Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

'Morrie always did good work,' Kristi Lane said, stepping out of the darkroom. 'I thought I owed him one last pose.'

She closed her switchblade and pouted — teenage bad girl from the 1950s B-movies. In face and figure, Kristi Lane hadn't changed by so much as a gray hair from the pin-up queen of 1954. Chelsea reflected that her pageboy hairstyle was once again high fashion.

'Why kill him?'

Kristi slowly walked toward her. 'Not too many left from the old days who could recognize me. Now there's one less. You shouldn't have prodded him into looking for me.'

'There's thousands of photographs. You're a cult figure.'

'Honey, if you passed Marilyn Monroe jogging in Central Park, you'd know she was just another lookalike.'

Chelsea reached for the can of Mace as Kristi stepped close to her. Kristi's hand closed like steel over her wrist before she could work the spray. The can flew from her grasp, as Kristi effortlessly flung her across the studio. She crashed heavily against the wall opposite and slid down against it to her knees.

Kristi reached down for her throat, and the switchblade clicked. 'We can make this as rough as you want, honey.'

Chelsea lunged to her feet and caught Kristi beneath her arms, lifting the other woman and hurling her through a backdrop. Kristi lost her switchblade as she crashed down amidst a tangle of splintering wood.

Struggling free, she swung a heavy light-stand at Chelsea's head. Chelsea caught the blow with her forearms and wrenched the bent metal stand away from her. Diving forward as Kristi stumbled back, she tackled the other woman — pinning her as the two smashed through the wreckage of another backdrop.

Kristi Lane suddenly stopped struggling. She stared in wonder at the woman crouched on top of her.

'Who are you?'

'I'm your daughter,' Chelsea panted. 'Now tell me what I am!'

Kristi Lane laughed and pushed Chelsea off her. 'Like mother, like daughter. You're a succubus.'

'A succubus!'

'Dictionary time? A demon in female form — a temptress who haunts men's dreams, who draws youth and strength from their lust. Surely by now you've begun to wonder about yourself.'

'I'd found out from agency records that you were my mother. I thought that if I could find you, you might explain things — like why I'm unnaturally strong, and why I look like I'm still twenty, and why I keep having dreams about being you.'

'I think it's time we had our mother-daughter chat,' Kristi said, helping her to her feet. 'Let's go home.'

'Chelsea Gayle,' Kristi murmured. 'I gave you the name, Chelsea.'

'Why did you give me up?'

'No place for a baby in my life. The social agency had no problems with that, although they hardly could have guessed the full reasons. Most offspring never survive infancy. You've been feeding off my energy all these years — and you turned out very well.'

Chelsea tugged off the remains of her blouse and slipped into a kimono. She couldn't decide whether her mother's gaze held tenderness or desire.

'Who was my father?'

'All men. The thousands who fucked me in their wet-dream fantasies, who jacked off over my pictures. Their seed is our strength. Sometimes the combined energy of their lust is strong enough to create a child. It happens only rarely. Perhaps someday you'll bear another of us.'

'I work in advertising.'

'Selling false dreams. Already you were becoming one of us.'

Kristi took away Chelsea's kimono and unhooked her bra. Chelsea did not resist.

'You shouldn't hide your beauty,' Kristi told her. 'We need to feed from their secret lusts. Both of us. Now it's time you were weaned. Get rid of those clothes, and I'll find you something better to wear.'

Chelsea was naked when Kristi returned from another corner of the loft. Her mother had changed into spike- heeled boots and a studded leather bikini. Her arms were loaded with leather gear.

'I'll teach you,' she said. 'They need stronger stimulation now than they did when I began. I almost waited too long; I'd become nostalgia to them, no longer their sexual fantasy. My comeback will also be your coming out.'

Kristi Lane led her over to a small stage area. Lights were coming on, and Chelsea sensed cameras and presences behind them in the encircling darkness, but she couldn't see beyond the lights.

'Now then, dear.' Kristi set down her bondage paraphernalia and picked up a riding crop. 'I am mistress here, and you must obey me in every way. Do you promise?'

'Yes, mistress. I promise.'

'After all,' her mother said softly, 'this is what you've always known you wanted.'

Then, sharply: 'Now then! Let's get you into these!'

Meekly Chelsea put on the leather corselet and thigh-high boots, then submitted to having her arms laced tightly behind her back in a leather single-glove. By then it was pointless to struggle when Kristi strapped a phallus-shaped gag deep into her mouth, then brought out what at first glance had looked like a leather chastity belt. Choking on the gag, Chelsea moaned as the twin dildos penetrated her vagina and rectum, stretching her as they pushed inward to rub together against the thin wall that separated their bulbous heads.

Her mother leaned forward to kiss her face as she padlocked the belt securely into place. 'You'll stay like me, Chelsea — forever young and beautiful.'

Kristi helped her lie down on top of a long leather sheath. As Chelsea writhed on her belly, Kristi began to lace together the two edges of the leather sleeve, tightly encasing her daughter within a leather tube from her ankles to her neck.

Kristi kissed her face again, just as she fitted the leather hood over Chelsea's head and laced it across the back of her neck. 'Their lust is our strength. I'll help you.'

Chelsea lay helpless, blinded and gagged, barely able to wriggle so much as her fingers. She felt her ankles being strapped together. Then, slowly, she was lifted into the air by her ankles until she was completely suspended above the stage.

Hanging upside down, tightly wrapped in her leather sheath, Chelsea could sense the gloating touch of the cameras. She writhed helplessly, beginning to experience the warmth that flowed into her from the hard rubber penises swollen inside her mouth and cunt and ass. She did not feel violated. Instead she felt the strength that she was drawing from an unseen prey.

Suspended and satisfied, Chelsea Gayle waited to be released from her cocoon, and wondered what she had become.

THE BRAILLE ENCYCLOPAEDIA Grant Morrison

Blind in the City of Light, Patricia walked carefully back through the Cimitiere Pere- Lachaise.

'Are you all right?' Mrs. Becque said again. 'Now be careful here, the steps are a little slippery…'

Patricia nodded and placed her foot tentatively on the first step. Through the soles of her shoes she could feel the edge of a slick patch of moss.

'Are you all right?' Mrs. Becque said again.

'I'll be fine,' Patricia said. 'Really.'

All around, she could feel the shapes of sepulchers and headstones. The echoes they returned, the space they displaced, the subtle patterns of cold air they radiated; all these things gave the funeral monuments of Pere- Lachaise a weight and solidity that lay beyond sight. From the locked and chambered earth, a fragrance arose. The