The popular misconception is that a man obsessively in love with a woman never looks at another. This is usually incorrect. There may be none of the mad fondness associated with his thoughts of the beloved, but unconsciously or not, a man will still find himself drawn in some small way to a passing pretty face.
It does not diminish the obsession at all. The man will simply reason to himself that he's following nature, and only in brief spurts of thought, where no harm can be done.
Erik was not even cognizant of the fact he noticed Meg's dancing in Hannibal. She simply flitted around the hazy edges of his subconscious as he thought of other matters.
First, he thought of the production at hand. Chalumeau's Hannibal was a great white elephant of an affair, an inelegant spectacle popular with the troglodytes who sat drooling in his seats these days. Still, Hannibal had the advantage of containing a few pleasing arias—frankly, that's all the piece was good for really, a vehicle for some likeable songs. "Think of Me" in particular would serve as a perfect showcase for-
Ah, but he was getting ahead of himself.
Next there was the matter of Lefevre to mull over. His retirement was imminent. The scrap metal dealers would soon take over. Nominally speaking, of course.
In truth, Erik felt a stab of sympathy for the broken Lefevre. Therefore, it did not require much convincing before he acquiesced to Giry's request on Lefevre's behalf. After all, Erik had promised the man his freedom once he'd amassed enough savings for retirement, and it would have been unnecessarily cruel to torment him further.
But the new managers...Erik must decide what to do with them. He was not nearly as young and impulsive as the nineteen-year-old who'd shamelessly revealed his identity to Lefevre some fifteen years earlier. He was cleverer now, subtler. Everything must be communicated through letter, through Madame Giry, and the well-placed booming command from the rafters if need be. A far more creative way to terrify the new gentlemen into allegiance than his old friend, frank extortion.
Finally, he thought of his Christine, always his Christine.
For the most important, the most vital reason he allowed Hannibal to play at his opera house was that it was time now for Christine's debut. "Think of Me" would suit her voice marvelously, and the character of Elissa afforded a capable actress a few moments of genuine depth.
He meditated on Christine, imagining her wild success, his triumph. He pictured himself watching her gliding gracefully across the stage, commanding the theater not only with her ecstatic voice, but with her beauty, her charm. He saw the tender smile, the riotous brown curls gleaming in the footlights. He saw the eyes wide with wonder at the applause given only to her, but which belonged to him, really. Everything she was belonged to him. The audience will love her, adore her, worship her—but only from afar, only with their eyes. He alone would claim her, triumph and all. The specter of the vicomte she mentioned no longer tortured him so often, and each day he felt her abandon that precious gift—her soul—into his appreciative hands, bit by bit.
He thought of this and more, all while he felt Meg Giry's dancing.
As he sat hidden in Box Five, planning, Meg grew more prominent in the ensemble. Today was the first dress rehearsal, and the slavegirl outfits were as risque as Madame Giry would allow. Meg had seldom played such an overtly sexual character before. What surprised the staff and dismayed her mother was how easily the innocent girl slipped into this seductive character. Her movements were imbued with a serpentine grace (Cecile, meanwhile, who was also directed to dance flirtatiously, protested moodily. She doubted many true slavegirls slinked about so wantonly, given their doleful circumstances).
As Meg seduced the invisible audience, twirling and leaping, Erik was reminded—without realizing it—of another dancer in another life.
He was twelve years old, shortly before Anahid entered his sphere. He was hidden behind the curtain covering his cage, just before his act. The circus master threatened a severe beating were the boy to reveal himself until given his cue, so Erik was usually careful not to make a sound, not to take a peek.
However, on this night, he found himself spellbound by the rhythmic jangling of a tambourine, the hypnotic strumming of a Flamenco guitar just outside his cage.
He lifted just enough of the curtain so that one eye could gaze out unseen.
The audience was hushed, watching the Romani girl dance.
She was not the prettiest girl Erik had ever seen. She possessed marvelous coloring, though: luxurious dark brown hair, misty hazel eyes, bronze skin. But it was the confident, teasing way she delicately moved that really captured the young Erik's attention.
Her hips rotated in a manner Erik never dreamed possible of any creature outside of a trained cobra. She revealed her shapely strong legs with each twirl of her flame-colored skirt.
Erik had read much about women and their ability to enthrall through Don Juan, Shakespeare, Byron, and the like. But tonight was the first time he truly felt the significance a woman's form could take in a man's consciousness.
Something stirred in him. Unknown and prickly sensations crawled up his neck and spine, heating his deformed cheeks. A violent but pleasing pressure started to build in the pit of his stomach.
He did not think of the similar struggles this dancing girl might share with him, that she too might be forced to present her culture, her gifts, for the gawking of a crowd lusting for pageantry. He fell into the trap he'd always considered himself superior to, that of the common man's infatuation with surface temptation.
As Erik sat in his opera box, contemplating overdone operas, departing and incoming managers, and always, always Christine, he felt that same crawling sensation again. Meg and the dancer of his youth hovered into one image at the corner of his vision, ignored but ingrained in him. The whirling form—part rustic Bohemian girl, part sprite-like ballerina-simmered in that pit in his stomach, even as his mind rejected them.
When he returned to his lair that evening, he created the character of a Romani girl in Don Juan. It was not a large role, but one that would feature intermittently through various scenes. She'd enjoy a few trysts with Don Juan and maybe dance the zambra to entertain the audience as they waited for Christine to change costumes.
Without any particular thought put into the decision, he wrote "Meg Giry" by the character in the cast list.
Then he wrote two more arias for Christine and tweaked a few notes in their duet, "Past the Point of No Return."
As he settled into his coffin bed, he thought of the varnish needed for the new bed just outside, in his throne room. Golden, huge, and inlaid with crystals, it took the shape of an elegant gondola. He imagined Christine lying there, exhausted from singing more exquisitely than she ever could onstage. Her lips parted, her eyes half-open and full of glory, staring at him, at him, at him.
But it was the phantom of a dancing Romani he dreamed of, with bright thick curls the color of the sun just before it descends into the horizon in the evening.
A/N: A bit short, I know, but I feel it's important, nonetheless. A peek into the madhouse that is Erik's rollicking brain.