When Armand happens to look down into his new neighbour’s yard one night and discovers him lying on his back, staring up at the night sky, he doesn’t know what to think. It doesn’t happen every night, but it happens often enough for Armand’s curiosity to be piqued.<br><br>When they finally meet, Armand falls instantly in lust with Ben, a dentist with an interest Armand can only describe as out-of-the-ordinary. As they get to know each other, Armand’s feelings towards Ben blossom into love. Yet Ben reveals he has recently come out of a six-year relationship and isn’t quite ready for anyone special in his life. Armand is disappointed but learns to live with the fact he and Ben might only ever be friends.<br><br>But the future is a strange and wonderful thing. When Armand starts to show a fondness for Ben’s unusual interest, it leads to more than one surprise event.

The Sky at Night

They’d become intimate without having been intimate.


One day, at Armand’s house, they’d finished working their way through the latest YouTube videos of UFOs captured by cameras in Italy, the U.K., and Peru when Ben took them to a website called Our Alien Visitors


“This has some great videos on it. And they’re all ranked. See this. Fake. And…if you look down here, it tells you how they know it’s fake. But look at this one. From New Zealand.”


A silver cigar-shaped craft had been filmed sliding through the sky to great excitement from unseen children. It was moving at a glacial rate towards some hills, and when it reached the hills, it disappeared. There were no clouds, no shadows. The craft simply vanished into thin air.


“They do that, you know,” said Ben. “They cloak themselves. Sometimes they also use clouds to camouflage themselves.”


He scrolled further down, speeding past one sighting after another. Then he stopped.


“Hang on,” he said. “What’s this?”


Chapter 8