Tentacles and Wedding Bells (2022) by Margaret L. Carter

“What’s tentacle porn?”

“You don’t want to know,” he muttered.

M. L. Carter, “In the Tentacles of Love” in Tentacles and Wedding Bells (2022)

In Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos, there is a section of about 11 pages tracing the thematic history of tentacles and erotica as it applies to the development of weird fiction. For those curious, go read it. There are citations for those who wish further reading and scholarly sources.

For the purposes of this review, it suffices to say that tentacles have been associated with weird fiction in general since around the turn of the century, and with the Mythos in particular since the days of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, C. L. Moore, and August Derleth. Tentacles were depicted as alien and unnatural…especially when, as the popularity of Japanese anime and manga boomed in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States and other markets, tentacle erotica became increasingly more available and conspicuously a part of the erotic vernacular lexicon, even if it remained a niche interest.

Tentacle erotica is often mentioned with an expression of disgust, perversion, and transgression against the natural order, and the beings equipped with tentacles are typically inhuman, malign, and rapacious. Quite literally; “tentacle rape” has become a byword for the whole mode of tentacle erotica. It’s become almost a farcical joke: Tentacle Grape soda is a product that uses the nod-and-wink toward the trope of sexual violation by faceless phallic feelers as a selling point. Many later works have leaned into this and begun to play it for sexual titillation or laughs, as in Booty Call of Cthulhu (2012) by Dalia Daudelin or “Le Pornomicon” (2005) by Logan Kowalsky.

Yet what you don’t often see is a sex-positive take on tentacle sex.

Tentacles and Wedding Bells (2022) by Margaret L. Carter is a combination of two light-hearted and sexy novelettes that had previously been published at Ellora’s Cave, an early 2000s ebook publisher that focused on romance and erotica, and which shut down in 2016. While some might cheer Amazon’s dominant share of the market, this does come at the cost of less variety from smaller independent publishers like Ellora’s Cove. Yet now, they are available once again, this time collected together.

“Tentacles of Love” (2007) focuses on a wedding, where protagonist Lauren meets her future husband Blake’s family—a Mythos-inflected version of the Addams family or the Munsters, with Uncle Dexter from Innsmouth, Aunt Lavinia from Dunwich, Great-Aunt Asenath from Arkham, and of course, her fiancé’s twin brother Wilbur in the attic.

Only Wilbur takes more after their father:

A translucent mound of rainbow-colored bubbles filled the space, emitting blue and violet sparks whenever its surface rippled. A pseudopod oozed outward for a second, then withdrew into the mass, leaving a glittery trail on the floorboards.

M. L. Carter, “In the Tentacles of Love” in Tentacles and Wedding Bells (2022)

Wilbur, it turns out, is a shy, introverted soul who lives on the internet, listens to jazz, and enjoys Japanese anime (“Especially the giant robots and the creatures with tentacles.”) Pretty much like any NEET twenty-something. And Wilbur isn’t the only one with tentacles, as his brother soon reveals. For fans of “The Dunwich Horror” who have guessed at the purpose of Wilbur Whateley’s odd anatomy, M. L. Carter has the answers to your questions.

“Weird Wedding Guest” (2013) is the direct sequel; it’s Lauren and Blake’s wedding, and Wilbur meets bridesmaid Roxanne, who had been corresponding with Wilbur over email. In the dim and distant past of 2013 there was no internet dating service for the spawn of Yog-Sothoth, so the meet-cute is a little awkward…but it works.

Okay, so my email pal is half alien. He’s not really scary when you get past that fact.

M. L. Carter, “In the Tentacles of Love” in Tentacles and Wedding Bells (2022)

There are two reasons that these stories work. First, Margaret L. Carter knows her Lovecraft, and all the in-jokes and even the lore is spot-on. Fans of the Mythos will enjoy the Easter eggs and attention to detail, and the imagination at play. Second, the stories are played straight as spicy romance stories with women protagonists. These aren’t Derlethian pastiches, nor outright farces. These are women who take a great deal of weirdness in stride, and slowly come to explore some novel erotic circumstances…and their emotional attachment to their odd-looking but loveable paramours grows deeper. It’s a familiar story; like Beauty and the Beast, but more domestic.

Yet that’s why it works. Carter plays the tropes of the spicy romance off of the Lovecraftian callbacks beautifully. The sex scenes are creative and original, but more important than that they feel earned. This isn’t a story of sexual assault by eldritch entities, but a sex-positive exploration of new sensations between two willing and considerate partners.

Tentacle and Wedding Bells isn’t cosmic horror, but it is fun and intelligent. Carter is very deliberately subverting expectations in this story; the references to Wilbur’s interest in tentacle porn make a lot of sense for unstable congeries of iridescent bubbles that can exude pseudopods that double as genitalia.

It is nice, after all these years, to see both parts of Tentacles and Wedding Bells (2023) together at last and relatively available, either through Amazon or other retailers.

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Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

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