Out of the steps, my legs are growing. They help me carry her down the staircase. Supple limbs and limp body in my hands. Light as air. Uncontainable. My arms are weak. They ache. Bad reaction. Good feeling.

Her hair falls towards the ground and strokes my knee back and forth like a gentle hand. The steps beneath me turn into clouds. I am floating.

Those eyes that brim with glossy lashes are shut. I wonder if she is dreaming. I wonder if the dream is of someone else and not of me. I wonder if her subconscious is conscious of my arms around her legs, my chin inches away from her nose, my breath on her face. I imagine that she can feel me like a whisper in one's ear when the whole room is drumming.

I am so close, so close to her skin. I can see the infinite little hairs on her cheek. She has freckles. I have never noticed them before. They are so light, I can barely see them. Remnants, where the sun once kissed her face. I want to rub them away with my nose. If I had one.

She is too beautiful. It worries me. It blinds me and it pushes me from her. She is too innocent, too young. I want her to stay this way forever. Fearless. Without judgement. Peaceful. Sweet.

No, that is a lie. I am skilled at lying. If I lie sincerely enough, I can get someone to fall in love with me. I am almost there. Lie enough, the truth won't hurt anymore.

I am lying to myself right now. Or am I imagining? She is laughing. She is running into my arms and crying "I need you." Her red lips cover mine, and I fall. That didn't cost me a thing.

Will you think me atrocious, Christine? Will you be disgusted at the sight of me? The thought of me? The sense of me? Will you find me gruesome or cruel and dirty? Do I bring you chaos instead of peace?

Her head falls against my chest, but I try not to take that as a sign of concurrence. Although my heart threatens to rip through my shirt, I know she does not hear it.

Then let me say this to you now, Christine: I love you. I love you so much that I will give up my life to make you happy. I will fly to the moon if you asked for a chunk of its flesh. I know how to fly. I can learn. I will love you if you are cold and grey and sick with the plague. I will suck the sickness out of you until I can swallow no more and I am foaming at the mouth with poison. I will love you if you are fat and old and swollen from gout, writhing and moaning and crying from pain. I will love you if you no longer resemble Christine Daaé except you respond to the name. Because it doesn't matter what you look like, sound like, smell like, taste like. I will love you, always.

She stirs. I weave about the catacombs. The lighting is its usual green. Green, the color of envy, of discord, of sickness, of money. And sometimes: new beginnings. We reach the lake and I lay her reluctantly into the boat, away from my arms. How peaceful it seems, the lake, the lantern, the girl, and me. Even the sirens are asleep.

The sound of the water ripples with my heart. Strong, steady, clear. I have the sudden urge to say out loud that I love her. The heart that beats within me is now the one of a young boy's. Ecstatic and irreverent. I look down at her, admiring.

I mouth it. Silently. I enjoy the way the "L" flicks against the front of my teeth and the "V" causes me to bite my lip. What lovely words. New to my lips. New in my heart. I say the phrase again and again. I do it behind the safety of the mask. It protects her.

We reach the shore. I am eager to hold her in my arms again. I lift her off the boat and into her bedroom. It is modest, at best. I know she'd prefer it this way. Simple. Clean. The sheets are still the finest silk; the blankets are stuffed with the warmest down. I wouldn't have her feel uncomfortable or freeze. Modest or not.

I loosen my right arm from her to throw the top pillow to the side, and the lack of support on her back causes her to stir again. The pillow lands silently on the carpet. I carefully lean her backwards and brush the hair from her eyes. Then suddenly, at that moment, I realize her eyes are open. They do not seem to recognize me. She blinks. My arm is frozen behind her head. I cannot speak.

I am looking into the sun.

There are two of them. One is higher, rounder. The other is faling out of orbit. But it is going nowhere. They slice me open and reached inside me like golden tongs and pull out my soul. It looks like a glowing orb and I am blinded momentarily. I can see now that the suns are not suns at all. They are human eyes. They pull me open just the same.

A man is holding me very close. I know him. His breast and my breast are a breast apart, and his left arm stiffens behind my neck. I am aware I am in a dangerous situation and that I should be alarmed. But I do not feel alarmed by the danger. In fact, I feel ripe, not in a sexual way, but the way one feels when she is at the height of her awareness. I feel like I've just seen a mystical creature, and it winked at me. It told me a secret.

He is covered in black; from the cotton dress shirt to the velvet jacket to the cashmere cape to the silk mask to the raven hair. I want to feel the different textures. I want to eat them.

I don't know why I can't feel my body. Only my brain and my heart, thumping from the insides. I am a marionette, dangling by her head, arms and legs limp at her sides. I plead to my master to be be released from the one string that suspends me, but I don't want to be dropped. I am Pinocchio. One step from life.

As if he understood, he lowers me towards the pillow, and I keep my eyes on his as he does mine. A fear paralyzes me as his bony fingers trail from the back of my neck to my clavicle. He did not mean to share his secret, and he can easily choke me with one hand. I feel the ice from his fingertips, like a tiny blade, press dully into my skin, milking its entry point. But there is a deeper fear, that his hand would turn into spider legs and encase me entirely. The more I struggle, the tighter they squeezed, kneading into my body until I moaned with pain. Then another part of me, the most hidden part, yearned for it.

© 2012 Stitchgrl