No More Gifts
"The Opera"
(Part III)

CHRISTINE DAAÉ'S (SECOND) JOURNAL

Thus we stood in the back of Box Seven, with nothing but a curtain separating us from the rest of the box, and by extension the theater. We needed only to sweep that dripping puddle of red velvet to the side in order to take our seats and make ourselves visible to any of the curious members of the theater-going populace.

"Christine," Erik said suddenly. I could hardly see him in the darkness; only the simmering glow of his amber eyes showed through. "May we play pretend, one last time?"

My hand had been about the curtain, ready to pull it back, but at his words I let it drop. "Of course, Erik. Whatever you wish."

"Everything in this box is an illusion," he warned, sounding as if he was about to cry. "Can you – can you bear it so much if I ask you to forget all the wrongs I have done to you, just for this one final night between us? Will you let me grasp that which has never, not once, belonged to me, as if it was my own to hold and claim? To pierce – to penetrate – to break? I promise I will let you go in the end, of course… but until then, Christine, until we are parted… can Erik just pretend he had a happy ending, like all the other boys in Paris get?"

There were sweeter answers I could have given him. Fanciful, fleeting words of grandiose love, expounding upon a passion of thrills we knew of in passing but had never quite known ourselves. A word was on my drawn lips, tempting to spill itself and pollute this fragile peace we'd at long last found with one another… but in the last moment, as I drew breath, I knew he would not care to hear it. Instead, then, I offered my truce in resignation: "I have no choice in this, do I?"

"No… no, you do not. Nor have I, for how tired I have grown of fighting my conscience on this. I have wept far too long, and have ignored the pangs in my love-sick heart far too many times. I have nearly lost the battle now. I am done with resisting. Forgive me, now, for all I do from this moment forward."

"I will forgive you for nothing," I said, "because we both know you will do it all anyway."

He touched my cheeks, fingers trembling, before letting his hands fall to my shoulders. Quietly, he mumbled, "She thinks she knows… she thinks she understands. But of all the things Erik has asked of her, this must be the worst."

"And what are you asking for?"

"I am asking," he said, tensing his fingers about my arms, gripping about them like iron vices, "for you to love me, as you have always claimed to do."

"I do love you," I promised, "with the most ardent of passions."

He whined out a low, painful note, and dropped his hands from my shoulders. "You have always been such a good actress."

"I am not acting."

"Better for you to believe that you are," he sighed. "It would make this infinitely easier for the both of us."

"Then I shall act for you," I conceded immediately, because it was easier than to argue. "What role shall you have me play? The loving, doting wife you always wanted? I can be that for you, Erik. Only tell me what you wish to hear and I shall say it."

Erik considered me, his pointy chin quivering as tears once again beaded up at the corners of his hideous amber eyes.

"You must promise not to believe any of it," he warned me at long last. "Erik will not be held responsible if you do."

"I promise."

At that he kissed me, all broken vows and slobbering snot and crooked ornamental noses. He heaved all of the passion in his rank body into that one heady kiss, breathing my breaths and clutching onto my back to press me securely against his bony, uncomfortable frame, as if he'd never kissed a body before that he didn't have to lift and push against himself.

"Tell me you love me," he whispered against my mouth.

"I love you."

"Oh, Christine," he moaned. "This is truly how it was always meant to be. Say it again, Christine, say it again – but slower, Christine, like you mean it. Say it like you believe it."

"I love you."

"Again, Christine – again…"

I repeated my vow, over and over, until he was panting against my bruised and bloodied lips. His begs for innocent adoration turned swiftly crude; still I complied, because what else was I to do? Then his hands were skirting down my back, clutching and groping at laces and stays he had only tied together less than an hour before. His long fingers, so much like burrowing worms, snaked through the loops to pet at my underclothes, rooting like maggots conquering their spoiled feast. He pressed his vulgar body to mine for the first time in all our time together, rather than pressing my own to his, and suddenly I became aware of the jutting hardness of his corded lasso hanging about his slender waist - I think it must have been that - as he pushed it with a feverish desperation against my sickened gut.

"Have I died…? I never thought Hell would taste quite as sweet as this. Must all thrills be taken at the expense of others? Is such fleeting bliss worth it? I am dreaming, I am waking, I am dying… Christine, you must pinch me lest I –"

Despite all my will I could not stop my reflexes, as his reeking breath wafted into my mouth and poured down my throat, tasting every bit like the sludge of decay. My stomach flipped over one final, fatal time, as he stifled me with the miasma which oozed from every pore of his body – suffocated me with those fodderous hands which were suddenly yanking me against him with unabashed arrhythmia - and to save myself from being sick, or perhaps from even dying completely, I lurched back and connected the flat of my palm against his miserable face, sending the glass ornament nose scuttling across the floor.

"I did not mean –" I said without thinking, clapping my burning hand to my mouth as the realization of what I just did caught up with me… and with a wrench of my gut, I feared the inevitable explosion.

For Erik is not a suicidal man. He does not take insults upon his person lightly, nor does he take them voluntarily. Therefore I trust he did not see my attack coming, since I was able to land a hit upon him at all. Why would he, when I had so adamantly assured him I would play along with whatever demented game of pretend he had devised? When I had so seriously affirmed to him my devotion to him for a year or more, and had been so quietly submissive even in my hours of express hatred? When not even I knew how much, or how long, I had possessed the purest, most carnal desire to hurt him?

He did not seem to know what to do with this fresh injury; this much was clear, as he stood frozen in position in front of me. His terrible head did not recoil back to its original spot, but rather remained bent at the awkward angle at which I had sent it; and his ruined mouth puckered slightly as if still feeling the impact of my hand against it. It was for a long moment that we remained suspended in that disaster together, with him staring at the nothingness of the wall in front of him, my handprint burning like a brand against his face – and even when that disaster transformed and he began to move, slowly swiveling his skull upon his creaking neck as his gleaming, furious eyes scanned the floor for the lost glass adornment – even then, I found time stopping completely and even the music from the stage seeming to fade into silence.

But no explosion ever came; such is the way with Erik. I do not know how many hours we must have stood there (hours, I say, for though it must have been naught more than a few seconds, time with Erik cannot be measured in such a blandly temporal way – nor can time be measured like that with anyone we hold dear) until he merely shrugged his shoulders and turned back to give the simplest of smiles to me, as if to say it was nothing at all to worry our two little heads over.

"Maybe I was wrong," he said at last, nursing his smarting cheek with a cryptic humor. "Perhaps I have always been wrong."

I couldn't stand it when he spoke so vaguely, and so against my better judgement to remain silent, I dared to ask: "About what?"

"Nothing that matters anymore," he replied just as obliquely as before. "But… I would like to be honest with you, Christine, just once. Will you indulge me that, and allow me to share one of my horrible, no-good secrets with you? I think I have been miserable enough to earn that right. So here is the truth, that awful, burning truth: I think I rather liked the feeling of your hand upon my cheek. Even with the sting of that slap, it felt softer than any touch I've known before. Almost like a caress, Christine – almost, but not quite. We will have to teach you another time –"

"A-another time?" I stuttered. "Am I not to be leaving you after tonight?"

"Ah, Erik misspoke," Erik laughed. "Don't mind him. He's out of sorts. Never been touched by a lady so willingly, you see. Oh, don't pout so hard, Christine; Erik's only making fun. It's too late for all that, anyway. Now come, Christine, let us take our seats. The opera waits for no one."

Then he pushed aside the velvet drape and began to lead the way, clutching my hand in his clammy palm, until I looked past his shoulder and suddenly stopped short –