The morning of Christine's second debut dawned bright and fair, if her disposition was any indication. For myself, it was dismal. The artificial day of the wall-covering seemed to mock me. I couldn't say where the sense of foreboding came from, because to look at it everything was perfect. I considered myself too reasonable for paranoia, but I also considered myself mad, and there was a contradiction in there somewhere that I could find if I thought hard enough. But as the hour drew nearer, each one that passed punctuated by her growing excitement, I found myself imagining a line of suitors outside her dressing room. They were all exact copies of Chagny and bore her frankincense and myrrh and all wanted her for their savior. I thought perhaps it might reassure me to touch her, to prove again that she was real and mine and here. She only laughed.

"Erik! I have to prepare," she said, pulling away from my embrace.

"But you don't look busy, my love. Surely you have some time to spare for your nervous husband."

"Nervous?" She looked at me with round eyes. "Why are you nervous? Should I be? You do think I'll be alright, don't you?"

I sighed. "Of course, Christine. You'll be perfect. You know that as well as I do." I kissed the top of her head and retreated. I wasn't sure what caused my reticence; I'd taken what I wanted before this. But somehow I didn't have the will to. It was a curious lassitude unrelated to the lust or fear or possessiveness I felt. I spent the rest of the day watching her over the covers of various books whose titles I can't remember and waiting. My spirits revived somewhat when I recalled the gift I had for her after the performance, and I dwelt on this one ray of light as I dressed. I took special care with myself that night, both to honor the importance she attached to the event and in an attempt to regain some calm. It is always easier to remain collected when one is aware of looking impeccable.

We walked up together, traveling the same direction but to two wildly different destinations. I dropped her off in her dressing room with a kiss and waited behind the mirror just long enough to hear her squeal of delight upon finding the roses and chocolates I'd left there for her. I was planning on getting to my box early, to beat the patrons coming in and to be certain that I missed nothing. I would probably be forced to wait in the column until the lights went down and the interior of the box wasn't quite so visible, but I would be close at hand.

It had been some time since I'd attended the opera during a performance. Christine had always been tired from her rehearsals and I had had my own reasons for persuading her to come to bed early. So I was somewhat unprepared for the noise that started about an hour before curtain and only swelled as the champagne flowed and the those in the crowd recognized each other. In the past I might have crept behind walls to overhear their conversations, but tonight I merely waited for what should be my triumph but what I anticipated was a sentencing. I was not, however, to be saved from gossip.

The tapping on the hollowed marble surprised me, and I hesitated. Who could it be, I wondered, who would suspect this little hiding place?

"It's me, Erik."

Deciding the Persian accent was probably not faked, I opened the panel enough to determine it was him and then was forced to open it fully since the sliver of vision made me doubt it could be. It looked like the daroga, sure enough, but some alternate version I'd never seen before. He looked like a visiting prince from the East who wasn't accustomed to our manner of dress but was going to do his damndest to fit in. If one looked closely it was apparent that some tailoring of secondhand goods had been involved, but he looked ten years younger when he wasn't dressed in his old brown suit.

"I almost didn't recognize you," I said, my anxiety momentarily forgotten. "Why don't you dress like this all the time?"

He smiled, self-conscious but pleased, I thought. "I don't like dressing like this. Besides, the pension goes only so far and translating work is hard to come by. But I got the invitation and—" My look of confusion must have been obvious even partially obscured. "You didn't know? I got a card in the mail notifying me that a ticket would be waiting for me at the box office. Imagine my surprise when it was Box 5. My my, we do have a brand new opera ghost. I thought it was you, actually. Such a formal invitation required some sartorial effort on my part. Are you going to sit in that blasted thing all night? No one's looking for you anymore, you know."

I glanced out, certain that policemen lurked in wait for just such an action on my part, but the audience was oblivious. "They're too busy looking at themselves to pay any attention to two old men," he commented as I stepped from my hiding place and into the shadows at the back of the box. I had become obsolete, I realized. Opera ghosts might be a novelty, but fashion and society and gossip marched on regardless. He turned from his perusal of faces to glance at me. "You look flawless, as always. It's a good thing you aren't, or you'd be even more insufferable than you are." He said it so calmly, so without apparent intent to insult, that I barely even noticed the allusion to my face. There was a time… but I was saying that too much lately. That time, whatever it was, was gone. Had I grown comfortable with myself? Or him? Or was I just getting old?

"I'm surprised she sent you the ticket without telling me," I said.

"As am I."

"I suppose she thinks that having friends is part of that 'normal life' she's so intent upon us having."

He looked at me. "I think she just likes being sure she knows where I am. Anyway, I thought a normal life was your wish. There's nothing normal about being an opera singer. In fact, I doubt any of the three of us has any concept of normal. I daresay that's why she and Chagny broke it off. He's normal, Erik. Is that what you want?"

I shook my head. I'd lost sight of what I wanted along the way to having it. "I have what I want. What I want now is for nothing to change."

"I don't think it works that way. Everything changes."

"Not her."

"I wouldn't be so confident if I were you." I glared at him and he held up his hands. "I don't want to fight with you tonight. Though you should know there's been talk about her."

I narrowed my eyes. I'd kill them. "What kind of talk?" I demanded.

He shrugged. "People have noticed… things. Her voice has improved beyond what it was when she was last on that stage. And I've heard a few people talking about how they never see her leaving the Opera. She's a little more tired and a little less unhappy. People notice these things, Erik. People notice when she doesn't socialize with the others, when she runs back to her dressing room after every rehearsal and never leaves. It was one thing when she was in the chorus, but now she's a lead. People will scrutinize her actions much more closely. It's quite a different crime to be stand-offish when you're famous than when you're nobody. Though I have no doubt that's mostly due to your influence."

"Are you suggesting I keep her from having friends?" I demanded.

He twitched his shoulders again. "It wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, knowing you."

"Well she shouldn't need anyone except for me," I contested hotly. "What do you want me to do, daroga? Move into a nice apartment? Take her to church and dinner on Sundays? Play the doting husband on her arm when she receives her fanatics? That's what she wants too, and it's not happening. I've tried, daroga. I tried to give that to her and I can't do it. We went for a walk a few days ago and I couldn't stand being out there, being watched. I don't want to be out there. I like it here and I have what I need and there's no reason anything has to change."

"Change is life, Erik," he said gently, his face sad. "You've decided to live now, haven't you? Just as I did when I let you go. I can't say I would have chosen this life, but I don't regret missing the slow death that court would have demanded of me. The only way to escape change is to die. And I don't think you've ever wanted that."

I shook my head. I was glad, now, that I hadn't died. Though I could have skipped several of the intervening years without missing them. "Why did you do it, daroga? Why didn't you let me die? Surely I deserved it."

"Perhaps. But we all die eventually, so I assume we all deserve it. I let you go because I'm a terrible policeman, Erik. I always was. Justice and law and order and all that held little appeal for me. It was the crime I found fascinating. The personality of the criminal and why he did things the rest of us certainly thought but couldn't bring ourselves to do. Usually I had no trouble meting out justice when it was necessary: I understand the value of order. But you… you weren't an ordinary criminal. You made me laugh and you made me think and you gave me something I hadn't realized I'd been missing there. And so when the opportunity came, I could both martyr myself to you and at the same time become the kind of noble criminal I admired so much. It was my way out." He laughed suddenly and when I met his eyes I found myself remembering what he'd told me on the banks of the lake the other day. "Of course, I've been thinking about why I gave it all up for so many years I had to come up with some excuse for myself. Who knows, Erik? I just know I'm glad I did it."

"So am I," I said softly, and I actually meant it.

He smiled. "Are you shocked, Erik? It must be upsetting to learn I'm as selfish as you are. You'll have to take me out of your 'saint' column, if you haven't already."

I was still considering this when the lights went down and the orchestra began. The inane chatter didn't really diminish but the hum did become slightly more respectful. All other thought left my head as I lay in wait for her, a musical ambush at the ready. When she appeared to Faust in a vision I began glancing around as if I could read the thoughts of the audience as they looked at her, but half of them weren't looking anyway and the rest might as well have been masked, so little their faces told me. I would have to wait until she sang.

But from her appearance in the second act onwards, I could spare no thought for anything but her. Her tone was as sweet and pure as she, as pure as Marguerite herself, and I knew that her previous success was nothing to this and that by this time tomorrow Paris would have a new favorite. She could do anything she wished now, and while I knew that I would have to try harder to keep her close I could do nothing but admire her. And I knew it was not only my partiality that made me think so. After her first few lines, the crowd seemed to hush whenever she sang. She wasn't just singing but filling those inadequate words with everything behind them and making us feel them. No one on stage could contend with her but no one selfishly tried to overshadow her; it was her night and everyone in that room knew it. My pride knew no bounds and I wanted to shout her triumph, and mine, to everyone. I wanted them all to know who had taught her and who her husband was and how utterly perfect she was in every way and I wanted to bury myself in her so deep that I would never have to leave and she could never leave me behind and we would triumph together forever. I spent the intermission in an ecstasy of her, just imagining the admiration and envy being leveled at her now. I was anticipating her return to her dressing room, flushed with excitement and praise but no longer belonging to the crowd but to me alone where I would make her mine again in as many different ways as I could think of. The daroga sat in companionable silence next to me and in truth I barely remembered he was there.

It was only in Act IV that my uneasiness returned. I had thought that the innocent joy of the Jewel Song would be Christine's triumphant moment, her forte, but there was something about her Marguerite after Faust abandoned her that was more touching than anything I'd seen from her before. There was a kind of desperation, too large for her tiny, girlish figure, that caught hold of everyone and made us feel as if we were in church with her, trying hopelessly to pray with the Devil himself standing behind us. It was virtuosic, new, and entirely disturbing. Still, I wasn't sure why this should affect me. I was just impressed and moved by her performance. Her acting, her control, her expression had all improved more than I could have imagined, more than I'd noticed in our lessons together. As I waited all through the pointless Act V ballet my anxiety grew, the more frustrating for not knowing its source. Perhaps I was only nervous for her, I thought, but I knew there was no reason to be. She was perfect.

The curtain opened on the prison set, Christine in white with her hair streaming loose down her back like some kind of maiden saint. But her voice! If I had thought her to embody a character before this, it was nothing next to what I saw now. She was fire and stone and crystal and it seemed to me that her passion was laid bare to all, like a beacon which sought to lead Faust to his damnation just as he had led her to hers. I had never seen a Marguerite like this one and I had never thought, for all her talent, that my Christine could show us in the space of a few hours a woman's journey from utter purity to abject corruption and back. She was perfect, in other words, and it was her very perfection which cried out to me as a warning. This was not the perfection of perfect innocence, an unwanted voice told me. And yet, Marguerite was redeemed at the end, as always. After the last angelic chorus, which of course was made up of mere mortals and could not possibly outshine Christine, I was able to turn to the daroga and found him crying. It was some time before we could hear ourselves to talk over the furious din of applause.

"I didn't know, Erik," he said, not bothering to hide his tears. "You should go to her."

"Yes," I said, the uneasiness still with me but that was only logical, given the state her dressing room must be in right now. "Thank you for coming, daroga."

"She sang for you tonight, you know. She'll want to see you." I only hoped that was true. There were so many options for her now, and I felt as uncertain as I had when she'd first come back and I thought she was a product of my diseased and fermented mind.

I left the daroga in the box and hurried down, through back ways and trick doors, to her dressing room. She was already there and I paused a moment to take the sight in, not because the room was filled with admirers or well-wishers but because she seemed to fill the room herself. She wasn't fainting like the first time, not weak at all. She was as animated as I'd ever seen her and I thought perhaps I recognized in her that first rush of power.

Opening the mirror confirmed it. She fairly pulled me into the room and grasped my hands in hers, staring imploringly into my eyes. "I was good, wasn't I?" she breathed. "No, I was marvelous. Did you hear them, Erik? Did you hear me? I didn't think I could sound like that. To think that was in me all along and I never knew. I feel… I've never felt like this before! I feel as if I could do anything at all."

"You were brilliant, Christine. You were perfection itself. You can do anything you want now. You do realize that, don't you?" This was a Christine I wasn't certain I'd met before, and she puzzled me. It wasn't just her enthusiasm or her joy, although those were certainly heightened. There was something about her, the way she held herself, the tone of her voice, that I didn't recognize.

"We ought to celebrate!" she said, and my stomach lurched with foreboding. I couldn't follow her out there, where doubtless hundreds of people waited to laud her and love her and I couldn't kill all of them and I couldn't keep her except by force.

"I have a gift for you at home. Would you like to see it?"

It worked. "A present? You do give the most wonderful presents. We can celebrate at home."

We almost raced through the dark passages we knew by touch now, and I felt as excited as if I were the one getting the gift. She had to like it, I thought. She had to be impressed. It was impressive, really-I had done what few people in the world had, and I had done it for her. It certainly could be improved but it was still a marvel, by any reckoning.

I was nearly breathless with excitement by the time we arrive in the parlor, and it had all but smothered the anxiety I'd been feeling over her. "Where is it?" she asked, and I drew out the phonograph from where it hid behind the screen. I had yet to hear it, so in actuality it was a gift to me. I replaced the needle and started the motor and through a faint scratching there emerged her voice. There was still a rather metallic sound to it and it could by no means fully capture the experience of hearing her, but while I was disappointed in myself it was obviously her we were listening to. And then I came in, a rather dark tenor, and as our voices met and melded and mated themselves to one another I realized this was the proof I'd been seeking. I could hear us in those voices, not just how we sounded but to some extent who we were. Mostly, it was proof of our union; tangible, solid evidence that she had given herself to me if I ever had cause to doubt the recalled sensations of my body. It was the only mirror in which I'd ever seen what I wanted to see.

"Where is it?" Christine asked suddenly. I turned to see her looking at me expectantly.

"The music?"

"No, the present."

I stared at her. "This is the present," I said, gesturing to the phonograph. Well, the recording really; I didn't see what use she had for the machine itself.

"Oh. It's very nice, Erik." She smiled but the twisting in my gut told me she didn't like it at all, she hated it; she wanted a real present.

"What do you mean? It's brilliant! Do you understand what this is, Christine? We can make music that lasts forever. It never has to die. That's you, Christine, projected back to you so you can hear what a marvel you are. I can't believe that doesn't fascinate you."

"Is that why you did this? In case I die?" she asked. She really didn't see the point.

"No. Well, yes, somewhat. But I wanted to show you what you've given everyone. I wanted to show you what you mean to me. And… and I wanted to prove to you that I can be useful and good."

She frowned. "But why? You don't think I have any doubts about that, do you?"

"You'd be pretty foolish not to, given my history, given what I've done to you."

"You haven't done anything to me, Erik," she said, coming to stand in front of me. "Only taught me how to sing and how to feel."

This wasn't going right at all. Panic started to rise inside me as inexorably as lust and just as difficult to contain. "What do you mean, Christine?" I asked much more softly than the importance I gave the answer would imply.

"Just that you've shown me so many things, Erik. I understand so much more than I did. I was such a fool, when I first came here. I was so quiet and shy and weak. I was so innocent and worthless. You taught me how to overcome that. You taught me how to get what I want from life, how to make decisions for myself. Don't you think that's a worthy thing? As worthy as my coming back to save you?"

She was confusing me now. Innocent and worthless? "But your innocence is what makes you great, Christine. That's who you are. That's what saved me."

She tossed her head defiantly and laughed softly. "Then you've returned the favor and saved me from my innocence. And I'm glad, Erik. When I think of marrying Raoul, of being shut away from life, from opera, from my husband even, I'm always glad I didn't."

It was too much. She was different, so utterly different. "What happened to you?" My voice was nearly pleading. "What happened tonight?"

The blush on her face gave me hope, a little. "Nothing, Erik. Just… being on that stage, singing the way I did… it didn't make me tired this time. It made me feel alive. I knew I wanted to be a singer, but I'm not sure I knew exactly why until now. And I have you to thank for that too. I feel like… I feel like you've freed me from something I didn't even know held me back."

I was stunned. I felt as if iron claws were tightening around my body so that I couldn't move from the scene of some tragedy that kept happening over and over in front of me. I didn't know what it all meant but I knew I didn't understand what she was saying to me. I let her lead me blindly to the sofa and we sat next to each other. Suddenly she reached over, pulled off the mask, and kissed me.

"I don't know when I've ever felt so alive," she exclaimed almost breathlessly after pulling away. "Thank you for everything, Erik." Her little hands crept steadily up my legs but instead of arousing my lust it only served to make me feel suspicious and uncertain. She took advantage of my paralysis to undo my trousers and without warning climbed over me. I stared up at her in shock. There was a buzzing sensation in my head and I thought I might faint.

"Erik?" Her weight across my lap seemed unsupportable now. Not like that first time I carried her down here. She'd been a feather. An angel's wing. "What's wrong? Surely we can do it this way too." She took me in her hands but there was nothing. I felt nothing.

It frightened me so much that I started up, upsetting her balance. I righted my attire and turned to face her. "What do you think you're doing?" I demanded.

"I wanted to celebrate," she said. Her flushed face gazed up at me from where she sat in disarray on the couch and I suddenly found it distasteful. It wasn't the blush of innocence confronted with my depravity. It was the flush of desire, of common want, and I hated it. "I wanted to make love to my husband. What's the matter with you?"

"The matter with me?" I had to work to keep my voice in control. "The matter with me? Nothing's wrong with me, Christine. It's you! I don't know what you're doing. I hardly recognize you!"

"What are you talking about?" she asked in true confusion and a little crossly. "You seemed perfectly happy before."

"But you're not yourself tonight, Christine. Surely you must see that."

"Why? Because I know what I want? Because I want to give you what you want?"

"But… I have what I want. I have you. I changed for you, Christine. I was good for you."

She laughed again and I found I hated the sound. "You haven't changed at all, Erik. And I'm glad. Because you're what I want, the way you are. You've shown me that, and I'm happy. If I wanted what all those girls up there want I'd be Madame de Chagny. You just helped me find that out."

Her earnestness repulsed me. In fact, I could hardly look at her anymore. But I couldn't accept that; it didn't make sense. I just stood there shaking my head. "I needed you to be good, Christine. I need you to be what I can't."

She frowned. "But I am good, Erik. There's nothing wrong with either of us. I've been trying to show you that."

The horrible thought dawned on me that she didn't even know. I'd corrupted her and she couldn't tell the difference. Had I twisted her that grotesquely? Of course I had. I couldn't help but do otherwise. I'd assumed that her virtue was the stronger, but I'd been wrong. My sin, my rotting, sullied flesh, was incapable of salvation. I had only ever been good at destruction. And I knew suddenly that I was going to destroy this too.

"I'm sorry, Christine." My voice was barely a whisper, as if my strength had eloped with my love for her.

"Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry. I can't… I can't do this. I can't bear what I've done to you. You were perfect and I loved you and I ruined you."

"But you didn't ruin anything!" she cried. "I'm not ruined! I'm alive and I'm happy and I love you!"

I shook my head. "A creature as good as you couldn't possibly love something like me. Not really; not for what I am."

"That doesn't make any sense," she countered. She looked angry now. "What do you want, Erik? You want perfect, angelic purity? Or do you want a wife? You've done enough to take my innocence, haven't you? And now you don't want what's left. Is that it?"

Was she, of all people, going to use logic on me now? "I don't understand, Christine. You've never spoken to me like this before. This isn't you."

"But it is. Finally. You were right; something did happen tonight. Something wonderful. I stopped being afraid of myself. Or of you. I was trying so hard to be what you wanted that I forgot what I wanted and tonight I realized it's the same thing and I'm tired of being afraid. Isn't that what you've taught me? And now that I am what you told me to be you don't think I'm good enough."

"No." I was an empty shell. I couldn't even summon the desire to die.

"I love you, Erik. Isn't that what matters?"

"I thought so. But no." It wasn't it really wasn't and she had no idea. I hadn't known until I'd said it.

She stared at me, abruptly very still. "But I've always loved you. In some way. I even told you so. I remember; you were so happy you cried. Didn't you believe me then?"

I hesitated. I'd wanted to, I remembered that much. But I hadn't dared credit it. I'd settled for her desire to love me, to save me. It was enough. "It doesn't matter anymore, Christine." I said. My tone held the finality of the swipe of a guillotine. With it, even the nostalgic sentimentality I'd felt mere minutes before was severed from me.

"I don't understand," she said and where there had been anger there were now the beginnings of a plea. "Do you really mean this… what you're saying?" Her eyes were so big I might once have felt I was bound to lose myself in them if I got too close but now I could only see myself reflected in them and that was something I'd avoided since being dragged to the mirror by my mother. "Please don't do anything foolish, Erik. I don't know what you're thinking but you can't do it, not now. I'm your wife."

"Not legally. I'm certain no one will hold you to it."

"I can't believe it," she whispered. "I never thought you…" She burst into tears and even that meant nothing to me. "What are you going to do? What am I going to do?"

"The first doesn't concern you anymore. And the last doesn't concern me; although you're quite famous now and shouldn't have any trouble doing anything you like. Or anyone, for that matter." I felt as though I was watching myself in a play, devoid of all association with the characters involved. And while part of me knew it was wrong most of me didn't care at all and none of me could stop.

"But I want to stay here," she said. She was starting to sound like a spoiled child. I should have known she couldn't keep up her new-found assertiveness for long.

"I don't think that's an option anymore. Though of course you're welcome to take anything you like from your bedroom. You'll forgive me if I keep the present I made you. You didn't seem all that interested anyway."

"Please tell me you're joking. You're playing one of your tricks."

"No. I only play tricks on people I want something from. You no longer qualify." I almost thought she would slap me and perhaps I was hoping she would, but she only stood there like a petulant, overlooked suitor in a bad farce. "I'm very tired, Christine. I really would rather be alone right now."

"You're the most heartless, callous creature I've ever seen," she said. Her eyes were bloodshot and terrible and her skin mottled with anger and I really couldn't bring myself to regret anything.

"You can't pretend you weren't warned. You were supposed to cure me of that."

I might as well have slapped her. "I hate you." The words came parsed out deliberately as if she was learning a new language. Lesson learned, she repeated it, this time at a much higher volume. And then suddenly, like the passing of a thunderstorm, she was gone. The silence was almost deafening.

Alone I walked over to her door and shut it. The sound of the catch snapping into place resounded and made me realize just how empty these rooms were without her. As I wandered aimlessly around them I felt despair nosing in around the cracks and I fought to keep it at bay. I didn't want her back. But I wanted back what I had. I wasn't used to being alone anymore. I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong but I knew it was my fault somehow. Somehow my love had killed itself. I felt a little foolish for being surprised. I should have known that Christine, as she was, was unattainable. An ideal in human flesh, but on a pedestal and meant to stay there. I had created the monster's bride, not from pieces of unwanted humanity but from this stupid, silly, innocent, perfect girl.

But I wasn't quite alone, I realized as I caught sight of the phonograph. I had the memory of my love. And that was proof at least that something had been here. That I hadn't fabricated the entire thing. That I'd been able to capture her voice for just one moment, as I had failed to do her soul.

Part of me envied her. I'd never had a choice about selling mine. Not that it mattered. I wouldn't have hesitated.

I knew the knock at the door wasn't her. I opened it and the daroga stood there, still dressed in his cast-off finery and looking smaller than I remembered.

"I saw her, Erik," he said softly, and I couldn't read him at all. "She said you shouldn't be alone."

Without a word I turned and walked into the house, knowing he'd follow. I heard the door close behind me as I reached the phonograph and placed the needle at the outer edge of the recording and he had already settled onto the couch by the time I joined him. Not a word was exchanged but it was enough. The voices twined around us, reminding me that there was a moment when I had been alive and had loved and had forgotten just what I was. It was enough.

Notes: So, here it is. Written nearly ten years ago now, and presented largely without edits. I always intended to go back and re-write the whole thing. When I realized this isn't at all what I'd write now, I decided to let it out into the world anyway. There is a lot I don't like about it, but I'm not the same person. And I hope the story will still hold appeal for some. Mostly, it's reactionary, against a trend I saw in Erik's characterization. This goes, perhaps, too far a different way (and leans too heavily on Susan Kay), but I think there is probably space for non-romantic relationship stories. Thanks so much for bearing with me!