Jeff Gelb & Michael Garrett [eds.] - Deadly After Dark

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Jeff Gelb & Michael Garrett [eds.] - Deadly After Dark (Hot Blood #4) (Pocket, 1994)

Forrest J. Ackerman - Gothica/Erotica, or, Of Sex and Horror
Michael Garrett & Jeff Gelb - Introduction

Lucy Taylor - Things of Which We Do Not Speak
Edward Lee - Mr. Torso
Sidney Williams - Give It To Me, Baby
Graham Watkins - A Moment of Ecstasy
Michael Garrett - Immaterial Girl
Jeff Gelb - The Last Client
Max Allan Collins - Reincarnal
A. R. Morlan - Yet Another Poisoned Apple for the Fairy Princess
Edo van Belkom - Sex Starved
Jack Ketchum - The Rose
Steve Rasnic Tem - Release of Flesh
Bentley Little - The Numbers Game
Claudia O'Keefe - Heretical Visions
Graham Masterton - Suffer Kate

The Contributors

Blurb:

Foreword by Forrest J. Ackerman.
Editor of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND

TERROR BEYOND THE LAST TABOO
Jack Ketchum...Edward Lee....Bentley Little... Graham Masterton...Lucy Taylor. . .Claudia O'Keefe...Max Allan Collins...Graham Watkins... and Sidney Williams are just some of your guides into that dark, hot nether-ground where the erotic and the horrific meet. Here are stories from a region just beyond the fearful yet familiar haunts of vampire and succubus. a territory no farther away than our favourite bars, our private bedrooms, and. of course, the most eerie and erogenous zone of all — the moist. secret preserves of our own all-too-human minds.

Let mad desire take you into a macabre harem deep inside the American heartland...make love to a woman who'll become anything you want, and then make you pay... marvel at a man who‘s starved for sex, more than he can ever know... join a wife-swapping party where the promise is ecstasy and blood seals the barter... if you're ready... and you know you are.

Lucy Taylor - Things of Which We Do Not Speak: Sombre case history of Matthew, physically abused by his oh-so-pious, child-molesting father in childhood. Elaine's demand that he hit her during sex, plunges him deep into crisis. Grim choice of opener.

Michael Garrett - Immaterial Girl: A lonesome guy with a pitifully unfulfilled sex life is picked up by a Plain Jane in a bar who claims she can transform into the girl of his fantasies. Focus hard on the honey in question and she'll take on her exact physical resemblance. Turns out she's telling the truth, but his wild night with Madonna circa the Erotica album proves a crushing disappointment, and worse, chameleon girl now demands he hand over $500 or receive a visit from her heavy. How to get out of this in one piece? And then he thinks of his unrequited love, Sylvia ...

Sidney Williams - Give It To Me, Baby: Sad story of lonesome office worker Joey Brenner who falls in love with the girl who takes his calls on the phone sex line. Joey believes he's confiding in 'Randi Rhine,' the Marauder magazine centrefold model but in truth his sympathetic listener is Denise Wayne, kicked out by her Pa and forced to quit college when she fell pregnant. When 'Randi' confesses to being someone other than he thinks she is, a heartbroken Joey sends her something to remember him by.

Jeff Gelb - The Last Client: Recently left home for Southern California and finding modelling work hard to come by, Karen McDonnell, 18, is persuaded by friend Lynn to become a call girl. Lynn introduces her to her pimp, Isla Skinner, a former topless dancer turned proprietor of the Happy Times Escort Service. A year into the job, Karen has resolved to quit while she's ahead. Isla recommends a generous last client, Dan Tierney, a man of "unique sexual proclivities." That it's obvious where this one is heading makes it no less entertaining.

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Edward Lee - Mr. Torso: Lud, 61, has hit on a lucrative cottage industry - baby farming for desperate rich folk who can't have kids of their own. To this end, over recent years he has abducted sixteen hookers from the Bonfire truck stop to serve as brood mares once they've been modified for purpose. Police chief Tipps, who hates everyone and everything, is particularly pissed at finding severed limbs and torso's dumped over his district and resolves to track down the sick bastard responsible. Hilariously horrible twisted kicks.

Edo van Belkom - Sex Starved : Rosie will only sleep with husband-of-convenience Marvin Sullivan if he first loses 150lb of excess blubber, because: "you look more like a pig than a man." The promise of a sex life is encouragement indeed. Marv attempts to shed the flab in record time.

Graham Watkins - A Moment of Ecstasy: It's Karl and Marina's first experience of a swinger's club get-together. Ray Pender, salivating at the prospect of a crack at Marina, assures the horny newcomers he and wife Carol are up for anything and everything. They take him at his word.

Mr. Torso and Give it to me, Baby are early personal best-of-book contenders. Haven't disliked anything so far.

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A. R. Morlan - Yet Another Poisoned Apple for the Fairy Princess : You know where you stand with the Wicked Witch. It's the Fairy Princess is the real sadistic ball-buster. Bob is the laughing stock of the tennis club on account of he's the only member not to have had sex with Jeanette, his wife. Now he seeks an accomplice to help him be rid of her for good.

Graham Masterton - Suffer Kate: Jamie Ford, a slave to autoerotic asphyxiation since childhood, teams up with college sweetheart, Laurel, to turn his dangerous kick into a career. Every week they perform before an avid audience of ghouls at the Golden Horses, each hoping this will be the night he chokes for keeps.

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Max Allan Collins - Reincarnal: San Diego, May 1959. Jimmy McRae treats prom date Patsy Ann Meeker to a night out at the Bobby Darin concert. Understandably, Bobby refuses to play Mack The Knife - it would be in very poor taste with a sick slasher on the loose - but otherwise Mr.Heartthrob is wonderful as Patsy dreamed he'd be. After the show, Jimmy parks his '56 Chevy on the local Lovers Lane. This is it! The night they circled as the one they go all the way! Except - Patsy's period has arrived a week early. Groan. The poor lad will have to settle for a hand job. As Patsy gets into it, a fist reaches through the window, plunges a knife through Jimmy's heart.

Patsy Ann and Jimmy are 'Mack the Knife's ninth and tenth victims. He or she is never caught.

Cut to present day Chicago where another pantie-thieving, equal opportunities killer is at large. Meanwhile at the University, Will Wyman, psychology professor, is experimenting with hypnosis and regression therapy. Top student Nora Chaney is particular receptive to the technique, so much so that she relives the final grisly moments of Patsy Ann's short life. Nora-Patsy also gets a good look at the killer, distinguishing features; a disgusting leer and mismatched eyes - one brown, the other blue.

Nora suffers premonitions in which she witnesses the Chicago Ripper carving up an air stewardess. He and the gloating monster who signed himself 'Mack the Knife' are one and the same fiend ...

Jack Ketchum - The Rose: He abducted her four years ago. These days he frees her to keep the house clean while he's at work. Nights he keeps her bound in a box beneath his bed. Now she longer has no thought of escaping, he takes her out to the tattoo parlour, to be inked with a rose on her back and nipple pierced to remind her she's his property. Another trippy ending. Didn't get much from this one, tbh. Suffer Kate and the suspenseful Reincarnal join Mr. Torso and Give It to Me, Baby on recommended list.

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Bentley Little - The Numbers Game: Glickman the mad mathematician avenges himself on the Agency by infecting the computer network with a string of numbers. Those who read the sequence succumb to an uncontrollable wanking frenzy. Numerology as weapon of mass incapacitation. Even hardcore self abusers may flinch at following Mr. Cooper's lead and plugging themselves into the USB port ...

Steve Rasnic Tem - Release of Flesh: Way over my head. A John who pays not to achieve orgasm, and a prostitute who never spends what she earns, and desires above all else to be worn. Not for first time, it requires a keener mind than mine to figure what SRT is getting at.

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Got a whole lot of these (although not 2&3 yet oddly) and have been picking my way through. Encountered the Ed Lee one before and it holds up well.

Only duffers for me are the Steve Tem (it’s well written but a little obscure for me) and the Jeff Gelb (incredible set up but I just feel it could have ended much more horribly with fewer pages)

I also felt that the Williams story could have had a stronger (read: more horrific and miserable) ending but it’s hard to quibble with such a good story.

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Rounding it out with


Heretical Visions - Claudia O’Keefe

The tale of young Seattle marrieds Jack and Eveline, and the ecstatic, religious visions Evie has when Jack brings her to orgasm. As the marriage progresses and the romance seems to dry up—or perhaps curdle, under suspected infidelity—the visions first vanish and then reappear in odd and perverted casts.

This is good for the first half, sensitive and intelligent and somewhat, yes, erotic. But it increasingly disappears up its own ass, before ending in the sort of gory denouement which often masquerades as “narrative closure”. Still and all, it’s well written.