Prologue – March, 1881
My eyes were closed at first, as I remained in a dark stupor that had passed as sleep for the past few years. I didn't need to sleep, really, but only relax. I hated not working, not occupying myself somehow, for when I was idle thoughts of her poisoned my mind. I often allowed my mind to drift off and leave me with nothing to think, nothing to feel, a temporary coma where I can pretend I don't exist for a time. It's better than a sleep filled with tormented dreams I inflict upon myself. I only sleep as punishment. Right now, I felt no desire to harm myself, but only a distinct weariness that I felt in my body. I was getting old; already I was far past the age where most men stopped courting, even an age where marriage began to lose its luster. I was much too old for her, and I knew it – she, a girl of barely eighteen, nineteen, twenty tops, would never find herself attracted to this slowly dying man, and if she was she was much too sensible a woman to allow herself to stay with me. It would be much better for her to court a younger boy, not a lusting shadow of what something might have been.
I had found myself stricken with this revelation; pain I had not considered it before. It seemed that the fates were against what I felt in my soul and seemed to try to block my road to happiness with whatever excuse they could get. Nothing was on the side of this tired masked renegade. The phantom of the opera was becoming decrepit, and now was quietly fading away.
I stared off blankly into space, brainless, thoughtless, momentarily deceased. Maybe I was finally dead now, out of all the times I had fallen into my own stupor. It would be a welcome change from the tedious days I spent on this earth, pacing warily through abhorred souls and wallowing in detestation. Very few had ever looked upon me with kindred and benevolent glances – I had only endured the furious stares of terror, anger, a wordless pain caused by my presence. My eyes, the ones that were claimed to be dark holes filled only with a blazing flame, were nothing so horrific compared to the looks of utter loathing I had received during my excuse for a lifetime. In my mind, I was not the enemy. I had never been the enemy. The masses had taken it upon themselves to become my enemy.
So I began to discover that I was not immortal and that the tolls of hate had not merely been deflected as I had originally thought.
Nothing reflected in my mind. Nothing. I heard nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing.
Until I felt something on my face.
It was my mask, or a part of it; it felt as though it had been removed from my head. I felt two light touches against the side of my cheek, and then an entire side of my mask was no longer attached to my face.
Someone was taking off my mask!
Instantly I snapped out of my daze and jumped up from the chair upon which I had been lying. The sharp glare of the dim room burned at my eyes as I blinked furiously, groping at my exposed face and floundering in my confusion. A surge of rage fueled my burst as the sound of shattering glass met my ears and brought me the realization that my mask had been destroyed. This riled me even more, and as my thin pale limbs swung wildly and finally struck what felt like warm flesh.
I stopped hitting and slowed enough to see who my tormenter was. Instantly my heart sunk down from my chest and seemed to break as badly as my mask.
There was a head in front of me, a soft face with light skin as white as the innermost part of the flame on a candle, apart from a flushed redness to one cheek that appeared to be a wound. The face's lips looked as gentle as velvet, plump like a crimson pillow, and the eyes were round and dark with a wet sheen. There was not only a head in front of me, I realized, as my eyes wandered and caught sight of cascading russet locks that wove around on shapely bare shoulders and a pale torso that was partially covered just below the beginning of a chest by an midnight silk gown. There was a body in front of me, a person whom I had unwillingly hoped I would never see again.
"You're back." Was all I could manage, as my body was trembling, my fury and hatred slowly ceasing to exist? The familiar weariness that I had been previously experiencing began to crawl back through my bones, and now my broken masked seemed like no important matter. Nothing mattered. She was standing here before me, willingly.
"I am." Christine said in a soft, emotionless voice. I could feel her eyes on my body, scanning me slowly as I was scanning her.
"Why?" My voice still had a quiver to it, but had become the mellow monotone she spoke with. Christine did not answer, but instead looked at my face without even a sign of discomfort with my strange appearance.
Then it struck me – I was dreaming!
I had not faded off and died, as I had so hoped. I had fallen asleep, the torment that I feared, the nightmares! I was dreaming that she was here with me, wanting to be with me, and soon she would vanish, leaving me to lust horribly again with a fresh sear of pain. Damn this unconscious state of mine!
Furiously I turned my back to the girl standing behind me, and violently flung myself into my chair, weeping freely. I heard a faint motion behind me and the same fingers that had pried my mask away pressed themselves against my back gently. The dainty hand seemed to move up my body to my face – she was touching my face! – and slowly caressed it. It was the first time I had ever been touched kindly, and by a woman, no less! A shiver ran down my spine like lightning to a tree.
Somehow, this gave me a motion of daring and I turned around slowly. My hand had flown to the spot where she had touched my rough skin, and I felt her own hand against mine.
"What's wrong?" Christine's hand moved from under mine and went to my eyes, where tears had begun to build up from my hatred and discontent. Her finger allowed itself to wipe the tears away as if she were a mother and I her son. It was obvious that she was not really in front of me, not really touching me, but she felt so real! Her hand was warm, the soft smooth flesh that was like velvet to the touch against my rough sandpaper face.
"You aren't there, are you?" I asked in a feeble whisper, leaning awkwardly against the chair. "You're only a dream."
Once again Christine said nothing, still stroking my cheek. Once again my temper betrayed me and I lurched away from her before promptly delivering a quick slap to her face.
"Leave me in peace!" I yelped painfully, as if I had been the receiver of the blow instead. "Can you not see how you torment me? I will wake the moment you touch me and find myself in even more pain then I am now!"
Christine had recoiled at the strike, but had steadied herself in realization that I knew of her true nature. She appeared dazed and confused, but still headstrong.
"You believe me not to be standing here then? You could only imagine you wanting me, and not I wanting you as well?" The girl was shocked, almost angry.
"Christine would never want me as I feel for her. You are only a dream sent to torture me for the things I did to her! Haven't I suffered enough?" I shouted darkly. In my anger, I could not support my own weight and found myself collapsing.
The nightmare bent down and tried to stop the plunge to no avail, and instead I found her fallen on top of me. Instead of tearing herself away from me, which I found that I would have not preferred, the girl wrapped her slender arms around my neck, her mouth dangerously close to mine.
"Stop…" I begged, but my plea was half-hearted. I had fallen into her trap now, and was unable to resist what was about to happen even if I knew what was to follow after. I wanted her too much to even remind myself that this was only a dream.
"Why do you want me to stop? Isn't this what you wanted from me? Or is it not the way you planned?"
I shook my head. "If you aren't a dream, why are you doing this?" Everything was becoming more and more lifelike as every moment passed, but something in my mind kept screaming that this was impossible.
The girl sighed and leaned away from me, and I felt myself feeling terribly disappointed.
"You can't believe that I love you, can you?" Christine crossed her arms, her dress askew around her legs.
"But you left me for…"
"That doesn't matter! I'm here now, aren't I?" She seemed impatient. "Fine. Consider me a dream, if you so desire. But I'm where you wanted me."
My desire for her increased as my body began to miss the feeling of hers against it. Something was wrong, something was very wrong – she wasn't supposed to want me, for God's sakes she wasn't supposed to be forcing me on her! She seemed strange and desperate, much too eager for me compared to her feeling prior to now…
But I would already feel horribly broken when I awoke at this point. What harm would there be in going any farther? If this was already a nightmare, then it didn't matter how obscurely far my mind took me in my state.
That thought took the sullen doubt from my mind and suddenly I found myself ravenous for what she was implying. Unable to control myself or realize that I had no idea what to do with her during this sort of behavior, I found myself reaching for her desperately. Christine was much too eager to comply as she pressed her lips against mine fiercely and pushed me back down to the ground.
It was then I began to feel once again that something was terribly wrong. In all my other dreams, the ones I had inflicted upon myself as a type of self torture, I had always imagined Christine being shy, gentle, as passionate as I was but not forceful like this! This, this was violent, rough, and dare I say it – vulgar! It was tasteless, loveless…she did not love me as she he claimed but instead she was only acting on lust!
My heart was breaking and I hadn't even woken up yet.
Somehow her skirts had found themselves cast aside and Christine was now only in a black lace corset that groped about her body in an unflattering fashion, giving me dark and distinct memories of the shady ladies of the night that I had been targeted by before. I was sickened at how such a distasteful garment could be on her soft body, but it seemed to fit the situation – the girl I loved was acting no more tastefully than a common whore, a random prostitute who was only with me for profit, not desire.
This was not right!
Once again I struggled, and this time I did so with a true feeling, but I was still exhausted and weak and the girl was considerably heavy. In my shock I could not move her off of me and could only feel hurt and disgustingly sinful lust overtake me as she led my shaking hand to the back of the bustier and slowly curved my fingers to rip it off.
As the detailed piece of clothing tore off, something in my heart seemed to lunge and I knew that the last little bit of hope I had for love from her had finally been torn out in the very same way. This was lust and nothing more.
We lay together for what was probably only several hours, but time seemed to stop and when she left me it felt as though an eternity had gone by. She was like a spreading fire, aggressive and fierce as if she was trying to force everything over with, while I feebly tried to follow along with her actions, clearly having no idea what exactly I was meant to do.
Finally, she stopped and rolled away, panting. I found myself curled up on the ground, feeling betrayed and unhappily vulnerable while she squirmed herself back into the dark gown.
"Happy now?" She breathed heavily, not turning to look at me. It was my turn not to respond and she eventually faced me.
"What's wrong? Wasn't this what you wanted?"
This was nothing I had wanted. I would have rather had her despise me then to have had to experience the passionless love that had just occurred.
"Yes." I finally answered. Anything to get her to leave me in peace
Christine nodded. She seemed somewhat pleased, although she did not smile. Without a goodbye she stepped over me and began to walk the winding stairs back up to the opera house. After another eternity, I could no longer hear the sound of her footsteps.
I was worn and shamed, and my eyes were closed once more. I knew nothing, thought nothing, felt nothing once again, only a constant pleading to escape this nightmare.
Eventually I opened my eyes, awake from a painful slumber. I was in my chair, clothed, and not sprawled on the floor shaking like I had been. A surge of relief washed over me and I breathed. For the first time, I had awoken from a dream deliriously happy to be alone in my little house. It had all been a dream. That had been nothing. That had been only a real nightmare.
But my joy was not destined to be long-lived, for when I took my first step out of my chair, I felt my foot brush against something sturdy and rough. It is impossible to describe the horror and grief that seemed to run through my blood at the moment when I looked down and saw the lacy black corset that lay askew on the cold, hard ground.
Unable to react, I fled weeping, vowing to never love again and praying that that would be the last I saw of the devious Christine.