Page 115 of Our Strange Duet

He took a step into the dressing room.

“Well?” Erik said with expectation, and the pause between us expanded, filling the space like an inflating hot-air balloon, until it felt ready to burst. “Here I am,” he finally went on. “What other requirements do you have of me?”

“I want—”

I stopped short as he took an abrupt step in, closing in the space between us.

“Yes?” He tilted his head, and in spite of the mask, I saw both of his eyes watching me with glittering reproach. “What is it you want?”

My lungs felt tight, as if the air had become too potent to breathe, too weighted in possibilities, and swirling with unchecked hunger.

I was tempted to answer honestly, to tell him that despite everything which had happened the night of Il Muto, despite the scene in the graveyard and the chaos of New Year’s Eve, despite it all, I wanted him. I wanted his music. I wanted to be surrounded by it, by his passions, his genius. I wanted to draw it in, to let myself be inundated by it, saturated in it, to feel it fill every bit of me until we were one. I wanted to be inseparable from it, from him. I wanted his melodies to be an extension of my very self. I wanted them imprinted upon me, like a kiss, like a sizzling brand.

Oh God, how I wanted.

“Christine,” he prompted, and my mouth parted, ready to let the litany of my desires spill free.

But something held me back, made me pause.

Going down such a path was dangerous and could lead to depths I’d never dreamed of. To heights I’d never aspired to.

Not till Erik.

“I want to sing Aminta,” I said, and cringed against the inadequacy of my words. “I want to sing it well, as well as you imagined the role.” I balled my fingers into fists, ambition and lust twining together into a monster of insatiable need. “Better, even.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Better?”

“I want everyone in the audience—everyone in the world—to stop and take notice. I want your music and my voice to captivate them, to make them wake up and feel things they never dared.”

“Yes.” It came out in a hushed breath, a murmured desire softer than a whisper, more fervent than a prayer.

“I want to be a great singer, but…that’s not everything. I want to have the music, your music, flow out of me like from the Muses. I want to be one with it.”

Erik sank to his knees before me. We were equals now, staring eye to eye, caught in the fantasy, surrendering to its irresistible pull.

“All of that is possible,” he promised in a rush, and swept my hands into his.

I nodded, accepting the truth. It was. It would happen. We would show them all. “Good.”

“Oh, Christine,” he breathed, hushed and helpless. “I thought you…I feared that…”

I squeezed his hands, silencing his doubts. “I know. I’m sorry.”

His eyes darkened, pupils dilated wide. “And the boy?”

Raoul.

How had I forgotten Raoul?

The music had done it. It was like the call of a siren, hypnotic and beguiling, making me forget everything but it and its composer.

I frowned. “You can’t hurt him. I…I care for him. Immensely. I’m not going to lie to you and pretend otherwise.”

He released his hold of me, rocking back on his heels. The sudden space between us was as cold and slapping as a wave. “Then what is any of this?”

I looked at the piano, at the score resting against its stand. “It’s that. It’s the music. Don Juan Triumphant. Isn’t that…isn’t that enough?” I fell off the stool, joining him on the floor, invading his space as his melodies had invaded my mind. “Isn’t that everything? Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“What I wanted,” he said, and it felt as if our conversation had echoed round upon itself, returning to the very start, a snake eating its own tail.