Treachery
Christine stood in the wings, waiting for her cue to come onstage as Aminta in Don Juan Triumphant. Conflicted thoughts flitted through her head and she swallowed hard, trying to force them down as she had been doing for days. It had always been her dream to perform onstage and she thought she had realized that dream as a chorus girl dancing under the watchful guidance of Madame Giry. That was before…he…had seen differently and taken it upon himself to shape her developing voice from a pretty sound into a force that made all the aristocracy in Paris throw themselves at her feet. She knew the stage, every inch of it, and her body burned fiercely with the desire to throw her heart out before the bright lights, before the world.
And yet, her wish was tainted with haunting thoughts of the man who had placed her there. When Erik had revealed himself to be only a man and not an angel, Christine had been disappointed, but still nourished the hope that he had nothing but good in him despite his horrendous facial deformity. But soon after their initial meeting, he had shown himself to be no angel, but a soulless killer who played with life like a toy and stole it away without mercy. After the swordfight that had left Raoul with a bright red slash on his arm, she felt her dreams disappeared for good into the darkness and had been forced against her will to wake up to the demented reality of the man she once thought she knew as her teacher. He had made his brilliance known to her even when she was a child and she knew he would apply every ounce of his prodigious mind to the tantalizing problem that Raoul had placed in front of him. This was the opera, the song, the game of his life, and although he himself was only a player like Raoul and Christine, his desire to reign as an omnipotent god would mean his twisting something in the works so that nobody would survive unscathed. Ideas of good, bad, and worse meant nothing to him—he would play dirty and he would want to win at all costs, even if it meant somebody's life.
Piangi had disappeared behind the curtain. This was her cue, and it was now the time to appear onstage. Just like in rehearsal, Christine thought to herself. Just do what you did when rehearsing and you will be all right. Her mind chanted a desperate, wordless prayer as she forced herself to move her feet. Walking onstage with her basket of roses, she started to sing.
"No thoughts within her heart but thoughts of joy…no dreams within her heart but dreams of love…"
Her dreamy high G floated away into the farthest corners of the theatre, echoing off the gilded gold and scarlet seats as she sank down into a kneel near the front edge of the stage.
She had a moment's rest before anything would be expected of her again. She was following the script to the letter, removing the thorns from the scarlet roses she was holding. Knowing that Erik's mind and hand were behind every single detail of the opera, she wondered for the third or fourth time what he had meant in mandating the use of roses. She could only assume that it was a form of torture: a harsh reminder to Christine of the infinite tenderness of the past, as well as the seduction and danger of the present and a sadistic reminder to Erik himself of all he could have had with her.
From her position on the stage she could not distinctly hear the exchange between the emerged Don Juan and Passarino, but she had no trouble hearing what came next.
"Go away, for the trap is set and waits for its prey…"
Christine heard the voice of Don Juan, but something seemed different. A different cadence, a different tone…and she felt the beginnings of a terrible realization work its way down her spine.
"You have come here in pursuit of your deepest urge, in pursuit of that wish which 'til now has been silent…"
The moment had come for Aminta to make eye contact with her seducer. With a nameless, dreadful promise ringing through the voice that was not Piangi's, in that moment no force on earth had any chance of stopping Christine as she looked over her shoulder, a little too quickly, to lock eyes with Don Juan.
"Silent…"
Instead of Piangi's hazel-tinged eyes, crystalline green irises pierced into her own, through the black mask cutting like a dark swath across his face, eyes at once alien and familiar, gentle and unrelenting, imploring and stonelike as he lifted a finger to his lips in exactly the same manner as Piangi had in rehearsal after rehearsal.
Shock and horror reverberating through her very core, she turned back around and closed her eyes in sheer terror and disbelief. That part, she vaguely realized through the cacophony of thoughts in her mind, was not in the script. But such was the magnitude of the terror she felt that it was the only thing she was capable of doing.
Erik's voice wrapped itself around her like a steel vise wrapped in silk, both hard and passionate, twisting itself around her being and penetrating deeply into her pores. But suddenly, reality brutally crashed through, shattering everything else in her mind and even managing to almost shut out his hypnotic voice, spiked with a taunt and a terrifying warning.
She had steeled herself for a performance of an opera with contorted melodies and unashamed debauchery, she had braced herself for the vivification of Erik's darkest fantasies and his awakening hunger through the character of Don Juan, but what she had never expected was that Erik was only using Piangi as a pawn, and that he had always planned all along to take up the cape of the infamous womanizer that constantly nourished his lust and hungered for the consummation of flesh. Christine had felt uncomfortable enough rehearsing the seduction scene with Piangi, but she had never thought that Don Juan could be played by another male, that Erik would once again be manipulating with lives and expectations, reminding Christine that she was always being watched by him, had never been truly safe once she willingly snuggled under his offered wing.
When she had first unmasked him in the cellars…when she had numbly fled to the roof of the opera house after the murder of Buquet…when he had leapt from the roof of her father's mausoleum with a sword in his hand and murder in his voice… none of it could compare with this moment, trapped between the audience, the gas lamps that were now too bright, the ripple of surprise and shock travelling through the actors in the wings, and most of all, the man who was Danger and Death embodied, dark and merciless.
She had never felt more trapped than now under the scorching gaze of Erik's eyes. She had never expected that he would seduce her right onstage.