Here’s another sneaky snippet from my piece for @darkhorsezine​ - a zine focusing on all things Otabek Altin!

I posted my first snippet here. I had lots of fun exploring various periods in Otabek’s life as he grows up, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading about him too.

Pre-orders for the Dark Horse Zine will open on 13 November 2017. Mark your calendars!


He’s fifteen, going on sixteen, when Otabek realises that he might be different.

He supposes he’s always suspected. He remembers hanging out with the other boys at the rinks in America, taking turns to smuggle in those magazines to share. They’d discuss the female models afterwards, about who had the biggest tits or the nicest ass, and whether they’d rather do the redhead with the lace bra on the cover or the blonde with the furs on page thirty-three.

Otabek had joined in, because sure, the women were all kinda hot, like the brunette posing with the motorcycle on the centre-spread. But he’d also wondered why no one had said anything about the man pictured with her, about the way his leather jacket stretched across his broad shoulders or the way his ripped jeans hugged his thighs. Otabek had stared at the man’s fingers where they curled on the woman’s hip, at the way the man had dipped his head to nuzzle at the woman’s breasts, the hint of five o’clock shadow on his square jaw, and Otabek had thought that was also kinda hot too. But he hadn’t realised what that might have meant. Not then.

Now, on the other hand – two weeks shy of his sixteenth birthday – Otabek thinks that he does. The realisation weighs uncomfortably in his gut, a heavy, thorny curl of guilt and shame.

“Hey, Otabek!” JJ calls from the rink, and oh, Otabek thinks, knows, that that’s yet another problem, right there.