A Thousand Words
Chapter 14
Return to Me

The knock on my front door startled me. I looked up from my book and wondered who would be out on a night like this–the snow was really coming down outside, and it was bitterly cold.

I pushed aside the afghan I had thrown over my lap and unfolded myself from my big overstuffed chair. When I looked through the peephole, my heart skipped a beat.

I hastily unlocked the door and opened it to reveal Erik standing there before me, holding a piece of luggage in each hand. He wore a black fedora, pulled down low over his mask, and a long black overcoat that swirled around his legs. He had the coat buttoned all the way up and the collar turned up against his neck. A few brave snowflakes managed to stay, unmelted, on his hat and on the shoulders of his coat. He stamped the snow from his shoes.

He was a sight. A sight for sore eyes.

He stepped over the threshold, dropped his bags, and took me in his arms. His kiss was so insistent it took my breath away. I unbuttoned and slid my hands under his overcoat, pushing it off his shoulders, and it fell to the floor in a wet heap. I missed him the few days he was away in Paris, but I didn't realize just how much until he magically appeared in my living room.

Without saying a word, we both began tugging and pulling at each other's clothes. I somehow managed to reach behind him to close and lock the door before he pushed me up against the wall. With one quick motion he pulled my sweater over my head, tossing it aside. Another deft movement and he had my sweatpants down around my ankles. My trembling fingers fumbled at the zipper of his trousers.

In a matter of moments we were frantically joined, pushing the outside of the envelope, charting unexplored lands. Make no mistake about it–this was not making love. This was two bodies calling out to one another; it was lust-filled hormones screaming for satisfaction; it was instinct-driven, needful, animalistic coupling. We even sounded like animals as we grunted and moaned our way through this bout of mad copulation. We must have been quite a sight as well: he, with his trousers pooled around his ankles; and me, braced against the wall, my legs wrapped around him, my panties dangling off one foot. With one hand he roughly took hold of one of my breasts and I cried out, partly in pain and partly in pleasure. With the other hand he grasped my hip, digging his fingers into my flesh and I cried out, partly in pain and partly in pleasure. With both hands I grabbed his buttocks and dug my fingernails into his skin and he cried out, partly in pain and partly in pleasure.

Anyone unlucky enough to be walking by in the hallway at that moment would have been hard pressed to explain the thumping and strange noises coming through the wall from my apartment.

XXXXX

Our initial needs finally sated, Erik carried me into my bedroom and we snuggled in bed under the warm blankets.

"I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow," I finally managed to say.

"I booked myself on the first available flight out," he said as he drew one finger down the side of my neck and across my shoulder. "I couldn't stand it any longer."

I moaned as he took my nipple in his mouth and sucked it, pulling at it with his lips, gently biting it. Oh, how I missed his touch! His hands roamed all over my body as if trying desperately to reclaim what he had lost. I clung to him, clasping his body to mine, holding him tightly.

His lips again found mine. I felt his tongue travel over my lips, and I opened my mouth, inviting him inside. His velvet tongue slid against mine, probing, exploring, penetrating.

"God, how I've missed you," he whispered into my ear, sending shivers up and down my spine. I was unable to speak; the only response I could muster was a groan as he wedged his knee between my legs.

XXXXX

We lay together, wrapped in each other's arms, under the many blankets on my bed.

"Mmmm, I'm so glad you came back early," I said, "Otherwise, I'd have had to call my other lover to satisfy me."

Erik turned towards me. "Your other lover?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "How many others do you have?"

I tried to keep a straight face. "Too many to count. It's so hard to keep them all straight, you know."

"Oh, it is?" One of his hands traveled under the blankets to a spot on my body he knew was especially ticklish. "And did you call these other lovers while I was gone?"

"Why should I tell you that?"

"Because if you don't,..." and he began tickling me mercilessly.

I giggled like a silly schoolgirl as I tried to get away from him and his tickling fingers, but he grabbed me, pulled me close to him and kissed me soundly.

He left me breathless with that kiss.

"Erik, of course there's no one else but you."

He kissed me again, a real toe-curling kiss that left me wanting even more.

"And there's no one for me but you."

"Yet..."

"Yet...?" he prompted.

I grinned. "Yet you go off to Paris without me and you don't bring anything back for me?"

He looked at me seriously. "Did you want me to bring something back for you?"

Uh-oh. Had I crossed some line here? "Well, no...," I began.

A lazy grin spread across his lips.

"Of course I did. Wait here."

He slipped out of bed and took a few steps toward the bedroom door.

"Wait," I said to him. "Come back."

He came back to the bed and sat down next to me. "What is it?" he asked.

"Nothing," I replied with a grin. "I just wanted another look at your gorgeous derrière. You can go now."

He leaned over to kiss me and then he was off again, this time walking very slowly so I could get a good, long look.

I could hear Erik rummaging through his luggage in the living room. He reappeared a few moments later carrying a small parcel. I eyed it curiously as he got back into bed and pulled the covers back up over the both of us.

"This is for you," he said simply as he handed the box to me.

I confess that my hands trembled a bit as I opened the package to reveal a square, flat jeweler's case. "Erik, you didn't have to..."

"Shhh, just open it," he said.

I pulled open the top to reveal an exquisite necklace. The pendant was in the shape of a rose in full bloom with a stem and leaves attached, all wrought in solid gold. The matching ornate chain also was handcrafted in gold. The workmanship was old-world in style, yet it looked brand new. The rose was so finely detailed that I imagined I could smell its fragrance.

"Oh, Erik, this is... it's just beautiful!"

"There's a story that goes with that necklace," he said as he pulled the delicate item out of the box and clasped it around my neck.

"Please tell me." I settled back into his arms.

"I had gone out for a walk one afternoon to clear my head, and to get away from my relatives, when I found myself on this tiny, narrow street in a very old part of the city. There was this jeweler's shop there that looked like it had been there for a hundred years or more and hadn't changed a bit in all those years–leaded glass in the storefront windows, a weathered sign hanging out front, and some beautiful pieces of jewelry in the window. Something made me go inside. For some reason it made me think of you."

"How sweet," I said, fingering the necklace.

"Hush, let me tell the story," he commanded with a smile.

"Sorry. Please continue."

"Well. I went inside, and this little man who looked to be about as old as the shop itself emerged from the back room when he heard the door. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me through his thick little round spectacles for the longest time with the strangest expression on his face, and I thought for a moment he was about to ask me to leave."

"Leave? Why?"

"It wouldn't be the first time someone mistook me for a thief," he murmured as his hand slowly rose to touch his mask.

"Oh," I whispered. "People really do that?"

"More than you know."

The sadness in his eyes spoke volumes.

I took his hand in mine and lifted it to my lips.

"I'm so sorry. Please continue."

He gently squeezed my hand and held it in his lap.

"Anyhow, the old man smiled after a minute and said, 'Monsieur, come in, come in!' He waved for me to come in, and he disappeared into the back room for a few moments. I could hear him back there, rummaging about, and then he came back out with this box and handed it to me. 'Here you are,' he said, 'we have kept it for you.'"

"Kept it for you? What did he mean?"

"I didn't know at the time. But he explained that his grandfather, who originally owned the shop, told him the tale long ago about a mysterious man who wore a mask who came into the shop one day and ordered a gold necklace in the shape of a rose. He never came back to retrieve it, but the grandfather insisted that one day he would. 'You must keep it,' the grandfather told him, 'for he will return.'"

"And he kept it, all those years?" I asked.

"Absolument. He kept his promise to his grandfather."

He reached up to trace the golden rose petals with one finger. "I kept trying to tell him that I was not him, that I was not the same man who ordered the necklace, but he insisted. 'You are Monsieur Erik, no?' he asked me. Well, I was shocked that he knew my name. 'And your lady love is Mademoiselle Christine.' Then he showed me the inscription on the back of the rose."

Erik turned the rose over and showed me, etched in tiny letters, the sentiment. "Pour C, d'E."

"You see?" he said to me. "'For Christine, from Erik."

I looked at the inscription for a long moment, then I gazed up at Erik with wonder. "This is all so strange..."

Erik smiled wryly at me. "Not quite so strange as this..." He reached inside the box, under the velvet where the necklace lay for so long, and pulled out a yellowed sheet of paper. He held it up for me to see. It was the original order for the necklace. "Look at the date."

I searched the page until I found it, and I gasped. The date was November 20, 1871.

XXXXX

"I still can't see it..."

Erik was whining about not being able to see New Jersey from my living room window. I peered into the living room from the kitchen and got a marvelous view of his derrière as he leaned out the window. He was wearing black trousers–extremely well-fitting black trousers–and a black turtleneck sweater. He looked good enough to eat.

"If you fall out of that window, don't come crying to me!" I said to him from the kitchen doorway.

He turned back to look at me.

"You mean you wouldn't help me if I fell and hurt myself?" He assumed his best lost-puppy look and batted his eyes at me.

"Well, let's see," I began as I leaned against the door jamb and folded my arms. "You're hanging out a sixth-floor window that's icy and wet. You're a grownup who should know better than to do something that stupid. So, no, I wouldn't help you," I retorted with a grin.

He laughed and withdrew from the cold outside. I shivered. I could see that the snow flurries had grown in intensity to a full-fledged storm; the white flakes seemed to have grown to the size of baseballs as the wind whipped them in all directions.

"The visibility is probably close to zero right now, with the snow," I said. "You can't even see to the end of the block, can you?"

"No," he said. "It's really coming down, even harder than when I arrived."

"Well, then, I guess we won't be going out dancing tonight after all."

I was disappointed. I had been looking forward to going dancing with Erik all week, and now we were stuck inside, practically snowed in.

"Well, dinner is almost ready, so why don't you light the candles on the table?"

"Sure."

I watched him as we ate, and in my mind's eye I kept seeing Erik's hands, those hands with their practiced fingers that could so easily drive me to the pinnacle of ecstasy, those hands that had painted such an astonishing portrait of me. I saw his lips, those soft, supple lips that could alternately caress my flesh and then torment it, igniting a passion in me that I never knew I had. I also saw his eyes, those uniquely-colored windows to his soul, those mirrors that reflected an image of me I had never before seen. I could feel my heart pounding away.

"A penny for your thoughts." His voice broke my reverie and brought me back into the present. I blushed. Surely he couldn't have read my thoughts?

I gazed up into his eyes and opened my mouth to answer him, and in that instant we were plunged into a darkness that was broken only by the two tapers lazily flickering between us on the table.

"Oh no," I said as I stood up and went to the window. "Not again!"

What a time for the power to go out! Sure enough, I could see nothing but blackness outside. The entire world, or what little of it I could see from my vantage point, was dark. And silent. There was virtually no traffic in the street below, and all I could hear was the faint plopping of snowflakes as they hit the glass and then slid down to the window's ledge.

Erik's arms snaked around me from behind, and we stood together looking out into the blackness of the city. He rested his chin on top of my head.

"Now we're really stuck here, aren't we?" he asked.

"I guess so. We'll have to put up with each other for a while." I said that as if it were a bad thing–all in all, it didn't sound too terrible!

"I've got a portable radio in the kitchen," I continued. "Let's see what they have to say."

Erik followed me into the kitchen, picking up one of the candles from the dining table, and I switched on the radio. Nothing but static on the station I usually listened to, so I turned the dial, slowly, trying to find another.

"...and with the power down in all of Manhattan and much of the outlying boroughs, police and rescue officials urge everyone to stay indoors. Snow accumulations vary from five to ten inches throughout the city, and the National Weather Service is predicting a total snowfall of twelve to fifteen inches before this front moves out of our area. Repeating, Con Edison personnel are working to restore power, believed to be caused by sudden heavy snowfall, and all New Yorkers are urged to stay indoors. The subways have been shut down by this power outage, and efforts are underway to rescue those stranded on trains stuck between stations. Stay tuned to this station..."

"This sounds serious," I said. "Maybe I should call the hospital..."

I reached for the phone on the wall behind me. The line was dead.

"The phones have been knocked out too." I replaced the receiver.

Erik had been fiddling with the radio, searching for another station. He stopped when strains of soft music emerged from the speakers.

It suddenly occurred to me that we were in almost total darkness. "Let's light some more candles," I said.

I have to admit that I'm a sucker for candles; I have them everywhere in my apartment. We lit several, giving the room light but casting flickering ominous shadows everywhere.

Then, in the semi-darkness, I felt Erik's arms circling around me from behind. He expertly spun me around to face him, and I looked up into his smiling face.

"We planned on going dancing," he said, "and I see no reason why we still can't."

I had dressed for an evening of dancing in a black long-sleeved dress with a full skirt that fell just below my knees. It swirled around my legs as Erik spun me to him, and its low neckline was the perfect frame for the gold rose necklace.

We began to move slowly together in time with the static-filled music drifting in from the kitchen. He held me tightly against him with one arm while his other hand held mine and tucked it against his chest. We clung to one another, swaying to the music in the semi-darkness. I laid my head against his shoulder and sighed softly.

Dancing in my living room, in the near-darkness, was a wonderful way to spend the evening–better, perhaps, than going out. This way, we were alone, private, isolated.

Erik's hand slowly began traveling up and down my back, caressing, tender, sweet. He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed each of my fingers. Still we kept time with the music. I lifted my face to meet his, and he leaned down to kiss me. Our lips barely touched, but the passionate flames were instantly rekindled within me. He let go of my hand and gently caressed my face.

"I'm glad we're not going out. I like it much better here," he said.

"Mmmmm. Me too."

We kissed again, a long, lingering kiss, and when our tongues met and began their own dance, I heard myself moan. My hand slid up the back of his neck and brought his head down closer to me. His arm tightened around me, holding me even closer to him, and as we moved together in time to the music I felt the familiar tell-tale sign of his arousal. I pressed my hips against him.

"I can feel you," I whispered in his ear.

"Shhh," he whispered back, "I want to dance."

He kissed me softly, then laid his head on top of mine.

"But Erik..."

"I want to dance, Christine."

He held me tightly as he spun me around the living room.

We proceeded to dance the evening away–me, Erik, and the bulge in his trousers–as the snow continued to fall outside.