Ángel shivered in the shower, hands braced on the tiles. Hot water pounded on his head and poured down his body, washing away come, sweat, and whatever emotion-magic Oberon had infused into his skin, but failing to warm him.

It wasn’t just that the fae had gotten him off in about seven seconds, although that was bad enough. It wasn’t just that the experience had—if fae physiognomy were anything like human—apparently left Oberon unmoved.

But the way Oberon could read Ángel’s skin. Feel his feelings.

“Quick to climax and quick to revive for more. . . . Your love of sex makes you feel out of control and demeaned.”

True, true. Goddamn it, damningly true. And not something he’d never heard before.

“You fuck like an alley cat,” Con had said.

Before that: “Yeah, that’s the way you spics like it, isn’t it?” laughed the anonymous guy in the Orlando parking garage. A mean laugh, after he held him by the hair and came in his face.

And before that: the priest, the confessional. Seventeen-year-old Ángel, gay as a daffodil, who didn’t exactly feel a deep connection to God, but who loved belonging to the Church. Even though he knew perfectly well that the Church’s stance on homosexuality wasn’t terribly welcoming, he’d somehow trusted in the Church’s welcome. Perhaps because Father Dennis was a good friend of his father’s, a kind of benevolent, distant uncle to Ángel. He hadn’t expected . . . Well. He certainly hadn’t expected Father Dennis’s weary cynicism:

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, because you’re all the same. You’ll care about sex above the righteousness or the love of God. You’ll be promiscuous. You’ll spend your life seeking pleasure, trying to find meaning in more and more and more sex, and with every orgasm you’re going to get farther and farther away from Christ. And in your soul you’ll know this is true, but you’ll do it anyway, and you’ll die sick and alone and unloved, a million miles away from God.”

He ducked his head under the spray for one final rinse, then turned off the shower and stood, feeling the water turn cold as it streamed from his hair down his back. He groped for a towel and scrubbed his skin harshly.