Author´s note: There´s quite bit of talking about corpses in this chapter and also a little about sex. I hope you don´t mind either of it.

Chapter Twenty-Three

September 7th 1892: Christine

I tried desperately to look at anything but the two corpses, but for some reason I was unable of turning my head. I was sure that the picture would be burned into my mind for all times: The persons´ heads were covered with pieces of white cloth, but the rest was naked and ready to be stared at. I noticed a faint sweetish smell, and a wave of nausea washed over me. Frantically I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep me from throwing up. Fortunately my stomach was almost empty.

"You… killed two people, just because you needed illustrative material?", I asked in a whisper, taking my hand away, so that he could understand me. The thought made me feel even sicker than before. "They are not dead, Maman.", I heard my son say. "They´re just in a very deep sleep, aren´t they, Uncle Erik?" "Of course.", he replied. He still was an excellent liar. Finally I summoned up all my strength and diverted my gaze from the bodies. "Philippe, leave us alone for a moment, please!", I ordered, and he walked out of the room without a word of protest. Like every child he knew when it was better to go.

When I turned my head to face Erik I realised that it was just as difficult to look at him as it had been to look at the corpses. "A deep sleep, eh?", I spat. Before I knew what I was doing I had raised my hand and slapped him in the face. He didn´t even blink. The smirk which he wore grew wider. "It seems that the shock makes my dear Countess forget her manners.", he stated, clicking his tongue. "Or was it the pleasure of seeing two such fine specimens of the human race?"

He walked over to the male body, which was closer to him, and ran his fingers over the pale skin of his stomach. To my horror I noticed several wounds all over his arms, as if he had been stabbed with a knife. Though I hadn´t uttered a question, Erik began to talk: "I wanted to show Philippe something special for the start of our anatomy lessons. So I got these two. Aren´t they great?".

"Great? Something special?", I repeated incredulously, glaring at him. "I didn´t have a choice.", he called. "He has to study the human body in all details. The alternative would have been to undress myself and hire a prostitute for the female parts. Would you have liked that any better?" I could only shake my head. It was obvious that Erik´s very own kind of logic hadn´t changed a bit over the years. For the first time in days I thought that perhaps I had been right in calling him ´not normal´.

By now he had reached the woman. Almost lovingly he let his hand wander over her chest. The intimacy of the gesture made me shudder. "To your information: I didn´t murder them.", he said quietly. "I merely found them in the street last night. Thieves must have killed them because they didn´t hand over their money. It was quite a touching picture: He lay on top of her, as if he had tried to protect her. That´s why she has to few wounds, see? Yet that one here at the throat was enough to kill her, and the one on his back did the same to him. Their clothes were soaked with blood. Very good clothes, by the way. They looked as if they had come from a wedding. I hope it was not their own…" He chuckled softly.

It was that sound, in combination with his last sentences, which woke me up from the stupor I had fallen into during his lecture. That state had kept me from running away or attacking Erik again, at least until after his explanations. Yet now a terrible suspicion was creeping up my spine. A wedding? Slowly, very slowly I moved to the table and lifted the cloth covering the woman´s face. A wart on her nose was the last thing I saw before the world became blurred. I heard a bloodcurdling scream and sensed that it must have come from me. Then I no longer felt anything.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………...

"Drink this. It´ll help you." Something cold and hard was pressed against my face, and when I parted my lips a large amount of water invaded my mouth. My throat was very dry, so I swallowed greedily. The improvement was instant: The room came into focus again, and I realised that I was not in the study anymore, but in the living room. Erik was sitting next to me on the sofa. I prepared myself for another snide remark, yet he only glanced at me in concern.

When I opened my mouth to speak he lifted the glass again and forced down some more water. He didn´t stop until there was nothing to drink left. "What was the matter with you in there, child?", he asked. "You seemed to be so interested at first. Why did you pass out all of a sudden?" A very unfriendly comment was on the tip of my tongue, yet somehow I didn´t feel like arguing anymore. After all, Erik had carried me over here and cared for me. So I merely replied: "Those people… they are… they were my cook and my coachman. They left my household a few days ago because they wanted to marry. I guess they must have been killed on the way to their honeymoon.".

He nodded and gave me a gentle smile. "In this case it was good that Philippe didn´t see their heads.", he remarked. "I doubt he recognised them. He was very calm, fascinated by what I was showing him. Of course I´ll do the dissection after he´s gone. That´s something he really is too young for. Maybe I´ll keep some organs for the lessons on diseases I´ve planned. Judging by the state of his eyes your coachman had a serious problem with his liver. Was he drinking?"

"Yes, he was.", I answered. Somehow the thought of Erik showing my son organs didn´t bother me at all. "Raoul always said that his fondness of alcohol would get him into an early grave. Well, that was wrong, wasn´t it? Drinking didn´t kill him, but some horrible muggers." Suddenly I was overwhelmed by a wave of sympathy for the dead man. For once my husband hadn´t been right. In fact, I hoped the coachman had drunk a lot before he had died. It had probably been one of the few pleasured of his existence.

But what was about the other pleasures of life? I was especially concerned about that certain pleasure only husband and wife were allowed to share. What if the coachman had never experienced it? The question was so prominent in my head that I simply had to utter it. "What do you think, Erik? Did they have the chance to sleep with each other before they were murdered?"

I couldn´t recall that I had ever witnessed my former teach blush, but now I could clearly see it on the part of his face that wasn´t covered by the mask. "W-what?", he stammered. "I´m afraid… afraid I don´t understand… Why are you asking me such a question?" "You´re the only one here.", I replied, shrugging. "I was just thinking about it, you know. It´s such a wonderful activity… so pleasant… so satisfying…"

Erik cleared his throat. "Christine… I´m sure that actually you don´t want to speak about all this.", he muttered, throwing me an almost pleading glance. "So why don´t we just change the subject?" My mind seemed to work a little more slowly than usual today, but finally I understood. "Oh, I´m sorry!", I exclaimed. "I forgot that you´ve never done it… or have you?" "No, I haven´t. Can we please change the subject now?", he asked again. He sounded a bit irritated.

"Don´t you miss it?", I wanted to know softly, looking into his eyes. Just a few minutes before I had pitied the coachman, yet now I realised that Erik´s fate was much worse. The only women he had ever touched had been dead! But then, I had the power to change that fact. Quickly I seized his hand and brought it to my cheek. "Do you feel how warm my skin is?", I whispered. "Take off those stupid gloves, then you can touch me a little more…"

He shook his head frantically. "You don´t want all this.", he told me in a strained voice. "It´s just the… Let me go, and I´ll get you… something different to drink." "But I don´t want anything to drink.", I protested. "I want you!" The frankness of my words surprised me, yet at the same time I knew they were true. My whole body was tingling with the desire to be touched. Since my statement seemed to have paralysed Erik I had to make the first move. I crawled onto his lap and sat down, straddling him. "Christine, please… don´t do this to me!", he whispered. "Shhh! Don´t be afraid.", I gave back. "We´ll have so much fun…" Then I leaned forwards to kiss him.