"Appearance is all illusion. And this moment of perception of Beauty is what matters most. But this moment…goes away. It wears off." –T. Ford.
Trust. Such an simple word to say, yet believing in it was the most unfaithful act of all. Like a sip of red wine it tasted bitter on my tongue, intoxicating and dangerous to my sensibility—another sip and I just might see what I want to see, believe what is gone is mine.
She belongs to me.
I wanted her so badly that I had become completely possessed by the desire to make her mine, all of her—to the very last pulsing vein in her heart—I wanted Christine Daae like no man would ever want his wife, to see her receptive arms welcome his embrace and beckon him into her bed, to wake up with her head next to mine, undisturbed, serene, and satisfied.
Oh Christine, my foolish love, you do not understand. Such power, to make you a happy woman, lies within these murderous hands…For you see; they too, can be beautiful like you if their master commands them to. They will beckon you from your sanctuary of holy reason into the heaven that you've secretly dreamt…Such heaven could be yours, Christine—and the only vice that keeps you from owning it, is your stubborn will. These hands will not give if they are not claimed.
Drumming my fingers in a thousand beats across the ivory and ebony keys, I lifted her up with my music as she sang, joining her in the climax that wrenched our souls with our voices and ripped our hearts apart. It is at these moments that I am grateful to God for his unspeakable mistake, for without this face I would have never heard you sing, and in consequence, I would have never lived for a single day.
I love you, Christine.
I love you so much that I would cut off these hands to make you happy, leave this kingdom that I so familiarly clung to and go to the end of the world with you.
Yet how is it that you have fooled me and taken my soul while wearing another's gift upon your breast? How is it that your young man and I are so different, yet so alike—willing to kill to claim you as our own? I had long begun to doubt your innocence since the first time I stared into your clandestine face…I know that beneath the child-like exterior lies a smoldering creature of fire, burning to break the shell that binds her. I know that since your first sample of darkness you've yearned to taste it again—torn between the light that raised you and the night that brings you to life. I recognize the guilt in your eyes. It is not the boy…but the woman who speaks silently that gives you away.
I brought her back to her room—leaving her without a word but my voice in her mind, singing her the sweet lullaby that spun tales of the Angel of Music. The Angel who she wants to believe. I held her in that trance until she fell asleep in her bed, and I descended down once more into the dungeons that awaited me.
Sleep well, my Angel...for soon you will have to prove your faith to me, and I will show you how.
