Author´s note: This story was written for the First Humour Writing Contest on PFN. It only occurred to me now, while writing my entry for the second contest, that I hadn´t posted this one yet…
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from "The Phantom of the Opera". They belong to Gaston Leroux / Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Fleur aka Who needs a Fairy Godmother?
"Erik? Erik, wake up!" Erik´s eyes snapped open. Great! For the first time within weeks he had been able to sleep, and now somebody just came along and called his name. It took his sleepy brain a few seconds to understand what this meant: Someone was here. In his bedroom. In the dead of night.
Quickly he sat up in his coffin. The sight made him gasp in shock: In the middle of the room stood a rather plump young woman with long blond hair. She wore a pink dress with large gold and silver stars on it. For a moment Erik wondered why Carlotta had changed the colour of her hair, but it occurred to him that even the diva´s usual clothes were more tasteful.
"How did you get in here?" It was the first question which came into his mind. The woman smiled. "Well, let´s just say I didn´t come through the door. I can be pretty much anywhere I like." Erik rubbed his eyes as she simply vanished. He was even more surprised, however, when she re-appeared a second later right next to him. It was clear that the coffin wasn´t meant to be used by two people, and because the woman had been the second to enter it she lay partly on top of him.
"Sorry!", she muttered, her cheeks flushing. Hastily she climbed over Erik, accidentally giving him a rather nasty punch in the ribcage, and sat down on a stool nearby. "This was where I had intended to land.", she explained and pulled out a pink handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her face. "Usually I´m really good at that, but today I´m a little nervous. You know, you´re my first client."
"Client?" Erik couldn´t remember having asked for a solicitor, let alone a female, pink solicitor who appeared out of thin air in the middle of the night. "Oh, I haven´t introduced myself. I´m Fleur, your Fairy Godmother.", the woman said conversationally. As she noticed that he stared at her blankly she went on: "I´m something like your guardian angel, helping you with your problems.". "Then where have you been all the time?", Erik blurted out before he could control himself. "Where have you been as they humiliated me? Where have you been as they locked me up in a cage?"
"Erm … well … you should better shout at my predecessor. I was still in training when all this happened." She gave him an apologetic smile, and suddenly he had forgotten why he had been angry. "So, you´re my Fairy Godmother?" Erik´s voice sounded amused as he studied the young woman. "You could be my daughter." "That´s right, I could. If you ever had children. Or a relationship. Or sex, as a matter of fact." His jaw dropped. This Fleur was definitely good at rubbing salt in his wounds.
"That´s exactly the problem, isn´t it?", The woman remarked. "You love this singer, this … Christine, but there´s something standing between her and you, and I´m not talking about …" Her gaze fell on the dark red silk lining of his coffin. "… your unique sense of décor. I mean…" She pulled a small pink book out of her handbag, opened it and read out: "´Raoul, Vicomte de Changy´ - what a name! Anyway, just let me do my work, and in 24 hours´ time she´ll be yours.". "But how…?" Fleur put a finger on his lips to silence him. "I´m afraid that´s none of your business. But make sure you´ll be in Box Five tomorrow evening to watch the performance." Then she was gone. Erik shook his head. Somehow he had always imagined his first night-time encounter with a woman to be different.
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"Hello Raoul! I´m your Fairy Godmother." Raoul blinked several times, shrugged and shook her hand. "Nice to meet you.", he muttered. "I´m here to make your dearest wish come true.", she said. His gaze became dreamy, and he licked his lips. Fleur chuckled. "Not that one, you little…! Honestly I doubt that you´ll ever find a woman who will do that with you – not even if you pay for it!" Raoul looked slightly hurt, but recovered quickly enough to ask: "What wish were you talking about?". She smiled sweetly.
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He couldn´t be serious about it! The managers exchanged a brief look before M.Firmin started speaking. "Well, M. le Vicomte, of course we appreciate it that you want to be an active member of the opera. But there are so many possibilities other than …" "I want to perform on stage. Tonight.", Raoul said stubbornly. He had always dreamed of being a professional singer. For what other reason should be have become the patron of an opera? Raoul had never sung when someone was around, but if Fleur said he could do it…
"I´m afraid to tell you that after Mlle.Daaé took over the Countess from Carlotta there are no free roles in ´Il Muto´. So you have to understand that…" A knock on the door interrupted M.André. "Come in!", the managers called. Mme.Giry entered the room, a worried expression on her face. "Two stage hands have found Danielle unconscious in the dressing room. She came round some minutes later, muttering something about gold and sliver stars." She shook her head. "I´ve already caught her four times sipping at my crème de menthe…"
"So someone else has to play her role?" M.André sounded almost frightened. "I´ll do it! I´ll do it!", Raoul said excitedly. "But monsieur, it´s for a woman.", Mme.Giry tried to argue. "I don´t care. I´ll do anything." "Oh … all right!", M.Firmin decided. If their patron insisted on making a fool of himself, he wouldn´t mind. "I´m sure you´ll like the part of the pageboy. Such a lovely role! You can be together with your fiancée most of the time, and you don´t even have to sing. There is but one thing: You´ll have to dress up as a woman."
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Never in his life had Raoul felt as stupid as in the moment he examined himself in the mirror. He had been assured that the dressmaker had altered the costume especially for him. But although it fitted nicely over his broad shoulders he couldn´t help wondering whether it had always been that … pink. Besides, the frills at the neckline and sleeves looked rather ridiculous. At least Christine hadn´t laughed at him. But then, she hadn´t seen him yet. He wanted it to be a surprise.
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"Raoul?", Christine breathed. This was impossible! What was he doing here? Why was he playing Danielle´s role? "Isn´t it wonderful, love?", Raoul asked merrily as she dragged him into a silent corner during the intermission between act one and two. "Now I´m part of your professional life as well. And the audience loves me!" This was actually true: As people weren´t exactly used to seeing a man wearing a skirt they had started laughing the minute he had entered the stage. Christine would have had a lot to say to this, but because the intermission was almost over she didn´t have the possibility.
Raoul grew a little tired during act two. Being on stage was quite nice, but he felt that his part lacked action. He wanted to do something, not just run around with a feather duster. ´Well´, he thought. ´I´m the patron of this opera. So it´ll bother no one if I take some artificial freedom.´ As soon as he had the chance to he grabbed Christine and kissed her passionately. The audience cheered and applauded; only one man in Box Five looked disgusted. This was not what he had expected to see.
"What are you doing?", Christine muttered. "Stop it at once!" "Why should I? People love it!", he gave back, his hands wandering over her body. "Even when it says ´love scene´ somewhere in the script – that´s not meant literally!", she tried to explain. "But we´ll be famous. Everyone will remember this performance." With these words he pulled her into a tight embrace and began unbuttoning her dress. He could hardly believe that he would finally be able to fulfil both of his wishes at the same time.
Christine struggled to break free, but his grip was too strong. If she didn´t want to perform her first-ever real love scene with hundreds of people watching there was only one solution. She started singing: "Here on this stage he wants to kiss me. I wish I could hide him. Somehow he thinks he has to be with me. He, who has no talent.". Meg entered the stage to support her: "I watched your face from the shadows. Flushing because you´re ashamed. Why does he try to undress you? You cannot be blamed.". Christine looked at Box Five pleadingly as she continued: "Angel of Music, guide and guardian! Please come to rescue me! Angel of Music, save the opera´s excellent reputation!".
Suddenly Erik found himself in the middle of the stage. Raoul was so bewildered that he let go off Christine, who immediately ran over to Erik. "Oh, I´m so glad you´re here to rescue me from this attention-seeking starlet!" "Starlet?", Raoul said in indignation. "I´ll become the star of this opera, no matter what I´ll have to do. After all, I even managed to pretend that I loved you, so how bad can it get?"
Christine pulled her head away from Erik´s shoulder long enough to utter a "What?". To his surprise she smiled broadly. "Oh, that´s fantastic!" You know, I only said I loved you because it could be useful for my career to have a boyfriend in a good position. For ages I thought about how to tell you that I want to leave you because I´ve fallen in love with Erik."
Both men beamed at her, though for different reasons. The moment of complete silence was interrupted by M.Reyer. "As much as we´ve all enjoyed this – can we continue our opera now?" "Raoul, as you´re already wearing a dress, could you take over the role of the Countess as well?", Christine asked. "Erik and I have to go." "Where are we going?" She looked at him. "Home."
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As soon as he came back from the opera "Fleur" changed back into his real self. Yawning he stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders to get the feeling for the wings which were in their usual place. Preparing a drink he couldn´t help smiling, a little proud with himself. Fleur was one of his best roles, one which he only used for the difficult cases. A Fairy Godmother with the ability to fulfil wishes! He shook his head. He could perform some magic here and there, but his only real power was that he made humans tell what was hidden in their hearts. Too bad he always had to be in disguise, but attempts to stay like he really was had ended with people bursting into laughter. He couldn´t even blame them. After all, who believed in Cupid?