A/N: Maximum level anguish achieved.
CH 14
The opera house felt like a trip to the dentist where one was aware that an infected tooth would be grabbed with a set of pliers, squeezed until the enamel cracked, and then yanked out, roots and all, in a bloody heap.
In other words, I dreaded what was to be our final trip to the Opera Populaire.
There was not enough time to finish the last backdrop, not with only six students. Ink–whose real name was surprisingly difficult to use–would not be in attendance until the following week, plus the two who had dropped out over concerns of bad spirits, brought us down to the original number.
It was a fruitless endeavor, but surprisingly, the six Bohemians remained enthusiastic.
An unfamiliar woman met us at the door and welcomed us inside. I didn't bother asking what had become of Charlot, mostly because I didn't care if he quit or took time off to nurse his broken nose.
"You have the rest of the afternoon," she said.
"The rest of the afternoon?" I questioned. "What happened to the ballet?"
"The, um, composer doesn't want the scenery and costumes to be delayed a moment longer," she explained.
"A gentleman if ever there was one," I muttered.
The woman disappeared, leaving us alone on the stage of an eerily dark theater.
It was quite easy to see how rumors of a supernatural entity would spread within such a mysterious place. The faces carved into the stone and the paintings along the walls shrouded in shadow lent to an uneasy sensation.
Every so often a door would close or open or voices from some distant part of the building echoed through the theater's impeccable acoustics.
Given that they were short three people, I had mercifully drawn the majority of the details for the final backdrop, which was a stone wall to a bedroom for the third act and didn't require much detail.
Scribbled in the margins of the composer's instructions had been several words and phrases that had absolutely no bearing on the design, and as one of my students stood with the booklet in her hand, she looked at me and bit her bottom lip.
"You had better be asking a good question, Marci," I said as I knelt on the stage.
"What color should I use for 'seduction'?" she asked, blushing profusely.
As far as I was aware, there was no shade of gray stone that was particularly alluring, although judging by the words within the margins, the composer most likely disagreed. Irresistible, Satisfaction, Point of No Return, Become One, and Lovers were a handful of words that made me wonder what was in the script for that particular scene.
Cravats would most certainly be loosened and every single woman would be fanning herself profusely. The ghost and his chorus girl mistress were undoubtedly going to be responsible for the conception of hundreds of infants before the production closed, of that I was certain.
"Just pick something," I groused. "We don't have time to find the most appealing shade of gray."
"But what if he–"
"Mix colors," I ordered, my patient wearing thin. "If he's not satisfied, he can redo it himself."
She immediately looked toward the chandelier, which was thankfully still.
Two hours later I refused to sit on the floor for a moment longer and stood, brushing off my trousers, lower back aching and knees in pain.
From the corner of my eye I swore I saw someone within one of the opera boxes directly across from the center of the stage, but assumed my eyes were playing tricks as the curtains were all closed along the balcony.
A moment later, there was another shadow along the back of the theater. None of the doors had opened or closed and no one had come from the stage. I stared at the shape for a long moment, my breath held, mind attempting to rationalize what I saw some sixty rows away.
And then there was a soft tap, like someone about to make a toast. The chandelier overhead began shivering as though an inanimate object anticipated whatever was about to happen. There was a soft, cool breeze through the theater and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I had every intention of walking to the back of the theater, out into the lobby and up into the balcony where the theater boxes were to see for myself who or what was lurking about when the figure at the rear of the theater took shape and moved from the shadows.
It was a woman in a dark blue cloak, one much too heavy for the weather, and a gown more suitable for a ball than the middle of the day.
Christine…
The voice was not my own, but it certainly sounded like part of my thoughts. I was convinced it was not said aloud until I heard it again.
My Christine…
The young woman stepped forward, head turning from one side to the other as if she, too, searched for the voice I had heard. It came from behind me, I thought. Or perhaps the back of the theater. I couldn't tell. It was everywhere at once but no where I could identify.
Come to me.
The voice was a seductive whisper in my left ear. My breath hitched and I felt paralyzed, nailed to the stage where I stood looking out at the empty theater.
Come to me, my Angel of Music.
Christine reached the middle of the theater, stopping between the rear and front orchestra sections. Her eyes were wide, but blank, her mouth moving despite no sound emerging from her lips. She extended both arms out, welcoming whatever voice beckoned to her.
Come to me…Christine…
The voice sounded as though it came from the orchestra pit, but when I focused my gaze on the opera boxes, I saw the figure of a man nearly lost within the shadows. The only true indication of his presence was his face.
Or rather, the lack of a face. Black pits for eyes and the stark white of what appeared to be a mask stared back at me. My lips parted and I took a step forward.
"Christine!" another voice frantically shouted.
At once the figure in the balcony turned away and his dark garb became lost in the shadows. I continued to look for the individual as Raoul de Chagny brushed past me, jumped down the stairs on the side of the stage, and rushed to his fiance, who had collapsed in the middle of the aisle.
"Where did he go?" Raoul asked no one in particular. "Did anyone see where he went?"
I felt less certain that the vicomte was involved in an elaborate scheme, but far more confident that the ghost in question was flesh, blood, and a damned good illusionist.
Ooo
"I have not forgotten your request," Raoul said to me once he had recovered his fiance and sent her back to his estate with one of his household men.
As far as I was concerned, once the backdrop was complete, I had no intention of ever stepping foot inside the theater again. Don Juan's Triumph could not possibly contend with everything that had transpired over the last six days.
"The backdrops look wonderful," Raoul said.
His smile was false, an expression I had seen hundreds of times on hundreds of aristocratic faces as they entered the opulent lobbies of Parisian opera houses, hoping to impress and fool everyone around them.
They looked like a bunch of horses in a show ring, prancing about in their finery, attempting to win the blue ribbon for most impressive pedigree.
"They do, don't they?" I agreed. I glanced back at my students, who were placing the finishing touches on the last stones toward the top of the backdrop so that they could leave the theater. "I certainly hope the composer agrees as well, although thus far he seems like a disagreeable fellow."
Raoul looked at me as though he thought the same could be said for me.
"Congratulations on your recent art show," he said as he adjusted his collar without looking at me.
I was astonished that he knew I had paintings in a gallery. Honestly, I was quite surprised he recalled my name at all. "Does the vicomte collect art?" I asked.
He grunted. "I have someone who collects art for me."
I fought the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes at his statement. God forbid the man enter an art gallery and select what spoke to him on a personal level. I wondered what it felt like to have someone else tell me what should adorn the walls of my own home, what was considered tasteful in the dining room and parlor when guests were entertained. If I were him, I would have dismissed all suggestions and commissioned paintings of large-breasted women lounging in forests with nymphs seducing them.
"I'm sure you have only the finest of what Paris has to offer," I said, assuming everything he owned was tastefully dull.
Raoul no longer looked in my direction. He scanned the opera boxes, his gaze flitting from one to the next. "A few weeks more and this is over," he said under his breath.
"Until opening, you mean?"
"Y-yes," he answered. He flashed another false smile and looked at me.
"Good. That gives the theater management plenty of time to make certain the chandelier is properly secured."
The young vicomte turned his full attention to me. "Apologies, but did you say secure the chandelier?"
"I did. It appears to have some screws loose," I said.
He studied me for a brief moment. "I will look into it."
oOo
Daniel Lincoln's tattered coat was still in my possession by Wednesday.
He had left it behind the day I'd bailed him out of jail and, despite feeling as though it was probably a lost cause as far as repair, I placed it into a bag and brought it to a seamstress whom I had seen on multiple occasions for both sewing and more personal reasons.
Abigail Soward took one look at the coat and stared at me as if I'd gone mad.
"It would be easier, I think, to make a new one," she said.
"Do you have this material on hand?" I asked, looking around her crowded, disorganized shop. There were bolts of fabric everywhere; leaning against each other, piled haphazardly in precarious towers, partially falling off shelves and stuffed into bins. There were swaths tossed onto a chair that had seemingly not been cleared off in years.
Abigail chewed on her lip as she looked at the tag and examined the buttons. "These at least could be salvaged. They're very nice celtic knot patterns, aren't they?"
I nodded in agreement.
Abigail was from Canada, I thought. She was pretty, not beautiful by any means, with light red hair and eyes the color of moss. She had owned the little shop beneath the apartment she rented not far from where I lived for at least the last ten years.
Originally the shop had been owned by her husband, a tailor, before he'd been found murdered one morning halfway across the city, leaving her a widow and a mother of three.
"I'm sure I could find an exact match if you're willing to wait a week or two," she offered.
Quite frankly, in her disorganized sea of fabric, I expected it to take twice as long to locate the same pattern and material as the coat I brought in.
"It merely needs to be completed within six weeks."
Again she looked at me. "How did this happen? Were you dragged by a horse?"
"It's not mine," I answered.
"How did you come about this coat that isn't yours in such terrible disrepair?"
"Mysterious circumstances the likes of which I am not at liberty to discuss."
Abigail sighed and tilted her head to one side. "You are impossible."
"If I was there to see what happened, I would tell you, but I was not, therefore, dragged by a horse is plausible."
"That sounds like your life in a nutshell," she said under her breath. "Phelan Kimmer, never knowing what will happen."
"Who wants a predictable life?"
She smiled at me and put the coat back into the bag, setting it aside. "Exciting lives are often fraught with trouble."
"Ah, but not all trouble is bad."
She took a breath, her smile becoming more devious and toothy. "Is that so?"
"Has it ever been bad?" I asked, raising a brow.
Abigail blushed, ivory skin tone turning bright red, and released a laugh. "Why, Monsieur, are you looking for flattery?"
"The truth, not flattery."
Abigail snorted with laughter. Her eyes creased at the edges, freckled nose wrinkled in a way that was delectable. "I suppose some things with you are predictable," she said, looking me up and down.
I grunted. "And what are you implying, Madame Soward?"
"That somehow, whenever you bring me a shirt with a missing button or trousers needing hemmed, you end up coming upstairs to my apartment."
I feigned surprise, touching my hand to my chest with my mouth dropped open. "Me?"
She inhaled and stepped around the small counter with stacks of tickets, containers of buttons and spools of thread, and at least a dozen pairs of identical scissors.
"I have a few hours," she said. "If you aren't in a rush…"
I knew very well that Abigail's shop closed at twelve-thirty for the afternoon. Perhaps it was poor timing on my part–or very excellent timing–that I always seemed to arrive five minutes before she locked the doors for her break.
"I have to be at the Opera Populair at three," I replied. One final day of misery in that God-forsaken building for a few finishing touches and a meeting with the managers. The composer, however, was not scheduled to appear.
"Well, then…" she turned, glancing over her shoulder at me. "Are you coming up?"
Every woman I'd ever been with had something about them I found exceptionally attractive. Sometimes it was purely physical. Hips, breasts, thighs… the obvious reasons, I suppose, but there were other qualities that made women alluring.
Abigail's company was quite enjoyable for more reasons than merely physical pleasure, and my favorite thing about seeing her, whether I was dropping off trousers to be lengthened or for a more personal visit, was her laugh.
Some women were polite in their amusement, but Abigail never disguised her mirth. She would practically double over with amusement or clutch my arm as if she might topple over breathlessly, leaving us both chuckling. Half the time I forgot what she found amusing, which made the situation all the more entertaining.
She was also the first and only woman I'd been with who laughed when she climaxed, a reaction that admittedly took getting used to at first.
Her hands cupped my face when I kissed her mouth, back arched as I ventured down her body, along the dusting of freckles like constellations down every part of her body exposed to the sun. My tongue flicked lower, tasting perfect, milky white curves no one else saw that for the time we spent together belonged to me.
Abigail was ticklish along her ribcage and she shivered in anticipation when my teeth grazed along her hip. Delicate hands ran gently through my hair and along the shell of my ear. Her body shook with a muffled giggle and I smiled to myself, noting how the cadence of her breath quickened, how she writhed beneath my touch.
The arch of her foot and backs of her knees were more sensitive than most women and she responded to my touch in ways I had never expected.
She breathed my name, exhaling a single word into the bedroom, in a way that was encouraging and maddening.
There was an oblong birthmark along the inside of her right thigh that she always attempted to hide at first. She kept the bed sheet draped over her leg as if I had any intention of stopping once I reached the point of having her laid out beneath me.
"May I?" I asked before moving the sheet wound around her leg.
Her fingers lightly caressed my shoulders. "If you want," she breathlessly whispered. "You don't have to…"
"Of course I want," I said in a low, urgent growl. "I want every perfect part of you."
A ragged breath escaped her parted lips. She tossed her head back, hips raised, and I felt her go taut. She gripped my shoulders, fingers pressed into muscle, and then the most glorious, soft laugh. Her thighs had the movement of butterfly wings, belly quivering. She pulled me up her frame, kissed me hard on the lips, and reached between our bodies, guiding me to her.
I could have gazed into her moss green eyes for eternity, kissing her soft lips as she whispered how I made her feel.
"Just be with me," she said against my lips. "Stay with me."
She smiled against my lips, sighs and soft chuckles of pleasure, the only sounds in her bedroom. Her forehead pressed to mine, hands cradling my head.
It felt as though I could last an eternity, our bodies rocking together, her heels pressed to the back of my knees. She bit her lip, and laughed again between sharp intakes of breaths. Pleasure came easily to her, as natural as the laughter I looked forward to hearing.
I kissed her eyelids, enjoying such gentle intimacy and felt myself draw closer to the edge of undeniable pleasure. She gripped me tighter, nodding as her eyes opened.
"I want to please you," Abigail whispered.
She did, in ways that were unmatched by any woman I'd ever been with before. Her arms wrapped around me, her cheek pressed to mine until the buildup released and each harsh breath at last stilled.
We held each other for a long moment, her face buried against my shoulder, our bodies still very much one. There was an unspoken connection between us, communication of what the other needed in terms of satisfaction.
"Come to supper," she whispered in my ear.
I should have said yes. I should have given no second thought and agreed at once. I kissed her swollen lips and felt her hips tilt forward, keeping us together.
"When?" I asked.
My attraction to her was far beyond physical. It was more than urges and needs. It was everything that a man should keep in his life, hard kisses and soft laughter.
She turned and I moved with her so that we were side-by-side, her leg draped over mine. The new position felt more urgent, more irresistible. It was less gentle, more needy and primal.
"Tomorrow," she panted.
I grabbed her leg, pulling her closer, feeling her grind against me in a way that made it impossible to hold back. Her laughter was more of a tremble this time, and feeling her pleasure released mine.
Still, I didn't want to let her go. I kissed her shoulder, savoring what I knew was not truly mine.
"I have plans tomorrow," I whispered.
"Friday then."
"I have plans on Friday as well."
"The weekend?"
I tried to kiss her again, to silence the requests, but she turned her head.
"When do you not have prior engagements, Phelan Kimmer?" she asked, rolling onto her back.
I stared at her, not knowing what to say. Not knowing how to make her understand that there was nothing more I could offer her. I had given her as much as I could, as much as anyone could ever desire from me. I wanted to give her more, but she deserved more than disappointment.
"I don't know," I said, for the sake of at least saying something.
She yanked on the bed sheet and wrapped herself in it. "You really don't know, do you?"
I sat up and scrubbed my hand down my face. I knew that I had been intimate with dozens of women, but I hadn't been close to anyone in a way that mattered for a decade and a half. I knew what I was lacking, but I didn't know how to repair or replace what was broken and missing.
"I don't understand you, Phelan," Abigail said over her shoulder. "I wish I did. My God, I wish I did, but I don't. You won't let me."
The emptiness I'd always felt threatened to drown out the pleasure I found in Abigail's company. I cared for her deeply, for her satisfaction. I wanted to care for her completely, to keep her laughing in my arms, to kiss her as often as I desired. To organize her disaster of a shop and tidy the bedroom where I enjoyed her company.
She brought a sense of wholeness that felt fleeting, joy that was remarkably missing.
I am in mourning, I wanted to tell her. To tell everyone. I have been in mourning for as long as I can remember. My soul is nothing but fissures that nothing will ever fill. I don't know why.
No, that isn't true. I know why. It's because I did love someone, more than I have ever loved anyone else. He was my brother. He is my brother. His name is Erik.
And I lost him.
I didn't keep him safe.
I failed him and I know because of me he was hurt.
Perhaps he is still hurting.
My God, it is my fault, not his.
I will never forgive myself.
I will never be whole.
Not without him.
Not without seeing Erik again.
My lips parted, the rehearsed words sitting at the back of my throat. She would sit beside me and I would tell her everything and let her decide if she wished to listen or dismiss me. I was certain she would listen, that she would understand.
"You can come back for your coat in two weeks," Abigail said before she walked out of her bedroom and shut the door behind her.
oOo
I arrived at the theater almost twenty minutes early, but not before I ran into Val, who was leaving work early for the day.
I knew that he saw me immediately, but since I was in no mood to speak to him and he was rarely in a mood to speak to me, I had high hopes that he would simply pretend I didn't exist and continue home.
"Phelan," he stiffly said.
"Valgarde," I said, matching his tone.
He looked me up and down. "You look…"
I assumed I looked like a man who had inadvertently ended a satisfying affair with a woman who had always made him quite content and whose company he genuinely enjoyed–whatever that looked like. Misery, I assumed, pure misery.
"You look tired."
I shrugged. "You look well rested."
He offered a tight, insincere smile. "I have a surprise for Carmelina," he said.
As much as I didn't want to know or ask, I cocked my head to the side. Val only used his wife's full name when they seemed to be on good terms. I had almost forgotten she preferred being called Carmelina to Carmen.
"Opera tickets," he said before I asked. "To the opening night of Don Juan Triumphant. Center front orchestra."
"That complete disaster?" I asked.
Immediately he frowned. "You are jealous."
I scoffed. "Yes, that's it completely, Valgarde, I am jealous of you."
"I have everything you don't," he said.
"Yes, of course," I agreed merely to see his face turn crimson and the vein in his neck pop out when I put up no protest.
"What do you have?" he questioned, his eyes hardened. "A bird and a position at a university that pays you a fraction of what you made at the bank?"
I had no desire to argue with him. I stood with my arms crossed and nodded. "True."
"You've done nothing with your life," he continued. "You're nearly forty and you remain unmarried, no children, and no future."
I had sold two paintings, I had another art show, and I had a broker. It wasn't a dull existence bleeding my soul into a desk job that I despised.
"I should definitely want your life, shouldn't I?"
Valgarde's mouth twisted. "I should very much like to slap that look off of your face."
I turned my head to the side. "Would you like to beat me as my father did or like yours?"
He stepped back, his movement swift as if I had shoved him away. "My father never–"
"He did. When…" I paused, deciding I wouldn't mention Erik in the conversation, knowing full well if Val decided to say something undesirable about my brother that I would most certainly not hold back in any way. "When we returned from the beach. Alone."
Val wouldn't look me in the eye. I knew he had to remember that night. Not in the same way that I recalled it, but he had to remember fetching me in the darkness. It was the only time I could recall in which he treated me like we were brothers.
"Alak sat on top of me," I said. "He pinned me down, striking me as hard as he could until he exhausted himself. And then he pressed his fingers here," I said, holding up my left arm. "Knowing that it would hurt me. Because I wasn't already hurting enough as it was."
Val lowered his gaze. I hoped he regretted approaching me on the street. I hoped he regretted bringing me inside that night as well.
"And then he left me there in the dark and I crawled from the house. Do you remember where you found me?" I waited for him to answer, knowing he would not say a word. "In a rotting tree stump, just over the bridge where you had carved your name in the boards. I could barely breathe I was so upset. The air simply would not stay in my lungs. Do you remember how you sat with me?"
He swallowed hard and blinked and I knew for certain he did remember. He had put his arm around me, keeping my head on his shoulder while I sobbed. While I sat with my eyes pinched shut, thinking of my brother's blackened eyes and filthy face. How he wouldn't look at me. How frightened he appeared. He wasn't the Erik I knew, my gregarious, inquisitive little brother who had to be touching me at all times.
That was the day I had tumbled head over heels into endless mourning. That was the day I had lost everything, from my little brother to the trust I had in the adult who had promised to care for me. Thirty years of distrust and loneliness. This was what I had become in three decades, so far removed from who I had been before.
And that summer night, hot and humid, was the one and only time Val had ever shown me an ounce of affection without reminding me that I was deeply troubled or exhausting or a burden he had no desire to bear.
"You took me back to your father's house, you washed my face and changed my clothes, and put me to bed," I said. I could still see him, a boy who had recently turned eleven, whose father often left us alone for days at a time to care for ourselves.
Val sat on Erik's bed, the one that had been empty for weeks, and stayed until I fell asleep. I had been so grateful for his company, for the sense of belonging.
"I thought…"
I thought we would be closer after that night. I thought when I woke in the morning that Val would tell me we would spend the day searching for Erik, that he would be by my side through every moment of my life until we had my brother back. Until I had my brother back, the one I had lost. The one I had ignored. The one whose disappearance I would never, ever recover from for as long as I lived. Not until I found him.
"I thought we would be friends," I said. I was numb before I said the words aloud, but when I looked at Val and he didn't bother to look at me, I felt completely detached from him. From everything. From everyone.
What came after emptiness? I wasn't sure, but it was where I had taken up residence, and I was beginning to feel that there was nothing else in my future.