"How did you get in here?"

That was not what I intended to say. I meant to tell her how angelic she looked with her feet tucked up in my chair and her hair escaping in wisps from her kerchief. But the assassin in me was nowhere near dead. One's hideout should be inviolable – not that Christine's presence necessarily constituted a violation.

"I wanted to see how it would go." She set her book on my desk, one half hanging off to keep her page, and stretched mightily. "It just seemed like I should be there, you know? Just in case…"

"In case what?" I suppose I was still a bit on edge from the confrontation in the theatre. I could not keep the suspicion from creeping in. Had she doubted me?

She shrugged unconcernedly and stood up.

"In case you needed me."

A couple of steps brought her close enough to touch.

"But you did just fine without me. While you were so wrapped up in your music, while everyone was so wrapped up in your music, I just walked through the doors, down the aisle, and through your little door. No one saw me. I almost didn't make it; you were amazing…"

I reached up to touch the strands of hair that brushed her cheek, but she stopped my hand. For a brief piece of eternity, she stood there holding my hand, staring at it.

"Christine?"

"I keep taking them off, and they just keep being there." Her Voice was a low whisper, barely audible.

"What?"

"These." she said, stripping off my gloves. "I take them off, and you put them back on. It's like a fairy-tale curse or something." She held them out, like evidence of some dreadful crime and then dropped them on the table.

"But…"

"If you want to touch me," she murmured, "then touch me. Don't put some creepy piece of leather between us."

I looked at my hands, then I looked at her cheek. Once before, I'd dared to touch her hand. Once before, I'd dared to kiss her cheek. Both times, I felt like a thief in the Guggenheim, stealing something beyond price – and dipping it in slime. Here was an open invitation to do what I dreamed, but the sensation of the forbidden fruit lingered. When she said she loved me, when she put her arms around me in acceptance, I'd thought my cup full. How could I have this as well?

"Christine, it is not… I could not possibly…" There had to be a right phrase, a perfect choice of words that would make her see.

"It is, and you can." She smiled, and I suddenly felt as though I were standing too close to a bonfire. "I see it in your eyes."

"Surely you can't want this, Christine." Why was I arguing? I certainly did not want to convince her of my position, but my mouth would keep speaking. "There has to be a limit to your kindness; pity can only carry one so far."

"Pity?" Her eyes narrowed. "Is that what you think this is?"

I think my heart stopped. Oh, that moment. I shall never forget as long as I live the sudden realization that I'd taken a step too far. There is a point at which self-deprecation can become insult.

"You think I've spent days and days down here, working and training and busting my butt with you out of pity?" Christine shook her head. "Nadir warned me that you were a self-centered man. I thought 'Hey, only natural, he's been through a lot' but I never really thought about what it meant."

"I only meant that hands like mine shouldn't touch…"

"Hands like yours? But it's your hands I want! When you got so angry with me that day, you said, 'these are my hands, this is my face, this is my head…and the rest of me's pretty much the same'. And when I came back from Nadir's, I told you I loved you. Right?" She was still holding my hands, tightly, so I could not pull away without some violence. "Right?"

"Yes," Her eyes demanded an answer, and I was completely at her whim. I could face death without fear and torture without pleading – but I could not withstand Christine's displeasure. "Yes, you did."

"I didn't say that I loved your music, or your voice, or what you've done for me. It feels like I've told you this before." Her tone changed, softened. She lifted my hand almost to her cheek – but not quite, it hovered millimeters away. "And I guess I'll have to tell you again and again before you really believe me. I love you, Erik. But just in case you still aren't putting two and two together, let me spell it out for you. I'm a woman, you're a man, and I want to be touched! So if you want to…" She trailed off, and I understood that the rest was left to me.

It was an act of sheer will to move my uncovered hand to her face, but once it was done, I could not conceive of touching her any other way. I had taken her hand in mine many times over the last few weeks, but only in the gloves. She had taken my bare hands in hers, but I'd always been too mesmerized by the fact of what she was doing to fully appreciate the feeling. Once or twice, as I recalled, she'd even given me tiny kisses.

And that broke the floodgates. I was touching her hair, her face, her hands in a dreamy sort of ecstasy. It was sheerest heaven to let my fingers sift through her long, long hair. And as I gently worked my fingers through a stubborn little tangle, it dawned on me. She honestly wanted me to touch her. She was not permitting me a liberty, or allowing 'the poor beast' a moment of happiness out of sympathy.

In this new blaze of morning light, I could see and believe in so many things: I was an architect, a brilliant composer, a musician unparalleled. This marvelous woman loved me. I was about to break onto the music scene like a tidal wave, driving all lesser composers before me. I was a reformed man. True, true, and true. It was all true and clear as glass.

Many times between then and now, that light has dimmed for awhile. I do not think it lasted more than a few hours that first time before the abject darkness returned and I felt debilitating shame and remorse for my uninhibited actions. But once a sleeper has wakened and seen the beautiful world shining around him, he can never truly fall into deep slumber again.

It was not merely a realization of self-worth. My new vision meant more than the empty 'self-esteem' lauded by school-teachers and therapists. This new understanding meant that I could love Christine as fully and passionately as I liked, and that was a wonderful thing in itself.

But it had another meaning, more ephemeral and stranger to me than the others. It meant that the world, from my family right down to the scum on the streets, was wrong for rejecting me because of an accident of birth.

But at that moment in time I could not have cared less about the injustice of the world's rejection. Christine had taken my mask – again – and I suddenly found myself kissing her deeply, my hands deep in her hair and my eyes closed in perfect bliss.

There is no nectar so sweet, no drug so intoxicating, as the lips of a loving woman…