Anon [ed.] - Mysterious Erotic Tales

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Anon [ed.] - Mysterious Erotic Tales (Michael O'Mara, 1997)

Delphin Enjolras

Ruth Rendell - An Outside Interest
Andy Harrison - Collette’s Column
Robert Bloch - The Undead
J. K. Haderack - Elvara Should Be Easy
Philip Robinson - Angel
Patricia Highsmith - The Birds Poised to Fly
Alick Newman - Old Times
Frank Finch - Plucked
Bram Stoker - The Secret of the Growing Gold
Sidney Gray - Catherine Would
Elizabeth Kay - What Might Have Been
Edgar Allan Poe - Berenice
Lynn Wood - The Plain Brown Envelope

Blurb:
Classic erotic writing is all about suspense. The journey not the arrival matters. Here is a gripping collection of erotic stories by great writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker, as well as modern masters such as Ruth Rendell, Patricia Highsmith and Robert Bloch. Several of the stories have been specially commissioned for Mysterious Erotic Tales.
Poe's chilling story 'Berenice' is the tale of cousins whose passionate love is destroyed by a terrible disease. Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, tells in the story 'The Secret of the Growing Gold' of thwarted love and deadly revenge from beyond the grave.
Robert Bloch is one of America's best known writers of horror stories and novels including the legendary Psycho. His story 'The Undead' is a horrifying tale of a modern-day Dracula. Another major writer of suspense is Ruth Rendell and her story 'An Outside Interest' is a frightening tale of malicious mischief that ends in disaster.
Fear, sensuality and the unseen world which lurks just beyond 'real life' combine in the stories gathered in this volume to create an erotic feast. Be warned! This book will disturb, excite and arouse.

Includes;

"I hadn't done her any harm. Think of the relief she must have felt when she knew she'd got away from me and was safe. Think of her going home and telling her mother or her sister or her husband all about it.
You could even say I'd done her a good turn. Most likely I'd warned her off going out in the forest on her own and therefore protected her from some real pervert or molester of women.
It was a point of view, wasn't it? You could make me out a public benefactor. I showed them what could happen. I was like the small electric shock that teaches a child not to play with the wires. Or that's what I believed. Till I learned that even a small shock can kill."

Ruth Rendell - An Outside Interest: (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, 27 Jan. 1982, as "The Man Who Frightened Women"). A middle-aged, happily married father takes to stalking lone women in Queens Wood, Highgate and Epping Forest, perfecting a scary face for the occasion. All good, harmless fun, until this latest victim flags down a motorist.

Lawrence The Secret of the Growing Gold, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Aug. 1946

Bram Stoker - The Secret of the Growing Gold: (Black & White, 23 Jan. 1892) "I am here, Wykham Delandre, for no love of you, but because I hate another even more than I do you!"

When Margaret Delandre moved in with handsome, wealthy Geoffrey Brent at his country residence, her furious brother, Wyndham, disowned her for bringing disgrace upon the family, swearing bloody retribution on his lordship for corrupting an innocent. The lovers, however, are ill-matched, and their brief, troubled relationship ends in tragedy, when Margaret falls out of their carriage and over a precipice while holidaying in Switzerland. The bereaved partner wastes no time in taking a very beautiful and charming Italian wife. Shortly after the wedding, the scarred and broken ghost of Margaret calls upon her detested brother, whose assistance she demands in visiting vengeance upon — her murderer! Wykham is more interested in his sister's marital status; won't she please, for the love of God, confirm that she'd wed Brent before living under his roof!

"So you would like to know! It would please your pride to feel that your sister was truly married! Well, you shall not know. That was my revenge on you, and I do not mean to change it by a hair's breadth."

And she doesn't. What Margaret does is unbind her distinctive golden tresses to torment the killer to madness - and his innocent bride to miscarriage - before a final night of creeping horror!

Certainly enjoyed the story much more now than on first acquaintance, though, unless I'm missing something, it doesn't hold together so well. Are we supposed to consider Margaret a phantom some of the time, a sentient zombie the rest, otherwise why, how and what could Brent possibly have found to bury beneath a slab?

J. K. Haderak [Joseph Delaney] - Elvara Should be Easy: "Those who created me could have made me impervious to pain but it was considered that my authentic response to client-initiated stimuli would enhance client pleasure ... .. a lot will depend on what life does to you in future. Most men start out like you. Then they get hurt. When they get hurt, they hurt back, Some end up by hating women. So they come here to hurt me. Perhaps my pain saves someone pain in the outer world." By far the most popular attraction at the Slime World Theme Park, Elvara, the Electonic Succubus, a virtual fantasy girl who exists only to satisfy the customer's every depraved desire. Bart, a virgin, realises she is ideal interview material for his exam paper on The Socio-sexual dynamics of Man-Machine Interactions. Elvara agrees, provided he do something for her in return. His mentor, Professor Kurt Brownski, advises caution.


Liked all three, An Outside Interest in particular.