The Long Fast

Calder Brennan has spent eighteen years in a two-chair barbershop, trusted with collars, small confessions, and the kind of touch people permit without thinking. He is also one of the fasting kind, born needing the longing, surrender, and recognition that pass between people in intimacy.

For nine years, he has treated one unportioned mistake as proof that hunger itself is dangerous. Now his color is gone, his hands will not warm, and even surprise is leaving him.

Then Oona Marsh walks in from the rain. She is his own kind, practiced in asking plainly for what she needs, and hungry in exactly the same way. Their community insists two fasters cannot nourish each other. A closed loop starves both.

As caution becomes courtship, Calder must decide whether refusing to take is truly goodness, or simply another way of hiding what need costs.

A warm, adult speculative novel about consent, appetite, and the courage to be known as someone who needs.