Slavery Sure Made People Horny

Another installment in Harry
Whittington’s plantation porn saga.

Trigger warning: It’s plantation porn. ’Nuff said.

If one were asked to name an especially horny time in American history, the 1850s likely wouldn’t come up, yet SECRET OF BLACKOAKS, the second installment in Lance Horner’s plantation porn series by Harry Whittington writing as Ashley Carter, describes the antebellum South like it was the heightof the sexual revolution. From its first chapter, when the new master of the Blackoaks plantation, Styles Kenric, gives his hunky young slave Moab a morning hummer before starting his day, to its last, when Moab, having since fled the plantation, lifts the skirt of his fellow escapee to remove a bullet from her leg and feels an “acute stirring in his loins” upon seeing her bare ass, sex is at the forefront of people’s minds.

At the end of 1976’s Master of Blackoaks, the titular master Ferrell Baynard dies. However, his oldest son Ferrell-Junior, wracked with guilt over his failure to stop the gang rape of his girlfriend Lorna June, has entered a monastery to become a priest, leaving the door open for his scheming brother-in-law Styles Kenric to seize control of the plantation. In this 1978 follow-up, Styles realizes he fought to become captain of a sinking ship. Blackoaks has massive debts, its cotton crops aren’t bringing in the money like they used to, and the one product sustaining the plantation, Ferrell Baynard’s famous corn liquor, can’t be produced since the distillery burned down. Making matters worse, Ferrell Baynard’s widow, Miz Claire, showing signs of dementia (she frequently urges Styles and others to wait for her dead husband to return before making any decisions), has elected to host the wedding of her “big breasted cousin from Charleston,” piling on more debt on top of the debt incurred from Ferrell Baynard’s funeral.

But Styles isn’t going to let the plantation’s shaky finances stop him from his dream of turning Blackoaks into a premier slave breeding operation. By quickly—and coldly—selling off slaves and arranging a line of credit at the local bank (run by Lorna June’s husband Luke Scroggings), Styles stabilizes Blackoaks’ finances in the short term, with enough capital left over to fund future investments, i.e., slaves. Specifically, Styles wants to purchase women of Fulani origin to mate with his two prized male Fulani slaves, Blade and Moab, the whole plan discussed like he’s breeding purebred dogs. This is not comfortable reading.

His plans are almost derailed when Jamie Lee, the aforementioned big-breasted cousin from Charleston, is caught fucking Moab by her fiancé Link Tetherow (yes, Link Tetherow), described as handsome and muscular, but walking “slightly spraddled-legged, as if he were for some reason tender of crotch.” She accuses Moab of rape, but the Baynards don’t readily buy her story since Jamie Lee has not-so-discreetly been sampling all the cocks of Blackoaks, including the one attached to Morgan, the learning-impaired youngest Baynard son, the experience turning the teenager into a compulsive masturbator. The Baynards manage to hold off a lynch mob, headed by the vile Gil Talmadge who instigated the gang-rape of Lorna June, while a visiting Ferrell-Junior convinces Link to tell the gang of bloodthirsty rednecks that it was all a misunderstanding, implying that he might out Link as one of the Lorna June’s rapists to her husband—and the Tetherows’ creditor—Luke Scroggings. Nevertheless, it’s not until Miz Claire, in one of her more lucid moments, shoots Gil Talmadge’s prize slave Arthur that the lynch mob backs down. The wedding goes on as planned, and Jamie Lee and Link exit the book.

With the wedding out of the way, Styles puts his energy into turning Blackoaks into a premier slave breeding operation. To do that, he travels to Tallahassee to purchase a female slave of Fulani origin. Enter Ahma, who is tall, beautiful, barely 16 years old and very angry, with a history of running and fighting enslavement at all costs, even killing a man to get away. “You’ll never break her,” warns fellow plantation owner Cleatus Dennison. But Styles, already miffed that he’s not treated with proper deference as the new master of Blackoaks, is determined to prove all the naysayers wrong and buys Ahma anyway. The trip back to Alabama is a long one, made longer by Ahma’s behavior, starting with her attempting to flee Styles’s carriage (or kill herself):

Luckily, the carriage was moving at a slow clip or the girl would have been dead. Though she was shackled, wrists and ankles, she had lunged over the tailboard of the converted carriage. She hung there, head down, her black hair dragging on the rutted road.

Her face was pallid and she was fighting for breath, almost unconscious when Laus, Perseous [slaves traveling with Styles] and Styles ran back and lifted her again into the carriage. Styles poured her a cup of water from the canteen. She stared at him, refused to touch it. “Why do you want to kill yourself?” he demanded.

She did not answer, merely stared at him, her eyes bleak with hatred.

Later, they stop at a rundown farm to buy some food from the owners who can barely feed themselves. After Ahma spits a mouthful of clabber into his face, Styles, struggling to keep his composure, tries to sell her on life at Blackoaks, as if she has a choice in the matter.

“Two beautiful Fulani boys are waiting for you up at Blackoaks, Ahma. Blade and Moab. They will belong to you alone. You’ll live with them. You’ll have good food—none of this cracker hog-swill. Good food, a nice soft bed. Long nights with Blad in your arms. You’ll want him, Ahma. No matter how much you hate me, that’s how much you’re going to love Blade. Why don’t you behave and eat so you’ll look beautiful for Blade? You’ll make babies together, Ahma. You and Blade. Beautiful pure blood Fulani children.”

Now she spoke, moaning, a savage sound of heartbreak. “Babies? For you to sell, white Masta? Sell like you bought me yesterday?” She raged, fighting at her bonds, tears streaming down her cheeks….

Styles’s shoulders sagged. He walked slowly around the carriage and swung up into the seat, waiting for the [B]lack men to climb in. It looked like a long, hard journey home….

However, Ahma’s resistance to slavery melts—or at least temporarily subsides—the moment she meets Blade. Suddenly, fucking Blade is more important than a life of servitude, conveniently allowing Secret of Blackoaks to put a pin in Ahma’s fiery resistance until the novel’s finale.

Styles isn’t entirely reassured, however. It seemed to him that women were bitches. Some of them were violent bitches. Ahma had already proved her violence. She needed a good fucking—the kind the Mt. Zion louts called “a good horse-fucking.” But Styles soon learns he’s got bigger problems than a slave that may/may not be tamed by Blade’s formidable cock. While he was in Florida, his wife Kathy ran off with Hunt Campbell.

Sex, Booze and Yellow Fever

The British edition of Secret
of Blackoaks. The U.K. version of
Blade is closer to what one would expect,
though still smaller than the
Michael B. Jordan-esque physique 
I’d imagined.

That Kathy would run off with Hunt Campbell is hardly a surprise. Their eventual affair was heavily teased near the end of Master of Blackoaks, and in couple’s interactions in Secret of Blackoaks make their affair inevitable. Hunt, already fired once when Styles deemed tutoring Morgan a waste of money, only to be hired by Kathy as her French teacher, is again sent packing by Styles, told that he needs to be gone by the time he returns from Florida. What’s surprising is Kathy finding the courage to leave with him (she’d resolved she could pay the price of living unmarried as Hunt’s mistress; she could not endure losing him and remaining suffocated and starved as Styles’s wife).

They end up in New Orleans, spending most of their time boning in their hotel suite. Kathy is shy, easily embarrassed when Hunt disrobes in front of her (“I’m proud of my manhood. I’ve nothing to hide,” Hunt tells her) but is suddenly as uninhibited as a Bourbon Street prostitute a few orgasms later (“Do you want to—fuck me?”). Their days and nights are all fun and cum until they leave their hotel room one day and are spotted by the Bretherton sisters, old maids who live at a plantation 10 miles away from Blackoaks.

It doesn’t take long for news of Kathy and Hunt being spotted in New Orleans to reach Styles. Styles, determined to maintain his honor, explains that the Bretherton sisters must be mistaken, Kathy is away visiting family in Charleston, but then immediately plans to track her down. Instead of traveling to New Orleans himself, though, he decides to prepare Blade to make the trip. Here’s where the book really strains credulity. Styles’s plan to manipulate Blade into seducing or, better still, raping Kathy by feeding him stories about how she has always secretly desired Blade, is diabolical, but sending Blade to travel across Alabama unaccompanied in the 1850s, with nothing more than a letter of introduction, a purse full of coins and newly acquired basic reading skills, sounds like a death sentence. Still, I was entertained by the descriptions of Blade getting prepped for his journey, with Whittington always sure to keep the reader apprised of Blade’s huge dick, be it through Styles’s grooming (“[Kathy] told me she kept thinking about that big staff of yours, Blade.”), Blade getting scrubbed down by three houseboys (“Let them wash you down there, Blade—gets sweated.”) or when Blade tries on a freshly tailored suit, which shows off “the outline of Blade’s manhood at the crotch of the skintight trousers.”

Styles could, of course, just leave well enough alone as Kathy and Hunt’s relationship is rapidly disintegrating. Hunt quickly comes to the realization that life with Kathy, a woman used to being cared for by others, is an expensive proposition. His savings are rapidly dwindling, especially now that he’s rented an apartment and hired a servant for them, and he’s been unsuccessful in securing another tutoring gig, an unfortunate consequence when your approach to job hunting consists of sitting back and hoping word of mouth marketing pays off. Furthermore, Hunt becomes increasingly paranoid, certain Styles is close to finding them. He already suspects (correctly) that he’s being followed. Hunt starts drinking more to soothe his jangled nerves. It’s not long before he prefers getting drunk to getting laid.

Adding to Hunt’s stress is the yellow fever epidemic sweeping through New Orleans, killing thousands. Hunt may be hot, but he’s a coward, wanting to avoid physical pain at all costs. He knows staying in New Orleans means risking disease or, worse, being murdered by Styles. Staying with Kathy means financial ruin. So, early one morning, he leaves a letter and $500 for Kathy and flees the city.

Kathy spends the first few days of Hunt’s abandonment in denial. Then she contracts “yellow jack,” whereupon her housekeeper says fuck no! and bolts, taking the $500 Hunt left for Kathy on her way out the door. Shortly after the housekeeper exits the apartment, Joe Bullock, a sleazy P.I. hired by Styles and the man following Hunt earlier, enters. He discovers Kathy asleep in bed, covered in her own vomit. “You poor little bitch,” he remarks before leaving her for dead.

Styles Loses his Shit

Blade does eventually make his way to New Orleans, and while his journey isn’t easy, he isn’t mistreated as badly as one would expect. As one would expect, Styles’s letters of introduction have no sway over the pervading racism of the time, the only courtesy innkeepers extend is allowing Blade to park his carriage behind their establishment and camp out there (Blade still gets a blowjob from a kitchen slave because the demands of smut override believability).

There’s a long stretch devoted to Blade’s misadventures upon arriving in New Orleans, including his meeting a flamboyant pimp, having a night of fun on Congo Square and tangling with a vengeful cop, but let’s skip ahead. Blade finds Kathy nearly dead of yellow fever and enlists the help of a MarieLaveau-esque character to nurse her back to health, or at least healthy enough to travel. They stop at the same inn that had previously refused Blade a room, but as Kathy’s slave he is grudgingly allowed to sleep indoors, though his being permitted to sleep in her room just doesn’t track. Were she accompanied by a female slave, I could believe it. A big strapping Black man sleeping in the same room as a white lady in the antebellum South? Not so much.

The sleeping arrangement is a plot contrivance, of course, employed to facilitate Blade’s seduction of Kathy. While their eventual hooking up is consensual, it kind of plays out like a guy putting the moves on his best friend’s ex while she’s still crying about being dumped. I’ll admit I lost patience with this particular chapter, largely because Whittington draws out the will-they-or-won’t-they way longer than he should. By the chapter’s midpoint I was mentally screaming JUST FUCK ALREADY!

Long story short, Kathy gives in, has some of the most mind-blowing orgasms of her life—so powerful that she forgets the lovin’ Hunt put on her—and immediately regrets what she’s done, whereupon she kills herself by stabbing herself in the heart with Blade’s knife, holding the knife’s hilt reminding her—I shit you not—of “the way Blade had drawn her clasped hand up and down the rigidity of his own staff.” Even when a character is committing suicide, sex remains top of mind.

Remarkably, Blade manages to hide the wound and convince the innkeeper that Kathy passed away from yellow fever. On his return trip to Blackoaks it dawns on Blade that he was used. Kathy had never desired him (Styles was actually describing his own desires for Blade’s body). Styles had used him. By the time he returns to the plantation he’s good and pissed and hungry for vengeance.

Everyone at Blackoaks is grief stricken when Blade returns with Kathy in a box, except Styles, who is described as having “the stony look of a man who has been cheated.” What pushes him over the edge is seeing the note Kathy wrote to him, revealing that she did, in fact, take her own life. Worse, is the letter’s tone, which isn’t contrite but defiant, ending with the line: I found ecstasy only with your Negro slave.

And then Styles loses his shit. He accuses Blade of murdering Kathy, and Blade accuses Styles of lying to him, and that Styles is guilty of her death. Styles orders Blade shackled and whipped, at which point Blade, out of fucks to give, punches the unhinged master and attempts to strangle him. Now an apoplectic Styles isn’t just content with having Blade whipped, he wants him branded as well, leading to the following harrowing scene:

Styles lifted the branding iron and advanced toward Blade. Ahma screamed and tried to fight free. Perseus and Moab held her. But Blade did not move. When the huge R [for “runner”] was inches from Blade’s face, Styles hesitated, waiting for Blade to whimper, to plead.

Suddenly Styles thrust the branding iron with all his strength into Blade’s face. Ahma’s raging, animal screams were the only sound. It was as if not a man or woman breathed while that branding iron seared Blade’s face. The sharp, sizzling sound of fried flesh was loud in the silence. Blade’s left eye melted under the heat., its socket seared, red hot and empty. The flesh was burned away to the bone from his forehead, foreskull, and nose. His mouth cooked and split like broiled meat. His teeth were bared through the break in his lips in a permanent horrible grimace. His right eye broiled, gray, lying like an oyster in the heat-seared socket. He was completely blind.

The savage branding of Blade triggers an uprising, though the revolt is not led by Ahma. The other slaves think her inaction is because she’s distraught over losing Blade, who was killed—mercifully—shortly after he was branded, shot by Miz Claire at his insistence. However, Ahma reveals to Moab her real reason for not participating in the uprising: “You let them go….They scairt...they stupid n[ope!]…they don’t know they got to kill all the whites or they dead….They let one white alive to say they name—they gets killed.” Instead, she plans to escape during the ensuing melee, urging Moab to run with her.

Once Styles hears the commotion and sees most of Blackoaks up in flames (only the main house is spared), he goes outside to investigate and is immediately jumped by four men, led by Perseus, stripped and raped. They hadn’t killed him because they wanted him alive, the object of their raging scorn and ridicule, the white man who screamed like a woman as he was being sodomized in the grass.

The distasteful coda to that scene is when Styles, having mostly recovered from his gang-rape, spares Perseus’s life on the condition that “you give it to me—like did that night of the revolt.” Not only does this conflate rape with sex, it also perpetuates a myth that bottoms are into pain. Then again, what was I expecting from plantation porn, political correctness?

Meanwhile, Ahma and Moab are desperately trying to stay one step ahead of a search posse—involving many of the same men who were part of the lynch mob in the first part of the book—as they make their way north. Ahma is shot, nevermind that Styles strictly instructed members of the posse that he wanted the escaped slaves brought back alive. Ahma’s wound isn’t fatal, but it will seriously impede her ability to travel. She urges Moab to keep going without her, but he refuses to leave her. They’re situation seems hopeless, until they encounter an abolitionist ex machina. 

Less N-words than Django Unchained, at Least

Like its predecessor, Secret of Blackoaks was difficult to put down, no matter how uncomfortable it got. And though it takes a few side trips from its main storyline, it’s got a more cohesive plot than Master of Blackoaks.

That said, I must admit—guiltily—that I liked Master of Blackoaks more. Though Secret of Blackoaks is fairly well-paced, there are moments where the book seems stuck in place, such as Blade cajoling Kathy into having sex. Other parts seem like padding, included as just another a way to work in a few more gratuitous sex scenes, even when they ultimately serve the plot, like Blade’s adventures on Congo Square in New Orleans or Moab’s continued affair with the field boss’s wife Florine.

But perhaps the book’s biggest missed opportunity—and Whittington’s biggest stumble—is the handling of the Ahma character. The story would have been more interesting had she been the driving force behind the uprising, convincing the complacent slaves of Blackoaks that even though they’re treated relatively well by the Baynards, they’re still slaves. Instead, her anger is immediately soothed by Blade’s huge dick. I know this isn’t Roots, but it would’ve been more satisfying in some instances if Whittington aimed higher than between his characters’ legs.

Though Secret of Blackoaks doesn’t pack the same punch as its predecessor, it’s still engrossing and appalling, and if nothing else, features slightly fewer n-words than Django Unchained. Recommended for Harry Whittington completists. Everyone else can be assured that they won’t be bored, but they will be judged if they dare read it in public.

I’ve only read a few books by Lance Horner (Rogue Roman,
The Mahound), but I always got a gay vibe from his writing.
So, maybe it’s not a surprise that Whittington borrowed
the name “Kenric” as the last name of Blackoaks’
sole gay character.

As Difficult to Put Down as it is to Stomach

 Trigger Warning: This is plantation porn, so there’s a lot of stuff that’s going to offend a lot of people, though I’d be more concerned if you’re not offended at all.

I thought I was done with plantation porn,
until I learned the identity of “Ashley Carter.”

In the opening chapters of the 1976 “Lance Horner novel by Ashley Carter,” MASTER OF BLACKOAKS, set in the antebellum South, we meet Baxter Simon, a Mississippi slave breeder traveling with Gree, a 14-year-old slave boy whose tongue has been cut out as punishment for lying. Simon, searching for one of his escaped slaves, stops at the Blackoaks plantation in Alabama, where he suspects she might be hiding. The plantation owner, Ferrell Baynard, takes an immediate dislike to Simon and insists the escaped slave is not at Blackoaks, yet permits the slave breeder to look around. During Simon’s tour of the plantation, he sees the Baynards’ “pureblood Fulani” slave Blade hard at work castrating hogs and immediately makes an offer to buy him. Ferrell Baynard refuses to sell Blade but allows Simon to thoroughly inspect Blade (Simon worked Blade’s foreskin back and forth several times. Blade’s…rod stiffened, blood pulsing into it so it stood thick and rigid in the breeder’s fist.), arousing—and outing—Ferrell Baynard’s arrogant son-in-law Styles Kenric while doing so. Simon’s visit to Blackoaks concludes with the slave breeder finding his escaped slave, Vinnie, who was indeed hiding on the plantation. When she attempts to flee, Simon kills her and, to the horror of the Baynards (and reader), throws her corpse into the hog pen, her value reduced to nothing more than food for swine.

And we’re not even 60 pages in yet.

So, yeah, Master of Blackoaks is not for the delicate, full of cruel acts and vile language, with characters using the N-word so frequently and so casually you’d think you were on Twitter. Yet, as difficult as Master of Blackoaks is to stomach, it’s just as difficult to put down, delivering everything a reader would want from plantation porn. If you’re not that reader, you probably backed out during the first paragraph of this post. For the rest of you, let’s continue.

After Baxter Simon departs, Blackoaks is visited by a slave trader who is just as despicable, Eakins Shivers. Shivers arrives with a coffle that “looked diseased, half-starved, exhausted. The ankles of every man, woman, and child bled from the unrelenting bite of their shackles with every step they took.” Though the Baynards find his treatment of his property distasteful, Ferrell Baynard invites Shivers into his home, where the two men talk within the confines of Ferrell’s office. Shivers is allowed to camp on Blackoaks property for the night. The next morning, Shivers is gone, and with him, two of the Baynards’ slaves.

Ferrell admits to his mistress, house slave Jeanne D’Arc (often addressed as Jahndark), that the missing men were sold, but tells his family that the slaves ran away, mostly to hide the truth about the plantation’s shaky finances. His oldest son Ferrell-Junior deduces what happened, however, and he does not approve. His father insists he had to. “That’s what Baxter Simon said, Papa,” Ferrell-Junior replies. “He cut out a slave child’s tongue because he had to.”

Even before the sale of the slaves, Ferrell’s son-in-law Styles intuits Blackoaks has a cash flow problem. Ferrell’s side hustle of distilling his own blend of corn liquor is what keeps the plantation afloat now that the over-farmed land only yields low-grade cotton. Styles, who heard the high offers Baxter Simon was making on Blade, thinks Blackoaks should turn its attention to slave breeding, becoming more resentful each time his father-in-law rejects the idea.

Meanwhile, his wife Kathy is driven to tears by Styles’ physical neglect. We know why he won’t touch her, and I might’ve spared a little bit of sympathy for him if he was merely a closet case, especially when coming out is not an option, but Styles is a sadistic, social-climbing asshole, who only married Kathy for her family’s position in Southern society. When he forces himself to have sex with his wife, he can only get aroused by causing Kathy pain. Kathy’s mother, Miz Claire, is concerned by her daughter’s unhappiness, though she totally misjudges the situation, worrying that Styles is too sexually demanding. “The ugly, depraved things men demand of women. I thanked God when I became ill—yes I did!—when your father moved out of my bedroom,” Miz Claire tells a disheartened Kathy.

The arrival of Hunter “Hunt” Campbell, a young, attractive Yankee hired to live at Blackoaks and tutor 15-year-old Morgan Baynard, provides a distraction, as well as an outsider’s point of view. Hunt has little interest in living in Alabama, but it’s crucial he put as many miles as possible between himself and Massachusetts since his cousin found out Hunter had been fucking his wife. To the Baynards’ credit, even though they don’t understand their new employee from the North, they are fairly accepting of him—provided he understands his place. Namely, that he keeps his abolitionist views to himself. Hunt rebels against this requirement in small ways, though not always successfully. His attempt at ingratiating himself with the kitchen slaves is merely awkward, with Jeanne d’Arc politely but strongly encouraging Hunt to take his white ass out to dining room with the other white folk and leave the kitchen slaves be.

Hunt makes greater inroads when teaching Morgan. Morgan is, in today’s parlance, intellectually disabled and struggles with his lessons, but Morgan’s “body slave” Soapy (a.k.a. Sophocles) is a quick study. Ferrell is none too pleased, telling Hunter that he’s wasting his time and Ferrell’s money. “I won’t tolerate it. There is a law against teaching Negro slaves to read. The state legislature passed that law upon deliberation. In many ways it’s a good law,” Ferrell says.

Not wanting to be sent back to Boston, the Yankee tutor acquiesces. Soapy is distraught, as there was one book (never named) that he wanted to continue reading. Hunter tells him not to worry. “Maybe I could lose it, Soapy. Somewhere you can find it. Only, you’ve got to be careful. If anybody finds you got it, they might fire me—but it’ll be much worse for you.”

But Hunter Campbell isn’t exactly a hero. When his employer extends the offer of a bed wench (“I’ve never believed it was healthy for a man—young or old—to be too long denied a sexual outlet”), Hunt balks, knowing the woman offered him would be forced to do so. But when he retires to his room and finds a nervous 15-year-old(!) slave girl, Sefina, waiting for him, Hunt takes full advantage, his principles no match against his blue balls.

‘I Must Test You…for Viscosity’

The text on the back of the book teases an affair between Hunt and Kathy (“He found solace and torment with Kenric’s wife”), but beyond a make-out session in the final chapters of the book in which Kathy seriously considers an affair with the hunky Yankee, the pair never hook up. The teaser text on the back also suggests Styles Kenric’s homosexuality would be featured more prominently, but it’s not addressed again until the last few chapters, though it does so in a most spectacular fashion, when Kathy spies her husband through her dressing room door “inspecting” Blade’s teen-aged brother, Moab.

“Lawdy, Masta Styles, you keep whipping my snake like that, it gonna be mighty easy to get that juice you wants.”

Styles nodded. His fingers tightened and he slowly stroked the boy’s penis until Moab’s hips tightened and writhed in helpless reflex. “Do you like that, Moab?”

“Lawdy, masta…lawdy…”

The stroking motions increased in intensity and Styles gripped the pulsing penis tighter.

Trembling with horror and outrage at war inside her, Kathy saw that Styles was shaking visibly, like a young boy with his first lover.

She heard Styles mumble something unintelligible about “fluid.” His breathing quickened and he sank to his knees before Moab. Moab’s eyes widened in disbelief at the white man on his knees before him. Moab was almost deranged with overwhelming passion. He could only stand, legs apart, as Styles caught him about the hips and pressed his face against his thighs. Styles gasped, “Viscosity.”

“What masta?”

“Viscosity, Moab.” Styles mumbled fanatically, his face pressed into the boy’s crisp black pubic hairs. “I must test you…for viscosity…. Do you see, Moab? Oh my, God, Moab, do you see?”

“I see, masta,” Moab whispered helplessly as the white man crammed the dark and distended penis between his lips, nursing it furiously.”

So, yeah, that happens. When Kathy confronts him, Styles alternately tries to blame her for spying then gaslight her, apologizing that she’s so upset about what she thinks she saw. But Kathy isn’t having it: “Think I saw! I saw you on your knees, Styles—sucking—that Black boy’s—cock!”

Kathy lobs the expected epithets at her husband (“Homo! Homo! Homo!”) before adding: “Being a homosexual is not nearly as rotten as your lying—your pretense.”

But Styles is unmoved. Since divorce isn’t an option, the pair split in the only acceptable way: Styles moves into a separate bedroom, just like his father-in-law had so many years ago.

Road to Tragedy Paved with Boners, Bored Rednecks

Kathy’s oldest brother Ferrell-Junior has his own issues. FJ knows Lorna June Garrity is not of his class, hers being in the lower-middle, but her social standing has no bearing on her beauty. Lorna’s mother, Lucinda, bitter ever since her husband was cheated out his inheritance by his conniving cousin Leander (all these L names!), is determined to claim her place in Southern society and is not above whoring her daughter out to get what she wants. (Mr. Garrity just drinks.) Lucinda gives her daughter advice that should be familiar to fans of Bobbie Gentry (or Reba McEntire or Orville Peck): “You be nice to Mr. Baynard now, Lorna June. You want him to come back again, so you be nice to him.” 

British publisher Pan Books’ cover
for Master of Blackoaks emphasizes
the book’s cruelty over the sex.

Lorna June is indeed real nice to the Baynards’ hot oldest son, making sure FJ is good and hard when she starts negotiating a more prominent place in his life, and by extension high society. Ferrell-Junor ultimately reasons that “the exchange was totally fair—her beauty was worth far more than all the dull parties his mother and her friends would ever throw.” Also: the power of boners.

His post-nut bliss later turns to regret when he sees his odious “friend” Gil Talmadge at the local watering hole. The book makes clear that FJ doesn’t really like Gil but goes along with his antics—like having a mentally disabled slave girl masturbate for the guys’ amusement—just so he’s not shunned by the group. Gil tells FJ that Lorna June is the town lay. “Hell, if you didn’t screw her the first time out, you’re in a new minority, old pal,” Gil says. “Every white guy in Calvert County has had ole Lorna June Garrity—at least once.”

FJ later confronts Lorna June about the rumors. She confesses he’s not the first man she’s been with (“I might have made a couple mistakes, but that’s all they were—mistakes”), but she quickly silences Ferrell-Junior’s concerns, as well as get him to again promise to invite her to an upcoming party at Blackoaks, with a blowjob. Girl knows how to negotiate!

The day of the party arrives, but the Garritys don’t. FJ had pleaded with Kathy to invite her but learns later that Kathy “accidentally” lost the invitation, conveniently finding it the morning after the party. A guilty FJ rides to town to apologize to the Garritys. Though her mother is royally pissed about the snub, Lorna June is forgiving and suggests she and Ferrell-Junior go for a ride out into the country. FJ doesn’t understand why she still wants anything to do with him, but it seems Lorna June finds him as hot as he finds her. Like they have on all their previous buggy rides, the couple pulls off the road to bang. But, as we’ve seen time and time again, the road to tragedy is paved with boners and bored rednecks:

They were so engrossed in each other they did not hear the rustling in the underbrush. It was not until they reached a driving climax, almost struggling off the blanket in their frenzy, and Ferrell fell away from her exhausted, that he saw Gil Talmadge and the others standing just inside the small clearing.

“Get out of here,” Ferrell said to her. “Get in that buggy and get the hell out of here. Dress on the road. Anything. Get the hell out of here.”

Lorna June isn’t quick enough. FJ is beaten and tied to a wheel of his buggy, powerless as Lorna June is gang raped. In the aftermath, Lorna June marries homely bank clerk Luke Scroggins and FJ, who heretofore has shown zero interest in his mother’s Catholic faith, becomes a motherfuckin’ priest.

A Steady Stream of Depravity, Debauchery and Dicking

I thought my days of reading plantation porn were behind me. I had waded into the slaveploitation cesspool in the latter half of the aughts, first with Kyle Onstott’s Mandingo, then its early sequels, Drum and Master of Falconhurst. I was drawn to their lurid content, the books being in questionable taste only increasing my fascination. I was offended by the subject matter, sure, but then I should be. Slavery is offensive. I take greater issue Gone with the Wind, which is, to quote director and What Went Wrong co-host Chris Winterbauer, “Civil War fan fiction.” At least plantation porn doesn’t try to romanticize the antebellum South.

It was when I sampled some slaveploitation lit outside of the Falconhurst series that I began reconsidering my interest in the genre. Richard Tresillian’s The Bondmaster (“Harder than Mandingo! Louder than Drum!”) was OK, even if it’s basically a retelling of Mandingo, re-locating the story from the American South to sugar plantations in the Caribbean, but novel’s implication that slavery wasn’t that bad so long as the slaves knew their place (a.k.a. the DeSantis narrative) did not sit well with me. Worse was Dragonard, a book I learned about through The Colbert Report, of all places. By virtue of focusing his novel on its repugnant main character, who aspires to be a slave master, author Rupert Gilchrist downplays the plight of the slaves. I also got the distinct impression while reading it that Gilchrist relished every N-word he typed. When I came to the end of Dragonard, I came to the end of my exploration of planation porn.

But then I learned “Ashley Carter” was yet another one of Harry Whittington’s pseudonyms. Whittington had been signed to continue writing the Falconhurst series in the early 1970s after the death of Lance Horner, who’d been writing the series after originator Onstott’s 1966 death. This accounts why some “Ashley Carter” books from this period include the credit “A Lance Horner Novel,” though Master of Blackoaks has nothing to do with the Falconhurst series.

Anyway, I sought out Master of Blackoaks because of its author, not because of its genre, and I was not disappointed. Whittington again proves he was good at his job, giving readers what they wanted, no matter the genre. Still, this book’s not for everybody. If you do pick it up, maybe don’t break it out while waiting in line to see a performance at the Apollo (or anywhere in public, really).

Master of Blackoaks is still trash, and Whittington cranks it up to 11, making it the best kind of trash, the book delivering a steady stream of depravity, debauchery and dicking. Whittington adds some redeemable touches, however. He makes sure that the plight of the slaves is known, and that while some, such as Jeanne d’Arc, are able to achieve some modest privileges (one of the perks of banging her master), they will always be denied the ultimate privilege of freedom, as Jeanne d’Arc discovers near the end of the novel. The Baynards may be “good” slave owners (i.e., they prefer their field boss Bos not whip their property, thank you), but Whittington doesn’t let readers forget they’re still slave owners all the same. The Baynards’ slaves are thought of as part of the family—until money’s tight, and then they’re chattel that Ferrell Baynard has no compunction about selling to a heartless slave trader like Eakins Shivers.  

As the book goes along, Whittington focuses more on sex than servitude. In addition to detailing Hunt Campbell’s night with a teen slave girl (yeah, that’s all kinds of wrong), FJ’s romps with Lorna June and Styles blowing Moab, he devotes several chapters to the field boss’s sexually frustrated wife Florine finding satisfaction with a very eager Moab (he’s a slave, but he’s also a horny teenager). While these chapters increase the novel’s prurient content, they add little to the narrative and reduce Moab to little more than a walking hard-on long before Styles tests the viscosity of his load.

The novel’s story is told in an episodic fashion, making for a fractured narrative. It’s about Ferrell Baynard—no, wait, it’s about Hunt, the Yankee tutor. Nope, now it's about FJ and Lorna June. Hey, why don't we check back with Ferrell Baynard.... It’s not hard to follow, though, just a bitch to synopsize. More frustrating, Master of Blackoaks doesn’t have a fully satisfying ending, leaving several storylines up in the air, with an implied “to be continued,” likely because Whittington knew they would be. There are three additional books in the Blackoaks series. I own two of them, meaning my plantation porn reviews are…

To be continued…

The fourth book in the Blackoaks series, A Farewell to Blackoaks,
was published in 1984 and is difficult to find today. The few
I found online had price tags of $70+, so, no, I won’t be reading it. 

Double Takes: ‘The Louisiana Hussy’ (1959) ★★ / ‘Desire in the Dust’ (1960) ★★★½

Great title, so-so movie.

I love a good, sweaty Southern melodrama, and I can love a bad one even more. Books and movies about horny Southern belles, hunky rednecks, conniving good ol’ boys and scheming trailer tramps always pique my interest, so I was immediately drawn to these two movies from the Eisenhower era that promise all sorts of sordid shenanigans in the Deep South.

I knew I had to see The Louisiana Hussy the moment I discovered it streaming on Tubi. Its title made it all but mandatory. Nan Peterson, who sort of resembles a pre-plastic surgery Melanie Griffith, plays the titular hussy, and she causes plenty of trouble when she arrives in the bayou shanty town known as the Pit. Well, she doesn’t so much arrive as she’s brought there by brothers Jacques and Pierre (Peter Coe and Robert Richards, respectively) when they find her in the woods, unconscious after having been thrown from a horse. She comes to long enough to give her name as Minette Lanier and accuse Jacques of stealing her jewelry, before returning to a state of semi-consciousness.

The plot synopsis on Tubi says that Minette “sows discord” between the two brothers, which is only partially true (Tubi also describes New Orleans as “a small bayou town,” so maybe don’t put too much stock in their synopses.) Jacques was already pissed at Pierre for marrying Lili (Betty Lynn, before she joined the cast of The Andy Griffith Show as Thelma Lou), whom he had the hots for, but Minette just makes things worse. First, she seduces Pierre—on his wedding night no less—then, when he starts getting too suspicious about her past, she runs to Jacques, claiming Pierre forced himself on her, only to belie that accusation by promptly fucking Jacques. Jacques, the big lunk smiling for the first time in the movie, is now firmly on Team Minette, and is none too happy when Pierre relays Doc Opie’s (Tyler McVey) discovery that the real Minette Lanier committed suicide in nearby Grange Hill. Jacques’ refusal to believe him spurs Pierre and Lili (who never learns of her husband’s cheating with the hussy) to take their pontoon boat across the bayou to Grange Hill to find out just who the fuck is this woman claiming to be Minette Lanier. 

Pierre and Lili not only find out the backstory of the Pit’s visiting vixen, but they also uncover why The Louisiana Hussy isn’t quite working as a movie: the interesting part—a sexy young woman ingratiating herself into the lives of a wealthy couple, seducing the husband and driving his wife to suicide—is a mere subplot, told in flashback. The hussy of Grange Hill doesn’t sound like a woman who would be content to hang out among the poor folk of the Pit, even if she is screwing its two most attractive men (pickings are slim in the Pit, OK?), but this inconsistency is of no concern to screenwriters Charles Lang and William Rowland. Their movie is about Jacques and Pierre; the hussy is just a device to titillate audiences.

Director Lee “Roll’em” Sholem, as befitting his nickname, keeps things moving along at brisk pace, continuity be damned (Peterson is wearing flats when leaving one location, but arrives at her destination wearing high heels), delivering a few grindhouse thrills along the way, including a daring-for-its-time skinny dipping scene. But for all the movie’s efforts to appeal to audiences’ prurient interests, The Louisiana Hussy never lives up to the awesomeness of its title.

20th Century Fox transformed Harry
Whittington’s 1956 pulp novel into
a very sweaty Southern melodrama.

1960’s Desire in the Dust, also set in Louisiana, is not only better, but sweatier, too. Seriously, almost every shirt actor Ken Scott wears in this movie is sopping wet. Scott plays Lonnie Wilson, the hunky son of sharecropper Zuba (Douglas Fowley, who’s sweaty and dirty). At the movie’s opening, Lonnie is returning home after doing time for killing the youngest son of town big wig Col. Marquand (Raymond Burr, wearing dry suits but frequently wiping perspiration from his scowling face) when driving drunk. Newspaperman Luke Connett (Edward Binns) has his suspicions Lonnie was wrongly convicted, but Lonnie has more pressing issues than confirming Luke’s hunches, specifically the issue pressing up against the zipper of his pants. “After six years of goin’ without it ain’t likely he’s gonna like to be sittin’ around chatting with us,” Zuba tells his oldest daughter Maude (Margaret Field, Sally’s mom) after Lonnie drives away in the family Jeep on his first night home.

Marquand’s blonde bombshell daughter, Melinda (Martha Hyer, giving a performance that should appeal to Morgan Fairchild fans), is the woman who relieves Lonnie’s six-year case of blue balls (I can’t believe he served his entire sentence without once messing around with a cellmate, but such things weren’t acknowledged in 1960). Lonnie’s post-nut bliss is quickly dashed when he learns Melinda has married Dr. Ned Thomas (Brett Halsey). “I waited six years for you!” Lonnie rages. “You had no choice,” Melinda smirks. Melinda is content to keep Lonnie as a side piece, but Lonnie doesn’t want to share. But can he get his revenge before Marquand—with the help of Sheriff Wheaton (Kelly Thordson, also very sweaty)—silences him for good?

At the movie’s outer edges are Marquand’s mentally unbalanced wife (Joan Bennett), who refuses to believe her youngest son is dead and goes ballistic whenever her nurse (Irene Ryan, better known as Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies) tells her the truth; Paul Marquand (Jack Ging), who is basically the Eric Trump of his family; and Cass (Anne Helm), Lonnie’s little sister, who’s having an affair with Paul but getting impatient for him to stand up to his domineering dad and marry her.

Desire in the Dust benefits from a strong cast (Burr, Scott, Hyer and Fowley are all great in their roles), and William F. Claxton’s direction is solid if not exactly distinctive. The movie’s greatest strength, though, is respecting Harry Whittington’s 1956 novel on which it’s based. It’s not 100% faithful, but it’s close enough to where I’d say the movie is just as good as the book. Some aspects of the movie are a bit icky, however, and by icky, I mean incestuous. Marquand and Melinda’s interactions often suggest they are lovers rather than father and daughter, and upon seeing his little sister Cass for the first time in six years Lonnie leers, all but saying he’d like to tap that. Not sure if the suggestion of incest is meant to play into Deep South tropes or not, but it’s definitely there. It should also be pointed out that each movie features exactly one (1) Black person and they are servants to their movie’s respective wealthy characters, which just doesn’t reflect the population of either movie’s setting, though this very much reflects the time in which these movies were made.

Its uncomfortable familial interactions and unrealistic racial representation aside, I love Desire in the Dust and credit it with introducing me to the work of Harry Whittington. The only thing that would make it even better is if it had been made in the mid-1960s by Russ Meyer. Unfortunately, Desire in the Dust is not available for streaming or on Blu-ray. However, if you’re not too picky about video quality, there's a perfectly watchable copy here.

A Story of Big Business and Blue Balls

Harry Whittington is one of my favorite novelists, so I’m kind of surprised I’m just now getting around to reviewing one of his books. But better late than never, and this particular book is even somewhat topical, it being about the railroad industry, which is kind of a hot topic in the U.S. now. Although the likelihood of people following the disaster in East Palistine, Ohio, immediately seeking out historical fiction about the expansion of a railroad in Florida during the 1800s is negligible, I figure it’s worth a shot.

Anyway, back to Harry. I first discovered Harry Whittington when I caught the movie adaptation of his 1956 novel Desire in the Dust on the Fox Movie Channel, back when that was a thing. I thought the movie was awesome and immediately sought out the book, which was just as good. Since then, I’ve been going on periodic eBay binges, searching out his work. Luckily, there’s a lot to choose from, and in a wide variety of genres: westerns, crime thrillers, mysteries, sexploitation, soapy potboilers and even queer pulp.

Of course, not all of Whittington’s books were written under his own name. Among his many pseudonyms was the name Blaine Stevens, which he used for a trio of historical epics he published in the very late 1970s and early ’80s, the first of which was 1979’s THE OUTLANDERS.

Set in the late 1800s, The Outlanders is the story of Ward Hamilton, a man with a dream: to own his own railroad. He’s so driven to achieve this goal that he hunts down his older brother Robert, wanted for stealing $100 thou in gold, so he can collect the $20,000 bounty. Also, he wants to know where Robert hid the gold. “I can use that money you stole,” the 19-year-old Ward explains to Robert when he finds him, hiding in a shack in the wilds of Florida with his servant (and recently freed slave) Thetis, “and warrant you a tenfold return you’ll never get with it planted somewhere in the ground.” Robert, out of spite, doesn’t admit to having stolen the gold, let alone divulge where it’s hidden. Ward will just have to make do with the $20 grand reward money.

Twenty-thousand dollars isn’t enough to buy a railroad, but Ward doesn’t let that stop him from bidding on the East Florida & Gulf Central railroad when he learns it’s for sale—information he gets when he beds the frustrated wife of its owner (“It’s been ten years since [my husband has] had an erection. Five since he’s wanted one.”) With some financial sleight of hand and the kind of self-confidence only found in those too young to know better, Ward’s bid for EF&GC is accepted. Now he must cover the full purchase price. So, he heads to Atlanta, where he calls on Lily Harkness, the prettiest of the Harkness daughters and Robert’s fiancée prior to his incarceration. She’s pretty, sure, but what Ward wants as much as access to her pussy is her knowledge of where Robert stashed the hidden loot—surely, he’d have told the person he loved the most. He gets neither, even when they marry. Lily has her own motive for marrying Ward, and that motive ain’t sex, the very concept of which she finds disgusting (the couple only bones two times during their decade-long marriage). Worse, Lily has no clue where Robert stashed the stolen gold (hint: the person Robert loved the most was not a woman). Ward gets more out of a business arrangement with one of Lily’s other suitors, the homely but goodhearted bank vice-president Hobart Bayard, from whose bank Ward secures a generous line of credit.

As the story progresses, Ward’s business success increases while his home life becomes more and more miserable. He and Lily have two children, only one of which is Ward’s: a son, Robin, and daughter, Belle. Lily becomes a religious nut, and then just plain insane. Ward isn’t always the easiest guy to root for — he’s a bastard in many instances — and his reasons for courting Lily were hardly admirable, but it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for him as he tries to do everything possible to give Lily a happy life, only to see her grow more hostile, poisoning Robin against him and resenting Belle for her closeness to Ward. Lily is also a sad case, but since The Outlanders is told from Ward’s point of view her behavior is often presented as the result of her being a spoiled bitch and not mental illness.

Adding to the tension is Julia Fredrick, the daughter of Dayton Fredrick, a one-time successful developer who was depending on buying EF&GC to transport vacationers to his struggling resort in Port St. Joe, Florida. When the two first meet, Julia is a precocious 13-year-old who develops an immediate crush on the young Ward Hamilton, which, fortunately, Ward doesn’t take advantage of even though the book is set at a time when sex with underage girls wasn’t necessarily frowned upon (“I like to pluck ‘em young, too,” a sleazy EF&CG rail executive tells Ward conspiratorially when he discovers Dayton Fredrick’s teen daughter in Ward’s company). Her feelings change, kind of, when Ward buys EF&GC, and she swears she hates him as much as she loves him, even though Ward and her father continue to be friendly. Ward’s feelings also change, from viewing Julia as a smartass kid to seeing her as a woman and realizing he has romantic feelings for her (mitigating factor: by the time Julia is in her twenties Ward’s balls are the color of Concorde grapes).

Ward’s fortunes begin to turn as the 19th century draws to a close. He is granted a divorce from Lily, but by the time it’s final Julia has married someone else — Hobart Bayard, now a bank president. Ward’s son Robin will have nothing to do with him, while Belle is uncontrollable, having been kicked out of every school she’s been enrolled in. Then Belle marries Laddie, an arrogant aspiring artist and abusive prick who beats Belle as regularly as she cheats on him. 

The stresses aren’t confined to Ward’s personal life. Industrialist Henry Flagler needs a railroad to transport guests to his Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine, and the railroad he wants to buy is Ward’s. He asks Ward to name his price, but Ward is too proud to sell. But Flagler’s not the type of man to take no for an answer. If Ward isn’t going to sell willingly, Flagler will use his power and influence to make sure he’ll have to sell. Still, Ward holds out, until a hurricane forces his hand.

Harry Whittington by Any Other Name is Just as Good

I’ll admit that I was wary of this one before I started reading it. Several years ago, I read Whittington’s second Blaine Stevens novel, Embrace the Wind, which was marketed as a bodice-ripping romance, and found it tough going for its first fifty pages or so, when Whittington really leans into the romance genre, adopting an uncharacteristically florid prose style (the book picks up when it becomes more of an adventure story). Thankfully, Whittington keeps the flowery descriptions to a minimum in The Outlanders, the novel being more discount John Jakes than Johanna Lindsey rip-off, though the eBay seller I bought it from categorized it as a western, probably because of the cover.

The Harry Whittington copyright
was enough to sell me on this book.

Essentially a rags-to-riches story, The Outlanders doesn’t necessarily offer a lot of surprises—you’ll realize early on that Dayton Frederick’s story foreshadows Ward’s, that Ward and Julia are destined to end up together—but that doesn’t diminish its entertainment value. Whittington’s writing keeps the story moving, and he cleverly weaves in real people (Flagler, Dr. Lue Gim Gong) and events (e.g., using prison labor to build railroads), as well as a few Easter eggs. One character that I thought was a real person in history was Marve Pooser, leader of a homesteader uprising against Ward’s ever-expanding railroad. I was sure I’d read about him somewhere before. And I had: that was the name of the villain in Whittington’s 1959 novel, A Moment to Prey (a.k.a. Backwoods Tramp).

If I have one quibble with the book, it’s that while Whittington successfully keeps us in the world of the late 1870s, a few of his characters behave as if they stepped out of the 1970s, specifically Julia. Yes, she’s supposed to be wise beyond her years, but sometimes she’s a little too sexually blunt for the time. The likelihood of a young woman in this time period declaring, in her father’s company, that she would like to go to bed with a man, and that her father would not rebuke her for doing so, strains credulity. Less anachronistic, though still behavior more closely associated with our time, is when Ward’s sister-in-law Lavinia seduces him (hey, Ward was bound to stray sooner or later), immediately giving him a BJ (He felt her face pressed against him, her breath across her parted lips hot and moist upon his glans). I realize blowjobs were discovered long before the Summer of Love, but I don’t think one would be so freely given by a young woman with limited sexual experience and raised in the Sourth during the 1800s. But considering that readers of the 1970s expected at least a dash of smut in their pop fiction, this can be written off as fan service. The sex scenes, BTW, aren’t all that frequent and are just explicit enough to make it clear what’s going on without straying too far into raunch.

I find Harry Whittington to be a safe bet, no matter what the genre. Even his lesser books are, if nothing else, entertaining. The Outlanders, while no classic, is a satisfying read, well worth checking out if you should happen upon a reasonably priced copy.