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WORLDS OF PARADOX No
Mercy by Pat Califia
The collection begins and ends with a pair of matched stories, like bookends: "Mercy" and "No Mercy." The titles invite the reader to consider the significance of compassion in the context of a consensual inequality of power: is it more merciful for the domme to withdraw when the submissive panics, or to give her what she really wants, and for which she is willing to confront her own fears? In a deceptively clear style, both stories explore the complexity of fear and desire in a social context of subversive gender difference (Dominant femme and submissive butch) in a lesbian relationship which is influenced by differences of social class. The first title story begins with a compelling scene from a story-within-a-story about the deposed Marie Antoinette, last queen of France, as an object of lust for a female peasant guard. This historical piece, which resonates with the tensions of the relationship in which it is written, dramatizes the effects of life on art and the woman writer's need for a "room of one's own." Although the reader is not shown how the relationship between the queen and her guard develops in the fictional aftermath of revolution, the misunderstood writer makes progress: the ugly duckling finds her community, and thereby begins to know herself as a swan. The writing process is discussed further in the author's "Afterword": Each time I send in the manuscript of a book of sexually explicit fiction, I think to myself, That's the last one. I don't have any more to say in this genre. Yet here I am ... assembling another collection of work infused with the eroticism of S/M. The bottomless well of inspiration seems somewhat miraculous even to the author, who credits it with keeping his life "verdant" despite a chronic illness, fibromyalgia, and a resulting loss of status in the S/M community he helped to form. Written expression, like sexual energy, is shown to be even more essential for individual survival than the presence of a community which can be fickle. If realistic fiction usually is, as some critics have claimed, a study of the individual interacting with the collective, these stories qualify as realism despite their obvious fantasy elements. All the characters live in well-developed social milieux, which range from present-day America to the medieval European setting of "Blood and Silver" (a feminist revision of "Red Riding Hood") to the slave society on the planet Yggdrasil (first described in Califia's famous story, "The Bounty Hunter") to the future world of "Skinned Alive," in which the ultimate act of communion is voluntary transmission (and acceptance) of a fatal disease. Califia's stories work as "one-handed reading," and are usually promoted as such. In some sense, however, they are never simply masturbatory, since the sexual impulse to own or be owned constantly motivates the characters to try to break down each other's essential isolation, no matter how hard this proves to be. In the words of one experienced butch: "No one ever has a girl. . . You just get to borrow them for awhile." The interactive nature of S/M eroticism seems to be demonstrated by the story written by Califia and his partner, Matt Rice. The cop in "The Cop and His Choirboy" is a particularly bitter and ruthless predator, but the submissive response of the homeless young hustler he captures has the power to save the sinner from himself. This story of suffering and redemption is possibly the most moving in the book, especially since it appears to be the result of a seamless collaboration. Several of the stories in this collection can be read as social satire, or comedies of manners. In "Incense for the Queen of Heaven," two "faggot" dykes discover their attraction to each other after each has been dismissed from the service of a dominant lady whose "fashion sense had stopped at the year 1914, along with the heart of Archduke Franz Ferdinand." The lady, an over-the-top high femme, tries to educate the "butch cadets" who serve her by teaching them obscure words which then become part of their stream of consciousness. Her latest swain observes the sign of a "faux English tavern" which has become a dyke bar, and thinks: "The pearl in the peacock's tail had a nacreous shimmer, and its prurient fan had a chatoyent luster." Passages such as this teeter on the edge of self-parody and self-contradiction. While the author clearly favors the working-class heroes in his fictional worlds, his own viewpoint has become more ambiguous in the years since he responded sarcastically to the "intellectuals" who panned his 1980 lesbian sex manual, Sapphistry. Since then, the author's fiction has consistently featured underdogs who outwit the "Thought Police" of the dominant class, but who often use words as their weapons, a strategy which might be considered intellectual. The author's academic credentials (Master's degree in Psychology) combined with a long list of published work, including well-researched non-fiction, raise further questions about the social conflict in his fictional worlds: who, exactly, are the Good Guys in a class-divided society? And who is the enemy? Will the real Slim Shady stand up? The nacreous shimmer of the author's trademark wit decorates a variety of tales presented as sexual display. Beneath the flash, however, there are messages aimed at the heart and the intellect as well as the libido. There is kindness in these stories as well as cruelty, and tragedy as well as comedy. It seems unlikely that the shapeshifting author has exhausted his Muse yet. About the Reviewer: She writes a regular column for Perceptions, "the gay/lesbian newsmagazine of the prairies" (P.O. Box 8581, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, or perceptions@home.com), If you would like to e-mail Jean please send her your thoughts to: editor@girlphoria.com |
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