A crackling shock seemed to sizzle in the air between us. Time had jelled, frozen, ceased. "I love you." I said it again. I wanted to press her fingers to my lips, but I still didn't dare.

Her mouth had gone a little slack, forming a small O.

"You know now, you know, I've answered it," I said, rocking back and forth just a little, feeling the horrible nervous dread move into my stomach again. "Are you pleased? More likely I think you ought to be horrified. I'm sorry. I wish I didn't—love you. Things would be ever so much easier if I didn't—not least for you, above everything else. But I do. I can't help it. It's like a sickness—it makes me hurt, it makes me feel almost ill sometimes. Oh, how I wish I were ordinary so that admitting it wouldn't be such a terrible thing, Christine! Other people give declarations of love and don't feel as though their insides are being torn from their moorings, don't they? The boy, when he told you he loved you, he didn't act like me at all, did he? He must have seemed very confident, very assured. Of course he would be, with a face like that! He wouldn't have had to worry at all."

Christine seemed deeply perturbed now. "Erik," she said almost violently, shaking my hands a little, "Erik."

"But you told me…that night in the dressing-room, when I stole you away…you told me…" I stopped, pondered. My fingers twitched in hers, nervous and wanting more than anything to pull away, but also to remain.

And then she moved, and her fingers slid from mine and made their way—lightning-fast—to the sides of my mask, and I would have wrenched myself away entirely, but she didn't curl her hands around to remove it, she simply laid her hands on it, as though it were my real face. Her smaller fingers brushed along my exposed jaw, and I shuddered violently but did not pull away.

We sat like that for a moment, regarding each other. She was so careful—so cautious—as she slowly, gently slid her thumb over the part of my chin which was not hidden away by my mask, and a strangled, shuddering moan escaped my lips. "You don't know what you're doing," I murmured in what was nearly a sob, my blood pumping wildly through my body. "No one—no one ever—" What I was trying to say was that the only time my face had ever been touched was by blows, that what she was doing was incomprehensible to me. I couldn't seem to form the words to make her understand this. Even so, it seemed she understood—she shushed me, gently, quietly. "It's all right," she whispered. "Everything will be all right."

Was I dreaming? It seemed that I was, as I could not comprehend this as reality, and yet—I had never experienced any dream as vivid as this.

I was shaking like a leaf, but I cupped her hands in mine, where they rested against my face. "Christine, you're mad," I whispered. "You've lost your senses. Or I've lost mine. I don't—"

Swiftly, she pressed her mouth to my mouth, and just as swiftly, she pulled back.

"Do you think I've lost my senses now?" she asked, and while my mind reeled from that dry, awkward kiss which had just taken place, she took my shaking hands and placed them on her face.

"Christine, I don't—I can't—" My weak, horrified protests fell on deaf ears. My numb hands were on her face but they didn't feel as though they had any right to be there. I felt like a heretic defiling a sacred shrine with my devil's fingers, but after a moment, as she held my hands in place, I swept my thumb over her soft, smooth skin as she had done to my poor parchment. A breathless little laugh came out of her, and she turned her head to lay a kiss on one of my palms. A violent shiver seized me, and I felt almost sick. This felt wrong, dreadfully wrong. This was not the natural order of things. And yet…oh, God, and yet. Perhaps the natural order of things had been summarily turned upon its head. Perhaps by some strange twist of fate, I had been altered from devil to angel after all.

She rubbed her face against my hands, like a cat wanting to be stroked. "I've wanted you to touch me for so long," she whispered wildly, and a noise came out of me, a noise very like one that might come out of me had I been struck directly in the gut.

"You can't mean this," I said desperately, "you can't mean any of this. I don't understand." Her skin was temptingly soft, and I could hardly bear it, but I dropped my hands from her face as though they were made of lead.

She sighed, and regarded me with her deep blue eyes.

"Must I keep attempting to convince you?" she asked earnestly. "Erik, I don't know what to say, what to do. What can I do? What should I do? Tell me. Tell me what you want. Please."

"What I want?" My voice sounded strange and hollow in my ears. I didn't know what she was asking me. "I want—I—"

What I wanted was to feel as though my life had some semblance of order again. What I wanted was to feel as though I were steering the ship, not the other way round. I wanted to move towards her again, but couldn't seem to stir my limbs.

"Christine, I—what do you want?" I asked suddenly, and she gave a nervous little laugh. "Me?" she asked incredulously. "I…that's not what I asked."

"But it's what I asked," I said rather stubbornly, "and you did promise—"

She bit her lip. "Of course...you're right."

There was a long pause. "I want…I want you to touch me," she said shakily. "I apologize if it makes me appear wanton and selfish, but…you asked what I wanted, and that's all I've wanted for a terribly long count of days."

I gave a shuddering breath. The world really was upside-down. Christine thought herself selfish for wanting me to touch her? I had an inkling she had little idea of just how depraved my own imaginings were.

"Where?" I asked impulsively. I abruptly became belatedly aware of the latent inappropriateness of this question, but it was already hanging in the air, and I was unable to take it back.

She stared at me, blinked. She appeared to be mulling this over. "Anywhere, I suppose," she said, and a sudden flush crept up her neck into her cheeks, and one hand fluttered to her mouth; she looked thoroughly embarrassed to have said this.

I felt unbearably hot and cold at intervals. My rational frame of mind protested weakly in my head that she couldn't possibly mean anywhere, but I was done listening to reason. Reason had not brought me to this point, after all; nothing was making sense, but I no longer cared. If she wanted me to touch her anywhere, then by God, I would.

But at that, my mind abruptly fragmented into a million different points of desire and logic—there was an obvious place that I wanted to touch more than anything in the world, but surely I ought to…work up to it. I seemed to remember hearing about such things. But where on earth did she want me to touch her first? Anywhere was deliciously permissive, but horribly vague.

Perhaps I ought to test my boundaries. I was still afraid of frightening her, of spoiling everything.

Her face had seemed perfectly permissible; she had seemed to enjoy being touched there. No need to start there, then, surely.

I reached out, my hand shaking, and lightly trailed my fingers down the side of her long white neck.

"Here?" I asked timidly. She shivered, and nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.

"Here?" My fingers continued their slow, timorous path and dipped gently into the hollow of her throat. Another nod; this time her eyes closed for a moment and her mouth opened ever so slightly.

I paused. I wanted to go further, but panic was beginning to seize me again, and I was desperately unsure of myself.

Her eyes opened again, and she graced me with a soft, beautiful smile that made my heart nearly stop. It emboldened me sufficiently. I slowly, slowly continued to draw my fingers along her clavicle, and then over the first button of her dress. "Here?" I asked in a voice which had dropped a few pitches and thickened considerably with something almost fierce, something primeval.

Her breath had quickened. She still didn't speak, but nodded once more.

"Did you…" It was difficult for me to speak. Asking this, saying it aloud, was pure torture – but I had to know. "Did you truly mean…anywhere?"

I couldn't fathom when I had ever seen her pale cheeks turn so crimson – and so often, at that – as they had time and again this evening. Her face seemed very close to mine. "I'm not entirely certain how I should answer such a question," she muttered. What an utterly maddening response!

Her hands had somehow reached my jacket, fiddling aimlessly with the lapels. Did she want me to remove it? The thought made me somewhat sick. I hardly ever looked at my own body, if I could help it – the thought of her looking on it, on almost any part of me, was nightmarish.

"Answer honestly," I said, trying to breathe ordinarily.

"I am overseeing a battle in my head," she said, "between my upbringing and my own feelings – what is proper, and what I should actually like to happen. I must decide the outcome very soon, it seems – which shall I name the victor, Erik?"

If I leaned any closer, I should be half-buried in her soft golden hair, several strands of which had come loose from its simple restraint of pins and ribbon. My sense of scent had faded again, but I could still catch a faint whiff of her tresses and I could feel the warmth of her emanating a few inches away.

"What was that you said earlier about…conventional proprieties?" I asked, feeling heat rise at the back of my neck as I inadvertently leaned only a little more toward her and one of her loose strands brushed my chin. "I think more of those have heretofore applied than you think. Personally, I should be quite glad to leave them all behind." I hardly knew what I was saying; the nearness of her was muddling my sense.

"Ah," she said softly, "then I ought to declare propriety the loser of the battle?"

"Do what you wish," I said, breathing in deeply and trying to smell her hair. "It makes little difference to me."

"Liar," she whispered, and a little lightning thrill shot through my bones. This was becoming quite sordid, wasn't it? The dour God of my devoutly Catholic mother would have been utterly horrified.

Christine's hands grasped my jacket, and her mouth met mine again, but this was no swift, dry kiss; this was something else, something I hadn't ever quite imagined. A thrum went through my blood, full of a strange mixture of pain and delight, and it was as though I'd been awakened – pulled up from the depths of a long sleep.

There was little room for the unfortunate thought that I had no idea of how to kiss her properly, or that perhaps my thin mouth was not up to the task; desire and instinct appeared to be key players in this movement of the sonata, and she certainly seemed to know what she was doing – and here I had to summarily quash the flash of white-hot jealousy that flooded me when I imagined her doing this with the boy. Had to remind myself of her earlier words, had to again remember that she had specifically asked me not to deposit her stage-side, where she could have certainly accepted his attentions again. She was young, and so was he… "He is such an old friend, Angel," she had said to me, and of course, this explained it; she had felt obligated, pressed. Perhaps she had never loved him at all – I hoped this, I achingly hoped it; in fact, I fiercely wished I could flick my fingers and banish his very existence from her memory. But that would require the Voice, most likely, to a terrible and possibly damaging degree, and I had very little wish to use such power on her unless there was an absolutely desperate need.

Certainly this kiss was of her own volition; I had not initiated it, had been shocked by the ascent of her lips upon mine. No underhanded coercion had caused this…at least, I didn't believe it had. Had I used the Voice on her unwittingly? No…no, that was folly. I had demanded nothing that I recalled, other than that she answer my questions. In fact, I had told her, just prior to this meeting of mouths, to do whatever she wished.

The tip of her tongue touched mine, and then all thought and reason left me for a moment. I became greedy and heedless; one hand curled and clawed at her waist, pressing her closer, which made her gasp. My other hand fumbled at the pins in her hair, wanting it to come down.

I managed only a few pins before she stopped me, suddenly, took my hand and set it down. "Let me," she said.

The sight of her unbinding and unpinning her hair was an unexpectedly breathless intimacy; my chest hurt as she tossed aside the ribbon and pins and shook out her long mane so that it fell around her like a golden shroud. She looked at me uncertainly, her manner suddenly reserved. "Why don't you say anything, Erik?" she asked. "Why are you so still? You've seen my hair unbound before."

And it was true, I had; occasionally she had padded through my house at night while I worked, and I had caught glimpses of her, a picture of modesty but for her long shining hair falling freely about her shoulders, down to her waist.

My hands sat limply in front of me as I stared at her. "This…this is…different," I managed to mumble. My earlier rhythm of brazenness had broken like a wave against rocks, and I felt terribly shy again, although I supposed if she had unbound her hair for me, she shouldn't mind me touching it.

I leaned forward, snaked my fingers out so that they slid lightly through the section of hair which fell forward over her shoulder. I pressed a strand to my lips, shivering, and then I became bold again, remembering Christine's kisses to my palm, my mouth. On a sheer whim, I swept her long mass of hair back over her shoulder and gathered my fingers into the hair at the back of her neck, bending her head back slightly.

"Anywhere?" I asked between my teeth, and she stared at me almost as if she didn't know me. "Y…yes," she said hesitantly, and then I moved forward and my tongue darted out to trace a path along the column of her throat; I wanted to taste her, I had wanted to taste her for at least as long as she claimed she had wanted me to touch her, but no, I knew it had been far longer than that. I had wanted to taste her the first time I had heard her singing begin to blossom under my tutelage, when her voice had ceased its cold, emotionless mechanics and become warm and full and alive.

She seemed paralyzed; perhaps she was uncertain of what to make of my newfound wantonness. I needed more, I had to have more. "Lie down," I gasped, and her breath hitched, but she did as I asked. I almost giggled in my giddiness; oh, my good girl, my obedient little student, she was doing all of this without the Voice, and it was deliciously unreal;I knelt over her, and one by one, I shakily unclasped the first five buttons of her dress. There was more beneath; corset and chemise, which should surely have to be dealt with at some juncture, but at the very least I was able to reach my current target. I laved my tongue into the space between her breasts and a shuddery moan escaped me as her fingers curled around the back of my neck, goading me on.

More buttons, more infernal buttons, but at last I had undone her basque; now I was stymied at what to do next. I paused, my confusion overriding my desire.

She sat up slowly, slipping the unbuttoned garment from her shoulders. "You'll have to unlace me," she said, turning so that I could see her back, the crisscrossed ties of her corset seeming at first a rather formidable obstacle. "Though if you'd rather, I can—"

"No," I said quickly. My fingers hesitated, then went to work. It wasn't nearly as bad as all that, after all, just a few knots and a bit of loosening, although it seemed to be taking an infernally long time. A large part of me wanted to have done with it and simply lift her skirts – chivalry be damned.

Abruptly, I looked about me; the sitting-room seemed a terribly rude place for a tryst – or at the very least, the exploration that I wished to accompany it.

She looked behind her. "Is something the matter?" she asked hesitantly. Her hair was a mussed halo about her face, and a thorn of sweet agony pierced through me. I wanted to devour her, to become her, to disappear inside her and mold my body and bones to hers. Being apart from her for even seconds was going to be torture after this.

"No," I said hoarsely, "nothing." I awkwardly gathered her up and rose painfully to my feet. She was light, even with her heavy skirts, but my wiry strength was not quite what it had been a decade or two ago. I was beginning to rapidly feel my age.

"Erik," she said, "what—" "A more appropriate setting," I said curtly, walking so swiftly to the corridor that I nearly stumbled with her weight in my arms. Get hold of yourself, fool, I thought to myself. A fine romantic picture it would make to trip and drop her where you fell!

My good sense might have told me that my room was a less than ideal place, with the coffin prominent in the center and my music strewn about the floor, but I was acting on instinct, and my bed – unused though it had been for some time – was larger than hers. She spoke not a word as I carried her in, and it gave me some measure of comfort to be in a place that was so entirely mine, and mine alone – although it felt strange to be bringing her to it.

She wriggled a little when I put her down on my bed. "My corset," she said, and finished the loosening herself before I had a chance to move toward her. She paused, her cheeks crimson as she looked at me, her hands hovering over the clasps at the front. "Go on, then," I said rather impatiently, like a spoiled child eager for sweets – and then, overtaken by a rush of embarrassed humility, added in a more subdued tone, "Please."

She bit her lip and unclasped the corset, and slid it away from her body, dropping it on the floor where it hit with a soft little thunk. A small sigh – of relief, perhaps, for I couldn't fathom how women could bear to wear those things – escaped her lips. Her chemise was clinging to her upper body where it had been pressed against her by the corset, the tight wrinkles cleaving to her in a way which left precious little to the imagination.

I crawled toward her on my hands and knees, a supplicant worshipping at the shrine. "Please," I said again, my voice becoming a whisper, "please, please," not caring that she'd already given me permission time and again; I was becoming terrified once more that this would be snatched away from me, that I would wake up in my cold coffin and she would be gone again. Perhaps she was gone; perhaps she had already married the boy, and these last two months had been nothing more than a fever dream.

A strangled cry came from my throat, and I clasped her, my breath against her skin. "Beautiful Christine," I said wildly, and to my absolute horror, I felt her fingers grasp my mask, as though to remove it from its place. I clapped my hand to it, sitting bolt upright and shaking. "What the devil are you doing? You can't," I said. "You mustn't. I won't allow you to. No."

She lay beneath me, the rose-pink tip of one breast very nearly visible where the chemise had been pushed askew. Her breath was heavy, her limbs slack. "Why not?" she asked.

A dreadful sound came from my throat, the hoarse, skittering laugh of a madman. "You really have taken leave of your senses," I snarled. She looked at me placidly, seemingly unperturbed by my outburst. "No," she said. "I haven't."

"Christine," I snapped. "Can you possibly be serious? I haven't yet forgotten the very first time those lovely fingers of yours snatched off the barrier to my shame. Have you?"

She bit her lip again. "No," she said. "No, I didn't forget."

"Then why in God's name would you—" I shook my head, both hands holding my mask firmly in place in case she tried anything foolish. "This was a mistake," I said, the words dragging through me like hot coals. "I can't—"

"Erik, if you'd rather leave it on, I shan't stop you. I won't try to take it off," she said. "I'm sorry. I thought—no, never mind. It's all right. But don't send me away, please don't."

I looked down at my girl, at her mussed hair and her wrinkled chemise and flushed cheeks, her hands lifted up, stopping just short of my clothes. She seemed startled, taken aback. Dear god, she was so young.

The thorn pierced my heart again. "Oh, forgive me," I said, "forgive me, my little bird, but I can't. Not yet. I can't let you see me, not my face, not now. Perhaps…perhaps later. I don't know. Perhaps. I can't think of it now. I don't want to think of it. But I want to see you, I want to see you so badly. Will you let me?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. There was a dreadful reproach in her expression. "Promise me," she said, "promise me you'll let me look at you later. I know you can't bear it, that you think you're too terrible to look at, but I…I don't care, Erik. When I first saw you, it was an entirely different time—"

"Christine," I said between my teeth, and her mouth became a thin line. "Promise," she said firmly. "It isn't fair if you don't."

Would she ever cease to madden me? My fingers turned to claws against my mask. "I promise," I said, although saying it felt as though I had swallowed shards of glass.

"Thank you," she whispered. She grasped tentatively at my sleeve, and I let her lead my arm down; she placed my hand on her breast, and my blood turned to fire in my veins. I cupped that mound of flesh in my hand, tracing my thumb over soft skin and the top of her chemise, and a breathy little high-pitched sound escaped her.

It really was delightful; I warily bent my head down, eyes flicking up to make sure she was not planning to make a sudden move toward my mask. But she hadn't moved, wasn't moving; she was looking at me almost…expectantly. I might as well accept that it was utterly impossible to understand her, and that if I tried too hard to do so, I should probably make myself ill.

I removed my hand from her bosom and instead grasped her soft wrists. This nicely served a double purpose; I took pleasure from the delicate feel of them beneath my fingers, and it also meant that I was safe from any possible meddling with my mask.

I pondered for a moment; my own hands were now no longer free. Never one to leave a problem without a solution, I took the lacy line of her chemise between my teeth and pulled slightly so that it came down over both her breasts.

She gasped a little, and I hummed delightedly in my throat as I took one of them in my mouth. This was supplication, too; this was absolution and ascension from purgatory to paradise. It also seemed a rather erotic experiment in science. My tongue flicked curiously against the tender nipple, and her hips bucked underneath me. Yes, that was good, then.

I wanted to kiss her on the mouth again, but I wasn't sure I dared. I had a good mind that most of the things I had done to her this evening had been heretofore unexplored territory for her – which made me feel slightly more confident about performing them despite my own lack of experience – but kissing was the one thing in which she clearly had the upper hand. I hated the thought that she might compare me to—

"Erik, you're hurting me," she said, turning her wrists about in my grip, and my hands sprang open, releasing her at once.

"Swear to me you won't touch my mask without permission," I said.

She regarded me rather sourly for a moment. "I swear," she said. "Although I thought I already had promised."

"Did I hurt you badly?" I asked suddenly. "Christine—" I gently took her wrists and turned them to face me. They were a little red, but thankfully there were no bruises.

"No, I'm all right," she said. "Though I should appreciate it if you didn't hold my wrists quite so tightly in the future."

"Of course. I—" A sudden flush rose up the back of my neck as I abruptly grasped the varying possible implications of that statement. "I won't," I stammered. "Hold them so tightly, that is—in the future."

She had that odd smile on her mouth again, that funny little tilt.

"Don't look at me that way," I said. "I don't know what you're thinking when you look at me that way. It's intolerable. At any rate—"

I skated my fingers over her skin, and a pleasurable shudder ran through me. "More?" I asked. "Can I do more?"

She nodded her assent yet again, and I pulled the straps of her chemise down over her shoulders and arms so that it hung loosely about her sides. "Put your arms up over your head on the pillow—yes, just like that," I murmured. "My good girl, so good," and I pulled the chemise down further so that I could see her ribs, her belly. I drew my mouth and tongue over these too, lapping up her taste and faint scent like a dog hungry for scraps.

My hands fumbled with the buttons at the side of her skirt, and her hands joined mine in pushing it down over her petticoats. I suddenly noticed she wasn't wearing any shoes; perhaps she had kicked them off in the sitting-room when I had told her to lie down. Oh, this felt dreadfully wrong, but I didn't care; so many of her layers had already been shed, and her stockings were merely one more barrier. I mapped the shape of her legs with my hands – the slender, strong dancer's ankles, the coltish curve of calves and smooth knobs of knees, and the lace and garters at her thighs beneath her modest combinations. I suddenly realized that my whole head had gone beneath her petticoat and she was not reproaching me; I felt encased in a thin cocoon of warmth and welcome that I had never dared to expect, and a red-hot streak of eager delight sliced through my veins.

"Erik, my petticoat," she said, fumbling with the drawstring ribbons holding it in place. "I'm afraid you shan't be able to breath under there—"

"I'm quite all right, Christine," I said from beneath her ruffles and lace, my hand darting out and moving hers away. A thought had come to me, and I wanted very much to act upon it. "Don't lift it up, my dear…don't. And whatever you do, don't look."

"Erik, what on earth—"

I came out from under her petticoat, glaring fiercely at her. "Don't. Look," I said. "Pretend this is one of our lessons. Pretend I'm teaching you to breathe again—only instead of telling you how to breathe, I'm telling you not to look."

"Erik, why must you always insist—"

"Christine, I am becoming quite impatient with this conversation," I growled. "Close your eyes."

With a sigh, she did so. Making sure she was not looking through glimmering slits, I quickly removed my mask and plunged under her petticoat again, rubbing my bare cheek against the soft fabric of her stocking and knee-length undergarments. A breathless moan came out of me, and she squirmed under my hands. "Erik—"

"Don't look," I whispered, and gently, experimentally drew my fingers over the place between her legs. Oh, yes, that was a delightful sound she made. I needed more. I unloosened more buttons—more buttons!—and yanked and tugged at the lower half of her combinations, until I had finally found what I sought.

Oh, yes, this—this was what I had spent so much sleepless time wanting. Wanting to find the very center of her, wanting to discover and touch and taste. I pressed a kiss to the tawny curls and warm skin beneath, and was rewarded with a very feminine little sigh from above the petticoat. I drew my fingers downward, and oh, how warm, how slick, and that was only the very outer rim of this flower of flesh. I slid my thumb inside—yet another experiment—and her back arched. "Ohh," she gasped.

I must have looked an awful picture at that moment, a scarecrow hunched up beneath her petticoats with some dreadful rictus grin on my face—I had never smiled into a mirror, let alone from ear to ear, but I could well imagine it looked rather horrible. It was a mercy she couldn't see me. But oh, this was bliss, this warm, wet hollow, and I hadn't even worked up to the other, more obvious act yet.

"I can't…oh, I shouldn't…" she whispered half-heartedly – perhaps still struggling with that dreadful beast of propriety – but she made no move to stop me, and I murmured wildly to her to let it go, let me, please let your Erik do this, oh please, and she relaxed.

My breath grew taut and shallow as I put my scant mouth ever closer to that deep pink rose of flesh. Part of me still felt utterly paralyzed; I still really felt I had no right, none at all, but my warm breath on her womanhood appeared to spur her on – I suddenly felt her fingers clutch at my head through her petticoat, and a breathy little moan escaped her lips. A growl came out of my throat, and I let my tongue dart out to taste her, hot and slick and quivering. A sweet little cry from Christine drove me nearly to madness – not the dreadful black depths of horror and rage to which I had heretofore been accustomed, but a kind of aching, wonderful madness of which I had never yet dreamed before this.

She tightened against me as I drew my fingers over her yet again – her hollow was closed to me, but I wanted her to open to me like a waking tulip greeting the dawn.

A battle took place in me which was both tender and predatory. The predatory won out. I pressed a little with my fingers, and she squirmed in a way that did not seem at all as though it came from pleasure. The tender came back, and a spear of panic went through me as she made a noise of discomfort.

"Can I?" I pleaded. "Oh, please, I won't hurt you, I promise I won't, and if I do, it won't last." I was not bluffing, not entirely – I couldn't exactly pretend to know much about these things from experience, but I had certainly listened, and read, and seen enough to think I knew at least this much.

"Promise," she whispered. "You promise."

"Yes, yes, oh yes," I murmured, and before I could lose my nerve, I pressed forward with my fingers, deep and swift. She let out a choked cry, which quickly subsided into a strange breathlessness; she let out a few little sobs of air.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whispered against her nether-curls, feeling so hungry and so empty I wanted to die. I almost removed my fingers at once, but the feeling of her was indescribable and I could not bring myself to withdraw yet.

"No…no, it's all right…I think…" she said uncertainly. "Oh, Erik, I wish you would let me see you—"

I could ordinarily deny her nothing, but I didn't want this, not yet, not now. "Tell me if this pains you," I said as gently as I could muster, and I began to slowly move my hand.

I held my breath for a moment, but she did not complain of any pain. Her breaths came more quickly, and she began making small sounds. I felt heat rise in my face, and the hunger came up in me like a sickness. But I beat it back, for the moment. This was good, and there was time. I would not allow myself to fall prey to petty urgency, not now. Not yet.

My free hand trailed over her thigh, the curve of hip and buttock, and the ache was nearly too much to bear. "So sweet," I murmured, "so beautiful." I must have whispered her name a dozen times as I worked her with my fingers, feeling a growing sense of delicious desperation as she writhed beneath my hand. "Erik…I don't know what…oh, help me," she keened, and I made sounds of my own as she threw her head back – I could see her just barely through the tight, pale threads of her petticoat. Oh, she was lovely, my wild bird, my darling. I half-expected her to turn to sand, to sift through my fingers like the soft grit of the desert, for I felt that I had touched and sullied a sacred thing, and I was sure I should be punished dearly; she might as well have been Artemis herself. But Artemis had shunned men entirely, hadn't she; she'd accepted no lovers at all, no one to coax her to scream a climax and shudder over the questing fingers of a hand. No mouth to tend to the moisture on and between her thighs, no tongue to lick her secrets up like sweets. No, Artemis would never have allowed these things, though I could scarcely imagine anyone wanting to bury himself in such coldness as what Artemis might have provided; my soft, supple, moaning little Christine was far superior to the icy, dubious charms of some puritanical moon-goddess of myth.

"Erik, Erik, my Erik," she whimpered, her breath coming in little sighs, and it was as though she had pierced me through with a red-hot blade. I needed her, now more than ever, and I could wait no longer. I grabbed my mask, put it on so that I could come out from beneath her petticoat without fear.

"Cover your eyes," I begged her, although there might not have been a need, as she scarcely seemed able to keep them open, heavy-lidded as they were with the flush of pleasure. I wanted to take no chances, however, and in a moment of stupid frenzy, I seized one of her discarded stockings. She shook her head, but I begged her to trust me and with another of her sighs, she took the stocking from me and wound it about her head so that it covered her eyes.

"Thank you," I whispered, "oh, thank you," and I swiftly unclasped my trousers, hardly daring to believe that all this was happening.

I paused for a moment as I removed my mask again, wondering if perhaps, after all, I should relish my nearly unbearable anticipation a little longer. My body screamed at me to have done with it, to bury myself up to the hilt in that slick sheathe of warm comfort, but I was nothing if not rebellious. I had waited fifty years for this; a few more moments would do me no harm.

I took her soft hand in my shaking fingers and, feeling like a debauched fiend of the lowest order, led it to my member the way she had led mine to her breast. The breath seemed to fly out of her throat; she nearly jerked her fingers back, but she calmed after only a moment and her mouth opened in a curious little O. When her fingers slid slowly along the shaft and reached the very tip, I let out a sob of air and nearly embarrassed myself.

"I never knew," she said softly, "that men and women could do this, that they could perform the art of love with their hands."

"There are a great many things I imagine we could discover," I said between my teeth, trying with all my will to not succumb just yet to the sweet pressure of her fingers, "at another time…but now I think…I need…I…"

I fumbled with her petticoat, yanking it down around her ankles and pressing a dozen kisses to her flushed, beautiful skin. "Tell me if it hurts, Christine," I murmured. "I'm sorry if…ohh."

Her soft thigh felt absolutely divine against the throbbing ache between my legs. She shook a little as I pressed myself against her folds, and a shock of pleasure arced through me like a lightning-bolt. I should be gentle, I thought, but reason had nearly left me, and I entered her with one swift thrust.

My head tipped back; oh, yes, I could see very well how a man could lose his wits over the pursuit of this warm sluice of flesh. My own hand had served me well enough in the past to satisfaction, and I had contented myself with that, but oh, this was different; this was indescribable.

Her fingers clutched at me as I moved; her nails dug into my skin deeply enough to leave marks. I didn't quite know if it was pain, or pleasure, or both which motivated her, but suddenly I felt it, the heady rush of bliss gathering to a point of pure pleasure, and I cried out, "I love you, Christine, I—ah!"

I spent myself inside her, buried the full length of me in her body, and felt like Lazarus being raised from the grave. And there it was; it was over, and I didn't know whether to feel elated or ashamed.

Her hands slid over my arms, and a contented hum came from between her lips. "I didn't hurt you?" I whispered. "No," she said, "well…a little…but it didn't matter." Her fingers found my face, and I hissed between my teeth and tried not to jerk away. She couldn't see me, after all, though her fingers could map out a picture well enough – but I supposed I owed her this, and it was not at all unpleasant. It was torturously good, for my skin drank in the feel of her even as my mind revolted against the idea that anyone should touch me so gently and with such care.

"What will happen to us now?" she asked softly.

"What do you mean?" I muttered, my tongue darting out to taste one of her fingers. She shivered, and a swift little giggle came from her lips. "I mean…this. Us. Will we live here, forever, or will we go elsewhere? Do you want me to sing again, for other people, on the stage?"

"Christine, have you missed it?" I asked, feeling that blade through my heart again. Her mouth flattened a little. "There are things about it that I do not miss," she said, "but yes. Altogether – yes."

I felt hot and cold, and a little ill. "Christine, I—I need time to think about it. It gave me – still gives me – such pleasure to hear you sing, and to know that I had helped to shape your voice…and to hear you sing in front of the whole of Paris, well, that was a triumph, one that I am not unwilling to experience again. But you should know I am a terribly jealous man, Christine, and I am afraid I shall be now more than ever. I don't know if I can bear the thought of sharing you with the rest of the world. But I don't want to keep you locked in a gilded cage, as you called it…Christine, what will we do?"

"Talk about it tomorrow, I suppose," she sighed, and brought me down so that our skin was flush against each other's. I shivered, and kissed her on the mouth of my own volition, no longer caring about any comparison.

"I love you," I whispered. "Do you know, do you understand how much I love you?"

"Yes," she said gently. "I think so. But I'm not entirely sure you trust me."

"You wouldn't run away again, would you?" I asked wildly, and she shook her head. "No, Erik, never. Not after this. Never again."

I loved her, but the thought of losing her paralyzed me now more than ever. I told her this, and she murmured, "Never, Erik, never never, you will never lose me, I will never go away," and I felt tears leaking from the sides of my eyes. So much had happened today, almost too much.

"Perhaps you're right," I sighed, "perhaps we should talk about this tomorrow."

"And you'll let me see you?" she asked sleepily.

"I—yes," I said haltingly.

"Will you let me see you now?" she queried. "Right now? I promise, I won't be frightened."

I bit down a little on her shoulder. "Women and their insatiable curiosity," I said between my teeth. "But after all of this…why not?"

I unwound the stocking from her eyes, even though I felt the beginnings of panic rising in my breast, and I silently begged her with my eyes not to flinch, not to turn away. She did neither, my good girl; she looked me full in the face, and then she kissed me, and nothing seemed to matter much after that.

Fin