This is Chris of Durango, Colorado. Tevas adorn his feet, a Grateful Dead shirt clings to his belly and cut-off jean shorts, faded and frayed, reveal a pair of knees that have weathered the storms of countless blowjobs. But beneath the tie-dye exterior and the subtle aroma of body odor, the man remained a tempest of uptight frustration.

Armando was twenty-four and already tired in a way that made him seem older.

He worked on a farm outside Hermosillo, where the days were mostly heat, dust, and the same rows of crops he had been looking at for years. His hands were cracked from the work. By noon, his shirt was usually soaked through.

Adisa noticed the changes one at a time.

First came the men from the West.

They arrived with trucks, tools, medicine, clothes, and plans. They said they could make life easier for everyone. They were polite. They shook hands. They smiled a lot.

This drawing is my interpretation of Emperor Peter The Great.

Peter’s wife, Empress Catherine I of Russia, was rumored to have a lover named Willem Mons. Peter ordered Willem to be beheaded and had his head preserved in alcohol and supposedly kept it in the Kunstkamera (Museum in Saint Petersburg). Peter forced his wife to look at her lover’s head in the jar for hours at a time.

Three months after Mons’ death, the emperor died at age 52, he had battled a bladder illness and cirrhosis. Peter is credited as the inventor of the vodka “penalty shot”, anyone who arrived late to one of his feasts had to take a shot.

This drawing is my interpretation of what Willem Mons looked like. Willem Mons was young, ambitious, opportunistic and full of cum. These attributes shot him into the upper echelons of imperial Russia. Eventually, in 1724, he became the secretary of Empress Catherine I of Russia who was Peter the Great’s wife. Willem’s sister, Anna, was Peter the Great’s mistress and Willem was rumored to be Catherine’s lover and was later ordered to be publicly beheaded by Peter the Great. His head was preserved in alcohol and was kept in the Kunstkamera (museum in Saint Petersburg). Peter forced his wife to look at her lover’s head in the jar for hours at a time. After Peter died Catherine kept the head in her possession. A memento of the man she truly loved but could only be with in death.

Luli worked nights in a brothel in Hong Kong. She hated the word “worked,” but there wasn’t a better one.

Mei runs a small hair salon in Hong Kong.

During the day, she cuts hair. At night, some of the rooms in the back are used for something else.