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Please, Call Me Jesus
A joyride to the digital frontier of sex from one of Aotearoa’s most exciting young artists. No holes barred.
Rough sketches of suburban banality provide the perfect set up: A WINZ officer in a deadbeat Northland town; a grieving middle-aged church-goer; a devoted dad with tenure and a barbecue. Bland, but just bland enough for the strangest things to appear. With each key command on Sam Te Kani’s possibility machine comes biblical ZIP files, werewolf hustlers, and a lidless box of multi-coloured dildos. Stories that begin with expected genre tropes transform brazenly into outrageous sex. Quick once-overs overflow into gratuitous detail, and reality itself melts into an interface.
Please, Call Me Jesus is the debut collection of erotic stories from one of Aotearoa’s most exciting young artists. Irreverent, audacious, and full of delight, it offers the entertainment of seduction alongside new technological possibilities. A pulp paperback with a gaze toward the future of sex. A breath of fresh air amid the terrible earnestness of so much contemporary fiction.
Rough sketches of suburban banality provide the perfect set up: A WINZ officer in a deadbeat Northland town; a grieving middle-aged church-goer; a devoted dad with tenure and a barbecue. Bland, but just bland enough for the strangest things to appear. With each key command on Sam Te Kani’s possibility machine comes biblical ZIP files, werewolf hustlers, and a lidless box of multi-coloured dildos. Stories that begin with expected genre tropes transform brazenly into outrageous sex. Quick once-overs overflow into gratuitous detail, and reality itself melts into an interface.
Please, Call Me Jesus is the debut collection of erotic stories from one of Aotearoa’s most exciting young artists. Irreverent, audacious, and full of delight, it offers the entertainment of seduction alongside new technological possibilities. A pulp paperback with a gaze toward the future of sex. A breath of fresh air amid the terrible earnestness of so much contemporary fiction.
98 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2021
48 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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February 28, 2024 picked this up from the short story colection shelf at the central library and just went in blind. googled this after the fact and found out it was a collection of erotic short stories. that explains all the sexual content i suppose. would love to know if any other library patrons have had this experience.
April 22, 2024
‘The Good Boy’
Oh my goodness. So robbed. I was reading erotica and then it turned into a short story... a short story ending. Too dramatic for me! I enjoyed reading New Zealand accents talking SDM language. But the thing that made me jolt back was the suggestion of a short story ending. I relaxed thinking this was the worries of a father coming back after the session of pleasures. It is an interesting story for all its good points though. A strange mental portrait. When he tries to wash some thoughts away. I suppose this is about living a double life. But without knowing about this other side (having thought his observations on the ways of young boys was either without pretense or a tox-masc inner jibe. But things like smart fridges and heavily processed meats didn’t need to be explained in seperate paragraphs. Particularly “the fridge could talk.” Says enough. If it’s supposed to be humourous the following details on this appliance’s texting and analysis over explain a joke into the truth of its bourgeois mundanity. But it’s a very asexual thing to draw attention to in the middle of a gay erotic narrative. Meaning, there’s a touching homosexual narrative contained in 9 out of 11 pages. And to paraphrase a short story mantra “the short story is the easiest to refine and must be word conscious, word perfect to be effective.” To me, the idea a novel can get to a well edited point is insane. This is coming from the perspective of someone who would write an 80k word mess after which there would be nothing to do but start again. (Just explained this fridge thing to my whanau, lol. They pointed out how the sausages—a refrigerated good—are phalluses. The only way you could’ve thought about this in reading what is on the page is going by the word “sausage.” There are no gross slimy descriptions. It’s more about class. “The sausages had been left out overnight. They are flaccid as my wife returns.” The image of Jimmy’s fingers entering B’s arsehole to the knuckles is lingering.
‘Please, Call Me Jesus.’
This one is very well refined. The only thing that I can critique is this feeling of fan fiction, but this is more of a good than bad. Tilda Swinton as a monk, which I’m sure she has played before, exchanges words with Jesus (a digital Jesus with a four foot long penis). Lines like “‘Yes ma’am,’ he said, grinning.” are redundant but at the same time humourous in that fan fiction way. There are a few words that I nitpicked out of my reading, like the “basically” in “she’d basically sworn off sex.” It was a stronger beat without it. Was reminded of the recent Verhoeven movie ‘Benedetta’ throughout. Good things.
Feeling pretty sick and sad as I’m reading the last story. ‘The People in the Metal Trees’ scared me before, with the threat of sexualising a taboo in a sickening shock way. Having only just finished a bestial story before that in ‘Werekids.’
Mostly have found it to be interesting contemporary fiction. Romesh recommended!
(Side tangent wondering about Your Books publication. Self publish? I picked up ‘Marsellus Wallace’s Dirty Laundry’ by David Beach while waiting for the Lawrence & Gibson double #29 book launch. I thought it was poetry inventing a further ending to ‘Pulp Fiction,’ but this is an essay expounding on theories for the contents of the case. So it’s target is needs of this one movie. Having only seen it once it was too much for me. This is the kind of thing I would want to find on Letterboxd it I was coming off the movie and was into it. Having an essay published using this much paper is wasteful. The idea of self publishing and printing hard copies past that which one knows are going to be read is insane to me, when ebooks seem most effective at covering ground and finding the audience is the marketing was decent, though how far the cost of printing books going into marketing would go I don’t know. I am fascinated by how a publishing company running on a local? self publishing basis would work out. It’s probably a multinational service, or they vet their things in some capacity which makes sense, but then that’s not self publishing anymore.)
13.5.2022
Oh my goodness. So robbed. I was reading erotica and then it turned into a short story... a short story ending. Too dramatic for me! I enjoyed reading New Zealand accents talking SDM language. But the thing that made me jolt back was the suggestion of a short story ending. I relaxed thinking this was the worries of a father coming back after the session of pleasures. It is an interesting story for all its good points though. A strange mental portrait. When he tries to wash some thoughts away. I suppose this is about living a double life. But without knowing about this other side (having thought his observations on the ways of young boys was either without pretense or a tox-masc inner jibe. But things like smart fridges and heavily processed meats didn’t need to be explained in seperate paragraphs. Particularly “the fridge could talk.” Says enough. If it’s supposed to be humourous the following details on this appliance’s texting and analysis over explain a joke into the truth of its bourgeois mundanity. But it’s a very asexual thing to draw attention to in the middle of a gay erotic narrative. Meaning, there’s a touching homosexual narrative contained in 9 out of 11 pages. And to paraphrase a short story mantra “the short story is the easiest to refine and must be word conscious, word perfect to be effective.” To me, the idea a novel can get to a well edited point is insane. This is coming from the perspective of someone who would write an 80k word mess after which there would be nothing to do but start again. (Just explained this fridge thing to my whanau, lol. They pointed out how the sausages—a refrigerated good—are phalluses. The only way you could’ve thought about this in reading what is on the page is going by the word “sausage.” There are no gross slimy descriptions. It’s more about class. “The sausages had been left out overnight. They are flaccid as my wife returns.” The image of Jimmy’s fingers entering B’s arsehole to the knuckles is lingering.
‘Please, Call Me Jesus.’
This one is very well refined. The only thing that I can critique is this feeling of fan fiction, but this is more of a good than bad. Tilda Swinton as a monk, which I’m sure she has played before, exchanges words with Jesus (a digital Jesus with a four foot long penis). Lines like “‘Yes ma’am,’ he said, grinning.” are redundant but at the same time humourous in that fan fiction way. There are a few words that I nitpicked out of my reading, like the “basically” in “she’d basically sworn off sex.” It was a stronger beat without it. Was reminded of the recent Verhoeven movie ‘Benedetta’ throughout. Good things.
Feeling pretty sick and sad as I’m reading the last story. ‘The People in the Metal Trees’ scared me before, with the threat of sexualising a taboo in a sickening shock way. Having only just finished a bestial story before that in ‘Werekids.’
Mostly have found it to be interesting contemporary fiction. Romesh recommended!
(Side tangent wondering about Your Books publication. Self publish? I picked up ‘Marsellus Wallace’s Dirty Laundry’ by David Beach while waiting for the Lawrence & Gibson double #29 book launch. I thought it was poetry inventing a further ending to ‘Pulp Fiction,’ but this is an essay expounding on theories for the contents of the case. So it’s target is needs of this one movie. Having only seen it once it was too much for me. This is the kind of thing I would want to find on Letterboxd it I was coming off the movie and was into it. Having an essay published using this much paper is wasteful. The idea of self publishing and printing hard copies past that which one knows are going to be read is insane to me, when ebooks seem most effective at covering ground and finding the audience is the marketing was decent, though how far the cost of printing books going into marketing would go I don’t know. I am fascinated by how a publishing company running on a local? self publishing basis would work out. It’s probably a multinational service, or they vet their things in some capacity which makes sense, but then that’s not self publishing anymore.)
13.5.2022
April 29, 2022
Horny twilight zone! gimme gimme more
November 25, 2022
Sick and twisted, but Te Kani is obviously a very skilled writer and has an amazing imagination. I would say the author writes the way I strive to. Plain language yet still poetic, descriptive but not in the way that assumes the reader’s stupidity. Loved the story about the Metal Trees so much i read it to my boyfriend, the one about the werewolves was also fantastic. For the others, loved the writing but could give or take the plots. Definitely appreciated pacing myself with these and didnt read any before bed after the first one, although the rest weren’t as disturbing imo.
February 7, 2024
TW: incest
September 29, 2024
Book 1/3 of the Evening Books haul and wowza, what a way to start.
January 5, 2026
Best story is hands down the one about Second Life for me.
August 27, 2024
fucking crazy and so erotic hahaha. this was a book swap and not at all what i was expecting but it was really good. the good boy: completely shocked by the ending wow, absolutely transported me. please, call me jesus: super weird but lovedddd the ending. werekids: so unexpected and fun. the people in the metal trees: how samuel even came up with this idk but it was genius and so interesting. a psalm for abe: the most sexual of them all, probably my least favourite of the 5 but still very unique perspective into one's character. love the meshing of sex and the church, it's just the way it is and i liked it because i've been watched heaps of docos on cults and how sexual they become so this book also shows that so yeah. very cool.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews