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John Gregory Betancourt: Pulp Classics (Paperback, Wildside Press)

Review of 'Pulp Classics' on 'Goodreads'

It's what it is, so you might as well give it four stars instead of two. Eight stories from the weird menace pulp subgenre, albeit in a mild version - there are some really nasty stories in other magazines.

Eight stories, each with a man-woman couple, newly married or starting on their relationship. All the women have "soft feminine breasts [which] were like tired kittens sleepily stirring for a caress."

In nearly all of the stories, the protagonists encounter a strange building, often while vacationing - a sanitarium, spooky old house, old family mansion, magician's abode. (Ultimately the roots for the Rocky Horror SHow plot?) In one of the stories the location is a modern apartment in a modern city, in another an exotic island, in a third the new family house.

All but two stories end happily, with the male rescuing the female from danger (usually of a sexual nature). "The Time Dissolver" by Hugh Speer is the one that might stay in memory. A couple gets attacked by... hm, their future selves? Time travel drugs, mind transference, body & partner swapping?