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The Language of Bodies
by Freida Theant
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2012
Renée’s arm, pale as her satin sheets, extended past her mattress with her fingers relaxed in a lazy crescent, cradling her just-lit cigarette, which spends its down-time spindling ghostly risers from the edge of its ember. Renée feels serene, seeing her lover resting at peace. Only a few months ago they were strangers: she, a Columbia professor of Sociology and marginalized wife of a commodities broker; and Monica, a Master’s candidate at City College, part-timing as a bookstore clerk.
Read more...Smoking Virtuoso
by Freida Theant
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - March - April 2014
When the famed violinist Dalila lights up, she turns the heads of concert-goers who flee outdoors during intermissions at Severance Hall, Cleveland. They are agog at how she enjoys a smoky duet with her Dunhill Black. One observer remarks “she deserves the title ‘smoking virtuoso’ bringing her gold Yves St Laurent lighter up to her cigarette to bestow it with life, and thus entwine with her in a glowing, smoky creation, flowing together”.
Read more...Snow White
by Freida Theant
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - May - June 2014
Iliana adjusts her crisply-laundered lab coat, gleaming in the always-summer fluorescence of the ceiling lights, as she re-seats herself upon the tall stool before the laminar flow Biohazard hood. Her hairnet, face mask, blouse, hosiery, and walking shoes are similarly a vision of shimmering whiteness, although not quite as bright as the lab coat, which fluoresces from the embedded whiteners. Iliana’s short-length hair nestles beneath the porous tea-bag paper of her head coverlet, and her hair coordinates in platinum. Only her skirt contrasts with that arctic look, but Iliana’s lab coat leaves but a narrow strip of her tweedy grey visible.
Read more...Leah's New Year's Eve
by Freida Theant
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - January - February 2013
Leah’s boots indent the pristine snow with her footfalls trudging to the picnic table blanketed with three inches in this suburban recreational park. Before she sits down to enjoy the view of the vacant skating pond, her wooly mittens whisk off mounded flakes from the bench, while she jets clouds of steam from her mouth in this 20 degree weather. This New Year’s Eve afternoon snowfall is at its most intent so of course the grey cloudy ceiling overhead is accentuated by aimless luminous spots dropping over every available surface, even Leah’s caramel-colored woolen cap framing the face of what she’s been frequently reminded is a Cate Blanchet look.
Read more...Darker Desires
Echos of 'Fidelio'
by Vesperae
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2015
This is a brief excerpt from the September–October 2010 issue of Smoke Signals magazine, and one of my first columns for the free/public version, "My First Decade at The Orgy":
Read more...Kayla's Lungs, Part 10
by Vesperae
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - May - June 2015
First, an announcement about my forum:
Boardhost shut down my forum and multimedia archive near the end of March because they recently implemented a ban on smoking and fetish content. Way back in 2000 when I opened the first incarnation of "Sublime," I asked the then owner of Boardhost (who was pretty much a one man band at the time) if he had any problems with SF content. He told me flatly that he absolutely did not.
Oh how times change…
Read more...La Petite Mort
by Vesperae
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - January - February 2015
La petite mort is French for "the little death." The expression is most often used to describe the experience of having an orgasm, but is also used to describe the release of emotional energy (catharsis) that accompanies experiencing the climax of a creative expression, as well as the experience of going through a shocking life-changing event.
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