I’d been in love with a spirit named Carl since I was twenty-one. I never loved men for very long. How could I? I had learnt to deal with his absence, safe in the knowledge that we would be together one day after my death. I lived my life to the full in the meantime.

Just when I thought I had everything sussed regarding the reasons for my existence, the universe pulled the rug out from under me once more!

I’d fallen in love with him before I even saw his face; this politician on the run from the authorities, who had fled his home town in the USA.

Kenny’s arrival was the prelude to the most challenging and painful part of my life. The coming years would feel like one large cosmic joke. It would test me to my very limits and beyond.

Carl had once asked me if I would follow him into hell if he were lost to me. I was about to be given the opportunity to prove that I would do just that!

Gillian E. Hope