He Loves Me . . . Not

From FLESH: A Southeast Asian Urban Anthology

Maddie believes in love. In fact, she broke off with her latest boyfriend who just proposed to her because she knows she isn’t in love with him.

Bry says he can never be with someone who loves him. For him, only three things are important: great sex, respect and companionship.

Maddie and Bry embark on a relationship–they’re three for three anyway on the three important things (they have great sexual chemistry, they respect each other, and they have grown to be the best of friends)–but they can never, ever fall in love.

Sounds like a perfectly uncomplicated relationship.

Or not.

Read an Excerpt

It was a hot, sultry, summer night. I met him at a crowded bar. He picked me up, after one dance, where we were sandwiched between multitudes of gyrating, sweating bodies. We had a one-night stand at a nearby motel, whose air-conditioning could not cool down our drunken lust. The sex was excellently toe-curling. When I woke up in the morning, he was gone, leaving enough money to cover half of the bill. I didn’t even know his name and he didn’t ask for mine.

I couldn’t take my mind off him until he took on a near legendary aspect in my life. The one that could have been. The one that breezed through my life. He could have been my one great love. I began to look for him in every man I met and I got disappointed every time I realized he was not the one that I was talking to, flirting with, having sex with. Every time someone told me he loved me, I wished it was him. I thought I was going crazy. I just spent a few hours with him. And yet … he had such a big impact on me.

Reviews

Fortunately, its trilogy of Southeast Asian urban anthologies Heat, Flesh and Trash prove that Fixi Novo has all the elements to be what it aspires to be. Now everyone can read the region in these page turners. Titled after Andy Warhol’s Paul Morrissey films, this pulp fiction collection offers varying degrees of morbidity, escapism and realism, mainly in short stories and reimagined histories revolving around family, relationships, tradition, and even tourism.

Madness and its physical manifestations surface in Flesh, leaving the strongest and most visceral experience amongst the three books. There were times when I had to close the book to catch my breath, shudder for a moment, or mouth “WTF?” Food is the beginning of the sensory assault cooked up by three authors: Simon Rowe in the hearsay-driven “Tuna Steak”, Terence Toh in his crime story “The Whole Hog”, and Ari Abraham in the strangely sensual “Tempoyak”. Justine Anjenique P. Jordan paints a portrait of suburbian psychosis in “Dr Domingo”. Two disparate tales of (not) love and obsession play out in “He Loves Me… Not” by Yeyet Soriano and “Thorax of a Blowfly” by Danyanti Biswas.

— Abby Yao , Travel3sixty.com

The second collection deals with death, food and sex among other things and again is a rich tapestry of stories from countries form around the region. Flesh and Family in Phnom Penh by Sonkuthary Svay deals with cultural identity with the main character a Cambodian American recalling visits to her homeland when she was younger. Terence Toh’s The Whole Hog is a wonderfully gruesome tale of a Chinese Malaysian family that manages to find a way to make their pig farm into a thriving business. He Loves Me … Not (Yeyet Soriano) deals with sex, love, and the complexities of relationships in a way that will move even the coldest heart. Damyanti Biswas’ Thorax of a Blowfly is a tale of revenge that builds wonderfully to its climax, and Verena Tay’s The Sensualist is a story of erotic obsession in Singapore. Ari Abraham’s Tempoyak also deserves a mention as it manages to address the cover art and also the anthology title by mixing the fermented durian dish and eroticism.

— Mose Conway , moseconwaysworldofbooks