Okay, gang. Today my post is really short because it’s my day to work on Thug Luckless and I don’t want to get too distracted.

Guess what?? During the night, the hydrangea next to my kitchen porch finally bloomed!!  I took this photo just as the sun was coming up, around 6am.

It’s a gorgeous day here in Crazeysburg, but it is supposed to get really hot again, so I’ve already done the treadmill for today. And I’m planning to just sit here at my desk and work on the new novel and hope that the heat doesn’t get unbearable by midday.

As the title of this post implies, I’m going to post my first excerpt from Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town.

Even though it’s a philosophical novel, it is also going to be hardcore erotic. This excerpt is not sexually explicit, though. I just like the way it flows.

For readers new to the blog: the title character, Thug Luckless, is an abandoned sexbot, alone in the post-apocalyptic city of P-Town. (And it’s not Provincetown, Rhode Island — it’s called P-Town for a different reason.) The novel is told from Thug’s POV. His owner, Mavis, dies unexpectedly from an aneurysm while in the middle of having sex with Thug, and no one in the town knows how to turn him off. So he wanders the town; is always  “willing & able” to have sex with anyone who approaches him,  but he becomes increasingly less willing as time goes on and he gradually develops self-awareness.  However, he is still not able to stop having sex, even though he wants to, because nobody can turn him off. (The premise is Pinocchio-esque in certain ways.)

All righty. The excerpt is followed by some of my treadmill music from today!! I was listening to Nocturama (2003), by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and the song is “Bring It On.”

Okay, gang. Enjoy your Sunday!! Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.

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Excerpt from Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town.  (Approx. 1  & 1/2 pages)

Taken from Part One: Mavis Says Goodbye
© 2020 Marilyn Jaye Lewis

In the truck, it was unnerving – packed in that crate. I couldn’t move. And it was dark. Darker than anything I could remember since getting the eyes. Plus, there was stuff all over me. Tiny little flecks of it. Even though I had the clothes on, I could still feel it.

When the lid was pried open – finally – there she was. Mavis. My angel with a crowbar. She’d come to my rescue, like I’d hoped somebody would. She was kind. She smiled a lot – starting from the very moment that she said “hello, you” and took me out of the crate.

And she was really smart. Right away, she got rid of that remote. There was none of that zapping me from across the room. Those times in the factory, during the tests – I always felt invaded.

Whenever Mavis needed me to do something specific, she came up close to me and put her hands right on me, gently feeling for the buttons. Her fingers – that was something really comforting. It felt nice when Mavis touched me.

I miss Mavis.

*     *     *

“There used to be stars up there,” Mavis said, sitting up. “Do you know what stars are?”

It was my first time having a conversation. The images came slowly. I waited for the picture to come into the front of my head – to the screen – and then I focused on it: Stars. Shining gaseous lights in the heavens. Seen as distant diamonds in a black night sky.

Although not in P-Town. You could no longer see stars in the skies of P-Town.

“Yes,” I told her, sitting up, too. “I know what stars are.”

She handed me my cigarette. Out of politeness to her, it was never lit. She had trouble with her lungs. Because of the accident.

I stuck the cigarette in the corner of my mouth. It stayed there unlit while we had our conversation.

“Before the accident at the plant,” she continued, “the sky was full of stars. I was married then. Well, I should say that my husband was still alive then. We used to come up here some nights and make love. Under the stars.”

“Make love,” I said. I waited for the image to come, and then I focused: Fucking. What she and I had just been doing. That’s all that came. “There’s some confusion,” I told her. “Make love is not coming up.”

“What we were just doing,” she explained. “Making love is what you and I were just doing.”

“Fucking,” I said. “Fucking is to make love?”

She shrugged her naked shoulders. “Yes,” she said. “With us, it is. Remember that, okay?”

“Okay.” I felt the word fucking being erased, and in its place: Make love.

“Are you cold?” she asked. “Do you want to get dressed and go back inside?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Are we cold?”

She stood up and I watched her pull her dress back on. “I think so,” she said. “Let me help you.”

Up there on the roof, Mavis dressed me. I watched her, learning her movements. Committing them to my inner screen. I watched her fingers button the front of my shirt. Then I looked into her face. She was the very same height as I was. I could see directly into her eyes. On the screen inside of my head there were flowers; fields and fields of flowers. “Pretty,” I said.

Mavis smiled. She took the cigarette out of my mouth for a moment and then kissed me.

“You’re pretty, too,” she said. “Now, let’s go back downstairs.”

“We’re cold?” I asked.

“Yes, honey.” She linked my arm with hers. “We’re cold.”

© 2020 Marilyn Jaye Lewis
Excerpt from Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town

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“Bring It On”

This garden that I built for you
That you sit in now and yearn
I will never leave it, dear
I could not bear to return
And find it all untended
With the trees all bended low
This garden is our home, dear
And I got nowhere else to go

So bring it on
Bring it on
Every little tear
Bring it on
Every useless fear
Bring it on
All your shattered dreams
And I’ll scatter them into the sea
Into the sea

The geraniums on your window sill
The carnations, dear, and the daffodil
Well, they’re ordinary flowers
But they long for the light of your touch
And of your trembling will
Ah, you’re trembling still
And I am trembling too
To be perfectly honest I don’t know
Quite what else to do

So bring it on
Bring it on
Every neglected dream
Bring it on
Every little scheme
Bring it on
Every little fear
And I’ll make them disappear

So bring it on, bring it on
Bring it on
Every little thing
Bring it on
Every tiny fear
Bring it on
Every shattered dream
And I’ll scatter them into the sea

© 2003 Nick Cave