Discussion of Dark Story, "Scold's Bridle"

[Pure]

by Black Shanglan,

i would like to discuss this story, by BlackShanglan, as originally planned.

http://www.literotica.com:81/stories/showstory.php?id=221415

 

[Pure]

have a look

http://www.congletonmuseum.comcarenet.net/Scold's Bridle col sm .jpg

paste if the link does not work.

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http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/feb/images/1.htm5.jpg


text at this url, about 3/4 down the page

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:*&sa=N

 

[SpencerAlanMacLeod]

Well, I read it and then I thought about it.
After sleeping on it for a night; I let it simmer, as it were.
Then I reread it.
Oh…I also read the reviews…

Frankly, I don’t get it.
As a story of revenge and so-called ‘just deserts’, it did what it was supposed to.
But I was not aroused or titillated.
I was grossed out and utterly repelled.

Being with someone whom I find arousing is one thing.
Even if I don’t particularly like them, being ‘helplessly aroused’ can be an interesting experience.

Being raped is an ugly thing.
It doesn’t matter to me whether the rape is avenged or deserved or not.
Being assaulted and injured is not an arousing experience for me.
Nor is reading about it.

At the risk of opening myself up to a bunch of unpleasantness; I’m asking…
Can anyone explain to me why they would find this sexually arousing?

 

[Verdad]

Spencer,

If I may reply with a question--out of curiosity and without any desire to be unpleasant--what made you assume arousal was intended by the author and/or experienced by most readers?

Best,

Verdad

 

[SpencerAlanMacLeod]

Spencer,

If I may reply with a question--out of curiosity and without any desire to be unpleasant--what made you assume arousal was intended by the author and/or experienced by most readers?

Best,

Verdad

Hey Verdad,

In all seriousness, there are two major reasons why I thought along these lines.

The first is that this story was posted in the “Erotic Horror” section.
I have read other famous authors who have added very erotic horror sections to their stories.
The stories were not sexual in nature but sexuality played pivotal roles at certain times.

Robert E. Howard (the “Conan” creator) did this several times.
The “Sci-Fi” author Spider Robinson is another one who did this.
And Steve Perry also had sexuality and betrayal spicing up his stories.

The second is that I went into this story thinking that there were some real sexual possibilities here.
I mean, the author could have made the monster inhumanly desirable.
Or he/she might have made them somehow impossible to deny in some other way.
Using telepathy would be still another way to force a subject to bend their will.

Instead they used a “familiar” in a sloppy and unpleasant manner (in my opinion).
I was not at all impressed at the use of brute force when other ways existed.
The question that keeps coming to mind is why use the woman at all?


As a couple of alternative ideas:

Imagine if the ‘familiar’ had the intelligence to trick the woman into the ‘mask’.
Further imagine that the demon makes the woman enjoy her suffering.
Then have the demon use the woman to entice the ‘familiar’ into a compromising position.
Have the demon trick the man and woman to coming back with more victims (like Julie).

Another way to go about this might be with this idea.
It is said that the greatest trick the devil ever did was to convince others he didn’t exist.
Have the ‘familiar’ and the woman believe they are responsible for these actions.

These are but a couple of ways that I thought this story was going to go.
To have it go the way it did was just not as exciting as I would have liked.

Regards, Spencer

 

[manyeyedhydra]

I think there are two types of story in the erotic horror section (broad generalisation warning).

The first type are basically straight horror stories with an explicit sex content. I don't think they're designed to arouse (normal or reasonably normal) people. They're out and out horror stories where the horror has a sexual dimension such as rape or abuse.

The second type are designed to arouse but feature horror elements. I think this can be a bit blurry with the non-human category, usually depending on how the story ends up.

Not all of the stories are arousing. Some are just very good horror stories (the recent Halloween contest winners come to mind)

I thought the story was good. The supernatural element had me caught in two minds. I like how it was disguised, but then I'm also not sure whether it was necessary.

It depends what you're looking for in a story I guess.

 

[Penelope Street]

I've seen a replica scold's bridle worn in a demonstration. It's a creepy item- the perfect centerpiece for a creepy story. What did Varian say about the most horrifying things being those done by ordinary persons?

The tale is effective for its length, but for me it wasn't nearly long enough. Is it a compliment or a criticism that I wanted more? The way it is, I never quite felt in touch with Bridget enough to share her terror. I understand she wants to see this historic item, but I really didn't feel her passion for it. When the bridle turns out to be a demon, the tension dropped for me, mostly because I didn't believe it- though I liked that we never found out how the bridle came to exist in the first place.

My quibbling is just that though, it's a good story and extremely well written. Is it a dark story? It's clever and original, but it's not scary or depressing- at least not for me, so I wouldn't call it dark.

I can't help but think Shanglan intentionally chose the name Bridget because it's similar to Bridle- but I can't imagine why.

 

[Penelope Street]

As a story of revenge and so-called ‘just deserts’, it did what it was supposed to.
But I was not aroused or titillated.
I was grossed out and utterly repelled.

...

At the risk of opening myself up to a bunch of unpleasantness; I’m asking…
Can anyone explain to me why they would find this sexually arousing?

Hi Spencer! Thanks for joining us. I believe arousal was not a goal and that you experienced the tale much as the author intended.

I was not at all impressed at the use of brute force when other ways existed.

If you mean that the story would be more powerful if Bridget chooses to don the bridle, I agree. If she's that passionate about it, wouldn't she want to know what it's like to wear it, if only for a minute or so?

The question that keeps coming to mind is why use the woman at all?

I'm totally missing what you're asking?

The first type are basically straight horror stories with an explicit sex content. I don't think they're designed to arouse (normal or reasonably normal) people. They're out and out horror stories where the horror has a sexual dimension such as rape or abuse. The first type are basically straight horror stories with an explicit sex content. I don't think they're designed to arouse (normal or reasonably normal) people. They're out and out horror stories where the horror has a sexual dimension such as rape or abuse.

I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head here. Perhaps "Explicit Horror" would have been a better category label, since erotic implies intended arousal.

I thought the story was good. The supernatural element had me caught in two minds. I like how it was disguised, but then I'm also not sure whether it was necessary.

I wonder if we shared an experience. Did you read Demon. Imp, homunculus, devilkin and think, 'What, are you kidding me?'

 

[SpencerAlanMacLeod]

Not all of the stories are arousing. Some are just very good horror stories (the recent Halloween contest winners come to mind)

That actually had not occurred to me.

Hey Penelpope Street,
You missed what I was asking about the woman so I'll try phrasing it in another way.
If the demon was after the man it got in the end (to begin with) why attack the woman at all?
Why not go after the man and forget about the woman?
I got the impression that the woman was not relevant.

To everyone who responded;
Thanks...it did not occur to me that the story just might be a horror story because the word 'erotic' was in it.
To be clear here...it was a very creepy story.
As a horror story it worked well.

Regards, Spencer

 

[Verdad]

Spencer, thanks for your thought out reply. I'm glad I asked about the erotic part because your first post puzzled me, but in the second you helped me nail what nagged me about the story.

I too have to admit I expected more, although not necessarily in erotic sense. The bridle's evil charm hooked me from the first lines, deign of best horror anthologies, and the writing remained superb throughout. Later, however, I struggled to identify the reasons for my overall impression that the story didn't deliver half of what it could. Now I'm coming closer to articulating some of them. Will revisit the thread as the time allows.

 

[Penelope Street]

If the demon was after the man it got in the end (to begin with) why attack the woman at all?
Why not go after the man and forget about the woman?
I got the impression that the woman was not relevant.

Another thing I like about this story is that it lets the reader fill in many blanks. I get the impression that the demon cannot attach itself to a victim- but once attached, it will torment anyone until removed. So Bridget is relevant, but only to Richard.

 

[SpencerAlanMacLeod]

Spencer, thanks for your thought out reply. I'm glad I asked about the erotic part because your first post puzzled me, but in the second you helped me nail what nagged me about the story.

I too have to admit I expected more, although not necessarily in erotic sense. The bridle's evil charm hooked me from the first lines, deign of best horror anthologies, and the writing remained superb throughout. Later, however, I struggled to identify the reasons for my overall impression that the story didn't deliver half of what it could. Now I'm coming closer to articulating some of them. Will revisit the thread as the time allows.

Glad I was able to add another point of view. It is because of these courteous replies that I stopped to rethink my initial ideas about this story.

I get the impression that the demon cannot attach itself to a victim- but once attached, it till torment anyone until removed. So Bridget is relevant, but only to Richard.

That idea hadn't occurred to me until you mentioned it. Once I twigged onto what you were saying, I took the basic premise and I'm currently using it in a new series to is yet to be published here on "Literotica".

Specifically, that idea is using one person to get at another.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'm sorry to come so very late to this party that I may as well not have come (although there's always the hope of some cold but still tempting canapes laying about), but I've been away from Lit for a while and only just found the PM very kindly letting me know that my story was being reviewed on the SDC. It's awfully kind of you to be interested in it, and I've enjoyed all of your comments on the piece. Just in case any of you are still about and might be interested, I thought I'd respond to some of the posts.

Let me start with what seems to me to be the most important one:

Frankly, I don’t get it.
As a story of revenge and so-called ‘just deserts’, it did what it was supposed to.
But I was not aroused or titillated.
I was grossed out and utterly repelled.

Thank heavens for that. Manyeyedhydra did indeed hit the nail on the head; the intent was to write a story that was sexually explicit horror, not one that was titillating or arousing. I found the story difficult reading myself because I found Bridget's position so horrific.

The story was written for a Halloween story competition, and was thrown in under "Erotic Horror" as the closest (but not very good) match. As Penelope pointed out, "Explicit Horror" would have been a more accurate description, but "Erotic Horror" was the only one that warned readers that they'd see both explicit sex and horror. I was never comfortable with the category; to call the story "erotic" presents the actions in a very different light than I see them. It made me uncomfortable to suggest that there was something erotic about a story that was flatly about rape, but I was stuck with the categories available.

The lack of any other erotic component or development is intentional. The scold's bridle itself is what drove me to create the story, and to me it's a very morally unambiguous piece of equipment. It's a cruel, vicious piece of work that reveals how banal human evil can be, and how easily people can justify absolute barbarity to themselves. The story came out of, essentially, the two comments Manyeyedhydra and Penelope made about it:

The supernatural element had me caught in two minds. I like how it was disguised, but then I'm also not sure whether it was necessary.

I've seen a replica scold's bridle worn in a demonstration. It's a creepy item- the perfect centerpiece for a creepy story. What did Varian say about the most horrifying things being those done by ordinary persons?

Morally the demon isn't necessary at all. You can see it as a metaphor if you like. I couldn't tell you myself whether the demon came first and made the bridle, or whether the bridle came first and was given life by the callous cruelty the thing was constantly used for - a sort of embodiment of the impulse that drove people to create such things.

At any rate, it is evil, and I didn't want "evil light" - a sort of seductive, ambiguous, ultimately-she-really-loves-it sort of evil. That kind of story can be fun it its own right, but I didn't want either to diminish the horror by making it something embracable or to suggest that actual, real, violent rape and evil are sexy. It's meant to be harrowing, not erotic, because that's the way I see the scold's bridle itself.

As a story, looking at it structurally, I think now that it still suffers from one of the challenges I felt when creating it - how to incorporate enough information about what a scold's bridle is and what Bridget feels about it without cramming the story with too much "tell-y" backstory and vague, abstract thought processes. I could be wrong, but I think that perhaps the demon might feel more comprehensible and "right" to readers if I could get them more into the same frame of mind about the bridle that Bridget is, and that I myself am to some extent: that it's such a frightening example of human evil that it feels almost natural that it should be haunted or possessed.

If the demon was after the man it got in the end (to begin with) why attack the woman at all?
Why not go after the man and forget about the woman?
I got the impression that the woman was not relevant.

Once more, Penelope has the explanation I would have given:

I get the impression that the demon cannot attach itself to a victim- but once attached, it will torment anyone until removed. So Bridget is relevant, but only to Richard.

Ultimately, too, I was thinking of a common observation about rape: it's not about sex, it's about control. That seemed to fit the impulse behind the bridle as well, and the sort of demon that would evolve from it - something that's really in it for the cruelty, and that is quite happy to take any victim it can get its claws into. Richard unwisely believes that the bridle is a tool for his use, possibly something that has some sympathy with him or that he has some control over. In reality, it serves no one.

The way it is, I never quite felt in touch with Bridget enough to share her terror. I understand she wants to see this historic item, but I really didn't feel her passion for it. When the bridle turns out to be a demon, the tension dropped for me, mostly because I didn't believe it- though I liked that we never found out how the bridle came to exist in the first place.

I think you're quite right here, and it's this post that led me to think that perhaps the problems in Bridget's characterization and the rough join / leap to the demon's presence are related to each other. To see more of Bridget would also be to see more of what the bridle represents to her and the sort of can't-quite-look-away fascination that it has for her.

It would, for instance, address the question of why Bridget doesn't choose to try the bridle on. I've seen a scold's bridle in person and I did touch it, but it would never occur to me to put one on, and I would feel distressed even to see someone else wear one, because I see such ugly things in it. I need to get more of that feeling into Bridget and through to the audience. I was afraid of over-doing it and wandering into melodrama, but I think I erred too much toward silence.

Thank you all very much for your time and your thought on the story. You've given me some excellent fuel for revision!

Shanglan

 

[Penelope Street]

I'm sorry to come so very late to this party that I may as well not have come (although there's always the hope of some cold but still tempting canapes laying about), but I've been away from Lit for a while and only just found the PM very kindly letting me know that my story was being reviewed on the SDC. It's awfully kind of you to be interested in it, and I've enjoyed all of your comments on the piece. Just in case any of you are still about and might be interested, I thought I'd respond to some of the posts.

What? Are you saying you have a life or something?

It made me uncomfortable to suggest that there was something erotic about a story that was flatly about rape, but I was stuck with the categories available.

I don't think there was any other valid category choice.

I could be wrong, but I think that perhaps the demon might feel more comprehensible and "right" to readers if I could get them more into the same frame of mind about the bridle that Bridget is, and that I myself am to some extent: that it's such a frightening example of human evil that it feels almost natural that it should be haunted or possessed.

I found Bridget to be obsessed with the bridle, though I never understood why. To me, she'd have to be obsessed to go alone to a known lecher's home just to see the device. Now that you've mentioned it, having the item haunted and Bridget experiencing the torments of past wearers- that could really work.

Ultimately, too, I was thinking of a common observation about rape: it's not about sex, it's about control. That seemed to fit the impulse behind the bridle as well, and the sort of demon that would evolve from it - something that's really in it for the cruelty, and that is quite happy to take any victim it can get its claws into.

Oh! What a clever angle. I totally missed it.

It would, for instance, address the question of why Bridget doesn't choose to try the bridle on. I've seen a scold's bridle in person and I did touch it, but it would never occur to me to put one on, and I would feel distressed even to see someone else wear one, because I see such ugly things in it. I need to get more of that feeling into Bridget and through to the audience.

No way do I want to wear one of those damned things either, but I'm not Bridget. She's a little on the loopy side if you ask me and I can so see her trying it on for size. And if you gave me the choice of wearing a non-demonic bridle or being alone in an apartment with Richard for the same amount of time, I'd try it on for size too.

I was afraid of over-doing it and wandering into melodrama, but I think I erred too much toward silence.

I got the impression that you were trying to write a taut tale. If so, you certainly succeeded.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It's a very good story. I read it before and thought so at the time too, The only thing that bothered me was the lack of any moral connection between Bridget, Richard, and the bridle. There's some missing moral symmetry that makes her sudden attack seem--how can you say it--seem almost too personal. Like "How can you sadistically sexually assault me when you hardly know me?"

Seriously, the attack by the imp is so very personal and violative that it doesn't seem right that Richard chooses some virtual stranger for the meal. We look for some chain or web of consequence to give a deeper dimension to the horror and make it more than a random rape. This is old-time New England horror, and maybe it's the Lovecraftian in me, but I'm used to these being all bound up with ethics and morality and consanguinity, and I wanted to imagine that some where back in time Richard is a distant cousin or has some sort of blood relationship with Bridget that makes this sex incestuous as well as bestial and sodomistic through the demon and gives a more satisfying shape or consequence to the evil. I think it's missing a link between Richard and Bridget that would allow for the human manifestation of evil.

I'm really disturbed by the trend towards morally unlinked horror lately but I guess it's here to stay. It reflects the kind of violence we have in the world today. But that doesn't mean that it's the most literarally satisfying form of horror. In fact, it's a poor substitute. It is to horror what porn is to erotica: shallow, gratuitous, and devoid of context. We instinctively flee from this kind of innocent-bystander horror because of its moral bankruptcy, and what failure there is in this story--and believe me, I think it's minor, because I think it's a very good story--is in its lack of resonance because of the truncated moral dimension and the severed implications which might otherwise let our imaginations continue the story after we've stopped reading. The Scold's Bridle pretty much begins and ends with this episode. It lacks mythic richness because it doesn't involve human passions. It involves a demon.

But to return to this random kind of violence--amoral violence, violence involving innocents who don't deserve their fate--it's very popular now but it provides a strangely DOA kind of product. No one has ever learned nor will ever learn anything from it except the nausea of calamity and the depression of helplessness. Art's where we go to learn meaning from life, and this kind of thing has nothing to teach us because in random violence there are no lessons. It's pornographic in the sense that it shows us horror without context, the way that porn shows fucking with no history. It's like looking at pictures of automobile wrecks (which I also understand is a burgeoning coffee-table book market). There's nothing really to be learned from the fact that we're mostly made of meat, blood, and snot and that running into a bridge abutment at 70 mph will graphically demonstrate this fact, and yet we're fascinated, and we look.

This is loading a lot more theoretical baggage onto Shang's neat little story than ever he expected, so I want to say too how much I appreciated his writing in this piece, especially the density of the prose during the rape which adds so effectively to the feeling of claustrophobic suffocation.

But I wonder if the side of evil wouldn't have been more effectively served had there been more of a sense of human betrayal and human wickedness, and for that we need some sort of relationship between Richard and Bridget. As it is, Richard sics his beastie on her and that's that. The evil intent, the withdrawal of empathy that I personally find at the heart of most horror--that is, a human's denial and isolation by another human--is never really developed.

Edited to add: I can't help but being curious now... The story was obviously inspired by a device of the same name. But what's the real source of the psychosexual horror of this thing? To me it's not so much the tongue wheel. It's the bondage aspects, the face being constrained, the intrusion into the mouth. The bar down the back is especially disturbing. It's reminiscent of a living Iron Maiden. A more hideous form of bondage is hard to imagine, yet it's also perversely arousing, controlling and presenting (an important aspect of bondage is its function to present the subject). I wonder that this angle wasn't worked up more.

Richard's sexual involvement with Bridget was never really made clear--just what it was that aroused him to masturbation. I assumed he was getting a vicarious demon buzz, but maybe there was something more to it than that. Maybe it was the bondage effects. Maybe there was something in Bridget that called out to him to treat her this way. There must have been something. Maybe that would have been sufficient personal link right there to tie them together.

To get the true feeling of evil in here, we need the working of an evil heart, and I don't know that I see one.

 

[Penelope Street]

The only thing that bothered me was the lack of any moral connection between Bridget, Richard, and the bridle. There's some missing moral symmetry that makes her sudden attack seem--how can you say it--seem almost too personal. Like "How can you sadistically sexually assault me when you hardly know me?"

...

But I wonder if the side of evil wouldn't have been more effectively served had there been more of a sense of human betrayal and human wickedness, and for that we need some sort of relationship between Richard and Bridget. As it is, Richard sics his beastie on her and that's that. The evil intent, the withdrawal of empathy that I personally find at the heart of most horror--that is, a human's denial and isolation by another human--is never really developed.

Hi! It's so great to see you here again.

I'm not sure I quite get all of this need for a moral connection ingredient. Does this story require a stronger connection between Bridget and Richard, other than each being drawn to the bridle? Making them distantly related wouldn't have made the story any more meaningful to me. The way I read the tale, Richard is an opportunist of sorts, like the demon, except he targets only women. So how does this make him less evil?

A more hideous form of bondage is hard to imagine, yet it's also perversely arousing, controlling and presenting (an important aspect of bondage is its function to present the subject). I wonder that this angle wasn't worked up more.

So if Richard had taken Bridget to the local renaissance fair and paraded her around all day in the bridle, would that have been sexy?


P.S.
While we are discussing evil and things in one's mouth, please tell me that cigarette you're presenting is never lit.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

L* That thing in my mouth is a kazoo. I like to hum Sousa marches as I write. It gives my prose a bright, martial clip.

No, having had time to think over what I was trying so clumsily to say here, I came up with two main points. Well, maybe three.

The first is that, from an architectural stand point, the story might have been stronger had there been some relationship between Richard and Bridget that was resolved by the introduction of the demon. It just would have thickened the plot and given it substance. A story--any story--is about people, not about things or demons. It's an inescapable law of storyland. The thicker the bonds of human interaction, the stronger the story, the fuller and more satisfying it seems. A story is human emotion and feeling acted out. As such, you have to ask yourself what are the feelings acted out here? They're,"Feed my pet!" and "Argh! No!"

More important in this case, a horror story has to feature human evil. Jaws is a scary, scary story, but it's really more of a tragedy than a horror story because there's no human evil involved. In the same way, the only evil in evidence here is Richard wanting to feed his pet demon, which really is almost endearing--a boy and his homunculus. Unfortunately that's going to mean some nasty business for Bridget, and Richard gets unpleasant about it and has to get his nuts off, but other than that, the act isn't really evil enough for us. If they were related, if he were lusting after her, if we were able to witness one of the perversions of love of which evil is so often compounded, the sense of malice would be much more recognizable to us, much more familiar, much more haunting.

He gets close. The masturbation hints at the evil he has inside. But is it simple sadism? Is that all? This is where the story should really go, I think. I know this is asking a ridiculous amount from Shang for what he was doing, but the most interesting part of the story for me is Richard's relationship with his demon, what they do together at night. The imagination fairly trembles, huh?

Horror stories are always highly moral, whether we want them to be or not. No matter what they're ostensibly about we turn them into tales of sin and punishment. Our minds demand it. There are no innocent victims in horror stories. If there are innocent victims then they're no longer horror stories, they're tragedies, like Job or Lear. Even Bridget, who does nothing to deserve her fate, we blame for her naiveté and innocence. She should have known that the world is a corrupt and hideous place. We seem to expect this of everyone today. It's a major trend in horror today, the attempt to uncouple morality from horror, and it's a mistake, because the most resonant part of horror is not the punishment, but the sin, the steps that lead to the monster's creation.

Maybe you could help me here, but I was just trying to think off the bat of some good horror story that wasn't also very moral, and I couldn't think of a one. I thought of HP Lovecraft's Elder stories, which are basically in the Monster genre, and even these are rich the moral of the Audacity of Science. Poe is terribly moral, and so is Kafka, though Kafka's heroes are guilty of the sin of being bourgeoisie. Perhaps Sade, but he wasn't writing horror, was he, and he paid no attention to what happened to his victims. They were hardly even human. Perhaps that's why he's so terrible to read now.

Just the other day my 16 year-old daughter was watching "Touristas" where a bunch of innocent young American tourists are kidnapped and lightly chloroformed while their organs are bloodily harvested for sale on the blackmarket in the grandest of the Grand Guignol tradition. It's like watching vivisection. And as totally blameless and innocent as these kids were, you still blamed them for being middle class Americans and for not knowing that all foreigners are out to kidnap you and slice out your kidneys with a straight razor on a dirty kitchen table in some barrio. This is entertainment.

This is farce. Grand Guignol. Without the moral dimension to reflect our own understanding of the source of evil within us, it's just meaningless blood and lymph.

Richard basically set a shark loose with Bridget in a tank in this story and we watched the slaughter and expected the moral drama of horror. We didn't get it and I think that's why some of us feel a little cheated. But I don't. It's a very good story for doing just what it does--showing a superficial bit of hell of man's own devising and placing it in its proper context.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Horror stories are always highly moral, whether we want them to be or not.

Excellent couple of posts, but I'm not sure I disagree with the uncoupling of morality from consequences.

The problem with tightly coupling morality to the fate of the characters is that the story is in danger of becoming too predictable.

Generally, if the cast is a bunch of teens then you know the jock and the slut are going to die horribly while the pure and virtuous girl makes it out at the end. Likewise, if the story is about a threat to the 'apple pie' family unit then you know only peripheral characters will die. The family will come through untouched at the end.

I think it's important to maintain a credible sense of threat to the central characters in a horror tale for it to be effective. That sense of threat isn't there if it's too obvious that certain characters have 'invulnerability shields'.

It seems to me that recent films have tried to get around this problem by making all the characters equally obnoxious, which doesn't really work either. I think for horror to be truly effective the audience has to like the potential victims and also feel that they are in credible danger.

Cosmic Justice stories are always satisfying as it's always nice to see a rat get their just desserts.

But I also think the odd dollop of cosmic injustice is a useful tool to keep an audience on their toes.

Take the example of the apple-pie family in danger. The audience knows nothing really bad is going to happen to the family unit. But what if the youngest daughter is killed in the first reel? All of a sudden we're now in a completely different film.

Of course there is always the question of whether this film/story would still qualify as entertainment, but horror has always had to walk along that fine line.

I guess there is a lesson here in that life is ultimately fairly random and bad things can and do all too often happen to people who don't deserve it. The odd reminder of this isn't a bad role for horror to take, but repeatedly bludgeoning people over the head with it is just depressing.

My tuppence anyway.

 

[Penelope Street]

That thing in my mouth is a kazoo. I like to hum Sousa marches as I write. It gives my prose a bright, martial clip.

How clever. What's a good sex story without a martial clip? Or is it just that blowing can be a source of inspiration?

The first is that, from an architectural stand point, the story might have been stronger had there been some relationship between Richard and Bridget that was resolved by the introduction of the demon.

Duh! Ok, that makes a lot more sense now, thanks.

In the same way, the only evil in evidence here is Richard wanting to feed his pet demon, which really is almost endearing--a boy and his homunculus.

So not endearing! I didn't find Richard to be someone wanting to feed his pet- I thought he just wanted to feed his own sadistic lust. So I saw the demon as a utensil of Richard's, not his pet.

He gets close. The masturbation hints at the evil he has inside. But is it simple sadism? Is that all? This is where the story should really go, I think.

I agree this was the creepiest moment. And I think it was simple sadism.

... but the most interesting part of the story for me is Richard's relationship with his demon, what they do together at night. The imagination fairly trembles, huh?

Weird.. I didn't care about that relationship at all, mostly because I didn't see there being any real bond between the two. But I can see how it could be interesting if there was something between them.

Horror stories are always highly moral, whether we want them to be or not. No matter what they're ostensibly about we turn them into tales of sin and punishment. Our minds demand it.

So we're compelled to think something like, "Stupid Bridget! She shouldn't have gone to Richard's apartment. She deserved to be raped by a demon and have her face wanked on by a cretin!"

There are no innocent victims in horror stories. If there are innocent victims then they're no longer horror stories, they're tragedies, like Job or Lear.

This is where not being well-read hinders me. So it's a terminology thing- if the victim hasn’t committed some sin, then by definition it's a tragedy, not horror? And the sin has to be breaking, say, one of the ten commandments- just being stupid isn't a big enough sin? Regardless, I can imagine there being some pretty scary tragedies!

It's a major trend in horror today, the attempt to uncouple morality from horror, and it's a mistake, because the most resonant part of horror is not the punishment, but the sin, the steps that lead to the monster's creation.

So we need to know more about the demon's creation? I kinda liked not knowing that.

I think for horror to be truly effective the audience has to like the potential victims and also feel that they are in credible danger.

Cosmic Justice stories are always satisfying as it's always nice to see a rat get their just desserts.

But I also think the odd dollop of cosmic injustice is a useful tool to keep an audience on their toes.

Take the example of the apple-pie family in danger. The audience knows nothing really bad is going to happen to the family unit. But what if the youngest daughter is killed in the first reel? All of a sudden we're now in a completely different film.

So true. I like movies like that, where you sit up and say, "Hey- that wasn't supposed to happen... was it?"

My tuppence anyway.

Thanks for sharing your tuppence. We're all allowed one. And mine is that you should share your demon story for the next discussion.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Goodness! So many excellent thoughts are out here that I fear this post may become a bit … epic. Forgive me if it does. I’ll try to be studious of brevity, but just look how long it’s taken me to say “Lots to cover. I’ll try to be brief.”

Penelope, thank you for the generous comment on my thoughts on control, rape, and the bridle, but I can see that they didn’t come through well in the story. I think that those points may have been the victim of the same broader problem (Bridget’s characterization) that led to these comments:

I found Bridget to be obsessed with the bridle, though I never understood why. To me, she'd have to be obsessed to go alone to a known lecher's home just to see the device. Now that you've mentioned it, having the item haunted and Bridget experiencing the torments of past wearers- that could really work.

No way do I want to wear one of those damned things either, but I'm not Bridget. She's a little on the loopy side if you ask me and I can so see her trying it on for size. And if you gave me the choice of wearing a non-demonic bridle or being alone in an apartment with Richard for the same amount of time, I'd try it on for size too.

In fact, I think that the issue is also contributing to Dr. M’s very trenchant point on the connection between Richard and Bridget:

It's a very good story. I read it before and thought so at the time too, The only thing that bothered me was the lack of any moral connection between Bridget, Richard, and the bridle. There's some missing moral symmetry that makes her sudden attack seem--how can you say it--seem almost too personal. Like "How can you sadistically sexually assault me when you hardly know me?"

Seriously, the attack by the imp is so very personal and violative that it doesn't seem right that Richard chooses some virtual stranger for the meal. We look for some chain or web of consequence to give a deeper dimension to the horror and make it more than a random rape. This is old-time New England horror, and maybe it's the Lovecraftian in me, but I'm used to these being all bound up with ethics and morality and consanguinity, and I wanted to imagine that some where back in time Richard is a distant cousin or has some sort of blood relationship with Bridget that makes this sex incestuous as well as bestial and sodomistic through the demon and gives a more satisfying shape or consequence to the evil. I think it's missing a link between Richard and Bridget that would allow for the human manifestation of evil.

You’re both right, of course. It’s not coming through. And that’s the most telling criticism of this story, for me, because it’s not supposed to be that way. I love your points on moral and amoral horror, Dr. M.; it’s the sense of some purpose, some right and wrong under all of this, that gives horror (and most of the rest of literature) its weight. When Mr. Chase declines to “judge” his characters, I confess that I flatly sneer. It’s important to understand one’s characters and have enough empathy to know what makes them tick and what makes them human, but to have no opinion at all on the moral weighting of one’s characters seems to me an abdication not just of moral judgment but of the role of the author. If no character has any particular moral status in respect to any other, then the events are essentially random and lack any meaning or significance. While it’s interesting the first one or two times to tell a tale of the barren and meaningless moral vacuum in modern life, eventually that horse has run its one trick, as Manyheadedhydra pointed out in his post. Indeed, I wished to do more. And so to this …

This is loading a lot more theoretical baggage onto Shang's neat little story than ever he expected, so I want to say too how much I appreciated his writing in this piece, especially the density of the prose during the rape which adds so effectively to the feeling of claustrophobic suffocation.

It’s very kind of you to offer some gentle words on the prose, but I wanted more theoretical baggage. I just had great difficulty coming at it. And the matter is wound down in this question of yours:

Edited to add: I can't help but being curious now... The story was obviously inspired by a device of the same name. But what's the real source of the psychosexual horror of this thing? To me it's not so much the tongue wheel. It's the bondage aspects, the face being constrained, the intrusion into the mouth. The bar down the back is especially disturbing. It's reminiscent of a living Iron Maiden. A more hideous form of bondage is hard to imagine, yet it's also perversely arousing, controlling and presenting (an important aspect of bondage is its function to present the subject). I wonder that this angle wasn't worked up more.

Richard's sexual involvement with Bridget was never really made clear--just what it was that aroused him to masturbation. I assumed he was getting a vicarious demon buzz, but maybe there was something more to it than that. Maybe it was the bondage effects. Maybe there was something in Bridget that called out to him to treat her this way. There must have been something. Maybe that would have been sufficient personal link right there to tie them together.

To get the true feeling of evil in here, we need the working of an evil heart, and I don't know that I see one.

Yes. This is it. Precisely. So … let me lay out what was in my head, and perhaps we can get a good post-mortem on what went wrong in execution.

I didn’t dwell on the arousing aspects of the particular bondage, although I recognize that they are there, because I didn’t wish to diminish or eroticize what struck me as the actual deep horror of the thing. However, I can see that that horror didn’t come through very well, so let me lay it out plainly.

To me, the vital aspect of the bridle’s horror is its dehumanization of the wearer. It robs her of the most human of all characteristics, speech, and places her, by the very name of the thing, in the position of an animal – a point emphasized by historical references to victims being led through the streets by such bridles. When coupled the fact that in some towns or even homes the bridle was kept regularly hanging in view, that struck me as a deeply disturbing and permeating evil: the continual reminder that at any point, one’s very humanity could be revoked. It also struck me as a hideous and corrosive way for the controller of the bridle to live, knowing that he had always the option of reducing another person to a non-person – and for the crime of speech, the sign of being a human in the first place.

It reminded me of a story my mother told me of a Holocaust survivor who mentioned walking past some German women on the road near her concentration camp, and saying good morning to them; she said that they looked at her as if a dog had sat up and spoken to them. There and elsewhere, it’s often seemed to me that the greatest evils humans undertake begin with presuming to designate someone else as something less than human, and so to me that is the real horror of the bridle. The demon that’s in it is, essentially, the human desire to make another person an object or animal because that happens to be convenient.

The problem I ran into both in communicating this and in developing Bridget was that a traditional porn convention stood squarely in my way. In my mind, Bridget and Richard fit their roles because of who each is; on the page, I think I went so far in trying to avoid a possible complication from porn conventions that Bridget never came through.

Bridget, as I see her, is an academic and a feminist – the latter both in the personal and the academic/theoretical sense. She’s not obsessed with the bridle for its sexual potential; she’s fascinated with its symbolic role and the things that it says about humanity and how men and women relate to each other. She’s the sort of person who might read the staking of Lucy in Dracula as symbolic patriarchal vengeance on a sexualized woman or the rise of corset in fashion as a marker of intersecting economic and gender roles in the industrialized middle class. She’s fascinated by the bridle for the same reason her friend would go even to Richard’s house to see a 16th century hand copy of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” – because she does underestimate Richard and think him merely icky rather than dangerous, and because it’s something that’s been so intellectually focal to her that she can’t resist a chance to see one in person.

The problem in communicating this to the audience, of course, is that porn traditionally contains only one sort of feminist: the ball-busting bitch who gets her well-deserved comeuppance by being transformed into a thoroughly degraded slut, with or without her eventual embracing of this transformation and recognition that it’s what she’s always secretly desired. Because I see Bridget as a reasonable person whose feminism is not a sign that she needs to be punished and turned into a mindless nymphomaniac but rather that she’s someone with a particularly keen appreciation of what’s frightening and yet fascinating about the bridle (as evil often is both at once), I found it difficult to characterize her. “Academic feminist” is a very large part of her character as I see her, and yet those are such loaded terms in traditional porn conventions that I feared I was dooming her from the start even by mentioning as much as I did. The terms and ideas bring a lot of baggage with them, and in this case misplaced baggage.

Clearly, though, I need to do something more there, because not enough is coming through. I need to get enough of the ideas across to make it clear both why this is a particularly personal horror for Bridget – a ruthless, brutal, and immediate imposition of non-human status simply because she’s female – and why it’s appropriate for Richard, who perceives women as just the sort of non-human objects of gratification that the bridle promises to make them. Bridget’s an ideal target for him because to Richard, the porn convention is right. Feminists are sluts begging to be punished and put under total male control. That the demon is quite willing to go after Richard when it gets the chance is something that I need to work in so as to draw the deeper issue to light: no one can control this kind of evil, nor see clearly what it will lead to. It looks like a quick road to power and gratification, but ultimately it will consume anything it can snatch at.

Then, I think, I would be moving toward conveying the moral backbone of the story. I worry too about making it too overt; I don’t want to beat people over the head with it. On the other hand, at the moment I’ve ended up subtilizing it right out of existence. It’s quite a challenge, but I’m pleased to see it for what it is. It won’t be easy to do, but then that’s not why we write, is it? 

So, basically, “right, right, yes!” to Dr. M’s further notes; they’re quite right. I see it and I know that that needs to be there, and in my mind it is; alas, on the page, it’s not, and that’s the only real measure that counts in writing. I’m just going to add some comments to clarify what was in my mind in hopes that people might throw in useful suggestions about how to get that out of my head and onto the page.

More important in this case, a horror story has to feature human evil. Jaws is a scary, scary story, but it's really more of a tragedy than a horror story because there's no human evil involved. In the same way, the only evil in evidence here is Richard wanting to feed his pet demon, which really is almost endearing--a boy and his homunculus. Unfortunately that's going to mean some nasty business for Bridget, and Richard gets unpleasant about it and has to get his nuts off, but other than that, the act isn't really evil enough for us. If they were related, if he were lusting after her, if we were able to witness one of the perversions of love of which evil is so often compounded, the sense of malice would be much more recognizable to us, much more familiar, much more haunting.

Absolutely. I want a sort of old evil / symbolic / archetypic thing, and I do think that human evil is the key. Basically, they’re enacting a very old game and a very familiar sort of cruelty. I don’t think Richard’s feeding the demon because it’s hungry; he’s feeding it because he loves the idea of having that sort of control and of being able to make a woman completely his own helpless object. That craving for power is the real demon – the human evil. The creature that the bridle becomes is an embodiment of a human drive. Similarly, Bridget’s terrified of it not so much because it’s supernatural as because it’s that hidden horror that’s been lurking under her academic interest all along – the creeping fear that if things were once that way, they could be again. I was just afraid of overplaying Richard; I didn’t want him to turn into a cardboard cutout of the Bad Patriarchal Pig any more than I wanted to see Bridget go the other way. I think I need to go back and mull over this a bit to work out ways to show their natures subtly and keep them balanced with the whole human picture in each.

I know this is asking a ridiculous amount from Shang for what he was doing, but the most interesting part of the story for me is Richard's relationship with his demon, what they do together at night. The imagination fairly trembles, huh?

Oooh. That’s such a damned, damned interesting image. I wanted (I want a lot, don’t I, and I do so little) to keep the story tight in its time focus, but you’re an evil tempter with that image, Dr. M. It’s hard to resist working that in. There must be some way to do it in the constraints of the timeline of the story, because I think you’re right. There’s definitely something sexual, half masturbatory, half seductive, and entirely perverse, about Richard’s relationship with the bridle. It’s not, in my mind, all that different to the relationship some sexual serial killers have with their actions. It’s not really about the victim, ultimately; it’s about the image of himself performing those actions and the thrill it gives him to be in that position and to have that control. He undoubtedly fantasizes about that frequently.

Maybe you could help me here, but I was just trying to think off the bat of some good horror story that wasn't also very moral, and I couldn't think of a one. I thought of HP Lovecraft's Elder stories, which are basically in the Monster genre, and even these are rich the moral of the Audacity of Science. Poe is terribly moral, and so is Kafka, though Kafka's heroes are guilty of the sin of being bourgeoisie. Perhaps Sade, but he wasn't writing horror, was he, and he paid no attention to what happened to his victims. They were hardly even human. Perhaps that's why he's so terrible to read now.

Absolutely with you there (particularly on De Sade, who is unreadable dull, and that’s quite an achievement considering his material). No teen horror flick is complete without the moral; it’s always the kids shagging in the back seat who are the first to go. But I do wonder this: does Bridget need to deserve her fate, or just Richard? I think I was looking at Bridget as an innocent victim and Richard as the real final goal and deserving victim of the story, with Bridget’s horrific assault being the part that convinces us that Richard’s final fate is merited. Does that work for you?

Richard basically set a shark loose with Bridget in a tank in this story and we watched the slaughter and expected the moral drama of horror. We didn't get it and I think that's why some of us feel a little cheated. But I don't. It's a very good story for doing just what it does--showing a superficial bit of hell of man's own devising and placing it in its proper context.

Well, that’s decent of you, but I’m not satisfied. I want more of the moral depth. I was just afraid of doing it too ham-fistedly and beating people over the head with it. I still don’t want to be preachy, but of course that’s because I want the really hard thing: that moral gradually filtering through without anyone feeling that’s being preached from the first line. It looks to me like I’ve gone too far toward eliding it, but my gut instinct tells me that it’s going to be an error if I just go back to the story thinking “make moral message more clear.” I think I need to start with “characterize Bridget and Richard more strongly and yet still in lean, tight fashions” and let that lead toward revealing more of the psychological and moral underpinning. And of course I always want to bear in mind …

The problem with tightly coupling morality to the fate of the characters is that the story is in danger of becoming too predictable.

Precisely. I could see that if I made Bridget too clean and clear a feminist heroine from the start, there were two likely results: (1) porn readers would expect a breaking of the ball-breaker and slobbering nymphomania to ensure, and be disappointed (2) others would immediately see where all of this was headed and know the ending before she ever stepped into his flat. That’s why I think that the observations on the thin characterization are probably the right way forward. Rather than concentrating on the moral theme iteself, I need to concentrate (I think) on the people who ultimately support and reveal the moral theme.

I think it's important to maintain a credible sense of threat to the central characters in a horror tale for it to be effective. That sense of threat isn't there if it's too obvious that certain characters have 'invulnerability shields'.

Amen to that! Some of the best advice I’ve been given was to stop writing with a safety net under the characters. If there’s no real threat, there’s no real feeling, depth, or story. I think what I need to do here is to expand on some of the character motives, feelings, and drives in order to convey the real sense of moral peril and damnation that I want in this thing as well as the physical danger.

Humble thanks again for the excellent comments, and for the joy of hearing someone say “You know, what a good story really needs is some moral weighting, damnit.” I think I’ve heard so much harping about authors lecturing or preaching to their audiences (which, of course, is not good either) that I’ve gotten gunshy of the whole thing and squashed down the moral theme until it smothered. I’ll see if I can’t get it back up on its feet via some more life in the characters.

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

Ah, I see we were posting at the same time, Penelope. Just a quick note or two on your latest -

Horror stories are always highly moral, whether we want them to be or not. No matter what they're ostensibly about we turn them into tales of sin and punishment. Our minds demand it.

So we're compelled to think something like, "Stupid Bridget! She shouldn't have gone to Richard's apartment. She deserved to be raped by a demon and have her face wanked on by a cretin!"

I think what he was suggesting was that we are so programmed to look for a reason or a sin that's being punished that even if there is no such sin, we start picking on minor flaws because we feel that something has to be there. Otherwise the horror is just random and without meaning, and we resist that to the point of pushing at the story and seizing on whatever looks like it might be the justification for the punishment.

Too, horror can be (possibly inherently is?) about the hideous disconnection of scale between actions and consequences. It's good old-school fire and brimstone: screw up that one little thing, and an eternity of suffering will be visited upon you by an agent of divine retribution. Choose just the wrong lake side to succumb to the quarterback's come-ons, and you won't get the usual round of STD's, pregnancy, and/or nasty rumors; you'll get chopped to bits by a chainsaw-wielding lunatic. We don't think that the characters deserve the horror as punishment for that sin per se, but we know that they had some punishment coming, and horror comes from the horrifically out-of-scale nature of it.

There are no innocent victims in horror stories. If there are innocent victims then they're no longer horror stories, they're tragedies, like Job or Lear.

This is where not being well-read hinders me. So it's a terminology thing- if the victim hasn’t committed some sin, then by definition it's a tragedy, not horror? And the sin has to be breaking, say, one of the ten commandments- just being stupid isn't a big enough sin? Regardless, I can imagine there being some pretty scary tragedies!

I just watched the new movie of "Sweeny Todd" this weekend, and I've often thought of this issue in reference to that play. It's a story of tragedy and vengeance, but also of horror, and it's very finely wrought on that point. Every action of the lead, however gory, has some justification for most of the play; he's threatened, he's revenging a truly vile and horrific wrong that was done to him and his family, he's taking out his vengeance on a world of people who arguably are part of what has ruined him (stretching a bit, but we can at least see that to his grief-maddened mind, at that point, this is true). He murders many people, and yet it's still a tragedy - and he is the tragic hero, however blood-soaked his hands are.

Until that moment. One moment, very precise. Impossible to miss. He kills the one person in the play whom he should never, ever have harmed, and he does it simply because she's in his way, without a thought or any idea what he's just done. It's the most terrible moment in the entire piece, more terrible by far than the much gorier points, and once you've seen the play once and know what he won't until later - who he's killing - it's absolutely searing. It's the point of horror. All else has been tragedy; that is truly horror. And Dr. M. is right. It's horror because it's the one thing that even in the depths of his madness, Sweeny himself would know to be the ultimate sin.

It's a major trend in horror today, the attempt to uncouple morality from horror, and it's a mistake, because the most resonant part of horror is not the punishment, but the sin, the steps that lead to the monster's creation.

So we need to know more about the demon's creation? I kinda liked not knowing that.

I wouldn't personally want to get into a tell-y description of how the demon came to be in the bridle, but I think that Dr. M. is right in suggesting that we need to know the sort of general logic and morality behind it. That's particularly important to me because it's all wound into Richard's character anyway; he's the monster as much as the bridle is, because he works from a similar impulse. If I can show how his mind works, I think that most of the moral genesis of the bridle's inhabitant is there, and then the details of physical genesis aren't as important. Perhaps I'm reading Dr. M wrong, but that's what I'm getting out of it - not that readers need to know a magical formula or specific event that created the supernatural manifestation of evil, but that they need to feel that the moral weighting of the actions are such that a demon is the proper expression of them?

 

[manyeyedhydra]

I hadn't thought of the porn conventions of the academic feminist type character.

I thought Bridget seemed believable. She had an academic curiosity in the bridle that overwhelmed her caution. There was certainly no 'safety net' apparent as well as I didn't think she'd survive the story once the bridle went on. It would have been a rough penalty considering her only 'crime' appeared to be curiosity/stupidity, but shorter horror stories are much less forgiving.

Shang, did you consider having her try the bridle on by choice? I'm wondering just how curious an academic would have to be to do this. It would completely ruin the build up and sense of evil coming off the bridle if this happened though I think as Richard would probably have to be very charming to start with for her to consider it. It could possibly create tension if he was reassuring, while the bridle gave off very bad vibes. That might create an interesting conflict between her curiosity and caution.

Slight imminent off topic warning, sorry.

Thanks for sharing your tuppence. We're all allowed one. And mine is that you should share your demon story for the next discussion.

Which one?

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=338347
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=337167
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=339669

These all feature characters being punished for a poor moral choice and could provide an interesting continuation of the morality discussion raised earlier. "A Succubus for Christmas" is probably the more interesting in that regard, but it is a little heavy handed.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Hydra, I see what you're saying about Bridget choosing to try on the bridle, and it does make sense. I think it's definitely possible for someone to have her level of interest in the bridle and to want to try it on. I can see that it could look right for other people, but I just can't quite get it to feel right for me in terms of the specific image I have of Bridget (which I definitely need to communicate more effectively).

To me, choosing to put on the bridle would appear too much like embracing the real horror - choosing to relinquish her humanity. She knows that this wasn't done as part of a BDSM game or kinky thrill; it was real, it happened to people just like her, and it was brutally forced upon them. I can see a fascination with the object, as it's such a frighteningly powerful thing to be able to do, but I can't quite imagine a desire to actually feel the results. It's not like standing in an open iron maiden waving to one's friends; you can't try this thing on without feeling the large part of its effects, particularly for someone (like Bridget) so attuned to those specific effects - the feeling of powerlessness and dehumanization. I just can't see that as something she'd want to try on.

Too, I think you've put your finger on the structural issue that would stop me. Richard doesn't want her to put it on willingly. He wants to force it on her. He's physically aroused just thinking of it. He wants what happens to be a sign of his control and power, and for that I think he needs to force the thing onto her.

With that said, it certainly is a devilishly kinky little device, especially with the back rod. I'm not sure what it says about me that that was my own invention. But it definitely has some strong BDSM potential - just not, I think, in this particular story. I think that lingering much on the sensuality of bondage would undercut the horror.

 

[Penelope Street]

I think what he was suggesting was that we are so programmed to look for a reason or a sin that's being punished that even if there is no such sin, we start picking on minor flaws because we feel that something has to be there. Otherwise the horror is just random and without meaning, and we resist that to the point of pushing at the story and seizing on whatever looks like it might be the justification for the punishment.

That's kinda what I was getting at. If the events of this tale really happened, we'd just say, "OMG! That's awful! And there's a demon!", but since it's literature, we look for some reason or message instead.

Bridget, as I see her, is an academic and a feminist - the latter both in the personal and the academic/theoretical sense. She’s not obsessed with the bridle for its sexual potential...

I see Bridget as a history buff. Maybe even a history fanatic.

The problem in communicating this to the audience, of course, is that porn traditionally contains only one sort of feminist: the ball-busting bitch who gets her well-deserved comeuppance by being transformed into a thoroughly degraded slut, with or without her eventual embracing of this transformation and recognition that it’s what she’s always secretly desired.

This might be true of porn, but your story isn't porn.

That the demon is quite willing to go after Richard when it gets the chance is something that I need to work in so as to draw the deeper issue to light: no one can control this kind of evil, nor see clearly what it will lead to.

I really don't think you need to work on this at all.

I just watched the new movie of "Sweeny Todd" this weekend, and I've often thought of this issue in reference to that play. It's a story of tragedy and vengeance, but also of horror, and it's very finely wrought on that point.

I'm still haven't decided if I wanna see that one!

I think I was looking at Bridget as an innocent victim and Richard as the real final goal and deserving victim of the story, with Bridget’s horrific assault being the part that convinces us that Richard’s final fate is merited. Does that work for you?

Ok, that makes sense- though I really only cared if Bridget escaped, not whether Richard got what was coming to him. If this tale is meant to be about Richard's sin, why not tell it from his respective?

Shang, did you consider having her try the bridle on by choice? I'm wondering just how curious an academic would have to be to do this. It would completely ruin the build up and sense of evil coming off the bridle if this happened though I think as Richard would probably have to be very charming to start with for her to consider it.

Had Richard been a charmer, I think this story could have been a lot scarier.

To me, choosing to put on the bridle would appear too much like embracing the real horror - choosing to relinquish her humanity. She knows that this wasn't done as part of a BDSM game or kinky thrill; it was real, it happened to people just like her, and it was brutally forced upon them. I can see a fascination with the object, as it's such a frighteningly powerful thing to be able to do, but I can't quite imagine a desire to actually feel the results. It's not like standing in an open iron maiden waving to one's friends; you can't try this thing on without feeling the large part of its effects, particularly for someone (like Bridget) so attuned to those specific effects - the feeling of powerlessness and dehumanization. I just can't see that as something she'd want to try on.

I guess we'll just have to differ here because I can see an academic wanting to experience a piece of history, especially if she feels safe while doing it- but I agree with Hydra, we need a 'safe' Richard before that happens.

There was certainly no 'safety net' apparent as well as I didn't think she'd survive the story once the bridle went on. It would have been a rough penalty considering her only 'crime' appeared to be curiosity/stupidity, but shorter horror stories are much less forgiving.

My brows were pretty low when Richard blatantly attacked Bridget. I didn't understand how he imagined he would get away with assaulting a co-worker. Did he just not care? Speaking of the safety net, Judy showing up like she does seems a little too fortuitous.

Thanks for sharing your tuppence. We're all allowed one. And mine is that you should share your demon story for the next discussion.

Which one?

I was thinking the tale you mentioned in the dark stories thread, but if you prefer another, that's ok too!

 

[manyeyedhydra]

I was thinking the tale you mentioned in the dark stories thread, but if you prefer another, that's ok too!

I'm trying to remember which one that was. It might have been "The Masterton Covenant" mentioned in the I/you thread.

I'm happy for any to go under the knife, providing people think there's enough in the story to be worth discussing in the first place I thought this was a very good exercise with some interesting points raised.

If we want to continue the dark/morality discussion "A succubus for christmas" is probably the best one.