"Heat" by Lucy Taylor, summary Automatic translate

Published in 1995 in the landmark collection "Safety of Unknown Cities," this short story is a masterpiece of extreme horror and transgressive prose, exploring the connection between pyromania and masochistic sexual desire. The work’s key feature is its detailed description of the heroine’s psychology, for whom physical pain and mortal danger become the only means of overcoming her internal emotional anesthesia.

The collection that included this work won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award, cementing the author’s reputation as a master of psychological horror.

Chasing the Flame

The story is told from the perspective of an unnamed woman. It begins in a cheap motel on Naiwot Street. The heroine is having sex with a man whose name she can’t remember — perhaps Tommy or Jimmy. At that moment, fire trucks scream past the building. The sound of the sirens evokes a much stronger physical response in the narrator than her partner’s actions. She experiences a strange arousal bordering on pain, but is unable to reach release. As soon as the man finishes intercourse, she hurriedly dresses, apologizes to her casual lover, and runs out to her Volvo.

The heroine is pursued by a fire brigade, which leads her to an abandoned bookstore in East Colfax. Watching the fire destroy the building, she experiences a state close to ecstasy. For her, the fire is a majestic evisceration, an act of violence against matter. She whispers the word "Heat," imbuing it with the meaning of prayer and supplication. This concept becomes the central metaphor of her existence.

In her memoirs, the heroine recounts a conversation with her friend Shauna. While dyeing her hair, she tried to explain the nature of "The Heat" — an all-consuming passion that burns a person from within. In her entire life, the narrator had only met three men capable of evoking this feeling in her. Shauna, after listening to her description, admitted that she had never experienced anything like it. For the heroine, this admission sounded like a diagnosis of color blindness. Without this extreme feeling, she feels frozen, in a state of deep hypothermia. Walking along Pearl Street Mall and observing men evokes nothing but boredom and disgust at their listlessness.

Cold in the apartment on Pascal Street

The heroine lives in an apartment on Pascal Street with Colin, the third man in her life, who once gave her "Heat." Colin considers himself a writer, though his talent has yet to be recognized. He has converted one of the rooms into a sort of study, filled with old newspapers, magazines, and manuscripts. In this paper nest, he sleeps on a narrow cot, cut off from his partner.

Their relationship underwent a catastrophic transformation. Previously, they had been passionate lovers practicing BDSM. Their play involved whips, chains, and strangulation. The turning point came when Colin began strangling his heroine during sex and became overwhelmed. He only came to when she had already stopped moving. Realizing that at the moment of orgasm, he had actually wanted to kill her, Colin became frightened of his own nature. He decided that writing and animal passion were incompatible and chose chastity, completely abstaining from physical intimacy.

Now Colin sublimates his energy into lyrics, typing away at the keys all night long. His heroine tries to provoke him by telling him about her infidelities, including a recent motel encounter. She describes how she refused to wash away a casual lover’s semen so she could bring its scent home. Colin reacts with icy calm, calling her behavior pathological and demanding she leave him alone. He claims her stories only make him sick, but his heroine is certain that his coldness conceals a suppressed desire to kill her, to eat her heart.

Fiery Obsession

To somehow warm her "ice core," the woman continues to seek casual encounters and visit fire sites. In her dreams, she sees a man composed of fire who burns her with his touch. She recalls her two other "real" lovers. The first was the boxer Zeke, whose relationship ended with two plastic surgeries on her face. The second was the model Neil, whom she dumped due to his drug addiction and domestic incompatibility. Colin was the only one who rejected her, yet continued to live under the same roof.

A week after the bookstore fire, the heroine breaks into an abandoned house she’s had her eye on for a while. She douses the debris and walls with kerosene and sets the building on fire. As she watches the house burn away, she feels a coldness growing inside her, like a dead child in the womb. The act of pyromania brings no relief, only deepening the feeling of emptiness within.

Returning home, she finds Colin drunk. He announces he’s decided to leave her the next day. He cites his inability to work as the reason: her confessions of infidelity and her very presence have become an obsession, preventing him from writing. She tries to restrain him, provokes him into violence, and begs him to hit her to feel something. Colin pushes her away and goes to sleep in his office, which is littered with papers.

The last spark

Left alone, the heroine feels an unbearable cold. She takes a can of gasoline and sprays it over the piles of newspapers and manuscripts in the room where Colin sleeps. She pours the gasoline near the exit, steps back, and throws in a lit match.

The flames erupt instantly, accompanied by a powerful roar. Colin’s clothes catch fire. He jumps up, trying to put out the flames, and sees the woman slam the door in his face. She holds the doorknob for only a few seconds as a firestorm rages inside. The room, stuffed with dry paper, becomes an oven. Colin’s screams fade, replaced by the sounds of the raging flames.

The heroine throws open the door. In the center of the room, she sees a figure woven from swirls of fire. Colin has become a living torch, thrashing and writhing in a dance of agony. Looking at this spectacle, the woman realizes that the ice within her has not melted. Her heart is broken, and the shards cause unbearable pain with every breath. She understands that nothing in the world can warm her anymore except this living flame before her. Unable to bear the cold any longer, she throws herself into the burning room, straight into the arms of her lover, who is dying in the flames.