IX. Close your Eyes
"Lord in Heaven," Raoul groaned, slumping down onto the bed while still pulling on the shirt in which he usually slept. "I feel sore all over."
Sitting down beside him, Christine kissed his cheek. "You were so brave."
"Brave? No. You were brave." Crawling under the covers, he held them up for her to slip in beside him. "I'm so proud of you – though I actually don't appreciate it if you endanger yourself."
Christine snuggled up to him, one arm around his waist, and rested her head on his shoulder, as she usually did. "I don't want to let you go alone."
Yawning hugely, Raoul began stroking her hair. "Little Lotte has no reason to worry about me."
"No? You've spent the past two days fighting gypsies in the cellars, and you think I shouldn't worry?" Christine snorted. "Nice try, Raoul. That's all I've got to say."
Beside her, he snickered into the pillow. "Aww, getting an itsywitsy bit haughty, are we, Lotte-snailie?"
Giggling, Christine gave him a gentle swat on the head. She did not see what exactly she had to do with a snail, and it did not exactly sound like a compliment, but she liked Raoul when he was in a silly mood. She liked him in any mood, really, but his silly mood was one of her favourites; she could hardly keep herself from giggling, then.
"Now, now, you bad girl, don't hit the nice uncle!" Raoul protested in an oddly gruff tone, and Christine had barely stopped giggling when she began anew. "If you're not nice to me, you'll have to sleep on the carpet in the living room with the dog."
"Fine," Christine replied, pretending to be indignant, "but I'll take the blanket with me."
"Right, then I'll curl up really small and see if I can shove myself under the pillow. You'll have to unwrap me in the morning."
"What if I leave you as you are and stuff you in the broom cupboard? I'd like to know if you'd still – Hey! Will you stop that?" For Raoul had propped himself up on one elbow and started to tickle her. Squealing, Christine tried to fend him off, but he just would not be stopped. He had done that earlier on already, she recalled, when they had still been children; he had tickled her mercilessly until her squeaks and squeals had caused an adult to come running to investigate what was going on. Back in those days, she had been a lot more ticklish than now, but she still was ticklish enough to squirm. "Raoul! Don't!" Heavens, what if someone of the servants – especially the butler, who kept eyeing her with suspicion, it seemed – heard her now? What would they think? "Please, Raoul! Stop – it!"
At last he desisted from her, laughing and shaking his hair out of his eyes. "You should see your face! It's all flushed."
"Does that surprise you, you geek?" Christine gently poked a finger into his stomach. "Anyway, what I wanted to tell you before you assaulted me was that there's no way you can prevent me from worrying about you when you do things like… that."
"Oh, see who's talking." Raoul grinned down at her. "Only a few days ago, you couldn't see the point in my worrying about you."
Christine sighed softly. "That was a different matter, Raoul."
"Yes, because it was darling Erik, right?" Her fiancé still spoke gently, but his voice was very slightly tinged with annoyance now. "I don't know if you noticed it, but that's the very same man who covered himself in blood merely hours ago and seemed to be having a jolly good time while doing so."
Christine stared at him with disbelief. Now what was wrong with him? "Erik very probably saved my life, Raoul!"
With a sigh, Raoul let himself fall onto his back. "Yes, he might have, but he also slaughtered a woman. Slaughtered, Christine. She may have been among the worst kind of criminals, but all the same, you have to face it: That man is evil. He drank her blood, for God's sake! I never witnessed anything like that."
"She hurt him more than you can possibly imagine," Christine said quietly.
"Oh, for God's sake!" Raoul repeated impatiently. "She may have or she may not, but all the same, does that entitle him to anything? You and your Erik! Please, Christine, you know how much I love you, but I really can't stand him. And I can't see why you haven't realized yet that he's a dangerous lunatic and should not be allowed to walk free!"
Christine shook her head sadly. How she wished those two could be friends! Both were dear to her, each in his own special way, and she did not want to reject one of them completely so she could love the other. She wanted to have them with her, both of them, always, however complicated they might be at times.
Well, actually it was not Raoul who was complicated, or only rarely. Raoul was quite simple, in a way, always pleasant, easy to live with, and usually she understood well enough what was going on in his mind. Whereas the Phantom was complex, and he had a depth to him, a deep mystery, that Raoul did not have. He drew her to him, he fascinated her – but at the same time, he scared her. And he confused her utterly. How could one feel safe with somebody at the same time as fearing him? For this was what she had felt when waking from the misty darkness of her trance, when watching him kill Niobe. His burning hatred, his brutality had shocked her, yet at the same time, she had felt that nothing could harm her, that he would deal with every threat in her proximity.
Of course Raoul made her feel safe, too, yet in a different way. She could not have explained; she hardly understood it herself. Maybe it was that strange bond connecting her to the Phantom, and the tenderness she felt whenever he thought of her.
And there was still the question of Erik, of course.
Not that she considered the Phantom and Erik different men. No, they were one and the same. But still, not quite. Erik was gentle and kind, and a little shy maybe, and reminded her a bit of Raoul, in a way. He was a friend, or a brother perhaps, a faithful companion who would not leave her alone and who would always be there for her when she needed him. Yet the Phantom... The Phantom was a man of the extremes, all consuming love and passion as well as burning wrath and hatred, an angel and a demon, a genius and a wild beast. And she really could not say what she felt towards him, except pity for his dark fate. But it was not his Erik side that drew her so magically, that much she knew.
And in a way, that made her afraid of herself.
"Christine, are you listening to me at all?" Raoul demanded. "I was saying that your favourite Phantom –"
"Why is he always my Phantom?" Christine interrupted. Did Raoul really have to do this? "You're jealous, though I can't see why."
"Christine, listen to me." Half sitting up again, Raoul gently turned her so that she was facing him. His blue eyes seemed dark in the scarce light coming in from outside, and his features, usually so merry, bore creases of worry now. "There is something between you and him. No, I'm not accusing you of anything. But I can sense there is something there, something only the two of you can see. Something I can't share." He swallowed. "You love him, don't you?"
She drew a deep breath to steady herself. Heavens above, what was it she felt? What did she really feel towards the Phantom? "I couldn't say," she said.
He nodded with his eyes closed, and as he opened them again, he turned his head away. "You know, I... I..." Suddenly his voice had an unsteady sound to it. "If it's like that... I would be lying if I told you I approved, but I wouldn't want to be in the way. You owe nothing to me. If you love him... then you can just... I don't know, go with him wherever he might want to take you."
"Oh, Raoul!" Throwing back the blanket, Christine wrapped her arms around her fiancé's neck and held him tight. "Don't think that! I never meant it!" Against her cheek, she felt Raoul exhale with relief. "I would never want to leave you."
"I love you," he murmured into her hair, and although he had told her so many times before, it still filled her with a warm, gentle joy. "And I don't want you to leave, whatever all my relatives say."
His relatives? She chose not to think of them. Undoubtedly there were kind people among them, but she suspected that more than one would have his doubts as far as Raoul's sudden and completely unannounced engagement with a young ballerina was concerned. She rather just snuggled into his embrace as she sank back down with him into the pillows. There were no suspicious and disapproving relatives now. There were only the two of them.
And the Phantom. She could feel him, though only dimly, partly because he was shielding his mind again, partly because he was further away than usual. It was a comfort, knowing he was well – at least more or less, at that distance and with the strong blurring caused by his shield it was hard to tell. Maybe he would learn to shield himself without affecting their connection at all in the future. She caught herself wishing he would.
One of Raoul's hands was caressing her side, wandering up and down along it gently, while the other... Now honestly, he couldn't do that! "Raoul! What is your hand doing under my nightshirt?"
"Nothing," he answered innocently, then snickered. "Oh, come on, my love! We've already done worse things than this."
"Yes, and we shouldn't repeat them too soon," Christine told him firmly. "Not before we're married. It was highly improper."
"To be exact, we also aren't supposed to sleep in the same bed, and we're still doing it."
Christine sighed. "There's a certain difference between those things, Raoul. You know that."
He sighed in turn. "Yes, there probably is." Wrapping both arms around her, he pulled her to him tightly. "Is that better?"
"Very much," she murmured contentedly, slipping one of her arms around him in turn. "And I won't let you go again, not ever."
For some time they lay there with their arms around each other, until Christine began to drift over into sleep. Then Raoul suddenly stirred, and she opened her eyes again, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. "What is it?" she asked drowsily.
"Nothing," Raoul muttered. "I'm just fine. I only... had a dream."
Twisting around a little in his embrace, Christine rested her head on his chest. Already a dream? He must have fallen asleep straightaway, then. Poor tired darling. "What was it?"
Raoul sighed softly. "Niobe. I thought I saw her."
"She's dead, Raoul," Christine murmured soothingly, stroking his cheek. "It's alright. She won't harm you."
"I know." Tangling his fingers into her dark curls, he began to play with them gently. "And I'm glad she is."
"Did she hurt you?" Despite everything he said, Christine was still worried about him. Had that horrible woman harmed her fiancé in any way? The Phantom had said she hadn't, but still Christine was unable to dismiss a feeling of unease.
"No, love, I'm really fine. It's nothing like that. It's just... do you know that feeling, trying to fight something off, trying to resist, but not being able to at all? It's like... like being a puppet, dancing on strings. It's just odd. And scary."
Christine continued stroking his cheek. "I know."
"Was it what the Phantom did with you?"
"Something similar, I guess." Letting her fingers wander, Christine tugged at his earlobe playfully. "But you could have told me what you were going to do, not just started making her advances and kissing her and letting yourself be fumbled – or pawed, as you recently called it."
"I'm sorry, darling. I didn't expect her to grope at my bottom."
Christine sighed. "Did Erik mention to you what she tried to get him to do?"
"He told me something like she wanted to get him under a blanket in a quiet corner, something in that style." Raoul passed a hand over her head. "She's the nastiest woman I ever met. You know, I think that one was quite capable of raping a man."
"Erik told me what she did with him, you know, that night when we were alone in the living room."
"My God, did she rape him, then?" If mentioning the night in the living room woke any jealous feelings in Raoul, he did not show it.
"No, luckily not. Though she might have had if we hadn't gotten him out of the cellars first. But judging from what he said, she molested him something dreadfully."
"I never knew women could do that." Christine could feel the slight shiver running through her fiancé. "That feeling that you could do nothing at all against her, that you couldn't even control your own body any longer... I know this is something horrible to say, but I think she deserved what she got."
"Yes. Maybe she did." Raoul was right, it was something horrible to say... but Niobe had been a horrible person, as it seemed, cruel, power-hungry and utterly shameless.
"So your Phantom – well, sorry, the Phantom, if you prefer that – did something of that kind with you?" The strained patience in Raoul's tone was evident. "And still you –"
"No," Christine interrupted decidedly. "He influenced me with his mental powers, but never in the way you were just describing. He made me want to be held by him, to have him very close, and to forget everything around us." As she told him so, she felt her cheeks grow hot. "But I never felt like a puppet. Not really. A bit, maybe. But not in the way you told me, certainly not."
"And yet it scared you."
"Because I didn't understand what was happening to me. I thought I was just having... impure thoughts." Again Christine felt the blood rush into her cheeks, but this time she feared that her face glowed as red as the rising sun. There was no reason for that, she told herself, no reason to feel embarrassed when speaking about such matters in her fiancé's presence, especially since quite a few improper incidents – especially that one immediately after they had returned from the Phantom's lair on that fateful night – had already occurred between them, but still, she was not used to speak about those things freely. There had been the occasional whispering with Meg, of course, and with some other girls from the ballet, but mentioning something of that kind in front of a man, even if she was being cuddled by him at the same time, just did not feel right. "Now, knowing what it is he can do, it scares me less, in a way, I think."
To her great astonishment, Raoul did not have another outbreak of jealousy, nor did he reproach her. Instead, he chuckled softly. "So Little Lotte was harbouring impure thoughts about the Angel of Music? I'm quite sure that wasn't part of the story your father told us."
Christine giggled into the crumpled folds of his rough linen shirt. What an idea! "Yes, but Little Lotte never saw him in person," she pointed out, still filled with mirth. Raoul could be so marvellously silly at just the right times!
"Ah, that might be an explanation. What kind of impure thoughts were those, anyway? If they, by any chance, involved you, him, a bed and lots of scattered clothing on the floor, I'm going to be very, very shocked indeed at your indecency." This last sentence was delivered in the reproachful and scandalised tone an elderly relative might take while observing the offending individual through her lorgnon.
"Raoul!" Christine exclaimed, amused and indignant at the same time. "Really! I was never thinking of that!"
"No? Well, that's the usual type of impure thoughts. Let me hear your variations, then."
Christine cleared her throat nervously. Now this was a very private matter, she felt – but Raoul was her future husband, wasn't he? "I wanted him to touch me," she confided. "And I wanted to touch him as well."
"I see." Still no jealousy? Or was it jealousy that made him want to know all about it? "In any, ahem, interesting places?"
Christine assumed that the mere thought of what this might include had just made her turn into a personification of sunrise again. "No. No, I don't think so."
"Good. I must say that calms me." So he had been jealous after all, probably. "Those are just innocent little fantasies, love. Nothing to run straight to Confession about."
Christine felt a slight twinge of guilt at his words. She had not been to Confession for some time. And moreover, she had not mentioned how the Phantom's tight-fitting trousers had caught her eye. At least he had worn a longer jacket at the masked ball, but as he had suddenly appeared on stage as Don Juan, his jacket had only reached down to his waist, so that he had given her something to blush at even when turning his back on her. And since keeping her gaze strictly to his face was no help at all because of the power of his eyes, she had tried to look straight at his chest – which had been of no use just as well, because he had been wearing his shirt hanging open a bit too far down. Heavens above, the man was a walking molestation to womanhood!
"Niobe, now," Raoul continued, "Niobe made me think about more."
"She did?" Christine could feel anger rise up in her at the idea of Niobe manipulating her fiancé in that way, yet she suppressed it. There was no point in being angry at the dead. Besides, it was not right, her father had said, long ago. She should not harbour any bad feelings against the dead.
"Yes, she did. She filled my head with very improper images, to use your expression, and she made me want her to do all those things to me. But let us not speak of it." Raoul pulled Christine to him tightly. "There is something else I'd like to know. I just remembered what that man – Adhemar, wasn't it? – was saying to your Phantom friend while they were fighting. I didn't catch all of it, since I was busy fighting myself, but he said odd things. I'm quite sure. And so did Niobe. Do you have any idea what they were talking about?"
"I'm not sure." Remembering what the Phantom had told her, and how fiercely he had denied it all, Christine had hated Niobe and Adhemar both for taunting him so. Yet still... who was he really? What was he? "It's some kind of story Créon made up, apparently. He's trying to convince Erik that he's a fallen angel." God, where had he gotten those powers? Where did those scars come from? And why did those others, those Lost Ones, have them just as well? It could not be a coincidence, though she fervently hoped it was.
"So he's playing at being the Angel of Music again, now is he? Doesn't it get boring after some time?"
"It's really not funny, Raoul."
"Right, sorry. I didn't mean to make fun of you."
Christine wanted to tell him that it was not because of her, but then again, the Phantom had only told her, and nobody else. And she had seen his anguish why he was telling her about it, his fear. He would not want anybody else to know. So she rather kept it to herself and only patted Raoul's shoulder. "It's alright. I'm not angry." The Phantom would be, but the Phantom was back at the Opera House and would never hear about Raoul's remark.
Yet still, that this stupid little story of Créon's was worrying him so much... It worried her, too. Especially since she had seen that image from Niobe's memories reflected through his mind.
Or had it really been from her memories? Had it not just been a feint, her final betrayal before she died? Had Niobe prepared this for him to torment him? Had she been planning to let him see that vision beforehand, hoping that their minds would make contact earlier on already, instead of just very briefly in the end? Or had it been a sudden idea, a last act of malice? Or – she did not want to even think of it, but the thought was there nonetheless – had the Phantom really found the image when searching through her memory? Christine could not say, and she suspected that the Phantom could not, either.
Raoul was stroking her hair again, slowly and gently. "Sleep now, my love," he whispered to her. "Just close your eyes. I'm here with you to chase away the nightmares."
With a contented little sigh, Christine let her eyelids slide shut. Yes, Raoul was there to watch over her... and Erik, too. She would not think about those past horrors anymore. There would be no nightmares now.
Or would there?
And suddenly she was glad that she had already closed her eyes, for otherwise, she felt, she might have been afraid to do so.
