My Other Half

A drunken night combined with emotional trauma and a blow to the head have left Benoit with amnesia. He doesn’t remember anything about his past life, but when Jacques walks into his hospital room, Benoit recognizes him immediately. Jacques is his other half, the love of his life, his soulmate.

Not realizing that Jacques is actually his twin, Benoit pursues him aggressively, insistent on consummating what he believes to be their union. Jacques does everything he can to hold Benoit off but his efforts are hampered by a second secret—he’s had a sexual crush on his twin for a long time.

Content warning: contains adult incest and dubious consent due to amnesia and persistent pressure

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He was sitting up in bed eating the worst fruit cup ever—mushy canned pears mixed with grey-tinted grapes—when Dr. Mauchin rapped lightly on the door.

“There’s someone here to see you, Benoit.”

He steeled himself to meet this wife—the wife who twenty-fours of being alone in a hospital hadn’t made him any more eager to see. He’d been wheeled from one test to another and fed a series of unappetizingly bland meals and would really, really like to leave the hospital since they didn’t seem to be treating him in any way that was helping, but he still couldn’t get excited about being released into the custody of some wife.

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But it wasn’t a woman who entered the room. It was a man. A man whose face Benoit knew like he knew his own, except that he didn’t know his own. But this face he knew, because it was the most beautiful face in the world, belonging to the person who loved him best. The man was tall and slender with chestnut hair highlighted in golden streaks. His light beard and mustache didn’t obscure the plump redness of his lips, and he wore an aquamarine short-sleeved shirt that hugged his pecs. Everything about him was wonderful, and the most wonderful part of all was that he wasn’t a wife.

Benoit broke into an unrestrained smile. He reached so eagerly to take the man’s hand that his fruit cup almost tumbled over the side of the bed. Dr. Mauchin managed to snag it before it got completely away from him. She put it on his tray and wheeled the tray out of the way so the man could come closer. Benoit latched onto him, and he grabbed back just as hard.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked, obviously pleased by Benoit’s reception of him.

“I don’t remember your name, but I know who you are. You’re my husband. I knew I didn’t have a wife.” He glared at Dr. Mauchin, annoyed she’d gotten his basic info so terribly wrong.

“You have an ex-wife,” the man clarified. “The divorce was finalized two days ago, the afternoon of your accident.”

Oh. That might explain his reaction to the word wife. His divorce had been finalized and he’d gone out to drink after—because he was sad? would he have been sad?—and now his brain didn’t want to process any information about wives.

But it didn’t explain his reaction to this man. This man was home, his other half. He knew it. But when he’d said the word husband, both his visitor and Dr. Mauchin had shaken their heads. Now they were watching him with mirrored expressions of concerned, waiting for him to remember that he didn’t have a husband. It made him felt like he’d lost something. Something really important, something he needed more than anything else on earth.

“You’re not my other half?”

“I am.” The man pressed Benoit’s hand tighter. “We’ve always called each other that—my other half.”

“But we aren’t married?” He was so confused, but then he remembered. “Oh, because I had a wife. I’m sorry.” He raised their joined hands to his mouth and kissed the precious man’s precious hand. “I’d better put a ring on this. Thank you for waiting for me.”

The man’s expression grew, if anything, more concerned.

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