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The settee in the underground parlor did not like her.
To be quite honest, Christine didn’t much like it, either.
It was an old, garish thing, its back unforgivingly rigid and its cushions hardened with years of little use. She’d never seen Erik sit upon it and, with his lack of guests, she wondered if anyone ever had. Until her. She supposed she should feel bad for the thing, being so unaccustomed to fulfilling its intended use, but that was a difficult emotion to cultivate when every position Christine tried on the accursed piece of furniture felt worse than the last. If she could find just one position, any position, that was comfortable to her, she knew she’d make amends with the settee. They’d become good friends. She tried not to dwell on how odd it was to think of an inanimate object in this way.
Christine turned on her side, propping herself up on an elbow and stretching her legs across the settee’s seat, her stockinged feet placed carefully over the far arm. With each tiny movement, each minuscule shifting of her body, the settee creaked and groaned its displeasure, as if protesting her very existence.
“You’re not such a terribly great prize either, you know,” Christine grumbled.
She didn’t know exactly why she was so adamant on finding a comfortable position on this thing. It clearly did not feel the same generosity toward her. But Christine was stubborn, and this was the one piece of her husband’s furniture she had yet to conquer, and she’d be darned if she gave up so close to achieving her goal. Silly goal though it was.
Erik was spending the day working in his study, which left Christine to her own devices. She’d thought about practicing her piano, but then realized the sound might be too disturbing, and in any case she preferred practicing when he was able to be beside her. She’d sit on one end of the bench and he the other, and soon, whether or not either of them planned it, her practicing would become them improvising, and the day would be wiled away with laughter and music. No. As pleasant as that was, she would not disturb his work. So she’d wandered into his library, instead.
Rather, it was their library. She was reminded of that as she’d perused the dark wooden shelves, running her fingers along the spines of books she couldn’t imagine Erik, not in a thousand years, ever picking up for himself. He was a well-read man, but he tended toward texts of the more obscure nature: tomes in Arabic about the modern field of architecture, treatises on German composers of the past century, experimental papers detailing the latest scientific and medicinal theories. The books he procured for her were the kind one could spend an afternoon with, and find it exceedingly pleasant, fictional company. She did not mind this. Christine did not need to read her husband’s books to glean new information or feel intellectual; Erik, upon finishing, would expound upon them in great detail. His eyes — those beautiful amber eyes — would glow with excitement, and his hands — with those long, limber fingers often encased in leather — would fly everywhere, gesturing with each new hypothesis or bit of knowledge he shared with her. Christine loved listening to him speak, found joy in his exuberance. She would not give that near nightly experience up in favor of reading those texts alone, not for a thousand years.
Besides, she liked the idea that Erik picked her books especially for her. She enjoyed the image of him stalking down the aisle of a bookshop, stopping short, shifting his weight from foot to foot, hemming and hawing about what, perhaps, his Christine might find pleasure in reading. She’d smiled, and her finger had come to rest upon a new volume. A French translation of a book she’d heard of, but never gotten the chance to read. Jane Eyre. Christine had plucked it from the shelf and set out to conquer the settee.
She’d yet to succeed. There she lay, in the most ludicrous position thus far, and still Jane had barely been opened. And, as if sensing her thoughts and wishing to rub salt in the wound, the settee chose that very moment for one of its springs, buried deep beneath the cushions, to let out a loud clang. A great pop of displeasure. Christine considered giving up the ghost entirely.
“Really,” she said, throwing up her hands, “I’ve never met a ruder piece of furniture.”
But Christine didn’t like giving in, and if she could tame an opera house’s resident phantom she could certainly manage a settee.
With a huff, Christine attempted her last resort. She slipped onto the carpet below, turning around to place her back against the floor and her stockinged feet up upon the cushions. She felt ridiculous.
“How do you like that now?” she said to the settee. As long as she was feeling absurd, she might as well embrace it entirely. Christine opened her book, all spite and gall, taking a moment to arrange her skirts to cover herself. Perhaps it was a bit of a scandalous position, but she’d moved beyond caring. Besides, who was around to comment? Erik had seen far more shocking things in his many years than the covered legs of his own wife. She flipped to the first chapter.
Christine read for some time, the frown on her face deepening with each page. Jane’s childhood had been horribly unfair. Death and a lack of charity from those surrounding her followed her wherever she went. Each time there was some bit of kindness or hope thrown her way, it was dashed into nothing. Christine could not help herself from comparing their situations, their countenances.
Though Christine had been a more sociable, perhaps pleasant girl than Jane, she’d been required to be. It was a necessity for survival. What good was a sensible child to a father whose head remained in the clouds, sharing myths and legends as fact? What good was a girl who did not smile and dance as her father played his violin, who did not contribute to their singing for their supper? Christine recognized in Jane a similar respect for and fear of the superstitious. A burgeoning belief in God and His many wonders, His blessings and his curses. Christine felt for the girl of the story and the girl she herself had once been, and how in one instant both their lives had been changed by the death of the one they held most dear.
For Christine, that change had come largely by a sudden thrust into reality. Her papa, who could cast magic upon her just as deftly as he drew his bow across the strings, was gone. Mama Valerius did not dwell without great effort in the realm of the lucid, and never for very long. Christine was, for all intents and purposes, alone, a young woman raised on folklore and fables and expected to find her way in the world without genuine guidance. She did her best, but always came up short. She’d been a pleasant, gracious child, yes, and then a pleasant, gracious young woman, but still it was never enough. She was odd. Considered a bit off. Even at the opera house, everyone kept their distance.
Until him.
Christine had taken many years to find a place of comfort, a place she truly belonged. She hoped Jane would find hers sooner.
To Christine’s surprise, when she finally came up for air she found she’d finished several chapters without even realizing. She was near a quarter into the book. She’d meant this silly position — half on the settee, half off, all upside down — as a last resort, but it truly was comfortable. More comfortable, at least, than any of its predecessors. Christine was immensely proud of herself. She’d bested the vile thing at last. And certainly the position she’d found peace in was unconventional, but then again, so was she. So was living on a lake five cellars beneath the most esteemed opera in all of Paris. So was marrying a man who’d once masqueraded as an angel.
“Are you comfortable, my dear?”
Speak of the devil. The angel. The man. Christine smiled to herself and shifted her head, looking up at her curious, bewitching husband.
Erik stood in the open doorway to his study, a thick tome in his hand and an expression of amusement alighting his lips. His face was covered in black silk from brow to upturned upper lip, but his eyes shone clear and bright within the mask’s sockets, taking in the strange way Christine had situated herself.
“Yes,” she said, still smiling. She watched as what she could see of his expression softened, noted the relief dropping into his shoulders. “I am quite content.”
Her husband was a tall man. Taller than she by far, though that comparison truly wasn’t saying much; everyone was taller than Christine. He was notably thinner, in addition, slender enough that when she embraced him she could wrap her arms around his waist and meet her very own sides on the return. It felt as if she were embracing both of their bodies at once, and she relished doing so. There was a chill to his skin Christine had once called unnerving, but with time and exposure she’d come to find it soothing. On a hot summer day she could hold his hand without bother, could tuck herself into the crook of his arm and find it the most reassuring place in the world.
And there were ways to warm him if need be.
Christine’s thoughts were interrupted by the man himself. Erik stepped out of the study’s door frame, into the parlor proper, moving with the preternatural grace that characterized all his movements. It took her breath away. As it did now, as he took another step toward her, closer to her. Christine adjusted her wire-rimmed spectacles.
“Erik had the thought he could join you,” he said, falling into his habit of referring to himself in the third person. He clutched his book in both hands, fingers tapping a nervous melody into the vellum cover.
Her response was immediate. “Of course,” And then: “Christine would like that very much.”
When it came to her husband, being clear with her intentions was of the utmost importance. She wanted to read by his side, to listen with rapture as, when the day grew long, he closed his book and told her of all the wonderful things he’d uncovered and wished to share with her. He’d spent so long shunned from the company of others it still astonished him now and again that anyone, much less she, whom he put on a pedestal above all else, would desire his companionship. And she did adore teasing him, just the slightest bit, about that pesky third person habit. She never meant it maliciously; if anything, it conveyed her intentions all the more clearly.
Christine expected Erik to take his place in his usual seat: a well-loved armchair with the tallest, straightest back she’d ever seen. A chair fit for a king, a throne of dark, supple leather that, while Christine had not found exactly comfortable as she’d nested herself within it, did produce a certain feeling of regality. She’d wondered if that was the chief reason Erik had been drawn to it; power beget power. Like called to like. When he’d walked into the parlor that day and seen her draped across his chair, Christine had thought he’d fall to his knees. Kiss the hem of her skirts with reverence. She would have let him. This time, she would have enjoyed it.
Erik bypassed his chair completely, and to Christine’s surprise, moved toward the settee. She shifted her feet to give him more room to sit, but instead of suffering the hard cushions, the protesting springs, he lowered himself to the carpet beside her. He mirrored her position, back against the floor and long, lean legs before him. It was a bit funny, Christine thought, how much longer his legs were than hers; whereas her feet fell just short of the settee’s straight back, his reached beyond, coming to rest upon the very top of its trim. It gave the impression of lying beside a particularly spindly, tail-coated spider.
“Shall I remove your shoes?” she asked. It would truly complete the picture: the opera ghost, upside down and feet on the furniture, shoeless. Her husband, the great inventor and composer, wiggling his toes in the air. Christine pressed her lips together to keep from laughing at the image.
“Don’t trouble yourself, my dear.” He tapped the tips of his toes together, the sharply polished shine of his shoes catching the light. “It took so long to find a comfortable position, I wouldn’t dream of disturbing you.” And the look he gave her was jovial, knowing, and Christine had the distinct impression he’d heard the settee creaking at her every movement, heard her grumbling to it in response. Of course he’d heard. The man heard everything.
This had been another aspect Christine found unnerving at first. How could one have complete privacy, or even a semblance of it, when another was always listening? But Erik had come to temper himself at her request, and eventually she found his strange skill useful, even a bit thrilling at times. She received aid upon request, no matter if she were singing on the opera’s stage or winding through the labyrinth of its cellars, and there was something exciting about being able to whisper her husband’s name and having him appear beside her in minutes. He came at her call, and the authority in this filled Christine with warmth, pleasant and powerful.
“I am glad you found a suitable position,” Erik said, breaking into her thoughts. “I was afraid I would have to discard the settee completely.”
“Oh, perish the thought.”
And he laughed at that, a rich, sonorous sound that reverberated across the floor and made the length of Christine’s spine tingle. She could live forever in his voice. The way it encased each word Erik spoke with such deliberateness, such otherworldly melody. She pitied those who had shunned him, thought it an appropriate punishment heaven would never meet their ears again. She loathed that she had been one of them for a time, felt deeply grateful to the continued cultivation of her soul that some form of compassion had won out. Her husband was far from perfect, but he possessed the voice of a god, and he was hers to possess.
“This is indeed quite comfortable,” Erik said, low and soft, looking at her with all the love in the world. That love was hers to accept and bestow in return. Christine smiled.
“Did Erik doubt Christine?”
“Never.”
She knew that wasn’t entirely true. Erik had survived for decades on his doubt and distrust for humanity. The human race, as he’d called it. A thing he considered to be separate from himself, taught to think this way through fear and cruelty, the only constants in his long, extraordinary life. Such a mindset did not disappear easily, nor all at once. Christine may have married him, may have stayed by his side, a living wife, but he still wore his mask. He was still afraid. Still fell into his third person habit when he feared rejection, or that she would disapprove of him in some way. And he longed so profoundly for her approval. He longed to convince himself of her love.
So no, Christine did not, in the depths of her heart, think he never doubted her. It took time to gain trust, to be certain of it, and they both still nursed the wounds they’d given each other in the process of getting even this far. But she allowed herself to believe him in that moment, because for that moment she knew he was trying to believe himself. He was trying not to doubt her, and so she would not doubt him. She would affirm to them both the extent of her love.
Christine set Jane aside. She reached for her skirts, tucking them around her legs as she brought the whole frothy mass to the floor. She slid onto her stomach, arranging her body so it lay perpendicular to Erik’s on the carpet, the length of her parallel to the settee. She propped herself up on her elbows and shifted forward, bringing her face mere centimeters from her husband’s.
He breathed her name, eyes large and deep within the open sockets of his mask. The dark was a dear, sometimes sole friend to those peculiar, unearthly eyes; there were times that only in the blackness of night could they be seen at all. But in this new position she’d taken, it didn’t matter that light still shone in the parlor. Christine could see plainly the luminance of Erik’s eyes, brightest amber in color and unabashed wonder in expression. She loved them, just as she loved what her name on his tongue, across his lips, in his throat, did to her. It was a hymn for her ears only. She ran her fingers lightly along the black silk of his mask, tracing the contours of the shape it gave his face. She savored the softness of the material, the sturdiness of the leather frame that lay beneath. Her husband sucked in a breath. Christine thought the loveliness of that sound might surpass even her name.
With all gentleness, every drop of care she possessed, Christine ran the tips of her fingers along the edge of Erik’s mask, pressing up on the side closest to her with a feather’s touch. She kept her gaze on him, monitoring for any sign of distress or discomfort, any indication she had gone too far. They had been here before, after all, and with disastrous results. She did not wish to hurt him again.
She did not wish for him to hurt her in return.
They were different people now, or at least attempting to be, and proper warning and caution on Christine’s part brought about far different results than a heedless snatching-off of a man’s most prominent armor. Erik might always be afraid of baring his face before others — a fear difficult to uproot, ingrained as it had been across fifty years of life — but he composed himself now as best he could, book still open in his stiff, clenched hands, but long forgotten. He would not be able to focus upon it for some time. Not with her so near. Christine slipped the mask from her husband’s features.
As much as she looked back on it with regret, there had been good reason for Christine’s fear upon her first unmasking of him. She’d been so young, so taken with the Voice, that mystical being who spoke to her from behind walls and ceilings and nurtured her own human voice into something even the heavens would be envious of. To find that Voice was not only a man of flesh and blood, but that he would dare spirit her away and lock her within his home without so much as showing her his face infuriated her. Fascinated her. She’d crept up behind him, torn away his mask, defied the one edict he’d warned her must not be defied. But when one was in an inconceivable situation, one did inconceivable things. And Christine had paid the price. She kept her nails clipped short even now; she never again wished to dig the remains of dead tissue, pulpy and crimson and yellow, out from beneath them.
She regretted the manner in which she’d unmasked Erik, but not that she’d done so at all. He might never have shown her his face if she had not given them no other option. And if she had not seen him without his armor of leather and silk, he might have let her leave the house on the lake, promising to return to him, only for her to decide to fly fast and far the moment she was free. But that narrow concept of freedom had vanished with his unmasking, disappearing in terror and curses.
It was after she’d painted the parlor wall with the remains of his blood, after she’d crawled to her room and laid hands upon her silver scissors, that Christine had stopped. Considered the options left to her.
She was in hell, but there were ways to make it heaven.
And so she’d returned to Erik, blood-spattered Persephone to his shaking, panicked Hades, and looked upon his Death’s head with every bit of strength left to her. She’d told him beautiful lies and transfigured their nightmare into the strangest blessing either of them had ever received.
For it was not his petrifying visage, truly, but Erik’s abject despair at her setting eyes upon it, that bound Christine to the man so fiercely. In his despair was the foundation of a life Christine had not expected, nor planned, but could be hers for the taking. Here was a man who performed feats of magic she’d never dreamed possible, who sang with the voice of God and had placed all of Paris at her feet. Here was a man who raged and tore at himself, who fell to his knees and could not stand again for the vehemence of his weeping, resigning himself to dragging his wasted body across the parlor floor. He was pathetic. He was cleverer than anyone she’d ever known. He was a miraculous and dangerous contradiction, and when she’d torn off his mask and looked into his eyes she’d seen the truth.
This strange creature craved her acceptance. Her love.
The phantom of the opera, that ghost spoken of in whispered reverence, in placations for his favor by ballet rats and romantic tenors alike, absolutely and unequivocally needed her. And if she could put aside his face, learn to live with it best she could, Christine would finally possess what she longed for most dearly, what she’d lacked since the day her father had left this Earth: a comfortable position.
A place to belong.
Christine looked upon Erik’s face now and wondered when she had stopped needing to lie to herself, to them both. When she had not only come to tolerate his face, so yellow and waxy, the skin pulled taut over the bone of his skull and dipping almost obscenely into the crag where his nose should have grown, but to love it, in her way. The thinness of his lips brushing the palm of her hand while they hid in Box Five; the wisps of hair on the back of his head, unbelievably soft when she ran her fingers through them and the lack of it on his brow so smooth against the underside of her arm; the scraggly curve of his ear that reddened ever so slightly at the tip when he was embarrassed. Or anxious. As he was now, under the scrutiny of her gaze.
He was so frightened.
Christine smiled.
She kissed him, then, her magician. Her inventor and composer and lyricist and madman. This man who was entirely hers.
Christine kissed his cheek first, so she could watch his Adam’s apple bob, feel a certain perverse deliciousness as he swallowed. His forehead next, so she could observe the wet shine of tears beginning to pool in the corner of his eyes, his decidedly spiritual realization that she touched him willingly, sincerely, and yet remained alive and whole. His lips last, so she could lose herself in him, overcome.
She didn’t think she could pinpoint the exact moment beautiful lies had become truth. Perhaps it had been one evening before the parlor’s fireplace, as he’d tried to catch her eye like a faithful dog and she’d rewarded him by listening to the discoveries of his latest reading, finding herself vaguely interested in what he spent so much time and effort poring over.
Perhaps it was the scores of fine dresses and jewelry she’d never before been able to afford but he procured for her like water, ever-flowing and endless. The vocal lessons he gave that transported her to another plane of existence and brought the opera house beneath her thumb. The way he played the violin so like her father, would dedicate a requiem each year in the Perros chapel to his memory.
It might have been the wire-rimmed spectacles he’d presented her with a flourish, having noticed she brought her books closer and closer to her frustrated face with each passing day. The fact that the spectacles had been utterly and entirely perfect; his genius, infuriatingly enough, extended beyond the artistic. In truth, Christine had never been cared for so well.
She’d realized this one morning, several months into their strange experiment. He had gone out for provisions and so she’d wandered into his kitchen — their kitchen — and stood before the breadbox, at a loss for what to do without him. She couldn’t prepare lunch until he’d returned, and the thought of working through the aria she was to sing for the opera’s upcoming gala didn’t hold much appeal. She’d only have to go over it again once he’d gotten back; she wanted his opinion on a section with which she was having difficulty, his consummate ear in diagnosing the problem and his pragmatic manner in helping her solve it.
She’d reached for the handle of the breadbox despite knowing it was empty, and the band around her finger had glinted gold in the lamplight. She’d stopped. The pieces fell into place anyway, with a rapidity that crushed the air from her lungs.
It wasn’t just his aid she looked forward to. It was the way in their lessons he placed his hands lightly upon her shoulders to dislodge their tension, how he lifted her chin with one leather-clad finger — always gloved, so as not to shock her with the chill and smell of his skin — when it drifted down and threatened to obstruct her airway. It was that moment the night prior, in the glow of the parlor’s fireplace, when Erik had noticed an errant lock of her hair and softly, solemnly, brushed it back into place. She had not been repulsed. Not one bit. Instead, she’d felt as warm as the fire blazing in the hearth, a pleasant flush that quickened her breath. He’d moved to continue his reading, and she’d wanted him to stay.
Christine realized it then, one hand still on the breadbox handle: she missed him. He’d only been gone for a few minutes, but already she missed him. She wanted the house’s bell to ring, alerting her to his arrival. She wanted him to open the door and step into the vestibule and remove his hat. She wanted to help him unfasten his cloak as he told her how kind she was for the aid, how it was raining cats and dogs outside and didn’t they know he’d forgetten his umbrella, after all.
She was comfortable. She was cared for. And she cared for him.
Here was a man who had never been wanted before. Never been loved, not so deeply and truly by another human being. Not as she’d come to love him. No one, until her.
Perhaps she could pinpoint the moment, insignificant as it seemed, after all.
Having taken her fill of him for the time, Christine drew back from Erik’s bare, salt-streaked face. She licked her swollen lips and tasted her husband on her tongue.
“If the mask brings you comfort,” she murmured, “you are welcome to continue wearing it.” Tears still flowed from those deep, dark sockets, and Christine wiped them away as they reached his sunken cheeks. “But know that I no longer need you to.”
His lips trembled. Slowly, as if afraid the world would wake him from his dream, Erik opened his eyes. He saw her before him, haloed in the lamplight, and looked upon her with reverence. She looked back.
“Perhaps,” he said at last, voice thick with phlegm from his sobs. She loved him all the more for it. “Perhaps for just a little while.”
Christine smiled, a soft thing meant only for him, and placed the mask within his reach. Though his fingers twitched toward the black silk ever so slightly, he did not take hold of it, did not place it upon his face. He breathed, deeply, diaphragm rising with purpose even as his hands shook, and returned to his text. Christine didn’t know how long his courage would hold out, but no matter if it lasted five minutes or five hours, when he placed the mask once more upon his face she would smile for him. Take his hand. Kiss the black silk and brush his hair back and tuck herself into his timorous arms. He needed this from her, and it was so good to be needed.
Christine retrieved Jane Eyre, flipping to where she’d left off. She didn’t know how much of the book she could get through that day, but she hoped she could perhaps finish the remainder. She wanted to know the rest of Jane’s tale: what kind of person she’d become as an adult, who she’d meet along the way, what sort of place she would carve for herself in the world. Christine couldn’t wait to share with Erik what she’d read.
She remained splayed across the carpet, propping Jane against her husband’s side to settle in and properly engross herself. When the leather spine nudged the sharp curve of Erik’s ribs, his breath hitched, and Christine met his gaze. Beyond love, beyond reverence, brimmed something else now in those amber eyes. Something she’d not seen in them before, something that made her heart ache with recognition.
It was belonging. A diffident, tremulous sense of belonging.
In his eyes was the query of it, faintly glimmering, as if he were terrified to feel such a thing at all. It was question and hope fused into one, a longing for her acceptance that felt wholly apart from what she’d seen dyed on his face the day of that first unmasking. He’d wanted her then, but only the idea of her. Pleasant, odd Christine Daaé, who sang so prettily under his command and seemed kind and malleable enough that she might, perhaps, look past his body of Death.
What she saw in his eyes now was his knowledge of her. Stubborn Christine, who did battle with a settee. Witty Christine, teasing him as no one else could. Thoughtful Christine, asking to remove his shoes if it would leave him more at ease. And Brave Christine, who knew the paroxysm of displeasure she might incur if she sat upon his throne, and did it anyway, waiting for him to see the tableau she’d created, waiting to see what he would do.
Christine saw all of this, saw the way Erik had come to know her more deeply than anyone — more deeply, even, than her father had once believed himself to — and that, to her strange relief, he loved her still. Loved her, perhaps, far more than when she’d been just a lovely idea in his head, a vision of goodness to stroll with on Sundays. She saw that shaking, yearning, hope-against-hope that he could be correct in his feeling of belonging, that he might truly possess a place by her side, and breathed it in. She received each bit of feeling, each blossom of love and acceptance and faith from her husband, that man of a thousand contradictions, and sent it back to him tenfold.
Christine shifted, returning to her previous position beside Erik, spine straight against the floor and feet supported by the settee’s cushions. The difference this time, however, was that she left no space between them. Their bodies didn’t match so well that they lay hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder, but the backs of their arms brushed in that way that brought warmth to Christine’s cheeks, a fluttering to her stomach. A hastening of her heartbeat she knew he could hear. They were so close like this, situated side-by-side, that she could rest her head upon her husband’s chest if she so chose.
This final position was, to Christine’s absolute lack of surprise, the most comfortable of them all.