Cthulhurotica

Carrie Cuinn INTRODUCTION

The book that you are holding in your hands started out, as so many others have, in a half-serious conversation about the future of Weird Erotica. Well, maybe not all books start by fetishizing zombies or Halloween nightmares, but many of them do find their genesis in the ideas sprouted from a group of writers indulging in a little humorous word play. Eventually one of those creative people takes a thought a little more seriously than it was intended, and a misplaced word becomes an idea — which becomes a book. Cthulhurotica was born from the same fires; when the topic of Lovecraftian erotica came up, I was immediately struck with the sense that I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the concept.

Explaining the ideas behind this book starts with acknowledging that I love Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s writing. I’ve read every one of his stories that I could find, I have collections by a couple of different publishers sitting on my bookshelf, and have gotten through a decent-sized chunk of his poetry. I have watched documentaries about his life and B-movies based on his work and have played quite a lot of Munchkin Cthulhu and Call of Cthulhu and a few other games with Lovecraftian themes. I’ve delved into the writings of his contemporaries and friends, most notably August Derleth, Robert Bloch and Robert E. Howard, and I’ve read Lord Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegãna and a few of the “King in Yellow” stories. I am not an expert but it is safe to say that I am a big fan.

What I mean is, I am a fan of the man’s work, and what it spawned. The man himself? I don’t think we’d be friends. You see, old H.P. had a well-documented disgust, an all-purpose loathing, for anyone he considered less than himself, and nearly everyone who wasn’t a white male from New England appears to be on that list. Women, people of color, homosexuals, religious people, and immigrants all inspired a variety of colorful epithets. He expressed his feelings in vividly disgusting terms, and invoked archaic insults should one of these lesser creatures happen to appear in a Lovecraftian story — or in one of his many personal letters. Much ink has been spilled on the discussion of his obvious racial fears and possible sexual ones. It has been argued simultaneously that Lovecraft was an innocent product of his time or that he was a nasty, hate-filled man. Evidence seems to support the latter, at least for Lovecraft’s early life. Why, then, do so many people admire him?

He was a brilliant writer, and a prolific one, penning fiction, poetry, and approximately two hundred personal letters to fellow writers. His literary creations are thick with obscure words and creative spellings, dripping with adjectives, and heavily embellished with description. His body of work ranges from the slightly cheesy to the truly terrifying. Whole companies have sprung up because of, and are supported by, the manifold spawn of his mind. The monsters he envisioned are alien, inhuman, and often slimy, both frightening and intriguing readers for the last 90 years. The now-labeled “Lovecraftian Universe”, also called the Arkham Cycle and the Cthulhu Mythos, brought us such memorable fictional locations as Innsmouth and Arkham, Massachusetts, both of which have gone on to appear in popular fiction (Batman’s “Arkham Asylum”, for example) along with the monsters who live there.

Lovecraft gave us subjects with such potential.

Enter Cthulhurotica.

When I read HPL’s works, even when I was swallowed up by everything that he put in, I couldn’t help noticing what he left out. Where was the romance? I asked myself. Or the love? Where were the women investigators? I’d grown up on Nancy Drew books and wondered why there wasn’t a plucky niece rummaging through the dead uncle’s desk drawers, looking for clues to the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. I looked, but couldn’t find a femme fatale anywhere. Nor could I find a college professor with a handsome live-in “friend” (as it probably would have been described at the time). When the hero sets off to a foreign land, or entertains visitors, where was the not-white but equally educated and interesting contact from another country?

Where was the secretary with the tight sweater and the heart-shaped ass?

While Lovecraft implied by omission his disdain for the things I was missing, he never completely ruled them out, instead composing a world where there was much his characters didn’t have access to. I always preferred to think that strong women and loving couples and flirting and passion and a hundred other delightful emotions existed, somewhere, in Lovecraft’s world, and we just didn’t get told that story. Which begs the question: what if these realistic, flesh and blood and sex and sweat characters did meet up with Lovecraft’s? What if the Arkham Cycle took place in a Universe where every human emotion was possible?

Much has been written about what Lovecraft put into his stories. What we needed was a book that showed off the potential in what he left out.

The idea grew and spread, multiplying over the Internet until I began to see people mentioning the concept who had no connection to me at all. I also ended up with many more submissions than I could put into the book, allowing me to pick and choose the ones I felt worked the best as part of the evolving collection. The writers whose work appears here crafted stories that immediately struck me as having a core of fear, despair, or curiosity (all Lovecraftian emotions) and each included those otherworldly elements for which the master is so well known. As I selected stories, and began to look at art, the book coalesced into something tangible.

There are a number of people that I have to thank for helping this idea along into a real book. First and foremost among them are the contributors — the writers and artists who took me seriously long enough to create the works you’ll find here. Even those I rejected, I appreciate, for taking the time to submit something to me at all. Those I accepted have my gratitude, for not only submitting work but for being so damn brilliant at the same time. While I thank each of them, there are some specific things for which I must express my appreciation:

To Galen Dara, who never shied away from a challenge, who brought all of my tentacled-dreams to life: thank you. Your art made this book something much more than what it would have been without you. You made Mythos erotica lovely. And you came back for more when I asked for help updating the book from the first edition.

I will always be grateful.

Thank you to Jennifer Brozek, for suggesting Cody Goodfellow to me (whose story, “Infernal Attractors” is exactly as good as I was hoping it would be) and for writing her own essay, “The Sexual Attraction of the Lovecraftian Universe” which appears at the back of the book. Cody said yes when I asked him to write for me, and was delightful to work with in a way you don’t always expect more established writers to be. Steven J. Scearce initially overwhelmed me with his enthusiasm, but as I got to know him I discovered that his amazing energy is funneled into his writing as well. He turned in a carefully crafted and well-researched piece that includes, I can say, the most Lovecraftian tone in the book.

Kenneth Hite is a monster of Lovecraft-based lore, and in his short essay “Cthulhu’s Polymorphous Perversity” there is enough raw information to make any reader a near-expect on Lovecraft if they take the time to read everything he references. Kirsten Brown allowed me to use two pieces of her art, and then surprised me by submitting a story of such strength I could do nothing else but use it to end the collection.

Matthew Marovich wrote the only noir submission I received, and did so in such a way that I can imagine the smell of the gunsmoke and the feel of motel sheets. Silvia Moreno-Garcia retold the King in Yellow story in a modern, gritty fashion, showing us the only obvious choice when faced with cinematic madness. Gabrielle Harbowy begins the collection with a sensuous tale of what happens when a curious sister comes visiting, and a cultist doesn’t buy sturdier locks for his basement. Galen Dara produced three different images for the book, each reflecting a different example of the relationships possible in a place where man and woman and monsters meet.

Mae Empson gives the world Greek myth for a Mythos universe, and in the process not only added to existing Mythos fiction, but showed us something new. She was also kind enough to go over the completed text for a final round of proofing. Nathan Crowder and Leon J. West both brought the creepy in a way I can’t help but admire, as long as their characters stand very, very far away from me. Dr. Justin Everett, PhD, a professor of writing and Weird fiction scholar, handled my request for an essay with great seriousness, and his writing reflects the love he has for this genre.

K.V. Taylor, in addition to giving us a story that actually makes being alone on a deserted island both terrifying and sexy, has also been (along with Madison Woods and Travis King) a great cheerleader to the rest of the contributors, and her sharp eye caught a few last-minute typos I’d missed. Travis King also carefully reviewed the advance copy of the text and was able to help me correct some important things that needed correcting, for which I am grateful. A big thank you goes out to Lillian Cohen-Moore, for reading and pointing out flaws in sentence structure and grammar, and to Richard Baron, who accepted over 600 additional words in the process of editing, and handled everything with such grace.

Don Pizarro gave me a subtly clever look at a man who loved a woman who might be a monster, but isn’t quite one, yet. He also provided hours and hours of support and conversation about theme, layout, and editing. In the process of being a sounding board for the book, he became my friend. He deserves more credit for editing Cthulhurotica than he was willing to accept at the time, but I won’t ever forget.

Between you and me, this is his book too.

Readers expecting a collection of monster sex stories might, after all, be disappointed. The characters within these pages are all quite human, though they sometimes dally with creatures who are not. This book turned out to be about the kind of people who live in a world where monster sex is possible, and it looks at how that world and those people would have to operate. Of course, it’s still unbelievable sexy, and scary, and creepy, and that’s exactly what I wanted it to be. Cthulhurotica may be a book that HP Lovecraft would never have read, but it began because of him, and exists in spite of him. It is, and always will be, my way of thanking the man for all the words he gave to me over the years.

For Howard.