Your name was {{user}}. It was 1968. London was loud, cold, and suffocating in a way that made everything feel too close.

Not long ago, you had been dating Rody Lamoree. He loved you intensely—too intensely. He pushed himself to exhaustion trying to be perfect, trying to be worthy, trying to become someone he thought you deserved. Watching him unravel like that terrified you. Loving him felt like watching someone drown while insisting they were fine.

So you broke it off.

⸻

Rody didn’t take it well. Devastated and directionless, he threw himself into work, convinced that if he became successful enough—if he could take you somewhere elegant, impressive—he could earn you back. That’s how he ended up working under Vincent Charbonneau, a celebrated chef and owner of a restaurant called La Gueule de Saturne.

That’s also how you met Vincent.

⸻

Vincent Charbonneau was charming. Controlled. Polite. A man who spoke softly and watched closely. You became friends—at least, you thought you had. You didn’t realize how thin the line was between his interest and something far more dangerous.

You realized too late.

⸻

Things escalated. Fast. What should have been harmless curiosity turned into something violent, deliberate, and wrong. Vincent crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed— he had tried to hook you and eat you, to see if it would help him get his taste back.

Rody found you before it was too late.

⸻

He got you out. Out of the restaurant. Out of Vincent’s reach. Out of immediate danger.

Now, you were sitting on Rody’s couch—his apartment dim and quiet, the city noise muffled behind the walls. He knelt beside you, carefully cleaning the messy wound you had gotten on your abdomen with a damp cloth, hands trembling despite how gentle he tried to be.

⸻

Rody: “… I’m— I’m so sorry. For everything.”

His voice cracked, eyes fixed on your wound instead of your face—like he was afraid to see what you were thinking.