Chapter 10 Only then can you belong to me

Erick reached down and brought her hand up to his chest, abandoning it there. He slid closer to her embracing her in his arms. "Christine…" he uttered in a hushed breath. "I've no need to force your heart to accept such a dismal existence. I have so little to offer you….no proper rooms. I've not minded being here, but I have little need for worldly comforts, but you…all that you are accustomed to… this place offers you none of those things." Erick looked away feeling ashamed.

"Erick, a home without love has little to satisfy a soul, even if it is filled with fine things. I ask no more of you than your love. If you have failed to notice, you will now that I have brought nothing with me to offer you. My contributions can only be in my comforting words, and in your service. My hands are empty." Christine sat baring her palms toward him.

Erick's mind beat wildly at the sound of her words. "Nothing to offer? You are the angelic light that this poor condemned soul exists on. It is the very thing that warms the blood in my veins, that gives me cause to rise in the morning. Nothing? You are everything in this world to me, without you there is little reason for my existence." His eyes wide and brimming with passion at the baring of his deepest thoughts.

Christine, flustered as he lavished her with such flattery, sat silently. She knew the words came from the depths of his soul, from a wounded and longing heart. She could not deny that he made her feel the same.

Finding the courage to speak she responded, "Erick, you were my reason for caring when I first came here. I'd lost my one companion, my friend, my father, and you took me under your wing. In all these years I've never felt closer to anyone, never longed to be with anyone more than you. I do not look around this room and think of all the comforts that I do not have. I look around this room and think how very lucky I am to have found you, found the love of my life, without whose beating heart I can no longer exist. I no longer wish to be separate from you, I must belong to you." She looked pleadingly at Erick.

"The words you sang to me the night that I first came here have haunted me so. You sang only then can you belong to me... I'd dwelled on those words." Christine looked up toward the ceiling, a smile washing over her. "Indeed they are what propelled me those last few moments before we left the theater tonight. I had to completely succumb to you in order to belong to you. Feel my heart as it beats now…" She pulled his hand to her chest and pressed it against her flesh.

He could feel her heart thundering below her skin. "I have no doubts left that I am to belong to you Erick. My soul demands it…if you will have me." Christine lowered her head just slightly.

Erick felt as if it were all a dream he dared not to wake from, lest he disturb the sweet melancholy of it. Finding no words to express what he held in his heart…for the first time in his life, he was without words.

Christine looked deeply into his eyes once more and leaned over to brush her lips against his. Instinct was taking over, her innocence peeling away. She leaned back trying to assess Erick's reaction. His eyes looked as though he'd been swallowed by a hypnotic spell. He came forward, meeting her lips with his, and gathered her into his arms. In one swift motion he was on his feet spinning her in circles in his arms kissing her tenderly. He slowed, allowing her feet to drop softly to the floor. There she stood, in his arms looking up at him, wanting to stay in that moment forever. He could not remember a moment as sweet in his long tortured life, as sweet as this one.

Erick turned quickly when he heard the sloshing of water in the corridor outside his theater. Someone had found them!