…Be still my beating heart
Love is whispering your name
There were days suffering in the dark
Holding back your tears and pain…

-Gone Are the Dark Days, By Point of Grace

Chapter Forty Three: My Beating Heart, P.2

Eric

"Are we lost, Señor?" She asked, obviously amused.

It was such a comfort to have a companion to walk with. For the first time in my life, human contact had become a matter of course, though even after these last few months I still expected her to begin gibbering in terror or howling in disgust at having touched me despite the layers of her glove and my coat sleeve.

Yes, even now, several loud voices continued to shriek warnings in my head whenever I was within a few feet of her, as they did near any other human being. Physical contact remained a somewhat disturbing phenomenon, one that set me constantly on edge and expecting to be bodily harmed.

Perhaps God might even stretch out his hand from heaven and smite me down where I stood for having dared to assume too much humanity.

Needless to say, I rarely initiated such touching and was as jumpy as a rabbit in a snakes den for as long as it continued. All the while, I was painfully aware that my uncomfortable advances were sadly inexperienced at best.

Still, in the dim light of the sun that faded in the narrow strip of sky above us, I privately reveled in the reality of having a young woman on my arm.

"Of course not Mille! I merely thought you might enjoy a change of pace. We have been taking the same route back from the fencing hall since we began. Have a bit of faith in me."

"I have perfect faith in you." She countered with a sly giggle. "It is your memory that I distrust. Old age can dull even the sharpest mind." She did enjoy having a laugh at my expense from time to time, especially about my age. Honestly, I only had about fifteen years on the girl!

"That isn't what you were saying when I trounced you so thoroughly earlier. I seem to remember having won the majority of the matches this afternoon."

Though highly inappropriate, a private fencing hall had become one of our favorite trysts. It allowed us both a live partner and animinity, masking her feminine face and my hideous one behind the mesh of the regulation helmets.

"There you are with that senile memory again. Really, they shouldn't let you off of your estate grounds without an escort for the elderly."

"I assure you, Mam'selle, that my mind is like a steel trap!"

"Prone to rust and illegal inside the boundaries of the city of Paris?"

I could only laugh at her quick wit. Her smile and mildly abrasive tongue brightened my days. Unfortunately, we soon spotted the Opera House, and I was left alone after a quiet goodbye with only a touch of her fingers on my coat sleeve.

Watching her go, I half wished that I could have persuaded her for a bit more, perhaps a squeeze of her hand in parting. The idea was uncomfortable, yet thrilling.

It struck me in that moment that her presence had made quite an impact on my solitary lifestyle. The man I had been four months ago could not have conceived of using the words 'only a touch' together in a singular sentence.

She had open up a world of magic for me. Me, the master magician himself! Touching, nay, merely looking at another human being in the eye without palpable fear, had been such delightfully foreign experiences that I had nearly died of shock the first time she permitted me to do so. But in the months that passed, I had not found the pleasure of the experience to fade from familiarity.

I could not wait until I could share such things with someone I loved!

Throughout the past several months of seeing the girl, I had often wondered if all women were so irritatingly complex. One minute, she would be reserved and prim, and in the next she was open and curious, nearly flirtatious. I could never quite unravel the secret of her personality, for it seemed that I could never quite predict her moods or reactions at any given moment. How was I to win her if I couldn't understand her?

"Why are you trying at all?" The voices sometimes nagged me. "You know that she'll never be smitten with you once you show her your face, you abomination! Why are you trying to prove that you are human when we all know that you will fail? You are only a monster, and no woman in her right mind will ever care for you."

I hated to admit defeat, especially to the voices. "What about Azadeh? She didn't mind my curse."

"She doesn't count, you fool!" They had always replied. "She wasn't IN her right mind! The child was a lunatic!"

It is a frustrating thing to be outwitted by the voices in your own head.

Notes: Short chap, but please do not stone authoress, lest she coax Eric to Punjab you. She just might, cause preparing for collage is stressful, it is nearly 1:30 in the morning, and she is grumpy. Beware the wrath of the one eyed, popsicle eating, sneezing, wheezing, hormonal authoress in a purple bathrobe. Grr.

Responses on the next update, cause I'm too tired now.