The Mask and Mirror

Chapter 26

She found the Persian standing in the alley behind the boarding house, his dark head tilted back as he inhaled deeply from a cigarette. It looked small and oddly out of place between his ringed fingers, as though those large, dark-skinned hands were more comfortable holding cigars and opium pipes. Tendrils of smoke trailed across the hot, heavy air in curling threads, thin and potent-smelling as they dispersed in the alley.

"Must you smoke those things?" Antoinette criticised, more out of habit than any real sense of irritation.

Nadir turned at the admonition, saw her, and smiled measuredly.

"I must admit, I find them rather lacking compared to what I am accustomed to. But they do evoke memories of Persia with surprising vividness." Then he shook his head, and she could almost see the fragments of old memories disappearing into nothingness as he came to himself. "Where is Meg?"

"She's upstairs. Sleeping." Madame Giry did not add that things had been tense between the two of them ever since their argument over Raoul. No doubt the Persian probably knew, anyway. The man had an annoyingly omniscient ability to read what was unsaid, those infuriatingly calm eyes able to hold all kinds of knowledge within their elusive, charcoal depths.

"And there's no sign of -"

"The Vicomte? No." Suddenly, she was rather tempted to snatch the cigarette from his fingers and crush it viciously beneath the pointed toe of her steel-capped boot. That, or take a drag from it herself.

Nadir seemed to sense her irritation. Long black lashes briefly swept his high cheekbones as he murmured, "I was unable to sleep, anyway. I thought of taking a walk through the town. I might find him along the way."

"Then, if you have no objections, I will join you." Antoinette did not say why: that she could not spend another night at Meg's bedside, watching the girl sleep, soothing back the blonde hair that clung to her young, damp skin. It took her back too many years, to the days just after her husband had died, when she had sat for hours on the starched cotton sheets, murmuring soft lullabies to the sleeping child. The daughter she loved so altered, yet unchanged. She still smelt of youth and fever, honey and tears. It made her ache.

Nadir's melodious voice startled her, dragging her from the recesses of a past she had tried so hard not to remember. Her head jerked up as she stared at him, her eyes hard and glassy. His heavy brows stood out like two thumbprints of streaked black soot.

"Tell me something. Do you think she's safe? Christine Daae, I mean?"

"Yes," said Antoinette, realising to her surprise that this was true. "Yes, I do." She did not know where this conviction came from, but was grateful for it all the same. "Right now I am more concerned about the Vicomte."

"After what happened -"

But Madame Giry fixed him with a stern look. It was a look that said you cannot placate me with lies. "Do not pretend that he is alright. He's out every day, trying to discover some trace of Christine. When he comes back he just shuts himself in his room."

"Alone?"

"He sees Meg," she conceded reluctantly.

Nadir looked at her curiously with those beautiful, languid, melancholy eyes. "Why?"

Antoinette pursed her lips. "He talks to her. More than he does to us, at any rate."

"At least he has found someone to confide in." A pause. "What do they talk about?"

"I don't know. She can't - or won't - tell me."

"You disapprove," observed Nadir calmly.

"I have my reasons."

"You don't trust he'll keep her safe?"

"Oh, I've no doubt he's capable of protecting her. It's just his methods I don't approve of."

"We'll just have to trust he'll do the right thing." The Persian sighed. "It's all we can do."

Quick, pounding drums, the clash of tambourines and tantalising glimpses of gleaming bare flesh from the limber bodies of dancing girls. Raoul watched it all and felt nothing.

He thought back to Paris, to the social life of glitter and ease of which he had once been the soul and centre. The rustle of crinoline dresses, refined laughter and the low hub of excited talk, tinkling voices speaking in hushed whispers of gossip and contemporary scandal. Midnight serenades and piano concertos carrying through the perfume-scented air. Cigarettes smoked on the terrace in the cold Parisian night while couples stole away to the secluded gardens for amorous interludes. That indefinable yet ever-present aura of glamour, sophistication, far more intoxicating than the light-headedness of pale-gold champagne drunk from thin-stemmed glasses.

A world away from half-naked prostitutes contorting themselves to the clatter and thump of drums while crowds jostled each other aside to get a closer look. Raoul wasn't sure how many nights he had been coming here now, or even when he had discovered the place, deep in the smokiest, seediest part of the town, a place where the darkest and most primitive desires could find their secret outlets. Smoke and noise and pressing bodies. The earth seemed to shake beneath his feet. It was so loud he could no longer hear his own thoughts. Perhaps that was the appeal.

He knew it was wrong of him to come here, but he couldn't stop.

He couldn't stop.

Yet he did not feel guilt. He did not feel anything. There was something missing or dead inside him. He had expected tears and remorse but there was nothing left. What was wrong with him?

Only once before had Raoul ever felt like this - in the aftermath of Philippe's death. The sensation that he was moving through a dim fog, that the voices of everyone around him seemed to come from very far away. It was easier to be numb. To be cold. And somewhere in that time, his heart had frozen. The memories had become a blurring, dull ache. He had lost too much. There was nothing left to feel. He was a shell that moved and spoke empty words. Breathing. Barely.

Yet deep down, he wanted nothing more than to be the youthful, hopeful young man he had once been. Warm. Loved. Happy. Oh God, he had been so happy. Why had he never realised it? Happiness was something he had taken for granted. He had never thought about it before, had never stopped even for a moment to appreciate it and say to himself, I am happy. I must remember this.

But that was before. Before… everything.

Before Philippe had died. Before Christine had left him. Before he had turned into a liar, a hypocrite, a murderer.

God help him.

He still saw it in his dreams. The man, the man he… murdered. Over and over in the darkness. Hands stained with blood, tainted, unclean. Like his soul. He didn't recognise his own face in the mirror anymore. Didn't recognise his own skin.

He didn't want to be himself any more. He wanted to be anyone, anything else. He could no longer stand the company of Madame Giry or Nadir, both of whom were reminders of his failure, ties to his former world. They did not know him. Not the real him. They did not know that he was deceiving them. Coming here night after night while they thought he was playing the part of the ardent and faithful lover that never gave up hope.

Hope?

Every day that passed killed a little more hope. And in the end, wasn't hell simply the absence of hope? He had read that somewhere. Or perhaps Christine had read it aloud to him out of one of those Bibles that would have remained untouched on his shelves had she not picked them up, blowing the dust from their leather-bound covers. She had always been the religious one. She was the one who believed in God and angels and salvation.

He had never asked her if she believed in damnation.

It would have been easier if he had been a man of faith. If he believed he was being tested, that this was all happening for some higher purpose. But it wasn't.

He was dead inside and it was all for nothing.

Enough. Enough self-pity. Enough longing for a past that was forever dead to him. He would not arise from the ashes. Nor did he want to. He was just tired of it all.

He hated the world, so he had found a shadow-world, to go with his shadow-self. Here, he was a stranger. Here, he could be all those things he had become and it would not matter. Cold. Cruel. Selfish. Empty. All the things he had most hated, once. But in this place he did not have to feel guilt, or have any kind of former life to haunt him. No one knew him. Better for them, that way.

Noise, vivacity, rhythm. Raoul saw them in glimpses: a slender, agile wrist, a mane of black curls, the curve of a tarnished waist adorned with gold that rattled with each vigorous twist of the hips. He looked and listened with emotionless disinterest. He felt nothing beyond a vague, detached lust. Not one of them could compare to the simple beauty held in Christine's tremulous smile, the melancholy sweetness in her eyes, the softness in her voice…

No. He was not going to think about that. Not anymore. It hurt too much. She wouldn't want him now. How could she want him like this? How could anyone?

But they did here. Because they did not know him. Because he was a stranger. Because they did not care. These women who danced for money and offered themselves freely, heavy dark eyes scrutinising him with slow, languid admiration. He could have used any one of them, taken them as an unfamiliar stranger, poured his violence and darkness into a willing body and forgotten himself in this world of shadows. But he hadn't. A part of him wondered why. Surely even that would be preferable to this interminable stasis. Why did he not just end this pitiful struggle, lose himself entirely in the darkness and never look back? What was stopping him?

"There you are."

He looked up. And then he realised with a resigned sense of despair. Meg. The last thing in this dark, torn-apart world he did care about. He had tried to shake her off, to be detached from her, but she would not let him. He didn't have the energy to fight her any more. He looked at her through narrowed eyes.

What a contradictory thing she was, tiny, the top of her head barely at the height of his shoulder, but so much energy in her diminutive frame, brimming with life and vivacity. There was a glow of colour in her cheeks and a brightness in her eyes that seemed to have absorbed the energy from the twang and rhythm of the guitars. She had drawn a shawl around her small shoulders although the atmosphere inside the tent was muggy. With her tanned skin and dark eyes against the contrast of white silk, hair darkened to ochre; she looked like a gypsy, something exotic that would not be out of place in the semi-circle at the centre of the marquee where the rattle of tambourines and the flash of multi-coloured scarves whirled by in a dizzying, ever-changing blur.

"Did you follow me?"

"Yes," she said, simply. Her lips were pursed with irritation; the resemblance to her mother was startling, and caught him off-guard. He waited for her to say something. That, at least, he could count on her for.

She didn't disappoint. "So this is your attempt at trying to find Christine?"

"I wanted a night off." He noted with a vague satisfaction that his reply had incited her; her pretty face flushed. For a moment, he was tempted to see just how far he could push her, to make her lose all control. The thought was a subtly thrilling one.

"So you didn't invite your mother or Nadir to witness my degradation?" he continued, knowing he was provoking her.

"They haven't seen you in days." Meg added silently, And they think I'm at the boarding house, asleep. Where I should be.

"Don't pretend they miss me."

"I miss you." Her wry mouth curled up at the edges. "If that means anything to you."

He gestured with a lazy hand. "Then join me. Watch the show."

Meg looked over the dancing girls with a superior, sneering elegance - an expression she had not worn since leaving the Corps de Ballet.

"No, thank you," she said, stiffly.

"Don't be prim. It doesn't suit you."

She almost started laughing. No one had ever called her prim before. Not when she had been popular and free-spirited and vivacious. Not when she had been the best dancer at the Parisian Opera House. She could put any of these girls to shame. Their movements were bold, brazen, entirely lacking in grace or technique. Yet in spite of herself, the music, the earthy, liberated abandon of it called to her. Enclosed within her delicate, dainty shoes, her small feet began tapping out a rhythm on the hard, earth-packed ground. Her eyes followed the swaying movements, fascinated.

Raoul leaned in close to her, close enough to murmur in her ear, "Don't you ever want to cut loose? To forget it all? Paris, duty, the entire horrible world? Imagine escaping it all." He waved a hand at the dancers. "Look at them. Do you think they care about anything?"

Her heart was beating fast - fast as the festival drums. "I know what you're trying to do," she said. "And this isn't you."

A laugh, dark and bitter. "You know me so well, don't you, Meg? Well, perhaps I know you as well. And this mothering act isn't you, either. What happened to the Meg Giry of the Parisian Opera? The Meg who had every ballet rat idolise her and every man desiring her? The Meg who was so alive that everyone else seemed dull and listless in comparison? That's the Meg Giry I want to see."

She looked away from him. "There are more important things to think about."

"Don't deny a part of you finds the idea appealing. I don't think you've ever been shy in your life. Besides…" His mouth curved. "You always struck me as more of a dancer than a singer."

She was surprised at how easily he was able to read her. Surprised - and a little annoyed.

"You are far more beautiful than any of them," he said, and the very lack of affect in his emotionless voice struck her all the more powerfully. She had received many compliments before, yet had always mocked the men who had courted her with eloquent speeches that were pretty-sounding and meant nothing at all. Or the admirers who composed sweeping elegies about her eyes rivalling the stars and similar clichéd nonsense. Why, she had spent night after night curled up in the Opera Dorms with other girls, shrieking with laughter at some of the papers that had found their way into her hands. At other times she would listen to stuttering declarations with a solemn face, only to later mimic the suitor with cruel accuracy for the benefit of the ballet rats waiting eagerly upstairs.

The energy and euphoric thrum of the music faded to a dull background haze as Meg stood there, abruptly heartsick.

She missed Paris. She missed the light-hearted, gossipy world, she missed the chatter of other girls and she missed her pretty things. Perhaps she was just shallow like that. But she would give anything in the world to have it back.

Well. Almost anything.

Meg looked across at Raoul. Looked at the hyper-real clarity of his face in the ever-shifting lights, the chiselled profile that had maintained its remarkable symmetry even after having gone through so much. Events of the last few months had not stolen his looks; she would even have gone so far to say it enhanced them. There was something in his expression that had formerly been lacking; his was a face that had seen life, but never lived. Now experience was manifest in his features: the deepened contours and sharp lines, the coarse, sun-browned skin, and brooding defiance gave it a shape and character all of its own. Was it this element of subtle danger that had drawn Christine to Erik? That's completely different, she told herself sternly. Don't make comparisons.

"Didn't you notice that every man looked at you the moment you walked in?" His eyes moved over her in look that... but then it was gone. "A Parisian… delicate, blonde… you would be a sensation. Do you really think they would be keeping their distance if I wasn't with you?"

Meg looked around. It was true, she was certainly on the receiving end of more than a few smouldering glances. She wished she had thought to put something over her conspicuous blonde head. Next to her, Raoul was very still. She could sense how tightly wound he was beneath the languorous exterior, clearly prepared to launch himself into a bare-fisted fight should there be any unsolicited advances. Somehow, she got the impression he would have relished the chance of a fight, to give in to that kind of violence. She wasn't about to give him the excuse.

"Come on," she said. "I'm taking you home."

He looked at her, laughing a little. "Home?"

"Now," she added, ignoring the pang that his words struck within her.

Back through the darkened streets and twisted alleyways, the town a rioting carnival of rust. The night air embalmed with spices, travelling in scorched currents across the dark. By the time they reached the boarding house, her mother and Nadir were nowhere to be seen.

In his room, the darkness burnt like an oven. The blinds were drawn up in the window. Dust swirled in the air, catching on the walls, the floor. His bed was open, a single thin sheet thrown back. The stale smell of liquor hung in the air that had turned heavy with the setting of the sun. For some reason, this did not surprise her. It had been inevitable perhaps, that he would seek newer and more drastic sensations to numb himself.

The dust was dry, parching. Meg found herself longing for rain, rain such as they had in Paris, that turned the air to grey mist, the cold, clear droplets pounding on the roads, streaming icy and slick from passing carriages, fat drops that would glide slowly down umbrellas, the shock of cold moisture sudden and startling against the back of her neck, sliding beneath the stiff, starched collars her mother forced her to wear. She remembered the smell of it, too, the sharp clearness that came afterward, remembered it with a vividness that was painful.

It never rained in Alger. The hard blue sky of day turned to scorched copper at night, lit from below by the madly swinging lights. She imagined roiling clouds billowing across the wide expanse, the air sulphur and thunderous, the ground thrumming and the sky cracking open. The rain would come down in sheets, a warm and humid veil drowning the world into sodden canvas and red clay, cloying and sweet-smelling. Wash away the dust of ages, cleansing everything.

But it never did.

There was music playing somewhere. Outside, where the lamps were swinging and the night dancing, somewhere very far away. There was only the drumbeat through the walls, both distant and near, pulsing, constant. Beating through her very blood. Raoul was lounging against the table, head tilted to one side as he watched her. He peered closer suddenly, the bored indifference on his face replaced by an expression of concern. "You look tired."

"You don't need to act like you care."

Raoul stared at her, something akin to softness in his eyes. "I care." He sighed as she scoffed. "You don't believe me? You should know better. You know I wouldn't lie to you. Everything else has turned to madness. I've lost everything. You're the one thing left that matters to me."

What about Christine, she wanted to ask, but did not dare.

"Stay a while," he said.

Meg hesitated.

I shouldn't be here. I'm going in too far, too deep -

But he needs me.

As much as you need him?

Then to hell with it, she thought. When had she ever done the sensible thing?

She bent over, lighting a candle. Raoul swallowed hard. She was dressed in a starched white muslin dress, the shadowy contours of her figure visible through the slightly worn fabric. Something cold and empty inside him awakened with a small, burning flicker. Something that wasn't numbness. He stared hard at the table, concentrating all his energy on filling two glasses with a clear, amber liquid. When he looked up, the candlelight had brightened the room the hue of tiger's eyes, of a hunter's moon. A hazy, self-enclosed world of dim light and moving shade.

Meg heard a loud clink and the splash of liquid spilling from the dark glass bottle, catching the pulsing glow of light. Oblivion in burnt sienna. The smell of alcohol intensified, so strong she could almost taste it at the back of her throat. Raoul approached her slowly, his lean figure appearing through the shadows. He handed her a glass. Wordlessly, she took it, trying to suppress the tremor that passed through her hand at the brief, flaring contact.

Raoul dropped into a chair, his long body stretching out languidly. Grey eyes scrutinised her, half-lidded, lazy, curious. "I thought you'd want to be done with me." He toyed idly with the glass in his hand. "Go and see your mother."

"We had an argument," she retorted shortly.

"About what?"

"Well," she said, "About you."

A brief expression of remorse flickered across his face. "Meg -"

"Don't apologise. I'd rather forget it."

He raised his eyebrows slightly at that. Then his long leg stretched out, shoving another chair towards her. She sat. Raoul raised a glass at her, half-mockingly.

She frowned at him. "What are we drinking to?"

"To forgetting. To burning our bridges." To the fact that nothing matters.

She knocked the drink back, once again feeling the stinging, burning sensation scorching down her throat, firing her insides with unnatural warmth.

"Is that what you want?" she asked after a moment of silence. "To forget?"

"I might as well." His voice was resigned. "I'm not going to see her again."

"Raoul –"

"I've been lying to myself for so long, just telling myself one more day should do it. But I've known… known for weeks now. Christine is gone. And nothing will ever bring her back. Yet I told myself to keep trying. Because…" His brow creased in a slight frown, as though he could no longer remember why.

She cradled her glass in her hands. "I understand this is hard."

"No," he said wearily, brushing back the bronzed hair that was falling into his eyes. "That's just it. You don't understand. No one understands."

"Then tell me."

He looked at her thoughtfully, as though trying make up his mind about something. "If I did, you would probably hate me. I know that should bother me, but I don't know if it does anymore. And that's the problem."

"What are you saying?"

"I can't feel anything, Meg. I think something in me has died. I want to miss Christine, perhaps a buried part of me does, but I can't get at it. I've been broken and it's stopping me. There's nothing there. I'm… empty."

She took another gulp of whiskey, this time hardly noticing the burn. Raoul mirrored the movement with a brisk, practised flick of the wrist, draining his glass. It seemed to give him the courage to go on.

"Why do you think I drink in my room at night? Why do you think I go out? It isn't some drug to numb the pain. It's to justify this sense of emptiness. Mask the fact there's nothing to feel."

"If you're afraid -"

"Afraid?" he echoed with a hollow laugh. "Is that what you think? No, I'm not afraid. And it isn't bravery talking. It's this thing, this numb feeling inside of me. I can't feel fear, either. I left that behind, too, when I came here. I've forgotten who I am. And I don't know how to go back."

Back to Paris and youth, back to innocence, back to when I livedlaughedloved -

But that was a world away. Where he should still be. None of this was meant to happen and he wondered how it had come to this; the wrong place, the wrong life, the wrong girl. Wrong everything.

His voice was low, thoughtful. "The first time I remember seeing Christine again was her debut performance of Hannibal. But she told me it was before that… when I first visited the Opera Populaire. I don't remember seeing her. I remember seeing you, though. You were dressed as an Egyptian slave. You had those two Managers watching you like dogs staring at a chunk of meat, and looked as though you knew it, too."

Yes, he had noticed her. How could he not? He had seen her flirting with men at the Opera, laughing, surrounded by people. She thrived on being the centre of attention. But that night he had seen Christine again and after Christine there was no room for anyone else. There never would be. Not for him. He raised his eyes almost reluctantly, as though afraid of what he might see.

Meg was seated opposite him, catlike, her legs curled up beneath her. A few strands of dark-gold hair fell in elf locks around her small face. He leaned forward in his seat.

The candle through huge shadows across the room. The atmosphere was heavy, thick, she felt it like a heatwave against her bare arms, the fine hairs prickling in response. She could smell the bitter not-unpleasant tang of spirit, and it seemed a wave of intoxicated light-headedness had passed from him into her blood, rendering her slightly dizzy at his proximity. She was warm, so warm, and she dimly realised it was his hands, his fingers on her, light and scorching -

"How strange it is," he was saying softly. "That a few months ago, I barely registered your existence. If I thought of you at all, it was only as Christine's friend. And now… you're the only one I can talk to. Sometimes, I feel like I'm drowning, and you're the only thing keeping me afloat."

He held her face in his hands, looking deep into her eyes. She clenched her jaw, willing herself to remain still even as fire surged through her blood, energy sparking across her skin.

Raoul saw something flare in the whiskey depths of her eyes. The candlelight picked out the smooth lines and rounded shadows of her face, vivid and intent. Tigers eyes and hunter's moon. He could still hear, faintly, the rattle of tambourines outside. A sensation, he had said, back at the Kasbah. His mind tripped and spun.

He could give in now, and end the fight. It would be easy, almost.

"What is about you," he mused aloud, "That makes me spill all my deepest, darkest secrets to you?"

She merely looked at him and said nothing. For once, she was unable to find words to speak. His fingers traced the line of her jaw, slow, deliberate. There was a strange fervour in his eyes, unknown emotion rendering them a darker blue than she had ever seen, startling against the sepia tones of the close confined room. She felt his warm breath, whisky-tainted, softly against her cheek.

"Perhaps it's because you don't judge. Don't condemn."

She could see his bare arms where the sleeves were rolled back, his exposed throat, the once pale, aristocratic flesh burned to beaten-gold. Her hands tightened around the glass that had begun to sweat, slick from the moisture on her palms. His closeness stole her breath. The words brushed her skin, a current of hot air, heavy and sweet. "The whole world's gone mad and you're the only sane thing left in it…"

He was watching her beneath half-lowered lids with a slumbering kind of expectancy that made every muscle in her body tense. The candlelight wavered and flickered, causing a tiny flame to leap in his blue-grey eyes. She wondered whether it was merely reflected or came from within. It was hard to tell in the shadowy darkness. She inhaled the close warmth of his body, a strong, bitter musk. Tempting her closer. Closer.

Abruptly, Raoul stood up and walked across the room. She traced her tongue over her lower lip, tasting the sharp tang of whiskey. Her eyes stung. When her vision cleared, he was standing a small distance away, still facing her, and she reflected that it was bitterly unfair that the one person she wanted was the very one she could never have.

"You should leave." He sounded wearied.

Her head was thudding - or her heart. She stood up a little unsteadily - how much did I drink? She had never realised how much taller than her he was. Or perhaps it was the shadows, the shadows throwing everything out of proportion. The candle flickered madly, globs of wax dripping onto the wood, burning with the aroma of heavy musk and alcohol fumes in the muggy air. Meg set her chin. "So you would push me away, too?"

"It would be better - better for you, anyway."

She ignored this. "Why do you hate yourself so much?"

"Because -" He exhaled in frustration - "This - all of this - is my fault." He didn't want her to forgive him, or condone him… God, did he really hate himself so much? He did not want her frustrating goodness. He wanted her fierce-tempered and arrogant and liberated, free from all restraint. And, if he was not mistaken, she wanted that too. He wanted to escape, yet she was forcing him to remember, remember all of it -

"Nonsense," said Meg, an edge beginning in her voice. She breathed in, trying to calm herself. Don't get angry, don't get angry… "How were you to know what would happen?"

Raoul stared at her. He had killed a man, bullied and bruised those who stood in his way, lied to those he was meant to consider as friends - how could she ignore those things, still want to be here, with him? And he wanted her here, that was the truly, bitterly hilarious irony. If he were to sever himself from her entirely, he could be left alone in the dark and maybe find some measure of bleak satisfaction. It would so much easier. But no, he let her stay near him, and all that she reminded him of.

God, he really was a masochist.

Suddenly - madly - he wanted to laugh. The whole thing was such a bitter farce.

"You think it matters what I knew? Not knowing didn't change what happened. That night I drove Christine away - drove her halfway across the world. And I must take the blame for it."

Her jaw tightened as she tried to force down the anger simmering through her flushed body. But something - the tiredness, the whiskey - had made her reckless. "This is not your fault."

"Isn't it?" he retorted, challenge flaring within the depths of his eyes. "Didn't I doubt her? Didn't I say those things to her, things so awful that she ran out alone and unprotected into the night? This all happened because of me. And now I'm being punished for it. I made such horrible accusations, when she was far better than me, better than anyone –"

"Oh, stop it!" she shouted suddenly, startling him into silence. He stared at her, for once completely thrown. "Just… stop! Stop making excuses! I am sick and tired of you making excuses. Frankly, I don't care if you're crippled with guilt and self-loathing. There are hundreds of people out there whose existences are just as miserable as yours, and they make the best of it, because that's life. Not a punishment. Not some divine judgement. Just life. And even if you are being punished, so what? It's not what you are that counts; it's what you do. We're not all innately good like Christine! The rest of us have to work at it, and struggle, every second of every day – it's just easier for you not to try, easier for you to think you're a terrible person to satisfy this unhealthy self-torture of yours. Just for once, let yourself feel something, and stop being so damned proud to accept help from the people who are actually trying to help you. You're too scared to let yourself care for anyone because you think it leads to pain, and pain makes you vulnerable. That's all. You are not a bad person, Raoul – you're scared. I know Christine will come back to find herself engaged to a murderer, but I didn't think she was engaged to a coward as well! So you can be a coward and abandon Christine, or you can do the right thing for once and – what?"

She stared at him, breathing hard. Her heart slammed against her ribs. He had caught hold of her arms, his face blazing. The expression she saw there almost made her choke. Electricity shot across her skin.

"Meg –" he began to say, then pulled her sharply towards him, his mouth covering hers in a brutal, demanding kiss.

As Meg was quite a lot shorter than Christine, he had bend down lower than he was accustomed to in order to catch her lips with his own. Perhaps a part of him had expected her to push him away. Then he realised a moment later that he did not want her to. If there had been some subconscious longing, some half-acknowledged wish that it was Christine he was kissing, the illusion dissolved the moment his arms went around her. Kissing Christine had always been like a beautiful dream, a fairytale of romance come to life that he never wanted to end. Kissing Meg was like being struck by lightning.

Heat flared up inside him, warm as the whiskey in his belly, heat where he had been so cold and empty and despairing. It was as though he had been living in a drugged sleepwalk for the last few weeks and finally awakened. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he was feeling. The moment consumed him. God, the very taste of her, fiery, bitter, necessary -

At first the mere shock of it had her paralysed her against him. His hands slid from her jaw line to run over the contours of her face in a shaking caress. In the midst of the electric shocks that seared through her nerves like forked lightning, her hands found their way to his forearms, feeling the tensed muscle beneath the thin material of his shirt. She was dizzy with conflicting sensations. She was falling into darkness, responding to the hot, desperate kisses, the fierce, insistent thrust of his tongue against hers -

Then he froze.

Her eyes snapped open (when had she closed them?) and she saw -

His stark, rigid face. Blue eyes, clouded with parts realisation, desire and horror.

"Stop," Raoul said, his voice harsh and ragged. He shook her slightly without seeming to realise it. "Stop. What are we doing?"

Meg was staring at him, flushed and breathing hard. He could see the swirling motes of gold in her dark brown eyes. For the first time, she seemed utterly lost for words.

He sighed heavily, lowering his head into his hands. For a while she could see nothing but the slivers of dark gold where the light fell on his burnished hair. She could hear him breathing. The dizzying sensation had left her entirely. Now there was nothing but a tight feeling in her chest, the blood of embarrassment still in her face and an awful feeling of guilt causing her to clench her fists in the crisp, creased fabric of her silken skirts. The thought of Christine alone was enough to make her feel utterly wretched. Would she ever forgive her for this? Would she ever forgive herself?

But she didn't move away at once, because just then, she saw a shudder pass through his shoulders. He was still breathing hard. And the way he was looking down at her… no one had ever looked at her like that before. With desire, certainly. But never with such a glazed, desperate sort of hunger -

"This is…" His voice was barely recognisable.

She pulled herself together. "We can't," she said firmly.

"No," he said vaguely, "No, you're right."

"I should go." Her voice faltered.

He nodded. "Then go." But he was still gripping her wrist. It was warm, the pulse beating rapidly, a throb of life beneath his fingers. He couldn't… he couldn't… let her stay, let her go. Either way he would be damned. He was lost and wrong and he was drowning, and to hell, to hell with it all -

With the taste of whiskey still lingering on his tongue, he leaned forward, and as he found that soft, intoxicating mouth again, he heard a faint warning voice in the back of his mind. This isn't right. This isn't really what I want. But he had gone beyond that. He knew that what was he was doing was awful, probably the worst thing he had ever done, but he couldn't bring himself to stop. He no longer had the will or the energy to do the right thing. The man Christine loved had already died, and if she was going to hate him, there was no point in stopping himself from doing anything he wanted to do. If he was going to fall, it might as well be completely.

And it was a sweet agony of a fall, in slow-motion, the world blurring to heat and mindless fever and soft flesh. Her small, warm hands simultaneously pushed and pulled at him, as though wanting him both to stop and continue at the same time. But she did not pull away. Perhaps this had been inevitable all along. And he couldn't fight it, didn't want to fight it. Not anymore. With burning fingers, he traced her face and neck, relishing in the feel of her body shudder against his own.

Suddenly, his assault turned passionate. He forced her back a few stumbling steps until they were pressed against the wall. She heard the creak of old floorboards beneath their feet then the rough surface of the wall vibrated against her back, the steady beat of drums throbbing outside, pulsing through her very flesh. His hands moved restlessly up and down her body, the touches becoming more forceful, more demanding, and it was frightening to realise this only made her want him even more.

He was staring at her through half-closed lashes. His eyes burned like gas-lit blue flames, more alive and fevered than she had ever seen. "Meg…" he said warningly. "I won't ask again -"

She knew what Christine would do. Christine would do the right thing. But she wasn't Christine. She wasn't a delicate, pristine ornament, a paragon of saintliness and virtue. She never had been. Raoul had seen through her at once. Too late to cling to old, long-dead moralities, this whole thing had been madness from the start, but still she had persisted, demanding a way in, and had got more than she had bargained for. Weeks and months of hunger and buried longings had led to this moment.

Her hands came up to his shoulders, but he couldn't tell whether it was to push him away or pull him closer towards her. It did not matter; he did not care. Nothing mattered anymore. His existence had already been shattered beyond repair, and if this was the only way he could feel something, than so be it. He was going to lose whatever shreds of his old life he had left but at that moment he thought it might just be worth it.

His shaking hands found their way to her hair, pulling the pins free, and letting the burnt caramel tresses fall over her shoulders, soft and honey-sweet. Her mouth was parted, whisky-tinted lips full and enticing. She tilted her head back, her throat exposed to his fervent gaze, an implicit gesture of submission, of surrender. His mouth returned to hers in a bruising kiss. She tasted of whiskey and spices, a heady mix slowly drowning him in this drugging sensation, helping him forget, and after all, wasn't that what he had wanted all along? To forget?

Raoul couldn't remember the last time he had been this close to anyone; but he needed this, he needed something besides the cold emptiness inside him. She whispered something against his mouth, perhaps his name, perhaps a warning, perhaps a plea, and he shuddered at the feather-light softness of it. He was aware of pleasure, blurring, dizzying, maddening, and he tightened his hold on her painfully. It had been long, so long since he had felt anything. He shut his eyes, firmly, the world outside snapping out of sight. He wanted to drown in the sensation of her slim body trapped between himself and the wall, her pliant mouth beneath his, the amber-and-saffron scent of her body. Everything else was lost in deep shadows.

Warm hands curled around her waist, fingers playing wantonly in the hollow spaces between her ribs, her sensitised flesh awakening as his exploration crept ever higher. His fingers were burning through her dress, the slip of fabric a frustratingly chaste barrier between his hands and her bare skin. She threaded her hands through his coppery hair, feeling a fierce rush as he released a hiss of breath in half-pain. She could see the desire in his eyes, feel the heat radiating from his body. His grip on her tightened, and she felt a rush of exhilaration as his roughness, for it was her that was making him lose all control like this, causing him to mutter feverish words against her skin, and it was her name he was uttering. It was all for her.

His lips were burning against her bare skin, the searing kisses rendering her incoherent. This was so very different from the previous kisses she had had in stolen brief moments behind the scenes of the Opera. This was no preening dandy or fumbling stagehand. What had happened to the light-hearted banter, the playful flirtations she had indulged in so frequently, brushing off a suitor's broken heart with a laugh and a shrug? She had always been the one in control, the one who held the power. She had never surrendered before, not to anyone. And now she was completely succumbing to this man who had given her no assurance, but was half-desperate with want. The tight, barely-there control was gone; he was no longer holding himself back.

He lifted her against the wall in a rough, desperate movement, her legs instinctively curling around his waist. She arched into him, feeling his hard thighs holding her up. The tense, muscled strength she felt there set her blood afire. His hands slid up from the curve of her waist to trace the shape of her breasts beneath the corset she wore, and she shuddered with pleasure -

How could she be doing this? How could she be letting him do this?

She was betraying her friend, her best friend, but then she had been doing that ever since the moment she had acknowledged her feelings for Raoul. She should have stayed away, but too late for that now, too late for useless regrets… She had always been honest with herself, never denying what she truly wanted. And she wanted Raoul. No, craved him. He might not love her, but right now she did not care. And if this one night was all she could have, then so be it -

His body was holding her up, hard, strong, muscular. Tiny currents were burning beneath her skin, leaving her flushed and heated. The heavy perfume drifting in through the open window was maddening. The drumbeat had intensified, throbbing through her very being. Slanting coppery light in the room bled and deepened, slipping into the concealed shadows of their bodies as they moved urgently. Their hands were on each other, unable to get close enough. Neither of them had moved towards the bed, as though by not doing so, they were convincing themselves this would not really happen. Neither did they speak, expect in the harsh breaths, the sighs and urgent moans that were drowned out by the clash and beat of the night-music.

So many nights Raoul had dreamed of Christine coming to him, her lips and hands soft and sweet with love and yearning and tenderness, but this was real, far realer than anything his whisky and exhaustion-hazed mind could ever hope to conjure in those long and sleepless hours. He would dissolve the last of his old self inside her, he would have oblivion -

He dragged his hands through the soft hair that brushed her shoulders as her head tilted back, the wings of her shoulder blades arching pliant beneath his hands. He pulled her closer in a rough, possessive motion. The feel of her skin burning beneath the light silk that clung to her body was taunting, enticing. Her smooth, honey-coloured arms were tight around his neck. The warmth, the smell of the Algerian night, the movement of her mouth against his were rendering everything else irrelevant. He discovered an intensity of feeling inside him, and realised he had to go on kissing her even if it destroyed him, destroyed them both, sent the world crashing down around them…

There was nothing innocent about this. Nothing like the sweet romance of his chaste courtship with Christine. This was passion, madness; a raw, undeniable hunger. There was something savage and primal in the sheer want that overwhelmed him. There was passion and fierceness in those maddening dark eyes, those eyes that saw right through him, into his very core. She knew him, the real him, and she was the only one that did not run.

Betrayal. That was what he was doing to Christine. He should care more than he did, and the fact that he didn't made it all the worse. It was all so distant. She was a part of that former existence, where things were right and made sense, not fractured and torn apart. There could be no going back. No more days of innocence, of laughter and sun-filled mornings. That world was gone forever. He had taken the plunge and the fall was endless.

The air was thick and hot, stifling, dark. He buried his face in her long hair, the sloping line of her smooth neck, where the pulse throbbed beneath the skin. He tasted the salt of perspiration and musky spices. As his seeking mouth moved lower, his head bent over her breasts, Meg's hands tightened painfully in his hair and he relished the pain. God, she was intoxicating, far stronger than whiskey or opium or any other drug he had sought over the last weeks to escape from his own mind. He tasted the soft swell of flesh and he tightened his hold on her, feeling her back arch beneath his hands as she pressed herself against the slick exploration, urging him on.

His mouth was everywhere, her neck, her shoulders her breasts, hot and damp through the thin fabric, the material clinging to her fevered skin after he moved away. The pressure of his body was hard and unrelenting, yet somehow not enough. She shifted impatiently in his hold, needing more, needing something -

Raoul slid the skirt up a few inches and heard her breath catch. He lifted his head to look into her face. Her dark eyes were half-closed, lashes brushing her tanned cheeks, long strands of dark-gold hair damp across her face. She was biting down furiously on her hands to keep from crying out. He had never seen her like this, so wild, so unrestrained. She was the most vivid, alive person he had ever known. She was also sharp-tongued, fierce-tempered, and too proud of herself by half. And she was the only person in the world who understood him. She was Christine's dearest friend, the last person he should be doing this with, and yet the only person he could do this with.

Christine was perfect. Christine was pure. Christine was clothed in holy radiance, sweet and soft and gentle. Nothing about Meg was gentle. She was brilliant and fierce, hair like copper wires, and sharp edges to go with her sharper tongue. The darkness only made that inner spark burn all the brighter. He wanted it to burn, to sear through flesh and bone and annihilate everything he had become.

Such a damned temptress, hair wild over her shoulders, no faceless Algerian concubine cloaked in veils and perfume and endless gold, but real, so very real. She was alive, she was life. He had spent too many nights cold and alone and dead inside. He was empty and hollow, he wanted those dark spaces filled with light and fire, to burn him alive. This was so wrong, he was wrong, terrible, terrible… yet the only way to purge this anger and revulsion and loathing and apathy was to keep moving his hands over the soft contours, to bend his head over the laces of her dress, to lose himself in the sensation of her, bring her closer, closer -

Shadows leapt over their moving bodies. Her caresses grew bolder, her palms hot as she fiercely tugged at his shirt and her lips met every inch of bare skin they could find. She could taste salt and copper and the lingering smokiness of the Kasbah. Her fingers tightened their clutch on his shirt, instinctively pulling him closer. Crisp fabric, hard flesh, hot lips seeking every inch of her fevered skin...

Meg wasn't aware of how she had managed to undo his shirt, only she had, and he was shrugging out of it, letting it fall to the wooden floorboards in a discarded pile. His bare shoulders were bronze in the dim light. Her hands slid over corded muscle and hardened copper skin, glistening with a sheen of perspiration. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling with exertion. The feel of that hard, strong body shuddering against her fervent exploration was intoxicating. She ran her palms over his chest, down to his taut stomach and firm hips until her fingers brushed against the rough material of his trousers and he groaned into her neck, muffled, incoherent.

His firm, warm thigh moved between hers. Heat pooled within her lower body, her insides melting to honeyed liquid. She was burning where she could feel him hard against her. Her hips shifted instinctively against his and he pressed into her in response, moving and rubbing against the silk. Her back thudded against the wall but she did not register the pain because it was excruciating pleasure and, God, what if someone heard? But the drums were pounding outside, and her core, and her pulse, pounding, pounding -

Her frantic sighs almost undid him. There was nothing but this; he was forgetting everything, all of it falling away. He was lost in the darkness and need. For the first time he could remember, he was giving in to abandon, breaking free from all restraints. And he was feeling. This was what he had been reaching for night after night in the Kasbah and had never quite managed, because he had been looking in all the wrong places. But now -

Only the frenzied, maddened rhythm, the mingled gasps and sighs, her nails digging into his lower back, her legs entwined with his. Oh, it was madness, utter madness… and he wanted her, that was the real madness of it, he wanted her… The feel of her lithe body writhing in his arms strained him beyond all control, robbed him of all breath, of all thought. So help him, he had to be inside her or he would surely go mad -

The dress clung to her damp skin and Raoul pushed the skirts upward, seeking bare flesh, so soft and yielding and inviting. He wanted to be buried within her, to end the madness and the struggle. To burn every last bridge. The movement of her pelvis against his arousal racked his body with mindless sensation, he had to touch her, had to have her -

Right -

now -

She felt herself drunk on the scents, the sensation, her senses reeling as his hands slid beneath her skirts to sweep across the soft, sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Then higher, brushing her undergarments. She jerked in his arms. His fingers moved again, touching, melding, melting -

The insistent rhythm had her gasping against him. She could not speak. Could not think -

Was she really doing this? She had never… not with anyone… She silently swore to herself that she could face the consequences tomorrow, so long as he did not stop... did not…

oh God -

A mane of gold-streaked hair swung down as her head fell forward against his shoulder, her face pressed against the hard, sweat-soaked muscle. She bit down, hard, and heard a savage cry, but did not know who from, there was nothing but this decadent, raw wanting -

He was pulling the gartered silk stockings down her legs, as she kissed the coppery skin, hungry, frantic, urgent. Her need was unbearable. Her hands fisted in the rough-worn fabric of his trousers as she scrabbled with the fastenings, aware of his harsh breathing, his damp head buried in the curve of her neck as he kissed and nipped his way down the inflamed skin until she was incoherent with wanting. And - at last - the heat of his bare thighs - her eyes closed -

Raoul pulling at her dress with desperate hands -

She pulled the flimsy garment over her head and flung it somewhere, anywhere, not caring, aware only of the intensity of his gaze as his eyes drank her in, her thin chemise near-transparent, concealing nothing. She felt the release of breath hot against the hollow of her throat. He tugged her undergarments aside, fingers splayed across her inner thighs.

He looked at her. She held her breath.

A ravaging kiss -

The warm slide of hands -

Then one swift, dominating thrust.

She cried out as the drums beat in the hot night and the candle went out with a hiss, obliterating the last flickering light and plunging the room into complete darkness.