenly aware that it was difficult to breathe. I felt as if someone had slipped his hand under my skin and was squeezing my lung. I suspected another breakdown was imminent, until I touched my wet shirt.

I pulled my hand away and noted the clichéd bloody hand. ‘Really?’ I asked myself, just before my other knee dropped. I listed for a moment and then rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky. A puddle of blood choked me, so I hacked it up, spraying it up so that it rained down on me. Peter was instantly hovering over me, supporting my head in his hands.

“Help me get him to the car, now!” He yelled, a cloud perfectly framing his head like a poof of bushy hair. I smiled and tried to point to it. His face blurred in different directions, like a demon, and I heard other voices coming in over me.

“No, we’re not going to fucking wait!” Peter shouted. “We need to get him to a hospital immediately!”

Several hands slipped under my arms and legs, easing me up into the air. The capitol loomed over me like a menacing, phallic needle. It seemed to be falling towards me.

My friend Stephan unveiled his new site yesterday at http://sbritt.com. Design-wise, I think it’s top notch and perfect for the artistic content he provides.

I helped him build it over the past few weeks. He sent me folders with all of the pages meticulously mocked up and then each image section sliced and ready to go. This is a real treat, as mostly I don’t receive such precise direction from my usual clients.

In the process of putting the site together, I had to learn a little more about WordPress. I used both hand-built and WordPress pages to power the site. In hindsight, I probably could have used WordPress for everything, but it would have been a clunky affair, especially for the pages with multiple subpages of image thumbnails.

My initial plan did not include WordPress at all. I would simply code the HTML, CSS, and provide a mechanism for Stephan to display his thumbnails and images. I made folders for each section of Stephan’s site, and he uploaded his images into them. Then, I used PHP to scan the folders and display the thumbnails accordingly.

After doing this, I realized that we needed a backend for Stephan to enter the text for non-image pages and manage his news section, and I knew that WordPress would get us there faster than me building something myself.

While I was working on that, Stephan asked for the ability to put unique captions on his images, so I created a database and built a backend for it directly in WordPress. This method is nice, but it is prone to being wiped out by upgrading versions. What I did is not really plugin-worthy, as it’s totally unique to this particular site, and I would have to build many, many options into the plugin to make it useful. For, now, I need to re-upload the backend pages I added after an upgrade and tweak the navigation. At some point, I’ll figure out a way to handle this in the future.

Check out Stephan’s site, leave him a comment if you like what you see. He’s amassed a truly staggering collection of brilliant art.

I spent the weekend at a cabin in Humboldt County with friends Ivan and Jeremy. We cut down trees, did some target shootin‘, hiked through poison oak and drank whiskey. Pretty darn nice.

Ivan played some songs while up there, some with his shirt on. This one is a tune by Lefty Frizzell called I Never Go Around Mirrors.

I’m still plugging away at the book, and put down another six or so pages today. I just finished a chapter dealing with my main character’s first sexual encounter. He’s a bit of a nerd, or a sociopath, or both, and he’s in his 30s when he finally is deflowered. The scene is intended to be both awkward and touching with a constant undercurrent of “what the hell?”

Here’s a couple of bits from the chapter (put the kids to bed if you’re going to read aloud):

She unclasped her bra and slid her shoulders out of it. Her back still to me, she flung the undergarment over her shoulder. It landed on my head, the cups draped over my ears like a set of vintage headphones.

Turning her face towards me, she giggled at the sight. I smiled, and shook the bra off.

She stepped backwards until she was a foot away, and continued her slow dance. Putting both of her thumbs under the band of her underwear, she slid them over her buttocks and slowly down her slender legs. My face was less than six inches from her backside, which she wiggled for my benefit.

She stepped out of her underwear, splitting her legs open slightly to do it. Any deficiencies I had hitherto experienced gave way to a giant rush, a flood of blood into my member. I leaned forward and planted my face firmly in between her buttocks.

She let out a little yelp followed by laughter.

“Okay,” she said. “I see where this is going.”

She turned around and let me see her front. Her thin frame, slightly flat breasts and muscular legs gave her a boyish appearance, but this did not deter me. For some magical reason, seeing her exposed vagina up close gave me a boost of sexual vigor, and I felt that nothing would stop me from releasing within it.

Taking a step back again, she resumed her dance and encouraged me to rise and join her. I did, stripping off my clothes clumsily as I approached.

Standing across from her, I felt a surge of adrenaline, a singular need to enter, to consume. I wanted to take her in my hand and spread her over my body like lotion, until she melted into my skin.

“I need to be inside you,” I said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Right now.”

“Wow,” she said, taking me into her hand again. “I guess you would be ready, after all that time.”

I grabbed her and pulled her toward me. My sudden and firm grip impressed her, as she let out a slight squeal. I kissed her harshly, leaving my eyes open slightly, for fear of a vision’s rough entrance. She, too, had her eyes slightly open, which caused us both to smile.

“I’m going to toss you on that bed and make love to you,” I reported, our lips still smashed together.

“I hope so,” she answered, causing our teeth to momentarily connect.

I’d like to say that accessing her was easy, but it was not. I pushed too hard at first, not hard enough later. While this is to be expected from a virgin attempting to take command over an experienced partner, I felt no awkwardness during the act, only the deep need to make her my receptacle.

Summer tomatoes make living in 100 degree days bearable, sort of.