Nitrile & Spit

This book is well executed horror erotica seemingly specifically tailored for me

That’s pretty much the review, it speaks to me, experientially, emotionally, sexually.

It’s the modern day, more or less, Iran (our protagonist’s name, not the country of Iran) isn’t doing so well after the pandemic, he just can’t get used to the false normalcy of life now, people pretending things are OK, that it isn’t still out there, killing people.

His job is a joke, a scientist working on a cure for a disease that everyone has already filed away as a simple fact of life, like traffic accidents or tornadoes, his boss comes to work drunk, the security guards manning the entrance to the lab can barely pretend to care, perfunctory temperature checks, prodding bags, waving through the same walking corpses everyday. Nobody cares, they come to this place so that they have a reason to get out of bed and money to buy drink and so the government has something to point to to pretend they’re doing something.

Iran does care though, he cares an awful lot, the virus took a lot from him, it took his family, it took his friend, it ruined his relationship with his girlfriend and it robbed him of his peace of mind.

Iran cares enough to keep working, after hours, in an apartment that must look more and more like a lab every night, stocked with stolen supplies, carefully sound proofed and camouflaged from prying eyes.

He’s even got a test subject. Work would NOT be happy.

The Review Bit

No plot details follow. This book feels angry to me, the kind of livid, white hot anger that leaves you bent over and silent, taut as a spring, like an animal, its angry at how the world works, how it treats people that cannot just stop thinking about what has happened, it is also a celebration, of embracing what you actually are, what you actually want, satisfying animal needs.

But mostly its about what its like to be obscenely angry and hurt and desperate and moving through, rather than past that place to somewhere better, even if better isn’t what you thought it would be.

It is also extremely horny, the erotica part of horror erotica, and very queer, like good horror often is. I don’t particularly think you need to be to like this, you don’t even need an interest in sex, the erotic parts of the book still work in service to the horror whether you like them or not.

Every page oozes style, the author’s got that secret sauce, each paragraph adds texture and taste to this world, the characters feel fully formed even though we meet them only briefly, the story feels believable within the context they build.

It is well worth reading, if you’re a fan of horror, if you’re a fan of the fucked up, but especially if like me you worked at the front during our IRL pandemic and left a little bit of yourself in it.

Sometimes out of nowhere I will smell sweat and piss and chlorine and feel like a dog trapped in a closet, this book embodies that feeling, and the things you will do to get away from it.

Where To Get It

The book is by Porpentine Charity Heartscape, an author with an extremely cool website of her own, which contains links to all her works (a prolific backlog of stories, games and articles) along with the usual social media, blogs, asks etc.

The book can be picked up from their itchi.io account for $2.99, and from Amazon as a kindle book for the same price or as a printed paperback for $7.77. I somehow missed the itch.io option when buying and ended up buying the paperback instead. IMO pick up the epub from itch, the paperback is nice, but Amazon are an evil company.

I loathe using amazon for anything but I get that its probably the only way to get the book physically published given its subject matter and niche appeal. You shouldn’t be buying Kindle versions of anything though, ever.

I picked up the author’s full length novel, Serious Weakness at the same time, again missing the itch.io link, its substantially thicker, so expect a full review when I do get through it.