Christine was awakened in the small hours of early morning by his lips behind her ear and his fingers stroking her bare shoulder. She turned to him and put her arms around his neck, her mouth seeking his and finding it. She was sleepy and sore from their first lovemaking, but she wouldn't deny him. Her thoughts swirled down until there was nothing but the pleasure he was giving her. She realized that her world was right there beneath her fingertips and the enjoyment was her sole focus- that and the man above her.
Amid a tangle of limbs and heat-filled kisses, they once again sought the age-old rhythm, their joy in each other spiraling ever higher, until their ultimate goal was reached together. Erik, still in a state of bliss, started to remove his weight from Christine, when clutching him tighter she stopped him.
"Mmm...not yet. This feels too good. Just like this," she said softly in his ear. If someone would have told me a year ago, that someday I would be in France living at the bottom of the Paris Opera House, and having sex with a deformed ex-killer, I would have accused him of being a few clowns short of a circus. But it's true all right, so maybe I'm the fruit loop. But a very happy one.
Erik nuzzled his unmasked face into her hair, breathing deeply of her sweet scent. He could only agree with her. His cool skin was warmed from the proximity of her naked flesh and he doubted if he would ever get used to it. It was too strange and wonderful.
Old souls. That's what they were, she thought drowsily. She felt a connection with him nearly from the beginning. When she was eleven, her dad had encouraged her to visit a shut-in neighbor. Araminta Douglas, who was eighty-nine and sharp as a tack for her age, made the very best sugar cookies. One afternoon, she sat at the kitchen table with a cookie and glass of milk chatting with the elderly woman. As she did on most visits, she listened as Min talked about her husband.
"I'll be seeing Artie one of these days, child. It's only a matter of time now."
Arthur had been Araminta's husband of sixty years, until death had finally parted them. The old lady nodded wisely, and with her hand, whisked cookie crumbs off the table and onto the floor. Her fat tabby cat trotted over and proceeded to lick them up.
"Do you mean Heaven?" she asked.
Min shook her head. "I mean on this earth," she said firmly. "We'll meet somewhere down the road. Different bodies, Christine- same souls."
She stopped chewing and looked at Min with disbelieving eyes. "You're talking about reincarnation. I read a book once about a woman who claimed to have past lives. Right?"
"Some call it that, yes."
Christine looked thoughtfully at the old lady. "But if you both look different, how will you know it's him?"
Araminta reached over and caressed the young girl's cheek. "I'll just know," she said softly.
She wondered now if it was possible? Why had she felt so drawn to Erik? It certainly wasn't his looks or charm, at least in the beginning. Could they have been subconsciously aware of each other from their first meeting? Soul mates... She burrowed her face into his neck and snorted at something so ridiculous. Still, maybe someday she would share that particular thought with him. Drowsy and content she closed her eyes.
Christmas was nearly upon them. They drove into the French countryside outside Paris, and bought a fir tree to place and decorate in Erik's living room. Christine hung swags of pine on the mantle, and an immense bright red poinsettia plant had the place of honor on the hall table in the foyer. At first he merely joined her in the fundamentals of a merry Christmas just to please her; except for his joy at her enthusiasm, he felt nothing. He never celebrated the holidays. Why bother? He had always been alone. Taking part in the holy celebration was only for her sake, but gradually he began to relax and found himself smiling a little more.
She wrapped her presents to him in pretty silver and gold foil paper and placed them under the tree, all sporting bright red ribbon. A few days later she spied him crouched near the tree, gently shaking one of the packages. As she watched him, he ran a long finger across a tag bearing his name. She grinned, resolved to do some more shopping before Christmas. My masked man is thawing a little at a time. Grinch? I see no Grinch around here. Just a snoop.
Soon she noticed a small mountain of gifts under the tree for her, and could only shake her head. Erik was happy for the first time in his life. He was suspicious of the emotion, not wishing to feel something like this only to lose it. Christine was with him and professed to love him, spending every night in his arms. He knew that he didn't deserve any happiness, and now that he had something to lose, he was terrified that fate would step in and snatch it away from him.
That's when the nightmares started.
The first night he had one, he was able to stop the scream before it left his mouth. He awakened from the grip of the dream abruptly, shaking and frightened. In his nightmare, Behzadi had succeeded in his plan to trap him, taking Christine as well.
They were so distressingly real. The Iranians used her against him trying to break his will, beating her bloody and taking her viciously in front of him. He had been helpless and unable to go to her. The screams tore from his throat, and he fought wildly to reach her, struggling uselessly against his bonds. His agony had morphed into an impotent rage with no outlet, and as the dream progressed, he would end up on his knees pleading for her life. He would awaken, and in a panic, turn to find Christine curled up beside him sleeping peacefully. He could barely stop himself from gathering her tightly into his arms and sobbing in relief.
Every night it was variations of the same awful nightmare, the only thing in common being his dream self's inability to help her. It got to the point where he was afraid to close his eyes and sleep. He didn't require as much rest as she did, but he enjoyed holding her for much of the night, and would eventually doze off toward morning.
One night just before Christmas she was awakened by Erik crying out in the middle of the night. He had been so comfortable in her arms; he had fallen asleep not long after making love to her. Frightened, she found him sitting on the edge of the bed bent over, his head clutched in his hands. She crawled across the mattress toward him and placed her hand on his back.
"What's wrong, babe?" she whispered, stroking him.
He raised his head and let out a shuddering breath. "A nightmare..." Sighing, he added quietly, "one of many, I'm afraid."
She could see how disturbed he was. She rose to her knees and put her arms around him, pressing herself to his back. "Want to talk about it?"
He was about to say no, then hesitated. Christine had asked questions about his past, which he had for the most part ignored. At times regrettably, he'd been curt to the point of anger, not wishing to bare his warped life, and watch her back away in revulsion. He was very reluctant to have her see the real creature she was in love with, afraid she would be so disgusted with the abomination that he was, she would leave him for good. That thought terrified him more than any other.
But perhaps telling her his history would be cathartic for him, and silence the inner demons trying to rob him of his happiness. Maybe it would be a relief for her to know all of his sordid past and not have to keep hiding it from her. Or you could be delivering yourself to Purgatory.
He sighed again and rubbed his cheek against her hand. "Yes."
He slipped on a pair of pants and led her out to the living room and sat her down in a wing chair. She glanced at the beautiful tree in the corner of the room, the floor surrounding it colorful with a rainbow of assorted wrapped gifts, a little nervous now looking at Erik's grim countenance. He left the room briefly and returned with two snifters of brandy and silently handed her one. He sat down in his chair and took a sip of his drink, gathering his courage. Not looking at her, he began to talk about his wretched life. His mother's repugnance of him, her neglect and abuse; his subsequent escape from his home in Rouen on the Normandy coast.
"I was simply a burden to her, Christine. A monstrous and embarrassing mistake."
He took a long swallow of brandy and looked into the smoldering embers of the fire. "She schooled me at home. There were many books, most of them my father's; he was an architect and a damned good one. He died when a support beam fell on him at a building site. I only knew him through his books and I lost myself in them- that and my music lessons. I was the happiest I'd ever been during those lessons. I eventually surpassed my teacher though, and before too long the lessons were finished and it was just my mother and me."
Erik rose abruptly and put more logs on the fire, moving them around until they caught. "She hit me, quite regularly I might add, until I was nearly as tall as she was, then one day I threatened to hit her back," He smiled coldly. "She desisted after that."
"Why did she beat you so much?"
"Because I existed. It's as simple as that."
"I can't understand how she could have been so cruel to her only child."
He could see Christine's sorrowful expression and his eyes softened. "Because my mother was a beautiful woman and her only son is as ugly as sin."
He looked at his hands, the long fingers mostly fleshless- mere skin and bone. "One night I sneaked from the house to play the church organ where my mother attended services on Sundays. Without me, I might add. I was her dirty little secret. The parish priest found me and returned me to my mother, where he informed her of my considerable talent on said organ, and my ungodly ways. He alone knew of my existence, but I think there was already talk of the monster living in Rouen."
He stopped speaking at Christine's exclamation and looked at her wearily. "But it's the truth. You l-love me," he looked at her with a slight mistrust still present at the mention of love pertaining to himself, "but to everyone else, that is exactly how they view me.
"My mother waited until Father Berthold left the house before turning her ire on me. Once her arm was too tired to hit me anymore, she locked me in my room, which I was able to escape whenever I chose to. That was the first time she beat me. More soon followed. But the day finally arrived when I could stand it no longer. I left late one night and never looked back.
"I was twelve years old."
She looked at him with sadness. "Wasn't there anyone who was kind to you then?"
He crossed to her side and kissed her, then sat down again in his chair. He looked thoughtfully at Christine. "As a matter of fact, there was. I had nearly forgotten.
"A neighbor woman who found out about me one evening when I slipped out of my mother's house. I was eleven, I believe. Madame Talonne was her name; she was elderly and lived alone. She knew my mother only from seeing her on the street, never realizing she had a son hidden away.
"And yes, she was kind to me, although the mask startled her at first. She found me playing with her little dog in the garden that night and instead of chasing me off, she engaged me in conversation."
Erik smiled crookedly and sighed, remembering the old lady and her brief friendship. "She even fed me bread and jam claiming I looked hungry to her."
He ran a thin hand through his hair. "I was hungry, but not for food. I wanted affection- someone to look at me without revulsion. I think I was starved for it.
"I returned many times that year. It was always at night and never with my mother's knowledge. I think the good madame realized then what my mother was about."
"What did you do on your visits?"
"Mostly talked, or I played with the dog. I would give impromptu concerts on the old upright piano in her parlor. She enjoyed listening."
He became restless and got up from his chair. "She moved away the following spring and I was alone again. That was when I decided to leave Rouen myself. I finally went back seven years ago, after I discovered that my mother had died. I sold the house and most of the furniture, only keeping a few of her things." He rubbed a hand along his jaw and looked at her. "I don't know why I even kept those few pieces. I really didn't want any of it. The bed you slept in that first night was hers- the Louis Phillipe room." He grunted. "I'm sure the furniture meant more to her than I did."
He told her of his life on the streets of Paris. And because of his face, how he was shunned by even the dregs of society- the thieves, prostitutes and drug-riddled addicts. As he talked, he kept his face averted, afraid to see the disgust and condemnation in her eyes. He omitted quite a bit, knowing deep in his gut she wouldn't be able to handle too many of the sordid details, but gave her the bare bones only of his history. He told her about the day he was caught stealing from one of the vicious drug dealers, and beaten to within an inch of his life with a length of stout electrical cord.
"I needed money to live, and in the illegal drug trade, there was more than enough to feed and clothe myself. I used drugs only once; the end result was unpleasant- dulling my thought processes which I needed to stay alive. It amounted to putting a thief in my body to steal my wits, and that is how they caught me in the first place. I made sure to never repeat that mistake again."
Christine was crying silently, feeling the pain he was reliving, while Erik remained dry eyed, speaking in a detached manner as if he was talking about someone else.
"Is...is that how you got the scars on your back and chest?" she asked him, voice thick with tears.
He simply nodded his head, still refusing to look at her and continued. "One evening when I was about fourteen, I watched the well dressed mesdames et messieurs arriving for a night of opera. I was dirty and living in a back alley, but I only envied them their right to sit in the Garnier and enjoy a performance of Gounod."
His eyes were flat, the yellow irises blank- gazing inward, and seeing a rejected, unloved boy, with no one in the world to care whether he lived or died. "I found the rue Scribe entrance to the cellars by accident one night and picked the rusty lock on the door, taking up residence here. Of course, it most certainly did not resemble a home then."
He swept his thin arm around his luxuriant home and smiled faintly.
"I had a very large roof over my head, rats for company and I could listen to opera for free. I tell you, Christine, I was in Heaven! Eventually though, I became restless. I left Paris and traveled around to the fairs, performing magic and singing, literally, for my supper. The daroga found me in Russia and took me to Iran, where the shah was fascinated by my unique," Erik sneered, "looks, and decided that with training, I could be a true killer- an assassin with the face of death."
Again, he gave her a smile with very little humor. "It was an added benefit to horrify and shock before I murdered them, you see."
Christine hastily swiped her hand across her wet cheeks and reached for him, but he got up from the chair, and with his drink in hand, walked over to the fireplace and stood with his back to her.
Erik took one last swallow, and placed the glass gently on the mantle. He turned and faced her. "I lost track of how many I killed. I made a name for myself. I was the Phantom, a nearly invisible killer with no conscience; I was rarely seen, but that didn't matter very much to the body count. I came back to Paris after ten years and moved back into the opera house. I felt safer underground, but I made sure my home reflected my new wealth much better, n'est-ce pas? Blood money- how very apt, yes?"
He sat back down and rubbed his face tiredly. "I worked throughout the nights on my home for years, perfecting what you see now. I began haunting the Garnier for my own amusement and leaving small notes around the House, mostly to improve the performances. My first success was getting them to replace the concertmaster at that time, and hire one who breathed the music instead of just playing it.
"On occasion I would scare whoever I came across, simply for the fun of it. I even rigged the practice piano to play music- without a player. That was quite amusing." He chuckled then, the first sincere show of amusement she'd seen since he started talking.
He laughed hollowly. "How frightened they all were of the almighty opera ghost."
"I suppose you scared them so well, the cleaning crew refused to work nights," she said accusingly.
His eyes widened at that. "Why, yes. How did you know?"
"Gossip from one of the ushers."
"Ah."
"And I was told by the very same usher that outside security wasn't needed once the opera house closed for the night." She looked at him and tsked. "Monsieur Fantome made certain no one dared to enter the theatre on pain of a cruel and horrible death. My God, Erik! This is the twenty-first century, not the dark ages! How superstitious can these people get?"
Once again he refused to meet her eyes, and she smiled tiredly. "Okay, don't answer that, Monsieur Fantome. Maybe you'll answer this one..." He looked up at her then, and silently waited for it. "How did you keep from being discovered?" she asked him puzzled.
He shrugged in his elegant way. "This building is immense. Honestly, how could I be found out? Hardly anyone ever comes down here, except to check the foundations and change a light fixture once in a while. I can move around virtually unseen until I choose to be."
He leaned back in his chair. "Andre Moncharmin was manager of the Garnier by then. He was a deplorable manager, but through threats and a mutually beneficial arrangement we got along tolerably well."
Christine smiled at him for the first time since he began. "Ha. It probably helped that he was afraid of you, right?"
Erik opened his mouth to reply then shut it.
"With Moncharmin dead, there is a new manager of the Garnier now, of whom I have not had the pleasure of speaking with as yet. However, it may be time to find another place to hang my hat."
"Why? This has been your home for years."
He shrugged. "Greed drove Andre. Paying him for information and for his blind eye to my presence, made my life here a better arrangement. The new manager might be a different breed. I haven't cared to find out. Aside from that, I have a new home in mind."
"A new home?"
His yellow eyes blazed with a fierce love. "You are home to me, my sweet Christine. Wherever you are, there I will be also."
She dropped her gaze, shaken by the depth of his feelings for her. He continued speaking, pulling her eyes back to his.
"Five years ago, one of my former employers wanted me to remove a business rival of his- Ahmad Behzadi, to be precise." Erik closed his eyes, not wanting to see her reaction. "Everything was in place, the explosive readied and timed, and my quarry's every move was most carefully examined."
His voice became lower, afraid of speaking words which could harm this new direction his life had taken. "But his wife was in the car. She had the driver collect her at home, and they stopped at the theatre for her husband. They were apparently on their way to dinner."
He swallowed hard. She could hear the dry clicking of his throat. Christine handed him her brandy, and taking a large mouthful, he continued.
"She...she decided to make dinner reservations at the last minute and surprise him." He looked at her and said quietly, "I regretted very much what happened."
"Nadir said that no matter what your crimes were, you never harmed a woman or child until that moment."
Erik looked at her then, and though his naked face was much more readable, this time it held a closed look- calculating.
It was making her nervous. We've got this far and I still love him. It's bad, but nothing we can't overcome. Society, whether it knows it or not, had a hand in making him a killer. Why am I so afraid of what he's about to say? I really do not want to hear this.
Finally he spoke, turning away from her and sighing deeply. "That would not be correct, I'm afraid. However the daroga was not aware of my first transgression."
Erik had debated in these last few moments whether it was wise to tell her everything, but it had festered for years and if he was cauterizing a wound, it was best to leave nothing behind.
He took a deep breath and began.
"When I was twenty-three, nearly your age now, I became eager to sample- how should I say this? Ah yes. The joys of the flesh. I found a fairly decent woman who was willing to lay with me for three times what she charged normal men. Well worth the price, or so I thought."
He sat back down and finished off the last of the brandy.
"She took me to a dirty, dingy room, but in my eagerness I never considered that this type of life was behind me, and I was essentially putting myself right back into it for an act that had virtually no meaning behind it- a cold, loveless joining of flesh. I...I had removed most of my clothes, but had of course left my mask in place."
He glanced at Christine, marveling how she could be so loving in bed with him, but still retain an air of innocence. She was blushing furiously.
"Forgive me. I do not mean to embarrass you. But a moment, s'il te plait."
He broke eye contact, ashamed of what he was telling her, but helpless to stop now. "It was over before it began. In my excitement, I'm afraid I was a bit premature, so to speak. It was joyless and humiliating and she... she laughed at me..."
Erik's voice trailed off, and he was silent for a moment remembering his towering rage. "I...I slapped her and she grabbed for my mask. I panicked at the thought of exposing my face to her. I hit her again. Everything grayed out, and I don't remember very much after that. When I came back to myself, she...she was lying there on the bed unconscious.
"I dressed quickly and ran, never looking back. To this day, I don't know whether she lived or died."
Christine sat there stunned. My God, Erik! Happy now, Christine? You know so much more about him. Feel better?
"I never sought out another prostitute after that night. I was afraid to repeat the experience. My violent reaction had badly shaken me, but it was also degrading."
His voice had risen. After all these years, his actions that night still had the power to affect him. He glanced at her finally, the abject look of hurt and misery lining every inch of his face.
"Her look of contempt and disgust- a whore disgusted with me! As if I was no more than a lowly beast. Merde! It stopped me from seeking out others."
Christine's hand crept to her mouth, shocked at what he just told her. She knew he could be violent- had seen how dangerous he actually was. But he was describing an incident that took place years ago and he was different now.
Wasn't he?
