sexual violence

Scissors by Simon McHardy and Sean Hawker

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When the National Health Service rejects a trans femme her request to have a vaginoplasty performed, Daphne’s state of mind takes one hell of a hit. Already prone to self-harm and taking her frustrations out on herself, this blow might be the last straw.
But what happens if the offending penis doesn’t want to go without a fight?
What follows is both heartbreaking and ridiculously gruesome, as one might expect from the pairing of Simon McHardy and Sean Hawker. In true McHardy and Hawker fashion, these two provide a graphic and absurdly over-the-top argument in favor of gender reassignment surgeries being more readily available to those suffering from gender dysphoria. Of course, this is not for the squeamish.
As strange as it might seem, I almost think this should be recommended to anyone with transgender friends or family, or those hoping to understand why it’s important to treat transgender health concerns (both mental and physiological) as seriously as any others.

You can pick this up for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Scissors by Simon McHardy and Sean Hawker

Bluebeard by The Professor

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The folktale of Bluebeard is a particularly awful and gruesome one–as many such tales happen to be–but in The Professor’s capable hands, the story gets molded into something of exceptional and sublime perversity. Gone is the greed and duplicity of the new wife, replaced with lust and a single-minded desire for the titular husband.
Knowing that this is a retelling by The Professor should be sufficient to warn you that this does not arrive at the expected conclusion for those familiar with earlier iterations of the Bluebeard story. There are no antiquated morals associated with woman’s obedience to men in this adaptation. At the same time, there’s none of the Pandoran punishment for a woman’s curiosity at the root of this story. Instead, The Professor deftly casts aside that old world, parochial mentality and empowers the woman by allowing her to embrace the cruel sensuality of her discovery and subsequent abuse.
Naturally, you would benefit from listening to the narration of this title as provided by your purchase on Godless. The soothing, hypnotic cadence of The Professor’s relation of Bluebeard perhaps provides us some insight into why the new wife experienced such a sudden change of heart in her abrupt dedication to Bluebeard as a courter and husband.
Was she caught in some spell?
Are we tangled up in a similar sort of magic when listening to The Professor’s voice?
Do we care?

This title is available through http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device. The link is below:

Bluebeard by The Professor

Platinum Blondes: Love Removal Machine by Todd Love

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Todd Love continues raising the stakes with the third installment of the Platinum Blondes series. Love Removal Machine picks up where INXS left off, treating readers to deliciously deserved punishment and violence enacted against Troy. But something more is going on, faint glimpses of unnatural activity from the chair upon which Troy is bound are blurred with the frantic vengeance unleashed by the women of the Platinum Blondes Agency.
Dark secrets have been kept from most of the women Gwen’s recruited, sinister mysteries that originate in her youth and the hubris of her father. Todd drags us through this sordid history, unveiling surprise after shocking surprise along the way, hitting the reader over and over again with the brutal pacing of a professional fighter. In the world of the Platinum Blondes, no one and nothing is as it seems.
Todd Love adds new questions as quickly as he answers the ones we already had, but there’s no need to worry…the story isn’t over yet.

You can obtain the Platinum Blondes series for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device. The link is below:

Love Removal Machine (Platinum Blondes – Volume 3) by Todd Love

Your Move by Nat Whiston and Ash Ericmore

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A little competition can be a good thing.
Whether it’s your hobby or occupation, rivalry can be a healthy motivator to push yourself to excel. It’s perhaps a bit less healthy when talking about two serial murderers leapfrogging over one another to produce a more gruesome and intricate tableau, but who are we to judge?
The night can be dangerous, but it’s so much worse if you happen to be a secondary character concocted by the combined imaginations of Whiston and Ericmore. Whether we’re talking about power tools, sex toys, or construction equipment, these two will find a way to utilize it in the most gruesome manner possible.
Am I talking about the characters or the authors?
Is there a line that separates them?
Much as their respective characters seek to outdo one another within the narrative, the authors of this deliciously violent story compete the perpetrate increasingly cruel and vicious acts on the page. It must be said that these two work well together in that respect, as any reader will be delighted to discover.
But is it possible that one of these killers is more than they seem?
Is there a grand design of malevolent intent taking shape before our eyes?
You’ll have to read it for yourself to find out.

You can obtain this title for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device. The link is below:

Your Move by Nat Whiston and Ash Ericmore

Woom by Duncan Ralston

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Duncan Ralston’s Woom is a masterpiece of an anthology tale with the most seamlessly incorporated framing story I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It’s like Campfire Tales if that movie had been X-rated and situated in a run-down, no-tell motel room. While Woom works as a single, longer-form piece of literature, it’s also a series of vignettes that flows together surprisingly well. As Angel and Shyla share their respective stories, the content becomes progressively more unsettling and vile. That shouldn’t bother you, though. It’s what you checked in for, after all.
When Angel checked in to Room 6 at The Lonely Motel and requested a big girl from the escort service, he expected disappointment. It’s what he’d experienced previously, both in life and in his previous attempts to find the right woman for the objective he has in mind. When Shyla arrives at the door, it seems like Angel might have found just the woman he’s been looking for. As the night progresses, and he opens up to her as she opens up for him, it becomes increasingly likely that Shyla will be uniquely suited to provide Angel with what he needs.
Mental illness, childhood and adult trauma, sexual fetishes, graphic violence, and a desperate need for redemption and rebirth swirl together into a perversely entertaining book. Woom is a story that dares the reader to continue reading, the whole time knowing that things are only going to get worse but that the way out is through.
What follows might be a spoiler, but I’m not sure I’d consider it one. While it’s obvious from the outset that Angel was telling stories from his own life, I don’t think that was meant to be a surprise to the reader, so I feel comfortable commenting on that without worrying that it’s too much of a spoiler. I suspect Shayla might have been the only person taken aback by that revelation. She wasn’t the brightest character, after all.

Cleared Away by Regina Watts

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Cleared Away is a truly unpleasant story. Were it not for the quality of the writing, I’d suggest there wouldn’t be anything redeeming in these few pages. Unfortunately for all of us, this story was written by Regina Watts, which means there’s plenty of quality in the prose. It should come as little surprise that this story–taking place in Nazi Germany–contains elements of rape, extreme violence, and anti-semitism. The reader should be prepared.
We experience the predations of Major Basilius as he turns his attentions toward a young Jewish girl recently transported to the concentration camp. With Watts at the helm, one should know to expect that there is nothing but brutality and degradation to follow.
There is nothing erotic or arousing in this story. If you’re looking for something like that, you’re in the wrong place, and you’ve picked up the wrong story.
Avoid reading the following if you want to avoid spoilers:
Though we find ourselves continually hoping for something to happen, some vengeance to be enacted against Basilius, Watts tears that hope away with each passing sentence. While this may be less satisfying for the reader, it’s altogether too authentic as far as the outcome is concerned. For most women in the position our young victim finds herself in, there was no salvation to be found. This young woman could have been any of the hundreds–or perhaps thousands–of victims who found themselves raped, abused, and tortured by those in power at concentration camps throughout Europe. Cleared Away is heartbreaking in its brutality and unrelenting, unflinching depiction of the treatment of this poor girl. At the same time, it’s important to remember that this is nothing compared to what was done to so many people in real life.

You can check this out for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Cleared Away by Regina Watts

Zola by D. E. McCluskey

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Anthony Zola was a terrible person. One need only look at the cruel joke of a name he saddled his only son with, Gordon. Gordon Zola, a childish gag and a pointed jab at his wife’s obsessive cheese consumption. Unfortunately for Andrea and Gordon Zola, that horrible appellation is the least of Anthony’s transgressions against his wife and child.
Years of abuse and manipulation from her husband had compressed Andrea’s life to the extent that her world revolved entirely around her monster of a husband and her socially isolated son. Just as she finally began transforming herself into a woman she could recognize when she looked in the mirror, a horrific discovery sent her life spiraling out of control. Anthony’s bonding time with their son has a far more sinister purpose than Andrea could have imagined, and the only solution is a drastic one.
Unhealthy codependence and unspeakable appetites become the crux of mother and son’s relationship, inexorably drawing Andrea and Gordon into further segregation from the world around them. As barbaric solutions become the only way the two of them can survive, Andrea and Gordon devolve into a bestial existence of filth and isolation that escalates until the heartbreakingly inevitable conclusion.
McCluskey provides readers with a poignant tale of family and intense psychological trauma through a medium rife with absurdity and graphic depictions of revolting inhumanity. Zola is a coming-of-age story for the perpetual adolescent; a depiction of acute arrested development in the form of Gordon Zola, a boy who grew into a man without ever having a chance to develop any life for himself under the aberrant safekeeping of his traumatized mother.
As easy as it might be to write this story off as being a steadily intensifying gross-out narrative–and there’s a lot to gross the reader out–there’s a whole lot of sadness and distressing truth to be found in these pages as well. McCluskey tells us the tale of a man who never had a chance to be anything but the monstrosity he became, all because of a father’s cruelty and a mother’s misguided love.

You can find this title at http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Zola by D.E. McCluskey

Musings of a Sadist by Ryder Kinlay

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Musings of a Sadist (David Longbottom’s Misadventures) collects the first four stories Kinlay’s written about our favorite Australian Patrick Bateman impersonator. Kinlay successfully crafts something that feels less like a collection of separate stories but serves as more of a sequence of vignettes about Longbottom’s life over a specific period. There is an assortment of self-referential moments throughout the included misadventures, reminding readers that each installment is sequentially consistent.
Naturally, this begins with Longbottom’s Thailand honeymoon from the story that introduced us to this depraved maniac, Bloodymoon. I’ve already reviewed this story, so I’ll refer you to the following link if you want to see what I had to say:


https://meltdownmessiah.com/2021/08/05/bloodymoon-by-ryder-kinlay/


We move on to an installment that is of personal interest to me, as Ryder Kinlay incorporated a character named after me in the debauchery and cruelty taking place. Again, I’ve reviewed This Is Not An Exit previously, and you can find my thoughts at the following link:


https://meltdownmessiah.com/2021/09/13/this-is-not-an-exit-by-ryder-kinlay/


Next up, we have Dia De Los Death, wherein David feels like he might have finally found a woman he can love, and we learn just how perverse his devotion to his mother happens to be. I’ve reviewed this story previously at the following link:

https://meltdownmessiah.com/2021/10/28/dia-de-los-death-by-ryder-kinlay/


And finally, we come to Hot Shots, the newest Longbottom tale and one exclusive to this volume. When David’s best friend, Dakota, calls him in a panic, seeking assistance because he’s in an apartment with a dead man he’d only recently been intimate with, Longbottom resigns himself to helping out. Readers have the distinct pleasure of learning new facts about biology and the biological functions that can transpire post-mortem, so it’s educational. Of course, the excitement doesn’t stop there, and everything turns out splendidly for Dakota and David as they jump into a bonding experience and set the stage for future misadventures.

You can obtain this omnibus collection by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Musings of a Sadist (David Longbottom's MISadventures) by Ryder Kinlay

Insatiable by Rayne Havok, Narrated by The Professor

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Insatiable is, at least for those who listen to the audio narration, a match made in Hell. Rayne Havok’s tale of uncontrollable lust giving way to hunger that bleeds into gluttony is, on its own, a spectacularly visceral story. When one includes the eloquent and superbly articulate narration provided by The Professor into the mix, it serves to take the story to an entirely different level. His voice lulls the listener into a receptive state with an almost soporific cadence that belies the sinister undertones hinting at what’s to come. Even as we arrive at the tale’s vile and blood-drenched conclusion, we’re still held captive by the strangely soothing, borderline palliative quality of The Professor’s voice.
Havok captures the all-consuming nature of obsession with Insatiable, portraying in literal terms the insatiable need of our narrator as well as the object of that attention. Insatiable feels like the result of what we’d discover if one were to eavesdrop on a sexting exchange between the smuttiest members of the extreme horror community; this story could be the adaptation of that cruel, visceral, and uniquely erotic conversation. With The Professor’s narration in the mix, the listener might be forgiven for suspecting that they’d dialed into the phone sex line of the damned. For those old enough to remember the late-night advertisements promising forbidden pleasures with real live participants only a phone call away–and some ungodly per-minute price. Ungodly is certainly an appropriate term in the context of this story, but the price is far more palatable.

This title is available from http://www.godless.com or through the Godless app. The link is below:

https://godless.com/products/insatiable-by-rayne-havok-and-the-professor

Twisted: Tainted Tales by Janine Pipe

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Janine Pipe delivers a diverse assortment of stories with Twisted: Tainted Tales, the only theme being that the bulk of the action takes place in the 1980s. This collection, framed as being stories from a missing author, as discovered by a woman tasked with sifting through the missing person’s household for anything of value, is packed full of nostalgia for those of us who recall the era. Unlike some nostalgia-heavy writing I’ve read recently, Pipe doesn’t lean on the nostalgia to do the heavy lifting and instead keeps the focus on her largely spectacular storytelling and captivating set pieces.
Each of the stories contained within Twisted: Tainted Tales has been titled (or retitled) with that of a song from the music released in the 1980s. This is done with the explanation that there’s a mixtape accompanying the discovered manuscripts.
The collection starts strong with Footsteps, a story of three women venturing into a section of wilderness where something sinister and bloodthirsty might be waiting for anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon its hunting grounds.
When Doves Cry is a period piece about a woman accepting the kindness of a stranger on a cold night from a man seeking the right woman to fulfill his peculiar needs.
The third inclusion, I Want To Break Free, subverts our expectations as we experience the same event from a captured victim and her captor. But which one is the monster?
Maneater introduces us to two detectives investigating a series of exsanguinated victims. The nature of the crimes themselves is perhaps less startling than the perpetrator when one of the detectives discovers the monster behind the killings.
A night at the club turns into a bloody, violent act of intimacy in Addicted To Love.
Sweet Child Of Mine delves into the topic of imaginary friends and the potential consequences if those friends aren’t as fanciful as we suppose.
Tainted Love recounts a narrative of obsession, as an infatuation transforms into something far more unsettling, culminating in brutal violence and skilled craftsmanship.
With Lost In the Shadows, we’re introduced to a town plagued by a rash of missing children, and a sinister discovery at the local drive-in theater.
It’s a Sin is a ghost story about friendship, child abuse, and overprotective parents that ends unhappily.
The post-apocalyptic tale, Love Is a Battlefield, acquaints us with a society where the rich and powerful have been stripped of their privilege. We follow one of the former upper crust as she believes she’ll be forced to face death as entertainment for those now in control.
Running With the Devil is a story of urban legends and ghost stories, and the profoundly negative impact those things might have if we discover them to be true.
Boys being gross, led by adolescent hormones, and burgeoning sexual discovery is the topic of Paradise City. Of course, things take an awful turn that is sure to make every man cringe.
School’s Out Forever resonated well with me as someone who routinely ventured into condemned and abandoned buildings. A couple of friends decide to trespass in a haunted school where atrocities once took place, hoping to find the place haunted but ultimately terrified by what they discover.
Two brothers on a camping trip with their father discover that a mother’s love transcends death, in Living On a Prayer, especially when there’s an ancient burial ground nearby and revenge to be taken.
The fifteenth track, Thriller, delves into the fact that the topic of urban legends and ghost stories again, exploring the haunted houses we’re all sure exist within our hometowns as we’re growing up.
Nobody’s Fool explores the possibility that one young boy’s night terrors might be rooted in something other than an overactive imagination and that there might be an important message embedded in the unconscious horror that he experiences.
Stephen King’s not the only one who can tell a tale about the convergence of coming of age and sewer drains. Janine Pipe concludes her collection by introducing us to a different sort of monster that might be lurking in the storm drains the most daring children explore when there’s pride and a kiss on the line.
The closest thing I have to a complaint is that I’d have preferred the author’s notes compiled at the end of the book rather than at the end of each story. It was more jarring, having those notes breaking up the framing story of discovered manuscripts rather than placing them at the end of the collection. I’m a fan of the author’s notes being included, so I’m pleased that Pipe included them, but I feel like they could’ve been in a better location.