The throbbing beat pumped through the multitude of bodies, no longer a separate, abstract entity but a part of the living, breathing organisms it stimulated. And they were no longer individual human beings with comprehending minds and emotional hearts; they were cogs in a massive machine, grinding stomping jumping gyrating to rhythms that became them, rhythms that unearthed a part of them, perhaps a part they never knew lay buried beneath the business-like, collected persona they usually presented themselves as. The beat throbbed deep inside them, connected with some primordial urge they'd been socialized to ignore, made every nerve in their being pound with the desire to become that rhythm, to be one with it, to be one with everything in the universe surrounding it. Thoughts no longer clouded their minds; words no longer sat waiting upon their lips; feelings no longer cluttered their hearts. Everything was the beat. Everything was physical motion, carrying that rhythm, never dropping it—for if it was dropped, they might implode.

Thumping, thumping, thumping, thumping. Pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing. Nothing but the movement. The movements of numerous unnamed bodies outlined in staccato lighting. The vibration of the bass in eardrums formed only to take in such deep rhythm.

Oscar was a part of it all, though not quite a part. He no longer knew he, as an individual, really existed. He had become a member of that rhythmic body, a part of that sea of dancing people. He was lost in a beat that mapped out the very contours of his pumping heart. Moved the blood rhythmically through his veins. This was where he belonged, or didn't belong for that matter. Because "he" in the sense that defined him as himself—Oscar—the person associated with some of "the finest new inspirations in the metal arts and mixed media world"—disappeared here. "He" became nothing. No one. He lost his features in the darkness. He lost his senses in the madness. Everything was lost, here, or found. And the world became manageable, malleable, like the hot molten materials he used. This was what the drugs did to him—and he adored it.

Where he woke up didn't matter. There was no such thing as waking up, in this state of mind. There was no dawn. No tomorrow. No nothing. Or all nothing. Nothing but nothing, which meant everything and held absolutely no meaning at the same time. Oscar didn't remember that tomorrow would come; the world was his. It pulsed around him, and he was a necessary yet untraceable beat in its rhythm. Colored lights flecked off the numerous facets of the surrounding, blurred world. Flares that burst as crystals through the shadow and thawed, liquefied, so quick that hundreds of them sparked through the seconds. His eyes took them in, peeled them from the surfaces they seemed to lace, and inhaled. His lungs were full of rushing heat. His heart pumped fire through his limbs. He was no human. He was a light. He was a flare marking out a path to transcendence. And his existence became water. Became warm and runny. Began to dissolve around him. The colors dripped down the walls. The pumping dulled his senses. His brain's pulse was the only thing he could hear, now . . .

He still believed himself a part of the universal throbbing of life when he awoke, but the daylight quickly dispelled the illusion of oneness that had seeped from the very real night into his dreams and then scattered into the morning light. His heart sank immediately—partly because of his dismay, and partly because of withdrawal. He would get over it, he knew, but it would feel awful for a while.

Oscar recognized where he was. The bed was made up with yellow sheets and a thick, furry comforter. The pillows needed some more stuffing, but otherwise, the bed was entirely comfortable, and part of the reason for that was the fact that Eve was in it.

In spite of himself, Oscar stared at her bare shoulders and the way one of her thin pink arms draped over the side of the bed like a delicate vine. She was facing him, though she was still asleep, and he studied her long, dark eyelashes, her short brown hair, and the serene smile she had on her fragile little face. She was strangely attractive. Thin and tiny-featured. Not what anyone would call gorgeous—certainly not someone most guys would consider hot. No big breasts or model height—no full lips or curves. Eve somewhat resembled a child. There was some sprightly, ingenuous quality in her. And perhaps it was this which Oscar considered so captivating.

He'd met her at a library, over a year ago. She'd been putting a stack of books back on a shelf, and he'd thought she was a librarian (she'd looked like a librarian, with delicate tortoise-shell glasses and an outfit chosen more for warmth than for its visual appeal). He'd asked her for assistance in locating something, and she'd coolly replied, "Well, I don't work here, but I'll try. What's the call number?" And he, being immediately struck by something in her—had given off a set of seven numbers, to which she'd scrunched up her face and replied, "I don't think there is a number like that."

"It's my number," Oscar had boldly told her. "And I'd like yours in return—if you don't mind."

She'd smiled, said he was oddly charming, and that had been that.

Months later, Eve was still finding him oddly charming, he supposed, or he wouldn't be here, in her bed.

The late morning sunlight was pale, made her skin like milk. He stared at the patterns of milk-light that shivered across her back, broken here, there with the jagged lines of shadow cast by outside trees. This was what he wanted to create, he suddenly, calmly felt. This feeling—this impression of milk-skin and warm, smooth sun and contrasting lucid shadow. The semi-sweet sensation moving across him. Not her—not him—but the impression of it all. This was what he wanted to produce in tangible form.

She shifted. The sheets moved with snake-like sounds. And the moment was lost.

Oscar had to urinate. He left the warmth of the bed and, trying to keep the floorboards silent, made his way to the bathroom to relieve himself. His head swam, still recovering from the previous night—the bits he could recall and the bits he couldn't. He knew he'd been out, but he wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten here. Perhaps he'd gotten a cab or some person to drop him off—he hoped to God he hadn't called Eve to come get him; although, he doubted he had, now. She was obviously not mad at him . . . or he wouldn't have awoken next to her in her bed.

He studied his face in the mirror above the sink. The reflective glass had a little ring of white seashells glued around its rim. Eve loved to make everything prettier or more bearable than it at first appeared. She decorated everything, but somehow, the décor all came together. It all made sense. Oscar wished his own features came together as well as Eve's projects. His dark blond, curled hair gave him a Little Lord Fauntleroy appearance at the age of twenty-two. He was tanned and brown-eyed, and his physique was slender and sinewy yet strong. Despite the numerous compliments he'd received on his appearance over the years, he'd never been able to feel that it came together properly. Perhaps it was because he saw through the puppy-dog look in his eyes to the blood-shot state they were often in. He felt the sweat drip off his hair when he did his work while others were only aware of the way his jaunty curls fell boyishly across his forehead as he looked up to answer a question in class. They knew only the polished version of Oscar. His real self was for him. The way he looked when he was experiencing withdrawal, and the way he felt when he strove to put together his masterpieces. They knew nothing of these sides.

A noise came from the kitchen, startling him at first, then sinking in as he recognized the clank of the tea kettle tapping up against the faucet—Eve was making tea. He hadn't heard her rise.

Water was running from the tap. Oscar left the bathroom and peeked around the kitchen entrance, saw her in shirt and underwear, now putting the kettle on a reddening coil.

"Morning," he said, hoping a bit to startle her.

If she even flinched, he couldn't tell. "Morning," was all she replied without turning.

He looked at her arms; the milky-ness had vanished. She was shadowed in this kitchen. Very little sunlight entered this space. Oscar slowly realized the disinterest that had been in her greeting.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

She then turned to him. Smiled wanly. "No. Nothing."

She turned back. He studied her for a moment, unsure if there'd been some hidden message he'd been expected to pick up on in her response. He moved across the tiles, slipped his arms around her waist; she let him do it. There was no subtle anger in there, or in what she'd said. He chose to believe that she was being honest. He wanted to believe it. He closed his eyes and tried to recapture what he'd felt in the bedroom that morning.

"Tea?"

"What kind?"

"I'm going to have chai—an apple-flavored one. It's called chai-der. Cute, isn't it? I had to buy it when I saw its name."

Oscar nuzzled into her neck. "Sounds good. Yeah, I'll have some. What time is it?"

Eve looked to the right. "Almost noon. She gently removed his arms and moved to a cabinet, took down two mugs, placed chai-der tea bags inside them.

It was all perfect. Lovely. Oscar went to fish for his clothes, which were scattered at random throughout the apartment. This, to him, added a bit of rust to the picture in his mind. Clothes, wrinkled and strewn across a floor, did not possess the aesthetic quality of milk skin or the silent shadow of tree branches. Instead, they reminded him of a tarnished reality. Such imperfections as crumpled clothing, hasty, unremembered romance, money spent in all the wrong places—they brought him from the luminescence of the world he felt more than saw inside his mind. They grated against an ideal he hardly knew he had but felt somewhere. Creating friction. He hated such reminders that a less beautiful world was the true reality and that his own life was full of ugly vignettes he was constantly attempting to bury.

Picking up a shirt, his socks, and an undershirt, Oscar sloppily dressed himself, feeling as if he were five years old again and in need of help.

"You looked better with your clothes off," Eve remarked when she came into the room, a cup of steaming dark amber liquid in her outstretched hand. There was a hint of mischief in her smile. Oscar felt more at ease.

Before taking the cup, he flopped back onto the unmade bed. Eve sat gingerly next to him and handed him his drink while she continuously sipped her own, cautioning him about tongue-burn in the process.

"What time did I drop by?" he asked, looking up at her over the rim of his cup.

She didn't return his attention. She stared straight ahead, out of the window. Seconds passed; Oscar wasn't sure whether to feel anxious or irritated. He knew she'd heard him. Whenever she mulled over a question, it meant she was about to say something she didn't really want to say and that he, in turn, didn't necessarily want to hear.

Eventually, at last, she ended the awkwardness. "You didn't drop by. Don't you remember?"

He replied that he didn't, already beginning to turn red, shame crossing his features. "No," he had to admit.

"I had to come get you. You were downtown. Some lofts."

Oscar groaned inside. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted to become—a burden to Eve, causing her to wake up in the middle of the night to come get him in some dangerous part of town. "I'm sorry," was all he knew to say.

She didn't make any reply, just kept her gaze out the window and her mouth in a calm line. That bothered him more than if she'd yelled and shown anger; her disappointment was obvious.

"I'm sorry," he said. It was all he knew how to say. "I am. Eve, I never would've called if—"

"If you hadn't been out of it," she finished for him. "I know, Oscar. I know." Then she rose from the bed. The absence of her weight next to him almost brought him to tears. It was more debilitating because he knew he'd done it to himself.

"I have to go into the lab today," she called as she stepped out of the room. He assumed she had gone into the bathroom when he heard a door shut and the shower turn on. It was done, he knew—the conversation. And though she'd said very little, he could feel her hurt as if it was a little pin stuck in his chest. Nothing he could say right now would be right. He needed to just go.

Eve had always been frustrated with the way he spent his nights. She'd never come out against any of his decisions, but in her case, it was the words that never left her lips he had to worry about. Eve's silence was the most painful rage she could ever unleash on him. Sometimes, he was angry at her. Why should she judge him? If she didn't like what he did, why did she continue to put up with it and act as if she suffered for it? But other times, he was angry with himself. Today was one of the latter. There were a million reasons he should stay and talk to her . . . but he decided to just go.