Lorna’s Lust For Men (aka Ladies In Heat)

Lorna’s Lust For Men, by Dee Laye
No month stated, 1981  Beeline Books
(Original publication 1972)

Originally published in 1972 as Ladies In Heat, Lorna’s Lust For Men is by none other than Gil Brewer, here posing as “Lee Daye;” the original ‘72 publication was credited to “Luke Morgann.” Apparently the book went through several permutations, reprinted under a variety of titles and author names, but these days all of the editions appear to be as rare as hen’s teeth; I luckily came across this latter retitled reprinting at a nice price and, uh, snatched it up.

Now this is a sleaze novel pure and simple – it isn’t just an otherwise-standard hardboiled mystery yarn with an added “risque” element, like some of those earlier so-called sleaze novels were. This one’s all screwing, all the time, with at least one explicity-rendered banging per chapter. I’m supposed to enter the standard caveat that it’s “a shame a writer of Brewer’s caliber had to stoop to porn” and whatnot, but to tell the truth I went into Lorna’s Lust For Men eager to see how Brewer would handle sleaze, and sure enough he does manage to deliver a somewhat-entertaining plot amid the graphic sexual situations.

One thing to note – this retitling makes no sense so far as the actual plot goes; titular “Lorna” only appears in the first chapter. It’s my assumption someone at Beeline just lazily checked this first chapter when coming up with the latest title for this old Brewer novel. Another thing to note is that I only assumed the novel took place in Brewer’s typical location of Florida; we’re informed the town is named Howesville, but Brewer doesn’t do much to bring it to life or tell us anything about it – other than the incredible amount of swap parties that take place there. As one orgiast later notes (while having sex, in fact): “The whole town’s gone batty.”

It’s really hard to review a book like this; the majority of it is comprised of hardcore smut, and while I was tempted I decided not to quote any of it lest anyone get truly offended – for it is pretty sleazy. It’s always crazy to see what these hardbitten drunk old hardboiled novelists are capable of, and Brewer doesn’t let us down. The novel’s as profane as can be, with practically everything, from the narrative to the dialog, having to do with unbridled sex. There’s also some stuff that wouldn’t be publishable today; most notably, while Lorna gets the titular spot in this later edition, the girl our hero spends the most time boffing is named Emily…and she happens to be fifteen years old. And her young age is only seen as an enticement for more boffing.

Anyway our hero is Booth Landers, a professional painter who I assume must be in his early 20s, and this because we learn that “two years ago” he graduated from college. We don’t get much info on his job but he seems to be a painter for commercial accounts; early on a “soda ad” is mentioned. But otherwise the painting aspect has nothing to do with anything, other than the steady stream of willing models Booth gets to screw over the course of a few days. In fact, we meet him as the lovely redheaded Lorna is imploring him for sex – she’s been lusting after him the past few days, particularly after catching a glimpse of him and his eight-inch “pecker” in the shower here in his studio.

Straight out of the gate we see what we’re in for, as Booth and Lorna energetically screw over seemingly endless pages in full-on graphic splendor. We’re to understand that this is a first for Booth; he’s never had sex with any of his models, happily married to a “big blonde” named Verna. And folks guess who just happens to walk into the studio as Booth and Lorna are having round two? That’s right: Verna, who freaks out at the sight of Lorna sitting atop her husband and “slobbering over his dick.” She takes off, and Booth regretfully ends his time with Lorna, who drops from the narrative and never shows up again, so it’s clear the good people at Beeline didn’t put too much thought into the title of this edition.

Booth goes home but is unable to talk Verna out of dumping him, so he takes his stuff and goes back to his studio – just in time to have sex with another model, this one named Cherry. It’s revealed that all of his models have been lusting for him, and now that Lorna broke the dam they’re all bound and determined to have their way with him. So there ensues yet another hardcore a-doings, with yet another intruder coming upon Booth mid-boink: Dr. Lester Doyle, a local sleazebag who lost his license over an abortion years ago. He’s been keeping himself occupied by blackmailing Booth and has come for his latest payment.

Brewer displays his hardboiled background with this subplot: Booth, according to Doyle, raped a young woman two years ago, and now he’s got to pay every week to keep her from going to the cops. The belabored story has it that the girl was actually gang-raped, with Booth being the one who held her down while his buddies took their turns after him. This was after their graduation party, and all the other guys have returned to their homes; since Booth stayed here in Howesville, he’s the only one who can be successfully blackmailed by Doyle – the girl came to him for treatment after the rape and confided in him. Eventually we’ll learn though that she wasn’t raped: it was more of an orgy sort of affair, with the gal getting off on pretending to be taken advantage of by a bunch of guys in the woods. Whatever, we’ll roll with it.

Even here Brewer manages to cater to the sleazy whims of his editorial demands: Coyle plays pocket pool as he watches the half-nude Cherry waltzing around the studio. In a typical hardboiled story, Booth would no doubt be planning how he could kill Coyle – the only people who even know about the supposed rape and the blackmailing are Coyle and the “victim” – but instead Booth has been paying to keep the doctor’s mouth shut. Now though with Verna leaving him he’s not as worried about his wife being told of the incident (one of Coyle’s threats), however he’s still frantic he’ll go to prison if Doyle tells the cops (another of Coyle’s threats). Instead he sends the doctor off, telling him he’ll pay later.

The novel is like Blue Dreams taken to absurd hardcore proportions. For within days of becoming separated from his wife, Booth’s had sex with sundry hotstuff women, only of course this being a sleaze novel the sex is much more explicit than in that earlier, superior novel. And also once again the sex is taken to such extreme levels that it reaches gross-out proportions; Booth is forever “washing off his dick in the sink” and rushing to his next XXX engagement. Throughout Brewer tries to incorporate actual “novel stuff:” Booth’s studio is trashed while he’s out screwing some latest babe, and there’s a running mystery of who did it, and also he has a few confrontations with Verna, determined to reunite with her. As I say Brewer seems to be having fun, like when Booth gets angry at the suspicion that Verna’s already having sex with some new guy…and then realizes that he himself has been with five women in the past day.

Oh yeah and befitting the early ‘70s publication date (of the original edition at least), swap parties are all the rage: Booth goes to about five of them over the course of the novel, each time escorted by his latest model girlfriend. Chief among these is Emily, the aforementioned teenager; of all the female characters in the novel, she has the most sex scenes with Booth and takes him to a couple swap parties. Another running thread is that Booth keeps hearing that Verna is going to be appearing at these orgies, yet he never finds her at one. Oh and one of these orgies features one of the greatest lines of dialog I’ve ever read (not to mention another indication of Brewer having fun): “Put your whang in me, Alivin.”

Booth does finally come across Verna at a swap party, late in the novel, giving an energetic bj to some dude, something Booth learns she’s done for several other guys just before him. “This is my wife!” A naked Booth shouts to the assembled swappers. “She’s been sucking everyone off! Now I’m gonna fuck the shit out of her!” (Actual quotes from the book, mind you.) Thus Booth forces himself upon his wife as everyone watches, and it only occurred to me much later that cagey Brewer had worked rape into the resolution of this subplot – Booth’s troubles with Dr. Coyle being based on a supposed rape, and Booth’s repairing of his relationship with his wife via an actual rape. Not that Verna much minds it, given that she’s all worked up anyway. After this Booth even forces her to give him one of those super bjs, after which the two delcare their reborn love for one another and leave the orgy(!).

But as if we haven’t had enough orgy action, we get another one immediately after this; Booth and Verna have some dialog back home, accepting one another’s infidelities and deciding to have an open, swinger-friendly relationship. Also, Verna admits to having wrecked Booth’s studio, but offers to pay for repair. All that settled, they head to another orgy straightaway – there seems to be several of them going on at any given time here in Howesville – and here the climax plays out, so to speak, when Booth spots none other than Dr. Coyle engaging in the hardcore activities. Not only him, but also the young woman who accused Booth of raping her, two years ago. Booth again shouts to the assembled throngs, informing them of the good doctor’s blackmail attempts and the girl who lied that he raped her. He then proceeds to beat up Coyle, and he and Verna go off happily together.

And that’s it for Lorna’s Lust For Men, aka Ladies In Heat, etc. Hopefully this overlong summary will save others the trouble of actually reading the book. I mean not that it’s bad – as a purefire sleaze novel with explicit sex it’s certainly a success – it’s just that anyone hoping for a glimpse of what Brewer’s truly capable of will come away dissatisfied.