ERIK
My demented grief could not be contained in my shattered heart as I insisted she leave with the boy…
My psychotic mania had evaporated with every tender caress of her warm tongue – tentative and reticent at first – which became breathtakingly passionate and infinitely loving as my hands slowly and warily moved to rest on her hips. Her lips – so perfectly plump and sweet! – moved in harmony with the grotesque malformation I call a mouth. For a moment, she pulled away from me and looked into my sunken eyes with an expression I could not name. Her lips were only an inch or two away from mine as fresh tears tumbled down her flushed cheeks. She did not look away from me for those few short moments, and just before she claimed my mouth once again, hers curled into a bittersweet smile. With her soft lips, wandering tongue, and passionate embrace, she seemed to take the shattered pieces of my weary heart and carefully put them back into place.
All thoughts of murder, evil, and malice evaporated as the extraordinary beauty of the moment filled my mind, my heart, and my body. There was no Master but the intense emotion that cannot be contained by a word as simple as "love". She was my teacher, and I accepted her tutelage with both eagerness and apprehension. The kiss could not have lasted more than a minute, but when her mouth left mine, she pressed her face against my decayed cheek, leaving soft kisses along my jaw, and down my neck, until her head rested on my shoulder, and the arm that was caressing the back of my neck joined the other that had wrapped round my waist in a tight embrace. My hands, which I had not dared to move from her hips for fear of disturbing the ethereal bond of the moment, now moved slowly up: one resting on her back, the other, stroking her hair. And there we stood, two people drowning in unspoken emotion, clinging to one another. Our fear was not that we would drown without the other, but rather that by letting go, the tides of fate would pull us apart.
What a fool I had been! What an arrogant, ignorant idiot! I once thought I knew what love was; after I had found Christine, when her voice, beauty and loyal friendship were all I knew of her, I had believed myself in love. I truly believed that my feelings were pure, but they brought nothing but endless pain – pain that I had all too often passed on to the woman I claimed to love. My selfish jealousy had brought me to the point where I was willing to break her heart purely to preserve my own! Now, holding her in my arms, with my face buried in the sweet smell of jasmine lingering in her beautiful hair, I felt such deep shame, and with it, the memory of the boy who was slowly dying in my torture chamber. If he should die, it would undoubtedly damage the woman who had given me everything I have ever wanted in this world.
Although my body screamed in protest, I moved my hands to Christine's slender shoulders and gently pushed her away. For a moment we stared at one another, both in awe, and both heartbroken that this revelation had been discovered so late. I flipped the switch on the wall which slid open the door leading from the torture chamber into the room where Christine and I stood, both shedding silent tears as we communicated with our eyes what we were incapable of enunciating aloud.
It was only when they were gone – when I was certain she was safe – that I allowed my grief to be unleashed. Nadir had followed me into the sitting room, and I told him what had happened. I told him of Christine's fearlessness, her passion, and I told him that she had given me what no other human being on earth had ever had the will or courage to give me. First I wept; choking on my tears as I felt every crack in my heart Christine had attempted to mend burst open to flood my body with a despair I had never thought possible. Dear God, I loved her so! I did not know what love was until that night – not only because of the kiss, but because she saw me. She saw a man, and treated me like one. She made me feel human… she made me feel loved.
Once the violent, choking sobs subsided, I was filled with such demented grief at the realisation that I would never, without the shadow of a doubt, see her again. I vaguely remembered making the boy promise to bring her back – to let me see her one last time before the wedding. Of course, I knew perfectly well he would do no such thing. Would I have allowed her to return to a homicidal maniac if I were in his place? Of course not. All I had left of her now was the memory of her face, her voice, and the vague taste of her on my lips. Suddenly, the sight of my underground prison was too much for me to bear. How could I let her stay here with me? How could I lock her away in this necropolis when the very sun radiated from her eyes? My selfishness would have killed her – perhaps not physically, but the burning fire within her would slowly have subsided, until only embers remained.
Dear God, the pain! I could not contain it. Everything that fell within my sight was torn to shreds. Every stick of furniture - from the sofa, to my once-treasured pipe organ. Finally, despite Nadir's protestations, Don Juan Triumphant followed suit, as I ripped the pages one by one and burned the scraps in the fireplace. It was all a lie: Don Juan Triumphant was a testament to hatred, hurt and what I had thought love was, but what had I known? Selfish, lustful possessiveness? I knew now that love was not found in those staves – only the heartache that I perceived as such.
What did any of it matter? I knew I would die without her. I knew my heart would not survive this ordeal. I did not want any part of me left on this earth. I did not want my wickedness remembered. Once my house had been demolished, I approached Christine's room, and I knew I would not be able to destroy what lay beyond the door. Instead, I walked in, closed the door behind me, and lay down on her bed. Still her sweet fragrance graced the bed linen. Within minutes the pillows were drenched, and the sweet smell of her was lost under the stinking morass of my tears.
CHRISTINE
Why did he send me away? How could he leave me, when I needed him as much as a human being needs air? Without his voice – as powerful a drug as the morphine Erik used to numb the pain of a lifetime – I was nothing. Without him, I was nothing.
He had been cold, detached, aloof the night that he forced my down to the fifth cellar. I struggled but I knew I could never overpower him. I donned the wedding dress as he had commanded, frightened for the first time by the savage rage pulsing through his every word. It was only when he dropped the engagement ring into my hands that I understood – and I knew Raoul would die that night. Raoul… the friend of my childhood… the memory of my father. Even from the moment he proposed, I knew I did not love him in the way a wife should love her husband. Why then did I agree to run with him? Why did I agree to abandon Erik? I did not want to say no to Erik's proposal, but I was too frightened to say yes. My fear had virtually nothing to do with his face – it was his damaged soul that frightened me. He killed without compunction, his wealth had been the product of shameless blackmail and extortion, and the only means of controlling his violently changing moods was by incapacitating himself with a needle.
And yet… there was an emotion hidden deep within me which I could not identify – an emotion that was far more complex than anything I could ever feel for Raoul.
On that fateful night, despite his raving, I listened to every word he said. I learned more of Erik's past in those few minutes than I had in the six months we had known each other. For the first time, his often-bizarre behaviour and dangerous temper made perfect sense, and though I pitied him, the urge to pull him close and comfort him was almost overwhelming. I had never challenged him directly – certainly not when he was angry! – but seeing Raoul, my childhood friend, locked inside of that torture chamber unlocked some primitive instinct within me. For every curse he reigned down on me I returned in kind. I begged him to punish me instead of Raoul – that I was to blame. I even told him that if he should go through with his insane plan to erase his competition, that I would hate him. It was only after those words that he turned away and spread his hands over the mantelpiece. His mood seemed to have altered abruptly yet again, and I was unsure of how to continue. I asked him earnestly what he wanted. He did not answer me.
Suddenly, I saw everything so clearly.
He had spoken of his mother – of her hatred – and of the pain he had suffered at the hands of others his entire life. He had never been loved. He had never felt wanted. He had no one. And I was about to flee with Raoul – run away from this man who wanted only to feel what every human being desires most: love.
His hands were wandering over the mantelpiece when I walked towards him and placed my hand lightly on his shoulder. He swung around, alarmed, and looked at me with confusion and mild surprise, as though he could not quite believe I was standing there. For a moment we stared at each other. Tears were streaming down my face as I lifted my hand to untie the mask, and let it fall to the floor. The moment his face was exposed, I saw that he, too, was crying. He turned his face away, but I put my hand on his withered cheek, forcing him to look at me, and the moment our flesh touched – the moment I dared to touch his greatest shame – his eyes closed and tears flowed steadily after his sharp intake of breath. He opened his eyes when I said his name, and as he looked at me - his eyes filled with misery - I moved my hand from his face to the back of his neck and pulled him down while I lifted myself on my toes, and allowed my body to rest against his. When our lips met, I heard a stifled sob trapped in his throat. A sigh escaped my own throat as a feeling that can only be likened to being struck by lightning hit me and urged me to deepen the kiss. I had kissed a man before, but never had I felt that intense need to become one with another person. The feeling is so difficult to put into words, so I will use as many as it takes: loving, needing, sensual, erotic, painful. More than anything, I wanted to melt into that kiss and become one with Erik… there was only Erik in those few short moments.
I held him tight in my arms, listening to his racing heart and his erratic breathing, punctuated occasionally by broken sobs. He stroked my hair reverently, but said nothing, until finally, he moved his hands to my shoulders and slowly pushed our entwined bodies apart. He leaned over and pushed some mechanism on the wall, which caused one of the mirrored panels to slide open.
In those few seconds before Raoul emerged we looked a each other once again, but when Erik began examining Raoul and insisting we marry right away, I tried to protest. He placed a finger on my lips and hushed me, before using that same finger to stroke my cheek lovingly. He requested that Raoul allow me to return in order to deliver a wedding invitation, and Raoul hurriedly agreed, though everyone in the room was well-aware that this would never be allowed to happen. Erik turned to me once more. The expression in his eyes was so utterly crushing that I sobbed out loud. At that, Erik spun around, greeted the Persian he had attempted to kill only a few minutes earlier, and both disappeared through the sitting room door. Raoul took my hand and pulled me in the direction of the boat, while I looked back at the closed door with confusion and hurt.
For over a week, Raoul frantically made the arrangements for our wedding, but my heart was elsewhere… No matter how many bouquets my future husband brought me. I was not at peace. My mind thought only of the disastrous mistake I was about to make, and my heart longed for a man who was not my fiancé. It was only when I insisted I deliver the invitation to Erik that Raoul lost his temper. He had brought me a bouquet – as he had every day since we left the house on the lake – and upon seeing me dressed, holding an envelope addressed to Erik, he threw the flowers at the wall, grabbed the invitation, and ripped it to shreds. After warning me that there would be no wedding if I did not come out of my stupor, he left me alone in my apartment.
It was then that I made a decision that would change the course of all of our lives...