Wifely Duties
The deal was sealed. The vows were read, the rings exchanged, the priest departed... And Christine was left alone and lost in the lace of her wedding dress. Quite literally.
She had been struggling for over half an hour to remove the thirty pound bustle that blessed her behind, a tirade which ended with her mysteriously crushed under a mattress in a position that can only be described as, well, twisted. Every way.
Just how did I get into this predicament? The red faced ingenue brooded tragically. Oh yes, HIM, Raoul, my once beloved and now dearly departed fiancé. Funny how he fast scampered off after I compromised my virtue in order to rescue him. Needed to check his ponytail, indeed! And now I am married off to that... to that...
A shudder graced the diva's perfectly sculpted shoulders in a tragically appealing way. The truth was, our young heroine hadn't decided exactly what she had married- Was it a phantom? A ghost? (Those words don't mean the same thing, do they? The ingenious child mused.)An angel? A half-crazed, lustful composer? A man who referred to himself as Only-Erik? But before the bemused wife could decipher the puzzlement-
A door slammed ominously. The creak of footsteps echoed. Far off in the darkness, a bat shrieked. (Actually, it was the vocalizing of the late prima donna Carlotta, but this Christine did not realize as she was too busy fighting hysteria).
A voice hissed through the room.
"My dear..."
An audible gulp sounded somewhere between the vicinity of the mattress and the Persian carpet. For a minute, Christine was somewhat distracted by her husband's newfound talent of walking on the ceiling. (It had not occurred to the poor dear that she was lying upside down in a rather unbecoming manner. Let us pity the child and not tease her.)
Maniacal cackling resounded eerily through the room. "The time has come for you to perform your wifely duties..." The command issued from behind the reversed mask.
A squawk emitted from Christine's smooshed vocal chords, and Only-Erik felt ashamed that he had mentioned tutoring her in his resume. Virgin Records™ will never hire me now! He thought with an anguished moan. His wife, however, mistook this for an exclamation of another nature. Yes, that nature.
"B-b-b-but you p-promised you w-would take ad-advantage of me!" Cried the unwitting soprano.
"I'm afraid, my dove, it is my legal right to demand your pliancy in this matter. And I can see that you are very... flexible." He leered at her pretzel-like stance.
"N-n-no!"
"Oh, yes... I have this great need you see, a need which I cannot seem to fulfill all by myself. I just detest going all sweaty and getting horridly cramped hands..."
Naïve Christine blushed fiercely at Only-Erik's brazen speech. So the chorus girl wasn't that innocent after all!
"What, are you ashamed to be performing such lowly duty for your old teacher? I must admit, I considered hiring a professional to get the job done, as it were, but I have such a big instrument. I could not trust a stranger to handle it with enough tenderness. The damage, you understand, would have cost me a considerable amount of money..."
Only-Erik's blushing bride tried to stem the flow of images her mind was producing by picturing her pompous suitor's perfectly primped ponytail. It wasn't helping. And neither was the alliteration.
Mercilessly, the assault on her tragically beautiful ears continued.
"It's difficult for those like myself, who have been blessed with such immensely long pipes. You see, they need to be cleaned out very often. Also, their large size requires a tremendous time spent bending over in several positions."
Christine's masked tormentor flashed her a winning smile. "But it seems you are well experienced in that particular area."
This development proved to be too much for the would-be Vicomtesse. With a banshee's wail, she wrenched herself upward from her entanglement. Unfortunately, the usually crafty Christine misjudged the force with which she leveraged herself up on the bed. The mahogany four poster came toppling down after emitting a cry of dismay (because beds have feelings too, you know, especially when they are being rudely awaken by ballet rats).
Alas, dear readers, the footboard fell onto her shapely, tragically smooth legs, trapping her once more. At Only-Erik's sudden move forward, she clawed the air in front of herself madly. Her maestro fancied he had seen more frightening squirrels in his time, but shook in terror for her benefit anyway.
"Christine, Christine, Christine, Christine." He repeated, sounding as beseeching as becomes an Opera Ghost. "I know that you do not love my organ... You have shown distress when you hear that groaning it emits when I touch it... But you will grow to love it! I will indulge you every night!"
Our blond (or was it brunette?) heroine's fists banged petulantly on the floor. It was a tragic, if not pathetic sight to behold. Finally, she mustered every ounce of bravery within her slender-but-curved-in-all-the-right-places figure. (Actually, it might be more accurate to think in teaspoons, not ounces.)
"I will NOT be a slave to your wicked demands, you depraved and heinous wretch! I will NOT be prey to your vile lust for flesh! I would DIE a thousand deaths first!"
At this surprisingly articulate outburst, there was a terrible silence.
"You would rather die?" Said Only-Erik incredulously, lower lip beginning to tremble in disbelief. "You would rather die than dust my pipe organ?"
Finis.