REVIEW: 'Measure Twice Burn Once' by Alexi Wakefield
Title: Measure Twice Burn Once: A red hot tale of one man and his torturer
Author: Alexi Wakefield
Published: August 28, 2015
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Dark
Length: 56 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; Thriller: Psychological; Military; Novelette; CW: Abduction; CW: Torture; CW: Taboo
BLURB: Captured by enemy forces Hal is kept in isolation, his only human contact is with his torturer who takes a careful pride in desecrating his body. He lives in fear of what will happen on his next trip to the torture chamber, painfully aware that he won’t be kept alive for ever. But with every visit to his tormentor his feelings towards the man begin to change...
4 HEART READ
REVIEW: My review of Alexi Wakefield’s Measure Twice Burn Once is not going to be what you have probably grown accustom to from me: Insightful, meaningful, sometimes sentimental, or even edgy, racy. No – this is a very twisted book you must read to appreciate.
As Hal comes to in a small cell, clad only in a pair of shorts, he does not expect to fare well knowing the brutality of the rebels who have captured him. In fact – he fully expects to die.
Mechanically led from his room his captor begins to systematically torture him with utmost precision.
Left in his confines to ponder between each torment, and surmise different scenarios of his death, his panic starts to change to hopefulness. And not the kind of hopefulness you’re thinking of.
After some time Hal begins to see a pattern, measure twice burn once, and comes to accept what is happening to him. With resignation he almost “relaxes” for the encounters with anxious anticipation.
Slowly he begins asking his methodical tormentor questions….and that is when the dreams begin. There is no sexual contact in this book, no erotica, yet there is this tinge of sexual awareness, arousal, that starts to surface and keeps you on edge.
A play on dominance and submission; there is this awakening in Hal that he is somehow deriving something he has searched his whole life for.
Measure Twice Burn Once is a definite exercise in Stockholm syndrome itself. A morbid acceptance of one’s fate. With an ending that has you screaming “holy shit”. It is a little gem of a mind fuck yet to be discovered, but should be! In fact the only thing I found my mind wanting – the tormentors side!
An copy of Measure Twice Burn Once was purchased by Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter in order to offer our fair and honest opinion.
If you enjoy Measure Twice Burn Once you might also enjoy Brothers LaFon: Crucial Lessons by Joseph Lance Tonlet.
Alexi Wakefield’s brand of homoerotica has humour, heart and edginess at times. Serious issues and difficult questions are raised and dealt with naturally, one human to another.
If you like your homoerotica with a little humour as well as emotional and erotic sex scenes then you will love Alexi’s work.
