Never Stop Running

Prologue

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It started like any other day, really. I woke to see the same water stained ceiling glowing gray in the dull morning; the same worn pillow beneath my head, the same quiet streets out the window. I ate sour oranges for breakfast, their peels too thick, revealing the small, withered fruit inside; picked much too soon. I remember thinking that, somewhere, there were groves full of oranges where the fruit was allowed to grow as ripe and sweet as plumbs: places where they'd fall right off the branch, collected from the ground, as orange as fire or an autumn sunset. But not here. Never here, where it rained too much and the trees were small. I left the peels on the creaky wooden floor, grabbed my tote bag and flipped my sweater-hood over my head, turning my IPod on as I began to walk to my art class. I lived the typical art student life: stayed in a cramped, 3 room apartment (if you could even call it an apartment at all)that always smelled strangely of wine and mold. My jeans fit less every morning; stomach always empty, head always too full. People always asked me how a barely 19 American girl like myself ever ended up in a suburban village in Germany: "Where are your parents?" "How did you get here?" "How are you supporting yourself?" They were all questions I figured I'd never be prepared to answer. Art was the only thing that made sense to me in those times. I only wanted to be left alone, to be allowed to just swim in Bright Eyes and The Strokes and mix my paints and think my thoughts and read my books. And if I got bored I'd just count my ribs or take long walks or sketch all the empty bottles littering the surfaces of my makeshift home and that was perfectly fine with me. I wasn't like my mother: she needed the noisy LA streets and the constant hot air and the big airconditioned house full of all the latest gadgets and she needed all her boyfriends always calling, always coming over. I guess it was because it made her feel less alone. But being alone was something I was good at, something I liked, something my mother could never understand about me. One of the many somethings she would never understand. I sat at my easel as usual, the spot by the window; arranged my pencils and charcoals as usual. Ignored all the stares as usual. I didn't even look up as He entered the room, only continued to clip my paper into place, sharpen my pencils...didn't even notice how the girls in the class had begun to whisper- something they did whenever we got a new male model.

No, it wasn't until He'd taken his spot on the small model's platform, slowly disrobed, held His first pose, that I even looked up. Once I did, though, I knew instantly that I never wanted to look away. Discovery

--Someone loved me, once. Only one person, only once. His name is one that I can still hear sometimes in the back of my head, when my thoughts catch me off guard: Christian. I always thought it was a rather pure name, one that, when you heard it, reminded you of saints painted on chapel ceilings or the faces etched in stained glass windows, shining colored light into a steeple, over the hands folded in prayer. And the boy it belonged to had a face that matched the concept of the name; his prayer-long hands, marble-bright eyes, innocently smiling mouth. I had never understood how someone like him could have fallen in love with me: we were opposite in so many obvious ways. He had faith in people, in the human race- believed them to be worthy of a smile or a kind word; to be worthy of forgiveness. I, on the other hand, was sickened by mankind, how we as humans could so easily harm one another without so much as a second glance or a moment of guilted weakness. I believed humans to be wicked, while he had so much faith in them; faith that they were mostly good. It was hardly a disagreement that ended our relationship: more the fact that I knew someone like Christian deserved far, far better than someone like myself. Christian belonged with girls that could sit and listen to him, could understand his wide-awake heart and learn to thaw beneath his eyes. I was a cold-blooded creature, much too stiff and cool to be worthy of Christian's love. And even after it ended between us, he loved me anyway. The boy sitting on the models pedestal before my old oak easel had a face like Christians: innocent, but tainted, somehow- perhaps with sadness or an undiscovered fire. His eyes reminded me of being a child, in that moment when you first realize that one day, you'll be like your parents: you'll grow up to see things in a strictly logical and orderly way. Your mind won't be free anymore. And while the overall emotion was melancholy, it was beautiful, too: a beauty I could smell in the paint and feel in my lungs like a dull ache.

We'd been taught from day one of art school that staring was unacceptable, not to mention inappropriate on many levels. But I couldn't help myself: my eyes felt like they'd been carved into place, resting just so upon His lithe, fragile frame and otherworldly face; eyes set to kill but in an unknowing way. Perhaps He knew, in some way, that He was beautiful, but not to the extent of the truth. I imagined those eyes could do whatever they wanted to a person. "Is there a problem, Miss McAllister?" My thoughts were rudely interrupted by my professor's gruff voice, and I became aware of all the other students eyes on me. I flushed, the heat an embarrassment in itself on my face, and immediately tore my eyes away from the beautiful model; focusing them on my dirty shoes. The porcelain-cool stare of the new boy carved lines into me, and I shifted uncomfortably in my cheap plastic seat. "No, sir," I mumbled, trying to will away the flush in my cheeks. After looking at me for a moment longer, my professor continued his slow journey around the room, peering over the shoulders of my classmates to see what they'd managed thus far. I still only had a blank sheet of paper. I took a few moments to gather myself and then took one of my pencils into my shaking hand. I was afraid to lift my eyes back up to Him, afraid that this time, I'd really be stuck. I tried to just picture the face in my head and work from there, but the temptation was overwhelming, and, if anything, I wanted to create an accurate portrait of Him to refer to later, if I was even capable of forgetting such a face. Reluctantly, I slowly rose my eyes back up to the spider-like creature poised delicately in place before the class, and I could almost feel my pulse in my eyelids. His eyes moved away from my face rapidly, as if He'd just been looking my way, but the thought alone made me insane with nerves, and so I tried to focus strictly on the contours that made up His body- tried to see Him as nothing more than a collection of lines and strokes and shadows. Somehow, I don't know how, I managed to complete a few decent sketches, and when the professor dismissed us, I expected to feel relief. Instead, I felt something like disappointment that the opportunity to observe was over. I knew I'd never see a face like that one again, no matter how hard I looked: I knew there wasn't a face that existed that could even begin to compare. Not to mention how satisfying it was to be able to draw such a face; the pleasant challenges it presented. He was so full of stark contrast: ink-black hair against papery skin, kohlrimmed eyes the color of maple bark, something so full of light but traced in shadows. It was almost too much to bear, His long neck smoothing into elegant shoulders, milky collarbones and the dull waves of His ribcage. I wasn't ready to stop discovering Him. I remained perched at my easel even as the rest of the students were rushing out of the classroom, stayed until the only people left in the room were my professor, the beautiful boy, and myself: I couldn't get myself to move. As He made His way behind the models changing screen, His milky shoulders already exposed as the robe began to slide from his thin frame, I felt my professors eyes on me quizzically and hurriedly began to pack up my things. The last thing I needed was any extra attention. The boy came out from behind the screen as I was leaving, dressed in a loosely-fit Oxford shirt

and tattered jeans, long hair swept over one shoulder absentmindedly. Our eyes met for a few moments, sending small pin-pricks of shivers running up and down my legs, and I nearly ran into someone as I rushed out onto the sidewalks; dizzied by the after-image His beautiful face had left in my eyes the way sunlight does if you gaze into it for too long. My hands were shaking and my palms were sweaty: I clutched my sketchbook to my chest for dear life. You're being ridiculous, I thought to myself, confused by my own reaction. He was only a boy; only a face. He's just a person. I sat beneath a tree near the school, stared up at the gray-blue sky. Christian came to mind again, the last time I saw him; right before I moved away. He'd held my hands and his eyes were glistening with saltwater and he just smiled at me in that Christian way. He'd found another girl by then, but being the open soul that he was, he had no problem being honest with me when it came to his feelings for me. "I'm so proud of you," he'd said, his voice wet. I'd hugged him close and smelled his familiar smell, wondering why it was that I couldn't love him the way he loved me when it would be so easy to. He'd ran his fingers through my hair one last time and touched my face. "You're finally getting out of here." To this day, I still wonder how someone as pure as himself had ever decided to live in Los Angeles. I sketched a few passersby, a flock of blackbirds in the branches; their feathers glossy and sleek like oil. And then I heard a voice calling out to someone from a large black car parked a little ways away from me. "Bill!" Something about the name and the voice calling it caught my attention, and I snapped my head up, closing my sketchbook over my pencil. I craned my neck to see the boy from art class, His long black hair like a flag in the cold wind, long hands clutching the top of His shirt closed. His steps were quick and He soon approached another boy around the same towering height as Himself, face flushed. They exchanged a few words and then began to move towards the car, my eyes following them the entire way. The other boy was almost comically opposite in style, but no less beautiful, just in different ways. I noticed that their eyes were the same, but other than that, they could have been from two completely different worlds: where one had smooth black hair the other had a knot of honey colored dread locks tied at the base of his neck. I realized something strange at that moment: was the model boys name Bill? I wrinkled my nose at such a plain, ugly name in reference to someone as beautiful as himself. I'd pegged him to have a name as fluid and bright as his skin. When I saw them getting into the car, I almost wanted to cry out at them to stop: I didn't want to lose sight of them. Something was pulling me in their direction, like an invisible cord of some sort, or a thin, silver string reeling me in. Before I even knew what I was doing, I got to my feet

and made my way over to their vehicle, knees shaking in wild animation and heart thudding a deep bass in my ears. The dread-locked boy started the engine up, roaring it to life, a puff of charcoal-gray exhaust exploding into the air behind it. I quickened my steps, still unsure of what it was I was going to say to them. "WAIT!" I called. Bill's head of feathery hair immediately snapped towards my direction, his coffee eyes nearly stopping me dead in my tracks. I saw him turn and tell the other boy something, and the vehicle stopped moving away. I jogged up to Bill's open window, wishing that I had chosen to do something more with myself appearance-wise. His eyes studied me almost with judgment, but they were so soft and kind at the same time. He leaned out towards me, the ends of his air fluttering in the weather. I caught my breath and slowed to a stop a few steps away from him, noticing that the other boy had leaned forward, as well. They both wore looks of confusion on their faces. "Yes?" Bill asked, his voice like bells. Yes, what the hell are you doing? I asked myself in my head, sighing heavily. The two boys waited patiently for me to say something, but my throat felt closed and my tongue was strange in my mouth. "I..." my voice was hazy with nerves and I cleared my throat awkwardly. They continued to blink their honey eyes at me, the other boy's eyebrow raised high on his forehead. What came out of my mouth next surprised even me. "May I continue to use you as a model?" Bills eyebrows raised up, as well, and he cocked his head to the side slightly, blinking his eyes. He turned to look at the other boy, who met his face with an equally puzzled one. I didn't want to wait to hear what he had to say, so I continued, my voice trembling. "I, um..." Fuck. I had really done a number on myself. I was instantly reminded of why it was that I was so anti-social. "I...I'm really intrigued by your face." I wanted to smack myself and tried not to wince outwardly as I realized what I'd said, but allowed no room for any comments from the boys. "If you don't want to, that's fine. I would just really like to continue drawing you." I hoped I didn't sound quite as awkward as I felt. But Bills face remained relaxed and unfazed. "No, I wouldn't mind," he said, words like silk on his tongue. It brought back the chills in my spine, and I couldn't help myself: I let out a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you," I managed to get out. "When would work best for you?" Bill turned to look at the other boy again, their eyes communicating in their own secret language. He nodded and then turned back to me. "Tonight after five would be best, if that's alright."

I felt like I was dreaming, the whole situation was so surreal. "That's fine." I flipped to a blank page of my sketchbook and scribbled my address onto it, ripping it out with trembling hands. Bill reached out with his longer, ring-decorated fingers and took it gently from my grip. He ran his eyes over it and then smiled a small smile at me, nodding once in acknowledgment, and then as if understanding it was time to leave, the boy in the driver’s seat put the car into drive and took off down the quiet road. I ran a hand through my hair and began the short walk home. Secrets

I cradled the shot glass in my hands; watched the amber liquid rock as I turned my wrists back and forth. The ticking of the clock reminded me of those strange indie films you see involving sleepless lead characters, their eyes sunken in and bruised, skin as thin as an eyelash. I could easily picture myself as one of those characters, sitting alone on the edge of the bed, staring at the dusty carpet. I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, my nerves tickling at my stomach like moth wings. I wished I had cleaned the place, had the time. I was afraid of what Bill would think. People that beautiful belonged in equally beautiful places. I pictured him as the type of person you saw leaning against windows in high-ceilinged clubs with waiters in suits, carrying silver trays full of elegantly-crafted finger sandwiches; the kind of person you saw sipping pretty drinks and staring at paintings in gallery windows, wind in their hair, real silver on their wrists. How could someone like him ever think anything of my small, stuffy apartment? I lived among dust and clutter- among empty liquor bottles catching sunlight, gray walls, penny noodles in the cabinets and spiders building their homes in the corners. I was just a young girl who was so poor she had to cut her own hair: a girl that spent her pocket money on liquor and cigarettes, who lived off of overripe apples and dirty glasses of water. Even the most precious things I owned didn’t seem to fit in Bill’s world. I downed the shot, letting the hot liquid leak over my lungs, the burn soothing in a strange way. I hiccupped and dizzily set the glittering shot glass onto the dusty side table by the couch; my breath tasted like alcohol. My blood buzzing beneath the skin, I got to my feet and tried to straighten up as best as I could: fluffed the mismatched pillows, ran a wet cloth over the dusty surfaces, managed to vacuum. I tried to clean the windows, but they’d always been a strange hazy gray: nothing helped. Still, with all the dust gone, it felt more like a home already. I polished the wind chime I’d made from empty bottles that hung by the window, brushed my hair and washed my face. After that I didn’t quite know what to do with myself: I’ve never been a patient person, and the anticipation was making my skin itch.

At half past four I set up my easel and grabbed my brushes from the cups I kept them in on my desk; cleaned my palette, wiped the mouths of my paints. I sharpened my pencils and gathered my charcoals, laid a sheet down on the living room floor and scattered pillows about, only to change my mind and set up a small wooden pedestal I’d found in a dumpster. I wanted to sketch him standing a few times first, wanted to learn the length of his bones and the country of his skin. The seconds were feeling like hours, and I wrung my hands with every pause. My ears were ringing with anticipation. And then, at five thirty, there was a knock on the door. The sound made me jump and I got to my feet hastily, brushing the invisible dust from my shirt. I tugged at my outfit, my hands nervously running through my hair, and I took a deep breath as I opened my door. Bill stood there, dressed in a white cotton shirt with polished black buttons and the same tattered jeans. His hair fell about his chocolate eyes like a black-licorice frame. “Hello,” he said in that milky voice. I felt a sandstorm raging in my chest. “I’m sorry I’m late. I got a little lost.” I swallowed, my saliva like paste in my hot mouth, stepping back to allow Bill in. He was so tall and delicate, like a dead tree. “I’m glad you got here ok,” was all I could manage to say. His skin smelled of soap and rain, his steps long and elegant as he made his way into the middle of the living room. “Would you like something to drink?” He turned to look at me over his shoulder, the ends of his hair stirring slightly. He wore a small smile on his rosy lips. “Yes, thank you.” I made my way over to the kitchen on wobbly legs, trying to keep my hands still as I retrieved two small glasses. “Wine or something heavier?” His smile grew a little mischievous at that question. The goose bumps returned to my limbs. “What do you have?” I scoffed comically. “Anything.” His eyes went to the corner of the room for a moment, his sharp face pulled into a dramatic frown. His irises danced as he thought. “Do you have any whiskey?” I smiled at that and nodded, grabbing the bottle I’d been drinking from earlier and unscrewing the plastic cap. The spicy scent flowed out of the bottle with the liquid, making the skin inside my nose tingle, and it was hard to keep my hand steady as I poured. “I never got your name,” Bill said as I handed him his glass. He took a long sip and licked the moisture from his lips. I cleared my throat and adjusted my posture. “I’m Regan. Regan McAllister.”

He smiled again, more with his eyes this time. God, he was so beautiful it ached. My hairline was becoming damp with nerve at the sight of his glistening white teeth, smile slightly crooked. “Nice to meet you, Regan. I’m Bill Kaulitz.” I nodded and we shook hands, his palm warm and soft. I almost forgot to let go. “Let’s have a seat, shall we?” Bill nodded and we sat on my lumpy gray couch. I watched his face for any sign of disapproval but his expression remained calm and thoughtful, long fingers wrapped around the wide mouth of the glass. His rings sparkled in the small amount of light coming in through the window. “How long have you been an artist?” he asked me in a friendly voice, crossing his legs at the ankles. Everything he did seemed to be an art in itself. I shrugged: I’d never thought about that. “I suppose since I was able to hold a pencil,” I took a long drink of the whiskey and stifled a burp. “My mother is an artist. I think I get it from her.” Bill nodded, the shadows along his elegant neck stretching. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to draw,” he sipped from his glass and then spun it around, watching the liquor spin in amber tunnels. “Unfortunately I have no talent whatsoever when it comes to that kind of thing. I love to sing, though. And I like modeling for classes so I can at least be a part of a drawing.” As he talked I noticed a glint in his mouth: a tongue ring. I didn’t know how long I could manage to contain myself. “I’m the opposite,” I confided, trying not to stare too long at his face. “I can’t sing at all.” He laughed lightly. “It’s not as hard as you would think.” I smiled and took another gulp of whiskey. “I highly doubt that.” We sat in silence for a while, sipping our whiskey, watching the shadows change as the sun went down. It wasn’t an awkward quiet, just a pensive one, and soon Bill spoke up, setting his empty glass down and smiling at me in a strange way. “Tell me a secret.” I cocked my head. “A secret?” He nodded. “It’s only fair. I mean, you’ve seen me naked.” I laughed, a little bit louder than necessary- the whiskey had kicked in pretty well. “Well, you’re beau-“ I caught myself, hiding my mistake with a cough. “You signed up for it so technically it doesn’t count.” He wrinkled his nose as he smiled wider. “I suppose that’s true.” There was a pause before he continued. “How about I tell you one if you tell me one.”

I pondered for a moment, more than a little bit tipsy. I supposed it was only fair: he’d taken his time to come here and pose for me again. I sighed and he smiled wider. “Ok,” I shifted in my spot and gulped down the rest of my whiskey. Bill turned his body more towards me and waited. I had so many secrets- secrets that could do more damage than good. I thought hard, trying to come up with one that wasn’t too bad. When I found one I wrung my hands and avoided eye contact with the beautiful boy sitting next to me. “I’ve never been in love. Sometimes I think I’m not able to be.” Bill cocked his head curiously. “What do you mean?” I sighed heavily. “I dunno. I had a wonderful relationship with someone that loved me very much, but for some reason I just couldn’t love him back.” Bill’s eyes lingered on me for a few more moments before he looked away and slowly nodded to himself. “I know what you mean. I have major trust issues.” I chewed on my thumbnail and nodded in agreement. More silence, and then a small sigh from Bill. “It’s my turn isn’t it?” I smiled and nodded again. He chuckled a little and put an elegant finger to his lips. “Hmm…” I marveled at how many different things were in his eyes: thoughts, secrets, emotions. They gave away everything, but still kept an air of mystery to them, dark and light in brilliant contrast. He was a face that was almost painful to stop looking at. I wondered how he could be so humble with a face like that. “Ok I have one,” he chirped, tucking his long legs underneath him. I loved how hard his features were in contrast to his light personality. “I’m always nervous when I’m modeling for an art class.” My eye widened: I wasn’t expecting that. “You are?” He nodded guiltily and then shrugged a little. “But…you looked so comfortable up there.” He chuckled a little. “It’s an act, trust me.” I chewed on my lip. “Then why did you agree to continue modeling for me?” He only smiled, a small dimple in his left cheek. His eyes flashed and I felt like he could crumble me with a single touch. “Speaking of modeling,” he said, changing the subject. I took the hint and let him finish. “Where do you want me?”

I sat at my easel nervously, wringing my hands and chewing furiously on my lip: I was beginning to taste blood on my tongue. Bill had went to the bathroom to disrobe and when he emerged, he was clutching the sheet I’d given him around his shoulders, shivering a little bit. I’d turned up the heat for him before I had sat down. The sight of his smooth neck and elegant hands against the white fabric was so exquisite I could hardly hold my pencil. He slowly made his way over to the pedestal, taking his place atop it, the nerves apparent in his eyes alone. I wiped my sweaty palm on the tops of my jeans and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The air was so charged and static, I was afraid I’d suffocate in it. “Take your time,” I told him in a slightly shaken voice. His eyes were so warm on my face. “I’m ready whenever you are.” He closed his eyes for a moment, serenity washing over his face. I observed with fascination as his fingers slowly let the sheet slide away from his shoulders, gradually revealing patch after patch of candle-white skin. It was as still and perfect as milk in a vase. I let my eyes study his long torso, legs long and sturdy, hipbones jutting out beautifully and chest slowly rising and falling with his every breath. When his eyes met mine I felt a jolt of something nameless in my chest. I took a moment to gather myself and then lifted my trembling pencil to the paper, willing my eyes away from the sight of his naked body in the gray light. Somehow he looked different in the setting of my apartment than he had in the classroom. His eyes were more trusting, his stance a little straighter. It was like he was on fire: heat radiated from him in waves, dampening my hairline again. After a few moments I began to sketch, slowly, taking care with the lines and strokes. I wanted to do him justice, wanted to make him as beautiful on paper as he was standing in front of me, shoulders relaxed, face slightly tilted and gently shadowed. He watched me watching him, eyes smoldering, lips swollen with pink blood. After a while my hand relaxed and I began to see him in an artists light, my heartbeat calming and my lines straightening out. He was an artists dream: perfectly contrasted and smooth, asymmetrical in the right places, with an angled, interesting frame as fragile as wire. He was like the blackbirds in the park. He was such a good model: patient, not complaining of muscle ache even after an entire hour and a half had passed. I decided to end after two hours, finishing the basic outline and beginning to shadow his smooth stomach and stark shoulders. I set my pencil down and cracked my cramped fingers, my skin smudged with lead and charcoal. Bill sighed and stretched his arms high up in the air, his head falling back, whispery hair dipping and gently moving, torso stretching beautifully like a blank canvas. My breath caught and he reached down for the sheet, wrapping it around himself once more, giving me a small smile. “I’m going to go get dressed.” Like he had to explain.

I nodded, speechless, only allowing the sigh out of my lungs when he was out of sight. I put my hand to my forehead and listened to my heartbeat thudding away in my ears. The situation was hardly professional: I was lusting after my model, for Christ’s sake. “Snap out of it,” I whispered to myself. “Remember, he’s only a person.” He returned shortly, buttoning up his shirt and running his fingers through his mane of inky hair. He caught my eyes again and smiled a little shyly. “May I see what you’ve done so far?” “Of course,” I motioned for him to come over and he slowly walked towards me, his bare feet padding on the wooden floor. He leaned forward over my shoulder, his breath warm on the back of my ear, his skin beautifully scented. I closed my eyes for a moment and savored it. “Wow,” he said quietly, his eyes running over the penciled outline. “You’re really good.” “Thank you,” I tried not to blush. “You’re a good model.” He turned to look at me, eyes bright. After a few lingered moments he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, turning it on. I loved that: so polite to keep it off during a session. I watched his face illuminated by the small blue screen, his eyes reading something. “Damn,” he breathed. He snapped the cell phone shut with his delicate hand and looked at me. “My brother is on his way.” I cocked my head. “Brother?” He nodded. “My twin brother, Tom.” Twin? My spine tingled. Then I remembered the boy from earlier, the one that had the same eyes. “Was he the one that picked you up today?” Bill nodded again, smiling a little this time. “That’s him.” I bit my lip in thought. The thought of two identical beauties was nearly too much to handle. My thoughts were broken, though, when Bill leaned down and kissed me swiftly on the mouth. It was over quickly, almost so fast I hadn’t realized at first what had happened. But I could still feel his warm lips on mine when he pulled away. “I’ll come back same time tomorrow?” he asked. I nodded mutely and watch him put his cell phone back into his pocket. “It was really nice to meet you, Regan.” He walked out the door, his hair moving gently behind him. I stared at it for a long time before I was able to speak. “You too, Bill.” Gemini

I had strange dreams that night; dreams about Bill reaching out to me, his fingers dripping paint. When I awoke my head hurt and my throat was closed up, and for once, the silence of my street was the eerie, lonely kind. Even after a long shower and a change of clothes I couldn’t shake the strange feeling in my bones that I’d woken up to. I decided on a coffee run, pulling my hoodie over my head and running my fingers through my choppy hair. It grew fast: last month it’d been to my earlobes, and now it was just touching my shoulders. I liked to dye it, but had chosen a dark tree bark color instead of the usual craziness. People talked to me too much in Germany if I didn’t follow “the norm”. I grabbed my tote bag and turned on my IPod as usual, putting the worn ear-buds into my ears and selecting the new Lisa Mitchell album. The weather was musty and smelled old, my worn shoes shuffling along the dirt-streaked cobblestones. I liked the village: it was city meets urban. Nothing like L.A., where people shot one another just because they could. My favorite café was a small, cheap one on the way to the university. I was never one to fuss about my food: my mother, a famous painter, Ingrid McAllister, always tried to train my mouth to have good taste- took me to fancy restaurants left and right, spoon feeding me French cuisine with names I couldn’t pronounce, Italian appetizers that smelled like herbs and tomato. But I never caught on: I was as happy with a thin slice of two-dollar pizza as I was with escargot. In my eyes, food was food. My mother found it disgraceful. A small brass bell chimed over the door as I entered the warm coffee house, every corner occupied with some student or other, their laptops open and faces concentrated. The place always smelled of old pastries and coffee beans, the same tired classical mix playing through a paint-stained boom box resting on a chair by the cash register. I loved the atmosphere of the place, the way the air tasted. People left one another alone in here unless you wanted company. I stood in the short line, digging into my tote bag for my wallet, when I heard a rather familiar voice. “Hey.” I looked up, my bangs falling in my eyes. I blew them away and adjusted my tote strap. Bills twin brother, Tom, stood in front of me, this time with a wide black band over his forehead; dreads tied up in a thick ponytail at the back of his head. He wore a huge black hoodie and even bigger pants, tonguing his silver hoop-ring in the corner of his mouth, the small amount of gray sunlight

making it glint and shimmer against his smooth skin. He was beautiful, too, but in completely different ways: his aura was more of a sexual one, his eyes hard like a hungry wolfs. I smiled a little. “Hello.” He moved over so that I could approach the counter. The kind man that owned the place, Dmitri, had a scraggly gray beard and a head of wild hair, always smiling. “What can I get for you, Regan?” My smile grew at the sight of his rosy face. “Just the usual, please.” At the same time, a pretty girl I’d never seen before handed Tom his change, smiling a toothy, girlish smile at him. He smiled right back at her and winked before turning to Dmitri . “I’ll pay for hers too, please.” I snapped my eyes over at him, surprised. He just kept that confident smile on his face. “Thanks.” I muttered. “You’re welcome.” Dmitri handed me my double espresso with crème. Tom waited, his coffee in hand, and we walked away from the counter together. “Where’re you headed?” “Class,” I replied, trying not to look him in the eye. The ferocity of his stare was too much for me to handle, not like Bill’s soft beauty. “Do you have time to sit and talk a while?” I cocked my head. “About what? Is something wrong?” Tom chuckled low in his throat, his eyes sort of sparkling. He was fascinating to watch. “No, not at all. I just wanted to chat is all. You know…for company?” No one had ever asked me that before. Living the introverted life that I did, I had almost forgotten that people did such a thing anymore. I cleared my throat, trying not to sound too nervous. “Oh…yeah, sure, I have time.” Tom half-smiled and pulled out a chair for me at a table by the window. He took a seat across from me and sipped his coffee, licking his lips. “So I never got your name.” He said it as more of a statement than a question, and it caught me off guard a little bit: I’d become horrible at human interaction. “It’s Regan,” I held out my hand. “Regan McAllister.” Tom took my hand and shook it gently, rubbing his thumb over mine, his skin rougher than Bills. “Tom. Kaulitz. Bills twin.”

After studying Toms face a little bit more I could tell that they were, indeed, identical: their smiles were the same and their eyes, their facial expressions. They only fooled you with their dramatic difference in personal style, and their voices were very different, too. “I actually have to talk to you about Bill,” Tom continued, releasing my hand gently and taking another sip of his coffee. My muscles tensed. “Is he ok?” He chuckled again, obviously finding my lack of social skills amusing. He did it in a kind way, though, and I couldn’t help but smile as well. “He’s just got a bit of a fever. Nothing too big.” I nodded, disappointed that I wouldn’t get to see him that night. It must have been obvious because Tom touched my hand in a comforting way. “Chill, babe, he’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” I forced a small smile for him. “Well, there goes my model.” Tom, his hand still on mine, began to tongue his lip ring again. “Well…I was thinking…” he chewed on his words slowly, still somehow managing to appear confident. It was hard to focus on his voice: I was too aware of his skin against mine, however light the touch was. A loud group of girls came clambering into the café at that moment, the bell above the door ringing fiercely. We both turned to watch them as they giggled their way to the counter, two of them noticing Tom immediately. They whispered to one another, their eyes plastered to him, giggling. He just smiled mischievously at them, much to their delight. When they saw his hand on mine, though, small frowns appeared on their faces, but it didn’t stop them from watching him. Shaking his head and chuckling, Tom took another sip of his coffee with his free hand and ran his thumb over his lower lip, wiping away the excess coffee. I tried not to stare at his swollen lips. “Anyway,” he cleared his throat. “I was thinking that maybe, if you needed another model, I could help you out.” I wasn’t quite sure what he was saying and I squinted my eyes a little. He smiled wide, teeth glinting white in the gray light. “What I mean is, I could model for you, if you’d like. While Bill is sick. I mean, we are twins after all.” The thought caused my heart to spin itself into a knot. I could barely handle the sight of Bill, let alone Tom as well. I chewed at my lip nervously and Tom chuckled again. I was beginning to like that laugh. “You can say no if you want,” he grinned. “I just thought it would help you out. Plus, I wanna know what it’s like. Bill seems to get a kick out of it.” I shook myself out of the daze. “No, no, no, that’s really nice of you.” Even I could hear the way my words were trembling in my throat. “I, uh…I would love to sketch you. But not as Bill. I’m sure you’re not identical in every way.”

Tom’s smile grew devious at that, growing wide enough to reveal both rows of white teeth. I thought for a moment, realizing how someone could take what I had just said, and blushed furiously, burying my face into my arm and sliding my hand out of Tom’s grasp. He only chuckled some more and tongued his lip ring. “You’d be correct on that theory.” He winked. My face burning, I forced myself to look back at him. He only waited with that smile on his face, and I smiled back. “Well...thank you. I’d be happy to sketch you.” “Can I keep the pictures?” I smiled a little wider. “Yeah, sure.” “Great,” he finished his coffee and set the mug down, flashing me another smile. “I can pick you up after school if you want.” My face was still flushed, but for a different reason now. “Sure. That’d be ok.” We stood up and I gathered my tote bag in my arms, suddenly over aware of my entire body. Tom’s eyes had a way of making you feel naked in all aspects, like he could see your secrets. We left the café, cool wind on our faces. “When should I pick you up?” I shuffled my feet, nervous under such a stare. “In about two hours.” He nodded. “Alright. I know the way. See you then.” He smiled at me again and then backed away, his eyes lingering on me for a while before turning away. I watched him leave and then hurried to my art class, heart in my throat, The Milky Way

Tom had things buried inside of him, like a coin in the sand or a whisper in a seashell: I could tell by the way his eyes filled with color when he thought certain thoughts, observed certain things. When we entered my apartment he spent a long time just looking, counting the bottles in the homemade wind chime, scanning his wide eyes over the bookshelves and couch and thick windows. I stood, observing him the way he was observing my home, fascinated. He wasn’t like Bill: he kept his thoughts reserved, unaware that they danced in his eyes like flames. Bill was more pensive and expressed it, his eyes much more soft and innocent. Tom had secrets tangled in his hair. The silence was making me a little bit nervous. “So um…I’ll go turn the heat up and get you something to drink. What would you like?” He seemed to snap out of his daze, then, looking at me as if he’d forgotten I could speak. He cleared his throat, ever suave: I could already tell that he was one that hated to be anything but confident, anything but smooth. Cocky, but in a bearable way. He smiled a little bit and nodded. “Got any whiskey?” I laughed at that. “You too, huh?” His smile grew wider, horseshoe ring glinting ever so slightly. “Bill and I have the same taste in a lot of ways.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Well…except style, of course.” I shook my head, wide smile on my face, and poured him a half-cup of whiskey with a few squares of ice. It tinkled as I handed it to him: he responded with a wink. I poured myself some whiskey with coke and then turned the heat dial up. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the glass in my hand- barely clutch the dial. If Tom noticed, he didn’t let on, but how could he not? I’d seen the way girls reacted to him. I was beginning to understand why more and more each minute. As the heater clicked on, I turned to him and cleared my throat. “Ok, um…I’ll get you a sheet to wrap up in and you can disrobe in the bathroom for privacy.” Tom set down his whiskey and started untying the band around his head. My heart started skittering like a stone skipping on water. I watched as he unzipped his hoodie and pulled his dreads loose, letting them fall about his face and shoulders in honey-colored ropes. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop from wringing my hands. He shrugged off his hoodie. “I can just undress here. I really don’t care.” The idea seemed so unprofessional; so familiar. But how could I stop him without seeming like a scared fawn? My heart started to race as he pulled his huge shirt over his head, revealing his silky smooth body, toned to perfection and almost carved out of wood in it’s strange perfection. I had been right: Bill and Tom were hardly identical in every way. While Bill was stark and bony and lithe- fragile –Tom was more like granite; hard, textured, solid and less breakable. No less beautiful, though. Just in different ways.

I stumbled to my stool, tucked my hair nervously behind my ears as I tried to focus on sharpening my pencils and charcoals. It was hard not to watch, though, as Tom zipped down the fly of his pants and let them drop to the floor, stepping out of them and kicking them aside. My breath was catching, my heart speeding like it was soaked in caffeine. His back was long and straight, neck elegant like his brother’s. There wasn’t a single patch of loose-fitting skin on him. He had a milky way of freckles across his shoulder blades, a small white scar by his spine. He wasn’t liquid like Bill, but paper- a map, a trail, a puzzle. I held my breath as he removed his boxers, the entire length of his hipbones now visible, casting gray shadows on his skin. I felt an army of goose bumps climb my spine. I finished sharpening my mediums and cleared my throat a few times, feeling a fog in my throat that apparently wasn’t there. Tom was smiling a little at me, obviously noting my nervousness. This is ridiculous, I thought to myself. This is nothing new for you. You’ve sketched hundreds of models before. Stop being so immature. Think shadows and lines, shadows and lines… “How should I pose?” Tom asked me. I could see goose bumps on his shoulders. “Uh…hmm…” I hadn’t thought of that yet. I observed him for a moment, trying to decide what I wanted to focus on the most on his body. With Bill it had been his neck and hands, but with Tom, I decided it’d be torso and hair. To me they were the two most striking things, most interesting for a picture. “Um, ok, put your left hand behind your head and lift your elbow.” Tom obeyed, giving me the exact result I was hoping for: his torso elongated beautifully, stretched out like a canvas. It was beautiful. “Perfect,” I nodded, trying to clear the rest of the cobwebs out of my head. After a few concentrated breaths, I rose my slightly-shaking hand to the paper and started to sketch. He never once complained, and he held the pose for a good two hours: it impressed me. I had pegged him for the whiney type, but so far, nothing. He winced a little bit near the end of the session- his arm must have been killing him. I finished quickly, three pictures and one page of sketches, then stood up and cracked my fingers. I had calluses between them from holding a pencil so much. “Lower your arm really, really slowly,” I instructed when I was finished. “Be careful. It may cramp if you go too fast.” Tom winced a little as he gently lowered his arm from behind his head, rolling it in circles and shrugging his shoulders to get rid of the kinks. He smiled at me when I handed him a blanket, wrapping it around his waist and zipping his hoodie back up. “Can I see them?” I lead him over to my easel and separated the sheets of paper in a line so that he could see better, chewing my nails as I watched him lean in. His hair smelled of wax and musk: a pleasant smell. I observed his eyes closely for any sign of distaste, but they were smiling wide, his mouth

joining in shortly after. He was quiet for a very long time; I could hear his heartbeat, it was so quiet. “Wow…” he breathed, finally. I almost jumped at the sudden sound. “They’re incredible.” A flush of pride went through me. Both of the twins liked my art: both beautiful people that were hard to mimic, hard to do justice on paper. I was pleased with his response and smiled. “Thank you.” He stared at them for a while longer and then dragged his eyes away to get dressed. I watched him shamelessly as he pulled on his boxers, pants, shirt, hoodie. To my delight he pulled his dreads back into a bun like the first time I’d seen him, pocketing his headband and hat. He smiled at me, then, with his winter white teeth. We sat in silence for a while before I returned his smile. “Want another drink?” I was surprised at how easy it was to talk to Tom. He was an easy listener and a fluid conversation starter, nodding and laughing at all the right moments. We drank two more glasses of whiskey before I put some music on- Lady Bouncer – and confessed that I didn’t know how to dance. Tom then spent the next twenty minutes trying to teach me, his long body behind mine, moving with me, sending static waves through my limbs. I’d never felt anything like it before. His breath was hot and smelled of liquor. Near midnight his cell phone went off. He looked at me, rolling his eyes, and then answered. “Hallo?” I blocked out his conversation, sipping the melted ice from the bottom of my glass. I liked the feeling of the numbing ice on my tongue, how it soothed my nerves. Tom had me in knots. After a while he hung up and looked at me with an apologetic smile. “It was Bill,” he explained. I nodded. “I gotta get going. He’s throwing a fit.” I smiled a little, kind of disappointed that he was leaving so soon. He was very secretive, very sarcastic, and I wanted to figure him out a little bit more. He got to his feet, holding his pants up with a fist. “Thanks for this,” he said, holding up the folder where I’d placed the pictures. “It was really something.” “Thanks for modeling,” I replied, smiling a little wider. He hugged me and then spun around towards the door, a little tipsy. That’s when the gun flew out of his pocket. The Lost Boys

The color of the steel against the wooden floor, that unmistakable gunmetal glint, still and heavy, motionless…it symbolized so much: it represented everything I had run away from across the ocean- long rows of angel dust the color of oleander, my reflection in the mirror, skin as translucent and thin as wet paper, eyes bruised and lips broken and bleeding. The dim lights reflecting off of the surface, they reminded me of the LA lights; the smog that dulled them, the nights I had spent, wandering down the streets, nose burning, needle tracks, sleepless nights. My mother in her huge white house, wearing her blue kimono, her blond hair almost white, lying against silk pillows- her young, beautiful lovers in from the surf: boys with long hair and eyes the color of the ocean, bodies that moved against hers like wire. Boys with sea salt dried on their skin. My life had been so different. I had been so different: the life I had lead in LA was so much louder than the one I was leading in Germany. My old self felt more like a character I’d read in a Janet Fitch novel than someone I’d been once; more like a girl in a film or a name in a song. I had barely graduated high school, my art classes being the ones to save my education: my art teacher’s letters to the art schools, her kind words, her support. Maybe I was only able to take a few classes, but it was still something. Something I loved. My mother with her millions, she didn’t know how to be a mother. My father was someone I had never met, someone that my mother kept secret. I had never even seen a photograph of him, only heard her speaking of him to her friends briefly on the phone. I knew his name, Michael, how they’d met in college. Maybe if she’d have let him stay, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did. I started skipping classes in the seventh grade, wandered down Melrose, met a group of kids that helped me get high for the first time. I was so fascinated by them: their dirty hands, grungy clothes, their anger for their parents. They were all runaways, on their own, sleeping in parks and selling drugs for loafs of bread that they shared along with tall bottles of whiskey they stole from the gas stations. They were nothing like my mother in her stuffy house, her closet full of shoes and gowns, her hand-painted teacups and cherry oak floors. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be as wild as them, wanted to be ok with having nothing. They allowed me to play pretend, when really, we all knew that I could never really belong to them: I wasn’t like them, I had a house, I had fresh clothes and a shower. It was painfully obvious how different I was, how I knew too much. My hands were too soft: they’d touched porcelain, played the violin. My friends, their hands were rough and calloused, scarred, broken in like cracked leather. They taught me how to be like them, treated me like one of their own: we sold drugs on Melrose, Sunset Boulevard, marveled at the huge houses as we hunted for bored housewives in search of cocaine. They always tipped us, always cut us a courtesy line, those rich, bored women. Sometimes one of the boys would even get away with fucking her, one of us swiping the bottles of pills in their bathrooms while they were busy rattling the headboard. Christian was one of the Lost Boys, as I called them: a pretty boy with pretty drugs, his square shoulders, wide eyes, shaggy brown hair. He was the only person in the world that had ever really loved me, had ever cared where I ended up. He would bring me pink lilies with long stems plucked from one of the park gardens, slept beside me in the alleys and doorways at night, kept me warm and sang to me in his slightly off key voice. I did not understand how I couldn’t love

him. It was the guilt that had caused me to leave him. I knew he was capable of so much more, deserved an innocent girl that would love him back, a girl that didn’t keep switchblades in her fishnets or sell guns to children. He was lost, yes, and he had his drug of choice, yes, but he wasn’t a bad person in any way. He helped aging women cross the street, carried their groceries for them. He bought ice cream for children that couldn’t find their parents and sat with them until they were reclaimed. He loved the world, even though it had been so cruel to him. If my mother cared what happened to me, she never said. Why would she? She had her angels dripping sea water, sand in their hair. She had her silk, her gilded mirrors, plush carpets, French cigarettes and poetry books. She had no time for me. Christian and Christian alone was the one who told me I could escape, get away from it all: my snobby mother, the Lost Boys, the drugs, the smog, the sin of LA. “You can start all over again,” he had told me, holding my hands. “It’s not too late for you.” He’d helped me catch a cab to the airport, had paid for the ride, told me what to expect when the withdrawal hit. He was the only good thing that had ever happened to me. I thought of his face as I stared at the gun. The sight of it sent flashes of so many parties and turf wars: mornings spent sneaking out of basement windows and crawling to school, sitting through my classes high and smelling of liquor and blood. I couldn’t help but feel panicked: I thought I had escaped the sight of guns, the thought of them, their weight on the floor. Tom and I remained still and quiet, his breath caught, eyes waiting for me to react. It was hard to find my voice: my tongue felt thick, like my saliva was paste. “What the hell is that?” I managed to say, my voice hard. I knew exactly what it was, but it was the only thing I could think to say. Tom was wringing his hands, his eyes still as wide as plates, focused on me like car headlights. I refused to meet them. What had he been thinking, bringing a fucking gun into my home? “Regan, I-“ “Just get out.” He remained frozen in place, his eyes pleading with me. I couldn’t think properly with him around, with the gun lying a few feet away. “I said GET OUT!” I yelled, turning to face him. His handsome face was sad, downcast, head hung. He swept up the gun and pocketed it once more, giving me one last, long look before shuffling out of the door. I listened to his footsteps down the short hallway, hollow thuds as he made his way down the stairs. I tried to calm down, but my head ached and I felt dizzy from the sudden explosion of memories- memories I had worked so hard to forget. I sat on the edge of my lumpy sofa, put my face in my hands and tried to breathe. I missed Christian, and that scared me. ---

I could barely focus on class the next morning. To my relief, our model wasn’t Bill nor Tom, just an older woman with long silver hair and smile lines around her eyes. My mind was in so many

different places at once, I was hardly able to sketch her: the proportions were all wrong, the lines not smooth enough. I hadn’t realized I’d been sketching Bill in the corner until I lifted my hand away. My professor, forever the hawk, eyed me all through the class period, waiting for an opportunity to call me out on my strange behavior. He had read my transcripts, knew where I came from, and had never warmed to the idea of having a barely graduated, LA-bred American girl with track mark scars up and down her arms seated in his figure study classroom. But there was one thing he couldn’t deny, and that was my talent. If anything, he was hopeful that he could teach me more than any American school ever could: send me back to the city of angels a brand new person, an artist with European class and better taste. What he didn’t realize was that I would never go back to LA, not for any amount of pride or money. When class was over, I left before my professor could get a chance to speak to me, as usual. I wasn’t in the mood for being questioned. I smiled at the older woman as I left the classroom, her wrinkled, knotty fingers holding her cotton robe closed, gray teeth smiling pleasantly back at me. It’s amazing how something as small as that smile made me feel worlds better. I hugged my sketchbook to my chest and braced myself against the strong wind. It smelled of autumn and crushed leaves. I breathed them in, all the different scents and voices: they were all so different from California. LA smelled like dust, dirty money, the weed of the Lost Boys- their musky hair. The streets were so clean in Germany. No McDonalds bags on the curbs, no dead animals littering every street. Things were beautiful, older, churches of stone and brass replacing the tacky car factories and casinos. The air was cleaner. As I reached the sidewalks I got a strange yet familiar feeling, my skin prickling like… Of course. There were the syrupy brown eyes, the long mane of raven hair, the beautiful hands. It was Bill, waiting for me, leaning against a dying tree, the brown and orange leaves framing his face, casting perfect shadows on his skin. My pulse picked up, my blood so hot I could almost hear it popping and hissing underneath the skin. He looked nervous, his mouth in a strange, worried smile. I quickened my steps, my grip on my sketchbook tightening by the second. I was practically marching towards him, refusing to be distracted by his obvious and almost painful beauty. “Regan-“ “You have a LOT of explaining to do, Bill Kaulitz!” I yelled. His eyes widened: he had never seen this side of me before, the aggressive side, the person I had tried to keep hidden when I moved. I grabbed his bony wrist and started to drag him. He was tall, much taller than myself, but willingly stumbled along behind me like a scorned puppy. We passed through the park, and I couldn’t help but notice how every person around us, male

and female, let their eyes linger on Bill a little bit longer than necessary. He turned heads, that was certain. His beauty was unquestionable, but that’s what made him dangerous. It’s always the beautiful things that are capable of hurting you the most, roses with their thorns, choral fish with their poisons and stingers. I had once prided my beauty until I discovered what it could do to people, good people, like Christian. I wondered if Bill ever thought about it, too. I pulled him across the windy street, shoved my key in the small apartment building and dragged him up the stairs. There were only four apartments in the building, mine being number 3. I got my door open in the same aggressive manner and pushed Bill inside: the look of bewilderment on his face would have been much more amusing had the circumstances been different. I threw my things onto the floor and scurried over to the cupboards, pulling down a glass for myself and pouring splash after splash of whiskey into it. I shoved a cigarette between my lips, fumbled with the lighter, lit the end and inhaled deeply. The glass shook in my hand as I rose it to my mouth, took a few deep swallows. Bill sat on the couch, his posture rigged, watching me quietly. I noticed his eyes on my cigarette, tossed the box at him as hard as I could. It hit him square in the chest and his long hands fumbled to catch it, the lighter following suit. I closed my eyes and put my fingertips to my forehead, trying to get my words straight in my head. I waited until Bill had lit his own cigarette before I slowly approached him, sipping the whiskey, stopping before him and staring down at his eager eyes. He waited patiently, swirls of smoke kissing his face. “What was Tom doing with a gun?” He must’ve known the question was coming, because he sighed deeply as I finished. I watched his brow wrinkle, his white teeth chewing at his lower lip. For the first time I noticed how strange it was to have something so beautiful among all my dusty things, like a rose garden in the middle of a desert. His lips pursed in thought, eyes sparkling. He reached up for a sip of my whiskey and I obliged. “Regan,” he said quietly, carefully. “I’m waiting.” He sighed again, sat up straighter, if that was even possible. He ran a hand through his hair and looked up at me, his bangs framing his oak eyes. “We all have our secrets” Building a Mystery

I plunged my hands into the scalding water, wincing as the steam crawled up my arms and clung to my face. It stung, but I started to scrub the cups and silverware anyway: the rough side of the sponge scraping against my knuckles as I worked out my aggression on the dishes. I’d bit down on my lip so hard that it broke the skin, but I didn’t even notice the pain; even as a small dollop of blood splattered into the soapy water. I tried not to think about Bill, about his strange answer, but all I saw in the winter-white suds was his long torso; the sharp contrast of his midnight hair against his pale skin. The silver of the forks and knives only reminded me of Tom’s gun, spinning on the wooden floor, catching the dim light of the apartment, making it shine. I had hoped that the pain would dull my thoughts, but to my dismay, I was wrong. I threw my half-full glass of whiskey into the sink, causing a wave of soap and a heavy thunking noise; droplets of water splattering my face: I was frustrated, with both myself and Bill. Myself for being so weak in the face of beauty, and Bill for being so secretive. I felt like I had the right to know why Tom had brought a fucking gun into my house. Angrily, I wiped my hands off on the thighs of my jeans and yanked the cupboard open, pouring myself a strong drink and unwillingly thinking about LA: Christian, who had bought me a fresh set of watercolors and charcoals as a going away present; white oleander- the only plant able to thrive in the heat- and the smell of the Santa Anas, tangling up in my hair and pushing the dust around the streets. The walk of the stars on Hollywood boulevard and the Lost Boys with their sour breath and heavy eyes: the excited breaths of young tourists mixing in with their rushed chatter. I had never loved LA, but it was a place that often haunted me, still. I sat down on the cheap tiles of the kitchen, glass in hand, the clock I’d found in an alley one day ticking away the seconds. My thoughts kept bleeding together; returning to the same place, to Bill’s voice and my throat tight with frustration: ”What the hell kind of answer is that?” I spat. We all have our secrets? It answered nothing: only confirmed the fact that I didn’t know what was going on. Bill remained calm, eyes almost serene, as if he were dealing with a small child rather than a person of his own age. It made me even angrier. “Regan,” he said in a sigh, running those long fingers through his thick hair, eyes closed collectively. His eyelashes looked like ash against his white skin. “It’s not my place to…Tom and I, we…”

I waited impatiently, my arms folded, cigarette dangling from my lips like a loose limb. “What? What is it?” He sighed again, lifting his eyes to meet mine. I resisted the urge to give in: those eyes could melt steel if they wanted to. He parted his pink lips and closed them again, trying to find the right words, as if there were too many in his mouth to pick from. Those eyes, those burning eyes… “There are things we have done,” he started slowly, cautiously. He wrung his hands in his lap like tissue paper, fingers ornamented with large silver rings and stones. They clicked together in his nervousness. “…People we’ve hurt. People…people that want to hurt us back.” My chest tightened as if wrapped in wire. “Are you on drugs?” I asked immediately, unable to wait any longer for Bill to clarify his meaning. At my words he snapped his head up, eyebrows knit together. “No, of course not.” “Because I’m telling you right now that if either of you are part of some drug conspiracy or whatever you want to call it, I will make a point to keep you away from me.” I couldn’t help the bitter edge in my tone: I had spent too long- worked too hard- to get sucked into that life again. He shook his head vigorously, and I was relieved to read sincerity in his eyes. “Regan, I swear to you, it’s not that.” While relieved, I still wasn’t in a very patient mood. “What is it, then?” Bill was getting frustrated, too; I could tell by the storm in his eyes. He got to his feet and strolled towards the far window, staring through its foggy surface into the charcoal sky. I watched him, pins and needles in my knees and hands from the sight of him. I wondered if he was aware of his affect on the human brain. It hardly suited him to be called a human, himself. “All I can tell you,” he continued, voice rather hoarse, dulled by the sounds of the autumn wind outside. “Is that we became involved with someone when we were younger. Someone we shouldn’t have.” He looked towards me, and I could tell that he was struggling not to reveal too much about the situation. “This someone is capable of hurting us, and Tom...he just feels safer if he carries protection with him.” While his answer explained, in a way, what Tom was doing with a gun in his pocket, it hardly satisfied my curiosity. But I knew better than to push it any further than that. “Are you two in, like…serious danger?” Bill bit his lower lip, then slowly made his way back over to me. He towered above me: my eyes met his collarbone at highest. I waited quietly for him to answer me, but he only kissed my cheek and zipped up his sweater. “Even if we are,” he managed to say before leaving my apartment. “It would never mean that you are, as well. Don’t worry, Regan. We’d never let

anyone else have to feel the consequences of our past actions.” I watched him, my jaw hanging open, as he all but floated on his spider legs out the door and away from sight. I’d ran it through my mind at least a dozen times in the hour that he’d been gone, but I still remained confused. The mystery surrounding them only seduced me, only made me want to know more and more. I knew they weren’t going to tell me anything else, though: I’d have to find other ways to learn them. The next day, after my figure study class, I approached my professor. He was a tall, wiry man with ashy brown hair and a black mustache, and his skin was thin and bruised: he was a sickly looking man, with a voice as rough as sandpaper. But his art was beautiful: God, it was beautiful. Some of his pieces even hung in the city, displayed in elegant galleries with those buttery spotlights gently resting upon their surfaces: the kind of galleries where all the people inside wore silk and leather and drank from tall champagne glasses and talked about money. I was always nervous around the gangly man, what with his obvious distaste for a girl like me, but I never let it get in the way. “Professor Krane?” He lifted his sagging face from the stack of papers he’d been grading, most likely from a different class, and adjusted his glasses. “Yes, Miss McAllister?” he sighed through his crooked nose, obviously annoyed by my interruption. I ignored it. “Yes, um…you recently hired a young model. A boy…Bill Kaulitz?” He set his red pen down and folded his hands atop the creaky desk, cocking his head ever so slightly. “Yes…and?” I cleared my throat, feeling my cheeks flush. “Do you, um…do you know anything about him?” Professor Krane lifted a thick eyebrow. “What do you mean?” Fuck. What did I mean? I tried not to notice the fact that he was staring at the track mark scars dotting my left arm. “I would like to contact him. I was wondering if you had any information on him.” He leaned forward, eyes hard and solid like granite. “I’m sorry, Miss McAllister, but I’m not allowed to give you any information on our models. It’s in their privacy contract.” “But-“ “It’s confidential information, Miss McAllister. You’ll have to try elsewhere. Now, if you’ll excuse

me, I have these papers to grade.” He picked up his red pen and went straight back to scanning his dark eyes over the long sheets of paper, covered in sketches and notes and graphs. I remained standing in front of his desk for a few moments longer, holding back my rebellious temper, and then left the classroom without another word. I didn’t get very far before I felt a cool hand on my shoulder. I turned to see an oval-faced girl with a sprinkling of cinnamon-colored freckles on the bridge of her nose and a small, shy smile on her face. I stopped walking, confused but intrigued. “Yes?” The girl cleared her throat and pulled at a chunk of her blond hair. “I’m sorry but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Professor Krane. I take his advanced figure study class and I was making up a test in his room.” Christ, I hadn’t even noticed her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.” She smiled a cute, slightly-crooked smile at me. “That’s alright, I stayed quiet on purpose. I didn’t want to interrupt your class.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “You were asking about Bill Kaulitz?” I nodded, curious as to whom this girl was. She was hard to stop looking at: she had such a pleasant face. “Yes. I was.” She smiled again, only this time in a knowing way. “You’re not the first.” She looked over her shoulder before continuing, leaning towards me closer and lowering her voice. I strained my ears, fascinated. “I think I may be able to help you.” The Name

Light spilled in through the high, blue-tinted windows, the crystal water glasses casting prisms on the wall. The apartment smelled of cinnamon and something I couldn't quite put my finger on- something like comfort. Kathryn had brought me to her beautiful off-campus dorm room, her long blond hair pouring over her left shoulder as she handed me my drink, the ice tinkling together like chimes. Her earrings caught the sunlight, reflected against her pretty skin.

"So," she said in English. I was taken aback by the sudden switch in language, and, noticing this, Kathryn laughed a pleasant laugh, covering her mouth with her fingertips. "Your accent. It is so American. And my English is good, it is no big deal." I chuckled a little under my breath, still nervous as to who this girl really was. "Oh...well, thank you. Languages aren't really my thing." Kathryn smiled politely, wrinkling her nose. "I can tell," she chuckled again and then straightened herself up, taking a long sip from her glass. I followed suit, the lemonade sweet and poignant on my tongue. I couldn't help but let my eyes wander around the elegant living space, all of Kathryn's photographs in thin, glossy frames made with polished wood trim. I wondered what it was like to live such a pretty life, be such a beautiful girl, with hair that flowed down my neck like water; a family to put in pretty picture frames. It made me wonder exactly what I was doing in such a light place: I felt like a night moth fluttering around in the daylight. "So," she said again, sighing through her nose. The dimples from her sweet smile were gone, and I could guess what was coming next. I clacked my nails against the water glass, unable to meet her eyes for whatever reason. My strange green eyes seemed dirty compared to Kathryn's clear blue ones. "What is it you need to know about the Kaulitz twins?" She said it as if we were speaking of the latest newspaper headlines; a Britney Spears scandle or American politics. I set my glass down on the polished table, almost afraid to touch it, to ruin its perfection with my American fingertips. I shrugged my shoulders and tried not to sound nervous. "Well...what's there to know?" The look she gave me was a mix between sympathy and worry- sadness and confusion. She slightly pursed her lips, set her glass down, sat up straighter. "Um..." Kathryn's eyes wandered before focusing out the window, their watery color spinning around her iris as she chewed on the words. "Let us start with this. How do you know of them?" I hesitated: I wasn't sure if I should tell her the truth. Was she as pure as she seemed to be? Would she think the wrong things? No, she was an art student herself. She'd understand. She'd know. "Well um...Bill. He...I drew him for a class and-" "You wanted to continue your observations," Kathryn finished for me, raising a hand to her forehead. I nodded, even though I could tell she already knew the answer. She reached into a small box on the table, pulled out an elegant silver case, flipped it open. She pulled two cigarettes out and put one between her lips before handing the other to me, the lighter following suit. It was silent for a moment as we let the expensive smoke nestle in our lungs, then Kathryn exhaled through her nostrils in a long sigh of blue wisps. "I know what that is like." Her clear eyes went stormy with recollection. "I still remember the first time I saw them." I could almost see the story playing back through her eyes as she told it to me: they were in the park, Tom with his eyes closed listening to music, Bill writing in a slim journal. I could just picture the sunlight in their hair, the glow in their wide eyes and the aura reflecting off of their skin like a smell. She sketched them: they noticed, of course. "What happened then?" I asked, like a child enchanted by a fairytale.

Kathryn's eyes met mine again and she smiled sadly, her pretty hands restless. We lit fresh cigarettes with Kathryn's seashell-pressed lighter. When she spoke again there was a heavyness in her voice. "Tom happened," she almost whispered. I leaned closer to hear better. Suddenly, though, the dream in her eyes left to be replaced with a serious stare. "Are you sure you want to hear this?" "Yes," I said quietly, because I did want to know. My past had made my skin thick in many ways: I was more able to handle the truth, to accept things as they were. I wasn't like my mother: I wanted to know the world, not make it up to be a fairytale place. Even fairytales have to end some time. Kathryn nodded as if in understanding. I could tell the memory caused her slight discomfort, or maybe even pain. I could relate to such a thing. "Well...as I am sure you have noticed, Tom is..." She paused, searching for the right word. "He is...very popular with women. He knows what they like, he knows how to charm them. It is one of his many skills, you could say." Of course I had noticed: when he occupied the area, all eyes were on him, but in a different way than Bill. Bill was someone you wanted to observe, to know, to experience, while Tom was a boy that seduced you with one look; whether he meant to do it or not. Tom was aware of himself and his sexual aura, far more than his brother. "Yeah...I've noticed that." Kathryn nodded, shifting in her spot on the couch. "As is predictable, I fell victim to his charms," she continued, her eyes focused on something far off. "I became somewhat of his mistress, I guess you could say. He is not someone that looks for a long-term relationship, if you know what I mean." I nodded. "All too well." The Lost Boys came to mind, all but Christian, of course. Boys that used their beauty to it's highest advantage. "I spent many months with those boys. Tom mostly. And while they are a very private pair, I learned a lot about them in that time." I strained my ears, eager to know more about the delicate creatures that had been haunting my sketchbooks. I wondered how many girls had been pulled into their spell, how many girls had been a part of them like Kathryn for however long. It was impossible not to want to know more about them, to be curious. They were walking storybooks. "They moved here a few years ago," Kathryn continued. She took a long sip from her lemonade and daintily dabbed her lower lip with a fingertip. "Their arrival was immediately recognized, as you can imagine. And they have always been so...cautious, you could say. They would act so strange when the doorbell rang or when they were out of their apartment. Guarded, almost, as if there was something to look out for. Something to hide from." The way she said it made a chill creep up my spine like a snake, hissing into my ear. I wrung my fingers in my lap nervously, expecting the worse. "Are...are they in some kind of trouble?" Kathryn looked at me, then, her eyes sparkling and stormy. She reminded me of a doll my grandfather had bought me one Christmas when I was a child, when he was alive: delicate, something fragile. "They have never told me why they are in danger, exactly, but I know that the danger is a unique sort." She sighed deeply, a sudden look of shame shadowing her pretty face. "One night, while Tom was sleeping, I looked through his journal. I should not have, I know:

such things are private. But I felt as though I had a right to know. I'd seen guns in some of their drawers, switch blades. It frightened me. I thought they owed money or were involved in the black market or something of the sort." My heart thudded and pulsed wildly in my ears. The anticipation was almost unbearable. "What did you find out?" She sighed again, lighter than before. "Not very much. Just a name." "A name?" Kathryn nodded. She turned her torso towards me and took my hands in hers, a gesture that surprised me in it's familiarity. Her palms were soft and cold like porcelain. "You must promise me that you will never tell them we met," she said seriousy with pleading eyes. "You did not hear this from me. Ok? It is so important." I nodded vigorously, my eyebrows knit together in curiosity. I felt like a character in a Janet Fitch novel, floating through each scene in oblivious stupor. "I promise." She looked down at the ground for a moment before meeting my eyes again. "All I managed to find out was a name. A name that everything about their strange behavior revolves round." There was so much tension in the air that I could almost smell it, my throat swelling and my heart fluttering on bird's wings. "Lenore. The name is Lenore," she took a breath, as if she'd been underwater for the past five minutes. "I do not now who she is or what she has to do with them, but she is important. She is the reason behind everything." She shook her head, flooded with thoughts. "I asked about her once, and that's when everything changed. I am no longer in touch with the boys but I can tell you this much: find Lenore, and you have the key." I was speechless: I didn't quite know what to say. Lenore, this one name, this one woman, had all the answers to the mystery behind the beautiful boys I knew nothing about. It was a beautiful name, a dangerous one, one that had a lot to promise. It tingled in my ears. "Lenore?" Kathryn squeezed my hands, digging inside of me with her eyes. "Just be careful, Regan. Be very careful. I do not know who this woman is, but she is obviously capable of a lot. Nothing threatens those boys, and if she does, she is someone dangerous." My tongue was stuck: I could only nod. "Remember," she said quietly. "I never told you. Ok?" ---

The walk to class the next morning was spent replaying my afternoon with Kathryn and the urgency in her voice. Lenore...what could this woman possibly have to do with the twins? She couldn't be their mother and she couldn't be living in the area, so who was she? The questions had kept me up all night, and the few hours of sleep I did receive were plagued with strange nightmares: flashing lights, Bill's pursed mouth, Tom's long torso and the gun on my wooden floor. I had no idea what it could possibly mean, and the mystery was making me insane.

I entered my classroom in a daze, took my usual place and set up my things. It was a foggy morning, the trees and sidewalks dulled of their color, swimming in grays and blues. I remained in my own world as my professor introduced the class, gave his brief instructions: I didn't even notice Bill enter the room and take his place. When I did, though, I realized that things would never be the same again.

Black

The image before me terrified me in it's strange and grotesque beauty: Bill, perched in his usual pose atop the model's stand, as stained as a bruised apple with a thin slice of dried blood on his lower lip. My eyes froze instantly in his cold aura, my mouth parting in a small gasp. His eyes twitched, straining to keep from looking over at me, until finally they turned my way, dark and tired and ink-black. I didn't have to say a word for him to know what I was thinking: my face said it all- "What happened to you?" Bill was no doubt a fragile person, what with his long, lithe body and skin like crepe paper- as delicate and symmetrical as a sea shell. But this...this was more than fragile. This was broken. My blood started to rise in temperature at the though of someone ever daring to lay a hand on him. How could anyone bring themself to mangle such a fierce and terrible beauty? Did they not understand that no matter how many blows they landed on him, no matter how many cuts or bruises or scars dotted his body, he would still be as beautiful as ever? Bill's eyes burned into me with melancholy as heavy as tar, and my throat began to close up and swell. His stare told me not to draw attention to it, to wait. To relax. But how could I? My professor, as ever, sighed in frustration in my direction. He didn't even need to say anything: that sigh and his hard stare was even to wake me from my paralyzed shock. I fumbled clumsily through my paint box, taking a charcoal pencil shakily in my hand. The sweat in my palms instantly soaked into the painted wood in my hand, sticky and uncomfortable, making it nearly impossible for me to draw a straight line. But I drew anyway: I drew him the way I saw him skittering across my eyelids at night, his hair a blistering black and blowing like tree branches in a steady wind. I drew a storm growing at the corner of the page, his eyes downcast and unaware, his elegant body slicing the contrast in half.

When the professor dismissed us, I had already packed up my things: I wasn't going to let Bill leave without explaining what had happened to him. I swung my tote bag over my shoulder and stood up fast enough to nearly knock myself over, then power-walked over to his bruised body making it's way behind the changing screen. Professor Krane eyed me strangely for a moment before shaking his head and disappearing into his office, closing the door to signal his disinterest in my odd behavior as of late. I barely even noticed his absence. I listened, leaning against the sturdy changing screen, as Bill made small gasps of pain; the sound of clothes rustling, the light padding of his bare feet on the ground as he steadied himself. I could tell that he was trying to refrain from speaking to me, but I wouldn't have it. "Bill?" I said quietly, afraid to scare him off. He was like a fawn, in that sense: his presence made you want to be quiet and gentle, to do things slower and with more care. I heard him sigh in light exasperation. "Hello, Regan." He gingerly stepped out from behind the changing screen, holding his shirt in his hand. I kept my eyes on his face, even though it hurt me to see it in such a rough state. "Will you help me please?" He asked in a voice tinted with shame, holding out his shirt towards me. "I'm...I'm in a lot of pain." I wanted to demand an explanation on the spot, but knew better. Nodding in reply, I took the bundle of fabric from his shivering hands and unfolded it. He sat atop a nearby desk, slowly raising his arms into the air, wincing as he did so. He would not look at me. I clothed him as gingerly as I could, being careful not to graze any of the small cuts or bruises with my fingertips, smoothing the fabric over his pretty skin in silence. He shook out his long hair, hiding his eyes in the dark curtain of his bangs, still refusing to making eye contact with me. "Thank you," he whispered. "You're welcome." Slowly, Bill got to his feet, letting out a heavy sigh as he stood at his full height. Without a word, he took my hand gently in his and slowly we began to walk out of the classroom and into the parking lot, where I was surprised to find that Tom wasn't anywhere in sight. As if on autopilot, Bill gingerly lead the way to my apartment building, his broken lips pursed slightly in a bud of thought. I couldn't tear my eyes from him, desperate for him to return my stare if only for a second. His silence, his distance, was terrifying me. We made it into my apartment with goose bumps on our arms, and I immediately insisted he sit down. His almond eyes squinted as he lowered himself onto the couch and I turned on the kettle in the kitchen, pulling down a mug and a container of hot chocolate, all the while watching him through my peripheral vision. His face was far off, eyes staring at the wall as if it were a window.

Hot chocolates in hand and silence still cloaked over our shoulders, we sat beside one another

on the creaky old couch, listening to the skittering of dead leaves out the window. It took a full minute for me to find the words in my throat again, to make my tongue work properly. I didn't even know where to start. "Bill, what the hell happened to you?" He slowly turned his head towards me, eyes finally meeting my own, hitting me like a tidal wave of stones. I had never seen so much sadness, so much weighed down thought on someones face before. It made my skin ripple and crawl. "Regan," he began carefully, quietly. I maintained eye contact as steadily as I could without toppling over. "You have a big heart. You care about people." I was confused by this opening line, but stayed silent, waiting. The corner of my mouth twitched in impatience. Bill looked away from me again, tracing the mouth of his coffee mug with a long finger. Heat began to gather behind my eyes as I watched him, studied him: the living masterpiece, every movement he made a stillframe. After a few moments of silence he looked at me once more, sighing through his nose. "But you cannot save everyone." I knew all too well what he really meant, and was about to protest when he held up his hand. "Regan, I am so happy that we've become friends, and I'm touched that you want to help. But some things are meant to stay secret." My heart clenched in a mixture of anger and distress. "You don't honestly think I'm just going to sit here and pretend everything's ok when you look as though you've been beaten to within an inch of your life, do you? Do you really think I'm that ingnorant?" I couldn't help the edge to my tone, even as I saw his eyes go even paler with sadness. "Of course I don't think you're ignorant," Bill shook his head, obviously at a loss as to how to explain this to me, as if I were a small child unable to grasp the concept of death. "But I am asking you, as my friend, to stay out of it. Please." He set his mug down and grasped my fingers with both of his long hands, eyes pleading me as they plunged into my irises. "You have to trust me when I tell you that you are better off not knowing." "You're selfish to say such a thing," I whispered, unable to prevent my lower lip from quivering; not so much from sadness as with a sense of being overwhelmed. Had I only known Bill for the past week? It felt like much longer, like there were memories in my head that were shared with him- things that had been there for years and years. I'd never been confronted with such a sensation before. "I'm scared for you, Bill. Both you and your brother. You can't expect me not to worry." The melancholy on his face was replaced with guilt, and his grip on my hand softened. "I know about her, Bill."

A sudden panic electrocuted his eyes, swelling them to large orbs of worry, eyebrows knotting together the instant I finshed speaking. I could feel his body begin to tremble. "...What did you just say?" I swallowed, taking a deep breath, trying to come off confidently. "I know about Lenore." It was ridiculous, really: I hadn't the slightest idea of who this woman was or what signifigance she had in the twins lives. But Bill seemed to be the type of person that only needed the tiniest of nudges in order to break open and spill. He removed a hand from mine and pressed it to his forehead, shifting his eyes to the side. "H-how...?" His voice broke mid-sentence, quakey and rough in his stress. "How do you know about her?" I cleared my throat, attempting to rid the nervous edge in my voice. "Its not important. What's important is that you start telling me the truth, because there's no point in trying to hide anymore." Bill slowly lowered his face into his hands, his breathing sharp and panicked. For a moment I felt almost guilty for tricking him, but I was desperate for information- sick to death of secrets and on the brink of going mad. I waited, swallowing my nerves dryly, my tongue thick. A full minute passed before he sighed in defeat and lifted his head to look at me, his eyes almost vibrating in their intensity. "Alright," he whispered. "I'll tell you." Varity

When Tom and I were thirteen, we lived in Berlin in this really big, beautiful apartment building that was so old it had gargoyles for water drains. We were happy there, mostly; spying on our weird neighbors and messing around in all the cobblestone alleyways. I loved the clothes drying above our heads in the streets and all the different smells and sounds, and especially the way the city looked at night. Tom and I were always out and about: we had a lot of freedom at such a young age. Maybe that was the problem. The day she came into our lives was like any other day, really. Tom and I were hanging out in one of the huge alleys by our building, kicking a soccer ball around as usual, just talking. I remember Tom was telling me about a girl he wanted to date named Sasha, and how her hair was as red as a strawberry and she had two different colored eyes. Then, out of nowhere, as will happen in such instances, the ball got knocked at the wrong angle and before I knew it I

was on the ground with a bloody knee. He laughed but stopped when he saw how much blood had begun to seep from the small wound. I guessed it was one of those cuts that looks a lot worse than it actually is, but the sight of it still alarmed me, and I was just about to start screaming my head off before we heard this older, elegant voice as smooth as running water. "Oh, goodness, honey, are you alright?" the voice said. Tom and I both turned to see a really petite woman in her thirties with hair the color of melted chocolate and eyes bigger than any other pair I'd ever seen: they were so light in color, they almost looked gold. She was beautiful, and my brother and I found ourselves speechless in her presence. She stepped closer to us with a long, pale hand over her heart and a gold chain necklace hanging around her neck. I could hardly keep my eyes off of her: my thirteen year old mind wasn't used to taking in such a creature after going to school with the too-thin girls my age that smelled strongly of bubble gum and talked louder than necessary. I could tell that Tom was thinking the same thing, even though he liked to come off as a boy that had been there and done that when it came to women: this woman wasn't like any other in Berlin, we were aware of that immediately "Does it hurt much?" she asked me, kneeling down next to me and staring with those wide eyes. Her fingertips gently hovered over my small wound, sending small darts of electricity through my skin. I imagined what my body would do if she ever actually touched me. "Uh..." I looked to Tom, who returned my gaze with a descreet shrug. I turned back to the elegant woman and shrugged, also. "Not really, I guess." "We better get it cleaned up. What's your name?" Once more looking at my brother in amazement, I cleared my young throat and sat up a little taller. "Bill. And this is my twin brother, Tom." Her eyes seemed to get even lighter, then, and she half smiled. "Twin? Aren't you lucky. I always wanted a twin." She held out her hand to me and when I grasped it, the silk of her palm lines and the pink seashells that were her fingernails were the only thing I felt. Tom helped me up on my other side, his arm hooked about my waist to keep me up, as I limped dramatically and even winced once or twice for effect. Tom rolled his eyes at me, but the woman didn't seem to notice. "I'm Lenore," she told us as we walked up the marble steps to her apartment. Tom and I didn't know what to say, so we kept quiet.

We reached her white-washed door, the number 239 in gold on the front with black speckles where the paint was chipping, and she opened it with her free hand and led us into her living room. It smelled of dry roses and firewood, and was covered with white lace and antique mirrors: it was like a room in a dollhouse. I didn't notice my mouth was hanging open until Tom motioned towards me with his eyes the way he always did when I was embarassing him, and I snapped my lips shut and continued to observe. "Come with me, honey," Lenore said to me, gently tugging me from Tom's grasp. She started to lead me away and I turned to look at Tom over my shoulder, not sure whether I was nervous or excited. Tom just shook his head and shrugged again, and soon Lenore had lead me into a small bathroom with walls the color of champagne. "Let's get you cleaned up," she said softly, reaching into the mirrored cabinet above the opal sink. My tongue was stuck, so I only nodded in reply, taking in this new scenery in silence. Lenore brought out a creme colored washcloth from the cabinet, but I saw no peroxide, and suddenly felt my stomach start to twist. I was locked in a small bathroom with a beautiful woman. Had I died and gone to heaven? If so, that was fine with me. She kneeled before me, her eyes smoldering, and she set the washcloth aside. "Have you ever kissed a girl, Bill?" What? I was confused, but too drunk on the atmosphere to ask any questions. I nodded. "Once." She leaned towards me, then, putting one long hand on either side of my face. The tension in my heart was starting to catch up with the sudden tightness in my pants, and before I could take a breath, Lenore was kissing me; deeply and heavily, my mouth filled with her tongue. I was paralyzed for a few moments, my eyes wide open, the sensation too much for my young mind to take in all at once. But then I closed my eyes and started to kiss her back, experimenting with her hot mouth, curious and young and acting on what I'd seen in the films I loved so much. She tugged my small shirt from my body and kissed me from my jawbone to my hips before tugging at my jeans, and I undid them with trembling hands. I was terrified and excited all at once: I didn't know whether to run or start singing at the top of my lungs. Soon I was fully exposed to her, and I became terribly aware of myself: I felt her eyes running along my naked skin, forming opinions. But she only smiled and leaned towards me, my torso trembling like some inner earthquake, and when she took me in her mouth I lost all control. My nails broke against the porcelain, and I bit my lip so hard I started to taste coppery blood. She stopped before I came to my climax, licking her lips and smiling at me. "Are you scared?" she asked me. I could only speak the truth in such a weak and vulnerable state of pleasure and terror. "Yes." I whispered.

Lenore only smiled wider. "Do you want me to stop?" I stared at her hard, trying to seem less like the little boy that I was and more like a man her age, who would know what to do and say in such a situation. But any clever remark was gone from my mind: I took a huge breath, put my hands on her head. "No." Eventually, Tom lost his patience, and was soon knocking on the door. By that time I was panting hard enough to hyperventilate, and my small hand was clutching one of Lenore's breasts childishly in desperation. She didn't stop, though, only murmured, sending waves of vibration up my small body. I cried out; I couldn't help it. And then I heard the door open. After that, Tom and I were frequent visitors at Lenore's home. We had every excuse in the book, though it hardly mattered. Sometimes we'd even stay out as late as midnight, our parents sound asleep and without question as to where we'd been. She became our lover, and we became hers. As we grew older, we began to understand her more, and she in turn taught us more and more- things no one but a woman of her age and experience could teach us. Then we turned turned seventeen, and, as all boys do when they turn that age, we began to notice other girls: younger girls, girls we had been going to school with for years and had never paid much attention to before. Our visits to Lenore's house became fewer and fewer, and when she found out why, she was furious. "You belong to me!" she would shout at us almost every night we showed up, her eyes on fire and her hair tangled about her beautiful face. "I taught you everything you know, I made you everything you are. You would not be so desirable if it weren't for me!" We'd apologize and promise to come over more often, to stop seeing the other girls, but of course we never did. We didn't take her seriously; a mistake we would pay for dearly. The trouble began a few months after the dilemma had begun. I was out walking through an alley, smoking a cigarette, just thinking. I had begun to write music and start modeling for art classes, just small things to take my mind off of Lenore. I wasn't in love with her, I was more afraid of her in an awed way, but she was still the only thing on my mind. She was my terrible secret, the one reason I could never look a girl in the face and tell her with honesty that there was no one else in my life but her. Then I was jumped for the first time by one of Lenore's men. They beat me so hard that I stayed passed out on the street until the next afternoon, awoken by Tom shaking me violently and yelling. After I'd recovered enough to tell him what happened, we both agreed to be more on the look out. Even so, when we were attacked, we were outnumbered; sitting ducks, vulnerable little boys compared to these big men that somehow owed Lenore a favor or two. It got to the point where we couldn't go outside without being harassed or attacked in some way, so we bought guns; we got our own place, a place Lenore eventually found and tried to break into several times. We installed a security system and even left notes for our landlord to

not let her in the building under any circumstances. But she always got in, somehow: she was like a spider, living in the cracks on the ceiling and sneaking under the windowpanes like a draft. So we decided to escape, and we did. As soon as we had the money, we left, and so here we are. We were safe for a good two years, and soon the whole instance seemed more like a movie we had seen than something that had actually happened to us. We were no longer afraid and our defenses were down, which was exactly what Lenore was waiting for. I wasn't sick with fever a few days ago. Her men found me. She still doesn't know where we live, but she's getting close if she knows what town we're staying in and where we hang out. I can't give you any more answers than that, because I don't have any more. We are just as lost and confused about this story as you are. And now you see why we didn't want to tell you, why we didn't want you to get too involved. Because eventually, I know- WE know- that Lenore will come after you, and she will come after you hard and she will come at you unexpectedly, and we may never see you again.