Jeff Gelb: Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

Graham Masterton, "Changeling." Copyright © 1989 by Graham Masterton.

Richard Matheson, "The Likeness of Julie." Originally published in Alone by Night . Copyright © 1962 by Richard Matheson. Reprinted by permission of the author and Don Congdon Associates, Inc.

Robert R. McCammon, "The Thang." Copyright © 1989 by Robert R. McCammon.

F. Paul Wilson, "Menage à Trois." Originally published in Weird Tales , Vol. 50, no. 1. Copyright © 1987 by F. Paul Wilson. Reprinted by permission of the author and Terminus Publishing Company, Inc.

Richard Christian Matheson, "Mr. Right." Originally published in Whispers . Copyright © 1988 by Richard Christian Matheson. Reprinted by permission.

Chet Williamson, "Blood Night." Copyright © 1989 by Chet Williamson.

Mick Garris, "Chocolate." Copyright © 1989 by Mick Garris.

Ramsey Campbell, "Again." Originally published in Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine . Copyright © 1981 by Ramsey Campbell. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Lisa Tuttle, "Bug House." Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction . Copyright © 1983 by Lisa Tuttle. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Theodore Sturgeon, "Vengeance Is." Copyright © 1980 by Theodore Sturgeon. Reprinted by permission of the author's estate: Jayne Sturgeon and Marion Sturgeon, co-trustees.

J. N. Williamson, "The Unkindest Cut." Copyright © 1989 by J. N. Williamson.

Michael Garrett, "Reunion." Originally published in Chic Magazine . Copyright © 1987 by Flynt Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and L.F.P., Inc.

Harlan Ellison, "Footsteps." Copyright © 1980 by the Kilimanjaro Corporation. Reprinted by permission of and arrangement with the author and the author's agent, Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., New York. All rights reserved.

Mike Newton, "Pretty Is…" Copyright © 1989 by Mike Newton.

Gary Brandner, "Aunt Edith." Copyright © 1989 by Gary Brandner.

Dennis Etchison, "Daughter of the Golden West." Copyright © 1973 by Dugent Publishing Corporation; copyright © 1982 by Dennis Etchison. Reprinted by permission of the author.

John Skipp and Craig Spector, "Meat Market." Copyright © 1987. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

Rex Miller, "The Voice." Copyright © 1989 by Rex Miller.

Robert Bloch, "The Model." Originally published in Gallery Magazine . Copyright © 1975 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation and Robert Bloch. Reprinted by permission.

Steve Rasnic Tem, "Carnal House." Copyright © 1989 by Steve Rasnic Tem.

Les Daniels, "They're Coming for You." Originally published in Cutting Edge , edited by Dennis Etchison. Copyright © 1986 by Les Daniels. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Jeff Gelb, "Suzie Sucks." Originally published in Hustler Letters Magazine . Copyright © 1987 by Jeff Gelb. Reprinted by permission of the author and L.F.P., Inc.

Ray Garton, "Punishments." Copyright © 1989 by Ray Garton.

David J. Schow, "Red Light." Originally published in Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine . Copyright © David J. Schow, 1986. Reprinted by permission of the author.

This book is dedicated to Joyce and Terry, who put up with our sexual idiosyncracies .

Special thanks to… Dennis Etchison, David Schow, Richard Lange, Michael Garrett, Claire Zion, and Kurt Busiek.

Readers of fiction have long been drawn to a mix of the taboo topics sex and horror. Experienced vicariously from armchairs (or, more appropriately, beds), generations of readers and film lovers have found sex and horror a marriage made in Heaven… or perhaps Hell. In such literary classics as Dracula and The Hunchback of Notre Dame , and box-office smashes like Psycho and Halloween , sex and horror have made for perfect, if strange, bedfellows.

Hot Blood is the first major anthology to ask the world's premier horror writers to share their secret sexual nightmares. The masters are here: Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, even a contribution from Theodore Sturgeon, whose 1979 story Vengeance Is . is a prophetic tale of perversion that hints of a disease similar to the modern plague of AIDS. In addition, Hot Blood features a collection of '80s visionaries, from Ramsey Campbell, Robert R. McCammon, F. Paul Wilson, and Graham Masterton, to sizzling new talents like David J. Schow, Skipp and Spector, and Rex Miller.

Sexual attraction is, perhaps, one of the most powerful and mysterious forces of nature, an element carefully interwoven between these pages. Those readers who happen to be in the market for a new lover are urged, upon completion of this book, to reevaluate qualities most often sought in the opposite sex and to consider adding «human» to the top of the list. In fact, these days, reading Hot Blood may be one of the few remaining forms of "safe sex" available. And isn't that a scary thought?

The elevator door opened and there she was, looking directly into his eyes as if she had known that he was standing on the other side. Tall, beautiful, dressed utterly in white. He hesitated for a moment and then stepped back one half-shuffle to allow her to pass.

" Pardon mivrouw ," he acknowledged. She smiled briefly but didn't reply. She passed him in a pungent swirl of Calvin Klein's Obsession, and he turned around and watched her walk across the marble lobby and out through the revolving door. Out on the hotel steps her long brunette hair was lifted for a moment by the April wind. Then the doorman came forward to salute her and she was gone.

"You're going up?" asked an irritated American who was waiting for him in the elevator, his finger pressed on the Doors Open button.

"I'm sorry? Oh, no. I've changed my mind."

He heard the man say, "For Chrissake, some people…" and then he found himself hurrying across the lobby and out through the door, just in time to see her climbing into the back of a taxi.

The doorman approached him and touched his cap. "Taxi, sir?"

"No, no, thank you." He stood holding his briefcase, the skirts of his raincoat flapping, watching the woman's taxi turn into Sarphatistraat, feeling abandoned and grainy and weird, like a character in a black-and-white art movie. The doorman stood beside him, smiling uneasily.

"Do you happen to know that lady's name?" he asked. His voice sounded blurry in the wind. The doorman shook his head.

"Is she a guest here?"

"I'm sorry, sir. It is not permissible for me to say."

Gil reached into his inside pocket and for one moment considered bribery, but there was something in the doorman's smile that warned him against it. He said, "Oh, okay, sure," and retreated awkwardly back through the revolving door. The two elderly hall porters beamed and nodded at him as he returned to the elevator. Stan and Ollie, one thin and one fat. They were obviously quite accustomed to eccentric behavior.

Gil stood in the oak-paneled elevator as it took him up to the third floor and scrutinized himself in the brass-framed mirror with as much intensity as if he were a business partner whom he suspected of cracking up. He had never done anything in years as spontaneous as chasing after that woman. What the hell had come over him? He was married, with two children, he was right on top of his job. He had a six-bedroom house in Woking, a new Granada Scorpio, and he had been profiled in Business Week as one of the new breed of "totally committed" young entrepreneurs.