February 11th, 1897

…he opened the gate and offered me his hand then. I took it with my heart almost rejoicing as he drew me to my feet with a cynical comment regarding my soiled dress. I cared not though. Let him have his dry sarcasm. It was an endearing trait unique to only him. Yet, I must admit, it took some getting used to after the very first time we met, mask to face.

At first, I might have deemed it as frightening, until I discovered that his macabre humor was one of his least worrisome habits.

I followed him down to his home by the lake, where we could discuss things in warmth rather the chill of a winter's night. I learned only after he brought me a wool blanket how long I actually had been at his gate, 'making a horrid raucous,' he said. Two hours. Two hours passing with our mutual stubbornness repelling us like two magnates of the same pole, until he could apparently bare it no longer.

No wonder I felt chilled to the bone and my hands were then purple, whence they were blue minutes prior. To spite the radiant heat of the hearth, they still felt cold and the numb stabs of needlepoints as circulation fought to resume beneath my skin.

Upon bringing us a tea service, he knelt before my chair and took my hands into his own as if they were fragile glass. He covered them completely, though is hands were as dreadfully cold as my own. But as he began to massage them in his gentle touch, caressing each bone of my palms and the flesh between them in careful strokes, I felt warmth and feeling returning.

Although his actions or the fact he noticed the state of my hands were not surprising, the sweetness in which he aided my circulation was undeniable.

When our eyes met, I felt an indescribable tingle blossom within my breast; much like that night we kissed. Those eyes without color pierced my soul in ways Raoul's never did, and I saw the depths of his love for me in those strange irises behind the soft black leather of his mask. Erik drew himself up to me just enough to press his lips against mine in a chaste kiss.

I initiated the second kiss, light, and sweet.

What followed was a series small little kisses, each one a little deeper, a little harder.

My arms went around his neck.

His hand framed the base of my head with fingers intertwining with my hair

We pulled each other into our arms deep passionate kisses as sparks flew between us. We gave into our passion. We did not think. We only acted on the whims of our bodies and our feelings. He tended to needs I never knew I had.

My touch was enough, even if he knew my anatomy better then I knew his. All he wanted was my loving caress and my kiss.

Before last night, I never knew such love, such passion, such pleasure.

I awoke feeling as though I was where I needed to be forever, at his side with his arms around me. It was in those moments together, intermittent between exploration and sleep, which I felt the most at peace with myself. I love Erik.

What I felt for Raoul was love too. But, love of a different shade, where I loved him as the dearest of friends, or perhaps even as a sister loves her favorite brother. Not as a lover should, or even a wife.

Love can be a confusing thing. When your mind and your heart tell you different things, discovering which is truest to your heart is the most difficult of tasks. That conflict between head and heart can eat away at you, especially when you confuse the feelings and start down the wrong path.

Being Raoul's wife would have been wonderful for a little while, but I think we would have eventually grown to resent each other. Not for lack of love, merely the wrong kind of it. We would have never completed each other. I love him in mind, not in heart or soul. No, my heart, my soul, lies with Erik.

He had known it all along, however, because of his social inadequacies; he never knew how to convince me of it. His volatile temper and lapse of sanity only made matters worse. Though I know I am to blame for this as well.

As I looked at him that morning, a part of me wanted to declare my undying love right at that moment. Yet…I could not. I did not wish to risk telling my heart's desire, and having it flip on me once again!

That would have done neither of us any favors.

Just as I confessed nothing, he said nothing of his love either.

We seemed to mutually dance around the very subject. Both of us too frightened to shatter such delicate moments. Our scars still needed healing.

I felt it though. His love rolled off him in waves, and he showed it by a sweet kiss to my forehead.

He sat up in our makeshift bed of the wool blanket and a few pillows off neighboring chairs. He rose to his feet after recollecting his trousers and tugged them back on.

I only write this in detail as I wish to never forget.

Erik rose with such grace, a dancer would envy him. Every step and gesture he made was to music I could not hear. To spite is tall wiry frame, where most would be little more than clumsy, he carried himself like a king. And he was a king, the dark king of the night with the Garnier and the catacombs beneath were his kingdom.

With a frame as ectomorphic as his, lined with sinewy muscle, I could see why many ~even myself~ would mistake him as corpselike in poor lighting, especially if he was without his mask. Even then, as I studied him while he went about locating his shirt, the firelight hit him wrong, drawing ridges between his ribs into deep canyons. The maze of scars that marred him so incredibly from a life before we met, looked like withering flesh, worn out and deeply aged. Another illusion of the light as I knew from firsthand experience, that they were little more than bumps!

I am certain, had we discarded his mask in our passion play, the light would have the same effect upon his face.

He turned to me, and I saw such life in his eyes while he buttoned his shirtsleeves. "Yes…yes, I shall make you breakfast!" he said with such enthusiasm, I began to wonder if this was the Erik I knew.

"Breakfast? I never asked and you act as if I did," I offered with a smile.

He tossed a log into the hearth we had slept beside. "My dear Christine, I have told you I am a bit of a mind reader! You needn't ever ask," and he was off to the kitchen with a bounce in his step. I am certain, had he been a bit younger, he might have very well skipped!

Before Christine could write another word, she found her inkwell to be empty, and her stores of it were quite depleted. She supposed such things happened after a month of daily entries into her leather bound journal. However, she supposed the real culprit of her empty well was the sketch she made of Erik is all his glory on the page before her latest.

Well…not all his glory as many would think. It was simply a portrait of him, clothed in his usual dark wears and his mask, looking regal and just, him. She was quite proud her work. Though there was no color, it did him justice.

Perhaps if she would buy colored inks when she went out, maybe even a bit of canvas and paint.

It was midday, and there was much to tend to in just her little flat alone. Her breakfast with Erik had been simple, where she alone ate, and he watched her. She no longer minded this peculiar habit of his, merely accepted it as one of his strange quarks, of which there were many. They parted ways a little while later. They knew the odds of Raoul or Nadir having her followed were quite high, and if she vanished down below for any length, they would doubtlessly think Erik held her against her will again.

A complication that was better left avoided.

As they parted ways, she promised she would return in a few days, sealed with a brief kiss on his lips.

Christine smiled at the memory as she rose to collect her purse and head out into the city.