A/N: Your reviews are lovely. Thank you. I hope I managed to reply to all those who had questions, and if not, send me another!
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When she says gone... I realize she really means gone.
Christine is leavng the Opera.
It is not very difficult. People leave the opera all the time. Some leave to seek better musical opportunities, some leave to find a real career. Many leave because of unplanned pregnancies or impending marriage proposals. Some leave because the are tired of all the work. Christine leaves for no reason at all. She is just packing. I know her to well to know that she has no idea where she is going.
I cry bitterly.
.
I watch in horror when she is finished with everything. I tell myself not to move from behind her mirror. I brought this upon myself. She only wanted me to love her, and I could not. I failed her, again and again and again, and now I have no claim on her. She does not deserve to be my obsession, she deserves to be the obsession and love of a better man.
Yet somehow I can't just stand here and watch her leave? What am I to do?
She swings her bag up. Those glittery tear tracks that I adore and loathe so much are down her face again. In about five seconds, she will be gone forever. And I cannot stand that! How can I live without her now? She is as natural as breathing to me. I love when she is around me, I love when I am with her, I love when she talks with me, I love when she sings to me, I love her hair and her eyes, I love the way she needs me...
Wait a moment...
Love?
It does not have to be true. She just has to hear it.
And I realize, there is a way to stop her after all.
.
"Christine!"
It must be very odd to see someone emerge from your mirror in the wall. The look on her face was certainly shocked.
"Where are you going?"
The look on her face disappears very quickly and is replaced with one of hurt and haughtiness. "Away," she says stoutly, trying not to look at me.
"Why?"
"I have to get away from here. There is nothing left for me."
"Your singing. Your career is just getting started!"
"I cannot do it anymore. I haven't the strength. I have no desire to sing."
She opens the door.
"You can't leave!" I burst out, like an impatient child.
"Why not?" she says, hands on her hips.
"Because I love you!" I say. Instantly, I am unsure of whether or not I should have said that.
She laughs. "Oh, I know you don't want me to leave. But please do not lie to me. I am like a little doll to you. I haven't the faintest idea what you'll do without me... but I cannot go on like this."
"I love you," I repeat. My voice sounds hazy.
She gives me a sad look and turns to leave.
I panic. Really and truly, I lose it. You have no idea what would happen to me if I let her just walk out of my life. There is no life without her. What is the point in doing anything, if I cannot share it with her? Everything I have done has been for her. I did these things because I wanted her to be happy, because I cared about her.
"Lock this door behind you," she says.
"I cared about you!" I shout. "I cared about you, and I was obsessed with you and I needed you and I didn't know why, how would I know why? I have never even had a friend before, who am I to recognize emotions? I didn't understand why you were everything to me - I still don't, but I want to understand because I can't be this confused anymore - you were everything to me because I love you, I think I love you, I don't know- How am I supposed to know? I can't lose you, I need you... I love you..."
She steps back. "You-"
I do not let her finish. Never have I done anything like this before, but having her so near with the prospect of her leaving makes me lunge forward and kiss her.
Having never kissed anyone before, I realize instantly that it is very awkward to kiss someone with this mask on. I do not know how to meet her lips. Straight on? A little to the corner? Do I focus on her top lip or bottom lip? Am I doing it right at all?
I think she gets the idea, however.
She pulls back a little. She looks like she is about to burst out into tears.
"Please don't leave me," I beg softly.
"You said you were not a man, and you could not love," she replies, looking up at me with her eyes.
"I feel like a man with you," I say in a small voice. "Is this what it is like to love somebody?"
She hesitates. "I think so. I feel like a woman with you. You make me feel.. different."
"Different..." I repeat. If Christine has had any effect on me, it has been to make me different.
She creeps back to me, timidly. "How do I know you really love me?"
I want to go back how it used to be, where she was simply my music student and we were happy. She was beautiful, and she made me feel beautiful, and I was comfortable with myself for once in my life. Now I have been thrown in a world where I have never ventured before, and it is as terrifying as exhilarating.
"You cannot," I breathe. "I don't even know."
Her face breaks out into joy, into relief, and I can feel it, the love she has for me.
The love I have for her.
Maybe.
"We can discover together," she says.
.
Days pass.
Is this love?
I do not feel any different now. I feel the same as I always did around Christine - whole, and much more pleasant. She has always been accepting of me, only now it is not only on a musical degree. I like being around her in a new way now. It is as if I have nothing to hide from her, nothing it at all. She sings for me, and I watch her with posessive eyes, like always. Perhaps obsession is a little like love, in a way. Perhaps love is just a withstanding mutual obsession.
.
She demands her piano lesson, as usual, and when I demonstrate a little something for her, she puts her hands on top of mine.
I stop playing and feel the smoothness of her skin. When I look up, she is smiling at me.
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She insists on sleeping in my bed with me, so I let her. She curls up with a pillow and leans on her elbow, watching me.
"How do you expect me to sleep with you staring so intently?" I complain, but really, I do not mind.
"What made you so convinced that you could not love?" she asks quietly.
I am still not entirely convinced... but I am not about to tell her that anymore. "Because I have never been loved by anyone. Ever."
"You cannot know that," she protests.
"I can. "
She falls silent, and I wonder if she is considering that, or just tired of contradicting me.
"What made you so convinced that there was nothing worth living for?" I question.
I look at her closely before she can answer, and I am so close to her that the edges of her curls are beginning to fall into my face. I can see the shadows of her eyelashes against her cheeks as she furrows her brow and thinks for a moment.
"You have no idea how sad I was before you, Erik. You have no idea how alone I felt. And then you came along and just made everything all better. But I adored you too much, and grew too attached, so that as soon as I was back up there, I was depressed again. And then you kept sending me back up there, and I was so confused and so hurt, and then you yelled at me..." She shakes her head. "I cannot describe how I was feeling. Only... You were outside of my door for a reason. You stopped me. You saved me, again. Like an angel."
I remember I used to think of her as my angel... And angel of music sent to me...
"You are an angel," she whispers, and kisses my face.
.
After that, she sleeps in my room every night.
And I love just having her next to me, I really do. I am not greedy. I appreciate what I never have had before, and that is simply the comfort of someone next to me.
But nightgowns are so thin, you see. She curls up next to me, and it makes shapes in the fabric and it is so real and so unfamiliar that I cannot stop looking at it. Sometimes I catch glimpses of her legs, and I think about how she climbed on top of me and made me feel.
And that is when I grow greedy. Because I want that feeling again.
Once it is in my head, I cannot get it out.
She climbs in next to me, and when she leans over to give me my customary good night kiss, I grab her wrist.
She looks at me in concern. "Is something the matter?" she asks.
"What kind of love do you love me?" I question.
She looks puzzled. "Love is love. What other kind of love are there?"
I shake my head. "There are many kinds of love. There is a mother's love for her children, a neighbor's love for their neighbors, a child's love for their friend. How do you love me?"
"Like how a woman loves a man," she says succiently, without any second thought. "The love lover's have for each other. Like a husband and a wife."
"You have never been married before," I say protestingly, watching the clarity of her face. "How are you to know the love between a husband and wife?"
She ducks her head down a little to lay against me. For the moment, my ardor cools. There is something just as satisfying as these little moments with her. "I just do," she says simply. "I am not stupid, you know."
I laugh deep in my throat. "No, you most certainly are not."
"Do you really love me?" she asks after a second of silence. "Or were you just saying that to make me stay?"
I hesitate; my skin prickles with unease. "I do not know," I say honestly.
She waits for a moment, and I wait anxiously as well, to see if I have hurt her with my words. But she seems to mull them over and move closer to me. "Thank you," she says. "For being honest. But I wouldn't worry too much - I know you do."
.
I wonder what is going on upstairs. She has been gone for quite some time. I wonder if they are panicking that she has not showed up at rehearsals, or if they are worrying about her at all. Maybe they assume she has just run away. Maybe they are expecting her back. Maybe they are not.
Either way, we couldn't care less.
.
I touch her, and she opens her eyes and stares at me unabashedly. Slowly, she slides off her pillow to come closer to me and I push my fingers hesitatingly against her body. She kisses me on my lips before sliding the mask away and kissing all over my face. I do not mind- it is dark. She cannot see anything.
She seems to understand that I do not want to speak right now, or have an analysis of our thoughts and emotions. I am gentle with her, even though I have a growing emotion that makes me feel like I want to attack her. Not hurt her, but something different. It is like I want to attack her with fondness, by pressing her against me, by holding her more tightly. It is complicated to feel. I do not know how to handle her. She slides closer to me, but hesitates when she feels my arousal. It makes me nervous, too. Am I ready for this?
She stays quiet, kissing me gently and letting me touch her. At some point, I cannot help myself, and I open the front ties of her dress. I want to see her, and I am nearly salivating to see her, but I can tell she is growing more and more afraid. A part of me- a very tiny part- is irritated with her: she started this, and she draws back on me now?
"I have never even kissed a man before," she whispers. "Besides you."
I do not know what to say to that. I have never kissed a woman before. She must know that. She must know there is nothing to be afraid of here. No one is around to judge her or compare her. It is just me, and what have I done, other than show that girl kindness?
Voicing her concerns seems to make her stronger. She helps me pull off her dress and she is pleased by my soft gasp of longing. I have never seen a real woman unclothed before. So this is why God gave Adam his Eve.
Suddenly, I do not want her to undress me. Her embarassment is over now, but mine is just beginning. My skin is flaky and unatrractive; I have burns and old wounds; My skin is stretched and worn. She senses my withdrawl. "Are you shy?" she asks, stopping her hand.
"I am not beautiful like you," I say, hurt.
"That is good," she says, unfazed. "No one thought I was beautiful until you."
"Such a lie!" I protest.
"My face is very plain and my hair is not smooth and silky like most of the girls," she says simply. "My face is very round and my eyebrows are ugly."
I stare at her, aghast. I have never seen anything as beautiful as her. Her hair is luxorious and soft and her face is gentle and becoming. Her eyes sparkle. Her skin is the color of peaches. I have never seen anyone so eye-catching as her. She is like an angel. How could anyone like her look in the mirror and not like what they see? What nonsense is she speaking of?
"You see yourself in a different light than I do," I say, unable to forumlate an articulate response to something so ludicrus.
"Then perhaps I should say the same to you," she says, and she carefully peels off my shirt. I am so overwhelmed with her innocent nudity that I can almost pretend this is not really happening.
She touches me through my trousers and I am quivering now, and I cannot explain the feeling.
"Thank you for saving me," she says sweetly. "Now I want to save you."
And slowly she undresses me, and she saves me. She saves me. She saves me. Again and again and again.
.
I still do not know what love is. But I think I am beginning to learn.
.
She doesn't want to sing nearly as much anymore. It would bother me, but I am perfectly agreeable to other activites she would prefer to do.
A lot of concepts I did not understand before make sense to me now. Like marriage, and honeymoons. Like the high number of children couples have. Like how men are always so indebted to their seemingly simple wives.
"Am I going to marry you?" I ask her.
She rolls over and stares at me with her bright eyes. "Are you?"
I fidget. "Well, we are just down here. We can just be married down here. We do not have to leave the Opera."
She thinks for a moment. "Right," she says. "Let's be married." She closes her eyes for a second and then smiles, leans over, and kisses me lightly. "Husband," she says.
I do not really want her as my wife. I want her as my lover, my doll, my obsession.
But anything goes.
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"Christine," I say carefully one night. "I want to draw you." I want to preserve her forever, just the way she is. I want to build my shrine around her.
She is only wearing her nightgown. She flutters her eyelashes. "Tomorrow," she says balefully. "When I am all dressed up and pretty."
"No one shall see them but me."
"Then just look at me now."
"I want a picture," I say stubbornly. I peel her nightgown away from her shoulder. Her pale skin calls to me. I feel myself harden. It is the stangest and most extraordinary feeling.
"I am your picture," she giggles, sliding up to me. I have the oddest opinion that Christine really loves tempting and flirting in bed. She likes to be in control and make me pant for her. I think it makes her feel loved. It makes her feel wanted. Well, she is loved and wanted, and I am too eager to show her.
.
She prances out in a pale pink dress with embroidered roses. In her left hand is a lacy fan I have never seen before. Christine likes playing dress-up; it is one of the many reasons she wanted to be an actress.
"You do not need that silly thing," I say, gesturing the fan away.
She pouts. "But it is so classy!"
"I do not want class. I want you. You are lucky I am letting you wear clothes at all. Now can you be still for a little while?"
"Oh yes," she says obediently, and she drapes herself over the little couch.
I want to devour her, the way she looks. I am so lucky to have found such a treasure.
.
We sing for a few hours, and then she demands a little bit of piano. She is growing quite good.
But her singing is still beyond compare. It is what drew me into her the first place, and what will keep my attention rooted to her at all times. Sometimes I grow restless when she goes without singing for too long.
"Do you only love me because of my voice?" she asks hesitatingly.
I am still not sure why I love her in the first place... only that I care about her and treausre her and enjoy her, and I think that might be love. Who is to know for sure? How am I to reassure her of anything if I do not know myself? If I say no, I do not only love her for her voice, then what do I love her for?
"I just love you," I say simply. She does not like that vague answer. I think women like to be told the same thing over and over again. I do not know what it does for them, only that is pleases them.
"Why do you love me?" she pines, abandoning singing and coming to stand behind me and affectionately touching my shoulder.
"I do not know," I huff irritably. "Why can you not sing for me?"
"I will always sing for you," she says at once.
"Then do so, without all this silly chatter."
Her eyes grow distant, but she is obedient, as always.
.
We either sing or make love. Christine and I have nothing else in common. Music makes us perfect. When we are both singing, we are both equal and happy. We fit together and I can feel normal. But with the latter, it only serves to remind me how un-normal I am. I see the color of my skin compared to hers, the frailness of my body next to hers... Sometimes I would rather be singing.
But Christine has never been happier. She smiles all the time now and she laughs at everything. She never tires of things to do here.
Another thing she does not tire of is her ability to crush me with a few single words before bedtime. It is always before bedtime- "Do you love me?"
I grunt at her. Sometimes, there is only so much I can take.
For the first time, she sighs and says, "I know you do. But... do you really? I feel like you do not believe it yourself. So how am I to?"
I study her face trying my hardest to have absolute conviction in my eyes. "Christine, I really do love you," I say finally. "I am sure of that. I just do not understand why, or how. It confuses me. But as long as I remember that I do love you, I continue to try and figure it out."
"You are loving me just fine," she says sternly, poking her finger into my chest. "In the way you care for me, and the way you treat me."
I stare at her pathetically. "Yes but... that is just all very normal. It isn't like love at all!"
She thinks for a moment and says, "You know, Erik, I think you have seen too many operas and read too many books. You have come to believe that there is only the fairytale with love."
"But love is the fairytale," I argue pathetically. "I am supposed to be delivering suave lines and giving you sparkling things and being soft and sensual all the time-"
She laughs. "I am right, see? You know of only the outer aspect of love, the part displayed for the public. But when every couple is alone, they act differently."
"When did you get so mature about such things?" I ask suspiciously.
"Oh, I am very immature! Especially in men. I do not know the slightest about men." She blushes a little. "But I have had more human contact than you. You may know everything best.. but I think I understand the mechnics of emotion better."
"You do not understand anything," I pout, and she pulls her blanket to come closer to me and swindles herself right next to me.
"I understand some things," she giggles, moving in a steady motion against me.
"Few," I allow, gathering her closer to me. I close my eyes for the briefest of seconds, allowing her to simply take control and make me lose myself, and she quickly kisses me all over my face in one sweep. I let my tongue taste her shoulder instead. She drops her head to the side and moans. I think it is good for both of us to be in control every now in then, but I wouldn't know-I have never made love to anyone before Christine.
.
Everything is going so well, that she begins to show slight interest in going upstairs to perform again. It makes me very happy to see this resurgance of old habits and regular lifestyle, just as it makes me slightly jealous that I may have to share her again. But as much as I want her voice to only belong to me, I also want to make sure others hear it and want to die in envy. I want to see other's reactions and think, that belongs to me!
So although it is an unselfish thing I am doing for very selfish reasons, I am fine with it and we begin to formulate a plot for her to secure her successful position back upstairs.
.
Our story flies smoothly. They are displeased with her initially, but who can be displeased with Christine for more than a few minutes? They offer her condolences about her imaginary aunt's death and quickly assure her she will be in the next production, in promptly two weeks. Two more weeks I will have with her, all to myself. Two weeks for us to sing together and learn the role of Euridice.
"I have danced in this opera before," she says, flipping absent-mindedly through the libretto. I, of course, know this. I know everything about her.
"So you know the music."
"Perhaps." She holds it away from her, and then sighs. "But you will help me learn it, no?"
I smile at her.
.
And halfway through the first reshearsal, there is some surprising news: the managers of the Opera House are retiring, and two new managers have come to take his place. This does not matter in the slightest, as managers have very little to do with the running of the show, but I am somewhat irritated that such a change was made without my noticing. Christine has distracted me so much. But I love it.
.
It is difficult for Christine to focus on one thing alone. She wants to learn everything at the same time. We must put away our own compositions and personal favorites for this music, and we must focus on one direct melody at a time. One minute, she wants to sing one song, and then she grows bored and want to sing another. I find her restlessness endearing as well as annoying. I want her to focus on one song so she can perform flawlessly - then, and only then, will we move on to the next.
Perfection is a far goal, but it has never been one I have been afraid to chase. If I decide Christine will perform something perfectly, then she will.
Sometimes, she is not so convinced. She grows frustrated very eaisly. While she never lacks in her attempts to please, I know that pleasing me and living up to herself are two very different emotions for her.
But I make sure she is always happy. As often as I deliver my criticism - and oh, I dish it out quite a bit! - I make sure to counter each comment with one of praise on a different perspective. I will always keep her happy.
There is still a certain sort of sadness in me. Yes, I am beginning to believe that I love her... I just wish I knew how to prove it.
But she is a content girl. She takes what I offer, and never looks back.
.
I think the two weeks pass slowly for her, but they pass quickly for me. As much as I want her practicing, I also want her with me. I like having her next to me when I am doing things, I like seeing how pretty she is, and I like touching her.
My own body irritates me. Sometimes, I only want to be with her, to touch her for a moment while she snuggles next to me, and then suddenly, I want her. I just want to be with her, and then I am so desperate for more closeness, for more intamacy, for more skin, that just sitting next to her is out of the question.
She never seems to mind. She thinks it is funny. She adores it. It makes her feel undeniably wanted, and she loves it.
.
I am glad I drew my picture of her, to have with me when she is at the long rehearsals.
"Won't you be watching me?" she asks hesitatingly.
"Oh yes-when I can. I would love nothing more than to sit back and listen to you sing for everyone."
That is a lie. I would love nothing more than to sit back and listen to her sing for me. And just as I am thinking that, she giggles and says, "I think you would prefer to have me sing just for you, all to yourself."
I gape at her, and inside my head I am thinking, obsession. She is mine.
.
I had anticpated her return to the theatre to be many good things. She would thrive a little bit more, but she knew she was tied to me, which makes her just as comfortable as anything else could. I could watch with pride, she could sing for me, and everything was going to be simply splendid. I began to believe that just maybe, life could work out for us. Perhaps I can finally truly convince myself that I love her.
And then in comes Raoul de Chagny.
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