The Season of the Witch

Opening only one drape, he cast the room in silver moonlight.  Light that increased and faded as layers of clouds, trailing on a mild wind, obscured the lustrous orb.  During the day, their life was drenched in sunlight, but their roots were in the theater and now they longed to recreate its wondrous effects.  Striving to produce to near perfection the stimulations of the Opera House, once or twice a month they repeated their own history in this private reproduction.  The delicate scarf told him that Christine wanted to relive the intrigue of their life together in the theater, when he hid in the shadows or the walls and talked to her.  Once again she desired to be instructed and cajoled without knowing the face of the voice that addressed her, that comforting voice of her orphaned youth.  Coming to her, he took a section of peach and placed it within her mouth.  As she ate, he blindfolded her and brought her to stand in the middle of the room.  She stood before the unlit fireplace unable to see, forced to rely upon her other senses.  He moved away.  Erik did not play this particular game to please himself.  He found it painful and agitating, but employed the energies spawned by those emotions to help him service her.  He submitted to this diversion solely for Christine’s sake, and at her tacit request, for it appeased some burning need within her to re-live accepting him and his wreckage of a face.  Sadly, he acknowledged that for some reason, she still feared loosing her Angel of Music, even though that angel was only a man, and a twisted one at that.  No, given his preference, he would choose to re-enact their past meetings in her father’s tomb, or enjoy the pleasures of the devilishly tricky chamber of mirrors.