Nightmare Magazine - Horror or Pedo-Porn?

[Fenris Technique]

Nightmare Magazine, a pro-paying market that also podcasts a story with each issue. Site can be found here:
Nightmare Magazine - Horror Dark Fantasy

I've listened to their free content long enough to feel a sense of guilty over not supporting them, so recently I bought a subscription to Nightmare. Anyway, fate being an eternal trickster, the first story I received with my new subscription is titled "Things of Which We Do Not Speak" by Lucy Taylor.

Anxious to find what treasures await I tore through the story only to discover I was neither horrified, nor satisfied by the tale. I really don't get this particular brand of 'horror' and question whether it's actually horror at all. The story is free, please give it a read and don't let my assessment of it taint your own interpretation.

- *Spoilers* -

So . . . if I understand this story correctly, guy gets repeato flaccid-cock because his woman wants to be hit, and because as a child he caught his dad getting sucked off by a teenage football player, and for this discovery his dad made him ask to be hit while he beat him. Fast forward to the resolution of the story, the guy hires random street thugs to take him to a crackhouse and hit him.

That's horror?
In what sense?
What was the danger the protagonist faced? What was the threat? What was supposed to scare us?

I'm really lost on this one. Yet clearly the story was good enough to get published in a prestigious pro magazine. So my question is this - Is my definition of horror simply too narrow, or was this story *not* horror?


EDIT - Direct story link Things of Which We Do Not Speak - Nightmare Magazine

It appears Taylor's fiction gravitated towards the "psychological" and "extreme" horror niches; this particular piece reminds me of what I've read by Chuck Palahniuk, whom I'm no fan of.

Her bio also mentions that she's won plenty of awards prior to this publication; and, given that she's "established" and that fiction is a market-driven industry, it's no surprise that they published this tale regardless of the quality. Stephen King's work (always a "literary equivalent to a Big Mac and fries", in King's own words, but even the die-hards tend to agree that the quality dropped significantly since the accident) continues to be published and reprinted because he sells. If only Harlan Ellison were still that lucky.

The Taylor story in Nightmare doesn't suit my tastes, but it still fits as horror in those aforementioned veins. I dislike the Flash Gordon and Star Wars franchises, but my personal tastes do not dictate whether something is or is not x genre-mould; just an example I did not enjoy, or of generally por quality. This kind of thinking is what occasionally annoys be about some people in the black metal scene, in which artists to emerge after Varg's imprisonment (or, being more generous, the emergence of Emperor, Carpathian Forest or Gorgoroth; or even in some cases not Nazis) no matter how fresh their sound, isn't "kvlt" enough.

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by Fenris Technique

Direct story link Things of Which We Do Not Speak - Nightmare Magazine

Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor

My penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake.

Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor

I loved her passion and her energy and the way she craved sex like some kind of cock-junkie,

Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor

She was wet when I pushed inside her.

Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor

My erection was diminishing like a Popsicle thrust toward a flame.

Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor

The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.

Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor

The urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis simply vanished, and with it went my hard-on.

Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor

My dick stiffened in remembrance of that place I once thought I’d escaped forever, my childhood.

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Quote Originally Posted by Fenris Technique Direct story link Things of Which We Do Not Speak - Nightmare Magazine Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor My penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor I loved her passion and her energy and the way she craved sex like some kind of cock-junkie, Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor She was wet when I pushed inside her. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor My erection was diminishing like a Popsicle thrust toward a flame. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor The urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis simply vanished, and with it went my hard-on. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor My dick stiffened in remembrance of that place I once thought I’d escaped forever, my childhood.

Still better sex than Morrissey could write.

[Fenris Technique]

Thanks Justin . . . not even a trigger warning, eh?
(j/k)

Alright, well I guess I'm just not familiar enough with this flavor of "psychological" and "extreme" horror. I equate those descriptors with titles like The Shining, Ghost Story, or House of Leaves. Tales featuring a slow and relentless buildup of disquiet and unease, the ever-increasing drumbeat of an impending but unknown danger, etc.

No disrespect to the author who is both accomplished and talented. I just wasn't sure how the story qualified as 'horror', as it appears no one actually faced any particular threat. Seemed more like psycho-drama or some related genre.

It's possible her resumè bullets were simply too good for Nightmare to pass up. Yet I've seen John Joseph Adams release some quality work from relatively unknown folks, so I'm reluctant to assume that he was name-dropping for sales in this case. Hope springs eternal and whatnot.

I'll just have to accept that this particular tale was too advanced for my primitive tastes to appreciate.

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.

Scalding means burning hot, particularly a burn resulting from some kind of heated liquid, but...a burning hot icepick? Presumably an icepick inserted rectally, however "unprecedented," would produce a piercing rather than scalding pain? I'm wondering whether Taylor or anyone she was acquainted with went to experimental proctological lengths to determine whether the sensation produced by this form of insertion is closer to that of burning rather than the imagined ripping, tearing or piercing?

[Liam Barden]

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Quote Originally Posted by Fenris Technique Direct story link Things of Which We Do Not Speak - Nightmare Magazine Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor My penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor I loved her passion and her energy and the way she craved sex like some kind of cock-junkie, Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor She was wet when I pushed inside her. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor My erection was diminishing like a Popsicle thrust toward a flame. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor The urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis simply vanished, and with it went my hard-on. Quote Originally Posted by Lucy Taylor My dick stiffened in remembrance of that place I once thought I’d escaped forever, my childhood.

Bahahahahaha, I read all that with Mr Garrison's voice in minds ear:

Out on the balcony, when Reginald kissed Diana lips, her knees went weak. Slowly, he pulled her top down exposing her soft, unyielding breasts.
"Oh, yeah! . . . Now this is getting good!"
Just the sight of those breasts made Reginald's penis very hard. His penis was of considerable size, and now beads of sweat ran slowly down his penis, making it glisten like a strong swimmer, fresh from out of the pool.
It was a fantastic penis that seemed as strong as a horse's leg, yet as delicate as a flower wrapped in silk.
What a grand, grand penis!
Diana's nipples . . . "Uh, let's see! . . . Diana's nipples . . . OH, WRITER'S BLOCK! WRITER'S BLOCK! Hm! CRAP! I'm stuck! Oh, well! Maybe that's enough writing for tonight, Mr. Hat!"

– Herbert Garrison, The Valley of Penises

You bastards have got me reading this now.

'Dad looks at me, but doesn’t disengage. It’s as if the head is growing out of my father’s crotch, a gross and bloated cancer complete with jug ears, sprouting from his genitals.'

Beautiful.

[Justin Isis]

Let's try importing parts of it into classic horror and see what happens...

'My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of several—I don't know how many—legs or arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body. The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding.'

The man did not speak, and bore no trace of expression on his small, regular features. He merely pointed to a book of prodigious size which lay open on the table, while the beldame thrust a huge grey quill into Gilman's right hand. Over everything was a pall of intensely maddening fear, and the climax was reached when the furry thing ran up the dreamer's clothing to his shoulders and then down his left arm, finally biting him sharply in the wrist just below his cuff. The pain was like an icepick up the ass, unprecedented, scalding. As the blood spurted from this wound Gilman lapsed into a faint.

My penis slithered out of her like a clubbed snake.
"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these lines -- "O God! O Divine Father! -- shall these things be undeviatingly so? -- shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and parcel in Thee? Who -- who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." 
The urgent, hormonal energy that a moment earlier had galvanized my penis simply vanished, and with it went my hard-on.

etc.

In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming of an unprecedented icepick up the ass.