SCREAM MY DARLING SCREAM!
Angela Pearson
Delectus Books

"It's a hell of a situation. And I'm as randy as a ram myself. I suppose we'll have to toss each other off again. Come on, get yours out too."

Angela Pearson's 1963 collection of short flage fiction is brought to a panting world courtesy of Delectus Books, who have in the past specialised in punishment literature of a rather older vintage. The themes and obsessions remain the same as usual though: young men being whipped and beaten by eager girlies who then, gripped with uncontrollable desires, have their wicked way with the newly submissive male.

"I like thrashing men. I like to make 'em lie flat on their faces and take my thrashing. And I like to use a nice swishy cane on their bottoms - the sort of cane your mother has in her room for her furs."

Scream, My Darling, Scream! is no Story of O - what is? - but it does have a lot going for it besides a title that just demands to sit on any self-respecting sleazehound's bookshelf. Pearson writes with plenty of pace, a certain degree of skill and an almost breathless enthusiasm. It's all really rather jolly, with well-bred young ladies taking to the whip in much the same way as they might approach their first riding lesson, and their reluctant male partners finally discovering the joys of torture - and receiving a sexual reward at the end of it. If Enid Blyton wrote porn, it'd probably read something like this book.

"Yes Peter, that's how it is. I simply must deliver a whipping, to find out. I'd rather it were you I give it to, but if you're not willing to take it I'll wait till I find someone else who is."

Sexually, the stories here are not overly explicit. Sex does take place, but there are no graphic desciptions, and the penis is referred to as exactly that - the penis. No talk of cocks, pricks, mighty pink missiles and other familiar porno phrases here. Where the book triumphs is in the slightly camp feel of the stories and the author's obvious delight in the subject. Just who was/is Angela Pearson? Is that her real name? Was she a real woman? I think we should be told.

Scream, My Darling, Scream! will certainly appeal to submissive men and possibly to dominant females (or at least, wannabe-dominants). But it's also good enough to have cross-over appeal to people like myself, who tend to believe that, when it comes to SM, it's better to give than to receive...

"Get these ropes off me, will you? I want to poke you. And you're going to be poked as you've never been poked before."

DAVID FLINT

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