No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale Read Online Free PDF Page B

even before they were commercially available. His library soon burst with bootlegs—both audio and video—of the show. He collected press clippings, books, sent to New York for every souvenir the show offered, wired to London for the ones he couldn’t procure in New York, went so far as to have an unused back parlor gutted and fitted with a small pipe organ and ornate candelabras in an effort to duplicate one of the sets from the show.
    If he had stopped to think about it, he supposed he would have shocked himself with the depths of his obsession, but it all seemed perfectly natural and, if anything, at least a constructive outlet for his energies. The compulsion at least allowed him to think of something besides his isolation, his utter loneliness.  
    And then the show came to Los Angeles.  
    Up until then he had resigned himself to never being able to see it in person. There was no way a trip to New York would be feasible; he couldn’t allow himself the vulnerability of being that far from home. But with the show only a little more than ten miles over the hills to downtown Los Angeles, the thought of not seeing it was pure torture. The terror of facing crowds was nothing compared to the agony of being deprived of the one thing he had desired for so long. Still, the planning took some time, and it wasn’t until the show had entered the last year of its run that he finally got to see it.
    With Ennis and a handsomely compensated LVN as his companions, he had ventured out, face well-covered by a surgical mask and dark glasses, a wheelchair as his excuse for the mask and the nurse, to a Saturday evening show. Unfortunately, the subterfuge of the wheelchair forced him into a slightly less desirable chair-accessible seat, but that was a small price to pay. The lights went down, the first chords of the overture were struck, and the magic began.  
    Afterward he was shaking, and immediately replaced the dark glasses so his companions could not see the tears that stained his cheeks. They were forced to wait until the theater had mostly emptied before they could wheel the chair out to the street where his limousine waited. He remembered being angered by the delays, wanting nothing more than to return to his home, to the comfortable dimness of his suite. To be alone again, away from prying eyes.
    His wish was granted soon enough, even though at the time the wait seemed interminable. Once he was safely in his chambers, he flung the dark glasses into a corner and sat huddled in a chair by the window, utterly spent. Finally his loneliness had been given a shape and form. Finally he was unable to deny any longer what he had been craving for so many years.
    “Christine….” he had whispered, finally raising his eyes to the moonlit gardens beyond the mullioned windows. What was it like, to burn for a woman in such a way, to descend into hell, only to be redeemed by her kiss?
    He had to know. It seemed as if until this night he had only been half alive, haunted by something that should be there. Those brief encounters with the women he had paid over the years suddenly disgusted him. What were they but only bodies, bodies paid well to satisfy an animal craving that had nothing of soul behind it?  
    That night he made a vow. Until he had his Christine, he would never know the touch of another woman. Until he could find the soul that answered the emptiness inside him, he would not rest.
    Little had he known, he thought now, just how long that search would take. She had to be perfect, the modern-day embodiment of Christine Daaé. It was not just the voice, but the face, and not just the face, but a certain innocence, an attribute not as easy to find these days.
    A few years down the line he hired Jerome, who came with sterling recommendations from several of Erik’s lawyers. A former private investigator, Jerome was more than happy to abandon his practice for a far more lucrative exclusive contract with a mad multimillionaire. If said