My deepest gratitude to all those who have sent me so much wonderful encouragement, both signed and unsigned! I try to respond to reviews, unless they´re unsigned or anonymous. I kind of worry about bothering people!
Anyhow, I hope you like this chapter. I´m hoping to keep up a once-a-week update schedule, by the way.
Thank you for reading!
I do not own POTO, or its characters.
8 am, Friday morning. Worklife and Family Counseling Services, TriCounty Hospital.
"So, Christine, I believe our session ended rather abruptly the other day," said Joyce, seating herself in a chair so near Christine that their knees were nearly touching. "I believe you told me that you´re expecting?"
Christine nodded and even blushed.
"That complicates things for you, doesn´t it?" Joyce continued.
"Yes, it does," Christine admitted. "I know what you´re thinking – I could have aborted, but I never wanted to. I want this baby, Joyce, even if I´ll be raising it alone."
"Very well. We´ll work together to come up with some type of a plan for you to deal with this, then. But I think we need to work through your past some more now, okay? You were telling me about your marriage…"
"Yes, well, I really didn´t tell you anything much about my marriage. There wasn´t much of a marriage really – there were´t two people. There was only Erik, you know.
"He was working on research involving genetics and skin grafts – biotechnical stuff. He had made some sort of a breakthrough. I didn´t hear about that from Erik, though. I heard about it from Jack."
"From Jack?"
"Jack Jacobs. He was a grad student on Erik´s research team, and he started to date my best friend, Meg, shortly after I was married. The three of us were close."
"Was your husband jealous?"
"I suppose you could call it jealousy. Jack was a really good boyfriend to Meg, and he was a real friend to me. He would talk to me, even ask questions about me. He cared about how I felt…"
"And your husband didn´t?"
"He never told me about himself, or his work, and he always avoided answering my questions. He never shared himself, but I could feel him absorbing me! I know it sounds stupid this way, but I really don´t know any other way to describe it!" Christine stopped, fighting the tears that threatened.
Joyce patted her elbow in an attempt to comfort her. It worked: Christine forced herself to focus on her therapist´s exquisitely-manicured pink fingernails, and she took a deep breath.
"Things went smoothly at first. I was a wife to Erik within what he understood to be a marriage. We slept together, but we had our separate lives. They only overlapped when it came to music. He continued to teach me and prepare me for recitals. He fully expected me to join the City Opera once I got my degree."
"What´s your degree in? You said you were only minoring in music."
"Spanish Lit."
"Oh. Excuse me for interrupting, but what did you want at that point, Christine? What were your ambitions?"
"I just wanted a job, Joyce. I know it sounds stupid, but I´ve never been ambitious. I never really saw myself wearing a power suit." Christine´s mind flew to Angela.
"You wanted to be an opera singer?"
"It was a childhood dream that I had abandoned ages ago. I mean, who really gets to that point? How many of us can dream of being Maria Callas? Erik picked up that dream, though, and he brought it to life. I haven´t told you about his voice. You wouldn´t believe…"
"I wouldn´t believe what, Christine?"
"Erik uses his voice in different ways. He can comfort with it, or he can frighten with it -- he can control people with it. It has a beauty, a hypnotic quality to it…" Christine looked at the scepticism which was patent in Joyce´s expression. "…And you don´t believe me," she finished miserably.
"I believe that you perceived things this way," Joyce said hesitantly. "So, your husband was intimidating at first, but he salvaged an old dream of yours…"
"And then he destroyed it," said Christine bitterly.
Joyce nodded her encouragement. Christine sighed.
"Look, before I say anything else, there´s something that I should have mentioned. It´s really the most important thing of all. You see, he wears a mask."
"A mask?"
"A half-mask. It hides a facial deformity. I think it´s probably a very bad one."
"Probably? You´ve been married for three years, and you´ve never seen it?"
"Never."
"But in your more intimate moments, how…?"
Christine blushed and looked at her lap. "He´s always insisted on a completely darkened room for that. Complete darkness."
Involuntarily, a tactile memory assaulted Christine -- The quick contact of skin on skin, the brush of bumpy, irregular flesh against her flesh… She blushed more deeply.
"I see. So he´s very sensitive about this deformity…"
"He really is. I think that was really the reason for some of the research he was conducting. I´m sure he was hoping to free himself of the mask. Anyway, that´s what Jack told me he thought."
"You mentioned Jack. You and he were close?"
Christine shifted in her chair uncomfortably.
"Yes, but in a platonic way. He and Meg and I used to hang out together. He made it a point to talk with me and get to know me, you know? We were real friends…"
"While your husband never bothered to know you. I see."
"Well, it wasn´t like that, either. Erik knew me – he knew me too well. It was uncanny. And it kind of bothered me that he knew me without having to ever talk with me or ask me questions, you know? It made me feel kind of … simple."
"I see. And Jack made you feel intelligent. It´s odd that you mention your relationship with Jack, though, when he was Meg´s boyfriend. Was your friendship with Jack entirely appropriate? How did Meg feel about it?"
"It was never inappropriate! And Meg didn´t mind at all! She knew me…she knows me well. We´ve been friends since childhood. Anyhow, Joyce, I thought we were talking about my marriage. Jack wasn´t in my marriage…well, not until the very end." Christine had lowered her voice gradually, and her last few words were nearly inaudible. She paused, and Joyce leaned in, waiting.
"You have to understand that things were pretty weird. We lived out in the country, and so we were isolated to begin with. Erik wanted the location of our – well, his home, let´s face it – to remain a secret. It got to be kind of a joke between Meg, Jack and me: 'So, Christine, are you going home to the Fourth Quadrant?'
"Did I tell you the house was underground, like a bunker? Like a tomb, really – even the baseboards were black marble! He would always drive me wherever I was going and drop me off and pick me up. He was completely paranoid, but I never dared to cross him.
"At the beginning of our marriage, I had friends, I had a job at the bookstore, and I had my studies. Erik stripped everything away from me, little by little, Joyce. I could never have visitors. Fine! No visitors. The job had to go, he said. Fine! So, I left my job. Meg and Jack and I would get together, but he gradually interfered with that. Even my recitals bothered Erik. He had worked on my voice, I´ll give you that. I didn´t know my own voice, it had improved so much! But he didn´t like the attention I was beginning to get at the recitals. He became more and more controlling.
"I slipped out one night in secret because Jack and Meg wanted to get together. I don´t know what had happened to Meg, but only Jack met me, and he wanted to talk with me. He and Meg knew I was becoming isolated, and they were worried about me, he said. He handed me a book, and hidden in its pages was his phone number. He said I could call him if ever I needed someone to help me get away.
"When I returned to the house, Erik was waiting for me…" Christine closed her eyes, remembering.
"Go on," prompted Joyce.
"He was frightening. That´s all I can say. From that day forward he held me prisoner in the house. He even took the book Jack had given me!" She looked out the window, into the distance, and took in a breath of air that was like a sob.
"Did he harm you?" asked Joyce, observing her closely.
"Physically? No. He…he was furious at first, but after he had imprisoned me, he practically waited on me like a servant. He never, ever, raised a hand to me, Joyce. There was a strange kind of peace between us, even though I couldn´t go out…not even to pick up my birth control prescription." She grimaced.
"You were still intimate?"
"He seemed to need me more than ever that way. And I needed him, for some reason. Things were complicated."
"But you managed to escape."
"Much later. And I wouldn´t have left him, even then, if something horrible hadn´t happened."
"What happened?"
"He murdered Jack."
Tea and sympathy with a murderer, thought Jeanne Guiry bitterly as she prepared a cup of tea for Erik in her apartment. At least he was not difficult to please, as long as the tea was black. None of this green, white or red tea nonsense for him!
She poured some Scotch into her own tea as discreetly as possible, but Erik´s low chuckle notified her that he was well aware of what she was doing. The bastard always knows!
As frightened as Jeanne was of Erik in general, there were odd, ironic moments of peace and friendship between them. It was impossible for her to forget that once, years ago, he had helped her when she had needed it most. What defined her relationship with him? Terror…and affection.
She sat down with him now, offering him his cup, and as he accepted it, his long fingers holding the cup with practiced delicacy, she felt curiosity tug at her.
"So, that was the last of them," she said, referring obliquely to the man whose charred body the firefighters would now be uncovering.
"Yes. Do you regret it?" Erik asked, an edge to his voice. His yellow eyes glinted in the living-room´s soft light.
She shuddered, swallowed a substantial amount of whiskey-laced tea and succeeded in holding his gaze. She noted once again the change that three months without Christine had wrought in him. He was emaciated, and his eyes were hungry, feral.
"Not at all. You know I never liked this sort of thing. But I wonder…what will you do now?"
"I will retrieve her, now that it´s safe," he said simply. "I leave tonight."
It was true, then. He had not forgotten Christine, and he did not plan to let her go. There was a fire in his eyes that had not been there since her departure, and, unguarded as he was at this moment, Jeanne could easily observe that he was eager to leave.
Why Christine? Weren´t you miserable together? Jeanne bit her tongue and tried to be subtle. She failed.
"A divorce would be a lot easier, wouldn´t it, Erik? You´re behaving as if Christine´s the only woman on earth, and it´s not so! Look how things were between you at the end! She was so unhappy!"
"But I was not!" he snapped, glaring at her now. Jeanne jumped slightly, and his voice softened. "I was not, and things have changed now, now that the danger has passed."
Jeanne sighed. She knew the look in his eyes. So, it´s still an obsession. Three years, six months, and counting.
"You know, Meg still thinks that Christine ran away with Jack," Jeanne ventured.
"She will realize her error."
"And then what? Christine will tell her about Jack´s death?"
"That would be logical."
"But not even his family knows what´s become of him yet!"
"They will when I tell my people in the police force that they may break the news. His family!" he sneered. "Are you aware, Jeanne, that Mr. Jacobs left a widow?"
Jeanne blanched. "That son of a bitch!"
Erik chuckled. "Indeed. Tell me, Jeanne, how goes your relationship with your daughter these days? Are you on speaking terms?"
The reaction was immediate. Jeanne stiffened and glared at Erik through narrowed, ice-blue eyes. He continued.
"You would condemn me for making my wife unhappy. Yet you have a daughter who scarcely speaks with you, whose privacy you have never respected, is it not so? Or is reading her diary during one of your visits not prying?"
Jeanne hesitated. "I regret it – of course I regret it. But she tells me nothing of her life! Do you know how I found out she was dating Jack? From her neighbour! She feels closer to strangers than she does to me!"
The outrage she felt directed itself at Erik, assisted by the whiskey she had poured in liberal amounts into her tea.
"So I read her diary! So what? You know, I found out a great deal about Meg, but I also learned a thing or two about Christine!"
Erik tensed immediately, and the irony vanished completely from his demeanor. He focused on Jeanne, waiting, and she knew there was no turning back. Nonetheless, she paused.
"Out with it! Now!" he hissed, and she jumped.
"Meg…Meg reminisced about a boy named Raoul. Christine and he had been close many years ago, and she…she wondered if Christine might seek him out now. It´s probably nothing, Erik!"
Erik had risen as she spoke and towered over her. He now glided to the sideboard, seized a decanter, and returned to Jeanne´s side. He poured a generous amount of spirits into what little was left of her tea until her cup was nearly full.
"The name of this boy, now. His full name, if you please."
"Hey, Christine!" Raoul said, peeking into the cubicle where she worked and smiling affably. He looked boyish as ever, his squash racquet tucked under his arm, his blonde hair fashionably tousled.
He looks absolutely golden, Christine thought as she turned to smile at him.
"Hey, Raoul – how was your game this morning?"
"I lost," he said, and he smiled and shrugged slightly in mock-exasperation. Although he went to a club almost every day to play squash before work, losing a game never seemed to bother Raoul. His constant good humor was bullet-proof. He perched on the corner of Christine´s desk now and pretended to look at the brief she was correcting.
"How´s Joyce treating you?" he asked softly. "Is she any help?"
"The psychologist? Well, she asks a lot of questions," Christine said.
"Well, I guess that´s normal. How are you feeling…you know…physically?" he asked.
"I´m better now. I´m in my second trimester now, you know, so I´m not feeling tired all the time anymore."
"That´s great! Listen, Christine, I have a question…" Raoul began.
"Did you ask her?" a voice interrupted eagerly.
Raoul and Christine turned to look at Julie, who stood in the doorway of the cubicle. She was a paralegal who worked in a cubicle across from Christine´s. Her imminent wedding had the entire firm abuzz, since every last person who worked there had been invited to the nuptials.
"Did you?" Julie repeated, joining Raoul to stand near Christine´s desk.
"Now, Julie, you know I haven´t had time yet!" spluttered Raoul.
Christine looked up at Julie curiously, waiting for her to continue.
"Raoul didn´t ask you? Well, Christine, a little bird told me that you sing divinely, and you know my wedding is a week from now. So, I have an organist, right? And I have a singer, you know? Well, guess what?" She paused, waiting, until it became clear that she truly wanted Christine to venture a guess.
"Ummm…what?" asked Christine obligingly. She could hear Raoul´s discreet sigh.
"The singer cancelled! Can you believe it? One week before the wedding, and she does this to me…"
"How much were you paying her?" asked Raoul.
There was a silence.
"She was supposed to be a friend!" snapped Julie.
"Right," said Raoul. "Look, Christine, what Julie wanted me to ask you is whether you´ll sing at her wedding. Don´t do it if you don´t feel like it…"
"Raoul!" interrupted Julie, hitting him on the arm reproachfully. "I need someone to sing at my wedding!" She turned to Christine. "It wouldn´t be in front of people, really. You would be hidden behind a screen, so that the voice would seem to be coming sort of from above, see? And the song is Pie Jesu, so it would start really softly…"
"Wait a minute…Pie Jesu? You want that sung at your wedding? Isn´t that from a Requiem?" asked Christine. She could feel a headache coming on.
"Well, yeah!" said Julie, looking at her blankly. "Why?"
Someone coughed, and the three turned to see Angela standing at the entrance to the cubicle. She smiled and approached them.
"You need someone to sing at your wedding, Julie?" she asked, fingering the clasp on her gold bracelet.
"Well, yes, and I was just telling Christine –"
"Oh, don´t worry about bothering Christine! I´m sure she´s much too busy! I´ll do it!" said Angela in her most dulcet tones.
Julie looked alarmed. "That´s nice of you, Angela, but – "
"That´s quite all right! Think nothing of it! Besides, I can sing Pie Jesu – I´ve done it before, haven´t I, honey?" she asked, addressing Raoul.
"Yeah, she´s right. She´s done it before!" said Raoul, and Christine saw that he was trying not to laugh. She dropped a pencil and went gratefully under her desk to retrieve it.
Suddenly, Julie joined her beneath the desk, and Christine jumped, banging her head painfully. "Save me!" the paralegal whispered desperately, before something pulled her backwards and out from under the desk.
"I was just helping her look," Christine heard Julie´s voice murmur apologetically.
"Of course you were!" said Angela. "So, when are rehearsals?"
There was more murmured conversation which slowed and faded, and Christine emerged cautiously from beneath the desk to find herself alone in her cubicle with Julie, who was pacing, waving an angry fist, and mouthing silent curses. She turned and faced Christine.
"Why does the Karaoke Queen have to ruin my wedding?" she said in quiet, controlled outrage. "She always has to be the best at everything! She´s the ex-beauty queen, she speaks five languages – fluently, of course! – and she´s travelled the world. And she´s a bloody lawyer! Nobody can do anything better than she can, and now she´s decided she´s the world´s best singer! Have you ever heard her sing?"
Christine shook her head, her eyes wide.
"Well, she doesn´t sing, she howls!" Julie spat.
"Well, then, don´t let her sing," said Christine, rubbing her head.
"I want to keep my job, thank you very much," Julie returned irascibly. She pulled something out of her skirt pocket. "I wanted to show you this, but now it´s kind of ridiculous, isn´t it? I took the liberty of printing the programs with your name on them already."
"You what?" gasped Christine, and she snatched the program from Julie and looked at it in horror. It was true; "Christine Daaé, soprano," the program read, "…Pie Jesu."