Rated: VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED! This story contains homosexual (lesbian) themes, drug use, graphic implied rape, excessive angst and suicide, and language (all delivered in an unkind blunt manner.) Majorly offensive material. Please use Mature/Adult discretion! Author assumes no responsibility for complaints!
whew.. that was pretty severe. But you can't say I didn't warn you...
which is pretty funny because I'M under 18...

I: Angela

She wakes up, feeling the indentation on the space beside her already cold. She lazily stretches, blinking in the harsh morning light from the window beside their bed, and tumbles off the mattress, trailing bedclothes onto the floor and then letting them slip off her body. She pads into the master bathroom, shivering slightly and shying away from the mirror, self-conscious of her naked body in the full early morning light.
He stands in front of the sink, fresh from his shower, a pure white towel wrapped around his waist. He is rubbing his beautiful black tousled hair dry. It falls over his eyes and plasters down the nape of his neck.
She feels romantic. She steps up to him, dramatically spreading her arms, and flings them over his shoulders, running her tongue up his neck and behind his ears. She holds him around the waist, presses her chest into his back.
He turns, slowly, gazes at her with piercing dark eyes, questions her with cold words. "Why did you do that?"
Why did you do you that? Why do you interrupt my quiet morning with this childish nonsense? She thinks bitterly. But he is so tall, he is so lean and handsome. Because I love you. Because you are so beautiful.
"Because I wanted to." She sighs. She steps back, shrinks away reproachfully, but has not lost her mood. She slips on a silk robe, paper thin, but she loves how it flows over her skin, how it gathers between her legs when she walks. She performs a small dancing step back over to him, and he is rubbing his neck, as if rubbing away her scent, rubbing away her presence.
She feels insulted, and stops in her tracks. He is dressed, and breezes past her to make their bed. He grumbles while untangling the covers she dragged on the floor and she watches, awkwardly. He finishes, and as he passes her, he gives her a stern look and briefly rubs her arms vigorously to warm her up, like her father used to do when she wasn't wearing enough clothing.
She pouts, and he leaves her, starts down the hall with his same old routine. The jangle of keys, the zip of his coat, as she stands there, seething. He mutters "Bye", not even eating breakfast, and shuts the door.
She runs and throws herself on the neatly-made bed and slams her fist into the covers. Damn him! How dare he! She thought she was living in a fairy-tale, she thought their lives would be blissful and romantic. And he shuns her, leaving her cold and feeling unwanted.
But what would he do to make her feel wanted? Stay home with her all day? He had work, and he was late. Be reasonable, you idiot, she tells herself. How stupid and naive can you be, believing that love is always romance and kisses. You damn well knew you were taking your chances when you decided to live with him. So you could escape drudgery and imprisonment, rules and conditions. Couples never get along 100% of the time. Never. It¡'s natural, it's obvious.
But just as a hunch, she knew this wasn't natural. Was love supposed to make you feel this bad? Did it have its times when it left you with an empty feeling in the pit of your stomach that kept sinking, when you feel such desperation and loneliness you could drown in your own tears? Was this natural? Was this part of love?
Of course it is, she convinces herself, sits back up and feels a sore pain in her throat. He was right, she had caught a cold. She stands up, shivering, and smooths the bedcovers.

Evelyn got sick a week later, with a terribly high fever. She tossed and turned with nightmares and hallucinations. She periodically screamed out the name "Eliza" and I figured she was her girlfriend. She told me that her mind was being controlled by someone else. She recognized me, but not Theo's name.
I wished I had taken medical courses somewhere along the way, because I was genuinely frightened about what was going to happen to Evelyn. I worried for this small blond girl, with a romantic mind and an overwhelming urge to please Theo and I. For the time being, I could only lay a cold washcloth on her head every so often and try to ignore her screams.
A few days later Evelyn still had a fever, but no longer had delusions. She stayed half-conscious and pale in bed. I also got back my crucial assignment and I rushed to my room to read my mark.
A dizzying number of red lines and x's littered the neatly written page, my carefully chosen words slashed and bleeding. My hardest- trying my very hardest- was not good enough. My perfect style- my only style- was ruined. Tears blurred the grammatically incorrect words and I slammed the page down angrily, lay on my sagging cot of a bed and howled into my pillow. Sobbed, screamed, bawled like a child who never has his own way and once he tries to make an attempt at independence, it blows up in his face. I cried until my eyes were dry and sealed shut and that is when I slept.

I woke up to someone banging at the door, and I was in no mood to answer it. But they came in anyway- Evan, Theo's boyfriend. I sat up quickly and crossed over.
"Where's Theo?" He asked.
"Not here." I snapped. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past midnight.
He turned very slowly and gave me a look that made me shiver.
"Then I guess you'll have to do." He began advancing towards me. I backed away but he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me down to the floor, forcing a hand between my legs. I clawed on the floor, trying to scramble away and my flailing hands found the barstool. I caught hold of it and brought it down on his head, but he reached up and caught it, twisted it out of my hands and flung it away. I found my voice and started screaming, and he slammed my head on the floor. Again and again. With all the commotion I prayed someone would hear me. But Evelyn couldn't help. I wondered if she was even conscious. I started to cry, out of pain, out of fear. He put his hands on my chest.
"You're wearing a bra." He snarled. "Theo never wears a bra. The bitch. She's a bitch." He called me Theo all through the assault, and the pain was more than I could imagine. But the most unmerciful and terrible thing he did was not killing me after it was all over.

II: Evelyn

...And then what? I lowered my pen, shocked at what had come out of it. I crumpled the looseleaf into a ball, planning to burn it come evening, when Angie started up the fire. We kept warm, just like people in the slums, burning a fire in a trash can, in the middle of the room. But the difference was we had a roof over our heads, which was also a problem. We had to open all the windows to air out the smoke, letting cold air in just as quickly as the room got warm. The landlord never seemed to notice. It wasn't much different from how much Theo smoked. I glanced behind me, at the empty canvas on my easel. Nothing, again, and as usual. My mind was always blank these days, when was the last time I even got inspired? Then I remembered. I began to write it down:

The night was slowly coming to life, its young partygoers emerging from their cars and shelters, seeking a rave. They purchased glo-sticks and bottles of spring water, lit up their first of many cigarettes and cracked open cheap beers. The tightly-dressed, spandex-shining creatures of the night, the young, the old trying to pass for young and the younger trying to pass for older, rich or poor, the high and not-yet high. A blond girl wandered the party-hungry streets, squirming in discomfort in a flimsy low-cut tanktop and beaded jeans. She wore no makeup but her long hair was done in dozens of thin blond braids. She tossed her head, making the hair whip around and slap her shoulders. She skipped into the broken entrance of a run-down nightclub, and headed down the crumbling steps, the pounding music that had been detectable two blocks away becoming ear-shattering, to her delight. She stepped into the cacophony of bass notes, flashing lights, and an endless wave of jumping, color-changing dancers. The room was heating up mightily, steam rising from the scantily clad bodies, intertwined with the smoke of weed joints. The girl scanned the room briefly.
Then she saw her. Cropped red hair, silver ring through one nostril, eyes lined with black and six strands of plastic multi-colored beads around her neck. Wearing a tiny red dress and a webbed black shirt. Holding an Evian water bottle. Marla.
"Hey, honey.: Marla sang. She swayed over to her and pulled something out of her pocket. "Got some candy"
"You're the best." Evelyn smiled. Marla shook a single tablet out of the paper roll, traced it up Evelyn's chin, then teasingly put it on her own tongue.
"C'mon, share." Evelyn touched her tongue to the pill and they held it there, between their mouths. Marla began to giggle, almost dropping it.
"Shhh" Evelyn muttered, as best as she could, and felt happiness surge within her, worries fading, the lights and music growing brighter and louder. She swallowed the rest of the pill and Marla rubbed up against her. She shrank away- Marla only used Ecstasy to get laid, she needed it for her art...
Lights, music and crowd, the poetic elements of a rave. Her senses attacked, she slid into a dreamy, misty haze of bliss. The room vibrated around her. The unity of humanity was so beautiful she almost cried with wonder.

And then I realized how stupid I sounded. Raves left girls raped, people unconscious, young people addicted and ruined. But Ecstasy¡K I glanced at the empty canvases on the other side of the room. Those canvases, the paint, my groceries, had all been bought with the money I had earned from selling paintings created under the influence of Ecstasy.
My hand reached for a pair of old, shredded jeans on the floor. Several beads fell from the stitches and clattered on the floor. I searched inside every pocket, carefully, then digging faster, desperately. With growing frustration I ripped open the pockets in a spray of beads and a ball of paper finally fell from the back pocket. I grasped it, trembling, and pried it open. The broken remnants of a pill lay inside. Relief flooded through me, and without hesitation, the powder was poured on my tongue and I was sinking, sinking into peace, sinking into eutopia. Losing myself in the familiar pleasure that serves me so well.
I fitted my easel with a fresh canvas. I could paint now...

III: Theo

IV: Eliza

V: Dorothy

Story Illustration: I call it "Merging"