Now who is that gorgeous creatures, I hear you ask? Well, for the first time I present you with a Siren that is actually a personal friend. Kyra is a Montreal-based Cambodian model and fashion artist with which I had the privilege to work with these past months. The fruits of our labor is now available on the net and so we present you with Kyra’s Eyes. I assure you that she is as wonderful a person as she is beautiful.

Kyra has come into my life at a point when I needed new challenges and a new circle of interesting people to interact with. So I will take advantage of my own tribune to publicly thank her for her generosity, professionalism and patience. Little friend, I hope that your life is also at an interesting turning point! Can’t wait to work with you again! You’re now responsible for me now being a text-messages enthusiast!

I couldn’t have find a better subject for a first Siren that is an acquaintance of mine and I can already promise you that there’ll be more…

I’m currently re-watching the second season of what in my view is the best recent French-speaking series from Québec, Les Invincibles. This all turns around four guys making a mutual pact of finally living life as they want it, with no emotional attachments, with the ultimate objective of enjoying a carefree bachelor existence in purely thrill-seeking fashion. Of course, this means having sex with lots of women, with a rule that states that these relations can’t not go past a time-limit of two weeks. As you can guess, everything falls apart in unexpected twists and turns.

In the second season, the same guys are involved in another scheme, this time a Rally of Happiness, when they must fix themselves a personal objective to be resolved in a period of three months. If all four can successfully manage it, it’s a trip to Punta Cana for all! Once again, the results will be surprising, hilarious and sometimes touching.

One of the main characters is a comic book fan, having created a super-hero team based on his personality and those of his three friends, Les Invincibles. So, they are frequent parallels between his fiction and real-life turmoils. And what turmoils they are! Example: have you ever faked moving to a new apartment?

This excellent series is cleverly scripted, brilliantly played and filmed in true innovative fashion, with a lot of references and tributes to past cult movies. So what does this have to do with Kim Bingham? And first of all, who is she?

Well, she’s a Canadian singer-songwriter, who debuted on the Montreal indie scene in the ska band Me Mom and Morgentaler (Dr. Henry Morgentaler being a defender of the rights to abortion in Canada), which is still considered an unique and colorful live act. She pursued another phase of her career in 1999 under the name Mudgirl and she was a guest at the Lilith Fair U.S. tour. A prolific songwriter, Kim has always been at ease with her Montreal roots, as she can compose and perform in both English and French. She also played with Nelly Furtado and David Usher.

Her involvement with Les Invincibles is as composer-performer. This turned out to being cast as a musician in the series itself, in a too-brief and curiously silent role as guitarist Melanie, band mate of one of the main male character. Her powerful title track for the series won a Gémeaux Award and can’t get out of your brain after the very first listening. There’s a soundtrack for the series, where Kim expertly does amazing covers with material from Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello and even the Ramones! She has recently been part of a tour of Canadian entertainers in Kandahar, to visit our country’s troops stationed in Afghanistan. Watch out in 2009 for the third season of Les Invincibles! And please keep on eye on Kim Bingham’s career! Her pleasant and precise voice is pure joy.
Kim photo by Sabrina Usher

1989 was an important year for me. I can almost say that it was a lucky year, as I turned 25 and the day of my birth is indeed 25. Above all, I met the person that would become my wife (15 years of wedding bliss this year, you can send cards) and this relationship inspired me to write my most ambitious fiction project to date. The discovery and contribution of a local upcoming Québec singer was also a turning point.

For some months at that time, I had toyed with the idea of writing a rock’n’roll novel about a struggling band, with a most complex female singer, after giving up in creating a comic book version. Over the following months, this eventually evolved to become a fantasy/horror story, to my great surprise, but it all came out in a most logical way. I won’t go into plot details because who knows what could eventually happen to that tale (which was eventually planned as a seven book saga, way before that Potter guy). Yes, I submitted my manuscript to some publishers… twice. One seemed interested but filed for bankruptcy some days after receiving my submission and the other send me the most strict rejection letter ever… that I still have and cherish to this day. Revenge is a dish best served cold, as it is said.

So yes in the mid-eighties, I used to play bass in a punkish band, however being more at ease in writing lyrics than hitting the right note. Mix this with my newfound ladylove and with the discovery of Marie Carmen on the musical scene, and I enjoyed many channels of inspiration. I won’t discuss my sentimental life here, but let’s note that I fell in love with three different women, each on their own different levels: one was my chosen companion to spend the rest of my life, the other a great entertainer and inspiration, and the last a fictional person of my own creation.

Marie Aubut was born on August 24, 1959, in Ste-Foy, Québec, and choose the artistic name of Marie Carmen when deciding to pursue a musical career. She became known in the local Québec musical scene for her participation in popular stage musicals, most notably Starmania and Vis ta vinaigrette. I first saw her at a concert for the Montreal band The Box, where she was backup singer alongside another future successful female Canadian songstress, Sass Jordan (now a judge on Canadian Idol). I immediately adored Marie’s look, mainly her tendency to tuck immaculate white shirts into tight pants/jeans, her admirable cheekbones and her own way to move on stage. Of course, I had no clue of her name on that night.

I didn’t wait for long and was delighted in rediscovering her with the release of her first solo album. Oh the joy: finally a French singing female rocker with a different style, namely a non-bimbo-ish attitude. In fact, Marie was quite theatrical in her singing (too much theatrical for her detractors) and I adored her passion. In her first shows, she used to come on stage wearing a man’s suit, complete with tie, but there was absolutely nothing butch about her.

Indirectly, her mere presence in my favorite entertainers at the time was a great benefit for my writings, namely my main female character who was also a singer, with a more edgy heavy-metal side. I named her Augusta, a tattooed six-foot-three redhead with glowing green Asian eyes, of ferocious beauty and talent, a seemingly direct child of the legendary Medusa. I won’t reveal her secret but you just had to move out of her way. Of course, my novel’s main male character began to behave and talk exactly like I would do, projecting many insecurities and hilarious cynical wit like I supposedly used to do (used to?).

My hormones and feelings were on a roller coaster between Monique, Marie and Augusta, three different and fascinating muses in a life that had been pretty devoid of serious and ever-lasting female excitement. Monique became a fan of Marie, accompanying me to at last seven different concerts over the years… and got pretty soon very jealous of Augusta, whom she pictured as her sentimental rival, to my dismayed chagrin! But she eventually warmed up to my imaginary singer and maybe one day you’ll do too.

Marie Carmen soon became Québec’s most popular and successful singer in the first half of the nineties, producing four studio albums, a live album and a Best Of compilation. The apex was the immense success of her reprise of gloomy French singer Barbara’s mythical L’Aigle noir (curiously a song that supposedly talks about incest!). This was her ultimate reach to stardom. She won countless musical awards and was not shy in declared her love for her fans, which was met with snobbish sniffs by the press. Soon after her fourth (and probably best) studio album, though, and with some difficulties with new management, Marie decided to call it quits, being fed up with showbiz and incessant touring. She actually went to Peru to became a goodwill worker for people in need, a complete career turnabout if there ever was one. She still pops up from time to time on TV, with a notable 2005 appearance in Star Académie, a popular Idol-ish french musical show, effortlessly out-staging the young participants.

She has been a player in a most important part of my life, in many varying degrees. In a way, she subconsciously helped in consolidating my feelings in regards to love and her presence was invaluable comfort in creating my Augusta character. It’s with sweet melancholy that I think of her from time to time. Of course, I think about my wife all the time. As for Augusta, there’s not a day in the part 20 years that she doesn’t pop in my head, not a single day… her story is yet to be told.

After talking about Sharlene Royer, I’ve decided from time to time to discuss local talent. What do I mean by that? Simple. I’ll introduce you to some worthy Sirens coming from Montreal or the province of Quebec region. As the Canadian dollar becomes more and more valuable, you’ll see that the quality of our female entertainers has always been top-notch!

OK now, there has been many fetish models in the history of photography: the justifiably inevitable Bettie Page comes to mind, also Pamela Green… More recently, the popularity of the Internet has been responsible for another kind of derivative subculture, where fetish personalities can enjoy more direct interaction with their fans (who can be counted by millions, seems like). Popular current models like Simone Devon, Darla Crane, Ashley Renee, Jewell Marceau, Julie Simone, Kiana, Dita Von Teese, Eve Ellis, DragonLily and countless others vie for your attention (and your $$$!) in glamorous bondage/fetish pictorials. This multi-million dollar business has been a staple on the Web since its conception. How do I know all this, I faintly hear you asking? Because I care for you, gentle reader, and would go to any length to offer credible research. Let’s say that you’ll be meeting more of these alluring ladies in the months to come. Always in tasteful presentation, has it’s been my usual trademark. Right? Right!?!?!?

Remember the difficulty in past days in acquiring that kind of “controversial” material, sold under the counter in some specialized stores. Remember Irving Klaw’s empire, which is the stereotype of how all these transactions worked. Or even John Willie’s own Bizarre publication, managed in the 50s from a mailbox in Montreal. Montreal nesting a secret bondage pix ring! Unbelievable! Ah, the beauty of waiting by the mailbox and hoping that the kindly mailman didn’t mixed your confidential envelope with your neighbor’s. Now, with the magic a simple mouse click, wonders awaits you in a most ultimate immediacy. If only we could stop the horrible abuse that gives a bad name to a most wonderful and educational tool.

But let such grim thoughts be out of our minds for the next few minutes. Let’s enjoy info on our main subject for today, Bianca Beauchamp by name, who was born in Montreal on October 14, 1977, from a French-Canadian father and Italian mother. It seems that she was named after popular 70s socialite and frequent Studio 54 guest Bianca Jagger. In late 1995, Bianca met photographer Martin Perreault when she was 18 and they began an association that has lasted to this day, centering around latex fetish photography (and also a loving relationship as bonus). When her then-employers (Bianca was in a teaching internship at her former high school) discovered her newly-launched website, she was asked to abandon that shameful foolishness or lose her job. She briefly complied but eventually decided to pursue her modeling career full-time. Lucky for us, so let’s all loudly thank Quebec’s public education system! On her birthday in 1997, Bianca wed Martin. The couple is still principally based in Montreal, that cesspool of fleshly sins, one of the world’s capital in the sexy webcams market.

So, latex fetish modeling, yes. There’s a future in it, my friends. Bianca has the distinction of being one of the few model ever to grace the cover of one of the industry’s prime publication, Bizarre Magazine. Find a copy today. There’s also Marquis, for which Bianca writes a column, and Skin Two. Even the Playboy empire came to her door, for the Girls of Canada calendar (twice to date) and some Special Editions issues. Seriously, this is an exceptional achievement for this niche, like having your picture on Sports Illustrated after winning the World Series.

Physically, Bianca’s bouncy frame proposes these comfortable dimensions: 5 ft 2 in, 115 lb, 32DD-25-35. Is there any way to be more precise? She has a trademark of fiery red hair, but like many other fetish personalities, owns a collection of colorful wigs. Oh and she never apologized for having breasts implants, so there. But Bianca, I implore you, don’t get blonde too often!

In 2006, Bianca launched her first glossy hardcover book, Bianca Beauchamp - Fetish Sex Symbol, with absolutely amazing high quality visual material. I mean, this is precise photography, in a most attractive and professional package. She even shared the lens with the legendary Julie Strain, she who was designated by Bettie Page to be her successor. Nice company, indeed. For the video game SiN Episodes, Bianca portrayed the character Elexis Sinclaire, evil biochemist and main villain.

Late 2007 saw the release of Bianca Beauchamp: All Access, a documentary about Bianca’s involvement in an event called Montreal Fetish Weekend, a three day extravangaza about dressing up in bizarre shiny clothing. Here’s a way to discreetly find all about latex fashion, of course, in an amusing and candid way, without leaving the comfort of your living room. Directed by Perreault, this production had its premiere at the 2007 FanTasia Film Festival, which I used to cover as a journalist back in its early editions. Get your hands on the 2-disc DVD now, because there’s tons of exquisite extras for your viewing pleasure.

On her website, you get the chance to choose the latex section or the more casual bikini/lingerie/nude photos section. I must admit that this site should be a model for that kind of material, for its visual impact and clear navigation. It helps a lot to have a subject as unique and fascinating as Bianca, needless to say.

The awful truth about our Latex Siren is this: through it all, Bianca Beauchamp remains a sweet and engaging girl, who doesn’t play the intimidation game, which is quite refreshing. She reigns on the fetish glamour international circuit and who are we to argue?

All photos in this article are © Martin Perreault.

Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to a worthy Siren, one that rightfully claims to be the only black woman in the Quebec film industry being capable of handling acting and stunt work. We share the same city of birth (Montreal) so I thought, why not spotlight local talent from time to time?

Sharlene Royer is the daughter of a Haitian mother and French Canadian father. She began her career by learning to dance, namely ballet, jazz and tap. This led to theater work in a troupe, some modeling, video and commercials appearances, and of course an acting debut in television.

Being fluently bilingual, Sharlene had the privilege in participating in popular French and English television series, like The Hunger, Largo Winch, Lance et compte - La nouvelle génération and Les Bougon : c’est aussi ça la vie. Transforming into a stunt woman gave her the privilege of doubling for the likes of Halle Berry, Vanessa Williams, Rosario Dawson and Pam Grier, being able to handle combat scenes, gun work and various martial arts techniques.

Recently, Sharlene has begun to enjoy bigger roles in higher profile movies from Quebec, like the big hit Bon Cop Bad Cop (the highest grossing Canadian movie in the history of the country’s box office receipts). She also appeared too briefly as a seductive escort in Cheech the same year.

2007 is shaping up to be a busy year, with the sci-fi thriller Recon 2022: The Mezzo Incident, cult director Stuart Gordon’s latest project Stuck, and the black comedy/thriller Cadavres.

There’s a lot of talent and beauty here, and I hope that you’ll keep an interested eye on Sharlene Royer’s future work.