I can barely explain it, but I know it’s there, and it has an appetite that I try to appease with the books I read. The men written on the pages of these books are like gods with perfect bodies and dominant traits to go along with passion, sincerity, and kind-heartedness. Or, if you like your men a little villainous, you can watch them burn the world down while going out of their way to protect the woman in their life. They're perfect. If real men were anything like my book boyfriends, the divorce rate in America would plummet, because straight relationships would actually last as long as gay and lesbian ones do. So, it’s not Vance’s fault that he can’t compete with the guys I read about. I’ve never met a man who can do half the things book men are able to do in the bedroom, and those fictitious men have always been enough to keep the darkness fed. Some book boyfriends are little snacks, while Nathan Booker's novels are four-course meals, but the darkness’s hunger is starting to grow out of control. It wants more than what I can read from a page. It wants the real thing.

When I walk into my apartment, I close the door behind me—making sure to lock it—and place my new book on the couch to wait for me. When the cashier at B&N offered me a bag to put it in, I told her I didn’t need one, because I wanted to glance over at the cover the entire drive home. The book is called The Patient, by Nathan Booker, and when I look at the cover, I know what I’m getting. There’s a beautiful woman lying on her back on a brown couch, with a man dressed in a gorgeous black suit hovering over her. He’s an attractive guy, but it’s not what he looks like that grabs my attention. It’s what he’s doing. He has one hand clasped around the woman’s wrists above her head, while the other hand is gliding a black riding crop down her chest. Both models are completely clothed in all-black, but the image is purely erotic with just enough to let readers know that this man is into something extra. That riding crop on her chest tells all of us that this guy is not on page one in the bedroom. He’s on page two hundred, and I know because I have followed book men just like him all the way there.