Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

theater seats, passed out.
Voices rise between Lambert and Romeo, and they’re starting to talk with
their hands, their body language aggravated.
“Let me be taken,” someone calls out.
I find Liv as everyone turns toward her voice, and I see her stare at Juliet.
She runs and jumps up on the bed, Juliet falling back onto her hands, a
shocked smile on her face.
“Let me be put to death!” Liv shouts, standing over her. “I am content, so
thou wilt have it so.”
My heart creeps up my throat, and slowly, I move down the aisle, taking
her in.
Liv crouches down, one black boot over Juliet’s body, her black coat
spilling around them as she holds her beloved’s face. For once, Lizbeth
Mercier, who plays Juliet, looks actually speechless as she’s carried away in
Liv’s gaze.
“I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,” Liv tells her, caressing the
girl’s cheeks, her words so gentle and her eyes searching her love’s. “‘Tis but
the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off Juliet, so close, and I feel like she’s holding
me. Everyone watches. “Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat, the
vaulty heaven so high above our heads.”
Liv whispers into her temple, her microphone brushing the girl’s skin, “I
have more care to stay than will to go.”
And my heart shudders, feeling the words, because I know what her
breath feels like.
And her mouth dips close, taunting the corner of Lizbeth’s. I don’t think
the girl breathes.
In one fell swoop, Romeo comes down on top of the girl, sending them
both to the bed, and Lizbeth yelps, letting out an excited laugh, while Romeo
smiles devilishly. “Come, death, and welcome!” Liv taunts playfully. “Juliet
wills it so. How is’t, my soul?” She presses their foreheads together. “Let’s
talk; it is not day.”
And the girl smiles, captivated and wanting to be nowhere but with her
Romeo.
Olivia’s perfect. Why have they not given her the lead in anything all
these years?
Everyone stands quiet, and after a moment, the curtain over Liv’s mind