BDSM | Dreadful Tales

Today’s suggestion is for all of those folks who thought 50 Shades of Grey was the bee’s knees, and oh so sexy. Pssshhh. What a load of garbage.

Before I go off on a tangent and whip out some heavy BDSM references and Knotty Boys suggestions you might want to try, I want to be clear of something:

If you thought any part of the 50 Shades of Grey series were even remotely sexy and are now wading into the wide world of vanilla bondage and sissy spanking, we need to talk. And by talk, I mean really talk. There’s a serious conversation we need to have, and it’s going to be just about as awkward as whatever you think your kids felt like when you tried to tell them about the birds and the bees. Because today’s post is apparently brought to you by bees. So deal with it.

It’s sad when the world’s majority finds this bullshit fluff to be enticing, especially with pornography being so damned available these days. You’d think we’d have learned from our prudish days of yore. You know, really open up. But nooo. We didn’t.

I mean, really?
Is it so hard to tell your significant other to lay a smack down on your rump just that much harder?
To hold you by the throat and squeeze just a little bit tighter? .

No. It’s not, and I find it completely offensive that we, as a culture, can be so damned overt in our sexuality with our reading material, like reading this tripe on the subway, but it’s all blush and “No, I couldn’t possibly…” in the bedroom.

Fuck that noise. That’s a deal-breaker. And rightfully so.

Now, getting back to today’s suggestion, for all of you obviously sexually starved individuals, this shit is about to get reeeeaaaaaal.

I’ve gone on the record to name John Everson the KING of erotic horror, and I did so for a reason. He’s the best there is at capturing the emotional and physical aspects of sexuality and the act of sex not only from a literary and visual angle, but also from a deep, philosophical angle as well. Everson knows what his readers yearn, and he delivers on the desires of his readership. There’s so much more I can say about this man and his insights, but we’ll leave that for another day. Suffice it to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if novels like The 13th, Sacrifice, Covenant, Siren, and his most recent his novel, NightWhere, become cult classics in the BDSM and goth scenes like his predecessors Barker and Brite.

This is an author who can, and will, take you for an erotic thrill ride and leave your breast heaving with excitement and satisfaction.

Mark my word, all of you sex-starved grannies, if Everson’s NightWhere doesn’t get your boat a-rockin’, nothing will.

The first John Everson title I ever read was The 13^th, more than a few years ago after receiving a copy from Colum McKnight. If not for that horror lit care package I may not have discovered Everson at all and I’m certain I wouldn’t be writing this review today. I’ve devoured every subsequent release from Everson since. His palate of sex, blood, and Satanism had me hooked. He is to erotic horror what Jeff Strand is to comedic horror; a master. Everson paints gruesome imagery in his stories, often involving naked bodies writhing in viscera, but he is also a diehard romantic. Ultimately, it is love driving the plot of every Everson horror story. That’s also the case with his latest Samhain release NightWhere, but with more blood, guts, and torture than I’ve ever read in anything he’s done previously.

Mark and Rae are a happily married couple that enjoy a bit of diversity to their sex life. They frequent elicit sex clubs, swingers parties, and participate in sexual musical chairs, but Rae wants more. Mark just isn’t enough, he never has been. “He was peanut butter… but someone or something else always brought the jelly…” Still, being the understanding, and sexually curious, man that he is, Mark is willing to take their escapades further. When she catches wind of an exclusive, super secret sex club NightWhere, Rae is immediately obsessed. When they get their blood red invitation, Mark finds his wife sinking deeper into this forbidden world. How deep into NightWhere will she sink and how far will Mark be willing to go to save her?

Everson offered up bloody rituals, cult behavior, and pulsating orgies in The 13^th, but that novel is like a cute little Disney cartoon compared to NightWhere. You won’t just go to the edge of darkness and desire; you’ll be pushed over into a hell of sexual tortures. This book doesn’t have NBP (you’ll have to google that one because I can’t bring myself to type out the abbreviation), but it’s the closest to being horror lit’s A Serbian Film than anything else I’ve ever read. It’s sick and depraved, the kind of book you feel perverted reading in public. I know they don’t know what I’m reading yet I still blush.

NightWhere is an endless orgy where anything goes. This is more than imaginative erotica though; there are unbelievable sexual kinks, vaguely familiar but horrifically distorted. The reader can share the experience vicariously without concern for safety unlike our unfortunate protagonists Mark and Rae and the never-ending parade of willing victims. Everson eases the reader into it though. He starts out with the obligatory whips and chains, floggers and shackles, careful not to get too kinky too quick.

Everson makes a compelling story for how the couple got into this lifestyle so it doesn’t seem so foreign and unbelievable. If you’re like me, it may be difficult to connect with a swinging S&M couple, but Everson paints relatable characters for the most part. By the time you are beyond your comfort zone it is too late, you truly have been lured deep into the rabbit hole.

He leads us into the initiation with pulsating New Order tracks and synthy beats. This is another aspect I’ve always loved about Everson’s writing; his obsession with music. He always finds an appropriate soundtrack to accompany his novels. This dark, drony post-punk sound is a perfect fit for the gothic underground club scene, but it fades rather quickly into the echoing screams of pain and pleasure in NightWhere.

As I mentioned, Everson is really a romantic at heart. His stories are undeniably horror and deal with subversive subject matter, but it is always centered on love and the vulnerability of those who succumb to its power. Everson doesn’t wrap up his stories with pretty pink bows or anything, and he is exceedingly cruel to his characters, but there is still a sense of hope and innocence despite all that.

Some horror fiction fans might roll their eyes at the romantic elements of NightWhere, or at least Mark’s unflinching dedication to Rae even as she succumbs to the seduction of the underground world. Still, all the in between is so extreme, so perverse that I think even readers with the hardest Teflon hearts will overlook that aspect.

Longtime Everson fans can expect all the ingredients you’ve come to love in an Everson erotic horror novel amped up to 11. He goes further, deeper, darker than anything before. NightWhere is a batshit crazy, hot, wet ride into hell!

I found the perfect song to accompany this review, Angry Angles “You call it love.” I got the idea from a blog post about spicing up book reviews by Zombies Don’t Cry author Rusty Fischer. The key lyric is “Baby, when you hit me it feels so good.” I imagine this to be Rae’s theme song.

Angry Angles “You Call It Love”

You think you can handle it? Pick up your copy of NightWhere at Samhain Publishing or Amazon currently available in eBook format (paperback will be released in October).