Note from Author: this is the same story that I once wrote, however, I chose to rewrite the last bits of it and to continue to finish this story. It's been too long Thanks to everyone who's read it in the past when it was under my other penname babygx; all ur reviews are greatly appreciated!
TEMPERANCE
"She had all but forgotten the kiss they had exchanged when they said goodbye." House of the Spirits
Do they all forget who I am or has my past been sculpted into a fable with no
morals of any kind? There lies no prime reason why the history of our
relationship has been misunderstood, and I still stand to understate the
understatement in that line. The world is incapable of comprehending the rare
and unusual born to this earth, and I am tired of feigning my need for
sincerity. I am sick of playing the death who lives in night.
My half-brother has never seen past the anterior layer of this mask,
and presumably he never will. The squealing admirers and beauty-lovers will
follow him down his path of useless existence while I remain cold and
untouched in the darkest corners of my improper burial.
But I preserve my peace along with a vivid memory of the moments I had
experienced victory, and the greatest depths of love. I hold what is
inextinguishable in my mind and do not release that flame for an eternity of
heaven or hell.
But I am warning you, I will write only what I am capable of reproducing. This is no Shakespeare drama, nor is it a fairy tale, for both of these genres end excessively happy or morose – we are leveled somewhere in between the two separate worlds where a thin line holds it place. In return, I suggest you light a candle, and blow out your thoughts.
Unstable as Christine Daaé may seem, she was a firm believer in her Angel of
Music. After the loss of her father at twenty, most would agree she was
recklessly vulnerable and in need of a father figure. Her lonesome self was
literally crying out for guidance, and one cannot blame me for using that to
my advantage.
She was a chorus girl, the type that did nothing exceptional but dance
in the corpse de ballet and remained unnoticed for her own sake. Her beauty
and voice were also overlooked by the idiot managers who occupied the Opera
Populaire.
But a sparrow's voice could not be caged forever, and after the fateful
night that I heard her sing, it became an absolute obsession to take her under
my wing. Christine Daaé's voice was brilliant, but even brilliance could be
improved upon. Her spirit lacked insurance, and I swore to myself I would move
earth to provide it.
The first time I sang to her she had just threw a fit with Carlotta Giudicelli,
the leading lady of the Opera Populaire. I did not hire that woman; it was a
mutual agreement between the managers I did not bother to destroy. Christine
was a sensitive being, and after three or four sour insults, he poor girl ran
off to her dressing room in humiliation.
That was where I had found her, crying her precious eyes out due to her damaged pride.
I stood quietly behind the large dressing room mirror which took up
more than two-thirds of the dressing room wall. The two-way mirror between us
was especially designed to capture a few moments of the crew men's gossip of
the Opera, but the room had been emptied for Christine's inhabitancy.
I was disappointed by the alteration at first, but later on it proved
it's great convenience.
I beckoned her forward with my voice, and not to my amusement, she did
as I asked. There was one strength and pure beauty inside of me that defeated
all purposes of mortal sin—my voice. I had discovered this gift at a young
age and used it as an instrument of power. With this voice I had easily and
effortlessly manipulated Christine Daaé into believing I was the Angel of
Music. And she had wanted this to lean against, finally an adobe to support
her frail figure.
Her bedroom was made in a matter of days. I had a servant who'd done
all the outside jobs for me since it was impossible to leave the house without
stopping traffic in the streets. I had ordered gowns and dresses of the most
expensive, rich kind, along with chemises, bodices, stockings, shoes,
petticoats, anything a man would consider buying for his fiancée—I knew very
well she was not my wife-to-be, but I often visited her bedroom before I had
taken her in, just to breath in the violet scents of her perfume, mixed with
the fragrance from the floral soaps and bath indulgences I had bought for
her. She was always too modest to use it all, but she never forgot to thank me
or gently brush her hand in gratitude against the cheek of my mask.
Then, I had taken it for granted—it wasn't as though I did not think of
it; I memorized the tinge of warmth the second the tips of her fingertips
touched my face, and I slept (though I did not do this often) with the growing
dream of a deeper touch. She'd given me hope I never found since the day I
was brought into this world. With a firm grip on that hope, I lived on the
brink of happiness for three days.
Until she snatched it away.
It was a night after our regular singing lesson, and I'd brought her
down to the catacombs that evening as I did the other three nights. Her
expression had the same angelic brightness, and I sensed nothing dangerous from
her soft mesmorized smile. She'd even touched me again, which I found
delightfully normal by then, but still forbidden.
But Christine Daaé lost all purposeful defenses during her voice lessons, which
is why I forced myself to be extremely cautious. I would hardly look into her
eyes during the lessons in fear of losing my own self-restraint. When the
music built up to the climax of the piece, I had allowed my own mind to be
wrapped in the euphoria of glorious notes…and I did not notice her little hand
as it reached out and lifted my mask from my face.
How does one define desperation? It is when the blood in your body
freezes and paralyzes your mind into one terrifying thought, when all you have
hoped would come true was a building pyramid that is destroyed into ruins,
when an outstretched hand suddenly withdraws and one is left with nothing to
hold onto and he is trapped in an endless fall.
I looked up at her for the very first time that night and she shrunk
away from me instinctively, and she just stared at me in horror like she was
staring at a complete stranger…the man who she'd seemingly trusted in these
three days had been transformed into a monster, and he was scaring his little
ingenue to death. A second later I had looked away, my body shaking and my
face wrenching out frustrated tears and the buried fear of exposure. I was
still crying when she shakily pushed my mask across the floor to me, repeating
the first words she'd ever spoken to me since I saw her.
"I'm so sorry…."
We looked at each other for an unbearable span of time. At last, when
I'd finally regained the dignity and human consciousness, I stood and left her
alone by the pipe organ. It seemed strangely stupid to say anything to her
after the bitter confrontation. I thought it right to blame her for allowing
curiosity to take the upper hand. It was the one human trait that I despised
with passion.
But the next night when I had beckoned her through her mirror, she did
not refuse. When I played my music and drove her to the farthest horizons of
ecstasy, she did not resist. I watched her half-closed eyes cloud with
pleasure and the tempting, small raise and fall of her breasts to my song, but
my voice was silent. Deep inside, I did not know how to take her return, as
an invitation, an act of pity, or one of confusion. There were many things I
wanted to ask her, but I concluded by asking nothing at all.