Bending the Knee - Volume Four

Volume-Four in the "Bending the Knee" collection contains three female-led works from Rafael Menton describing women of power and how they wield it over their male subjects.

Our first tale is text-edition of "A Shock to His System".

The bequest of a house and a sizable annuity from a deceased aunt effects huge changes in the mindset of a previously loving wife. Especially when she takes receipt of a document in her aunt's hand that details her relationship with the man she had always called "Uncle" and thought so distinguished and masculine. At first she is shocked by the discovery of how completely her aunt had dominated the man's life¿ then repulsed¿ and then aroused at the possibility of having such a relationship with her own husband who, as fate would have it, has just seen his business go into receivership and is now dependent upon her and her aunt's legacy for the food he eats and the roof above his head¿ A roof, the born-again dominant that is his wife has decreed will be below stairs in the specially designed basement that had once been the home of her uncle¿ A basement in which she has carried out certain¿ modifications!

Next up is "True Drama".

An ageing actor, touring the UK in an Alan Ayckbourn production, comes face to face with a drama that is as unbelievable as it is real at his lodgings in Guildford. A two-week stay for the duration of the play that is going to prove far more enduring and far more¿ demanding. Especially if the two strangely compelling Indian women, who are housekeeper and mistress at his lodgings, have their perverse and life-changing way.

Finally, we have "A Woman of Haiti".

It is 1911, and a respected Professor and most keenly felt man-of-learning is invited to a gathering at a friend's in order to witness the "gift" of a young woman visiting from the Caribbean. The prospect does not sit well with him, but he agrees to put in an appearance after being informed his fiancé will also be attending to witness their friend's latest star-turn and practitioner of mesmerism. Made cynical by his insistence upon empirical evidence and a thoroughgoing incredulity when it comes to the mystical and magical beliefs, he accepts the challenge of the young island woman and allows her to try and put him under her mesmeric spell¿ A decision he will regret until his dying day, as his privileged life is dismantled about his head in the most ignominious of ways.

If you like tales of assertive women who are both erotic and believable, without being too obvious, you are likely to enjoy this collection of stories from a female-led perspective on the subject of crime, horror, the occult and the bondage of man to woman.

Rafael Menton is a Professor of English Literature with a retro passion for the early to mid-twentieth-century fiction of mystery, crime, suspense, and horror with erotic undertones; ranging from Doyle and Blackwood and on to Rohmer ¿ as well as sometimes indulging in a more contemporary take of his own on the work of those masters.

Dettagli