Glen and his boyfriend Aiden live a mostly peaceful life in New York City, but then Aiden’s abusive ex, Stephan, comes back into the picture. After an odd encounter with a Catholic priest, Glen begins acting strangely.
He attributes it to stress at first, but then things get even worse. Glen experiences mental blackouts, and when he comes to, he finds he has been up to no good. A stolen wallet here, a violent loss of temper there, and an unsettling trend of nightmares plague him.
Glen prays he isn’t losing his mind and hopes he can regain control of himself, but when Stephan slips back into old habits and goes after Aiden, the darkness in Glen’s soul takes over again. Can Glen subdue his inner demons before they consume him, or is it already too late?
Once they were back in the apartment, the argument broke out; where were they going to put the damn statuette?
“Let’s just shove it in a drawer somewhere.”
“Gleeen,” Aiden said sternly, “we can’t just stash it away. Why not put it on the dresser?”
“In our bedroom? Fuck no. I don’t want to fool around while an old angel thing is watching. What about in the bathroom?”
“What? So the ‘old angel thing’ can watch us piss? And what if we want to fool around in the shower?”
There weren’t that many places to put it, but they still managed to draw out the decision for nearly half an hour. It was a good distraction. Eventually Glen conceded to have it on the table by the door where they usually dropped their keys or mail. “It’s a good conversation piece,” Aiden said. “When people come in, they’ll be like, ‘Hey, what’s the deal with that angel?’”
“And I’ll tell them an old priest gave it to me as an apology for being such a homophobe. End of story.”
“Aw, come on, don’t be such a sourpuss.” Aiden wrapped his arms around Glen from behind. “Who knows? Maybe it will bring us luck or something. We definitely need it.”
Glen felt the tension in Aiden’s arms. His heart grew heavy. “Speaking of which, did you ... did you want to talk about it?”
Aiden sighed. “I should, but I don’t want to. I told you everything I was comfortable with when we started dating; he was an asshole, I was his booty call, I thought it could be something more, but he didn’t even want to tell anyone about us. All he wanted was a quick, meaningless fuck whenever his dick got a little hard. I was idiot enough to feel flattered that he picked me and wound up getting my stupid heart broken.”
“Hey,” Glen said soothingly. He turned around in Aiden’s arms so he could tenderly embrace his boyfriend. “You’re not an idiot and your heart’s not stupid. Like you said, he was an asshole. It’s the most cliché statement in the world, but you really are better off without him.”
“I know, I know.” Aiden rested his head on Glen’s shoulder and kissed his neck. “And you are so, so much better than he is.You’re my angel. I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
They dropped the subject for the rest of the day. Instead they ate leftover pizza from the fridge, watched some primetime TV, and cuddled a little before bed. As Aiden drifted off to sleep in Glen’s arms, Glen thought about their life together. Naturally, it wasn’t perfect. They lived in a tiny apartment in Astoria, and while the view was nice and the neighborhood wasn’t awful, Glen always wanted to get a little house of their own in the suburbs, maybe upstate or in a quieter part of New Jersey. At the very least he wanted to be able to take Aiden on fabulous and exotic vacations once a year or so. Sadly, neither of their salaries could support them beyond their lower-middle-class existence. Glen closed his eyes and tried to dream of a better life.
Instead, he dreamt of the angel. It grew from six inches to six feet, eyes and sword ablaze. It knew every wrong Glen had ever committed or ever would, and it raised its sword to strike him in punishment. Aiden was there, too, but Glen pushed him out of the way. He put his hands over his head to protect himself. Before the burning steel could slice him in half, Glen was shaken awake.
“Baby? Baby are you okay?” Aiden anxiously stroked Glen’s hair. “You were tossing and turning in your sleep.”
Glen panted. Despite the air-conditioning in their apartment, he was still sweating. “Weird dream,” he muttered. “The angel thing tried to kill me.”
“What? Why would it do that? I thought it was supposed to be a defending angel.”
“I dunno, I must have done something to piss it off. I can’t remember. I-I think I saved you from it though.”
Aiden snuggled up closer to Glen. “Oh?”
“Yeah, it was coming after you so I pushed you out of the way,then it tried to fillet me.”
“Hmmm ...” Aiden pensively ran his fingers through Glen’s chest hair. “I think your brain mixed yesterday’s biggest problems together.”
“How so?”
“Well, you wanted to protect me from Stephan, and you had to put up with the old priest guy and then we spent all that time fussing over the statue, so maybe you’re just combining the conflicts. Instead of Stephan coming after me, it was the angel.”
Glen laid his head on Aiden’s chest. “Yeah, that must be it.” He groped for his phone on the nightstand. “Crap, is it already five? I have to be up in an hour anyway.”
Aiden pulled the thin sheet over both of them and wrapped his arms around Glen. “An hour is plenty of time for sleep. Even if you just doze off for a while, it’s better than lying awake and worrying.”
“You’re right,” Glen said with a yawn. He nuzzled his cheek against Aiden’s shoulder and did his best to relax. The rest of his sleep went uninterrupted.
