Michael Gouker's Blog, page 7
August 1, 2018
Nothing for the Follicles
Liddell Gibson looks up from the job application he studies and flashes a grin to Jazz, the man seated across the cafeteria table. Jazz returns it with serenity, and Liddell notes his concrete jaw, wide brow, and hint of stubble the same hue as his long Viking gold locks. They were about the same age, but Gibson had ten years of fast food service experience, six years as a manager.“You studied creative writing in college,” Liddell says. “I don’t see any fast food in your work experience. In fact, I don’t see much work experience at all.”Jazz stretches his long arms. The plastic round seat is too small, his knees almost graze the underside of the table, but he looks almost comically comfortable.“If I’m hired by Big Brown Burgers, I promise to show up on time, be respectful, and listen to you and my coworkers. I want to help Big Brown Burgers succeed and promise to dedicate myself to achieving that glorious success. I have many talents—”“Wait. Wait. You know it’s just a fry cook job?”“Well, my girlfriend says I make the best fries she’s ever tasted. I roll them in truffle oil and sprinkle them with freshly-grated parmesan.”Gibson sighs and turns the application over. Jazz’s references are the proprietors of Garden of Eden, a nudist camp outside town. He lets the form drop.“Can you work a register?”“I am confident I can learn to operate such machines. My real asset is my tongue: I can inspire my coworkers to outstanding performances with my words.”“Jeez, Mister, I just need a fry cook. If you work out, you’ll move to the grill and assembly line. Maybe I’ll give you a chance on the drive-through window. You just listen and input the customer’s order, grab the drinks…”Gibson notices Jazz’s attention had wavered to the children in the playground. Or maybe he was watching the mothers.“I can also tell jokes,” he said. “Did you know J.D. Salinger wrote a book about fast food?”Gibson blinks.“Ketchup on the Fries,” Jazz says. “I know poetry too.” He clears his throat and straightens. “Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream—”“Wait. Stop. Stop it right there.” Gibson’s eyes search the restaurant for a candid camera. His failure to spot one offers scant reassurance, so he asks, “Why are you really here?”“I really need a job.”Gibson sighs again.“Look, I like you…”—He searches the application for a name—“Jazz, but I can’t hire you. You would never be happy as a fry cook. I’ll keep your application on file and if something comes up where I need a comedian or poet, I’ll call you.”“Give me a chance. Please.”“Buddy, I’m doing this for your own good. Go get a job that suits you.” He reaches into his pocket and produces a five-dollar rewards coupon. “If you’re hungry, you can grab a burger and fries—no truffle oil or parmesan, sorry—on the way out.”“I don’t actually eat burgers. I’m vegetarian.”Liddell’s hand slows half-way across the table. Jazz seizes it in his slippery palm and gives a firm squeeze before releasing.“I’m sorry,” Liddell says and turns his back. Jazz sits a moment in the glow of the fluorescent tubes before gathering his briefcase, removing his jacket, and trudging off into the Ohio fall.
When winter returns, I know I’m going to crack. No one takes care of me anymore, and I’m falling to pieces, getting looser by the day, and even now my joints are strained by the heavy weight of a man. He must be cracking too, for he pounds me with his fist, and why would anyone want to hurt me?“You are a failure,” he says.He is right. All I ever offer is temporary support. I would give more if I were allowed, but the police chase the hobos from the park at dusk. Such an excuse sounds hollow though. When you serve, you must judge your success by supporters’ satisfaction. If people really loved me, I wouldn’t be falling apart.“You have a college degree and can’t even get hired by Big Brown Burgers.”His phone vibrates against me in his back pocket. It is unpleasant, and he doesn’t answer it until the fourth time.“Oh, hey, babe. How’s work?” His voice is level now, masked by nonchalance. “Well, yes, I sure have had a productive day. It turns out that drug store isn’t hiring cashiers, but I gave suggestions for greeting card messages. They’re sending them on, and if they use them, it’s just like a publishing credit.”There is a pregnant pause.“Big Brown Burgers? The boss said I was overqualified but something right might come up.”He leans hard against my back planks. I creak beneath his force, but the danger feels good, as if breaking may release some of my anxiety.“I am trying.”He is pushing harder. God, this feels good. Let it just happen already.“I know you need security.”One of my bolts pushes against the ragged splinters of its orifice, pressing hard against me, a connection I have missed. I am yielding so slowly. I want to capitulate, to give myself up unilaterally, without constraints.“You know I want to have a baby too, Free. I want to be a father. Just… don’t worry, okay? Everything will be fine. I promise.”He eases up, relaxing, and my glorious tension recedes. I swoon in disappointment.“I love you too,” he says, and a moment later shoves the phone back in his pocket.“You are a fucking failure,” he says, and the phone buzzes again. This time he answers it right away, but he hesitates before speaking.“Look, I never borrowed any money—”There is a long pause.“Oh, I see. I do apologize. I made an assumption, but at least I’m not a coroner.” He gave a peculiar laugh. “I mean, nobody was buried alive.”He begins tapping my wood in a constant rhythm. It relaxes me, zen-fashion.“An interview? Today? Do you mean right now?”He straightens, and I groan and creak beneath his mass.“I’ll be there, and please may I add my thanks for your consideration. Once you hire me, I will help Hardship Collections prosper and—Yes. Yes. I’ll be right there.”After he departs, I almost levitate, basking in the ecstasy of my accomplishment. I have always yearned to experience personal epiphanies but maybe the quotidians things I do matter more. I hope he remembers what I did for him once I crack.
Free, a tall healthy young woman sits naked at her computer. She removes a thermometer from her lips and adds a new record in her spreadsheet labeled, “My Fertility Cycle.” There are different columns for date, time, weight, temperature, and cervical mucus quality. A final column has the verdict: Day 19. She prints the spreadsheet and pins it on the wall beside a dozen others with a thumbtack.Heavy feet step on the wood planks outside. She presses her lips together and stands, tossing her long waves of hair across her shoulders. A moment later the porch shower begins. Naturalists, she and Jazz almost never don clothing at home. Street dirt stays outside with society’s misguided morality.She longs for him, to enter their shower and lather up his gold locks, to brush his back, or perhaps tease him, but Day 19’s weight is heavy on her. She is six years older than he is, and her biological clock ticks so loudly she cannot escape its pulse.Instead, she sits in Sukhasana, her shins crossed and knees widened, eyes closed, and recites a mantra. When he enters, she tightens her eyes, resisting the impulse to abandon her position, but her intention defies her peace, so she gains nothing but frustration. When she opens her eyes, she is miserable, especially when she sees Jazz beaming.“I’ve done calculations,” she says. “Like most women, I was born with between one and two million potential eggs. Do you know how many of my ovarian follicles remain?”“No, but I know a biochemist who can tell me: My girlfriend! Such a beautiful and warm-hearted human being too. All these years you have supported me while I’ve studied. I’m so grateful.”He reaches for her, but she pushes him away.“What’s wrong?” he says.“Probably fewer than a hundred thousand.”“That’s still three times the population of Kent.”“I’m losing a thousand a month, though, and it will get worse.”“Still, Free, you have plenty.”He reaches for her again.“No. I think we need to talk, Jazz. We need to talk about our future.”Jazz’s smile disappears.“I love you, Jazz,” she says. “And I love what we’ve had together, but… But I need a father for my children, someone I can rely on.” She swallows. “We can still be friends.”“Friends?”“I don’t mind if you can stay here for a while. There’s plenty of room.”“Oh, good. Maybe I can watch the conception. Do you have a father in mind yet?”Her eyes narrow, and she crosses her arms.“I thought you believed in me,” he says. “I thought you believed in my craft. You always tell me you love my poems and stories. Everyone does. Now, I’m not good enough to be your baby’s father?”“No,” she says. “You aren’t going to make me feel guilty. I’ve supported you—”“And I’ve been grateful. Didn’t I just say so? Hell, I do a lot around here. This place doesn’t clean itself. Dinner doesn’t cook itself. And I’ve been looking for a goddamn job every day for weeks. Dammit, Free. I thought we had something special, something eternal. I thought you were my soul partner.”“Jazz, it’s bigger than we are. It’s biology. I am programmed to reproduce. It’s in my nature, and… And I can’t wait for you to grow up. I’ve been patient, but it’s been months since you’ve finished graduate school, and you still don’t have a job. That’s not normal.”“That’s where you’re wrong.”“It’s not normal. Almost all my friends are working.”“Well, so am I, Free. I got a job today at a collection agency. Fifteen dollars an hour, forty hours a week to hound deadbeats into paying off their loans. How about that?”She leaps to her feet, suddenly all smiles.“Really? That’s not too bad at all. I’m overjoyed, Jazz. I am!”Jazz wipes away sudden tears.“Oh, yeah. Benefits in three months after probation and a raise to eighteen per hour, but they say I can get off the switchboard and become an account manager with a fixed forty K salary in a year. Is that good enough to make your babies?”Her eyes meet his across their emotional gulf.“If not,” he says, “How much more do I need?”They both cry a few minutes. After, he stands and exits the room. She lights a joint, using a copper spittoon as an ashtray. The sounds of hasty packing punctuate her sobs. Jazz emerges a moment later dressed, carrying a duffel bag.“You’ve given me so much, Free, but I also have needs,” he says. “I need someone who believes in me, someone who doesn’t just shower me with false praise but works with me to succeed.”“You’re leaving me?”“It’s not over,” he says. “Not unless you want it to be. I just think it’s important for us to know what we’re getting into, especially if we are serious about creating a family together. It’s easier to make babies than nurture them for life with love and kindness. That takes faith in each other, Free. Belief and commitment too! I’m ready, but I’m not sure you are.”He opens the front door, steps through the shower, and drops his duffel bag on the porch with a thud. Then he leans back inside.“I don’t mind waiting for you, though,” he says and dodges the flung spittoon.She hears the joyous steps of his retreat, but her stomach cramps. Tomorrow is Day 20 and thousands more follicles will soon be condemned to horrific deaths alongside her bloody sacrifice to the moon.Tonight she would dream of them, her population three times the size of Kent. She would hear them clamor in protest, their voices accusing her of betrayal, not against Jazz but them. And she would beg, wishing for something more than consolation for her dying babies, but having nothing for them, nothing at all.
When winter returns, I know I’m going to crack. No one takes care of me anymore, and I’m falling to pieces, getting looser by the day, and even now my joints are strained by the heavy weight of a man. He must be cracking too, for he pounds me with his fist, and why would anyone want to hurt me?“You are a failure,” he says.He is right. All I ever offer is temporary support. I would give more if I were allowed, but the police chase the hobos from the park at dusk. Such an excuse sounds hollow though. When you serve, you must judge your success by supporters’ satisfaction. If people really loved me, I wouldn’t be falling apart.“You have a college degree and can’t even get hired by Big Brown Burgers.”His phone vibrates against me in his back pocket. It is unpleasant, and he doesn’t answer it until the fourth time.“Oh, hey, babe. How’s work?” His voice is level now, masked by nonchalance. “Well, yes, I sure have had a productive day. It turns out that drug store isn’t hiring cashiers, but I gave suggestions for greeting card messages. They’re sending them on, and if they use them, it’s just like a publishing credit.”There is a pregnant pause.“Big Brown Burgers? The boss said I was overqualified but something right might come up.”He leans hard against my back planks. I creak beneath his force, but the danger feels good, as if breaking may release some of my anxiety.“I am trying.”He is pushing harder. God, this feels good. Let it just happen already.“I know you need security.”One of my bolts pushes against the ragged splinters of its orifice, pressing hard against me, a connection I have missed. I am yielding so slowly. I want to capitulate, to give myself up unilaterally, without constraints.“You know I want to have a baby too, Free. I want to be a father. Just… don’t worry, okay? Everything will be fine. I promise.”He eases up, relaxing, and my glorious tension recedes. I swoon in disappointment.“I love you too,” he says, and a moment later shoves the phone back in his pocket.“You are a fucking failure,” he says, and the phone buzzes again. This time he answers it right away, but he hesitates before speaking.“Look, I never borrowed any money—”There is a long pause.“Oh, I see. I do apologize. I made an assumption, but at least I’m not a coroner.” He gave a peculiar laugh. “I mean, nobody was buried alive.”He begins tapping my wood in a constant rhythm. It relaxes me, zen-fashion.“An interview? Today? Do you mean right now?”He straightens, and I groan and creak beneath his mass.“I’ll be there, and please may I add my thanks for your consideration. Once you hire me, I will help Hardship Collections prosper and—Yes. Yes. I’ll be right there.”After he departs, I almost levitate, basking in the ecstasy of my accomplishment. I have always yearned to experience personal epiphanies but maybe the quotidians things I do matter more. I hope he remembers what I did for him once I crack.
Free, a tall healthy young woman sits naked at her computer. She removes a thermometer from her lips and adds a new record in her spreadsheet labeled, “My Fertility Cycle.” There are different columns for date, time, weight, temperature, and cervical mucus quality. A final column has the verdict: Day 19. She prints the spreadsheet and pins it on the wall beside a dozen others with a thumbtack.Heavy feet step on the wood planks outside. She presses her lips together and stands, tossing her long waves of hair across her shoulders. A moment later the porch shower begins. Naturalists, she and Jazz almost never don clothing at home. Street dirt stays outside with society’s misguided morality.She longs for him, to enter their shower and lather up his gold locks, to brush his back, or perhaps tease him, but Day 19’s weight is heavy on her. She is six years older than he is, and her biological clock ticks so loudly she cannot escape its pulse.Instead, she sits in Sukhasana, her shins crossed and knees widened, eyes closed, and recites a mantra. When he enters, she tightens her eyes, resisting the impulse to abandon her position, but her intention defies her peace, so she gains nothing but frustration. When she opens her eyes, she is miserable, especially when she sees Jazz beaming.“I’ve done calculations,” she says. “Like most women, I was born with between one and two million potential eggs. Do you know how many of my ovarian follicles remain?”“No, but I know a biochemist who can tell me: My girlfriend! Such a beautiful and warm-hearted human being too. All these years you have supported me while I’ve studied. I’m so grateful.”He reaches for her, but she pushes him away.“What’s wrong?” he says.“Probably fewer than a hundred thousand.”“That’s still three times the population of Kent.”“I’m losing a thousand a month, though, and it will get worse.”“Still, Free, you have plenty.”He reaches for her again.“No. I think we need to talk, Jazz. We need to talk about our future.”Jazz’s smile disappears.“I love you, Jazz,” she says. “And I love what we’ve had together, but… But I need a father for my children, someone I can rely on.” She swallows. “We can still be friends.”“Friends?”“I don’t mind if you can stay here for a while. There’s plenty of room.”“Oh, good. Maybe I can watch the conception. Do you have a father in mind yet?”Her eyes narrow, and she crosses her arms.“I thought you believed in me,” he says. “I thought you believed in my craft. You always tell me you love my poems and stories. Everyone does. Now, I’m not good enough to be your baby’s father?”“No,” she says. “You aren’t going to make me feel guilty. I’ve supported you—”“And I’ve been grateful. Didn’t I just say so? Hell, I do a lot around here. This place doesn’t clean itself. Dinner doesn’t cook itself. And I’ve been looking for a goddamn job every day for weeks. Dammit, Free. I thought we had something special, something eternal. I thought you were my soul partner.”“Jazz, it’s bigger than we are. It’s biology. I am programmed to reproduce. It’s in my nature, and… And I can’t wait for you to grow up. I’ve been patient, but it’s been months since you’ve finished graduate school, and you still don’t have a job. That’s not normal.”“That’s where you’re wrong.”“It’s not normal. Almost all my friends are working.”“Well, so am I, Free. I got a job today at a collection agency. Fifteen dollars an hour, forty hours a week to hound deadbeats into paying off their loans. How about that?”She leaps to her feet, suddenly all smiles.“Really? That’s not too bad at all. I’m overjoyed, Jazz. I am!”Jazz wipes away sudden tears.“Oh, yeah. Benefits in three months after probation and a raise to eighteen per hour, but they say I can get off the switchboard and become an account manager with a fixed forty K salary in a year. Is that good enough to make your babies?”Her eyes meet his across their emotional gulf.“If not,” he says, “How much more do I need?”They both cry a few minutes. After, he stands and exits the room. She lights a joint, using a copper spittoon as an ashtray. The sounds of hasty packing punctuate her sobs. Jazz emerges a moment later dressed, carrying a duffel bag.“You’ve given me so much, Free, but I also have needs,” he says. “I need someone who believes in me, someone who doesn’t just shower me with false praise but works with me to succeed.”“You’re leaving me?”“It’s not over,” he says. “Not unless you want it to be. I just think it’s important for us to know what we’re getting into, especially if we are serious about creating a family together. It’s easier to make babies than nurture them for life with love and kindness. That takes faith in each other, Free. Belief and commitment too! I’m ready, but I’m not sure you are.”He opens the front door, steps through the shower, and drops his duffel bag on the porch with a thud. Then he leans back inside.“I don’t mind waiting for you, though,” he says and dodges the flung spittoon.She hears the joyous steps of his retreat, but her stomach cramps. Tomorrow is Day 20 and thousands more follicles will soon be condemned to horrific deaths alongside her bloody sacrifice to the moon.Tonight she would dream of them, her population three times the size of Kent. She would hear them clamor in protest, their voices accusing her of betrayal, not against Jazz but them. And she would beg, wishing for something more than consolation for her dying babies, but having nothing for them, nothing at all.
July 28, 2018
July 15, 2018
Your clone wakes up in space facing your own dead clone. Now what? ;-)
Six Wakes by Mur LaffertyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A brilliant novel with so many delicious treats: mindmaps and cloning and a murder mystery with a big payoff. I loved the characters but the solution of the crime is pure gold.
What an awesome story!!!
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June 26, 2018
Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha LeeMy rating: 5 of 5 starsBril...
Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha LeeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Brilliant story. The worldbuilding of Ninefox Gambit comes to fruition here. The story also packs a killer plot twist & reveal, though there is plenty of foreshadowing of the possibility, so it's both surprising and inevitable.
One of my favorite 2017 sci-fi novels. :-)
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June 22, 2018
Ninefox Gambit - the joy of great world building!
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha LeeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Not only a good novel, this is also a window into an enormous world in conflict, and it begins in media res, with brutal and confusing warfare. At the center of the story is Kel Cheris, an infantry captain and brilliant mathematician, and Shuos Jedao, a disgraced general from half a millennium ago, who only wins. Because of his knack for victory, Jedao is resurrected by a despotic empire again and again, and each time needs a living being to which he is attached. This time it is Cheris, and it is the chance Jedao has been waiting for!
What are they fighting over? Calendrical heresy! That likely means nothing to you if you haven't read the story, but it suffices to say that a calendar is a set of rules, "fueled by the coherence of our beliefs." In other words, it's a society-wide convention and must be adhered to for the empire's technologies and governance to function.
I love the vastness of the story. The wealth of exotic peoples: Rahal (big bosses), Andan ($$$), Nirai (tech people), Vidona (judges and enforcers), Shuo (strategists), Kel (loyal warriors), and the borgs (servitors). http://www.yoonhalee.com/?p=836
It is much more than a revolution-vs-empire game, because the magic system (this is more fantasy than sci-fi despite all the theming) is pervasive and coherent, and the story follows its lead. I'm looking forward to reading the next ones. :-)
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June 12, 2018
A Great Peek Into a Very Special Fantasy World
Children of Thorns, Children of Water by Aliette de BodardMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This story, a novelette of just under 12000 words, is not only a wonderful story of loyalty and friendship but also a glance through a display window into a dark and vivid world. De Bodard's prose is excellent, especially the settings. I am excited to read more of the Dominion of the Fallen.
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May 31, 2018
A Conjuring of Light - last installment of the Shades of Magic series.
A Conjuring of Light by V.E. SchwabMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved the Shades of Magic saga. The world building was unique and made sense in the story. The characters are memorable, their positive and negative attributes. The magic system is coherent and well-matched for the world, and this author isn't afraid of love or death. Both were well portrayed.
Thank you for sharing such a remarkable story!
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#winning
It’s no wonder Mom couldn’t live with you. You always think you know everything, but you can’t learn common sense from a book.“They’re not crisis actors,” you, my younger brother, said. We sit in Mom’s living room, in the tiny house she bought after fleeing your home in Florida.I leaned forward and pounced. “Don’t you think it’s funny how they always show up after a school shooting?”Our brother Jerry nodded. He and his wife Karen, afraid of flying, came out by train from the East Coast for Mom’s 90th birthday. Mom looked apprehensive though. When she lived with you, your brown-skinned wife, and liberal children, she was always outnumbered, but this is her house, not yours. Here she can speak her mind and eat pulled pork without you rolling your eyes.You regarded me dazed. That’s your natural state. I can never tell when you’re smoking pot.“You do know they’re all different people though?” you asked with characteristic snideness.“How do you know that?” I asked. “How do you know anything about them?”“Mom,” you said, dismissing me. “Don’t you remember Stoneman Douglas competing against Wade’s marching band? They were our rivals. We met them riding coasters in Busch Gardens after their performance at States. They’re a spitting image of your grandchild.”“I always loved watching Wade march,” Mom said. This is the day after her 90thbirthday party, the one I catered. You don’t even live in Sacramento.“And you think they’re not coached?” Karen said. “You think teenagers make speeches like that? And how do journalists find them? I’ll tell you how. It’s the Fake News Media.”“Actually, the falsehoods are the claims our education system is wanting. These kids don’t even surprise me. This generation is impressive.” You crossed your arms and gave a crisp smile. “One reason I’m optimistic about our future is the wisdom of our youth.”“It’s video games,” Jerry said at the same time Karen said, “It’s the movies.”“All the violence,” they said together.“No,” you said. “The entire world watches movies and plays video games. Only one country allows you to walk into a gun shop, buy a weapon, and shoot up your high school: the USA.”“Well, nobody’s taking our guns,” my husband Bruce, watching from the hall, said. Once he tackled me on the roadside and took my keys. That’s when Mother Mary came to me, but you said she wasn’t real, even when she was right in front of me. That’s how you are, always believing you know everything, but what do you really know, you vegan hippie impostor? We protested against Vietnam. What did you protest against? Trump?“I wish they could take all your guns,” you said. “But I’d be satisfied if the government banned bump stocks, high-capacity magazines, and assault weapons like the AR-15.”“An AR-15 isn’t an assault rifle,” Bruce said. “AR means America’s Rifle.”“It’s a semi-automatic version of an M-16,” you said. “Citizens shouldn’t have military weapons.”“Why not? Law-abiding citizens should be able to have any gun they want,” Bruce said. “What if some traitor president like Hillary Clinton sends the government to seize my property?”“In that case, you wouldn’t be law-abiding,” you said. “What does this have to do with Clinton?”“You’re just mad because you voted for her,” I said to general assent.“Lock her up! Lock her up!” Bruce began, and all of us added our voices for a few rounds. Mom laughed. Before she looked unhappy with where the conversation was headed. It will take time for her to understand she is not outnumbered anymore.Incidentally, my smart-ass brother, that’s a great parallel for how it feels at a Trump rally, where we can be white without guilt and speak hard truths. But you don’t get that either. You don’t understand Trump is what the counterculture is about now. I laugh at the Fake News Media making fun of his bone spur deferment, but listen to “Alice’s Restaurant” and tell me the difference between pretending you are crazy or faking bone spurs. Guess how many of my friends wanted to fight in Vietnam: Zero.“Lock her up?” you asked. “Isn’t it more likely your guy sees the inside of a cell?”“I guess we’ll see,” I said.“I can’t wait,” you said.“Neither can I.”“Can’t we talk about something else?” Mom said. “Yesterday was my birthday.”“Even at ninety you only get one day,” you said, and right there, you lost. That’s why we take care of Mom now, because we care about her.You know it too. The room is silent but our chewing the pulled pork you so despise. This is what freedom tastes like.
April 19, 2018
Dracula Gender Tropes and Victorian Sexual Panic
Almost 2000 years ago, in AD 54, St. Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians, wherein it states (verse 11:8), “For neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” Taking this to heart, over the centuries, men took possession of their creations and liberated them from the burden of property and legal rights, in order to shelter the fairer sex from the quotidian mental toils of earthly existence.
By 1792, in Mary Wollstonecraft’s time, most women had conformed to this arrangement:
Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, everything else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives.
Minister William Jay, at a wedding in Argyle Chapel, Bath, on August 16, 1801, gave this lesson: “Nothing will increase your influence and secure your usefulness more than being in subjugation to your own husbands.” This submission and corresponding protection had a legal name, feme covert, meaning women relinquished their property and surrendered their self-determination upon marriage in exchange for their husband’s protection.
The Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, which passed Parliament fifteen years before Dracula was published, changed these rules:
A married woman shall, in accordance with the provisions of this Act, be capable of acquiring, holding, and disposing by will or otherwise, of any real or personal property as her separate property, in the same manner as if she were a feme sole, without the intervention of any trustee.
From this fertile liberal soil springs Mina Harker, a stark contrast to the typical Gothic woman. It is wrong to classify Mina as the Woman-In-Peril archetype, because though Dracula targets her, she is empowered with her typewriter and shorthand, organizing diaries and case studies. She is no damsel-in-distress by choice. Indeed, she uses her agency to foil Dracula’s assaults. When the men intend to withhold the extent of Dracula’s evil, she argues, telling them, she “had read all the papers and diaries, and that [she and Jonathan], having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order.” Arthur reacts by asking, “Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker?”, which today certainly seems condescending.
Simultaneously, though, Mina retains her traditional role as a virtuous woman and good wife. She is faithful to Jonathan when he is months tardy and holds motherly values dear. Self-sufficient enough to travel to Prague, she nurses Jonathan to health, and they marry. Later, she independently decides to read his diary and consults Van Helsing.
Later, she comforts Arthur writing, “I felt this big sorrowing man’s head resting on me, as though it were that of a baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child.” Only when Jonathan stops telling her their secrets does Dracula gain access to her chamber, but even then, she fights back. In fact, she allows Van Helsing to use her hypnotically as a window into Dracula’s mind.
If Mina is the Mother figure, Lucy, by contrast, is the Whore or Fallen Woman. The young beautiful narcissist attracts a bevy of admirers: Quincey Morris, Dr. John Seward, and Arthur. They all want to marry her, and she relishes their attention. Later, all three “strapping men” (in Van Helsing’s words) will replenish her blood before she succumbs at last to Dracula’s thirst. In the end, together with Van Helsing, these same men stake her in the grave, ending her Undead life, but not before she commits a mortal sin—Not the violation of the child’s neck, but displaying prurience in public, indeed before her husband’s friends:
Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come! (Ch. 16)
Dr. Seward describes her tone as “diabolically sweet.” Luckily Van Helsing intervenes with his “little golden crucifix,” a symbol diminished in size to show its sublime power as a conduit of the ineffable. Later, Van Helsing explains to Arthur the peril his Undead wife represents:
Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die, or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu. (Ch. 16)
The three sisters in Dracula’s castle foreshadow Lucy’s fall from grace. He feels guilt writing, afraid that Mina might someday read his words:
All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips.
In a saucy twist, Dracula would later get revenge by ravishing dear Mina’s pretty neck while she lies beside Jonathan.
Dracula also represents a Gothic sexual trope, the Vampire, its bloodlust paralleling sexual desire. Dracula is bisexual, feeding on sailors and maidens alike, as well as claiming both Jonathan and Mina. After the episode with the three sisters, Dracula berates them, saying, “This man belongs to me.” In this class, we have learned the vampire “invoke[s] horror and terror because of its power to allure and provoke one’s repressed desires” (Hasanat 2). In Dracula, Jonathan’s repressed homosexuality comes alive in his sultry description of Dracula whose “white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever” (Ch. 2). Stoker allows Jonathan to contemplate forbidden desire without ever mentioning homosexuality.
Dracula is a frustrating novel, possessing legitimate moments of well-constructed frights, but its overlong narrative often dawdles and rambles, and time has rendered much of its dialogue comical. Take the instance the men are rushing to save Mina from Dracula. They know Dracula is in her room:
Outside the Harker’s door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said, “Should we disturb her?”
“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I shall break it in.”
“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady’s room!”
Van Helsing said solemnly, “You are always right. But this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor. And even were they not they are all as one to me tonight. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove. And you too, my friends. Now!”
Even so, Dracula is a capstone of Gothic literature, and its antagonist is perhaps horror's most notorious villain. Dracula’s feeding extinguishes life, and his nourishment constitutes anti-sex, the destruction of life. Dracula is not the summit of human terror though. The Twentieth Century proved beyond doubt humans were the real monsters.
Works Cited
The Bible. The American Standard Version, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 11:8.
“Married Women's Property Act, 1882”. 1882 Act of Parliament. 45 & 46 Vict. Ch. 75.
Hasanat, Fayeza. “Lecture 2: The Gothic of the 1790s.”
Jay, William. “The Mutual Duties of Husbands and Wives; a Sermon [on 1 Pet. Iii. 1-7] Occasioned by the Marriage of R----- S-----, Esq., of M-.” Preached in Argyle Chapel, Bath, 16 Aug., 1801. Available Online.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Edited by George Stade. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1792. Project Gutenberg, Urbana, Illinois.
By 1792, in Mary Wollstonecraft’s time, most women had conformed to this arrangement:
Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, everything else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives.
Minister William Jay, at a wedding in Argyle Chapel, Bath, on August 16, 1801, gave this lesson: “Nothing will increase your influence and secure your usefulness more than being in subjugation to your own husbands.” This submission and corresponding protection had a legal name, feme covert, meaning women relinquished their property and surrendered their self-determination upon marriage in exchange for their husband’s protection.
The Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, which passed Parliament fifteen years before Dracula was published, changed these rules:
A married woman shall, in accordance with the provisions of this Act, be capable of acquiring, holding, and disposing by will or otherwise, of any real or personal property as her separate property, in the same manner as if she were a feme sole, without the intervention of any trustee.
From this fertile liberal soil springs Mina Harker, a stark contrast to the typical Gothic woman. It is wrong to classify Mina as the Woman-In-Peril archetype, because though Dracula targets her, she is empowered with her typewriter and shorthand, organizing diaries and case studies. She is no damsel-in-distress by choice. Indeed, she uses her agency to foil Dracula’s assaults. When the men intend to withhold the extent of Dracula’s evil, she argues, telling them, she “had read all the papers and diaries, and that [she and Jonathan], having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order.” Arthur reacts by asking, “Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker?”, which today certainly seems condescending.
Simultaneously, though, Mina retains her traditional role as a virtuous woman and good wife. She is faithful to Jonathan when he is months tardy and holds motherly values dear. Self-sufficient enough to travel to Prague, she nurses Jonathan to health, and they marry. Later, she independently decides to read his diary and consults Van Helsing.
Later, she comforts Arthur writing, “I felt this big sorrowing man’s head resting on me, as though it were that of a baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child.” Only when Jonathan stops telling her their secrets does Dracula gain access to her chamber, but even then, she fights back. In fact, she allows Van Helsing to use her hypnotically as a window into Dracula’s mind.
If Mina is the Mother figure, Lucy, by contrast, is the Whore or Fallen Woman. The young beautiful narcissist attracts a bevy of admirers: Quincey Morris, Dr. John Seward, and Arthur. They all want to marry her, and she relishes their attention. Later, all three “strapping men” (in Van Helsing’s words) will replenish her blood before she succumbs at last to Dracula’s thirst. In the end, together with Van Helsing, these same men stake her in the grave, ending her Undead life, but not before she commits a mortal sin—Not the violation of the child’s neck, but displaying prurience in public, indeed before her husband’s friends:
Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come! (Ch. 16)
Dr. Seward describes her tone as “diabolically sweet.” Luckily Van Helsing intervenes with his “little golden crucifix,” a symbol diminished in size to show its sublime power as a conduit of the ineffable. Later, Van Helsing explains to Arthur the peril his Undead wife represents:
Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die, or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu. (Ch. 16)
The three sisters in Dracula’s castle foreshadow Lucy’s fall from grace. He feels guilt writing, afraid that Mina might someday read his words:
All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips.
In a saucy twist, Dracula would later get revenge by ravishing dear Mina’s pretty neck while she lies beside Jonathan.
Dracula also represents a Gothic sexual trope, the Vampire, its bloodlust paralleling sexual desire. Dracula is bisexual, feeding on sailors and maidens alike, as well as claiming both Jonathan and Mina. After the episode with the three sisters, Dracula berates them, saying, “This man belongs to me.” In this class, we have learned the vampire “invoke[s] horror and terror because of its power to allure and provoke one’s repressed desires” (Hasanat 2). In Dracula, Jonathan’s repressed homosexuality comes alive in his sultry description of Dracula whose “white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever” (Ch. 2). Stoker allows Jonathan to contemplate forbidden desire without ever mentioning homosexuality.
Dracula is a frustrating novel, possessing legitimate moments of well-constructed frights, but its overlong narrative often dawdles and rambles, and time has rendered much of its dialogue comical. Take the instance the men are rushing to save Mina from Dracula. They know Dracula is in her room:
Outside the Harker’s door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said, “Should we disturb her?”
“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I shall break it in.”
“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady’s room!”
Van Helsing said solemnly, “You are always right. But this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor. And even were they not they are all as one to me tonight. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove. And you too, my friends. Now!”
Even so, Dracula is a capstone of Gothic literature, and its antagonist is perhaps horror's most notorious villain. Dracula’s feeding extinguishes life, and his nourishment constitutes anti-sex, the destruction of life. Dracula is not the summit of human terror though. The Twentieth Century proved beyond doubt humans were the real monsters.
Works Cited
The Bible. The American Standard Version, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 11:8.
“Married Women's Property Act, 1882”. 1882 Act of Parliament. 45 & 46 Vict. Ch. 75.
Hasanat, Fayeza. “Lecture 2: The Gothic of the 1790s.”
Jay, William. “The Mutual Duties of Husbands and Wives; a Sermon [on 1 Pet. Iii. 1-7] Occasioned by the Marriage of R----- S-----, Esq., of M-.” Preached in Argyle Chapel, Bath, 16 Aug., 1801. Available Online.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Edited by George Stade. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1792. Project Gutenberg, Urbana, Illinois.
April 17, 2018
"You Must Come With Me, Loving Me, To Death"--Sexual and Gender Tropes in Carmilla
From its inception, Gothic literature provided a vitrine for presentation of taboo subjects, especially forbidden love. Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, for example, tells of Manfred’s pursuit of an incestuous relationship with his ward. Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, written during the Victorian Era of adamantine sexual repression, features a steamy same-sex relationship, veiled as vampirism, between its narrator, Laura, archetype of the virtuous woman, and the alluring monster, Countess Karnstein, whose name cycles through anagrams from Mircalla to Carmilla. Even by today’s standards, the language is markedly erotic, but Le Fanu’s piquant prose surely shocked a significant share of the reading public.
Teenage Laura lives with her English father and several servants in an Austrian Schloss, a country estate. She is lonely, so lonely, in fact, we only learn her name at the end of Chapter 8 and, even then, she is not directly addressed. This is how Laura describes the isolation of their dwelling:
I have said that this is a very lonely place. Judge whether I say truth. Looking from the hall door towards the road, the forest in which our castle stands extends fifteen miles to the right, and twelve to the left.
Thus, Laura, aside from being the iconic Gothic forbidden woman, also represents the woman alone and in danger, but instead of facing peril “roaming freely outside the safe zone of a house,” Laura’s father invites Carmilla into her “safe domestic sphere” (Hasanat).
Laura is also a damsel in distress, who must wait passively while her father, the General, and their (all male) allies assemble to destroy Carmilla. Blood-drained Laura is infected by the languor (a word used seven times) Carmilla naturally experiences:
Except in these brief periods of mysterious excitement her ways were girlish; and there was always a languor about her, quite incompatible with a masculine system in a state of health.
The narrator depicts Carmilla’s “languor” as feminine. Later, Laura also describes it as “graceful”:
Carmilla was looking charmingly. Nothing could be more beautiful than her tints. Her beauty was, I think, enhanced by that graceful languor that was peculiar to her.
Carmilla’s excited behavior is described as “hysteria,” another loaded word in 1872:
Her face underwent a change that alarmed and even terrified me for a moment. It darkened, and became horribly livid; her teeth and hands were clenched, and she frowned and compressed her lips, while she stared down upon the ground at her feet, and trembled all over with a continued shudder as irrepressible as ague. All her energies seemed strained to suppress a fit, with which she was then breathlessly tugging; and at length a low convulsive cry of suffering broke from her, and gradually the hysteria subsided.
Only six years earlier, the president of the Medical Society of London, Dr. Isaac Baker-Brown, published On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females, a book linking masturbation with the natural progression from hysteria, epilepsy, insanity, to death. He recommended excision of the bothersome clitoris. Much controversy resulted, and he was expelled from the society, but not because they believed clitoridectomy was not a cure for masturbation. Youtube channel Victorians Exposed explains:
^ Her bookshelf is dreamy! :-)
Much is made of the feminine novelty of Le Fanu’s vampire character, but Carmilla was not the first teenage woman vampire. The penny dreadful, Varney the Vampire, serialized from 1847-1849, featured Clara Crofton, turned UnDead on her wedding night, who later feasts on the blood of a schoolgirl before being staked by a mob. Here is Clara’s “dreadful” end:
The blacksmith shuddered as he held the stake in an attitude to pierce the body, and even up to that moment it seemed to be a doubtful case, whether he would be able to accomplish his purpose or not; at length, when they all thought he was upon the point of abandoning his design, and casting the stake away, he thrust it with tremendous force through the body and the back of the coffin.
The eyes of the corpse opened wide -- the hands were clenched, and a shrill, piercing shriek came from the lips -- a shriek that was answered by as many as there were persons present, and then with pallid fear upon their countenances they rushed headlong from the spot.
A mobile vulgus of frightened men gathered to penetrate a helpless woman with their phallic stake, conjures the same fear of rape underlying many Gothic stories. Almost the same scene repeats in Chapter 15 of Carmilla:
The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed…In accordance with the ancient practice, was raised, and a sharp stake driven through the heart of the vampire, who uttered a piercing shriek at the moment, in all respects such as might escape from a living person in the last agony.
The two authors even describe the shriek of death as piercing, just as the thrusted, driven stake pierces, another interesting parallel.
In my opinion, what most distinguishes the novel is the lush diction Le Fanu uses to describe Laura and Carmilla’s relationship. Their first interaction, where the vampire is nurtured from Laura’s breast, subverting natural breastfeeding, occurs when the child is only six. Laura describes it so:
I saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking at me from the side of the bed. It was that of a young lady who was kneeling, with her hands under the coverlet. I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; I felt immediately delightfully soothed, and fell asleep again. I was wakened by a sensation as if two needles ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried loudly. (Chapter 1)
Later, in Chapter 4, when Carmilla shares her version of the story, she describes Laura as “a beautiful young lady, with golden hair and large blue eyes, and lips—your lips—you as you are here.” “Your looks won me,” she says matter-of-factly. Her seductive language knows no bounds. “In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine.” Her infatuation with Laura is decidedly honest. “I cannot help it,” she says. “as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love.” For Carmilla, Death is only a passage, la grande mort, and her description of being UnDead is a promise of fulfillment: “Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes.”
There are numerous lesbian readings of Carmilla, but modern readers seeking good sapphic fiction (sans vampires) have better options, among them Sarah Waters, Rita Mae Brown, Jeanette Winterson, and Nancy Garden. The gender-bending Orlando by Virginia Woolf is another must-read, in my opinion. Lesbian vampire stories are their own branch of paranormal, a hugely popular genre. Darkness Embraced, by Winter Pennington, Darkling, by Yasmine Galenorn, and The Hunger, by Whitley Strieber, are excellent novels I heartily recommend with lesbian or (at least) bisexual women vampire protagonists.
For a fan-fiction BDSM version of Carmilla, one that would never have passed the Victorian censors, seek out Catherine Rose’s, Carmilla’s Lament, essentially an erotic rewrite of Carmilla where our narrator describes “fingers stroking along swollen tender tissues that thrummed with each beat of [her] heart.” These are her thoughts in a moment of lambent contemplation:
Had I not been dreaming I would have rejected this advance but after all a dream means nothing and is gone with the morning dew. What harm could come from this strange dream?
What harm indeed?
(1318 words, 698 mine)
Works Cited
Hasanat, Fayeza. “Lecture 2: The Gothic of the 1790s”
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan. Carmilla. First published 1872. Web version: 2014 University of Adelaide, South Australia.
Prest, Thomas Preskett. Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood. 1847-1849 by E. Lloyd. London. Web version: 2011 by Project Gutenberg. p. 755
Rose, Catherine and Le Fana, Joseph Sheridan. Carmilla’s Lament. 2013 by Dark Horse Publications.
Teenage Laura lives with her English father and several servants in an Austrian Schloss, a country estate. She is lonely, so lonely, in fact, we only learn her name at the end of Chapter 8 and, even then, she is not directly addressed. This is how Laura describes the isolation of their dwelling:
I have said that this is a very lonely place. Judge whether I say truth. Looking from the hall door towards the road, the forest in which our castle stands extends fifteen miles to the right, and twelve to the left.
Thus, Laura, aside from being the iconic Gothic forbidden woman, also represents the woman alone and in danger, but instead of facing peril “roaming freely outside the safe zone of a house,” Laura’s father invites Carmilla into her “safe domestic sphere” (Hasanat).
Laura is also a damsel in distress, who must wait passively while her father, the General, and their (all male) allies assemble to destroy Carmilla. Blood-drained Laura is infected by the languor (a word used seven times) Carmilla naturally experiences:
Except in these brief periods of mysterious excitement her ways were girlish; and there was always a languor about her, quite incompatible with a masculine system in a state of health.
The narrator depicts Carmilla’s “languor” as feminine. Later, Laura also describes it as “graceful”:
Carmilla was looking charmingly. Nothing could be more beautiful than her tints. Her beauty was, I think, enhanced by that graceful languor that was peculiar to her.
Carmilla’s excited behavior is described as “hysteria,” another loaded word in 1872:
Her face underwent a change that alarmed and even terrified me for a moment. It darkened, and became horribly livid; her teeth and hands were clenched, and she frowned and compressed her lips, while she stared down upon the ground at her feet, and trembled all over with a continued shudder as irrepressible as ague. All her energies seemed strained to suppress a fit, with which she was then breathlessly tugging; and at length a low convulsive cry of suffering broke from her, and gradually the hysteria subsided.
Only six years earlier, the president of the Medical Society of London, Dr. Isaac Baker-Brown, published On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females, a book linking masturbation with the natural progression from hysteria, epilepsy, insanity, to death. He recommended excision of the bothersome clitoris. Much controversy resulted, and he was expelled from the society, but not because they believed clitoridectomy was not a cure for masturbation. Youtube channel Victorians Exposed explains:
^ Her bookshelf is dreamy! :-)
Much is made of the feminine novelty of Le Fanu’s vampire character, but Carmilla was not the first teenage woman vampire. The penny dreadful, Varney the Vampire, serialized from 1847-1849, featured Clara Crofton, turned UnDead on her wedding night, who later feasts on the blood of a schoolgirl before being staked by a mob. Here is Clara’s “dreadful” end:
The blacksmith shuddered as he held the stake in an attitude to pierce the body, and even up to that moment it seemed to be a doubtful case, whether he would be able to accomplish his purpose or not; at length, when they all thought he was upon the point of abandoning his design, and casting the stake away, he thrust it with tremendous force through the body and the back of the coffin.
The eyes of the corpse opened wide -- the hands were clenched, and a shrill, piercing shriek came from the lips -- a shriek that was answered by as many as there were persons present, and then with pallid fear upon their countenances they rushed headlong from the spot.
A mobile vulgus of frightened men gathered to penetrate a helpless woman with their phallic stake, conjures the same fear of rape underlying many Gothic stories. Almost the same scene repeats in Chapter 15 of Carmilla:
The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed…In accordance with the ancient practice, was raised, and a sharp stake driven through the heart of the vampire, who uttered a piercing shriek at the moment, in all respects such as might escape from a living person in the last agony.
The two authors even describe the shriek of death as piercing, just as the thrusted, driven stake pierces, another interesting parallel.
In my opinion, what most distinguishes the novel is the lush diction Le Fanu uses to describe Laura and Carmilla’s relationship. Their first interaction, where the vampire is nurtured from Laura’s breast, subverting natural breastfeeding, occurs when the child is only six. Laura describes it so:
I saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking at me from the side of the bed. It was that of a young lady who was kneeling, with her hands under the coverlet. I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; I felt immediately delightfully soothed, and fell asleep again. I was wakened by a sensation as if two needles ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried loudly. (Chapter 1)
Later, in Chapter 4, when Carmilla shares her version of the story, she describes Laura as “a beautiful young lady, with golden hair and large blue eyes, and lips—your lips—you as you are here.” “Your looks won me,” she says matter-of-factly. Her seductive language knows no bounds. “In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine.” Her infatuation with Laura is decidedly honest. “I cannot help it,” she says. “as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love.” For Carmilla, Death is only a passage, la grande mort, and her description of being UnDead is a promise of fulfillment: “Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes.”
There are numerous lesbian readings of Carmilla, but modern readers seeking good sapphic fiction (sans vampires) have better options, among them Sarah Waters, Rita Mae Brown, Jeanette Winterson, and Nancy Garden. The gender-bending Orlando by Virginia Woolf is another must-read, in my opinion. Lesbian vampire stories are their own branch of paranormal, a hugely popular genre. Darkness Embraced, by Winter Pennington, Darkling, by Yasmine Galenorn, and The Hunger, by Whitley Strieber, are excellent novels I heartily recommend with lesbian or (at least) bisexual women vampire protagonists.
For a fan-fiction BDSM version of Carmilla, one that would never have passed the Victorian censors, seek out Catherine Rose’s, Carmilla’s Lament, essentially an erotic rewrite of Carmilla where our narrator describes “fingers stroking along swollen tender tissues that thrummed with each beat of [her] heart.” These are her thoughts in a moment of lambent contemplation:
Had I not been dreaming I would have rejected this advance but after all a dream means nothing and is gone with the morning dew. What harm could come from this strange dream?
What harm indeed?
(1318 words, 698 mine)
Works Cited
Hasanat, Fayeza. “Lecture 2: The Gothic of the 1790s”
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan. Carmilla. First published 1872. Web version: 2014 University of Adelaide, South Australia.
Prest, Thomas Preskett. Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood. 1847-1849 by E. Lloyd. London. Web version: 2011 by Project Gutenberg. p. 755
Rose, Catherine and Le Fana, Joseph Sheridan. Carmilla’s Lament. 2013 by Dark Horse Publications.
