September 14th 1892: Erik
Christine gasped in shock.
"Oh no!" she breathed.
Looking around frantically she seemed to search for a way of escaping, but there was none. The corridor through which we had come here was blocked by the woman, and the only door led down into my world. She looked at it, then at me, as if asking for my opinion. I shook my head slightly. Going there would have only made things worse, for it would have revealed that this was the entrance to my underground labyrinth. Besides, I didn't want to run away.
The woman turned around, probably to check whether that Gilbert she had called was indeed coming, which gave me a moment to talk to my beloved.
"Who is she?" I asked in a low voice. I was rather certain I had seen her at the opera a few times, but there were so many people here at every performance that I couldn't possibly tell them apart, even if I had bothered to try.
"Her name is Baroness Lavinia Devon," she told me. "She was… Have you heard about the… erm, the incident in the interval involving her and me?" She threw me a glance that indicated she already suspected my answer could be yes. After what she had recently found out about me ´overhearing´ the conversation with her husband that didn't surprise me.
I nodded briefly.
"I happened to be in a passageway next to the room," I replied. "You were wonderful."
The ghost of a proud smile flitted over her face, but she grew serious again much too quickly.
"I was foolish," she corrected me. "Foolish to believe I'd get away with something like that… I made a fool of the Baroness and laughed about her ridiculous theories. Someone like her doesn't just forget such things."
"But you didn't mean her as a person, did you?" I argued. "From what I heard it sounded as if her remarks had merely been the final straw."
"That's true," she admitted. "I could as well have shouted at anyone else in the room, angry as I was. Yet that doesn't make a difference."
She was right: At the moment it didn't make the slightest difference. As the woman faced us again, I saw her eyes glittering maliciously.
"I knew all this nonsense about you just being a friend of him couldn't be true," she said to Christine, looking through me as if I wasn't worth talking to anyway. "A friend of the Opera Ghost – laughable! I doubt he even knows what friendship is."
Christine glanced at me nervously, probably afraid I could attack the woman any moment. Yet I had no intention to do so, at least not at the moment. As furious as I had been at first, I thought the situation rather amusing now. There weren't many people who dared talk about me like that, and I was curious to find out what made her that courageous. Noticing the Baroness swaying slightly as she approached us, I realised that the consumption of too much alcohol had caused her bravery. I could only guess that she had needed quite a lot of it to deal with the shame of being contradicted by a former singer.
"Let's see what she'll come up with next," I whispered.
"Lust… oh yes, that's a feeling you know," the woman went on. "You lusted after her ten years ago, and you're still doing it…"
I gave her a sarcastic smile.
"So that's the reason why you're this angry," I said. "You're jealous because even I have someone to kiss, whereas you… Where is Gilbert? I suppose that's your husband, isn't he?"
"He's not here," she stated the obvious. "He must have gone to the bathroom, and I didn't notice it. How strange… But that doesn't matter. He'll be here any moment."
Personally, I highly doubted it. The nearest bathroom was about ten minutes from here. Suddenly an idea entered my mind. It was an extraordinary idea, and Christine would probably think me insane. But it could work.
"I have a plan how to get out of this situation without anyone finding out what happened between us," I whispered into her ear.
"And it doesn't involve… you know…?" she asked, touching my cloak unobtrusively. It took me a moment to realise she was referring to my Punjab Lasso, which was hidden under my cloak.
"No one would be harmed," I assured her. "But you'd have to kiss me again… as if you meant it," I added, just in case.
"I meant it the first time," she muttered, making a pleasant shiver run down my spine. Moreover, I regarded her comment as approval of my idea.
"What are you whispering about?" the Baroness wanted to know. "It's simply despicable… a married woman and a murderer… and all that in front of the child!"
"Oh, it's the child you're worried about?" I asked. "That's not a problem. You see…" I explained while putting the boy down carefully. It was a sign of how boring the opera had been that he continued slumbering peacefully, even on the floor. "…Christine and I decided to give you a little encore. After all, you only arrived at the end of the first time."
Christine looked shocked, yet as I murmured "Trust me!", she smiled at the woman and nodded.
At first, when I put my arms around my beloved's waist, I was afraid it wouldn't work. Where was the incredible passion we had felt before to come from all of a sudden? The question was answered at the first tentative contact of our lips: It came from inside us, breaking free like hot lava at the eruption of a volcano. Within moments I had forgotten the Baroness and our surroundings. Even Philippe's presence was merely lingering at the edge of my mind.
I closed my eyes, for all that mattered now was feeling, feeling her hands wander up and down my back, feeling her soft curves press against my chest, feeling her tongue nudge my lips. I parted them readily, giving a breathy moan as it invaded my mouth. The self-conscious girl had turned into a woman again, a woman who knew what she wanted: me. And I wanted her. I couldn't remember having ever wanted something that badly.
Before long there was a physical sign of my arousal as well, pressing into her stomach. One of her hands left my back and came to the front, moving further and further down…
"No…" It took me a moment to realise that I had been the one to say it, to break the kiss and to remove her hand before it could reach its destination. Opening my eyes I saw Christine glance up at me with a strange mixture of disappointment, arousal and astonishment. The expression on my face probably resembled hers.
"We mustn't do this," I repeated what I had told her before, hoping it would work better this time. "I won't let you betray your husband, just because we feel like it at the moment. I don't think you could live with it."
For a few seconds I had the impression that she wanted to disagree, but then she seemed to change her mind.
"You're right," she muttered. "Of course you are."
It was only then that I remembered the other woman. She was still standing at the same spot, her slightly open mouth and the confused gaze giving her the look of someone who had just been hit over the head with a heavy object. Obviously we had done our job very well. Noticing that there was nothing to gape at anymore, she shook her head, as if trying to get rid of a dream.
"Scandalous… dreadful…" she said, though without real conviction. "Wait till your poor, poor husband hears about all this! He'll be – "
"Her husband will never hear about it. Nor will anyone else," I corrected her.
She looked at me as if she thought me insane, which she probably did.
"Of course they will. I'll tell everyone I'll meet…"
"And what exactly are you planning to tell them?" I wanted to know pleasantly. "That you watched Christine and the Opera Ghost kiss? In a corridor, where anyone could stumble over them? Twice? No one would believe that story, even if you were not drunk. They'd think you had seen a stagehand kiss one of the chorus girls, and your pompous mind turned it into something more spectacular."
Realising that I had indeed found a non-violent solution, just like I had promised, Christine relaxed visibly. She even wrapped an arm around my waist.
"We could do anything we please, and not a single soul would ever believe that excellent gossiping material," she called. "Not a nice feeling, is it?"
The Baroness stared to the floor, not saying a word. At least she seemed to know when she had lost.
"Do you have an idea in which box she sits tonight?" I asked my beloved.
"Box two, I think," she replied, glancing at me curiously. "Why?"
"We'll get her there now," I explained. "I don't want her wandering around alone. Sometimes strange coincidences happen. Maybe she'd find the entrance to the cellars…"
Christine nodded and addressed the Baroness in a friendly voice.
"We'll take you to your box now."
"Very good," the woman murmured. "I do feel a little sleepy…" She turned on her heel and marched off into the right direction. Even in a state of intoxication she seemed to have a good sense of direction.
Christine looked from her to me.
"You don't have to come as well if you don't want to, you know," she told me. "I think I'll get along with her alone."
"I'll go to Box Five anyway," I said. "It would be stupid to walk the whole way to my house with a sleeping child. Philippe can rest a little more in my box, and I'll take him to you later."
My statement was followed by silence as we walked through the corridors, the Baroness in front of us. We didn't meet anyone, so I assumed the interval was over.
"Can I ask you something, Erik?" Christine suddenly wanted to know. A sideways glance told me she had needed quite a bit of time to summon enough courage to ask this question, or rather, the one that would follow.
"Of course you can," I encouraged her.
"Wouldn't the Baroness have been intimidated enough by your words?" she muttered. "Why did we have to kiss a second time in order to make her untrustworthy?"
"Well… that was because… I…I wanted…" I stammered.
"I understand," she told me with a smile, placing a hand on my upper arm. "I liked it, too. But do you think we could… talk about it some day?"
"Whenever you want, my Angel," I muttered, enjoying the feeling of the old name on my tongue. It was the first time I had used it in ten years.
A few minutes later we reached a spot where the corridor divided into two. Silently we agreed that she would take the woman to her box, whereas I'd go straight to Box Five with Philippe. I seized Christine's hand and pressed a soft kiss to it.
"We'll see each other later," I whispered. Then I left quickly, before the urge to kiss entirely different places of her could overwhelm me.