Christine had never been sure of the Phantom's age. She knew that he had crept and climbed and maneuvered his way through all the difficult passages of the opera house, fleet as any of the young flies and nimble as a dancer. By his cunning and strength, he had made himself master of that place, from top to labyrinthine bottom. But she knew he could not be young. Appearances alone told her nothing; in the moments when she had seen him bared to the light sans mask and wig, hunched and flinching from the rake of her eyes over his hideousness, he had seemed centuries old. Like some husk cursed to walk the earth far longer than was natural. But she knew he could not be that, either. It was by his manner that she managed to guess. When he crooned to her through the mirror in the guise of the father figure she had longed for, when he growled out his censure of Raoul's youth and boldness – by these clues, she guessed him to be, perhaps, twice her own age at least. But in that moment, she would never have known.
Joy stripped away those guessed-at years. That low simmering hatefulness, his armor against the world, long labored over in the lonely dark, was suddenly forgotten. It left him free and light. He kissed Christine with abandon, and did not flinch when her fingers caressed his face. He wrapped her in his arms and spun her around to music only he could hear. She gasped, and laughed, and he laughed with her, and they forgot that it was a cemetery they danced in. Song burst out of him, incandescent and joyful, and it squeezed at Christine's heart so that she felt she could not breathe.
"Nuit d'hyménée! Ô douce nuit d'amour! La destinée m'enchaîne à toi sans retour!"
Surely no tenor on earth had ever embodied Romeo's triumph so completely. But the Phantom managed without even a hint of affectation, for Romeo's rejoicing was his own.
"Ô volupté de vivre! Ô charmes tout puissants! Ton doux regard m'enivre, ta voix ravit mes sens!"
He stooped, and she found herself suddenly weightless, whisked up from the ground into the cradle of his arms. Christine's joy and excitement still bubbled up in her laughter. But her own arms, flung around his neck, began to tremble.
"Sous tes baisers de flamme! Le ciel rayonne en moi! Je t'ai donné mon âme. À toi, toujours à toi!"
She felt him move, felt him stride across that consecrated ground with the pride of a king, and her a treasure in his arms. Exhilaration coursed through her. And yet, her trembling increased with every powerful step he took. She didn't know where he was taking her; but that in itself didn't truly matter. As she had reminded him earlier that night, she was no child. Though their destination remained a secret, she was in no way ignorant of what it was he carried her towards.
"La destinée m'enchaîne à toi sans retour!"
He must have had the gift of sight in the dark, or else he knew the cemetery grounds as well as he had known the opera house. He carried her along with surety, and made not a single misstep. With a dizzying twirl, he swung her to the side so he could throw his shoulder against some barrier in their way. Christine heard the creak of hinges, heard the sound echo back from walls of old stone. Musty air momentarily choked her – dust and wax, oil and incense. At the far side of the room, a tiny light flickered in protest at the intrusion of the night air. A chapel, she thought in dawning horror. Their bridal bed, a chapel! Her sin seemed compounded a hundred fold. With a nudge of his foot, the door groaned and slid towards closed again. She felt smothered in the sudden stillness of the air.
"... Christine..."
He paused long enough to feel her trembling, and realized all at once that she was shaking like an aspen leaf in his arms. He cradled her closer, protective, and his voice went soft with dismay.
"Beloved Christine... Why are you afraid? Do you think that I'd harm you?"
"I'm lost," she whispered. "Oh, what is to become of me! I'm lost... is this heaven? Or some hellish snare I've caught myself in..."
The Phantom stood, for a moment still a youth again, despairing and uncertain in the face of his lover's distress. She was a girl, of course, looking with terror over the cusp at the imminent plunge into womanhood. He felt just as young, standing with her on that same precipice. But it was a cruel world, he reminded himself. One that filled its men-folk with eagerness for a thing that maidens were left to guess at and fear. His years caught up with him again, and he pressed a gentle kiss to her brow, at once wishing to protect her from that terror but also to rush towards it with her, to show her that it was nothing to be feared at all.
There was no question as to which impulse would win out.
With renewed determination, he carried her deeper into the chapel. Christine heard the change in the echo of his footsteps as he brought her out of the wide open space into some secret corner, snug and sheltered. She heard her shallow breath grow loud in the tightening space. The tiny glimmer of the sanctuary light disappeared. She hoped that meant that they were not in view of the alter, or the crucifix above it.
Very gently, he laid her down, and knelt by her side. She felt something rough beneath her. It was scratchy under her hand, and lumped awkwardly under her back, but still she was grateful for any barrier between her and the cold stone of the floor. He snatched for something in the dark, then carefully lifted her head to pillow it with some stolen pew cushion or some other soft thing, tenderly laying her head back down on it. His nimble fingers wove through her curls and brushed the errant ones away from her face in a caress as soft as velvet. It must be his own bed of these last few months, she thought. Evicted from his chambers in the opera cellars, he'd stolen the corner of a neglected chapel and feathered it with what few human comforts he could find.
"It is heaven, Beloved," he whispered, his voice as velvety soft as his touch. "Let it be heaven. Only heaven. A paradise of our own. I will show you, how sweet and warm and wonderful it can be. If you only trust me..."
She did not refuse him. Nor did she accept. She lay still where he had put her. And still he could feel her shaking. Her breath quickened when his body moved, but he only eased himself down lower beside her. There was a swish of fabric, and the warmth of his cloak fell over her.
"Do you remember...? The darkness, the music? Do you remember your night with me, when I brought you down into my domain?"
"As if I could forget," she said in the barest whisper.
"No harm came to you then. None will come to you now. Your angel is with you, here in the dark."
Christine wanted to remind him that her trust in him was mislaid, however gentlemanly he may have been that first night. But his hand caressed her face in that moment and stole her breath.
"I love you, Christine." His fingers trailed down her neck. "With every fiber of my being, I love you." They whispered across her breastbone. "Every note I write, every word, they are all dreams of you." Over the sleeve of her coat, the ruffle of blouse at the cuff. "I am never complete until you are with me." His fingertips like fire against the skin of wrist. He guided her hand up to his face and kissed her knuckles. "Do you dream of me, too?"
The press of his lips against each finger made it difficult for her to answer, but at last she managed, "Yes. I dream of you. I dream of the dark, and of you..."
He turned her hand to kiss her palm.
"...And do the dreams ever leave you aching...?"
His mouth against her wrist made her shudder. She couldn't remember the bare skin of her wrist ever feeling like such a terribly intimate place before that moment. And it was the same with every inch of her arm until the cloth of her sleeve prevented more. She wondered if the admission would cost her her soul. She didn't dare to answer. Until she felt his face close to hers in the dark. Close, so close. The kiss was there on his lips, just out of reach. But he did not move that final inch to give it to her.
"Yes," she breathed.
Her hand turned to cup his face to pull it closer, and he obliged her with a long kiss that left both their heads swimming. His fingers seared their way back up the length of her arm. There was the barest brush of his knuckles against the side of her bodice, and then the flat of his hand, warm and wide, smoothing over her stomach.
"...What do I do, in those dreams, Christine...?"
It felt as if all the air in the room had gone thin, and she could not get enough of it.
"...You... possess me," she gasped softly.
"Possess you," he echoed. His lips brushed over her neck with the words.
Her head pressed back into the cushion to arch her neck into the kiss. "Ooh, God," she breathed.
His palm stroked across her body and up the other side, sliding in turn down that arm and grasping her other wrist. He pulled it close to his face. She gasped aloud to feel the warmth of his mouth close around two of her fingers, engulfing them to the third knuckle before pulling back again.
"My Christine," he murmured against her fingers, then moved to draw another two in. She had never imagined it, never dreamed that the soft heat of his mouth over her fingers could wake such sensation in very unrelated parts of her person. Last, her thumb, and then another burning kiss against her wrist. "When I possess you... in these dreams... Do I sing to you...?"
"Ohh, yes," Christine whispered, "yes, there's always music."
He dipped low once more to kiss her mouth, more deeply than before, and she reached up to clutch his shoulder and hold him to her. When the kiss broke, his voice was as breathless as hers.
"Then I have dreamed the same dream. The two of us becoming one in the dark. And to wake from it felt like being driven from the garden."
He cupped her face, brushed his thumb across her lips, and shuddered softly when they parted to kiss it.
"Christine... Angel... do you want that dream to become real...? And never ache at the waking?"
"Ohh, God," she cried softly, "ooh, God in heaven, forgive me."
His lips at the hollow of her neck.
"God in heaven. Yes."
His voice beginning to sing, low and soft in her ear.
"Yes!"
The night air slid its fingers through the crack left in chapel door. It stirred the ancient dust, and swirled between the pews. It caught the softly uttered sounds from the sacristy as it passed that way, and bounced them between the stone walls. Far from the door it wandered, brushing its fingers at last across the sanctuary candle.
The little flame flickered, guttered, and died.
Author's note: The music Erik is singing is the tenor's part of the bridal night duet in Act 4, scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet has forgiven Romeo for killing her cousin Tybalt, professing that she still loves him, and they sing a beautiful duet together before consummating their marriage. Not only did this seem perfect for the moment, it is also a nod to Leroux. In the novel, the Phantom announces himself to Christine by singing this scene to her, calling her to him. And he does it so sweetly that even Raoul is enchanted by his voice. ;) A snippet of this scene can be heard here (replace DOT with a . ): ( youtuDOTbe/1dboNnVcnXw )