Equinox

Blurb

Equinox is a 1973 novel by Samuel R. Delany, and is Delany's first published foray into explicitly sexual material. It tells of a series of erotic and violent encounters in a small American seaport following the arrival of an African-American sea captain. It is a non science fiction work, though with fantastic elements.
Peter Nicholls in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction described the work as "serious in intent, though likely to be shocking to most readers in its evocation of the extremes of sadomasochism in imagery which is sometimes poetic and often disgusting -and so intended- perhaps as a Baudelairean ritual of passage".