Introduction By S. E. Stokowski Occasionally humorous but mostly very dark, R. C. Horsch writes with a brutal yet mostly compassionate sensitivity about the netherworld of sex, addicts, pimps, johns, prostitutes, dealers and various misfits. There is a pervading, transcendent hyper-realism and the voices of the people in his stories (I cannot call them "characters") are not easily dismissed or forgotten. His stories are graphic and frighteningly real because, unlike someone observing from the outside and inventing the details from whole cloth, Horsch has lived and experienced every word that he writes. These remarkable stories fit no single genre. You can anticipate horror, explicit sex, descriptions of physical and emotional abuse, pain, degradation, drug addiction, prostitution, love, atonement, absolution, hate, forgiveness, desire, despair, religion, bondage, slavery, sado-masochism, and even humor."