Richard had never felt love for another man until James. When he had first felt the burn of desire, he had tried to keep it at bay. But then his love and desire came in stronger waves, until he had to throw aside everything he thought he knew about himself to feed the hunger that was eating him alive. Was he straight, gay, or bisexual? Or was he simply a man with a sexuality without boundaries? He didn’t know the answer. All he knew was that he needed James in his life, or it would destroy him. No label could define what they had.

Through the break in the curtains, he could see the sky lightening with the day. He thought of Amber in the house next door and felt his heart drop. He had to return to her.

His wife wasn’t who she pretended to be; he had known that from as far back as their wedding night.

Sex with Amber came with rules. She always wore a long-sleeved nightgown or top, her bra was always left on, and the lights were always out, until each act felt like a sin to be hidden away. On the night of their wedding, he had asked for her to undress completely and keep the lights on. He wanted to touch every inch of her, eye each speck of skin. That was the first time he witnessed her rage. She had exploded until each word was spat from her side of the hotel room to his: he was selfish and cruel. She undressed with a wild ferocity and stood before him naked and shaking, with tears rolling down her cheeks, revealing the body she had been hiding for months. Burns had ravished the right side of her body. The skin on her arm and hip looked warped, and her breast had lost all of its features until it was nothing more than scarred tissue. He held her, rocked her until she fell asleep with her head and hand on his chest, but stayed awake for the night, plagued with fear that the woman he married wasn’t who he thought she was; a stranger was sleeping in his arms.

He had been besotted with her when they first met, but as they started married life together, he spotted the cracks in her persona and the viciousness that dwelled beneath. She set people up to fail for her own amusement, fixated on revenge for the smallest wrongdoing, but it was never enough to justify the feeling he had for her in his gut, until the death of their first and only pet.