I wrote the Pearl. Thanks for the votes, I feel humbled.
I really enjoyed the idea. I was on vacation in Vancouver, smoking a joint and reading the Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer (of, most notably, Annihilation fame) when I came across the line: "Some people transmit. Some people, you meet them, and they bring you their whole past as a natural gift. Some people are intimacy itself." (Actually a line from John le Carre's Smiley's People.
In the end, I immediately took to the laptop, joint in hand, and smashed this out in about 30 minutes, which is a shock, because I take months to write 100-word roleplay posts. It was unedited, unrefined, but the first short story I've ever written, and a proof of concept that I'm fairly proud of. On the other hand, I'm not proud of the final product, mostly because I never had it in my mind that it was final! Credits to Diana for convincing me to not un-submit, however. Good call, and I regret nothing.