Humiliation, Degradation, Blackmail: A Collection of Short Stories / Janey Pilsbury, Donna Craig, Polly Thomas, Ruthie Tudor

The collection of stories presented in ‘Humiliation, Degradation & Blackmail’ are hard hitting and pull no punches. They deal with many of the darker aspects of human nature – the perverse satisfaction of humiliation, the torment of degradation, and the corrupting misuse of power through blackmail. Acclaimed author Janey Pilsbury presents seven stories. Each impressive in its own right, but as a collection haunting and extraordinary.

Blackmailing Helen
A hard hitting pulls no punches story of blackmail and humiliation. In a pub just outside town, a university student sits with a professor thirty years her senior. She is desperate; he is corrupt. He has her just where he wants her: in his power.

She had no idea just how evil and twisted he is…but she is about to find out…

The Final Humiliation
Approaching midnight, a man sits at his wife’s bedside waiting for her to die. Before she does, there are things he needs to say. Things he wants to rub her nose into… For the first time, he reveals his darker self to his wife…but what is truth and what are the lies he tells at midnight? 

A dark and disturbing story about the self that we present to the world, and the murkier self which often lurks deep inside… 

Mutton Dressed as Lamb
Dawn Weston is forty-four and desperate for a man. Any man. She will do anything to find one. She sits in the pub dressed like she is 20. Yes, the skirt is too short to be proper for her age, and yes that top is too low. Way too low. But she is well past caring what other people think. Let them look, let them talk; let them have a good laugh. She is not here for them; she is here to feed her habit. And she will feed it any way she can. She is willing to humiliate herself in any way she has to, to find a man. And then she gets an offer...

Graduation Day
A quiet afternoon in a backstreet pub is interrupted by the arrival of two flamboyant young people; one of them a stunning young woman. They stand out from the regulars and create a focal point. But one man is attracted for the wrong reasons. He tries to join the couple as they sit in the corner. The scene is thus all set for a confrontation…

Somebody makes a terrible mistake.

Lisa’s Last Night
Lisa is out on the town in Newcastle; the town is heaving with bodies, all underdressed, all out for a good time. Lisa is dressed in very little; this is going to be her night. One she would remember for life. But as she journeys through the bars things start to change. The night doesn’t pan out the way she planned. And finally, we realise what Lisa intended...

‘It was a cold night. A very, very cold night. The kind of night that made her feel glad to be alive. She was out, she was alone, and she was feeling dirty…’

The Girl Who Had No Choice
A haunting story, Llandudno is a dark place, full of foreboding - a Llandudno '...that visitors seldom see, and of which residents are only dimly aware...' A place where 'knots of girls as skinny as skeletons, pale as ghosts haunt shadowy recesses dressed only in rags and tatters.' Girls who have a desperate need. A need so severe they can’t say no….no matterWHAT is asked of them… A tale which is poignant and harrowing by turns; exploring the darker side of human nature.

Miner’s Wife, Police Whore
…is an unflinching piece of writing which tells a true untold story from the Great Strike of 1984; a story of the hidden abuse of a community, and of one woman in particular. Ruthie Tudor was a miner’s wife – fully loyal to the strike – but who was forced – by poverty – to degrade herself – from going topless in a police pub to selling herself for cheap sex, she endured an ordeal that will forever be with her….