Nightmare Magazine - Horror or Pedo-Porn?

Nightmare Magazine, a pro-paying market that also podcasts a story with each issue. Site can be found here:
Nightmare Magazine - Horror Dark Fantasy

I've listened to their free content long enough to feel a sense of guilty over not supporting them, so recently I bought a subscription to Nightmare. Anyway, fate being an eternal trickster, the first story I received with my new subscription is titled "Things of Which We Do Not Speak" by Lucy Taylor.

Anxious to find what treasures await I tore through the story only to discover I was neither horrified, nor satisfied by the tale. I really don't get this particular brand of 'horror' and question whether it's actually horror at all. The story is free, please give it a read and don't let my assessment of it taint your own interpretation.

- *Spoilers* -

So . . . if I understand this story correctly, guy gets repeato flaccid-cock because his woman wants to be hit, and because as a child he caught his dad getting sucked off by a teenage football player, and for this discovery his dad made him ask to be hit while he beat him. Fast forward to the resolution of the story, the guy hires random street thugs to take him to a crackhouse and hit him.

That's horror?
In what sense?
What was the danger the protagonist faced? What was the threat? What was supposed to scare us?

I'm really lost on this one. Yet clearly the story was good enough to get published in a prestigious pro magazine. So my question is this - Is my definition of horror simply too narrow, or was this story *not* horror?


EDIT - Direct story link Things of Which We Do Not Speak - Nightmare Magazine

It appears Taylor's fiction gravitated towards the "psychological" and "extreme" horror niches; this particular piece reminds me of what I've read by Chuck Palahniuk, whom I'm no fan of.

Her bio also mentions that she's won plenty of awards prior to this publication; and, given that she's "established" and that fiction is a market-driven industry, it's no surprise that they published this tale regardless of the quality. Stephen King's work (always a "literary equivalent to a Big Mac and fries", in King's own words, but even the die-hards tend to agree that the quality dropped significantly since the accident) continues to be published and reprinted because he sells. If only Harlan Ellison were still that lucky.

The Taylor story in Nightmare doesn't suit my tastes, but it still fits as horror in those aforementioned veins. I dislike the Flash Gordon and Star Wars franchises, but my personal tastes do not dictate whether something is or is not x genre-mould; just an example I did not enjoy, or of generally por quality. This kind of thinking is what occasionally annoys be about some people in the black metal scene, in which artists to emerge after Varg's imprisonment (or, being more generous, the emergence of Emperor, Carpathian Forest or Gorgoroth; or even in some cases not Nazis) no matter how fresh their sound, isn't "kvlt" enough.

Fenris Technique said:

Direct story link Things of Which We Do Not Speak - Nightmare Magazine

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Lucy Taylor said:

My penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake.

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Lucy Taylor said:

I loved her passion and her energy and the way she craved sex like some kind of cock-junkie,

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Lucy Taylor said:

She was wet when I pushed inside her.

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Lucy Taylor said:

My erection was diminishing like a Popsicle thrust toward a flame.

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Lucy Taylor said:

The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.

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Lucy Taylor said:

The urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis simply vanished, and with it went my hard-on.

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Lucy Taylor said:

My dick stiffened in remembrance of that place I once thought I’d escaped forever, my childhood.

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Justin Isis said:

Fenris Technique said:

Direct story link Things of Which We Do Not Speak - Nightmare Magazine

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

My penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

I loved her passion and her energy and the way she craved sex like some kind of cock-junkie,

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

She was wet when I pushed inside her.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

My erection was diminishing like a Popsicle thrust toward a flame.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

The urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis simply vanished, and with it went my hard-on.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

My dick stiffened in remembrance of that place I once thought I’d escaped forever, my childhood.

Click to expand...

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Still better sex than Morrissey could write.

Thanks Justin . . . not even a trigger warning, eh?
(j/k)

Alright, well I guess I'm just not familiar enough with this flavor of "psychological" and "extreme" horror. I equate those descriptors with titles like The Shining, Ghost Story, or House of Leaves. Tales featuring a slow and relentless buildup of disquiet and unease, the ever-increasing drumbeat of an impending but unknown danger, etc.

No disrespect to the author who is both accomplished and talented. I just wasn't sure how the story qualified as 'horror', as it appears no one actually faced any particular threat. Seemed more like psycho-drama or some related genre.

It's possible her resumè bullets were simply too good for Nightmare to pass up. Yet I've seen John Joseph Adams release some quality work from relatively unknown folks, so I'm reluctant to assume that he was name-dropping for sales in this case. Hope springs eternal and whatnot.

I'll just have to accept that this particular tale was too advanced for my primitive tastes to appreciate.

Justin Isis said:

Lucy Taylor said:

The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.

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Scalding means burning hot, particularly a burn resulting from some kind of heated liquid, but...a burning hot icepick? Presumably an icepick inserted rectally, however "unprecedented," would produce a piercing rather than scalding pain? I'm wondering whether Taylor or anyone she was acquainted with went to experimental proctological lengths to determine whether the sensation produced by this form of insertion is closer to that of burning rather than the imagined ripping, tearing or piercing?

Justin Isis said:

Fenris Technique said:

Direct story link Things of Which We Do Not Speak - Nightmare Magazine

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

My penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

I loved her passion and her energy and the way she craved sex like some kind of cock-junkie,

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

She was wet when I pushed inside her.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

My erection was diminishing like a Popsicle thrust toward a flame.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

The urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis simply vanished, and with it went my hard-on.

Click to expand...

Lucy Taylor said:

My dick stiffened in remembrance of that place I once thought I’d escaped forever, my childhood.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Bahahahahaha, I read all that with Mr Garrison's voice in minds ear:

Out on the balcony, when Reginald kissed Diana lips, her knees went weak. Slowly, he pulled her top down exposing her soft, unyielding breasts.
"Oh, yeah! . . . Now this is getting good!"
Just the sight of those breasts made Reginald's penis very hard. His penis was of considerable size, and now beads of sweat ran slowly down his penis, making it glisten like a strong swimmer, fresh from out of the pool.
It was a fantastic penis that seemed as strong as a horse's leg, yet as delicate as a flower wrapped in silk.
What a grand, grand penis!
Diana's nipples . . . "Uh, let's see! . . . Diana's nipples . . . OH, WRITER'S BLOCK! WRITER'S BLOCK! Hm! CRAP! I'm stuck! Oh, well! Maybe that's enough writing for tonight, Mr. Hat!"

– Herbert Garrison, The Valley of Penises

You bastards have got me reading this now.

'Dad looks at me, but doesn’t disengage. It’s as if the head is growing out of my father’s crotch, a gross and bloated cancer complete with jug ears, sprouting from his genitals.'

Beautiful.

Let's try importing parts of it into classic horror and see what happens...

'My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of several—I don't know how many—legs or arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body. The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.'

The man did not speak, and bore no trace of expression on his small, regular features. He merely pointed to a book of prodigious size which lay open on the table, while the beldame thrust a huge grey quill into Gilman's right hand. Over everything was a pall of intensely maddening fear, and the climax was reached when the furry thing ran up the dreamer's clothing to his shoulders and then down his left arm, finally biting him sharply in the wrist just below his cuff. The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding. As the blood spurted from this wound Gilman lapsed into a faint.

My penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake.
"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these lines -- "O God! O Divine Father! -- shall these things be undeviatingly so? -- shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and parcel in Thee? Who -- who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
The urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis simply vanished, and with it went my hard-on.

etc.

In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming of an unprecedented icepick up the ass.

Call me Ishmael.

Some years ago, my penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake. The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.

I finished it. I'm as baffled as the OP. I enjoy plenty of stuff people on here consider shlocky and have an unconventional definition of horror fiction. I expected to play devil's avocado here and champion this work as an unconventional take on the genre, but I just don't see how a guy having a moderately kinky sexuality is enough to define a story as horror. It seems super prudish. Oh wow, this guy likes being hurt. Horrifying, if this were the 1740s.

I have always been too timid to submit my stories anywhere. That story has made me more confident in myself, at least. Things of Which We Do Not Speak is an amusing title considering every deviant sexual thought is fully detailed in an unintentionally hilarious matter of fact manner.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and my pecker wished it, too. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto craved sex like some kind of cock-junkie. But some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of erections diminishing like a Popsicle thrust toward a flame, and of our frightful penis slithering out of her like a clubbed snake, that we shall either go mad from the urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis, or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of my dick, stiffened in remembrance of that place I once thought I’d escaped forever."

-- H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of My Hard-On"

OMG. I haven't laughed this hard in ages. This entire thread should be ported over to the 'What Makes You Laugh' thread. I have a feeling this story is about to become infamous.

Prince James Zaleski said:

I just don't see how a guy having a moderately kinky sexuality is enough to define a story as horror. It seems super prudish. Oh wow, this guy likes being hurt. Horrifying, if this were the 1740s.

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I'm not reading this story and I'm not interested in this type of horror but I think a lot of fetishes like this are pretty terrifying. For a lot of people it can be deeply unpleasant to live with and spoils their desires and relationships. But of course some people find it more manageable and fun.

I don't know if this belongs to horror, but its style is similar to erotic fiction on literotica. This style usually has a combination of: weird animal metaphors, casual atmosphere, kinky revelation, technical and French words to contrast (like "detumescence" and "ménage à trois" in this story) bland characters, repetitions of 'Beast' or 'Big' or in this case 'Hit me!', and color descriptions of whiteness, blackness, or yellowness.

This part blow reminds me of a Stalin's joke. Also, the protagonist should have switched to become a sadist instead .

She bucked beneath me. Our bellies slapped together, sang of sex. She moaned, “I can’t . . . come . . . if you don’t . . .”
“Then don’t ####ing come.”
“Damn you. Do it!”
“No.”

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That is not flaccid which can eternal rise,
And with strange ice picks even dicks may galvanize.

This thread alone has justified the cost of the Nightmare subscription.

And now for an interlude.
https://youtu.be/_Wy2bqJZGmM

nil