When the hour of 6 I stopped working. I rose to my feet. I had something to do. I went and changed into some different cloths, being quite as not to wake Melissa up, and then strolled back to my piano. I took a piece of paper and wrote a note to Melissa in red ink that said she had to have no concern for her fate. That she had no more respectful friend in the world then me. That she was alone, at present, in our home. And that I had gone out shopping to gather all the things that she could need. Hopefully she wouldn’t feel that she had fallen into the hands of a madman….I wasn’t a madman. Finally ready to go, I turned to the exit, and left. When I returned I found Melissa in a frantic sort of state of mind. After giving three taps on a the wall, I walked in quietly through and left the door open. This was when I found Melissa in her state of mind. She felt she had fallen into the hands of a madman. I could tell just by looking at her she had been running around the room, looking for a way to escape, which she didn’t find. She looked both inclined to laugh and cry all at the same time…apparently she was a bit clastrophobic. I had my arms full of boxes and parcels and arranged them on the bed, in a leisurely fashion. While I did this Melissa overwhelmed me with abuse and called upon me to remove my mask, claiming it covered the face of an honest man! “Please! I wish to see the face of my Lelouch!” she was pleding me. I couldn’t show her my face. Some things were better off not seen.
“You sha’ll never see Lelouch’s face.” I said. I reproached her with not, her having finished dressing at the time of day, I told her that is was two o’ clock in the afternoon. Then I told her I would give her a half of an hour and, while I spoke, wound a watch and set it for her. After I asked my angel to come to the dinning room, which would have a nice lunch for us. For her own many unexplainable or maybe stupid reasons she was very angry at me, and thus slammed the door in my face and I distantly heard her go to the bathroom. When she finally emerged from the room, she looked greatly refreshed. “I love you” I told her, but I also said that I would not tell her so unless when she allowed me too, and that the rest of the time would be devoted to music. “You can tell me you love me whenever you please.” She told me. I smiled at her. “but what do you mean by the rest of the time?” She added. “Five days,” I said, and with clear decision. “Should I then be free?” She asked me. “You will be free, Melissa, for, when those five days have past, you will have learned not to see me; and then from time to time, you will come to see your poor Lelouch!” I pointed to a chair opposite to me, at the small table I sat at, gesturing for her to sit. She did, and I knew she was feeling greatly perturbed. After she locked herself in her room at Anastasia’s place she wouldn’t come out…nor eat or drink…so I knew she’d surely be hungry if not a little. She ate a few prawns and the wing of a chicken and drank half a glass of tokay, which I told her I had myself, brought from the Kongigsberg cellars. I did not eat or drink though. I was distracted by her beauty. Though I did not feel worthy to gaze upon her…my eyes did not want to look away…and I didn’t want to. “I’d…” She stopped herself.” “Yes.” I encouraged her. She was thinking. “What if I choose to stay with you for as long as we should live?” She asked me, blushing a little. “I wouldn’t disaprove of it as I love you, and don’t want you to go.” I said. She asked me what my nationality was and if my name, my true on of Erik, did not point to my Scandinavin orgin. I told her that my fathers name was Erik, but I did not like the name so I took up the name of Lelouch…and it was what an old friend of mine (Jareth) called me once…for some reason…so I took up the name…taking a liking to it.
After lunch she was obviously full, and she looked a little sleepish. She noticed I had noticed when I gave a small chuckle. I rose to my feet, and gave her the tips of my fingers, saying “I believe someone could use a nap.” But she snatched away her hand and gave a cry. I remembered that my had was cold and, at the same time, bony; and I also remembered that my hands to her (and others) smelt of death. “Oh forgive me!” I moaned. Then I unexpectedly, swept her off of her feet, making her blushing prones show, and carried her to the swan shaped bed again. I layed her in the bed, and started to sing her to sleep with the same song from last night “The Music of the Night” peace I was sure she was at. She tierd out so easily. Later that day I was working on my music again, and in perfect focus. At some point I swore I heard the sound of someone groan. And not in the way of someone in pain…or someone that was angry…but in the way of someone who was waking up and stretching. Several minutes passed in silence and then I figured it just my imaginateion and went back to my work. Then before I truly got back into my thinking I heard her beautiful voice come forth….My angel’s voice. 
I remember
There was mist
Swirling Mist
Upon a vast
Glassy lake
There were candeles
All around
And on the lake
There was a boat
And in the boat
There was a man
I turned to look at her. She was singing about our home. She still thought she had been dreaming so she was comparing the dream to what she saw around her. She looked over at me, and she truly looked happy to see me. I chuckled to myself and turned around to my work again. I heard her light footsteps coming over to me as she sang again in her angel voice.
Who’s was that
Shape in the shadows
Whose is that face
In the mask
She still longed to see my face…the face behind the mask. She placed her hands on my face and felt the part of my face that was not covered by the half mask. She still wanted to see the face of the voice…the face of her phantom guardian. She wanted to see beneath my mask. Then before I thought much more with a swift jerk her fingers tore away the mask! DAMN! I covered the part of my face that would have the mask quickly, and then swiftly without thinking I jerked around and slammed her to the ground near the wall, and went up to her…grinding my teeth, as she fell to her knees. She looked like she had just seen something from a horror movie or something….or was living one. I hissed mad, incoherent words and curces at her, which I later regreated. I leaned over her. “Look! You want to see! See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness!” Look at Lelouch’s face! Now you know the face of the voice! The phantom guardian! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well are you satisfied? I’m a very good looking fellow, eh?…When a women has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me forever. I am a kind of Don Juan, you know! (this was the name of an opera I was working on)” I cried. I will not discribe my face for the reasons that it has hurt me for years as it is. “Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant! Damn you! You little prying Pandora! You little demon! Is this what you wanted to see! Curse you! You little lying Delilah! You little viper! Now you cannot ever be free! Damn you! Curse you!”
She backed into the corner of the room, hugging the wall, trying to stay away from me. I was scaring her. And I deeply regreated that later. But I just wanted her to know why she wasn’t to remove the mask now so she wouldn’t do it again. And seeing tears fall from her eyes did not help me. She wanted to know how an angel could be so violent like this all at once? She turned her head away from me and begged for mercy. I didn’t want her to look away…let her see what she wanted to see so badly then. I, regretlingly later, bruteally twisted my fingers into her hair. I dragged her by her hair and hissed at her again. Her tear soaked face in terror. “Ah, I frighten you, do I?…I dare say!…Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this…this…my head is a mask? Well,” I roared, seathing with anger. “Tear it off as you did the other! Come! Come along! I insist! Your hands! Your hands! Give me your hands!” I seized her hands and dug them into my hideous face. I made her hands tear at my flesh with her nails tear my terrible dead flesh with her nails! “Know,” I shouted, while my throut throbbed and panted much like a furnace, “Know that I am built up of death from head to foot and that it is a corpse (I’m not really dead but the left half of my face might suggest otherwise in ways) that loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!…Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying, crying for you, Melissa, who have torn off my mask and who therefore can never leave me again!…As long as you thought me handsome, you could have come back, I know you would have come back…but, now that you know my hidiouness, you would run away for good…so I sha’ll keep you here! Why did you want to see me?…when my own father never saw me and when my mother, so as not to see me, made me a present of my first mask!” Then as I stopped crying I began to sing.
Stranger than you
Dreamt it
Can you even
Dare to look
Or bear to think
Of me
This loathsome
Gargoyle who
Burns in hell
But secretly
Yearns for heaven
Secretly Secretly
Melissa
You’ll learn to see
To find the man
Behind this monster
This repulsive carcass
Who seems a beast
But secretly dreams
Of beauty
Secretly Secretly
I stood in front of the maniquen on Melissa still holding my hand over the left half of my face. “Oh, Melissa” I said. I had let go of her at last and was dragging myself about on the floor, uttering miserable sobs. I regretted doing what I had to her. She would never forgive me. Any second now she was going to run off to escape. I crawled away like a snake, and went to our bedroom closed the door and left her alone to her reflections. Presently I sat on the bed, and heard my Don Juan Triumphant playing in my head on an organ. In my heart it expressed every emotion, every suffering of which man was capable of feeling. I heard footsteps and mumbled “She’s gone” but then the door that separated us opened. Why hadn’t she just run off without a goodbye? I rose, as she entered, but I dared not turn in her direction. I did not want to be seen like this. “Lelouch,” She cried. She was still frightend I could hear it in her voice. “Show me your face…without fear! I swear that you have to be the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if I ever again shiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of that splendor…of your genius!”
I walked over to her, my head hanging down, and fell at her feet, words of love….in my mouth. The music I heard in my head ceased. I kissed the hem of her dress and cried. I was happy to know she wasn’t leaving. She sunk to her feet, and held me in her gentle arms. I did not want these arms to let go of me. I would always accuse myself, curse myself, and implore her forgivness in some way! I would confess my cheat! I loved her! I was laying at her feet in an immense and tragic love…I had carried her off for love!…I had imprisoned her with me, underground…for love! I respected her…I crawled, I moaned, I weeped!…When she finally stood up, so did I and she told me she could only despise me if I did not, then and there, give me my liberty. I offered it…and offered to show her the mysterious road. I rose and she seemed to remember that, though I was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, I remained the voice…for I sang to her. And she stated…and listened. For the rest of that night…we did not exchange another word. I sung her to sleep. I carried her to bed and then got to bed myself…my mask on again. I was still ashamed of my looks. And I had to hid the other reason I hid my face.
That night I felt someone’s fingers strock my cheekbone, and run there fingers through my hair. I slowly woke, and saw my angel had been the one doing the strocking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” She said. She pulled her hands back. “No.” I said. “Don’t stop. You have not idea how nice that feels.” She started strocking my cheekbone again. I smiled at the feel of her touch. Soon I fell back asleep. The following morning Melissa went to the drawing room with the piano while I was finishing up my shower and getting dressed. I could hear her playing with the keys as I stepped out of the shower. Soon the sound of tunes I did not recognize started playing in my ears. Some dark sounding…some light sounding. All these tunes were short…but beautiful…and I did not recognize them. I finished dressing and walked quietly to the drawing room where I heard the sound of Bella’s Lullaby from twilight playing. Melissa sat playing it. She did not notice me. But after a few moments I decided to make my presence known. “Beautiful. Both the music, and you.” I told her. She turned around in her seat to face me, and blushed my favorite blushing shade of pink. “Th…thank you.” She stuttered. I walked over and sat next to her. She looked at the top of the piano and saw my music book covered in red notes. “ Don Juan Triumphant” She read. “Yes.” I told her. “I compose sometimes. I began that work fourteen years ago when I was five.” “You must work at it as seldom as you can.” She said. “I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together, during which I live on music only, and then I rest of years at a time.” I said.
“Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?” She asked. “You must never ask me that.” I said. “I will play Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Melissa, Burns; and yet he is not struck by fire from Heaven.” I said sitting down at the piano. “You see, Melissa, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to gaia. Let us sing something from the opera, Melissa Triton.” I didn’t mean these words as a an insult…but I think she thought I did. As I got ready to play though she spoke. “Lelouch,” She asked “Is there another reason…why you hide the left half of your face?” I looked at her. She looked like she was bracing herself for me possibly getting violent again apparently still frightend I might hurt her. I rose, and rubbed my temples. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t of asked.” she said. “No. No, it’s fine. You… just caught me off guard a little.” I said. Silence fell for a minute. “I guess I should have expected you to ask after yesterday.” I said. “I’m not…sure…I can explain it.” I said. She approached me, and she stroked my cheekbone like last night. I looked into her eyes. “It can’t be all that bad.” She said. I glanced away. “Lelouch,” She said. “Show me your face without fear.” She said…gently. I layed my head on her shoulder, and I let a small cry escape my mouth. “I can show you better then I can explain probably.” I said. “Which ever works best for you.” She said. I lifted my head up, and took a few steps back. I reached up with a trembling hand for the mask. Could I show her? Would she run from me if she knew my dark power? No…if she did not run when I became violent…surely not for this. I took a deep breath and removed the mask. I heard her gasp as I removed it as she saw the other reason I hid my face, my mask fell to the ground.
To be continued in chapter 41...
