A Touch in the Dark

Four tales of sexy "terror"

This is another entry in my ongoing “My Filthy Hobby” series, in which I offer some thoughts on the stories I’ve published. We’re in the midst of “Golden Pigtail Award” nominations right now, so if you enjoyed the spooky tale discussed, please consider letting Alexa Sommers (the powerhouse erotica author and force of nature) know by submitting it in the paranormal/horror category. (I know, it’s not quite horror, but it’s horror adjacent, and has some right spooky moments between the hot sex scenes.) I’ve got a list of other stories of mine eligible for nomination, and also favorites from other authors, so please be sure to fill out your nomination form before 7 PM PST on January 21, 2024.

I like a good ghost story. We had books like "Prominent American Ghosts," "The Thing at the Foot of the Bed," and various Alfred Hitchcock collections scattered around the house when I was growing up. Halloween is still my favorite holiday, and I consider "spooky season" — from roughly October 1 to September 30 if I have my way ... — a sacred time.

And so it's only natural that I would plunder some well-known ghost stories for some fun Halloween erotica.

"A Touch in the Dark" is a Fox Run Swingers' Club story that takes place between "Mia's Patio Playtime" and "The Betwixtmas Switch," though the timeline for these books isn't particularly strict. The swingers are really just conduits for sexy ideas, though I do think some of the characters — Mia, Gabbie, and Bobby in particular — have personalities that drive a good narrative. In this story, Gabbie is inspired by a van that looks like the Mystery Machine to drag the gang on a road trip to a haunted house, where things get more than a little freaky.

Each chapter steals from a classic story. The first, in which Ron gets a ghostly hand-job, is inspired by "Smee" by A. M. Burrage. This is one of my favorite stories: it's delightfully spooky and quietly terrifying, exactly the sort of thing that will sneak up on you when you're sitting in a dark, quiet place. And the original has just a touch of the erotic already, with the narrator smitten by a young lady at the party where the game of "smee" is played and wondering if he's lucky enough to be seated beside her in a hiding place. I just let things get a little out of hand ...

Gabbie's adventure was inspired by the classic BBC "Ghost Stories for Christmas" adaptation of M. R. James' "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad," which has a quite scary old fashioned sheet-draped spook. I swapped out curtains for the sheets, and added some Gothic touches with Gabbie roaming the dark halls, but I tried to keep the spirit of a James story, in which curiosity is punished (or, in this case, rewarded).

The third story, "Whose Hand? Whose Mouth?" takes its inspiration from Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" — one of the most dread-inducing lines in ghost fiction is Eleanor wondering, "Whose hand was I holding?" when she finds that it wasn't Theo's. This sort of story calls for different parts than a hand, of course, and I wanted to have a character overwhelmed by trying to tell which lover is human and which is something from beyond.

And finally, of course, we have that classic urban legend, "The Hook." There's no hiding this story's roots, and the denouement in the last chapter is more than a little silly, but I felt the collection needed a dirty, funny campfire tale. Mia is, of course, the perfect foil for a story like this, because she's the boldest and brashest of the gang despite her diminutive stature, and the least likely to be deterred by a possible serial killer. Of course, the question of who or what was shaking the van from the outside (we know what was shaking it on the inside ...) is left open: a ghost story needs some mystery.

I think there will probably be a sequel to this one for next Halloween. It was a fun and easy story to write, and I'll take any excuse to hang out with these characters. More classic ghost stories will surely be plundered: I'm thinking "The Upper Berth" might work, or perhaps Edith Wharton's "Afterward."