Middle Man by Kate Steele

[reviews_and_ramblings]

As often when I read a novella by Kate Steele, the story, and the development of the characters, is way better than expectations. I shouldn’t be surprised, I think I have never found a story by Kate Steele that I didn’t like, and she is also one of the first gay paranormal authors I read, it’s probably that I don’t weight so much the novellas in general, and sometime that is a big mistake.

In a futuristic, post-apocalypse future, Gen is an amplimentor, something a little more than an in-house manservant, but not so much. Other than taking care for the home, and all the related chores, Gen is also a “facilitator” for his masters sexual activities; in a world where only the strongest has survived, most of the men are dominant Alpha males, and they don’t like to bottom, not even for a partner they love. And so Marin and Cail hired Gen, and they treat him well, during sex they of course are searching for their own satisfaction, but they don’t forget that also Gen is a man, and like that, he needs his own release. But after sex, Gen feels his masters retreat in their own relationship, where they love each other and Gen is nothing else than an expensive sex toy, they need to take care of him, but they don’t love him.

Gen has conflicting feelings; he knows that in his profession love is not mandatory, but he knows of others amplimentor who found it in the relationship with their masters, and he would like the same. Probably if they had time, this evolution of the relationship would have come naturally, but an unluckily accident force all of them to re-think and re-build the interactions in their family. I’m not hiding that this part of the story moved me, it was simple but well planned, and the author did a lot to convey the sci-fiction feeling of the story without intruding too much in the romance. Even if this is for sure a futuristic setting, the romance is old fashioned, maybe a proof for the author that everything can change, but not love.

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