Sleep was interrupted by a gentle overnight rainstorm. The thunder was pleasantly distant, a rough hum, and the rain on the roof pattered lightly, masking the ever present buzz of appliances and air conditioning. The night's second act flashed by with an imagined caress here, a sigh there. Phantom warmth curled by his side.
Erik woke so contented that he didn't even curse himself for forgetting to close the curtains.
Early start in hand, he cradled his face gently against the bright window and rolled upright. It was going to be a hot day. The rain would make it sticky. On any other day, he'd stay in and spread himself over the keys but…
He rolled out of bed, straightened his soft pajamas back into place, and walked down the hall to his desk. With a tap, the computer screen brightened, reporting the contents of the hard drive still amicably whirring away as though it had never smashed into the parking lot of the architecture firm he used to work at.
Erik sat heavily, scrolling through the payload of spreadsheets, work orders, inspections and memos. Copied emails, blind copied emails, and forgotten chains stuck in other emails. Careful to not alter anything, he closed each file and ejected the thing, tracing his tough musician's fingers over the shiny side just to watch the smears disappear.
How many lives was one man granted?
Erik hoped three. Three was a nice number; it had lots of mythology built in. Storytelling potential, with a nice ending.. The best stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. A strong foundation leading to a peak. A happy ending would be nice. He could really use a happy ending.
He rubbed at an eye and padded to the kitchen for coffee. He really hoped against four. If three was a good story, four was a square, a box.
A room with walls. Prison? And if not, then certainly no music school. No Nadir. No Christine.
He really hoped he would just get the three. He would just be a man, not a list of symptoms and pathology. Maybe not normal, but ordinary. Plenty of terrible things were ordinary, and maybe his could fade along with the rest.
When the coffee was dripping down the carafe, Erik made up his mind. He took his phone from the counter and tapped it awake. He had to be certain about this fourth life before he could truly live the third. Then he looked at the counter.
Christine had hardly taking up any space there because she'd taken up all of his. Twisting the mask sideways had let her see the lower half of his face. It was a shame she still had the shoulder, arm, side, back, and his god forsaken head left to see. She'd seen his lower arm, so she knew what was coming. Too smart not to.
And that was why he had to do this.
His phone screen had dimmed, and Erik gave it a light swipe and opened his contacts.
…
Hours later, though still just after noon, Erik stretched his arms out over the piano. He was depleted and wrung out, but in that loose way that leaves you floating. Exhausted and three inches taller, music drifting lightly from the soundboard, all flutters and sweetness.
His phone rang. Nadir.
"I hope I did not wake you. I thought you might have slept badly, but when I called earlier you did not answer."
Erik put the call on speakerphone as he strummed the keys, drawing out their sustains like bells. "I'm fine. Was up early actually. We still on for Sunday?" He interlocked and suddenly two hands sounded like four.
"If you're up for it."
"Absolutely." Erik said, punctuating his words with a few notes.
"Wonderful! What are you making? I can bring something to go with it."
His hands paused on the keys. "Prime rib. I feel like celebrating."
"Oh?" Nadir's voice was calculated to be cool. "Can I know yet or are you saving news?"
"I called my lawyer."
Silence. A breath. "Why?"
Why indeed. He'd spent a few years asking the same on those occasions when he remembered the drawer with his medical records and an unreliable stapler. A place he'd relegated misfit things. The hard drive was no longer in his possession and the stapler was in the trash.
"I'm re-opening the investigation." The line crackled. Or perhaps the phone had been gripped too tight. "Nadir, I found something. Something new."
"It's been more than ten years," he said, his voice as brittle as chipped crystal and just as sharp. "Ten years and more than three investigations and all of our lawsuits. This is not new."
Erik leaned into the music, unable to cope without it. "I copied everything related to my project when I went back. The DA didn't have what's on this hard drive. There's something new in there and I need to figure it out. Even if it ends everything."
There was only the huff of labored breathing now. Uneven and coarse, caught between rough emotions that still abraded them both. It just showed on Erik more.
A breath of intent. "What… what have you done? Erik! What have you done?"
Floating glissandos, butterflies taking wing to hang in the breeze. "My lawyer is arranging a handover with the DA for all the files and information I copied." Erik completed the song, such as it was. It was more a sensation, a breath decorated by emotion.
"I didn't want to do this again. I'm done. I have moved on, Erik."
"It's not about money," Erik said flatly.
"Then what? Why?"
The life he had, and the life he could have very soon, depended on these things. Erik tapped a haunting four note sequence. A resolved measure, if uncertain. The air was uncomfortably close, pressing in on his chest, squeezing him and closing this throat over the words. Somehow, it was the second time he played the measure, more softly now, that urged them out.
"I need to be certain that I didn't miss anything," Erik said in a whisper. He heard the inhale and hurried to continue, clutching the lacquered top of the piano. "And I don't care how many investigations say otherwise, if they didn't have all this, the business memos, spreadsheets, all these emails and charts and scanned notes, then the conclusions are incomplete. I'm giving them everything because it matters to me."
With a deep breath, he let his shoulders go slack, and his hand splattered across the keys, discordant and abrupt.
"I'm cutting those ties, Nadir. I want to soar."
Nadir sighed. It was a lot to ask of him. It was a lot to even tell him, really, when he'd let loved things pass into history. "When you have dates, let me know. I'll be there."
Erik slumped. "Thank you."
"That prime rib better be perfect."
…
Saturday evening and Erik was applying the dry rub to the roast when his phone chirped. He barely made it in time to put the call on speaker with an uncontaminated knuckle.
"Have you seen the radar?"
Christine. He nearly knocked the pan off the counter, then glanced up from his salt and pepper crusted hands toward the big windows in his living room. It seemed the distant storms from the night before had brought their big brother for another round.
"No, but I can see storms out there." Big ugly ones. The kind that make you double check your battery supply and unplug the computer. "Where are they heading?"
"Right this way. They'll be here in less than an hour." He knew her voice well enough that he could hear the catch in it.
The next lesson wasn't until next week. He'd planned to go slow. He'd planned to make the prime rib for Nadir.
"Where is your roommate?"
She swallowed loudly. Fear and nerves were tough to swallow. "She's going to her boyfriend's."
Erik eyed the roast, judging the size. "She hasn't left yet?"
"No. Erik, I-"
The sky turned greenish. A jagged gash of lighting in the distance decided it.
"Pack a bag. Have Gia drop you off."
"Are you sure? I don't want to mess up your weekend. It's Saturday and all."
His laugh made it clear he had no plans. "I think I can clear my schedule."
She was quiet. Second thoughts? Or just packing. "Okay. I should be there in twenty minutes. Can I bring you anything?"
"No. I'll make dinner." Erik finished another layer of salt and pepper. It was always better if the dry rub could sit for a day, but needs must, right?
"Don't go to any trouble. I'm happy with leftovers."
He rinsed his hands and slid the pan into the searing hot oven. His smirk would be audible. He just knew it. "Oh, I think we can do better than that."
…
Low-slung clouds threatened violence overhead. Erik turned away from the windows and made one last pass through the house, ending in the bathroom. All toiletries were stocked and he had spares of anything she might need. Aside from that, he barely knew where to begin.
And that was the moment Erik realized something. He'd barely lived before now and was completely unprepared. So wrapped up in himself, even before the accident. And then the woman backstage, thinking he was just in costume…
He'd thought she knew- who he was, that he had a backstory and that the craftsmanship in his face wasn't for the stage but his life. She'd yanked him into a dark corner and come at him with everything she had, setting his skin dancing with laughter, then on fire with her body.
He had still been inside her when she snatched the mask.
He knew pain well enough, and humiliation wasn't his kink. Rather than risk that again, he'd walked away from that part of life.
And now it was coming with an overnight bag.
After making sure all the notes and papers he'd signed earlier were carefully stowed (he could think about it later), he flicked on the bathroom light and took a good look in the mirror. There was worse, he supposed, and given what Christine had seen, he might be less of a challenge. Erik swallowed hard and slid on the hairpiece. Time had not improved the burn scars, and the hair he had left was uneven and a mix of brown and premature gray. Trauma had washed him out. The grayscale decor in his home only seemed to confirm it.
A shiver shot through him as he recalled her old social media accounts. Maybe she did understand, but understanding was different from…
The oven timer chimed, diverting his train of thought. On his way to the kitchen, past the cool hues and straight lines, he paused, and imagined some color. Bright blue or a soft green? He turned off the oven and wandered back to the living room. Erik ran a hand along the back of the couch, then looked out of the window at the churning sky.
The blinding flash and deafening crack were simultaneous, and the brief flickers then the silence that followed was so complete it could only mean one thing.
When Erik's watery vision adjusted to the sudden darkness, the dense clouds had pushed evening into night, and the storm was far from over. It was too late for a last minute change in plans so, groping through the house by the light of his phone, he went to a closet and tore open a box labeled 'For Emergencies'.
…
The heavens opened one minute before the doorbell rang. Erik hurried over, heart ricocheting off his ribs, and opened the door.
Christine half ran in, windy and wild. "I barely made it here," she said breathlessly as she shook rain from her skirt. The fancy car she'd arrived in was already out of sight. "I hope Gia doesn't get soaked."
Erik's tongue lost its grip on language, for her ringlets were everywhere and nowhere she'd pinned them. She was a pixie, a fairy caught in a storm and blown off course.
"I hope she packed enough," he managed, and closed the door. "I'll get you a towel."
"Thanks. I'm sure she didn't, but I think that's part of her… charm." When he returned, Christine was holding a handful of dripping hair out of her face, eyes wide and staring into the living room.
"Ah, the power went out a few minutes ago" Erik began, handing her the towel. "I'm kind of the last one on the grid," he explained. "I've learned to plan ahead for emergencies."
Planning ahead meant stocking up on candles, both flame-lit and LED, and a variety of solar and battery powered lanterns. Emergencies meant the first overnight guest in a decade was coming in a severe thunderstorm.
Christine walked into the main room, her gaze darting around the variety of inflatable lanterns, flickering flames of candles, a variety of LED pillar candles, and hanging paper globes, all different colors as they slowly cycled through the entire rainbow. As she turned, brushing strands from her eyes, she tapped a playful yellow paper light to make it swing. He'd stood on a chair and duct taped it to a beam overhead.
"Are you some kind of prepper?"
He laughed a little, and joined her. "Ah, no. I just never keep track of them."
She twirled a clutch of loose curls spun together and tucked them under a pin. "Aren't you worried you'll run out? The storm could last all night and then what? The power's already out at my place."
"There's another box twice as big." He pointed over her shoulder. In the window he could see their reflections, overlapping profiles leaning towards each other. It looked like the beginning of something.
"A box. In the closet. Over there."
The air between them crackled and the lightning cast sharp shadows in the room. The lights chased them back out again.
She didn't move away. "Good. I'd hate to get caught in the dark." Her nose twitched, sniffing. "What is that?" she said, and looked over his shoulder towards the kitchen.
It broke the mood, but it was too intense. Too fast. "Not leftovers. Wine?" He poured her a generous glass and set it on a counter alongside LED pillars with three flickering, fake wicks. "There's another half hour on dinner." He smiled sheepishly. "The power went out before I -."
His phone started ringing, cutting him off. Then it started blaring with urgent, concerned text messages. It was Nadir.
"Sorry," Erik said.
Christine waved for him to answer once it rang again.
"Hello? Nadir?"
"Erik! Are you okay?" Nadir was half shouting over the wind and rain. "I saw your area had a power outage."
"Yes, the power's out. I'm fine." Christine sipped her wine and smiled.
"Do you need a place to stay? Cara and I would be happy to have you here tonight."
"No, I'm fine. Plenty of emergency lights."
"But how will you eat?"
"I just made dinner and it's just finishing in the oven."
"Okay, if not- - wait, finishing? There's only one thing you finish in the oven."
"I made the prime rib." Christine's mouth dropped open and she glanced towards the oven.
"You're eating tomorrow's dinner?"
At Christine's horrified look, Erik hurried to de escalate the situation. "There's more than one left in the world, you know. And, uh, plans came up at the last minute."
"You have plans? With no power?"
"Well, yes," Erik said. He locked eyes with her as she sipped her wine. It stained her lips a deep, lush pink.
Nadir chuckled. "My God, Erik, this day." Silence. "Wait, is she there now?"
She started laughing.
"I assume you can hear that?" Erik said, and held up the phone to Christine. "Nadir, say hello to Christine. Christine, say goodbye to my old friend Nadir."
Nadir spoke fast. "Delighted, Christine! Erik speaks very highly of you and I hope we can meet soon! And Erik, make sure you call me soon, I want to hear-"
"Goodbye, Nadir. Best to Cara." Erik hung up and pushed a palm against his forehead. "Sorry about that."
"Don't be. It's good that he cares about you." She tipped her wine back and set the empty glass on the counter. "So, how long does a prime rib need to rest?"
He glanced down at his watch. "Well, I shut off the oven half an hour ago so, another half hour?"
"Will you play until it's ready?" Christine smiled up at him. "You don't need power to play a piano."
He felt warm under the mask. "No, but you do need light." They each took an armful of LED lights to the piano. Though his living room grand was covered in clearance price tea lights and pillars, their glowing rings warmed the lacquer and converged on the keys like priceless chandeliers.
Erik breathed in the scene. Themes on dawn and morning contrasted with the threatening flashes and heaving clouds beyond. Bright twinkles, like her eyes in the false candlelight, gave way to half recalled love songs. As Christine traced the curving edge of the piano, it fused together into a refrain of yearning and thunder. Measures of poetry curled around impressions of sighs, songs she had sung.
She paused thoughtfully. "Beautiful. Yours?"
"Sort of," he said, and closed his eyes, rocking with the music rolling off him. He didn't know how to tell her it was hers as much as his. You don't easily separate the muse from the music.
Her footsteps stopped near the bench and Erik opened his eyes. Hard angles here and there were brought out by a flash of lightning and chased back into softness by the low light of the lanterns and lights. His hands fluttered over the keys, wishing there was an easy way forward. As free and easy as her voice, but that was an illusion, wasn't it? He knew how hard she worked for every note. The hours of preparation every aria required. The willingness to open herself for every song.
And yet, he wore a mask.
A free voice was a beautiful voice.
"Christine?" Logic can stretch, extending out like a sustained note like her beautiful, free voice.
"Yes, Erik?"
He swallowed, and the music grew very soft as his hands began to tremble. Free was beautiful.
"Do you still-" his voice caught, and his fingers played an endless bridge. "Still want an accompaniment?"
The piano was drowned out by a roll of thunder that shook through him. Single notes replaced music as Christine drew near. A touch at his shoulder, light and tentative.
"No one's coming tonight." Her eyes said they could pick up where they left off. Sustain. Extend the logic.
"I want to. But," he raised his chin and looked up. The lights illuminated her hair into glistening spirals, dark eyes reflecting both the lights and flashes from outside.
Understand, he willed. His hands failed at the keys and heat welled in his face. Hot beneath the unbearable mask. When had it grown so heavy? Erik squeezed his eyes closed and his hands fell to his lap.
"Help me," he whimpered. "Take it, please. I can't- can't-" He kept his chin raised, offering the mask up to her like a sacrifice, desperate to feel the cool air on his face but unable to command himself to do it.
He felt her lips instead. The sensation thundered through him and his hands turned to claws, unsure of what to touch and hold. Her lips caught the tremors in his, suckling them away. trembling ease under her touch.
"Play, Erik," she said. She slipped behind him and set her hands on his shoulders. "Just breathe and play."
Music returned, and it was all Christine. Her song. The little air she hummed and sang when she thought no one was around. Erik wove it like a tapestry with texture and then added what he'd been writing.
"Oh god, this music," she sighed and hugged his back, tucking close as he played. "It's so beautiful."
"For you. It's always for you." Time stretched, sustaining the notes. Erik had often wondered how this would happen. The first time had been grim. He could still hear the way her screech had cut the dusty backstage air and sent him scrambling for his mask and pants.
Christine's touch along his jaw, tracing his lips with a shivery trail. He sighed and kissed her fingertips. He'd often wondered if this would ever happen, morbidly fascinated by the potential for violation, but this… Was anything so precious as this?
"Oh, Christine," he breathed, hands still, yielding to the rain and thunder.
At that, he felt her hands by his neck, creeping up towards the edge of the mask, curling under the edge. The delicate wire loosened and the mask's tiny anchor was gone, held in place nothing but by gravity.
And then he was weightless.
When she took his hand, he followed, leaving the piano, walls, and the raging sky beyond to draw their own conclusions. He took one little rainbow light and followed her to where she'd left her bag, followed her to his own room, and let her tug him to the bed, kneeling on the fluffy duvet. As the dim light turned hazy orange, she took the hairpiece and it was only her quick inhale that said she'd not just looked but seen.
"Christine?" he asked the tinted silence. "Christine, I know it's hard. I understand if you need some time."
She shook her head and tugged his shirt. "I'm tired of time." She pulled his shirt free and held the loose ends as she scooted closer. Closer, until she was tight against him, straddling a thigh with her skirt puddling over his leg.
The light was yellow when his shirt came off, and the base of his spine grew loose as she traced the hypersensitive ridge just where the scars began on his arm and shoulder. Highlight-bright edges and contours filled his vision until his eyes slipped closed for hot, sliding kiss.
The light was green when her skirt dropped to the floor, and she stretched her legs out next to him, as restless as he was. Kisses came easier, wetter. A cord in her neck stood out when he slid his tongue out to taste it. The storm waited for her loud intake of breath before the winds and thunder shook the windows.
A graze at his temple flowed to his scalp and settled in the patchy hair. Erik could not recall the last time he'd been held, just held. Not examined, assessed, or diagnosed, but caressed; pressed. He wanted her everywhere, around him and in his eyes, lungs, ears and mouth.
He knew passion. It was the pulse that drove him, and kept him up late at night. Pain, too, so much and for so many years. Though it had faded, the echoes were loud and had drowned out the joys of his younger years. Cheap as they were.
Christine's lips, her sighs and touch, at his neck, shoulders, trailing down his sides and into the tiny voids by his hipbones. Please streaked through limbs that had forgotten how to feel it. Had given up on it but roared to life with a taste, starving.
He was starved and she was a feast.
Hail struck the roof in a calamity when he sucked her fingers, and car alarms began blaring when she pressed his hand between her legs. Liquid, smooth and overripe. Sweet and hot on his tongue and thick on his chin.
"Stop, stop, oh my god, Erik,"
He looked up, dazed and breathless, and had only a moment before she pulled him up and took his breath away completely. Christine arched and kissed the careless distractions into the background and scorched the ghosts until they were silent, then she reached down.
Erik was already slick, had nestled against her, rocking in pale mimicry. Tremors raced under his skin, hot shivers of need and anticipation. They were too old for games. He didn't need to watch- he only needed to feel.
Sultry purple light illuminated the beads of sweat on her forehead when he grazed her, a shallow dip that made him gasp. Baritone and soprano rumblings, a formless duet of adoration, decorated by turns with greed and generosity until voices froze, caught in decadent silence.
Remaining places that had been neglected were petted as they cooled, the room lit in aqua and cool white until hunger drove them out. Mismatched and half clothed, they fed each other bites of prime rib directly from the roast until the counters got involved. Then they further scandalized the sleek lines and grayscale, knocking a canvas off the wall in the hallway in their rush back to the bedroom.
…
Clicks and hums nudged at sleep, and Erik opened one eye, unsure of reality around him. The power was on, but he recalled the strike and the darkness that followed. He wasn't looking forward to the downed limbs and roof damage that came with a storm like that. He hadn't been out in it but he was tender. Bruised almost…
Sore? A bottomless well of luscious images and fragments raced and rallied for his attention but that wasn't… couldn't…
Rainbows of color painted his thoughts and brought a hot rush to his face.
"Power's back on," Christine said, rolling closer. Her arm snaked under his and stroked his chest, leaving little spasms in the wake of her touch. "Shame we didn't get to break into the other box. I was dying to see what the other lights were like."
Erik let her roll him to his back and swallowed. Before his mind could tread too far down dark paths, Christine pulled herself closer and lazily threw a leg over him. Prime rib for breakfast was the second most decadent thing he could imagine enjoying that morning and it was frankly forgettable in comparison.
…
Dinner was Thai carry out and Erik barely had time to wipe down the counters before Nadir set the bag down.
"You ate an entire prime rib," Nadir accused flatly.
"I… yes," Erik said as he got down plates and straightened his damp collar. "The power was out. I couldn't make sides."
Nadir fished containers out of the bag. At least he had his favorite curry. He adored a good Massaman. "You said you'd get another."
Erik got out glasses and silverware. "She only left an hour ago. I didn't have time."
As he plated their meals, Nadir watched Erik with eyes made keen from decades of observation. He sometimes assured people he was 'off the clock' when they half-jokingly worried about diagnoses at cocktail parties and holidays, but that wasn't true. Wasn't even possible, really. Nadir could effortlessly pick out emerging neuropathy cases, ticks and Tourette's, visual processing deficits, motor defects, and all those little nags and snags of life that people were barely even aware of themselves. And place them in context.
Nadir chuckled. Maybe he was like Sherlock Holmes after all.
"What's so funny?" Erik asked as he sat with a wince.
"Oh nothing. I'm glad you at least had time to shower, my friend."