IT WAS WORTH EVERYTHING
I didn't know why they hated us.
We did nothing but be who we were meant to be.
Nobody knew when the law had been passed, it had always been there. To love someone of your sex was to be put to death. You were expected to marry, make children, and love a woman. Who cares that you would rather be in bed with your best friend, waking up next to Johnny instead of Joanne?
I met him in the square. Our eyes met somehow across the bustling sea of harried business men, each trying to run faster then the one next to him. Everyone had somewhere to be, even if they didn't know where. I realized I was staring and looked away. When I looked back he was gone.
I met him again in a café I frequented. He sat at a table near the window. I sat at the one to his left and watch him watching me. I liked what I saw and so, it seemed, did he. He migrated over to my table and said his name was Robert. It felt like he had told me so much more. We spoke long and passionately about nothing and everything. He said he had to go, offered to see me soon and I knew we were both hooked.
We went out for dinner often. We tried to tell ourselves it was nothing, we were friends but we both knew it was more then that. Our first kiss was on the 22nd of November, the crisp smell of the new fallen leaves assaulting our nostrils, the moths circling low over our heads.
It was a kiss like none I had ever had with a woman, full of passion and love and the promise of more. We made it into the house but we never got to the bedroom. The act of love was performed on the soft living room carpet the way it was meant to be, all primal, carnal urges and hard, demanding touches accompanied by a sharply-contrasting gentleness of mouth.
We couldn't deny our love, who we were, who we were together. They would come for us soon. We didn't care.
We lay tangled naked in the bed clothes when we hear them smash through his lock. He takes my face in his hand and kisses me. I am frightened but do not pull away. They are pounding up the stairs now, they will find us soon. He says he loves me. I smile.
They burst into the bedroom, pointing guns and shouting. They tell us to separate and we can walk away. We kiss again. They repeat. He holds me closer. They run over and forcibly separate us, my nails drawing lines of blood in his shoulders. They hold me down as they shoot him in the head. I am splattered with the blood of the man I love and scream. They throw me down and beat me. I lay on the back of my lover and as I feel my life slip away I can't understand why they hate us so much.
But it was worth everything.