At the core of this oddly beautiful little book is a sort of “how to” guide, which focuses on the specifics of the correct behaviors for a woman desiring the “top” or “mistress” role in a sadomasochistic interaction. (It is written in such a way that the “bottom” might be male or female, but the sadist is presumed to be female.) This is an excellent book for the novice who might not have a clue where to begin. It would also make a great gift to a wife or girlfriend with whom one might wish to initiate a sadomasochistic interaction. Besides the basic etiquette involved, there are actual sample dialogues to which one might refer for inspiration or guidance. Keen insights are also offered for very specific aspects of fetishism, plus tips on how to make the most out of a humiliating situation. When offered as a present, it might well include bookmarks.
What makes this an odd book is not the subject matter, but the juxtaposition of the texts. The book is divided into three sections. The first and last sections are a fictional work of enormous precision and craft purporting to be the memoirs of Angel Stern. The writing has an almost hallucinatory edge to it. The general flow of the story tells the tale of how Angel came to her sadism. “Like some exotic monster I rarely emerged from the green darkness of the ocean floor, where my frail phosphorescence lit the way. These light and fluid creatures, who fled easily through the watery latitudes to surface and air I envied; I wondered at their careless trust in a foreign light. I surface slowly into their bright and confused stream to find they care nothing about my icy home below. They know only that to follow me would be their death as slowly the terrible pressure crushed their bodies. Enough that they are well-amused by my lurid coloring and profusion of antennae.” SA

Publisher: Blue Moon
Paperback: 192 pages

Originally published by Grove Press in 1974, SM: The Last Taboo is “the first original and excellent anthology to present the case for sadomasochism with commitment and sincerity… A truly pioneering work since it is not a clinical investigation, with all the suggestion of perversion and aberration such implies, SM is a response to the growing curiosity provoked by liberated sexual mores, and a genuine attempt to illuminate a corner of the unconscious left dark for too long.” The authors eloquently discuss sexologist Havelock Ellis, the Marquis de Sade, the spanking setting, America and masochism, the role of woman, the role of fantasy, SM in marriage, water sports, and “a tidy pain” based on both their personal experiences and research. An appendix made up of literary SM “documents” (all censored on publication) exerpted from Baudelaire, Aubrey Beardsley, Edith Cadivec, Pauline Réage, and, of course, Anonymous is also included.

Publisher: Blue Moon
Paperback: 345 pages

Best known for his black-line illustrations that escorted the pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements into Decadence, Aubrey Beardsley also pursued literature in a suitably tuberculosis—haunted and fragmentary way. Under the Hill was Beardsley’s own title for this hallucinatory account of the knight Tannhäuser’s dalliance with Venus in her subterranean city of delights.
The original work (left incomplete at the time of Beardsley’s death at 26) was suppressed for its studied perversity; this edition brings together in one place Beardsley’s incomplete text and all of his original illustrations, including an additional frontispiece and a supressed title page. Beardsley’s own writing is fascinating. The critic Holbrook Jackson says that episodes in Venus and Tannhäuser “read like romanticized excerpts from the Psychopathia Sexualis of Krafft-Ebing.” In other passages, Beardsley glides seamlessly from frivolity to Sadean delirium, as exemplified by a staged encounter between pampered courtiers and rustic satyrs and nymphs. RP

Publisher: Blue Moon
Paperback: 141 pages
Illustrated

Cleo and her freak friends were highly paid drug couriers who traded a few minutes of bowel-wrenching fear crossing international borders with drugs hidden in suitcases, paint boxes and body cavities, for a lavish lifestyle in Goa, where they consumed high-quality cocaine and heroin in cartel-breaking quantities. For more than five years in the ‘70s Odzer lived in a junkie utopia, with sun, sand and any drug she wanted. Inevitably what began as an idyll of druggy beach parties and carefree sex turned into a nightmare of narcotic-fueled paranoia and Third World prisons.
“We also had drugs. Neal had the smack. Neal always had smack. Both of us had a stash of coke. Since the air was humid I decided to put mine in the safe behind the painting. After dropping silicon crystals into the powder to absorb moisture, I unlocked the safe. Stored in its cool depths were eleven tolas (one tola = 10 grams) of opium; six tabs of acid; a gram of morphine bought from Paradise Pharmacy in Mapusa (sold legally over-the-counter), which I found unusable due to its disgusting taste (besides, only junkies used morphine); and a kilo of bad border hash that, not knowing any better, I’d stupidly bought to offer guests. It was comforting to survey the cellophane mountain of my hoard. I placed the coke on its summit. Next, I checked the pill cabinet. I had 34 packets of Valium (10 to a packet), seven packets of Mandrax, three bottles of Dexedrine, and a year’s worth of birth-control pills…
One had to be careful in Thailand. This was not India. Thais were strict about drugs. Serious penalties existed. Thailand was one of those countries where, if they arrested you, you disappeared. They were especially concerned with smack trafficking. If you were caught with any quantity, you were executed within three days. No embassy could help. There was no time to write a senator. However, by following basic guidelines, it was relatively easy to avoid hassle. You had to act like a tourist. Simple. Carry a camera. Dive in the pool once a day. No problem. Then there were situations to be staunchly avoided. Most important: DO NOT HANG OUT ALONE IN YOUR HOTEL ROOM ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT. Only junkies did that. It was common knowledge that Thai hotel employees received bonuses for reporting drug suspects. Loose tobacco in an ashtray, a cigarette filter lying around, or, worst of all, a piece of cotton or a bent room-service spoon—forget it. Next thing you knew, there’d be a knock on the door.” NN

Publisher: Blue Moon
Paperback: 325 pages