The Mistress of Redemption
Erik turned to face her, staring deep into her eyes, the emotions thus shown from which, he couldn't make out. So lost was he, in her touch that he could not stop her as the strings of his mask was loosened by her and the mask came falling off, falling down onto the ground.
Her angel screamed, a sound so loud, it pained Christine's ears. It was filled with all the pain and anguish a person could ever experience in the world and tears formed in her eyes, as waves of shock and horror rumbled in her body. He pushed her on the ground, and she fell with a loud thump, with an immense pain in her legs and hips.
He fell to the floor on his knees, his hand over his face trying to cover it entirely, but it wasn't enough and he couldn't move his bald scalp and grotesquely swollen purple lips out of her sight.
Christine breathed heavily, and she knew she couldn't get up. She tried to crawl away from the hellish rage she knew she had unleashed, but a long bony hand caught her bare ankles. She struggled to get free.
What have I done? Oh why, oh why did I remove the mask? I cannot bear it, I cannot! Oh save me, dear God, I cannot bear this any longer!
"No! You little viper! This abhorrent face is what you wanted to see ?!", her angel screamed at her and Christine cried with tears of disbelief.
"Maestro, I.. I am so sorry, please let me go, please maestro, please," she sobbed loudly, hiccupping from heaving breaths and fear.
No longer covering his face, her angel forcefully turned Christine on her back, and spread both her hands and locked them in his. With her knees within the boundary of his legs, he slowly crawled over her and gazed at her with a mad look in his eyes.
Christine struggled to get free, her sobs increasing with every second that passed by.
"Look at me Christine," he screamed at her.
"N..no, no, I am sorry, please, please, let me go," Christine sobbed but didn't dare turn her face to look at her.
Suddenly, her teacher grabbed her jaws with his hand, tightly, strongly, painfully and vehemently turned her face towards his.
"I said look at me!" he screamed vehemently.
And she looked. Oh she looked and despaired. It was not a face that she was staring at, no. It was just a piece of human flesh that seemed caressed by the Devil himself. As if a hundred needles had poked the cheeks and a thousand knives had cut the skin in layers, so, so many layers. It was pure rotting flesh. Every inch of which was swollen yellow and blue, jagged purple veins ran criss-cross. And the nose, oh the nose! He didn't have a nose, no, just two holes for intake and outtake of air, all in the likeness of a skeleton. The face of a mad ghost, the face of mad death.
But from those golden eyes, fell hot tears and the very human heart under that skeleton pumped blood and heat that Christine agonizingly felt.
"A handsome fellow, am I not?" her teacher laughed.
"I am so handsome, why, even my mother refused to touch me, lest she fall in love with me!" he laughed madly.
"Met with hatred everywhere, I was, Christine, I know no touch, I know no love, all I know is the sound of cruel jeers and the burn of leathered whip. Oh Christine," and he sobbed.
He sobbed and wailed and laid his head at the junction of Christine's neck and shoulder and she couldn't breathe. She felt as if she would faint that very instant, that she couldn't live any longer. It felt like Death's embrace.
Long bony fingers moved from her neck to her shoulders to her bare arms, painting feather-light touches. The man nuzzled against her neck and took in deep breaths where her scent was the most potent. He peppered the skin with small kisses, barely any force, just touch of lips to skin. The fingers travelled back up, and very lightly but not leaving an inch of skin untouched for even a moment, they followed the path from her throat to her heaving bosom. She burned as she had never before. She tightly closed her eyes at the throb in her nether regions and the feel of tightness in her corset.
This was where she had to stop him. This was where she could not let it go any further.
With a broken voice, she pleaded, "No angel, please stop."
And he stopped. The heavy weight over her was removed in an instant. The man crouched away from her, his eyes downward and his face hidden with his hands. No words were spoken for a long time as the man simply sobbed in hushed tones and Christine stared at the pitiful sight in front of her.
She reached for the mask and outstretched her hand towards her teacher. He looked at her, with pain and hope in his eyes and her heart broke once more. She nodded at him as she ushered him to take his mask. Her maestro took it and turned the other way as he fixed it upon himself, turning only when it was fixed and stared at her.
It was as if the past hour had never happened. As if Christine was in the lair with the same undisturbed innocence and naïveté with which she had held her teacher's hand and entered his lair.
But the sad truths of the past hour could not lay curtailed, behind a mask of hopeful wishes of unconditional love.
Erik could not stop it from happening. He could not stop his mask from falling down, revealing his one true distortion to his one true angel and he could not stop as she turned away from him- from his face that would always be a part of him- he could not stop his heart from breaking before it had even built itself.
Gone was his last chance at bliss, at redemption, at love and out came a monster, product of his foulest nightmares and worst fears, that demanded that he simply take what he wanted before it was gone, forever out his reach till the end of time.
So, as he wailed and sobbed, Erik could not stop himself, from taking just a taste, just a whiff of heaven from the angel that fell from the heaven of innocence into his hellish lair. Oh, Christine's body fit his perfectly, small and dainty and so delicious, was her skin that he never wanted to do anything else other than kiss her, touch her.
He moaned with profound pleasure and sadness. He would never get to touch her again. She would run away. She would either run away or kill him, which is what every person that looked upon his face had tried to do, but she was Christine, and Christine was the kindest human being he never thought he had the good luck of coming across in his god-forsaken life. So no, she wouldn't kill his body, no, she would do something much worse. She would refuse to look upon him, touch him, she would run away from him as far as she could and she would kill his soul.
Both were sobbing lightly.
He stopped. Oh, I asked him to stop and he stopped!Who is this man who claimed to be my angel of music? What kinds of horror have been hurled his way?! I do not understand anything! I hate this!
The mask lay on the ground, a few feet away from her, like a silent villain spectating his havoc from afar. Her eyes fell on it. Leaning towards it, she took hold of it in her hands and looked at the man sobbing in front of her. The kind thing to do would be to give the man his mask and leave him to his misery, but Christine didn't believe she had it in her to now even get close to the man, in whose lair she had slept not an hour ago.
I do not know what to do. Should I be cruel, or should I be kind? He taught me, he loved me, he touched me and now he scares me. I am so frightened by this man and yet I cannot find it in myself to leave him alone. I do not know what he wants from me. I do not know how we will go forward from here.
"Maestro," Christine began with a voice hoarse from all the sobbing.
Her teacher turned his body towards her, his palm trying, but failing miserably to cover his face.
"Your mask," she softly said and held her hand holding the mask towards him.
Once more, fresh tears filled her teacher's eyes as he looked at her with eyes of gratification and heart of broken hopes. She did not run away but she returned his mask.
He took the mask from his hands, careful not to touch any skin.
With precise steps, like a man who had done this a million times, the mask was on in no time and finally the hands could be allowed their rest.
A frightened voice that felt heavy and rubbed amongst gravels began, "Christine, I- "
"Who are you, maestro," Christine frankly asked. She would be answered before she heard any reason from her angel.
"I do not understand what I have just seen, and I cannot justify your touch on me. But I feel your love and your despair and I cannot leave you alone, maestro. If you are not my angel of music, then who are you, maestro," she looked at him with expectant eyes yet mildly disbelieving eyes.
He stared at her. No feelings conveyed, not even from his eyes.
No angel, for an angel cannot exist in this repulsive carcass. No monster, for a monster cannot exist in the face of such beauty.
"I am Erik."