She Came From The Swamp by Darva Green: Monster Fucker #1

I had some other plans for the blog, and I still do, but right now I absolutely must discuss this. You don’t understand;

Swamp Pussy!

And now that I really have your attention, we can discuss about it! I’ve been on a fun little monster romance kick lately, which is nice because it makes me happy. I like that.

She Came From The Swamp is, of course, an example of the somewhat rare lesbian variant of the extremely venerable monster romance genre. I’m not entirely sure if het(and generally wlm) women are somehow more susceptible to the charms of the inhuman, but there are too few examples of Sapphic monstrosities finding lifelong love. So, here is one.

The monster du jour is a kikimora, which comes from Russian folklore(according to Wikipedia, but the text says that she’s Ukranian) and is mostly seen depicted as somewhere between a witch and a scarecrow, with a plague mask on. In author Darva Green’s magical-realism world, though, a kikimora is a seven-foot-tall swamp creature with shining blue eyes, knife-like teeth, seaweed hair, pallid skin, green nipples, thatched moss for pubes, with big long claws and branches for fingers. Basically a supernatural lady of the swamp. Often used as a boogeyman figure for kids’ bedtime stories and such, which is the only prior experience Nadezhda has, courtesy of her late grandmother. It’s all she has to go on when the kikimora rises from the swamp, and she thinks to herself

“I love the kind of woman who will actually just kill me. God, I want to fuck this swamp monster lady. I bet she could pick me up, toss me into the water and I’d fucking love it. I wonder if her vag tastes like mudcat...”

Nad is an absolutely horny motherfucker, which we get from various scenes in her introduction; after arriving at the swamp-side cottage she inherited from her beloved grandmother, her first thought is of how she is keyed up and bothered from being in the car too long, but also that she’ll need time to be comfortable busting out the vibrator or watching porn in the same room her grandma used to pray with rosaries and shit. Next thing you know, though, she’s getting herself off to memories of her ex’s breasts, after looking at her instagram. Oops! Hate it when that happens!

I didn’t catch it the first go, mostly because I was taken aback by the horniness, but... does our first-50-pages introduction to Nad include her nutting to her ex? That’s... weird. Very uncomfortable.

Even with that baseline sex drive and disregard for anything else established, though, Nad’s brazen and strong lust for a literal otherworldly demon of the swamp was surprising and pleasant. I laughed aloud, because it is hilarious on some level, but by the same token I grew up with a lot of coming-out-finding-yourself media, and so I am very used to seeing queer women question their desires on-page. I love that Dal knows what she wants so thoroughly that she doesn’t think twice about what that wet, swamp-drenched moss pussy would taste like. Live your best life, girl.

Nad’s big issue is that her family is comprised entirely of... mages? Witches? Something of the sort, regular people but with specific charm powers that allow them to commune with the otherworldly and influence people, things like that. Her cousin and other relatives mostly use it to kill or remove people, getting what they want in the world. Nad isn’t much into that, especially because her shithead cousin keeps getting in her business and threatening people close to her. She’s content to quietly live out the rest of her life in the swamp house, which is handy because the house calls out to her in dreams. Generally Nad has issues with various supernatural entities invading her sexy dreams, and she’s annoyed with having to set up candles and such as a barrier.

Nadezhda’s enthusiasm for leaving her shit family behind and vibing with her dog in the swamp cottage is in fact tempered by the fact that a supernatural horror is hanging out in the bayou behind said cottage. She’s fifty-fifty split between “it’s not real” and “oh god the horror of my childhood nightmares” about the subject, which doesn’t help when the thing does, in fact, enter her dreams the first night. Spooky vinyl plays, the creature fucks with the house in Nad’s dream, so she goes to the swamp, and oh god she’s hot!

Seriously, Nad realizes that she should be terrified, run away, anything – but instead, she follows the path of water droplets from the prominent structures of her collarbones all the way down to her tits, near-direct quote. As I say, it’s literally her first thought. Mortifying, horrific woman of the swamps invades your dreams? You should eat her out, ez. Nad even calls this out, in a fan-favourite quote;

Welp, that was that. I’d lived a nice life. Sure, it was a little weird, but dying because I was too horny to run seemed a fitting end for me.

It leaves me wondering briefly if Nad has spent her time jilling off to any other thoughts of mythical folklore creatures. Amazingly though, the kikimora is down to fuck, and offers her tits for tasting. Just enough to tease, though, and then she throws Nad out of the dream, leaving her to get herself off on the sheets.

Unsurprisingly, the monster erotica is full of sex. Between the three Sapphic monster romances I’ve read though, this one has the most spice of them all. Four out of five hot tamales, I guess? For what it’s worth, the novella does almost manage to make branch-finger embraces, snake tongues in your cooch, knife-teeth and moss-pubes appealing and sensual. If I had to complain about my theoretical swamp monster girlfriend, I’d bitch about the swamp water all over the place, which frequently ends up on Nad’s bed and floor. Is she perpetually wet?

All of that is to say, the plot’s not up to that much. The basic gist is this; Nad hates her dogshit family, and Mora(short for kikimora, her name) is lonely on account of living in a swamp, as well as curious as to why she’s still around now Nad’s granny is gone. Also, since no human has ever been attracted to her real form, it takes Mora some time to come around up to the concept that YES, Nad absolutely wants to fuck the hot swamp lady. Not just fuck; Nad wants to make blissful sweet love and slip into post-orgasmic slumber with the hot swamp lady. Happily cohabit with the hot swamp lady, build a life and spend the rest of her years with the hot swamp lady. She wants those thatched moss pubes giving her facial rug-burn till she dies.

Mora warming to the idea that Nad actually wants her in her true form, and she shouldn’t hide herself, is probably the book’s strongest plot point. It’s really sweet to think that, for maybe hundreds of years, through many past human lovers, Nad is the first one to see Mora for who she really is and appreciate her fully. Nad is a nasty-ass bitch and that works for them, and when they finally commit and agree to spend their years together, it’s honestly lovely.

It’s simple, but charming. Mostly, Nad and Mora are actually just plain cute together. The gym dyke and the high femme swamp lady. There’s a bit of a, femme fatale? thing going on wherein Mora threatens Nad with her big scary claws and supernatural reign over the swamp, and Nad is like Oh, yes! Be rough with me, hot swamp lady! and frankly, I love it. Mora is also kind of a cold, hard lady with a heart of gold – occasionally Nad catches our swampy maiden actually showing affection and caring for her, and she’s not sure if kikimora can blush, but Nad thinks she does, which is hilarious. You weren’t supposed to see me like this, Mora says, tits bare in full mythical form. They’re so cute, and also the height difference is fun.

I’m a bit of a fan of how monster romances seem to play on the fear-mixed-with-lust thing, I suppose. It’s a bit saucy, the oh-it’s-so-dangerous! bit, but then it’s not really dangerous because actually the monster has a gay heart of gold. I’m absolutely certain that there’s some sort of commentary in how all of these monsters ostracized from society are actually loving, sweet Sapphics; we can talk about that more in later installments of my Monster Fucker series, because this one is simple by comparison, and mostly fascinated with its bog maiden. Is it bad for a swamp monster to be in a hot tub? Jacuzzi sex is usually bad most of the time, so for a swamp demon...

Criticisms? The prose, actually. I was kind of surprised at how crass this one’s sex is; it’s not terrible, but I dunno if I’ve seen “cunt” used in a sexual content in Sapphic lit. That might speak more to my inexperience with the genre, but I found it and the repeated use of “tits” kind of off-putting. The narration does evolve somewhat over the runtime, but the result is mostly overplayed flower metaphors. “Nectar” is lame, and describing the clitoris as a “hard petal”... last I checked, the clit was not flat. I checked again, it doesn’t resemble a petal at all. Actually, some of the sex sort of reads like it was written by a dude. Kind of weird. Coincidentally, She Came From The Swamp earns points for a scene involving a double-ended dildo, which confused me initially because I didn’t think a double-ender would bend enough for missionary position. Apparently those things are like pipe cleaners, though!

In general I’m just very excited about this whole monster romance thing, though. Early on I stuck to contemporary romances that were pretty vanilla(to the point that the face-riding in a Haley Cass novel was unique to me), and when I first grabbed some monster lovin’, I kind of figured I’d be way put off by the whole non-human aspect. I can say that I’m not attracted to demons or minotaurs, but at the worst I’m giggling along at thatched pussy or fawn-coloured fur pressed on my skin because, lol. I was in a pretty serious slump after tormenting myself with some really bad books, and the wonderful world of monster porn lifted my spirits. In the best case scenario, monster romance is legitimately interesting with meaningful plots and deep character development.

I made some fun of She Came From The Swamp, but I’m here to tell you that I take the genre with utmost seriousness, as I do basically everything. I learned that romance literature in general was a wonderful world of woman-centric fiction full to the brim with marginalized voices, instead of shallow bullshit like all the cishet white guys told me it was. After that, I basically refuse to dismiss anything out of hand anymore. Is monster porn kinda funny? At times, absolutely. But evidently the genre has its fans for good reason, and I’m looking forward to more of it.