At long last, chapter five is up. And with it: the garish light of day. Read on for the aftermath of Christine and Erik's nighttime dalliance.

Now that I'm through editing pre-drafted content, updates will get further apart. Pesky day job.

Thanks again to Ari, His Midnight Music, YoursAnonymous, PhatomFan01, Melstrife, and Dkk5 for reviewing chapter four. Let me know what you think of this installment.

Chapter Five

Wine and exhaustion won me over and I fell into a pleasant sleep, nudging into semi-consciousness whenever Erik shifted his grip on my waist.

"What time is it?" I mumbled, opening my eyes in the gray darkness.

"A little after four," Erik whispered, smoothing my knotted hair with his fingertips.

In my bleary state, 'a little after four' translated to 'not morning yet.' I rolled over, nestling my cheek into Erik's chest. "I'm so glad," I answered, happy to spend a few more hours like this.

As the morning encroached, my dreams grew brighter. I tried to burrow further beneath the sheets and noted that the fabric felt lighter and smoother than the flannel sheets I'd had on our bed that winter. I opened my eyes and saw swirls of white plaster on the ceiling above me. Empty grey walls. A warm body against my back.

The gauzy blindfold of sleep was ripped away and memories from last night returned in a cold splash.

Erik. Raoul. Erik.

"Good morning, did you sleep well?" Erik asked. Warm lips and a cold mask were pressed to my forehead. Not Raoul.

"I shouldn't be here," I said. My stomach was shaking and I felt a roll of nausea rise from up from my abdomen.

What had I done? I'd cheated.

I wasn't a cheater. I was a cheater now.

What had I done to Raoul? What about our wedding?

I needed to get home, to get out of here. I'd cheated.

I was a good girl – a nice girl – and I'd cheated on a sweet, kind man who loved me. I could fix this, had to fix this.

"Christine, you're shaking," Erik said, a tremor in his voice. "What's wrong? Talk to me, my dear."

What was wrong? I'd cheated on Raoul. Cheated. Cheat. I couldn't shake the word from my thoughts. What was wrong? The fuck was he asking? He'd made this happen. He'd invited me, baited me.

It was him. He was the vile, awful one.

That… wasn't completely right. Blaming Erik was too easy, too convenient. A villain in a mask, tearing engagements asunder? An absurd thought, but laughter couldn't come. My stomach rumbled and turned. I wanted to heave.

I stood up, pulling the sheet with me to cover my body. My dress was on the floor, wrinkled, underwear buried in the folds of fabric. I swiped the garments off the floor and walked out of the bedroom in search of my bra, handbag, and coat.

"Christine, wait," Erik called from the bed. I heard the swish of his legs sliding beneath the sheets.

I ignored him and yanked my clothes in place. My veins were thrumming with anger and my head throbbed with the effects of stress and alcohol. No longer needing its cover, I tossed the sheet over the back of the living room couch.

I heard scuffling and footsteps in the bedroom and turned to see Erik walk out towards me, wearing a pair of black boxers. His thick black hair was a disheveled mess, tufts sticking out around the white of his mask. The morning light revealed a web of faded scars crossing his chest and arms. How did those happen? A flicker of compassion ignited within me. The thinness of the lines suggested a knife injury. Who had hurt him so badly?

My head spun, pity warring with anger and revulsion. It was eight in the morning and I needed to extricate myself from the scene of my infidelity. Sad as Erik's life might have been, I needed to focus.

"Can I make you breakfast?"

"No, I don't want breakfast. I have to go," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. My stomach was twisting into a hard knot and my thoughts were racing in zigzag patterns. Focus on the anger, I told myself. Rage if you have to. Don't let him see you cry.

Erik stepped forward, his arms outstretched and his fingers shaking.

"Christine, wait. Please."

I gave him one last look. His eyes were darker, almost hazel, and glazed over. He was handsome, even in his disheveled and pathetic state. Another reason to go.

In a fog, I picked up my purse and let myself out the front door, bra forgotten. The door swung shut behind me, closing with a thud and a click. Out of his sight, I exhaled, feeling the coil of panic in my belly begin to unwind. One foot in front of the other, I reminded myself as I walked down the hallway and into the elevator. The mirrored walls of the lift reflected my pale, exhausted features.

My hair was a mess. The dark curls were knotted behind my neck. My cheeks were blanched and the skin beneath my eyes was dark and puffy. Again, I asked myself what I'd done. I tried to remember, to pull all of my impulsive actions into a coherent narrative, to find reasons. There had to be reasons.

My head hurt. What then could I do? Go home and face Raoul, of course. I couldn't lie to him. He'd been my best friend for so long and, if there was any hope for repairing the damage I'd done, then I had to be honest with him.

As I walked out of the elevator and outside of the building, I tried to focus, tried to think of what I'd say to him. Tears pricked in my eyes and guilt sunk like a brick in my belly. He would be crushed. His family, which had always been cool to me, would hate me. I deserved it.

With tears racing from my eyelashes to my chin, I hailed a cab and stammered my address to the driver, an Asian man in his early sixties. Seeing my distress, he turned and asked if I was all right.

"I'll be okay," I lied. "I just need to get home."

The man nodded and passed a box of tissues back for me.

"Traffic's good this morning," he said. "We'll be there in ten minutes. You sure you don't want to stop somewhere, get a tea and use the restroom?"

"No, no, I'm fine."

The driver shook his head and pulled away from the curb. I stared blearily out the window, letting the tears fall down my cheeks. Part of me wanted to stop the car and take off running, to get away from all of this and find a place to hide. It was no use. My cat, Ella, needed her breakfast. There was work to go to on Monday morning. We needed milk and cereal. I wished for a moment that the world could stop and give me pause. At least until I'd made sense of all of this, until I'd found the right things to say to Raoul.

The car pulled onto the main street near my apartment and I stared out the window as we passed familiar shops and restaurants. When the driver pulled in front of my building, I handed him a twenty, collected the tissues I'd used, and left the cab, not bothering to wait for change.

Raoul hadn't come home yet. His flight would land later in the morning, so I had a few hours to get myself together. Ella greeted me at the door with a chorus of enthusiastic meows. I'd left a bowl full of kibble for her before going out last night, but in fat-cat fashion, she'd likely finished it within an hour. It had been less than twelve hours since I'd fed her last, yet it felt as if days had gone by. Ella's stomach probably agreed with me.

Once she was fed, I moved into the apartment's tiny bathroom. Last night's sweat and guilt felt like slime on my skin and I desperately wanted to feel clean again. I turned on the shower and waited, palms against the sink, for the water to heat up. One of Raoul's razors rested blade up on the counter, prickly hairs still embedded between the blades.

He wasn't here and yet Raoul was everywhere in the apartment. His green toothbrush leaned against mine in the cup on the sink and his two-in-one shampoo stood alone on his shower caddy shelf. I had a sudden urge to throw all of it - the shampoo, the toothbrush, the razor - into the rubbish bin next to the toilet. His toiletries couldn't mock me from the trash can, could they? Only, it wasn't Raoul I was angry with.

I stood in the shower for twenty minutes, scrubbing, shampooing, and exfoliating. Every new plane of skin that I rubbed reminded me of Erik's touches and the soft pressure of his fingers on my neck, my stomach, between my thighs. My cheeks flushed with desire and shame.

I turned off the water, wrapped myself in a towel and fell to the floor in a sobbing, dripping pile of Christine.

And that's how Raoul found me.

I heard the turn of the key in the lock of the front door, then the thunk of a suitcase on hardwood. He was humming something, a popular tune from the radio. He said hello to Ella, who'd run to the door to greet him, and announced that he'd gotten an earlier flight home. When I didn't answer, he walked down the hall, still in his heavy winter boots.

He must have heard me. And then the bathroom door was open and his arms were around me. His wool coat was rough against my bare arms and his blue eyes were wide and worried.

"Christine, sweetheart, what's wrong? Did something happen?"

I nodded, not knowing the words to say. He held me, letting my hair drip onto his coat sleeves and my tears soak into his hair. After several minutes, his patience wore out and he asked, again, "what's wrong?"

I spat the words out like thick vomit, gasping and holding back sobs between the essential parts: Erik, the opera, a night in his condo, home now, so sorry.

"Oh Christine," he said, loosening his grip and pulling back to get a better look at me in my miserable state.

When he looked at me like that, eyes misted and forehead creased, I was desperately aware of my nudity. I pulled my towel tighter across my torso, wishing I could be less exposed. It hadn't occurred to me to lie to him and now I was wishing that I had.

"Do you know why you did this Christine?" he asked, the academic in him wanting to cut to the rational core of the situation.

"Why?" I repeated. I had barely gotten hold of the how and the who and the what of the past 24 hours. Why was a distant mystery that I didn't have the clues yet to solve. "I don't know. It happened and I'm sorry."

"There's always a why, Christine," he said, sighing. "Is it the wedding? Or is it me?"

His prompts felt like accusations and I pulled the towel even tighter, as if I could hide in the terrycloth. I wanted him to scream at me, to call me a whore. But that wasn't Raoul's way.

He sighed again, and I felt his breath against my bare shoulder.

"You need to think about this, Christine. I, I'm going to go out for a few hours. I need to think too."

"But Raoul," I asked, "what will we do?"

"I don't know Christine. I really don't know." He sounded lost, brokenhearted. I'd done that. A fresh knife of pain sliced my insides. Horrible. I was horrible.

Raoul got up from the floor, pulling me with him into a standing position.

"You should get dressed," he suggested. "It's cold in here."

"Yes, I should. I need clothes," I agreed.

"I'll be back in a few hours," he repeated, squeezing my hand before stepping back out into the hall. I heard his steps, slower than before, against the wood of the hallway and then the open and shut of the front door. After I heard the lock click, I left the steam of the bathroom behind and trudged down the hall to the bedroom. Once attired in a pair of sweatpants and loose camisole, I dug my phone out of purse to check the time.

There were seven text messages. The first was from Erik, offering to drive me home to my apartment if that's what I wanted. The second, also from Erik, was a plea for me to return and listen to what he had to say. The third, from Raoul, said that he was on his way home from the airport. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh were all from Erik and included pleas for me to call him, for me to give this a chance, for me to say something, anything.

That final request was one I felt I could respond to. With shaking thumbs, I typed a reply: "You've ruined everything. Please don't contact me ever again."

I opened the phone's email program and sent a short message to Karen, saying that I was sick and wouldn't be in the office tomorrow. Satisfied that I'd done enough in the way of correspondence with the world outside my apartment, I put my phone back into my purse and settled onto the couch with a blanket to cry myself to sleep.

Guilt kept my eyes open. Exhaustion stiffened my legs and arms.

Tears dripped down my cheeks, gathering in fat drops at the point of my chin. I dipped my head, resting my head on my blanket-wrapped knees. The pilled fleece absorbed the wetness of my tears. Not twenty minutes out of a shower, I felt dirty again.

What had I done? I'd gone and traded the security and comfort of a good relationship with good man for a one-night tangle with a dangerous man who was destined to forget about me. What did that make me? A whore at worst and an idiot at best. So much for good Christine, nice girl who works hard and cares for those she loves. The story I'd made of my life was a lie. And I was no longer the heroine.

I sat in silence for nearly an hour, steeping in darkness and dramatic angst.

Ella joined me, burrowing between the folds of the blanket. At the other end of the room, my phone buzzed several times.

Raoul could be coming home soon. And he would want answers, Tiredly, I sifted away the guilt and the shame, forcing myself to recall the moments leading up to the worst decision of my life.