The Man in the Spotlight

The story follows Aiden, a twenty five year old actor with a criminal background who only feels comfortable playing characters that are either successful or within positions of power and control. He is, in the eyes of everyone else, an extreme example of a method actor who is obsessive about actually becoming his characters. This doesn't bode too well with his boyfriend Tom, who is becoming increasingly concerned that Aiden is losing contact with reality and failing to even acknowledge his own name. A fellow actress named Sarah is also starring in a play alongside him, playing the role of his mother. She tries to seduce him backstage but Aiden fails to return the favour, conveying to her and to Tom that he is not gay or straight and entirely dedicated to playing (or in his case, becoming) a con artist, the lead character in the stage play. Aiden at this point fails to love anyone and considers Sarah to be his mother and nothing more.

His main conflict in the story stems from child sexual abuse, experienced when he was twelve years old at the hands of his own father.
During a live performance, Aiden notices his dad in the audience and has an anxiety attack. His loss of power and self confidence causes him to visit his Dad for the first time in thirteen years and Aiden demands that he stay away.
Having lost his sense of power, Aiden feels the need to inhabit his character further as a way of escaping from the memory of his abuse and as a way to protect the helpless child inside himself. This is exercised when he cons Sarah, seducing her into sex and then deliberately rejecting her. Sarah then gets her revenge on Aiden during the next live performance when she teases him about his dad sitting in the audience. Aiden retaliates and tries to attack her, leading to him being fired. When he goes home, Tom is at first thrilled that he's finally got Aiden back. Aiden, on the other hand, feels he can't cope with being Aiden and instead becomes another character. Infuriated, Tom kicks him out of his own home and concludes that he's lost him forever.

Aiden then auditions for the part of a father in an upcoming film. Also at the audition is a fourteen year old boy named Craig who Aiden immediately takes a liking to. Aiden becomes upset when reading the script for the first time and rejects the role, since the story reminds him too much of his own father. Craig follows him to an art gallery and convinces him to take the part.
Aiden has sexual feelings for Craig and Craig has sexual feelings for Aiden but Aiden's criminal background has made him weary about pursuing his desires. Shortly after accepting the role, Aiden is confronted by a dwarf named Victor, a blackmailer who demands Aiden pay him within a limited timeframe, threatening that he will expose Aiden's previous conviction as a paedophile if he doesn't.

Aiden and Craig becoming closer and closer outside of filming and Aiden eventually learns that Craig was kicked out of his own home by his parents, who then adopted another child. Craig looks up to Aiden as a father figure but Aiden wants to keep their relationship strictly professional despite his sexual urges. With Victor threatening to expose Aiden's past, Aiden is soon thrust into a world of obsession, paranoia and fear. What will the outcomes be? Will he ever find the strength to forgive his father and accept what happened to him? Will he give into his obsession over Craig? Will he be able to keep Victor off his tail forever?