Hi! It's the author here with a couple points to raise. The first one being: thanks to everyone who's taken the time to listen to and comment on this story of mine. Feedback is food for writers, and I'm feeling very well-fed just now.
The second being: sorry for sticking my authorial nose into such an interesting discussion, but I have to correct one misinterpretation that seems to have persisted, vis-a-vis Judith's lesbian past. Judith doesn't have one. She isn't gay. Mrs. Sloan was/is gay. Here's the passage that should set that straight (as it were):
"I was living in Toronto with a friend at the time, had been for several years. As I recall, she was more than a friend -- we were lovers." Mrs. Sloan paused, obviously waiting for a reaction. Judith sat mute, her expression purposefully blank.
Mrs. Sloan went on: "In our circle of friends, such relationships were quite fragile. Usually they would last no longer than a few weeks. It was, so far as we knew anyway, a minor miracle that we'd managed to stay together for as long as we had." Mrs. Sloan gave a bitter laugh. "We were very proud."
"How did you meet Herman's father?"
"On a train," she said quickly. "A subway train. He didn't even speak to me. I just felt his touch. I began packing my things that night. I can't even remember what I told her. My friend."
So. Mrs. Sloan's gay. Judith's not. Hopefully, this makes the revelation a little less awkward; but I'll certainly cop to it being an awkward bump in the story, and with benefit of hindsight, perhaps not an entirely necessary one. When I wrote this story back in the early '90s, I wanted to make the violation of Mrs. Sloan's autonomy that much worse, and I thought that having Mr. Sloan and his pheromonal root cellar literally rewire her sexuality as well as her mate selection would do that. I'd also hoped it would contribute to another level of tension between Judith and Mrs. Sloan (yes, that kind of tension). But it may have been a bit much; and looking back, it makes me cringe to realize that the gay woman gets it at the end -- something that's been tagged as a particularly nasty cliche in horror since the story's first publication, and that I would have liked to have avoided in the writing.
But what's done's done. And I am, again, very grateful to hear so many takes on this story from the Pseudopod listeners. And stoked to have the story read so well by Cunning Minx. I'm with wakela there: more Minx.
David Nickle