First Page Friday: Alive on the Inside

[valarltd]

Alive On The Inside
by Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks
ISBN-13: 978-1-60272-614-7 (Electronic)
ISBN-13: 978-1-60272-817-2 (Paperback)
AVAILABLE DECEMBER 06, 2009!

Nick Harper has a nice life, a nice job, and a nice girl. Until Labor Day Weekend, when the Phantasmagoria Traveling Wonder Show comes to town.

Seduced by the dark and wickedly erotic charms of both the Phantasmagoria and Torturo, a man known in the freak sideshow as The Pain King, Nick embarks on a journey of self-discovery, love, and pain.

But the show is not what it seems. It changes those who come with it in ways they can never imagine, not even in their worst nightmares.

And Nick's changes are just beginning...



Genres: Gay / Erotic Horror / Dark Fantasy / BDSM / Contains Some Secondary Heterosexual (M/F) And Lesbian (F/F) Content
Heat Level: 3
Advisory: This book contains graphic violence, hardcore bondage and punishment, torture and blood play. May not be suitable for the more sensitive reader.
Length: Extended Novel (79k words / TBD paperback pages)



Prologue
Hitchcock, Oklahoma
August 12, 1925

Jacob Plum settled the outhouse over the new hole. There. Perfect. Mama wouldn’t complain at all. She’d been after him to dig a new one for a week now.

“Move the backhouse every three years,” he could hear her saying just that morning as he’d finished washing the dishes. Mama didn’t get up much anymore. She didn’t walk too well after the last baby had slid out of her much too early, a raw-looking thing not able to live. She’d almost bled to death.

So these days, Jacob handled the cooking and washing up and what little housecleaning got done. He was the only child, too big by far to have been born of the petite woman. None of the next babies had lived to draw breath. And the doctor said another would kill Mama.

He sat down in the shade of the big cottonwood tree and ate a peach, letting the light breeze cool him off. He tossed the pit in the old privy hole, knowing it would grow very fast. The whole back yard was a peach orchard now, with eight trees. He had just planted the ninth. That, too, was perfect, three lines of three.

His life had always been threes. Mother, father, and son. Work, eat, and pray. Home, church, and school. Apples, peaches, and pears. Cows, chickens, and pigs. Peas, beans, and corn. Nothing ever changed and everything came in threes.

He got up and shoveled the dirt from the new hole into the old one. He took one last glance down the hole as he tossed the first shovelful in. Damned waste of a good pair of overalls, he thought as the dirt rattled down on his father’s body.

When the hole was full, he went to the barn. The pitchfork needed cleaning, too. He washed it out in the creek up in the pasture and thrust it into the ground. Dirt and hay soaked up the old man’s blood.

Jacob just prayed he hadn’t gotten much on him. Daddy had been making him stand in for his mama since she got sick and Jacob had finally gotten big enough to fix the problem. He went to the pump to wash before supper, making sure to get his back and the blood from his shirt before it set.

He walked back to the house, his afternoon’s work complete, whistling “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” in honor of his sixteenth birthday.

Comments

[romankate.livejournal.com]

This sounds *fantastic*. Go you!

(I just started reading the other, btw. And I'm to the nipple ring. Mmmm. It is enjoyable. The whole thing, I mean. *grin*)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is an odd little period touch. I presumed that Sarah's mother would have them (they were a fad in the Victorian era) and thus give them to Sarah. And Sarah just spread the love a little, so to speak.

[celestinenox]

That's a fantastic cover.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I like it. I was hoping for a more "circusy" font on the title, but Naomi talked me around this one.