Erotic Satire and Hyperbolic Memoir

Next week I begin edits on my next Raconteur Press anthology submission, Wyrd World of Sports. This week I have spent some time editing Kid Quick stories and designing their respective covers with the intention of eventually launching that franchise.

Received another rejection for Haven’t We Been Here Before? Unless I find another market to submit it to, I may move it into my Substack collection.

Submitted Soiled Undies to Nat1 Publishing. A bit of a long shot. Have been rejected by them previously. But the call was open.

Nat1 had another open call that caught my attention. A call for erotic fantasy stories. Not as in stories of you fantasizing about your fifth-grade teacher in lingerie, erotica set in fantasy settings. You see, ever since Twilight, women have harboured racy fantasies about vampires and werewolves and who knows what else.

So yes, there is a generation of women getting off on the idea of messing around with monsters. Hey, they’re not hurting anyone (these are imaginary creatures, after all) and everyone has their kinks, but I can’t help laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

Doesn’t making love to an undead night stalker fall under the category heading necrophilia? And isn’t shagging your furry friend commonly referred to as bestiality? When did these fetishes become acceptably mainstream? What would we think of men reading books about boning corpses and humping pets? I’m pretty sure disgust would be the popular response.

“Men are so gross, they’d stick it in anything.”

And no one would disagree. But an entire generation of women raised daydreaming about sex with fanciful creatures, and the world is okay with it?

It was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help myself. I had to submit something. Not to celebrate the genre, mind you, but to satirize it. No, I do not expect the editors to publish a story that lampoons the whole concept underlying their twisted anthology, but perhaps it will provide a laugh or two for those self-aware enough to admit how ludicrous the concept is.

Why submit? Some stories are too good not to share. I look forward to posting this one to Substack after the editors reject it. Until then, here’s the synopsis:

Loves Horses

At a magical garden party teeming with nymphs, fauns, and other fantastical beings, a man goes searching for his missing girlfriend, only to discover that her lifelong love of horses has taken a far more literal form than he ever imagined. Equal parts fantasy, relationship comedy, and emotional gut punch, “Loves Horses” (585 words) uses an outrageous premise to explore jealousy, misplaced assumptions, and the painful moment when the person you thought you knew turns out to have been someone else all along.

Yes, and it also pokes fun at girlhood obsessions with all things equine and a genre that celebrates women mating with monsters.

Well, I started writing to entertain myself, and this story certainly did the trick. I don’t usually write social commentary, but this one just bubbled up in response to the anthology call.

After teasing you with all that, what I’m posting to Substack this week is for the Random Ramblings pile coming from the collection My Life and Other Exaggerations. Thug Life – Whitby recounts true events from my school days in Whitby told through a fictitious voice masquerading as mine. A tongue-in-cheek retelling of a real-life episode.

So, essentially, this week’s writing introduces two niche genre categories: Erotic Satire and Hyperbolic Memoir. If those didn’t exist before, they do now. You’re welcome.

https://brainsoupfic.substack.com/p/thug-life