It took enormous effort to wake up the next day. Her head was heavy, and her eyelids seemed glued shut. She rubbed them, stretching out her legs, forgetting for a few blissful moments why she felt so unhappy. But it all came back to her the moment she opened her eyes, and she groaned into the pillow, wanting to go back to sleep and avoid seeing anyone ever again.

With a floppy hand, she reached over and grabbed her watch, peering at the time. It was well past one in the afternoon. She gave another groan and rolled to her back, looking up into the ceiling. It was surprising that he hadn't woken her, had let her sleep so late, as she had a performance later that evening. But maybe he was avoiding her.

Christine finally clambered out of the bed, stripping off the blue pajamas. They felt like bad luck. Then she went to the bathroom and scrubbed herself raw in a scalding hot shower, trying to wash away the sadness, only turning off the water when her skin couldn't take it anymore. She stood on the tiled floor and toweled herself dry, and then she looked at the skin flushed pink from the shower, the freckles on her knees, a reminder of happy days in Sweden as a child. She looked at her soft thighs, the curve of her hips, the small thatch of dark hair between her legs, her belly and breasts. A woman's body.

She covered it up in a thick wool sweater, trousers, and warm socks. Then she did her best to manage her hair, sprayed on a hint of nice perfume to make herself feel better, and spent ten minutes pacing around the bedroom, tugging on her curls and biting her thumbnail before building up the courage to open the door. It was for nothing, however, as the front room was empty, and her eyes lingered on the office door next to the piano, closed as it always was. She went to the kitchen.

To her surprise, there was a tall, slim bottle on the counter. She picked it up, looking at the label. Bandol. That meant nothing to her, and she read a few more things on the label before realizing it was some type of wine. The liquid inside was a pretty pink, and she turned it over in her hands, trying to figure out why it was there.

"It is a rosé," came a voice, and she jumped, nearly dropping the bottle.

"You scared me!" she said, turning to look at him. Erik was lingering in the doorway, his jacket and gloves back on, his shirt pressed and clean. Her gaze rested momentarily on the bare skin of his neck, and then she quickly went back to the wine.

"What's it for?" she asked.

"You," he said. "It is a sweet wine. You might like it more than what I have on hand."

She was a little touched and annoyed at the same time. "Thank you." She put it back down on the counter and pulled out a bowl, intending to make herself something to eat.

"You should refrigerate it," he said. "It's best served chilled."

It was tempting to ask why he thought she would want to drink something cold in the middle of winter, but she instead put it in the refrigerator without comment. Rosé—it conjured up images of rich women in sunhats getting day drunk in a vineyard. She couldn't feel further away from that image, underground in a cold house, drenched in thick layers of wool, a masked man watching her from the doorway.

"Don't take too long," he then said. "I have some German text for you to read before you go to your performance." He left, and Christine watched him disappear, too surprised by the entire interaction to try to stop him. Not one mention of the previous night, no reference to what had transpired between them. Simply another short command that he expected her to obey without question.

Maybe if she were braver, she would march out and demand answers. But now that she had the sobering effect of sleep and time, she felt increasingly anxious and insecure about what had happened. If he was really giving her this option—forget the entire thing, never mention it again—perhaps she should just take it and be grateful for the out.

But was that what she really wanted? What had it all meant to her? She knew now, despite all her internal struggles and anger, that she felt some strange, twisted sort of desire for him. It was unsettling for so many reasons, but it was true, and last night had been a confirmation. There was no point denying it anymore.

Desire, however, wasn't love, and she felt a hot stab of shame at the thought that she had used two different men whom she had desired but didn't love. The thought came back to her that maybe she was a bad person. Good people didn't set up secret meetings with their ex-boyfriends behind their husband's back, good people didn't use others for their own sexual gratification, and good people didn't passively accept their captivity by continuing to blame it all on their captors and never fully accept that they had also willingly played the role of prisoner.

Maybe Erik was what she really deserved. God had put her here because she was a bad person, and so was Erik. This way they couldn't hurt anyone else. Just each other.

She sat at the table with her lunch and tried to pray, clasping her hands together, silently pleading for forgiveness and clarity. I know you don't want to hear from me right now. I know I don't deserve anything from you. I know I haven't been faithful or good. But please, please tell me what to do. I don't know what to do.

The only answer she could hear was the watch ticking on her wrist, reminding her that Erik was waiting.

He handed her a book when she nervously approached the piano, and she opened it to the page he had marked.

"Why German?" she asked, somewhat unhappily. "I'm singing in Czech tonight."

"I have a strong sense that you will soon be performing in another German opera," he said, tapping the passage he wanted her to read. "We need to begin brushing up on your pronunciation."

"A strong sense?" She was skeptical. "So you know what shows are coming up? Do you decide the seasons?"

"Of course not," he said, sounding way too surprised at the suggestion. "How could a Ghost have that much artistic power?" When he saw her unconvinced scowl, he shrugged. "All right. Maybe I do have some input. But not complete control. Not yet, anyway." He glanced at her, something tugging at the corner of his shapeless lips, as if hoping the comment would make her laugh, but it didn't. She wasn't really in the mood for his weird humor at the moment. The circumstances were too strange.

When he realized she wasn't going to take the bait, he sighed a little and tapped the page again. "Well, then. Go ahead."

How could he be so unaffected by what had happened? What he had apparently wanted for so long—to touch her, to see her skin, to watch her climax because of him…and now he was asking her to read some ugly German words out loud. It was as if she had imagined the entire thing.

"Are you mad about last night?" she blurted, unable to help herself. Even if he could ignore it, just as he had ignored so much of what had happened between them, she couldn't anymore.

She could see the way his throat moved as he swallowed before saying, "Simply read the passage, please. We don't have much time before I have to send you upstairs."

"Did I do something wrong?" she asked again, closing the book to indicate that she wasn't going to read anything until he answered her. His mouth tightened into a thin, unhappy line, and his voice was cool as he replied:

"You are becoming a talented actress. But whatever little scheme you have in that pretty head of yours is over. I'd rather we spend our time on more productive things, such as improving your abysmal German."

Christine felt her eyebrows knit together in concerned surprise, and she spluttered, "My—my acting? What scheme? What are you talking about?"

"Stop this," he snapped. "I don't have the patience for you right now. If you won't read, then leave me alone."

"No. Erik." She reached over and tried to put a hand on his arm, but he pulled away, a clear indication that she wasn't to touch him. So she took a deep breath and then said, "If you think last night was part of some sort of—some sort of plan or—"

He held up a hand to stop her from continuing, saying angrily, "Enough. Do you think you can fool me? Make me believe that what happened was nothing more than a ploy on your part to manipulate me? Humiliate me?"

"What?" She realized that she should have expected something like this as a reaction, and she was caught off guard with the fact that she had no ready response to his accusations. "None of that is true! I would never do something like that—never."

"Oh?" he said, a slight sneer in his voice. "Then I am happy to listen to you explain just why you let Erik touch you. Why you touched him. Go ahead."

Her cheeks were burning, and there was a dull buzzing in her ears. She tried to think of any possible explanation that would be believable to him, but just saying 'I wanted to' seemed to be a surefire way to make him even more upset.

"I—I'm…" Christine averted her gaze, looking at the piano keys as she stammered, "We're married, so I thought…"

"You're a little liar," he hissed. "You think you can trick me? Be dead Erik's whore for a night and he would let you go?"

"I'm not lying!" she said insistently, tearfully. "That's not true!"

"You will stay here, with the music, with me!" he said, unaffected by her pleading. "I won't have you offering up yourself as some virgin sacrifice to appease the monster." The emphasis he put on 'virgin' was contemptuous, mocking, and she was hurt more than she could say to realize that he hadn't believed her when she had sworn that her affair with Raoul hadn't gone that far.

The tears came in earnest then, and she wiped at her streaming eyes as she said, her voice shaking, "Why won't you listen? You promised to be nice to me but you're being so mean!"

"You are the cruel one," he said icily, standing from the bench. "Manipulating my…weakness for you. What you did last night was crueler than if you had never once touched me."

She was becoming so frazzled, so frustrated, that her first thought was to hit him, just to try to snap him back into reality and force him to listen to her. But she had already slapped him once, weeks ago, and it hadn't made him repentant or sorry at all. It had only made him angrier.

For two or three long seconds, she wanted to tell him that she hated him, and the words actually began to form in her mouth, her jaw opening slightly and her tongue going down to form the first syllable of the sentence. However, she quickly closed her mouth again. It would only reinforce his beliefs and be used as future ammunition against her. And it wasn't true.

Instead, she did as she always did—she ran to the bedroom and threw herself onto the bed, burying her face into the pillow to muffle the sound of her cries. He didn't follow her.

The walk upstairs was spent in utter silence, and Christine performed that evening, her body and voice performing correctly but her mind far from the stage and the music. Afterwards, she looked at herself in the mirror as she removed her makeup and unpinned her hair, her eyes dry and her mouth set in an unhappy line.

He thought she was manipulating him. He thought she was offering herself as some sort of bargain for her freedom. He thought she touched him out of pity, fighting back revulsion. Then again, how could he not? The few times he had tried to touch her, she had recoiled. And yet she had felt no revulsion last night as she was on top of him. There had only been the two of them, the darkness, and the space where their bodies had been pressed together. He hadn't stopped her, hadn't pushed her off. He had wanted it, too. Why let her touch him if only to rage at her later? Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was fear.

She returned to the underground house and went to bed without one word exchanged between them. As she lay there, the bed massively large and empty, she couldn't help but feel a twist of fear herself. She had weathered his rage, his frustration, his impatience, and even his rough and volatile happiness, but whatever this was seemed different. Maybe this was something that she wouldn't be able to withstand.

He took her to visit her father again at last, the late winter evening hard and bitterly-cold. To her faint embarrassment, she hadn't lasted long out in the snow, crouched down next to her father's grave and running her red fingertips over the name on his headstone.

"I'll be back soon, I promise," she whispered.

Then she stood and hurried to the car, the snow crunching loudly under her feet, her fingers and toes stinging from the frigid night air. The car was warm, thankfully, and she slid in, tucking her fingertips in her underarms, shivering a little.

"I told you it would be cold," came Erik's half-admonishing, half-amused voice. She ignored him, slouching down further into her coat, burying her nose in her scarf.

It took several minutes for her to stop shaking, the warm air blasting in the car feeling heavenly against her face. Then she looked over at him.

"Did you bring the reviews?" she said.

He nodded, pulling them out of his pocket. "Shall I read them for you?"

"Yes. Please." Christine smiled just a bit as he began to read the handful of small reviews about Albert Herring. To her surprise, most of the critics praised the show, calling it a "breath of fresh air" from the Opera House's usual "melodramatic" rotation. She was mentioned in several reviews, with one critic calling her "delightfully-charming" and "disarmingly-endearing."

It was obvious that Erik did not like that review, and he scoffed a bit as he finished, muttering something about how the overly-flowery prose was sickening.

"I'm just glad it's over," she said. "I don't ever want to sing as Emmie again."

"They will want to produce more comedies," he said. "With the ticket sales and favorable reviews, I'm sure they are combing through every license they have to find their next production."

The prospect didn't sound appealing. Although she had been successful in Albert Herring, she still felt wary of the idea of being laughed at onstage.

"It's no matter," he said. "You will soon be able to refuse a role if you feel it doesn't suit you. Or you could simply move to Hamburg and do whatever you like."

Another letter had arrived just yesterday, offering her a spot in the Staatsoper Hamburg for an upcoming season.

"My German is terrible," she said. "You know that."

"Alas, the one thing that proves you are a mere mortal, like the rest of us."

Christine rolled her eyes but ruined the effect by blushing and smiling sheepishly. The car was passing by a city park, and she saw that no one was in sight, everyone else undoubtedly too smart to venture out into the freezing night.

It was quiet in the car, and she wanted to watch him but knew it would make him upset. Instead, she sidled closer to him and reached for his hand.

"Your fingers are cold," he complained, pressing them between his palms. "I'm afraid I'm not much help in this regard. Bad circulation."

They continued to ride in silence. That night and the painful conversation that had happened the next day remained ignored, unaddressed by either of them since. It seemed Erik was content to pretend it had never happened and continue on with their strange lives in the exact same way. They practiced, she performed and rehearsed, they played backgammon (she was slowly getting better), he gave her a book titled The Fundamentals of Drawing, which had made her laugh. He would disappear for several hours at a time every few days, always returning with cryptic and weirdly-funny comments about whatever 'Ghostly' activity he had been up to.

Christine, however, couldn't stop thinking about it. Late at night, she would close her eyes and replay what it had looked like with him lying there, underneath her, and the sounds he had made. Sometimes her hand slid back between her legs, and she would come thinking about the way his long fingers had felt where she touched herself.

She kept reminding herself that even if he thought it had all be for some malicious reason, he hadn't stopped her. He had had ample opportunities to do so. But he had stayed, had lain on the bed at her command, had allowed her to climb on top of him. And she would always wonder if he would let it all happen again.

Giving a quick glance up at him, she pulled her hand from his grasp and set it on his leg. Slowly, giving him time to stop her, she slid it down to his inner thigh, not missing the way he inhaled quickly.

"What are you doing?" he said sharply. "Stop that."

She brought her hand up between his legs, pressing there.

"Christine," he hissed, his voice a warning.

She held her hand still, waiting for him to pull it away, but when he did nothing, she slowly ran her palm up and down, feeling him, hard and long, underneath her fingers. He was warm against her cold fingers, which was strange, as warmth was not usually something she associated with him. For several seconds, she touched him, unsure how but doing what felt natural. She could hear him breathing heavily, could actually hear his heart thumping against his chest.

When she began to grow a bit more firm with her hand, he made a small noise in his throat, shifting his narrow hips slightly.

"Stop," he whispered, his voice strangled. "Stop. For god's sake, Christine!"

She pulled her hand away, not wanting to force him to sit with a mess in his pants for the rest of the ride, but she said nothing. She wasn't sorry.

The car finally stopped at the Opera House, and she shivered again as she stepped into the winter night. Her breath rose in large clouds of smoke, and she made a little O with her mouth and blew out a few puffs of foggy air. Then she caught Erik looking at her strangely, which caused her to blush.

They were silent as they walked to the house, and she was sure he was caught up in the same thoughts she was, though neither of them were willing to say anything out loud about it.

She finally spoke when they were in the front room, the door closed and locked securely behind them. "It's always too cold in here," she said, rubbing her arms.

"Yes, it's quite a challenge to heat," he said. "I haven't found an ideal solution, but I've grown used to it over the years. I will have to see if I can find some remedy for you."

She didn't bother to remind him that winter was practically over. Instead she nodded, thanking him for his thoughtfulness as she peeled off her coat and scarf.

"And thanks again for taking me to see my dad," she said, stepping closer to him. "It really means a lot to me."

"I can deny my diva nothing," he said, a phrase which wasn't exactly true, but Christine had let that one go a long time ago. Instead she wrapped her arms around him in a goodnight hug.

As she leaned into him, she felt something hard pressed up against her, and she opened her eyes in surprise and glanced down before looking up at him. He had seen where her gaze went, and his eyes narrowed, his mouth twisting into a snarl.

Quickly, he pushed her back, snapping, "Get the fuck away from me."

She went to the bedroom wordlessly, brushing her teeth and changing into warm pajamas before climbing into the bed, tucking her fingers between her thighs to keep them warm. For a few seconds, she thought about crying, but instead she sighed and closed her eyes.

Before she had fully fallen asleep, the mattress shifted with a heavy weight, and she jolted out of her doze, blinking sleepily in the darkness. Something cold brushed up against her face, and she felt breath in her ear.

"Erik," she whispered.

"Touch me," he murmured. "Please. I will die if you don't."

He took her hand in his and guided it down, pressing it back between his legs. With his breathing hot against her, she moved her hand over him. After a minute or so, she slipped under the waistband of his trousers, feeling heady with the way he grabbed onto her waist and groaned softly against her neck. And when she finally found him, hard and soft at the same time, he whispered into her skin. "Christine."

She felt a bit clumsy, childish in her movements, but he gave no indication that what she was doing was wrong. He continued to clutch onto her, making the most beautiful, thrilling moaning sounds. Christine closed her eyes, the feeling of him in her fingers so foreign.

Then he gasped, bucking his hips towards her hand, his voice making her dizzy, her hand suddenly covered in something warm, thick, and wet.

He left without another word. She washed her hands in the bathroom, went back to the bed, and slept.