The Shaman from Monaco

by Flora Yin-Wong

At the start of 2015, I met a Canadian ex-banker-turned-shamanic healer from Monaco, who was in China to close a deal on his robotic inventions. He introduced himself by coming over to my table in a hotel café and asking me what I was doing here. A straightforward question, yet it hung in the air, reluctant and vague.

Somewhere in Between Part 2. Blank Space

Fucking Åmål is a movie about lesbians. It’s probably one of the only good ones, but it’s directed by a man and so is Blue is the Warmest Color, except that’s a bit shit and absolutely not the reason me and Emma are in a car driving 376 kilometres to a nowhere town in Sweden.

Intwine

At first, after I slipped them out of their kidney-shaped chemical bag and slid my lube-covered legs in, they fitted like normal jeans. All those five-star ratings, all those celebrity endorsements, totally vanilla people openly sharing orgasms on a global scale – all through the magic of Intwine.

helloitschloe

Mira would say that Chloe came back into her life the week she got her ass slapped raw in a porn viewing booth in downtown Toronto, but that’s not true. It is true that the third chapter of the story of Chloe and Mira, as scripted by Mira, started then.

A Sugary, Fluorescent Smog

“STORM IS A REALLY GREAT GUY. I THINK IT’S A SHAME THAT HE DOESN’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND,” lamented an amplified voice on the television, through the locked door. “SO, ONE OF THE GIRLS FROM THE CLUB THAT I MANAGE…” The door-to-door Christian paused in the corridor outside.

To Be Good

‘D’you want a hand with that?’ he says, a hand-rolled fag hanging from the corner of his lip, unlit, of course.

She pushes the crate of milk bottles onto the flatbed of the float.

‘Don’t often see a lady doing this job.’

‘No?’

Somewhere in Between, Part 1: Bad Boyfriend

“It was you,” Shay says slowly, but forcefully, her face lighting up as if she were a cartoon with a bulb above her head, but she’s not. She’s a real, human person sitting in front of me and name dropping a lot. One of the names she’s dropped is Jesse’s and she’s saying it’s hard to work with him and I say I know, in a way that implies I really, really know.

On the Moral Imperative to Commodify Our Sexual Suffering

I was first fucked for money at the age of 19. Someone tied me up and shoved a silicone cock in my ass. A digital camera captured the entire process. I was paid $300. It was fun, I guess. “He just liked the money and the thought of doing something ‘wrong.’ Passive anal sex is not his thing.” – the assistant narrator. I allowed flesh cocks to replace silicone cocks.

Matthew Bowyer

The man of whom she was speaking was short and dark and immensely strong. She mouthed the words slowly, with a care, gazing at her image of him all the while through a prism of love. But then, gradually, she began to speak of other things as well, almost as if she were trying to turn herself from him and those hideous passages of thought.

Hungry Ghosts / 餓鬼

On the 15th night of the 7th month in the Chinese lunisolar calendar, the lower realm is opened so that ghosts and spirits can return to roam the living world, seeking food and entertainment. During this month (鬼月), Taoists and Buddhists must perform rituals to absolve the suffering of the deceased.