A/N: Written for an anonymous Tumblr prompt which read "Christine is /far/ too curious for her own good. She had overheard somethings from the ballet girls that made her blush, thinking it positively indecent at the time. Now, curled against Erik, it's starting to sound a little more appealing..."
Her fiancé is asleep, breathing peacefully into the quiet night, one arm still wrapped around her waist, fingers curled loosely around her hip. Yet though all is still, she cannot settle. Her mind is too busy, whirling around all that she's heard.
It was not merely indecorous what the ballet girls were whispering of, it was outright indecent. She's known for years, of course, what it is they speak of, but this is the first time it's quite struck her in its full immensity. She squirms against Erik, a throbbing ache in the space between her legs as Meg's words are borne back to her - "And what he did with his tongue, well..." She must admit some curiosity as to what such an act must be like, and her body certainly seems to have its own ideas on the subject, but still. The small hours of the morning are hardly the time to dwell on such things.
She lingers over her morning tea, watching him read the newspaper. His eyes glimmer in the low light, lips pursed for all of the world looking as if there is nothing more important or interesting than the society columns. Those lips, elegant in their malformation, what would they be like on her-
Her neck burns, blush creeping into her cheeks and she casts her eyes back down to her tea, swallowing hard. She must not think in such a way. It is inappropriate. And over breakfast.
"Are you quite well, my dear?" His voice is gentle, worried in its careful unconcern, one eyebrow raised as he looks over the top of his newspaper. "You look a little flushed."
She sips her tea, and manages a smile at him, heart pounding under his gaze. "I'm all right, Erik. I think I might go for a bath, actually." Yes, a nice cold bath.
His brow arches, eyes returning to the paper. "If you are certain."
She finishes her tea, and stands, bustling off to the bathroom. He doesn't look up from his newspaper again, and she wouldn't mind, not really, but he doesn't even care about the society columns.
After her bath, which was satisfying even if not wholly successful at banishing the unseemly thoughts from her mind, especially with her breasts tingling so, she finds him at his organ, lost in the whirl of his music. How easy for him to absorb himself in his compositions, when he doesn't have to fight these very troubling wonderings. Well for him that he wasn't there to hear the ballet girls and their murmurings of fingers and tongues and even of toes. It was an education, to say the least, a true education. She blushed as they spoke and steadfastly thought of her needlepoint, but even now their whispers fill her head.
She doubts if she'll ever quite recover from what Sorelli related of the Comte de Chagny and his tie.
Settling on the organ bench beside Erik, she leans her head against his shoulder, and he never breaks the melody, simply tilts his head and presses a kiss to her hair.
"You smell beautiful, darling," he murmurs, and she smiles into the fabric of his jacket, because of course he is fully dressed and playing the organ in her time of need. His fingers are so very long, and graceful and elegant. She has often found herself contemplating them in the past, but now as they dance across the keys she can't help wondering…Jeanette did say that Marcus stroked her down-
Christine's throat dries, and she stands, sufficiently surprising Erik that the melody jars. "Sorry!" she rushes, and plants a kiss to his hair. "I think I'll go to my needlepoint." She whirls away to her room, and shuts the door tight behind her.
She is already tucked up in bed when Erik comes in to lie beside her, though she is a long way from sleep. He is wrapped in his robe as he slides beneath the sheets, pulling her body close to his.
"You have been acting very strangely today, Christine," his voice is gentle, concerned. "Has your Erik done something wrong? He is very silly, you know. You must forgive him some things, though he is learning."
Of course. Unable to determine what, exactly, is troubling her he's falling back on blaming himself. Though she cannot articulate the issue when she can hardly think of it, she must disabuse him of this notion that he is at fault.
"It is not anything that you have done, Erik. Really. Don't blame yourself. It is something that the ballet girls were talking about yesterday, that's all."
"And what were they saying that upset my little Christine?" There is menace lurking beneath the gentle concern, and she rushes to assure him that she is not upset, merely a little confused. Confused is hardly the word, and she qualifies it to curious. His lips curve into a smile, eyes liquid warm. "What exactly has Christine curious?"
Before she knows it, the whole sorry affair is spilling out. The tongues, the fingers, the ties, the toes, the breasts, all of it. At first Erik blanches, and for a moment she fears that he's going to have one of his attacks, until his smile transforms into a grin and his eyes glimmer.
"And would you be open to some…experimentation?" His voice is low, slightly gravelly, and that hum beneath her navel heightens, his hand slipping up under her shift to rest on her inner thigh.
Despite the indelicacy of it, the indecorous indecency of it, she finds herself smiling back, and nodding. "I would be delighted."
