Blessings on all those who have reviewed!

I do not own POTO, or its characters.

Christine was exhausted. She had been fatigued during the time she lived with Raoul, but the daily pressures she had faced during that time were nothing compared with the drain on her energy which Erik´s intense attachment to her caused – yet she had never been happier in her life. Her husband had not exaggerated when he had said that he did not need much sleep. She would often drift in and out of slumber at night and hear music, and she quickly gathered that it was Erik playing the violin or cello, or experimenting at the keyboard.

She could not truthfully say that Erik was very demanding in a sexual sense, in spite of the extreme frequency of their contacts. Erik´s needs transcended the physical, and he seemed to be using his lovemaking as a way to reach something deeper within Christine, something he knew was there. As a lover, he could never be considered adventurous. He seemed to prefer the missionary position almost exclusively, yet the marriage act became exquisite in his hands. His eyes were always, unnervingly, locked with hers, and he would never relinquish her gaze until the afterglow lulled her to sleep. He spoke love and other mysteries to her, and she would blush at the feelings he laid bare, as well as her own passionate response.

She could feel Erik´s awareness of her wherever she went.

Several weeks had gone by, and Christine´s class schedule and studies demanded her grudging attention. Erik had obviously tailored his own work schedule to the time she would be away from him, too, and she gathered that he spent a great many hours closeted with Nadir or in audio conferences.

From the very first day she returned to campus after her marriage, Christine felt the onus that her change in status imposed on her. Security had been stepped up on campus, and she was quickly singled out as the reason for this inconvenience. She felt the glares of many fellow students on her as she walked to lectures. Every now and then she would see Tracy and Chelsea walking with their inevitable klatches, and she would immediately become the object of stares and whispers. Her professors either avoided looking at her at all or smothered her with overweening attention.

In spite of the security and the man who shadowed her, there would be an occasional incident. Once, when she had finished an afternoon lecture, a man approached her as she was descending the steps of the hall. "Mrs. Darrow, please, I have been totally unable to reach your husband. I need to…" But that was all he managed before he was manhandled away from her, protesting, by Christine´s security man.

"Wasn´t that illegal, or unconstitutional, or both?" asked Christine later, approaching the man she thought of as Jake the Security Dude.

"I´m sorry, ma´am," he answered flatly, and turned away.

It became routine for Christine to observe Jake as she moved around campus. He would stop people who seemed to be coming too near his "assignment," and he was often correct to do so. Christine was amazed at how many people were trying to use her to reach her husband. Nevertheless, Jake would often stop innocent students who happened to wander too close to Christine, and heated arguments would frequently ensue. Christine felt terrible, and could not wait for May to arrive. Only a few more weeks…

It was Sunday now, and Christine was looking forward to seeing Meg at the soup kitchen. She was starved for the easy conversation and friendship she shared with Meg. Something light, nothing serious, just for today, she thought.

Meg looked up as she entered the kitchen. "Boy, am I happy to see you!" she said. "I´m always afraid your hubby will chain you to the bed and send that witch over again!" Meg had been no happier with Mrs. Donovan than Mrs. Donovan had been with Meg, and the battle that had occurred between the two doyennes of cuisine was now famous among the Greene Street volunteers. She was as helpful as a Flamenco dancer in a crowded metro train, Meg had said of the cook.

"Anyway, I need your help deciding what to do with all this," Meg said, waving a hand in the direction of a huge pile, which Christine saw, upon inspection, was composed entirely of carrots.

"Guy from the PDQ Grocers delivered this to us this morning. I think they´ve gone nuts! How did they end up with so many carrots? Do the homeless look like rabbits to them? I guess I really can´t complain, though. They also gave us some pretty decent chicken and beef, plus a lot of sugar, which won´t ever go bad. But so many carrots…D´you suppose they´ll try to write this off on their taxes?"

The soup kitchen often received donations of food from the local grocers, most of it damaged, day-old or right on the cusp of expiry. The recipe possibilities afforded by such odd assortments of meats and vegetables presented a challenge, and Meg never failed to rise to it. Christine suspected that she could be presented with sardines, asparagus and a chocolate bar and still manage to produce a masterpiece with such disparate ingredients. Meg stared at the carrots, and Christine could tell her mind was racing. "Well?"

"Well, Meg, I don´t know….Soup, maybe? Grate it and stick it in a salad? Juice it all?" Christine suggested.

"Maybe…Hey, is that Jake the Security Dude out there? Hey, Jake!" yelled Meg, signalling for Jake to enter the kitchen; he did so bashfully. Christine felt a pang of envy. Jake was not permitted to speak with her, but he enjoyed perfect freedom around Meg. Meg had abused this freedom to the point of asking Jake out, whereupon he had felt it his obligation to tell her that he was gay. That had left Meg a bit deflated, but she still took every opportunity she could to tease Jake or press him into service. She tied an apron around him now, and directed him toward the carrots. "Start peeling!" she ordered. Jake mumbled a protest but commenced peeling.

Jake had very little to do at the Greene Street kitchen, since it was the one place where no one seemed to be in pursuit of Christine. She felt more herself in the refuge of the kitchen, and she started to relax as she helped Meg with her work. More volunteers came filtering in, and Meg and Christine shared a quiet corner where they spoke to each other in low voices.

"Your chin´s chapped, you know," chortled Meg. "Tell your loverboy that the next time he decides on a morning sex romp he needs to shave first!"

Christine simply grinned at Meg and continued to peel potatoes. Then she finally asked the question she had been wanting to ask for weeks.

"How much do you know about Erik?"

"I was wondering when you would ask me that," sighed Meg. "I´ve been meaning to tell you that I was not hiding anything from you when he was stalking you. I really did not know that it was him, and, anyways, I didn´t know him. I only knew of him."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know my dad died when I was ten, right? My mom was in depression, and she needed help, but the one ray of hope she had was the life insurance policy which was going to pay her a nice, hefty sum and get us through that miserable, stinking part of our lives. But the company didn´t want to pay. They knew we were hard up and that we couldn´t afford a lawyer and that even if we got one on a contingency basis his fee would eat up the settlement money. They knew a court case would take years and that they would just settle with us at the end. Well, somehow Erik made them pay, and not only that -- they were like, We´re so sorry, ma´am, we´re so very sorry for what we did you, would you like to have more money to make it up to you? How about a new car or down payment on a house as a gesture of goodwill?

"That was the first time I heard Erik´s name, and my mom told me never to use it in vain. Seems she had helped him when he was a kid, and he was only too happy to be her friend. He got her her position at the Cit, but it was kind of a pact with the devil. She helped him to kind of run things when he failed to have things done his way using his dinero and influence, or his genius" -- here, Meg´s voice lowered to a whisper, "and he wasn´t above blackmail and other nasty methods. People were scared of him, really, really scared of him. And they still are."

Christine felt her hands growing cold.

"Another thing, honey," Meg added. "I would be very, very careful of Erik. He loves you way too much. I asked Mom, and she says he never let anyone get close to him before you – no one! How old is he, by the way?"

"Thirty-six," murmured Christine.

"Fourteen years older than you, then," said Meg. "Well, he was miserable until he married you, and I mean miserable all his life. Has he told you anything about his childhood?"

"No, it´s a subject that´s off limits, and I respect that."

"Good. I hear his childhood was horrible beyond belief, but he´ll be too proud to stand the humiliation of telling you about it. Just stick to discussing the weather with him…or doing whatever it is that leaves your lovely neck all black and blue."

Christine and Meg were soon ready to start serving up front, and as they carried trays out the kitchen door, they were blinded by a photographer´s flash. Jake rushed forward to hustle the man away while both women retreated into the kitchen, rubbing their eyes.

"Isn´t that great?" snarled Meg. "When you´re a poor little nobody and do volunteer work, it´s nothing – but when you´re rich and volunteer, you´re a saint who makes the paper the next day."

At Christine´s apology, Meg simply drew her into a hug. "I can say I knew you when, honey," she said.