Part III: Celine Again

  
     Grace moved a few of her things down to Erik's home under the theatre, knowing she would be ruined if they were discovered, and not caring in the least. They weren't doing anything besides taking pleasure in each other's company and preparing for the spring plays. Erik had chosen to do The Taming of the Shrew, and Grace was playing Katrina.

   Erik did not propose marriage, nor did he ever hint at it. He kissed her with great passion, looked at her with intense love, and spoke to her with playful adoration. Grace ignored the empty pit of dread forming inside her and continued to be happy.

    Christina would be unable to go out in about five months, and so she wanted to take as much advantage of her remaining time as she could, and invited Grace to lunch. To Grace's annoyance, all she could talk about was how happy she was for her and Erik. Neither had told anyone anything, but somehow Christina and Leroux, who were becoming friends, guessed that a transfer of affections had taken place.

   "I hope you will be happy together."

   "There isn't much to -"

   "And I don't see why not. Erik will adore you so long as you don't take off his mask," Christina giggled.

   "What?"

   "Hmm?"

   "Why is he so... concerned with his mask?" Grace asked. She had never asked him out of respect, but Christina was a different story.

   "Hasn't he told you he's deformed?" Christina's delicate eyebrows knit.

   "But its not as bad as that, yes? He acts like he doesn't have skin on his face."

   Christina placed a hand over hers. "What he has is much worse." She leaned closer. "He is cursed with... death's head!"

   No shit.

  "Oh?" Playing dumb would get her better answers.

   "Yes, poor man. But obsession and rage are not the worst of his problems, I'm afraid. I still remember when I first took his mask off, what he did and how I cried, begging him to stop. I was so stupid to disregard his warnings! How disgusting it all was, how terrifying! I can feel the pain of his cruel hands grabbing mine. He clawed my fingers down his face, clawed his waxen skin with my nails till the fragile stuff broke and bled. Nearly gouged his awful eyes out. They were so haunting... and his nose... it is a corpse's head on a man's body."

   Grace was worried, for Christina was truly traumatized by the situation. Although, Christina would faint from a paper cut.

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Grace had was shaken afterwards. Not because of Erik's face. She was distressed because of his lack of trust in her.

   When she arrived at the theatre, she went right down to his home to see him.

     "Erik!" She called.

    He came out from his black bedroom, carrying a stack of papers.

   "I was just reorganizing my desk, Grace. I'll be with you in a moment, my love."

   He set his stack down and went back inside. She grew mad. Why was that so important? She strolled over, taking a quick glance at his stack of papers. Sheet music. She instantly forgot her anger and eagerly flipped through the pages, looking for arias and intriguing lyrics. All she happened upon, were, right in the middle of the music, pictures of her. Drawings. Seems like she was his new obsession. She smiled.

  He came out again, almost knocking into her.

She reached up and kissed him.

   "How are you, my heart? You looked a bit off a moment ago." He took her hand.

   "I just saw Christina. She told me an interesting story."

   "Oh? What about?" His arms wrapped around her.

   "Your face."

   He pushed her away. "Oh."

   "Can't I see it? I've never asked before, whereas she it seems, couldn't wait for your consent."

   "Because I said so."

   "I'm not a child, Erik, that won't work on me."

   "You will not!"

   "I'll wait until you're ready."

   "You will never see me without my mask, is that clear?" He raised his voice to her.

   She was furious. How dare he speak to her like that!

   "Erik!"

   "No!"

   She couldn't understand why he did not trust her. Why would he not reveal his appearance. How could he sing and speak to her in such abandon, confess his many sins to her, still not show himself?

  "You see me!" She shouted.

   "You have nothing to hide -"

   "Yes, I -"

   "I cannot show you! I am deformed! I am deformed and I have suffered from that deformity all of my life. Suffered from my mother, who hid me and abused me, who sold me to those people not unlike your abductors all those years go. You respected me when you were a child, Grace, why can you not respect me now?" He hissed at her, hardly able to contain his loathing.

   She was struck by the reference to her past, astounded by it. But she could not think for more than a moment about it, when the pure pain, the agony behind his words, spoken by his gloriou voice, registered in her mind.

   "And you think I will ridicule you, shun you because of a simple deformity?"

   "Yes!" He answered, running a gloved hand through his hair. "I know you will. Everyone else has." He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. "It has happened before. With my friends, with Christina. I have lost all I had, all I knew. I cannot bear to lose you. I shall kill myself before I lose you. I'll kill you before I let you look at my face and run." His hand mencingly stroked her neck in threat.

   She was seized by a sudden idea not unlike when she stabbed herself as Renata. He was vulnerable now, as his hands were digging into her shoulders, fingers spreading across her neck and arms, painfully. He wouldn't expect it. Grace had no clue what she believed it was that made her feel so different, what she thought made her strong enough to bear what other's couldn't. All she knew was that this was something she needed. Something he needed. Something  they needed. Her hands whipped up faster than his fingers could dance across the keys of his organ and ripped off his mask.

   With a dreadful scream he struck her very hard and she fell into the rocky wall. He hoped he had done it soon enough to halt her wandering eyes, but he had not. And his mask remained clutched in her hands.

    Grace had seen and now she understood. Nausea tore through her. She wished she had never viewed what lie behind the well-crafted mask that mirrored the other side of his face. The single sunken gold eye, rimmed with the black and grey shadows of death, the crooked, scarred, ridged hole of his nose, his portruding brow hanging over his face, the hollow, collapsed cheek, the horrible scars running jaggedly down his cheekbone to just above his jaw. The yellow skin that actually glistened it was so frail, and so transparent she could count the webbing of purple, blue, and green veins underneath. The strangeness of his lips were now explained: he was missing the top right half of his upper lip, all that was there was flat skin and nothing more. The entire right side of his face was that of a corpse, a battle worn veteran, and a beast. A dead, rotted man.

   The next thing she felt was disgust. She was disgusted with herself for fearing him. For being repulsed by him. His heart was far more handsome than the flawless, left side of his face, and the faces of all the perfectly scultped, handsome men in the world. He had been her savior. He had been her friend. He was still her love. She still loved him, though now he would never love her. He had been so kind to her, and many others, and now here she was, repulsed by him only because of her mind. What she considered to be abnormal was really beautiful in its own way. She was sickened by herself more than him.

   His back was to her as she rose to her feet. His shoulders heaved with the silent sobs of heartbreak. She had hurt him. She took his mask and threw it into the water, where it quickly sank to the bottom.

Erik turned around at the sound, his hands over his face, peering with his left eye, and at once understanding what she had done when he saw the mask's absence from her hands. He was livid.

    "What have you done?" He growled, his harsh tone making her wince and relive the slap of his hand on her cheek, the mark of which, she guessed from his suddenly guilty stare, was still on her face. The blood dripping from her hairline where she hit the rocks didn't help either. It seemed to fuel his rage. She saw he was torn between aiding her and being angry and wanting to see her blood spill. She looked at her feet a moment, gathering her strength and love for him. She could look at him and not show fear or disgust. She could look upon the hideous man with the heart of gold - who saved her life, treated her and others with kindness, and guided her through her blindness when others hurt her for it - and find him handsome. If he could see passed her deformities, she could see passed his.

   She faced him. "Take your hands away from your face."

   "No."

   "Take them away, I've seen you and no matter what I see I shall never turn away."

   "Aren't you repulsed? Haven't you gazed upon your poor Erik enough!" He asked.

   "I was, but I won't be again. You are muffling your own words. Take your hands away and speak to me."

Erik spotted the demand. He had a few of his own.

   "Tell me how you are not disgusted."

   "Because while you know my flaws better than anyone, you have still been kinder to me than anyone. Because I care about. And I am not saying Christina did not. I am ashamed of the disgust I felt moment ago, when it should be you who are disgusted with me."

   He wanted to argue many of those points, but felt the matter at hand to be the most  important.

   "You made up your mind, that is it?"

   "And my heart."

   He grinned as he felt his cruels streak come out. He took a few steps towards her.

   "And you want to prove this decision to me now?"

   Grace nodded.

   "Very well," he snapped. "Prove it. I shall let you look and prove what you say is true. But after you look at my face again... you must see my horror... and kiss me liked we kissed on the balcony, the night of your birthday. When you complained later about kissing my mask more than you were kissing me."

   Grace swallowed. Kissing death. She'd done it many times. Now it meant something.

   She closed the gap between them, and pulled his hands away, knowing he could not bring himself to do it voluntarily. She winced at the sight of the damage, but looked deeply into the eyes that had mocked her, been amused with her, and once, she hoped, loved her. And that was all she needed. She stood on her toes as he stooped, both trying to accommodate his height and her lack thereof. Slowly, their eyes closed and their lips met, pressing together sweetly. The wildness came seconds after, and Erik's arms wrapped around Grace in a constricting hold that took her breath away. He held her and kissed her urgently, crushing her too him with a powerful desperation and need, as if he would never kiss her again. When it was done, neither wanted to face reality, the kisses they shared were so wonderful, seducing them into a world of their own where there was no perfection and just them.

  When they met each other's eyes, there was no pity or disgust. There was just love. His pain and sadness were still there, the eternal suffering. But he wasn't feeling those things.

    "Why you and only you?" Erik whispered.

   Grace wanted to cry. Was he unhappy that she was the only person who was not afraid? Was he disappointed it was her whom he could confide in and show himself truthfully around? Big eyed, small, mousy haired her?

   She pulled back. "I'm sorry. I don't know."

   "You don't know?"

   "I don't know! Maybe its because I love -" She shouldn't tell him that. Not when he didn't want to hear it.

   "Because why Celine?" She recoiled as if he hit her again. "Do you not love Erik, the monster, the dead man who loves you?"

  She wasn't listening. He had promised not to call her that again, not to remind her of her past.

   "That's not my name!" She screamed.

  "Why! It isn't Grace, it's Celine! Or is that just another demon you file with me?"

   "Stop!"

   "Why? Why can't you face your past? Why am I -"

   "I HATE YOU!"

   "I hate you too," he whispered. "Its disgusting how easily love can turn to hate, how it can turn to fear. Well fear me, Celine, your lover from hell!" He made her face him, and she slapped him, the sound of her hand against his face resonated around the cavernous house.

   "You are my lover from Hell. And the horrible thing is I still love you. But its not real love. It isn't pity. But it isn't love."

    She extracted herself from hos grasp and walked into her room, drawing out a carpet bag from under her bed.

   "We've made a mistake Erik. We can't love each other."

   "Because I'm a monster?"

   She began opening drawers, looking for her things. Stopping only as she thought about his question. "Did you love me with the intention of marrying me?"

   "No."

   "You just wanted to use me. I was your Renata. But I won't kill myself over you. I won't stand by and sing for you, caged by my own heart, helpelss to fly away. I won't be your trapped songbird."

   "What are you doing? I didn't plan on marrying Christina either, marriage was what she wanted."

    "So all I am, all she was, was one of the many girls you'll trap into loving you and fearing you. One of the girls you'll use until you have them and delude yourself into loving them or you find another, is that it? I'm leaving. I shouldn't live with you."

   "Christina never gave me this much trouble."

   "IT IS ALWAYS ABOUT CHRISTINA! I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" She threw her shoe at his head. "I'm not pretty enough. You want something whole and beautiful! Well I'm not! And you want to know something? That carriage peeled away nine inches of skin from my abdomen and chest! They had to sew me back together. My body is just as twisted as your face! As your needy, revolting soul!"

   "I don't think I ever did love you, Grace," was all he said.

    Grace sobbed once before brushing passed him and going out the door.

   She couldn't think. But she couldn't leave like this. He hurt her and she needed the last word.

   "It's not your face that makes you a horror. It's you. You have a way of making me feel so bad about myself. You scare people. You enjoy their fear. You want love but fear does not inspire love! And I will never love you. I was stupid to ever believe I could love, or that you were even capable of it. You cannot love, and that is your curse, not your beautiful, sacred death's head."

   And she left him standing there, in shock and pain.

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    Grace threw down her bag and ran up the stairs into the sitting room where George and Nora were taking there afternoon teacakes.

   The sight of their daughter, distraught, out of breath, and crying terrified them.

   "Grace what's the matter?" Nora asked.

  "We need to leave, we need to go back to America."

   "But sugar, I thought you were happy here!" George said.

   "I need to go back to the States! Colorado or Georgia..."

   "But, Pumpkins -"

   "I cannot live in France another minute!"