The Mask and Mirror

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love

(Leonard Cohen – Dance me to the End of Love)

Chapter 25

Shadows were swinging above him. Round and round, round and round. He was lying on his back, scarred flesh soothed by the caress of silken sheets. There was the heavy fragrance of incense, of oil lamps burning. His senses were muggy, hazy, aware of nothing but the shivering thrills of anticipation that rippled along the surface of his skin. Like an opium addict, he was burning, dreaming, deliciously imprisoned in this cloying darkness where temptation uncoiled around him, bending over his naked form, a perfumed wave of dark hair spilling across his lower body -

Then he realised that it was Christine, Christine trailing kisses up the path of his bare thigh. Traces of smoke coiled and unfurled in the thick air; but the room was blurred, indistinct, there was only Christine, her lips burning against his skin, the heat of her as she knelt between his thighs. He buried his face in the scented mass of her copper-tinted hair, muffling the animalistic growl that escaped his throat.

His hands fisted in the gauzy material of her chemise, the fabric lightly grazing his knuckles as he pulled the skirts upward, exposing her pale thighs to his carnal gaze. He needed more of her, more than he could see through the undulating shadows that simultaneously revealed and concealed her seductive form. He traced his hands along the sinful curves of her waist, sensitive fingers exploring the delicate bones of her hips, exerting just enough pressure to make her breath catch with the not-quite-pain of it. Through heavy dark lashes he regarded her face flushed with desire, her lips parted slightly and swollen with kissing. Fierce hunger burned within him. He could not resist lowering his face towards hers, drinking in the ripe, decadent taste of her mouth, sweet and drowning. The heat of it pooled within his lower body, the surrounding humidity was nothing compared to this...

Silk, candlelight, shadow. She was panting now, all innocence and naivety gone, nothing but darkness and passion and need, need, need. Every heated inch of her body pressed against him through the burning silk of her chemise. The scent of her was like uncorked incense, heady and intoxicating. And beneath that, the desert-wind smell of Alger, invigorating yet ancient. He felt the hot, silky slide of her thigh against his, her back arching under his possessing hold, the line of her throat bared in a gesture of sweet surrender -

"Wait," he said suddenly, his voice a ragged breath as he stilled her movements with his hands. "Tell me you love me."

Her eyes opened, heavy and dark with desire. "Love you?" she breathed. "I've always loved you. There was never anyone else. The very thought of you consumes me. The feel of you -"

But he needed no more. He groaned into the curve of her neck, pulling her closer to him as he entered her in the same, swift movement.

Perspiration slid in slow trails across their exposed flesh as they moved together, skin against skin, thigh against thigh. There was something almost hypnotic in the agonising slowness of it, every sensation heightened to an exquisite tension. Christine was breathing hard, teeth pressing into her lower lip as her face contorted with pleasure.

His sweating hands slid upwards to entwine with hers, fingers gliding languorously together. She twisted her hips, sending ripples of pleasure through his body. Nothing but their mingled gasps, swallowed in the heady air. She threw back her head, damp curls cascading over her shoulders as she moaned aloud. God, she was perfection, utter perfection, a sweet, glorious madness, Aphrodite reincarnated in the body of a deceptively innocent chorus girl who even now had her legs entwined with his as she tightened her hands in his hold and cried his name -

Erik bolted upright, gasping. In an instant, he threw aside the sheets and staggered over to the window, hands tightly gripping the sill as he leaned out, swallowing down the sultry dawn air. His entire body was afire with sensation, throbbing, craving, burning -

His bed was a mess of tangled silk sheets and perspiration. Night after night a place where memories of Persia mingled with his obsessive thoughts over Christine. This was driving him mad. The heat, her proximity, the seclusion… God, he could not go on like this. If he did not take her soon he would surely die. His grip tightened on the sun-warmed stone sill, his chest heaving. Unrelenting against his closed lids was the image of Christine leaning over him, uttering words she would never say in her waking hours. Love you? I've always loved you. He could still recall the sensation of her legs tight around his waist, her pronounced moans, the rhythmic, desperate movement of her body as he drove deeper inside her - stop this, stop this, stop this!

Even in Paris, it had not been this hard. Back then, he had primarily watched her from afar, followed her with his eyes, yet remained the ever aloof, untouchable angel hidden beneath the earth while she passed her days above. But now… having her so close to him day after day, sleeping barely metres from him, the fact that she did not flinch from contact with him and occasionally even touched him of her own volition - nothing suggestive or overt, of course - but she could not realise how maddening it was, this torture of having her so close yet so unattainable.

How could she both save him and damn him at the same time?

He still could not bring himself to believe she was here of her own volition. Certainly, she had softened towards him, but he could not shake himself free of the awful memories, remembering what had passed between them, her anger and her hurt.

I wish I had never come here, she had said to him after that terrible scene in the marketplace.

Had she meant it? He tried to tell himself that she had spoken in anger, that her heartfelt pledge to remain at his side overrode those hastily spoken words. Erik knew that Christine saw someone better when she looked at him. She saw what he might be. What he could be. But still he sought refuge in darkness, never daring to hope… He had long ago become used to the shadows, cloaking himself in darkness so effectively it became his very own skin, always lingering there, in his very core. But he yearned for light, for flames. Like Prometheus, he had dared to pursue the fire and had his heart torn from him as a result. And like Prometheus, I too would endure every day for the rest of eternity if there was but a hope that she might reciprocate such passion.

But no. He smiled grimly. How could she? She knew enough of his sins even without the knowledge that by night he lay tossing and turning, maddened by the fierce pulses of desire that throbbed through his body, through his heart. The darkest fantasies his imaginative mind could conjure, scenes that would put even the harems of Persia to shame. And she had no idea…

Erik sighed heavily, vainly trying to suppress the tremors wracking through his body. One might have mistaken the shaking for tremors of extreme emotion were it not for his flushed skin, the perspiration clinging to his body, the flaming passion within his eyes.

Oh, he would have his fire. But it would not come in this life. In the next, however… in the next, he would burn forever.

Erik clenched his jaw. His gaze fell back on the bed, the rumpled, discarded sheets, his mind taunting him with images of Christine lying there in languorous bliss after a night of dark passion. But such joys were not to be his. Only once had he thought she might possibly… Only once had he come close to embracing the flames -

It was then that he suddenly remembered what day it was.

The twenty-fourth of February.

A year ago.

A year since Don Juan. A year since that fatal fire. A year since her life at the Opera Populaire had ended.

Christine looked at herself thoughtfully in the mirror. This time last year she had been a pale ghost of a girl, strained and hollow-eyed. She was relieved to see she had regained some weight, losing the gaunt, emaciated appearance she had had on first returning to the Girys' household. Her chest strained slightly against her bodice, and her collarbone and shoulders no longer had that alarming protuberance that signified deep unhappiness. Her cheeks also had more colour to them now. She looked… healthy. Her brown hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders and down her back. She unthinkingly began to pin it back, but her reflection blurred before her as her thoughts wandered back to the events that had taken place twelve months ago on this day. And everything that had happened between, those long months of her engagement… How distant and dreamlike it all seemed. Those events were like viewing the world through a veil of rain and mist, that unaccountable sensation of being removed from it all. None of it was as real as here, this present, the hard seat she was sitting on, the white lace curtains letting in a glare of sunlight that glanced along the dark floorboards, the faint perfume given off by the pots and bottles on her dressing table. No. This was living. Not those long, empty-filled days of regret and missed opportunities.

In front of her, the mirror blazed with late afternoon light. The heat of it danced across her skin, a pulsing glow warm against her eyelids. It would not recede until nightfall.

Erik had remained elusive all day, presumably preoccupied with errands. It was not uncommon for him to take off for hours at a time, or to request that he not be disturbed. She had not been able to find him since she had risen, so instead had entertained herself with perusing his book collection and exploring the hills behind the villa. The surrounding scenery was starkly beautiful, sun-scorched dunes broken by the dried grasses, the slight greenery eventually stretching away into the broad expanse of unending desert. A couple of trees provided rare shade from the blazing sun, and Christine had already decided she would one day take herself out in the twilight hours. How beautiful it would be to lie out on the hilltop grasses and watch the stars blazing overhead, their constellations foreign and strange, so much closer than they had ever appeared in Paris. And the surroundings that she had at first thought of as silent were not so - the rustle of scrubbed grasses in the faintest breeze, the constant hum of crickets - all primitive sounds of nature back when the world was young. So different from the noise and clamour of Mustapha. They had gone back several times - all at her suggestion - and she saw that Erik granted these bequests grudgingly. He would not, however, hold her a prisoner here.

Yet ever since the incident at the market, he had been twice as vigilant when she expressed a desire to go, holding her tightly to him with those firm hands, dark eyes flashing fire on anyone who should dare come too close. Christine was unnerved at his potential for violence being so reawakened, but another secret part of her felt a subtle thrill at the sense of danger, the intrigue. Nothing with Erik was ever predictable or followed any sense of routine. It was frightening. It was exhilarating. Since coming here, she was beginning to realise that she felt more alive than she had in months.

And his music. Oh, his music. Nothing else in this world had such power to evoke unspoken emotions or touch forgotten memories. In those hours she was sharpened, awake, every sensitive nerve in her body humming with a finely-tuned tension that strung according to the rising and falling cadences of his voice.

He was as strict as ever; his love of beauty and perfection had made him a hard taskmaster, but it made those rare moments when he chose to give her praise her all the more saw more than ever how he lived in music, how it expressed any and every emotion. Melancholy, love, darkness, memories, hope, pain.

That small music room had become a world unto itself, transporting them to many different places and times. Sometimes she would leave these lessons with her heart wrung with sorrow and yearning from his peculiar melodies: wild, melancholy and elevating. At others she would be chilled by haunted memories of ghosts, almost awaiting Death to lay its cold fingers upon her shoulder and beckon her away. Or she would ask him to play religious pieces, and the room would resound with glorious music, powerful and heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful and uplifting. In his fiercer moods, Dies Irae would thunder from the instrument and in her mind's eye she envisioned legions of heavenly hosts arrayed in dizzying splendour for battle. Music that seemed seraph-brought from a divine altar to prophesise the End of Days.

She and Raoul had spent distant years ago treading an enchanted way of childhood fancy together, but somewhere, the road had branched off and they seemed to have separated paths. And Christine felt strangely abandoned with no youthful, wayward companion at her side, and the road of imagination was a lonely one to travel with no one to share it with.

Yes, imagination. That was what she rediscovered in those elusive, flickering, fire-lit evenings, standing across from the tall man bowed over his instrument with a brooding reverence. A strange electric energy thrilled through the nerves, making his voice richer and deeper, her own heights of ambition almost transcendent. Or perhaps it was an elixir that sharpened her vision in the dancing half-light and heightened the senses, making things clearer that were not visible by the light of day and to ordinary eyes. Together, there was nothing they could not achieve. Her imagination and passion struck sparks from his. A fire glowed within him and she almost fancied:

Divinity within them breeding wings.

During those lessons, he no longer seemed a mere man, but something much greater, a kind of demi-god… or was it a demon?

Twilight had descended over the sun-scorched continent, the night sky outside the windows had turned a deep, velvet blue. The interior by contrast was lush and warm, the light of the candles casting shadows across the long table, picking up the crimson hints within the swirling decanter of wine and dancing along the well-stacked bookshelves that lined the wall. Erik was seated at the table, Milton's Paradise Lost open in his lap. A large hand curled around his glass; he took a sip of wine, savouring the warmth of it coursing down his throat, the cloying rich flavour that lingered sweetly on the tongue. His dark eyes were drawn back to the text before him, the captivating words possessing a magic only his music could rival. The fourth book had always been his favourite; too well could he identify with Satan hovering on the edges of the Edenic garden, filled with furious envy at the bliss within, the insatiable desire awakened in his first glimpse of the beautiful Eve, reminding him of what he could never have…

He had spent all day in the busiest heart of Alger, throwing himself into the very centre of the markets, the cafés, the crowded port… anywhere he could take himself that would serve as a distraction from the wrestling torment in his mind and body. He had been reckless in doing so, he knew. Had he been recognised or done something to draw attention to himself, it would have been the end. Yet a part of him would have relished a fight, action, something, just to relieve some of this pent-up tension in his body -

The sound of a door opening and closing drew his attention back to reality. He looked up as he heard Christine enter the room.

And choked on his glass of wine.

Swallowing hard, Erik realised he was blatantly staring, but somehow couldn't bring himself to stop.

He had seen Christine in many styles of dress during his tenure as the Opera Ghost: the scantily clad attire of Hannibal, the virginal white in her very first debut, even the ruffled silks in Don Juan. But those were all costumes, required for whatever role she was playing on that particular night. In her own clothes, she had always dressed with modest decorum. He hadn't quite bargained on this. He had a vague memory of buying the dress back in Paris. It had been more of an impulse at the time – something to put away and imagine her wearing when his thoughts turned toward the more libidinous. He had never actually expected to see her in it.

The dress was of black satin, exposing her startlingly white shoulders and the elegant line of her collarbone to his hungry gaze. Seeing the corset taper in at the waist, highlighting every single curve, it left little room for wearing any cumbersome petticoats, which she quite evidently wasn't. The bodice offered him a view of more bare flesh than he thought he could safely handle at this point. He averted his gaze downwards, which presented him with equal temptation. Light silken skirts clung tauntingly to her legs as she walked forward with a sweet modesty completely at variance with her choice of attire. For the hot Algerian climate, the cool, lightweight dress was understandable. For his self-control, it was a nightmare.

He wondered whether a year ago she would have dared to wear anything so provocative. The sudden thought that she might be wearing it for him caused him to hurriedly cross his legs. She had not pinned her hair back, either. True, this was not Paris, but even the women in Algeria always covered their hair; the sight of Christine's shimmering curls left loose to cascade down her back in rippling waves struck him as both intimate and incredibly erotic.

Was she doing this to deliberately torment him? After everything he had done to her, she would be more than justified in making him suffer. But no. Christine could never resort to such cruelly manipulative behaviour. He was as certain of that as he was of anything.

He noticed too that she had regained the weight she had lost during the crossing from Marseilles. Although she would always be pale and slender, there was a clear and ardent animation in her features that was rarely seen; it brought a flush of colour to her cheeks and there was a bright, vivid expression in her eyes rather than dreamy absence: tonight, she seemed more a brilliant flower of paradise than a wilting faded lily. Not since Don Juan had she looked so passionately intense. Something like savage triumph flared within him. This was the Christine he knew existed beneath the trappings of social convention and mild-mannered decorum, the spark of fire that had been so long suppressed it was almost extinguished. Could this vibrant, healthy young woman be the same pale and fragile creature he had pulled into his carriage all those months ago?

In Paris, she had been beautiful, but that beauty was all innocence: chiffon and lilies and moonbeams, not sensuality and silk and crimson. In the lambent flicker of candles, the highlights of gold in her hair and scent of fragrant oils on her skin, Erik thought inexplicably of Cleopatra, who had managed to bring the Roman Empire's two most powerful men to their knees before succumbing to the serpent's deadly bite. He felt poisoned himself, something like venom flowing through his veins, drowning, paralytic.

Erik shifted in his seat. She seemed completely unaware of the effect she was having on him. Was it really possible she could be so naïve?

Christine could not help but notice Erik's sharp intake of breath as she entered, the darkening of his heavy eyes. An expression both profound and primitive that momentarily paralysed her. The naked desire in his eyes was so different to the restraint of Parisian high society that she had become immersed in during her betrothal. When he looked at her like that, it made her think – think what? Prickling heat crept across her skin. She decided not to follow the thought to its logical conclusion. She already felt open, exposed, and terribly warm. The silk on her body rustled as she moved, making her even more self-conscious, so she stood still, feeling the warmth of the room surrounding her. After stepping in from the cool stone hallway, the sensation was like sinking into a hot bath. The air was heavy with a thick, rich scent. It was Alger, the musty-amber smell, the sun beating down on desert sands at midday, but also something else… incense and wine and - could it be - roses?

Memories overcame her, vivid, startling. Silken petals in her dressing room, black-bound with ribbon, such a variance from the garish hothouse flowers she was accustomed to receiving. Yes, she remembered well the roses he had once given her. Always roses. But she had been too young, too naïve, to comprehend the thorns that their lustrous beauty had concealed. How very apt for Erik. Beauty bound with inextricable pain.

Long slanting rays fell on him where he was seated at the table that was lit by the soft glow of candles. He was dressed with a refined elegance; his jacket above the poet's shirt was exquisitely cut, and it struck her again as curious that a man with a crippling disfigurement could be so fastidious about his appearance. His thick black hair was tied at the nape of his neck with a bow. His wine-coloured collar was edged with gold thread embroidered in an Ottoman pattern, fine and intricate against the stark black of his cravat. He wore the clothes well, as well as Raoul even, who had been born into wealth and gentility. Only with Erik, there was always that edge of danger, of the unrestrained that the gentlemanly accoutrements could never fully contain.

Yes, that was the real difference between them. There was no cruelty in Raoul, no touch of menace. At twenty-two there was the same open honesty in his face that there had been at twelve. Trusting blue eyes revealed his soul with hopeless ease. In her dark and confusing world, he was the one pure thing she had left. Was it any wonder she had loved him? And love him still, she reminded herself.

"I didn't hear you come back," she said at last.

"That is because I did not wish to be heard."

Christine hesitated. His long absence and the deliberate coldness in his tone implied this was one of those times he did not wish to be disturbed even if his eyes said otherwise. It had happened often enough that she was not offended by it; it was simply another one of his caprices she had become used to. "If you want me to leave -"

"Don't be ridiculous. Sit down. Please," he added, as an afterthought. Even now he was far more likely to give orders than polite requests.

Christine obediently took a seat as Erik laid aside his book and poured her a glass of wine. She was still anxiously fingering the cool folds of her dress. Compared to the garments she had become used to wearing over the course of her engagement, the light gown against her bare skin was wonderfully liberating. No paint on her face, no glittering stones heavy around her neck and in her ears, no bejewelled hairpins driven through her curls with savage force. Nothing to make her feel like a dressed-up mannequin, a porcelain marionette that smiled and spoke on cue. Gaudily bedecked, an object of exterior beauty, and empty inside. Controlled by the strings of society and upper-class convention. Christine shuddered slightly. Better not to think of that now. Not while she didn't have to. Now she should just appreciate this, here, just… being.

Soft candlelight glinted along the rim of her glass. She took a sip; the wine was deep and full-bodied with a pleasantly lingering aftertaste. It could have rivalled the finest vintage bottles found in the de Chagny cellar.

She looked around the room, its shadowy corners, the oriental carpet, the leather-bound books on the shelves. Her eyes fell on a pair of matching urns, carved in the shape of lions, both staring at her with lazy, half-lidded gazes. The faded gold designs shimmered in the half-light, the colour of sand, or linen bandages against a background of burnt umber. One of the urns was chipped, and she longed to run her fingers over the worn stone that must be warmed by the lights in the room.

"They are based on Ancient Mesopotamian designs." Erik's soft voice startled her. "Like the kind found in Babylon." The tones lingered sweetly, heady as the intoxicating aftertaste of the rich wine she had been consuming. It was making her rather light-headed. She drank often enough in Paris, it was part of the culture, but it had always been at the de Chagny estate, after a several course meal.

"Babylon," repeated Christine wonderingly, the name potent and exotic on her tongue.

"The name means the Gateway to the Gods."

"I did not take you for a great reader of Holy Scripture."

"Something about the story fascinates me. The decadence, the splendour. The intoxicating delusion man has of his own unshakeable power."

This subtle dance had become familiar to her now, words, phrases, illusions. The candles flickered in the still, heavy air. Through half-closed eyes she watched as the flames danced, beckoning, welcoming. She remembered other heat, other fire, a stage ringed with torches and crimson-clad figures slipping through the shadows. "It was sinful," she said at last, though her voice shook slightly.

"Oh yes. But it was magnificent." His tones were rich and deep, that old and well-remembered enticing cadence. She released a slow breath. His voice had haunted her every night and every hour, whispering through the dark in those long sleepless vigils. It would follow her to the ends of the earth.

Shaking off such thoughts, she took another sip of wine, savouring the rich and spicy flavour on her tongue. She stared down into the swirling dark liquid, lit by the soft hue of the surrounding lights. "Such pride leads to its own downfall."

"So you think they got what they deserved?"

"Yes." Her voice was soft. "We all get what we deserve eventually."

His gaze ran over her like a caress. Both a sweet promise and a dark enticement. "Sometimes we have to be masters of our own fates."

"Were you in charge of your fate when you chose to fall from grace?"

He raised his eyebrows at the directness with which she put the question to him. "There were circumstances… things happened to me." His gaze hardened. "It was not a fall of my choosing. My Hell isn't self-imposed."

She shook her head, the abrupt movement disorientating her slightly. "I thought you had read Swedenborg, Erik. Heaven and hell are not places, but states of mind and being."

He stared at her. When had she become so knowing? "I have never heard you talk like this before."

"Perhaps because you never cared to. You are so quick to take offence at the slightest remark that it becomes almost impossible to converse with you."

He wondered if it was the wine that had loosened her tongue, or whether she was merely becoming comfortable enough to tell him what she was thinking without fear of an explosive reaction. He cringed at the memory of some of his past outbursts. Had he really been such a brute to her, all those months ago?

A frown furrowed his brow as he watched her. A solemn, pensive expression had clouded her face. Unlike most girls - Madame Giry's daughter, for instance - Christine was not more beautiful when she smiled. Rather, a quiet radiance shone through when she was serious; a melancholy that sweetened and enriched her features, the sadness adding a soft grace note to her translucent beauty. Without that touch of grief that always lingered in her expression her brown eyes would have been too insipid, her mouth too guileless. With it however, she was a vision. And it was all my doing..

Did she regret it? The life she could have had if he had never encountered her? He supposed they would never know now.

"Christine," he said heavily. "I know in the past things have been difficult between us. I know we have caused each other pain, I do not understand why it is, but –"

"You know why, Erik." She smiled, a little sadly. "We come from completely different worlds."

"I rather think it is because we are too similar."

She shook her head. "How can that be?"

"Is it really so strange to you?"

Christine looked away, her eyes falling on the faded spine of his discarded book. It had clearly been read many times. Staring at it, she recalled uneasily that Satan and Eve had both been the dreamers in Paradise Lost. Perhaps then the danger lay not in the fact that they were opposites or enemies but rather were too much alike, too attracted to each other. She looked back up at him, confused. "I don't know."

His deep-set eyes softened into melancholy as he looked away, past the warmth and light of the room to the darkness that gathered in its corners, the night sky visible through the opened window. Far above, the bright stars glinted, diamonds scattered in a sea of midnight. Cold and untouchable. Erik felt something inside him ache. He realised now that he had never been untouchable. Not really.

"Sometimes I think it is easier for us to fight." His throat felt hoarse. "To take refuge in hatred. To hide from truths we otherwise could not bear. Believe me, I am a far easier man to hate than to love, Christine."

She looked at him pityingly. "Do you really believe that?"

"I've been given enough cause to," he snapped.

The abrupt transition from sombre reflection to acerbic irritability was startling. Christine sighed, refusing to let herself be riled by the flash of temper. Erik was leaning back in his chair, a dark, brooding, glowering figure as he drained half his glass of wine and immediately began to refill it. His expression behind the mask was thunderous. Almost impossible to imagine this very man had recently been kneeling at her feet, looking up at her with agony and imploring as he begged her to forgive him of his sins. She took another drink, her thoughts awhirl.

Who was he? Angel, Phantom, Don Juan, Opera Ghost? The identities swirled around her mind in a bewildering haze. How different from their first meeting when she had known such clarity. She remembered when he had first come to her, that blinding rush of conviction and ecstasy that had thrilled her soul. And later that night, she had knelt at her bedside, weeping for joy. Oh, so long ago…

"You're not an angel, are you?" she finally mused aloud.

"No, Christine," he said, more gently now. "I never was."

"A fallen one, perhaps," she whispered. Her thoughts were becoming rather muddled. Exiled from Heaven and left to burn in Hell: powerful, enraged, brooding for eternity. Both hungering for the light and despising it. Perhaps the evil that had been gnawing at him for so long was too deeply rooted in the core of his being for her to save him from. But he had not fallen through pride but out of love, was yearning for that love, desperate for that love –

The room shimmered before her in a haze. A vague, dreamlike sensation had settled over her. Past and future entwined in a delicious blurring of darkness and longing. The lush and sensual ambience of the room seemed to have permeated her skin, sending the blood through her veins in a languorous surge. Heat was pooling within her body in a curiously pleasant sensation. Was she becoming inebriated? If so, the feeling was too tantalising for her to care. She leaned forward to better look at Erik in the flickering light. She could trace out the vaguest hints of his features: the square jaw, the strong, defined nose, the broad forehead. He was wearing the black mask again tonight, the one that covered almost his entire face, making it impossible for her to read him. Except for his eyes. They promised something more, so intense...

Christine was leaning forward. Erik wished she wouldn't do that. He was already trying very hard to keep his eyes on her face rather than anywhere else. She was clearly not comprehending the effect her actions were having on him, and that in itself merely fuelled the fire smouldering within him. It was that very contradiction that fascinated him; the glass-like fragile exterior, the fire beneath. The intriguing combination of her innocent purity and her seductive appearance was almost too much for his self-control. If Christine had been confused by the many guises he had assumed, he was no less bewildered by her. Virgin Incarnate one moment, tonight she was bewitching as Scheherazade herself. His fingers ached to trace the elegant contour of her collarbone, to slide downwards to the inviting flesh visible beneath the watered silk. Just to reach out a few scant inches, to see the breath catch in her throat, the dark eyes turn heavy with awakened desire -

Her complexion was glowing in the warm half-light; her dark eyes had taken on a deep, lustrous hue. It almost seemed that the passion within them reflected his own. His eyes fell again on her pale shoulders exposed in the warm lamplight. The sight of so much bare flesh was maddening. They couldn't go on like this, thought Erik. If something didn't happen soon, he was going to explode.

He wanted the entire world to disappear, to have nothing but himself and Christine, this night, this hour, under the cover of darkness. He could almost persuade himself this thin veneer of formality was merely a prelude for something more, something that had been burning in his blood ever since Don Juan. If her Vicomte could only see her now…

Christine drew a slow breath. She wished the window had been opened a little wider so she could feel the cool night air across the skin of her bare arms. The atmosphere was warm, too warm, and muggy, heavily scented with incense and burning wax that had begun to drip onto the table in hot globes. It was cloying her senses. Her surroundings were gradually blurring into insignificance. There was only Erik, solid and real before her. She wondered if he too was experiencing this sweetly pleasant lightness of body and mind, every sensation heightened and intensified. Everything was falling away but this warmth beneath her skin, those reservations her calm and sober mind maintained being stripped aside as she sank ever deeper into this haze of intoxication.

Who would have thought a year ago that she would be here, sitting before this dangerous man who had made her burn with passion and freeze with terror? The memories caused a flush of heated colour to tinge her cheeks. That night... she had clutched him on that stage with such wild abandon. And now if she reached out a few inches, her fingers would be buried in the billowing silk of his shirt, able to feel the hard muscled flesh beneath and the heart that beat for her, only for her…

Her shaking hands pushed her empty glass towards him.

"May I have another glass?"

As Erik began to pour from the decanter, he could not help but notice the wine had stained her lips a deep crimson. He wondered if he would be able to taste the dark liquid on her mouth as those lips would meld, sweet and pliant beneath his own –

"Thank you," she said politely, soft hands brushing against his as she took the glass.

His abdomen clenched. She had no idea how much he wanted to tear the dress from her body. No idea…

Keep talking, he thought at her grimly. Distract me.

Fortunately, she seemed quite willing to do just that. She was certainly less reserved after a couple of glasses of wine.

"What were we saying?" Christine frowned. She was quite light-headed now. "I've forgotten."

"We were talking of angels."

"And of you."

The sides of his mouth curled upwards in a faintly bitter smile. "You cannot make an angel out of a demon, Christine," he said.

"All demons were angels once."

"Yet there were wars in Heaven and angels of light became angels of darkness and destruction. Angels that could kill. And they will never, never be redeemed."

She stared at him, dark pupils dilated in the dim light. "Forever is a very long time, Erik. Do you truly think that those who repent and do penance would be turned away by God?"

"Revelations speaks of an everlasting fire prepared for the damned, for the devil and all his angels."

She shook her head slowly. "How can you know so much of Scripture when all you do is reject it?"

"How can you know so much of Scripture and still argue in the benevolence of God?"

His words faded into silence, a warm and muted silence that was unbroken save by the sound of the crickets outside. The candles had burnt low, throwing the room into deeper shadow. The scent of hot wax mingled with wine clouded the senses. Christine was leaning back in her chair with a languid kind of drowsiness, eyes half-closed. Her fingers were drawing invisible figures of eight along the rim of her glass.

"I never thought I could feel so relaxed," she murmured, more to herself than him.

Erik frowned slightly, wondering how much she had had to drink. He wouldn't have said she was intoxicated, not exactly, but she was certainly less demure and inhibited than was normally the case. Yet her words were not slurred and she appeared to have retained her sense of coordination. She seemed well enough. It might even do her good, to relax a little. She had been carrying the weight of his burdens for so long.

His eyes fell on the delicate, fine-boned hands that were curled around her wineglass. They seemed steady enough. Yet when she put the glass back on the table, she did so a fraction too violently, some of the dark red liquid sloshed over the edges, staining the dark, polished wood and her slender fingers. She did not appear to notice.

"Perhaps you should have some water," Erik advised.

Christine looked up. Drops of spilled wine glinted like rubies in the candlelight, vivid against the startling whiteness of her skin. "Why?"

"I do not wish you to become inebriated. It is not –"

"Proper?" The harshness with which she snapped those two syllables stunned him into silence. He had never heard Christine speak with such aggression before.

"Christine, what –?"

She was glaring at him, and he thought there was definitely a slightly unfocused look in her eyes now. "Perhaps I am tired of being proper, Erik."

"I did not mean to -"

"Everyone thinks I am so fortunate." Her fragile shoulders began shaking with barely suppressed laughter. Erik stared at her, eyes widening in genuine alarm. "If they knew… I hate it. All the ceremony and the servants, having to say and do the right thing all the time, to be quiet and good – it makes me want to scream. God forbid I should actually ever say what I think. Sometimes I thought I should go mad. You told me once that you were imprisoned, but you at least could see the bars of your cage. And mine is a cage… a cage of gilt and glass with bars of gold. To be looked at and judged, day by day, to know no rest except in those moments when I could be alone with Raoul and wish the cold, callous world away, and to start the whole interminable routine again as soon as the sun was risen – imagine it, trying to build a heaven in the hell of society. I said to Raoul once that we should run away from it all and be married in secret like something from a romantic novel, and he laughed. He thought I was joking."

Erik held himself very still, his eyes blazing. He knew it. He knew there had been something, back when he had first properly set eyes on her when he had taken her beneath the Opera House all those months and months ago. That instinctive suspicion that there was something restrained beneath the surface, desperately trying to escape. Since coming here, that repressed passion had been awakened again. Perhaps he was not the only one in need of saving. Or perhaps it was merely the wine putting words into her mouth. It was too much to hope that…

"You need never feel like that with me, Christine," he said. "I hope you know that you can always be yourself here. Never be afraid of doing or saying exactly what you like."

"That's not what I'm afraid of here."

"Then what?"

"I don't know," she said.

"Not of me, I hope."

"No – I mean, sometimes." She stumbled over the words slightly.

"I would never hurt you, Christine. You know that." The confidence with which he spoke concealed the fact that he was no longer sure what he would be capable of if he didn't withdraw from her. Quickly.

"Not intentionally. But you do. More than anyone, in fact."

Erik winced at that. He hurriedly poured out a glass of water and pushed it towards her. She ignored it, instead taking another sip from her third - fourth? - glass of wine. There was something hauntingly sensual in the way she slowly lifted the glass to her lips, how it exposed the elegant line of her throat when her head tilted back – all the more enticing in that she was apparently entirely oblivious to it. He tried to drag himself away from such thoughts but it was no use. He was utterly enamoured by her sensual grace and beauty. He wanted his hands entwined in the dark hair that fell so seductively over her bare shoulders. She was close enough now that he could smell the perfume rising from her skin. He realised he was speaking before he could stop himself.

"They all still think of you as that sweet and naïve chorus girl. Antoinette. Her daughter. Your precious Vicomte." He saw vague surprise flicker within her eyes at the mention of Raoul. He continued speaking, his eyes never leaving hers. It might be madness, but something told him she would not remember this conversation in the morning. "They will never understand the fire that burns beneath."

"But you do," she whispered. She was looking - no, staring - at him with a curious mixture of serious contemplation and slowly dawning understanding. "You've always known me, Erik... haven't you?"

"Yes," he said.

He saw her eyes close, a slight shudder passing through her at the simple affirmative. She was close enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin. Erik gripped the edges of his chair to steady himself. His tension was rapidly mounting and he did not dare consider what he would do if she did not withdraw. God, she was so close… so warm… the serpent in his Eden…

"I once thought nothing could touch you." Her voice was slow and languid, the delicious sweetness of intoxication blurring the softly spoken syllables.

"Nothing did," he said in a low voice. "Before you."

Christine frowned slightly, her tongue darting out to lick the traces of wine from her lower lip. Erik inhaled sharply as his eyes followed the movement.

Christine found her gaze being drawn to his mouth, a line dark and grim and decisive above the square jaw. Did he never smile? Inky lashes lowered as she focused intently through the warmth and blurring atmosphere that had clouded her bewildered mind with scent and darkness. Surely those lips were made for sensuality, not sneers? No longer cold, immovable marble as she had once so foolishly assumed…

"You were always so cold… and stern… and unreachable. Like a fierce, terrible angel. I never realised you were a man beneath the hard exterior."

Erik held himself very still, hardly daring to breathe. Was she aware of what she was saying? Keeping his voice carefully guarded, he asked, "And now?"

"Now… I cannot escape it." Her tones were soft, wistful. "To know that a heart beats beneath that façade of indifference. That I caused it to beat. You have loved and hated and wept… and the fault of that is all mine."

He did not try and contradict her. Why should he? The words were true enough. There was a crushing pain tightening inside his chest, a mingling of desire and confusion and part anger. What exactly was he to her? She did not love him. Perhaps she did not even like him.

But what, then?

He levelled his stern gaze at her, trying to discern her expression that had a fevered intensity to it, no doubt brought on by the amount of wine she had consumed. She already seemed to have forgotten what she was saying. Her eyes were too bright, shining with both unshed pain and inexplicable yearning.

"You are so much, Erik. Sometimes I think you will consume me until there is nothing left. And sometimes I think I would not mind if you did."

"And yet you will never let yourself," he retorted bitterly. "You still cling to childish dreams of fairytales and happy endings."

"Then why is it that every time I believe I have renounced you, something always draws me back?"

Erik stared at her through hooded dark eyes. She herself had just stated the reason for all of this. "That is why I will never stop pursuing you," he said.

"Even if it means you would be waiting forever?" Her eyes were bleak with misery. "How can you resign yourself to such pain?"

"I am well used to that pain, believe me." His voice was hard. "I think the worst thing I ever did was love you." The truth came easily to him now, perhaps because her unguardedness has similarly broken down his own barriers of body and soul.

Christine sighed, her head lolling to one side, dark hair spilling over her bared shoulder in a tumbled, fragrant mass. Erik's fists clenched as he forcibly restrained himself from twisting his hands in those curls and dragging her head towards him, covering her mouth with his own. "Only because you love too fiercely. You feel so intensely, Erik… so passionately… you make me feel…"

"What?" he demanded sharply, "Feel what, Christine?"

Erik jumped violently when she reached out, her fingers taking hold of the fabric mask. Her hands were shaking unsteadily but he was more aware of the fact that they were also warm and soft -

"Christine…" he said warningly. His mind was reeling. His flesh was burning with barely suppressed desire. "Don't –"

"I want to see you, Erik. No more masks. I want to see… who you really are."

The rational part of his mind desperately fought to reason with him. She is intoxicated. She doesn't know what she's doing -

The other part - the demon beneath the surface - whispered, This is the only chance you will ever get to be this close to her…

His hand tightened on the glass he was holding. He knew he should move away right now; end this at once, but God, the feel of her delicate hands against his skin… No man could resist such temptation. He could not help but lean into the caress. God help him, he couldn't stop…

Where had it gone, the anger, the bitterness, the hurt? There was only the passion. Oh, how he wanted her… to have her surrender, to plunge into her and satiate this maddening longing, to feel, at last, truly alive…

"You cannot be in hell," said Christine suddenly, her fingers still warm on his skin.

"What makes you so certain of that?" he asked, his voice low and serious. The scent of her was intoxicating.

"Because you have never known heaven."

A light flared in his eyes an instant then faded with weary knowledge. "No," he said, staring hard at the glass in his hand. "You're right. All my life and I never have."

He felt the tantalising rustle of silk as her leg accidentally came in contact with his under the table.

A hairline crack appeared in his wineglass.

With an almost painful slowness, she began to pull the mask from his face, the fabric causing a brief, rough friction against his skin before soft fingers replaced it a moment later. He could feel her pulse, light and fluttering, like frightened bird wings against the fevered heat of his exposed face. The tentative touch became a tender exploration, gliding along his hardened cheek, the firm line of his jaw. He released a shuddering sigh, painfully aware of the heat gathering in his lower body. Never since Eve was a woman so tempting –!

"So alone," she whispered. Her breathing was ragged, unsteady. "My proud, lonely Erik."

His wineglass fell against the table with a discarded clatter. He caught hold of her shoulders, breathing hard. Desire was pulsing through his body, frenzied, maddening. Her pale flesh yielded so easily, so soft and pliant and willing beneath his hands. She would surrender to him completely. It would take nothing to extinguish the remaining candles. They would not even need to go to his room; there was chaise against the opposite wall that would be perfectly adequate for –

God Almighty! What was he thinking?

She belonged to another man. Moreover, she was in no state to be thinking rationally. He would be taking advantage of her innocence, her vulnerable state and the trust she was starting to regain in him. She would hate him for it. It would be wrong and, and… he was mad with fire. His hands were gripping her shoulders painfully, inflamed eyes drinking in the pale skin exposed solely for his gaze. He wondered how it would taste and how she would respond, writhing in his arms, her breathing quickened. The tightness in his trousers was almost unbearable. Her breath was warm on his lips.

"Christine…" his voice was hoarse. "What is this?"

"A taste of heaven," she whispered.

Reason abandoned him. He would willingly embrace eternal damnation at the price of such sweet torment. Everything in his body was crying out to touch her, to taste her soft skin, to lift her skirts and slide his hands towards the delicate, secret flesh beneath and have her whimper with need -

This was it. To Hell with morality. To Hell with consequences. He leaned forward.

"Erik…" she breathed against his mouth.

And slowly –

Silently –

She fell asleep.

Erik sat very still for a few moments, staring down at her curly head resting in his lap, waiting for his heart rate to slow. Then, carrying her over to the chaise, he very gently laid her down on the cushions, brushing the wayward curls from her flushed and heated face.

Slowly, he stood up. Slowly, he walked back over to the table.

Then he picked up the pitcher of cold water and tipped the contents over his head.