Letter from Katherine Pryde, Paris France, to Illyana Rasputin, Xavier House, England.

Dear Illyana;

If you ever feel that your life is becoming just too drearily serene in Yorkshire, you should come and borrow mine for a while. I remember what you said in your last letter very wellâ€"'If you don't want Erik, can I have him?'â€"and, no this does not mean that you would get Erik if you borrowed my life. I refuse to commit myself on Erik one way or another yet, but I can tell you that I don't not want him, if you understand that. I wish I understood it.

I kissed him on the mouth last night. It was lovely. It was also terrifying. Everything is happening too fast! I want to slow this down, but I don't know how...

No doubt you've heard all about how the Professor, Auroré, and Jean came to the rescue, and about the tea party afterward. And how I can call Sir Erich 'Father' now. I wanted the earth to open and swallow me up so I could escape from it! It was likeâ€"like holding an autopsy on Sir Erich's, Erik's, and my motivations and feelings. I don't think I've ever felt so naked, not even the time we got caught skinny-dipping in the lake in July two years ago.

So I'll pick up where I left the tea party to go home with Madame Giry and Meg.

"Why, Kitty, where have you been all this time? The dress rehearsal was over hours and hours ago!" exclaimed Meg when I appeared.

"I'm sorry, Meg. Forgive me, Madame, but myâ€"my guardian wanted to speak to me, and then my professor and two of my former instructresses arrived from England, andâ€"well, I'm here now. It got complicated."

"That's all right." said Madame. "Your guardian and your professor have valid claims on your time. I met your guardian while you were in rehearsal. He isâ€"quite a distinguished man."

"He is." We were leaving the Opera House, and Madame Giry asked the doorman to flag down a hansom cab for us, so we could go home to change for dinner. I continued as we got into the cab, "Professor Xavier, Doctor Grey, and Mademoiselle Munro will be joining us for dinner at Sir Erich's hotel."

"Doctor Grey?" asked Meg. "I thought you said the instructor were both ladies."

"They are. Doctor Greyâ€"Jeanâ€"is a woman." I answered.

"A woman doctor?" Meg's eyes popped.

"You needn't be so shocked." her mother admonished her. "Some women are entering the medical profession these days, just as some women are ballet mistresses."

"But a doctor's a different sort of thing! No insult to you, Mama, I'm very proud of you, but it's not at all the same. Why did she go into the profession? Is she old and ugly and anti-marriage and terrifying?"

"No, she's red-haired, perfectly beautiful, newly married, and one of the nicest people I know." I replied. "Otherwise I'd hate her. And Mademoiselle Munro is Algerian."

"You mean she's black!" Meg's eyes bugged out some more.

"Yes. I thought you should know in advance, so you won't be shocked when you meet her."

"So I'm going to be going out to dinner with a Jewish billionaire, a Professor, a woman doctor, and an Algerian." marveled Meg.

"And I know that you will remember all your manners, and conduct yourself like the well-brought up young lady I know you are." Madame Giry told her, in a very motherly way.

I had to break it to them some time. "Ummâ€"there's going to be another guest at dinner as well."

"Oh?" inquired Madame Giry. "Driver, you can let us off here."

We got out of the cab and went in the house just as I admitted, "Madame, I think Meg needs to be brought in on our secretâ€"becauseâ€"because Erik is the eight guest."

"You must be joking!" gasped Madame Giry, as Meg asked, "Who's Erik?"

"I'm not joking. Sir Erich invited him, and he accepted."

"Sir Erichâ€"invited him." It was quite clear that Madame Giry was overwhelmed by my piece of news. She sank down on a chair in the front hall.

"Mama!" cried Meg. "Do you have any smelling salts on you, Kitty? I think she's going to faint. Celeste?" she called the maid. "Madame is ill! Who is this Erik, and why does his coming to dinner upset Mama so badly?"

"I'm all right, child! No, I don't need those smelling salts, take them away."

"But who is Erik?" Meg persisted.

I took a deep breath. "Erikâ€"is the Phantom of the Opera."

Meg's jaw dropped. "He's coming to dinner with us?"

"Yes." Meg's face drained of color, and she folded up very slowly and collapsed to the floor.

"Celeste? Bring those smelling salts back. My daughter needs them!"

Meg is bright, so it wasn't long before we had brought her up to date on Erik and how he had looked after me while I was ill. I think that Madame Giry hasn't told everything about her connection to Erik as yet, but time was slipping away, and we had a dinner to go to.

We were then faced with another problem: Exactly what does one wear to dinner when one's dining companions are a Jewish billionaire, a Professor who is also a knight, a woman doctor, a young Algerian woman, and a professional ghost?

"No, Meg, not that one. Or that one either." Meg was holding two dresses in front of her, for her mother to see. Madame Giry had every dinner gown in her closet out, lying on her bed and draped over chairs, while I, the only one who was dressed yet, came in the door.

"Why not, Mama?"

"Because they're both ball gowns. And where did you get that pink one? You shouldn't wear pink, it makes you look insipid."

"I have it on extended loan from Helené."

"And what does that meanâ€"Kitty? Is that what you're going to wear?"

"Yes. I just picked it up from Felixierié's two days ago." It was one of those dresses you buy even though it's too extravagant, even though it'd be a little too fancy for the life you actually leadâ€"I'd ordered it before I got the promotion, and now that I had it, it was just right for the occasionâ€"possibly for the first time in the history of shopping.

"The dressmaker who talked you into it should be shot." Madame Giry pronounced judgment on it.

I didn't like that. I was very proud of itâ€"it's a rich teal silk jacquard, trimmed with gold-embroidered black velvet, and edged with little white ruffles around the neckline and cuffs, making it look a bit Elizabethan. With it, I had put on Sir Erich's pearls.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked, offended.

"What's wrong with it? Meg, go back to your room and look through your closet again. Kitty, it's too outré. It hasn't got a bustle, it hasn't got a train, the skirt is perfectly plain, and why on earth did they put those little puffs on the shoulders?" She plucked a fold of the offending shoulder between her fingers, and made a tsking noise.

"It's going to be the style for this winter. Bustles are out, trains are going out, skirts are going to be simpler, and sleeves are going to be important."

"They've made predictions like that before, and nothing changed. Meg, that's also a ball gown. Do I have to pick your clothes out like I did when you were a child?"

I guessed that Madame Giry was nervous about going out to dinner, too. She was wringing a handkerchief into a rope with her hands, without knowing it.

"Mama, if somebody'd only tell me what the difference was between a ball gown and a dinner gown, I wouldn't have this problem. I've never been to a formal dinner party." said Meg, sensibly.

"Oh. A ball gown is made of very light materials, in weight and color. It has bare arms, a low neck, and a wider skirt. Like that one, and like those other two. A dinner gown has sleeves, because you won't be dancing and getting overheated, a narrower skirt, because you'll be sitting in a chair most of the time, and a neck that's high enough so the waiter doesn't get overwrought and spill soup on you. The materials are supposed to be appropriate to the season." I told her.

"Thanks, Kitty!" she rushed off.

Madame Giry was still giving my dress a hard look. "Don't you have anything more conventional, Kitty?"

"Not one that's appropriate. My other dinner gown has a grease spot on the bosom, and I lost the pin I used to cover it with. I think it got left behind at Frau Levy's."

"I suppose it will have to do. After all, we will be dining among those who are well acquainted with you. What do you think of this dress?" she changed the subject, holding a gown up in front of her. "I want to wear my suite of garnets with it, but I'm not sure they'll go together." She held a necklace of large garnets, like ripe cherries set in a magnificent gold setting, against it.

I looked at the dress. It was a very dark blue-purple. "I think it'll look very rich and dignified." I was surprised, because it wasn't black. I had never seen Madame Giry in anything but black, and the purple suited her hair and skin wonderfully.

"Or this one?" I had the impression that she wasn't asking me because she wanted my opinion so much as she was asking herself out loud. I just happened to be in the room. The second gown was a sort of mother-of-pearl colored satin, with black lace overlaying it.

"I think the garnets would be too strong a color for it." I said. She made a thoughtful sound in her throat.

Meg came back in, wearing a blue plush velvet dress with an ivory bodice embroidered with little blue flowers to match. It had sleeves. "Well, I've been all through my things, and I think this one isâ€"Mama, you're going to wear a color!"

Putting off black and wearing colors again is a woman's way of saying she is giving up mourning for her late husband, and going on with her life, of course, and I wondered if there was a particular reason she had decided to make the change that particular night.

I wondered about it, and wondered about it, and then something surprising occurred to me.

She did say Sir Erich was quite a distinguished gentleman, after all.

"That is an excellent choice, Meg. Now, will both of you leave me to dress in peace, please?"

When she emerged at last, she was wearing the blue-purple, with black onyx and pearl jewelry, so she was sort of half-in, half-out of mourning. She looked wonderful, and we told her so.

In the meantime, I had taken my hair down and put it back upâ€"twice. I was nervous too. Finally, I twisted it into a soft knot high on my head and pinned a strand of artificial ivy twining around it, with a fresh rose.

Celeste had our evening cloaks ready, and so the three of us went back out into the night, to dinner and destiny. On the way, we detoured by the Opera House, to see if Erik wanted a lift. (I had promised that we would.)

When we go there, I got down and went to look for him. I found him right inside the Rue Scribe entrance, pacing back and forth, impeccably dressed and almost terminally nervous. His face was almost as white as his mask.

He greeted me, saying, "Good evening, Kitty! How lovely you look. I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I won't be able to join you this evening. Will you pass on my regrets?"

I could see through that like it was a pane of glass. "What can possibly have come up in the last hour and a half that's more important than coming to dinner with us?" I put on my best pleading expression.

"It'sâ€"Iâ€"oh, hell!" he swore. "Why can't you want something easy, like an enemy who needs killing, or to replace Carlotta as prima donna?"

"Because I can handle those sorts of enemies myself, usually, and I couldn't even come close to filling Carlotta's breastplate. Look, I'm going to tell Madame Giry and Meg to go on to the hotel, and we'll follow them in another cabâ€"which you can flag down while I'm gone."

I told them Erik was suffering from an attack of nerves, and that we would be no more than five minutes behind. Meg made a scoffing sound, and said, "The Opera Ghost is having a nervous attack? He should be in my evening slippers!"

I returned to find that Erik had indeed hailed a cab. We got in. He was breathing fast again. "You really needn't be so nervous. It's only the same people you had tea with a couple of hours ago, plus Madame Giry and Meg. You can't tell me Meg is intimidating you."

"I am not intimidated!" he snapped. "I am merely being cautious. It's a large hotel that employs hundreds of people. Doormen and waiters and Maitre-de-hotels, and so on."

"But you're going there as Sir Erich's guest, so all you have to do isâ€"well, ordinarily I wouldn't tell any one to emulate Sir Erich in dealing with people, but if you act like you know you could buy and sell them for breakfast, you'll do fine. They'll be falling all over themselves to open doors for you."

"I don't know..." he brooded. He looked out the cab window at the night.

I decided to give him a quick kiss on the cheek to bolster his spirits. However, as I was leaning over to kiss him, he turned back to say something, and instead of kissing him on the cheek, my lips landed on his mouth.

He grabbed me again, and we continued kissing. I have to say that it was not the most practiced first kiss I've ever gotten, but the feeling in it made up for that, and anyway, he learned fast. Very fast. I forgot about thinking it wasn't a good idea to kiss him. I forgot about dinner. I forgot about the world.

We were brought back to earth by the cab driver, who turned back to say, "We're hereâ€"Oh. Shall I drive you two around the block one time, first?"

I broke the kiss. (I was thinking about that scene from Madame Bovaryâ€"you know, the one I didn't understand at first, until the Professor explained that she was committing adultery in the cab with that clerk. It seemed bad to emulate it.)

"Noâ€"no, that's all right." I told him, hastily. "This is fine."

We got out, and Erik paid the man while I looked around for Madame Giry and Meg. They were at the top of the stairs. I turned back, to see Erik looking at me with a very tender expression, and a shy new smile on his face. My stomach gave a funny lurch.

I remembered that I had promised the Professor I was going to be more honest and open about what I thought and felt. "Erikâ€"while I like being hugged, and I also like being kissedâ€"I don't like being grabbed. I wish you wouldn't grab me when you wantâ€"to express your feelings for me."

"But you like being kissed." he said, in a voice that was barely above a whisper. He has such a lovely mouth...

"Erâ€"yes, and I liked that kissâ€"but I'm also rather uncomfortable about how fast this is movingâ€"so I thinkâ€"that kisses should be saved for special occasions. Like before dinner parties, and holidays and birthdays, and other such events."

We were climbing the steps to meet with Madame Giry and Meg, whose eyes were grown to the size of saucers.

"I understand." he said. "I apologize for grabbing you."

"I accept it. Is my hair mussed up?" I asked.

"No, it looksâ€"Is that a rose I sent you?"

"...Yes." I admitted. The rose was one of Erik's, but it suited the dress, my hair, and me.

"You look very fine indeed," and he was using that barely-above-a-whisper voice again. Drat the man. It sends shivers up and down my spine.

"Thank you. Shall we join the others?"

And we did.

There you have it; the story of our first real kiss. I think the word 'rapturous' best describes it.

I will write about the party itself in my next letterâ€"it needs one all to itself.

Your Friend,

Katherine Pryde