I have spent three days alone.

Oh, Erik is here, of course. He knows better than to leave me again. He has simply barricaded himself in the drawing room with his piano as chords bang out incessantly for hours at a time.

I do grow quite bored out here. There is so little to do. I have wandered from book to book, sewed up every hole in my wardrobe, and tidied the entire kitchen.

That reminds me of the newspaper I discovered yesterday. Erik brings them in every other day or so, but I cannot figure out when he leaves to go up to the world outside; he must do it while I am sleeping. What is his obsession with newspapers? They litter the counters in the kitchen, yet I have never actually seen him ever read one. He just collects them. What caught my attention the previous day was an ad addressed to 'O.G' in a foreign language. I highly doubt that it is referring to Erik, but it made me uneasy at the time. I must remember to ask him about it when he is out.

However, when the next day comes, I have completely forgotten.

He comes up behind me in the kitchen as I am washing dishes. Usually when he is done composing, he is in either an exuberant mood or a very poor one indeed.

"What are you doing?" he snaps.

I drop the dish. Why does he have to sneak everywhere?

"I'm just cleaning—"

"Put it down! We must go sing! We don't wash dishes when we should be singing!"

He stalks away and I follow him, drying off my hands. "Have you composed a new song?" I ask hopefully, hoping to sound proud.

He laughs. "Yes! Many, many songs, Christine. Would you like to hear them?"

He steps into the drawing room and then closes the door behind him. I always find it funny when he does things like that; it's not as though anyone else can hear us! He points to the couch and I go sit against it like I always do. I oblige, his mask-less face turned towards mine. Oh, he is so ugly!—and yet I grow more accustomed to the sight every day. Something can only scare you for so long, and then it simply becomes something you are used to. It can hardly scare you when you know what it is, can it?

"You have been away from my music for too long," he says rather matter-of-factly. "This is no good. What have you got down here, if you do not have my music?"

Frowning, I want to remind him that he has locked himself away without me for the past three days, but I stay silent, letting him continue.

"So here is some music for you. It is all for you, Christine... how much time I have slaved over them, for you!"

I should be flattered, but I expect them all to be about me now. His whole world is me.

He plays so gently as I drift over to the couch to listen to it. It could rival Mozart with it's unparalleled sweetness.

He is watching me as he plays. "I have made you smile again." he says, his glowing eyes gazing straight at me. "I am so glad I have made you smile, Christine."

"Yes." I whisper. Even when he speaks, it seems to melt into the music as if it were part of the song all along. But as he progresses, the music begins to hurt me. I cannot even describe it in words, but it pulls and twists my mind until I almost want to put my hands over my ears.

"You are not smiling anymore, Christine," Erik says. Perhaps his eyes have not left me the entire time. "Why not?"

I stare at him, unsure how he wants me to answer. "Your music," I begin. "It is upsetting me somehow."

He does not stop playing. "I wonder why," he replies conversationally. "Why do you think?"

I do not understand why he does not stop playing. "I don't know," I say at once. "It... it is making me feel things I do not want to feel."

He stops playing all at once, dull silence suddenly filling the room with dead weight. He laughs, but it is a terrible sound that has no joy whatsoever. "Feeling things you do not want to feel?" he mocks, his voice imitating mine to absolute perfection- it is eerie to hear myself imitated so. "Oh, what a dreaded thing indeed, to feel things you do not want to feel! Such a way with words, Christine! Truly, a way with words."

I cannot tell if he is still poking fun at me, so I stay silent.

"Nothing else to say?" he asks after a moment. "You do not even say a word to defend yourself?"

"Should I?" I ask, confused.

"Do you want to know what the music makes me feel?" he asks brusquely.

Taken aback, I simply stare at him for a moment, still unsure of a proper answer.

"No, you do not," he cuts in before I can answer, turning away from me. He raises his shoulders. "That is not to say... that I am thinking about that part of you all the time. I lust after other things as well… your company, your attention, your smile… things I enjoy just as much… but I can't imagine—"

My head is processing all his words. He is talking so funny and it scares me so that I find it difficult to pay attention as he begins to play once again.

A world so dark as that…?

He knows he cannot speak such riddles to me. I am a figurative person, but I am not analytical. I do not know what he means when he uses metaphors, when he speaks so deeply about things I do not understand.

"Go away, now."

I look up. He has put his mask on over his face. I can no longer read his expression. This is not good.

"I said, go away." He rises. "Did you not hear me?"

Clumsily, I gather my skirts, worried that he is angry at me now because of my stupidity. Did he notice I wasn't listening?

I am halfway to the door when he says, "Come here."

I swivel, my hands on my hips. "You just ordered me away! What do you mean, I have to c—"

"Erik has been busy working for four days, has he not?" he says, and his voice sounds odd, hollow sounding. "Erik has been very busy, and you are clearly not pleased with his music. Perhaps, you ought to please him, in return!"

I stay by the door for an extra second longer. "What would please you?" I ask very quietly.

"Perhaps a kiss," he says rather nonchalantly, as if he has been practicing saying that all afternoon.

I approach him timidly and without pausing for any sort of reservation, I kiss him. I do not like this. He is cold and bony to me again, and I derive no pleasure from my lips meeting with his beneath his mask.

He pushes me away. "Now you may go."

"I did not mean to make you angry." I murmur, afraid of what I have accidentally done to infuriate him so.

His voice flares up. "Of course you do not mean to make me angry. Of course no one ever means to make anyone angry! I explained what each was! You did not have to listen! You did not want to feel, you just wanted to be told what I feel! Why must I always tell you what you have to feel? Why can you not feel anything yourself? And why can you not understand how important this is?"

I back away from his flaming eyes. "I am not going to argue with you, Erik."

"Of course you're not." he replies, and his voice has gone back to normal. "You are a good wife. You love me. Don't you, Christine? Say to Erik, 'I love you'."

"You are confusing me, but I—I love you."

He makes a reaction with his hands and stares at me. "She does everything I ask," he says to no one. "Only loves me when I tell she must." He steps forward and kisses my forehead. I do not move, even when his dead flesh touches me. I am a good wife, as he says. I love him, in my own little way. Why? How? These I cannot explain to him, but I can tell him what he needs to hear. I can tell he that I love him when he tells me that I must.

"Christine is still happy down here, no?" he asks, pressing his face into my hair.

"I was becoming lonely." I admit vainly.

"Oh, my poor dear! Erik does not want his love lonely! He will stay by her side for the rest of the afternoon." His hand wraps around mine. "Is that what you want?"

I hesitate. "Yes." I reply with all honesty. "Can we sing later? I thought we were going to sing."

His eyes are thoughtful. "We will sing now, if you prefer."

I smile. "I would like that as well."

His hand goes up to my face. He pushes himself against me so that our entwined hands are up on his chest, right on top of his heart. "I love you so very much."

"You don't need to tell me that."

"You are a good wife to poor Erik. He does not deserve anything you give to him. You give him everything he asks for."

I look into his desperate eyes and nod. "I want you to be happy."

"Yes, you have said that before." he remarks. "I remember every word you've ever said, Christine, can you believe that?"

I nod again.

"Would you like to sing now?"

Later on that evening, when I am in the darkness of my room, I reflect on his newly composed pieces and muse over his strange and cryptic message about his most powerful piece. I cannot fathom what purpose that served for either of us. I sit on my bed, hearing Erik's voice say, 'You are a good wife'.

Yes, a good wife who denies her husband entrance to her room and to her bed... So is that what would truly please Erik?

His words well up in me, so that despite his reassurances of my wifely qualities, I am really not a good wife at all. How can I perform a wife's… duties… to her husband when it took me over eight-solid weeks before I could bear to kiss him?

And how dare he say such things to me! How dare he sit in that room and compose a song about his… his feelings!

This is indeed a bridge I had hoped never to cross. This is something I must face eventually. And yet, I am still able to convince myself that all Erik wants of me if a simple kiss every now and then, a few words of comfort. He has never asked for anything more.

I remember the newspaper right as I am falling asleep. Tomorrow, I think. I'll tell him about it tomorrow.

.