Edge Play

“Masters of the Universe have a new mistress—a protagonist who learns to wield power in the excessive, fascinating cultures of Wall Street and BDSM-for-hire. BOW DOWN.” —WEDNESDAY MARTIN, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Primates of Park Avenue and Untrue EDGE PLAY by Jane Boon National Leather Association's Pauline Reage Novel Award, Finalist CORRECTION: Amy Lefevre’s second language is risk. A gorgeous young investment banker, she navigates Wall Street’s toxic culture with ease—until the stock market collapses. CRISIS: Amy starts investigating the failed deals her boss engineered. Drawn to a treacherous ride on the edge, will her efforts to expose him cause her to lose it all? CONSENT: Amy’s best friend is a dominatrix with an offer: take over her elite S&M dungeon, catering to the pervy needs of millionaires and billionaires and learn the true nature of power. EDGE PLAY is a universe beyond Fifty Shades of Grey and The Big Short, set in the most elite, twisted circles of Wall Street mega-power and S&M. Amy Lefevre dives into an underground realm of Big Swinging Dicks only to find that, in this arena, the women wield the whips and the men submit. “Edge Play explores obsession and ambition with a fetishist's eye for detail. From the sleek Syren latex to the sexy Louboutins, to power moves found in both the dazzling hustle of high finance and the darkness of the dungeon, this book delivers.” —LILY BURANA, Author of Strip City “This is such a fun book! Smart, sexy, and full of surprises. It's also full of stingingly authentic details of Wall Street and the BDSM culture simmering just below it. It's a New York where everyone wants to come out on top, and power is a skill that can be learned.” —JO WELDON, Author of Fierce: The History of Leopard Print and The Burlesque Handbook

Representations of consensual sadomasochism range from the dark, seedy undergrounds of crime thrillers to the fetishized pornographic images of sitcoms and erotica. In this pathbreaking book, ethnographer Staci Newmahr delves into the social space of a public, pansexual SM community to understand sadomasochism from the inside out. Based on four years of in-depth and immersive participant observation, she juxtaposes her experiences in the field with the life stories of community members, providing a richly detailed portrait of SM as a social space in which experiences of "violence" intersect with experiences of the erotic. She shows that SM is a recreational and deeply gendered risk-taking endeavor, through which participants negotiate boundaries between chaos and order. Playing on the Edge challenges our assumptions about sadomasochism, sexuality, eroticism, and emotional experience, exploring what we mean by intimacy, and how, exactly, we achieve it.

As critical interest has grown in the unique ways in which art animation explores and depicts subjective experience - particularly in relation to desire, sexuality, social constructions of gender, confessional modes, fantasy, and the animated documentary - this volume offers detailed analysis of both the process and practice of key contemporary filmmakers, while also raising more general issues around the specificities of animation. Combining critical essays with interview material, visual mapping of the creative process, consideration of the neglected issue of how the use of sound differs from that of conventional live-action, and filmmakers' critiques of each others' work, this unique collection aims to both provoke and illuminate via an insightful multi-faceted approach.

Women on the Edge, a collection of Alcestis, Medea, Helen, and Iphegenia at Aulis, provides a broad sample of Euripides' plays focusing on women, and spans the chronology of his surviving works, from the earliest, to his last, incomplete, and posthumously produced masterpiece. Each play shows women in various roles--slave, unmarried girl, devoted wife, alienated wife, mother, daughter--providing a range of evidence about the kinds of meaning and effects the category woman conveyed in ancient Athens. The female protagonists in these plays test the boundaries--literal and conceptual--of their lives. Although women are often represented in tragedy as powerful and free in their thoughts, speech and actions, real Athenian women were apparently expected to live unseen and silent, under control of fathers and husbands, with little political or economic power. Women in tragedy often disrupt "normal" life by their words and actions: they speak out boldly, tell lies, cause public unrest, violate custom, defy orders, even kill. Female characters in tragedy take actions, and raise issues central to the plays in which they appear, sometimes in strong opposition to male characters. The four plays in this collection offer examples of women who support the status quo and women who oppose and disrupt it; sometimes these are the same characters.

The Ultimate Guide to Kink is the first major guide to BDSM in a generation—a bold and sexy collection of essays that run the gamut from expert how-to tutorials to provocative essays that delve into complex questions about desire, power, and pleasure. The book brings together diverse voices from the kink community in an unprecedented way: each chapter is written by a different sexuality/BDSM educator. Divided into two sections, the first section features thorough, thoughtful pieces—on everything from flogging to bondage—packed with techniques and beautifully illustrated with original images from artist Katie Diamond. The second section is dedicated to role-playing fantasies and personal manifestos. From age play to masochism, these chapters cover some of the edgiest, most taboo and controversial elements of kink in depth. The Ultimate Guide to Kink features the expertise of renowned educators writing passionately on their favorite subjects, including Patrick Califia, Midori, Laura Antoniou, Barbara Carrellas, Lee Harrington, Jack Rinella, Lolita Wolf, Madison Young, Hardy Haberman, Felice Shays, Ignacio Rivera, Sarah Sloane, Mollena Williams, FifthAngel, and Edge. It will educate, inspire, and challenge both newcomers to the world of kink and experienced BDSM players.

First there was downtown. Then there were suburbs. Then there were malls. Then Americans launched the most sweeping change in 100 years in how they live, work, and play. The Edge City.

Hyper-reality. The area between the thriving mass of humanity known as the Sprawl and the digital refuge of Cyberspace. This is your playground. As a Showrunner, you can see and manipulate the flow of digital data through the real world – for you, reality is limitless. Welcome to Reality's Edge, a skirmish wargame set in a dystopian cyberpunk future, where players take on the roles of Showrunners – mercenary hackers who lead small teams of trusted operatives and disposable freelancers. Funded by shadow backers, the Showrunners accept jobs from faceless clients for profit, glory, and better chrome... always better chrome. Battles take place in the concrete jungle known as the Sprawl, but Showrunners must remain wary of the threat posed by Cyberspace. Hacking is pivotal to the game, with data nodes, robots, machines, and even enemy chrome presenting potential targets for a cunning Console Cowboy. In an ongoing campaign, each skirmish offers you the opportunity to earn experience and equipment, from advanced weaponry and synthetics to cyber-implants, biological enhancements, clones, and much more. This is a world obsessed with whether something can be done, not whether it should.

A short guide about how to play blackjack, blackjack variants, strategies, tournaments, card counting, advantage gambling techniques, terminology. The rules of casino blackjack are generally determined by law or regulation, which establishes certain rule variations allowed at the discretion of the casino. The rules of any particular game are generally posted on or near the table, failing which there is an expectation that casino staff will provide them on request. Over 100 variations of blackjack have been documented. Each blackjack game has a basic strategy, which is playing a hand of any total value against any dealer’s up-card, which loses the least money to the house in the long term. Blackjack can be played in tournament form, where players start with equal numbers of chips and the aim is to finish among the top chip-holders.