Madame Valerius Is Dead

by the yellow flower

Prior to the events of Leroux's original novel, Christine's adopted benefactor passes away sooner than expected. Fearing the fate that threatens a simple chorus girl in her position, this poor young woman turns to the only one she has left...and the equally fallen Angel Of Music is all too keen to embrace her. COMPLETE.

1. Entires 1-4

Authors Note & Preface:

This story came about when I was trying to find more Leroux period based fics and couldn't find any new and honest ones around. As an authors note, and a disclaimer, this story is written within the social constructs of later 1880's Paris, France. I have read of many outgoing and feminist Christine's who valiantly stand up to Erik as an equal on all accounts...however...I do not feel that is the true character of Christine in the original novel (as much as I love to read fics about them!). This short story is more dedicated to the difficult times performers had to face being of low, possibly middle, class in the world where if they were not a respected diva, they were considered ballet "rats." The fact is, without labor unions, laws to protect women as human beings, and the constant danger of a theatre going up in flame, it was a terrifying time for the theatre world. It is within this context that I write this story.

As you can already tell, this story starts out at M for mature relations. That said, there will be no rape in this story as I do not believe Erik (in all his terror) would ever do that. In his way, he will always ask consent and in Christine's way, she will or will not grant it and he will listen. This is why he poses as a respectable choice for her as a poor chorus girl living in a huge city. If you find this story offensive, I understand and respect your decision not to continue reading it

I do not, nor will I ever, claim ownership of these characters as they are pure property of Gaston Leroux.

Entries 1-19 revised and updated 5/12/2017 for clarity and some character choices!

Madam Valerius Is Dead

"Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill when you think of it." - Raoul de Changy, Leroux

Entries 1-4

First Entry

I have been married this night. This, I feel, is justification for my newly found interest in writing my thoughts. My fears peak at the ever maddening thought that he may find my words and disapprove. He will surely disapprove. You see, he is within the understanding that there should be no secrets between us. He believes that if I am to be an honest woman, that I will share all with him, my every terrible thought. He must know that to do this would be impossible. It would surely break his heart. And I realize after such a short time, that I am his heart. I am the very beating that it retains and without me, he would have none. However, as many men on their last terrifying breath would do, he holds on to me, his beating heart, and I fear that this is a truth I will never escape.

I mustn't let him see the tears that possess my eyes this evening as I write by a dimming, shall I say, damning, flame. This poor candle has been my source of sanity these few weeks as I try to make sense of how my life turned in this direction. Even as he will swear he is the evil creature to obscure my pure thoughts, I know that it must be I who has chosen my fate. Poor Mama Valerius is dead, her last trust of money spent on keeping myself and our maid. How short sighted I have been to believe that I could ever earn enough at the Opera to sustain us all. He was right, as he so often is. He is the only honorable option I will ever have.

This might explain why I find myself in such conditions for I am five floors beneath the living world. Only once had a patron approached me to take me to dinner. As I understood my husband to be the voice of my angel at the time, the voice was all too keen to reveal to me that this man, while doting very fine pleasantries of garments and jewelry, was the very man who had been the cause of tears for a younger woman in the corps who had come back to the dormitories one late evening with deflowered blood between her legs. I was so frightened of such a fate. As I know that many in the Opera either tie themselves to patrons for income or eventually become mistresses, occasionally married, I, being of such a lowly station and barely making a face for myself in the chorus was terrified of never being honored with a respectful marriage.

My life arrangement, despite my tears that smear these lonely words, has proven to be the best thing that could have happened to me. My husband, while he is not a gentleman or any man of status, does take great care to meet my needs. I feel that while I will never again have to wonder what it would be like to have fine clothing, food, or accessories, I will also yearn for that I cannot have. I have grown so pale, so deathly pale, and I only know this when I am escorted to the stage for my rehearsals and can catch glimpses from those who have worked with me for years. It is enough for me to find myself staring longingly at my dressing room mirror, wondering where my father's daughter has fled to. The sunlight, how awful I have been to ever have taken it for granted.

Dear thought keeper, I must retire you for the evening. My candle flickers and wanes and he knows that I will call for him when it extinguishes. The darkness in this lonely place is a reality that I still cannot muster to face without his golden glowing eyes to help me pass through it. And yet, how awful I am to admit that this evening terrifies me beyond anything I ever could have reckoned for. It will be damning for me to refuse him this evening as he has been refused so much in his sad life. His long thin fingers will reach for me and I will feel their coldness on my skin as I will silently beg my limbs not to shiver for he will cry if I do. His tears, his sad words, are chapters I wish not to write.

Goodnight depressive thoughts, I tremble to write that my wedding consummation awaits.

Second Entry

It has been three evenings since I was last able to record my secrets. He has refused to leave my side, refused to leave my private thoughts, and my vision now seems incomplete without him within its perimeter. Once again, I find myself cursing my being. I have heard such terrible things that happen to young women when they are first taken by a man. The girl that I have mentioned previously had bruises on her arms, her throat was sore from screams, and even as she had recovered and gone back to him, she was never the same. This was not an uncommon scene to witness as we performers are considered such very low class without a wealthy, ravenous, patron.

On the night of our wedding, as soon as my candle burnt into smoke with its heat leaving my face all too quickly, my husband's name escaped my lips in merely a whisper. So many nights when my candle burned its last, he would come so quickly having heard his name on my lips, however, this night I found myself calling for him a second time. For once, I actually heard his usually silent footsteps and they shuffled across the carpeted floor of my room. Slowly, his eyes left the floor and made their way towards mine as I sat at the Louis Philippe vanity he gifted to me. He stayed by the door and I didn't know what to say. The silence loomed and suffocated me and I was feeling lost and cold. His name escaped from my mouth a third time.

He made his way to me, his eyes meeting the height of my shoulders as he fell to his knees. His cold skeletal hands encompassed mine and he pleaded with me. I can still hear the dejected words in his flawless voice in my head, "Will you deny your poor monster, Christine? Will you deny your Erik after you have sworn your obedience to him? Sworn your life to me as my wife in front of the Almighty!" His head, his unmasked death face, was now rotting over my hands, our hands, and warm tears fell into my lap. Such words of passion did not stop so easily once he had begun, "My Christine, my love, will you be so kind to your faithful husband? I will never allow any spawn to come from me, I swear to you that you will never have to look at another creature of mine, I swear this, my love, my heart."

How much harder he made this by reminding me that his exterior would never be pleasing! My head fell back to look up into the darkness, my eyes praying to see beyond what the darkness had granted before me. I bit my lip to withhold my sobs, my hands in fists beneath him to hold my shoulders from shaking. How dare he ask me to be strong as he now kneeled before me, a sobbing terrifying mess for me to clean up! I was prepared to have to quietly lay as he took his right from me, but this!

"You are my wife," he continued, "Christine, you are my heart and my only. You will never want for anything, my queen, I swear this, my love." His voice will forever ring in my ears, "I will never harm you. I will be so gentle, I swear I will not be any more of a monster than I already am. Please Christine, please…"

It became clear that I had to be the one to continue with my fate. What honest wife, even in these circumstances, would deny their husband in such a way? Despite my pieces of innocence, I knew what happened on a pair's wedding night. I knew that if I were to survive in this cruel world that I needed someone who would not throw money at me only to leave me in the gutter for aging too quickly. Frustration gripped me and I suddenly wanted everything to end. Terrifying as it was to grasp, I would have to be the one to set forth to end it.

Grasping at air that I had not taken throughout his time at my lap, I finally looked down into the darkness, my sense of touch the only way to advance. Pulling his head towards mine, I closed my eyes and placed my forehead to his, doing everything in my nature to breathe with my mouth to block the smell of his decayed skin from my nose. He shuttered in my hands and I shook with him as I whispered the only words I knew to say, "As your wife, I shall not deny you this night or any other."

He had kissed me only once before this when we were wed. The old blind priest had instructed him to do so and I closed my eyes as he lifted his black mask just high enough to lay his thin split lips lightly on my forehead. At that time, I remembered kisses from my father, my mama, and even a childhood sweetheart. With lips, it is possible to close and pucker them, however, as Erik hardly has enough skin to cover his teeth, I recalled feeling rough bone on my forehead rather than what I remembered feeling in the past. I repressed and shiver as he gently held my head t his. When he pulled away he whispered something about my not having died, something about a living wife.

I mention this as it was the same feeling from him, but this time it was on my cheek as he wound his hands into my hair so that he could keep his head on mine longer. How relieved I was for the darkness then as it hid fear and disgust on my features. As his mouth was already so close to my ear, he began to sing softly. The words may have been Russian, I do not recall them. His voice, its hypnotic quality that it holds, elicited a free flow of air in and out of my lungs.

He held this connect with my face and my ears as I was slowly brought to my feet, his song working me to move my shaking limps as I was lead the few footsteps that it took to get to the bed. As the back of my knees bumped into the wood frame, a shutter ran from them and up my spine. His music shook with it and I took in the feel of his protruding jaw and cheek against my face. As the song continued, his face left mine, the sound in my ears never changing as it continued to hum into my brain, fighting my fear so that I would not have to.

My body was pulled to his bony torso, my head cradled in his long encompassing hands. We stayed in this embrace, my breath soon following the leads of his as his steady exhales even as his pounding heart thumped closely to my head. His song continued, refrain after refrain until I felt myself relax into the music, into him. I cannot say I recall my knees failing me and my form falling to the bed. However, once my weight had changed, I do remember trying to chase it back to my feet.

He followed my position, was sitting beside me, his long arm stretched around my shoulders, keeping my close, his forehead touching mine once more as he ran his chilled free hand up and down my forearm. We stayed in this position for just as long, if not longer than we had the last one until my breath was steady and my mind was buzzing as if nearing intoxication. No, no, that is incorrect. We did change our orientation at some point, for I recall both of his hands covering my forehead and my hair being brushed to one shoulder. He must have thought I was more relaxed then I was for even as he continued to hum, I couldn't suppress a shiver as I felt his mouth kiss me more than a few times on my exposed neck.

More refrains, more music in my ears. The effect was growing and I embraced it, giving way to whatever I could to escape the truth of the evening. His hands had left my arms, had covered my stomach, pulling me to his chest again, his soft syllables holding closely to my ears. Cold, free flowing air began to slip its way onto my chest as buttons were carefully undone. Soon I was not able to differentiate the cellar breeze from his chilling hands as he kept me close to him. Perhaps it was better that I could not.

When his hands finally worked in sequence to bring my bare back to the bed, I expected to see his eyes above me. No, I was wrong. He was either keeping them closed to staying beside my ears. Despite his thin frame, I felt the pressure of his body on top of mine and I wished that it would be enough to suffocate me into unconsciousness. It was not. Despite the music filling my head to the brim with pretty notes, I remember everything.

It was not as painful as I could have imagined, nor was it at all pleasurable. How strange it is to feel nothing but a monthly ache from such a small vital place on ones body then to suddenly feel it filled. I have never been one to wonder what lay nestled below my belly and above my knees. It has only been a monthly requirement to uphold to avoid embarrassment. While it seemed such a funny thing to wonder over within opera jokes and whispered gossip, I never felt a need to really do anything about it. It was just there…was there. Now I can't seem to ignore it. How ironic, perhaps cruel, it is to never feel a need for anything there, to suddenly feel it filled, and now it is empty without him.

He was so very gentle with me, I remember this. Even as his pretty song faltered from his physical exertion, I did not feel such terrible pain. Skin against skin. Movement, pace, a change in tempo, my gasp, his shutter, and a warm liquid covering a small place on my thigh that he quickly wiped away from a soft fabric that may have been a handkerchief. And just like that, it was over.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to move and so he moved from on top of me. From beyond the bed, I heard him rustling with his clothing. The song had ended and my body was now cold and exposed to the air once more. Tears were coming to my eyes. I felt as though I were some kind of toiletry simply to be disposed of after use. My body curled and my hands began to search in vain for my chemise.

His coming closer to me was not heard. Before I could let out a sob, I felt the soft cotton material being brushed over my head and arms as if I were a child in need of assistance in dressing. Somewhere in between, he had found the time and ability to button all of those buttons so that I wouldn't have to. Unconsciously, I hugged the thin material close to me as I wrapped myself in my arms. Before too much more time could pass, my limp body was being scooped into his arms as he carried me to a more natural sleeping position on the opposite side of the bed.

As he laid me down, he gently pulled the comforter and sheets up to my chin, his golden eyes were level with mine as he kneeled beside the bed. A hand reached out and softly stroked my cheek, removing the tears that stained it. "Has Erik harmed his wife?" he asked, sorrow dripping from every word, "Has he abused her?"

It took me a second to really assess if there had, in fact, been any damage. There was the physical emptiness that I have spoken about before and yes, my, um, well it was sore, but I couldn't feel any blood, at least, not really. There wasn't a tenderness around my thighs or anywhere else that I could gather if I had been bruised. No, I was, in fact, fine. Not wishing to so cruel as to lie to him, I shook my head against his cold hand.

"Has he…frightened her?" he pressed on, seeming to refuse to speak in first person as if he could not deal with the thought.

"A little," I whispered, "I've never done…I didn't know that…"

His eyes showed him nodding, "Christine is a very good and innocent woman. Erik is so happy to have her as his living wife. She is so beautiful, the most beautiful woman to ever walk. He will be her slave forever until she is happy." He ran his fingers through my hair and for once, the motion was relaxing after everything that had just transpired. Words drifted into the air, "My love."

The feeling of his fingers slowly running through my hair calmed me into closing my eyes. This consisted until sleep was so close I wanted to embrace it despite my mind keeping me tied to earth. It was at this point that he attempted to leave and my feeling of calm and empty mindedness left with his soft fingers as he made his way to the door.

"You're going to leave?" I asked quietly. I saw his golden eyes stop before exiting as he turned to me, curiosity behind them. I continued sheepishly, "I'm…not asleep yet."

He must have understood for he returned to pet my tired head as he had before. For once, it was with his help that I was finally able to drift into a dreamless sleep. His last words drifting around me, "My brave girl."

Third Entry

For four days I spent my night times alone. The first evening, I stayed up later than I usually do for I expected him to return to my room as the had the first night of our marriage. Exhaustion overtook me with time and I found myself in bed, the candle being the last thing I saw before dreams that reminded me of the previous night overtook me. The second and third night were the same. However, this past evening, I no longer found myself alone and curious.

I feel it necessary to mention what my days have been like. Erik has been so dastardly kind to me. Every meal is plated with a delicate hand as if it had come from a prestigious restaurant. Our mornings are spent doused in music, our voices filling every crevice of this small estranged house. Afternoons are spent in the Study where he will tell me elaborate stories of his travels across Europe and the Middle East. He will spin them to create funny punch lines and morals, however, now that I think of them without his words and phrases, I can't help but realize how sad many of them are. He told of a beggar woman losing her arm for picking a pear off the ground, a man taking his life from trying to fly out of a window with a supposed magic carpet, or another man who turned himself into a machine within a palace so that he could maintain control over one place where the Shah could not. Hindsight makes me want to curse myself for laughing at such terrible stories.

If he wasn't taking my attention with his stories, he was entertaining me with very clever parlor tricks. His abilities with a deck of cards are masterful and I still have no clue how he is able to make small coins appear all over the room without moving. Hours pass very quickly with him and every night I was very exhausted by the finish of supper, hardly able to even make it back to my room. However, by the fourth day, I found myself yearning for a fraction of time where I would not be constantly within his world.

I requested yesterday afternoon if I might take a book to read. He very quickly offered to read it to me, saying that he could have been a very good masked thespian if he were only born two hundred years prior. I smiled lightly, but I wanted peace. To be honest, I wanted a bit of time to hear my own thoughts in my head for once and a book would be a proper way to appear as if they weren't. As kindly as I could, I told him that all of his attentions were beginning to wear on me and I didn't want to approach a place where I could not perform for the next opera.

"Erik's wife needs rest?" He asked me slowly, strangely and I nodded. He continued, "And if he allows her to be alone, she will not be so weary of him later?" If only I were smart enough to grasp what "later" meant! Alas, I did not catch on to what he was insinuating. A smile crossed my features as I nodded. That spiraled him into a tearful rant. He took my hand in both of his, kneeled before me, and held my hand to his decrepit cheek.

"Christine will never know how happy she makes her poor husband. She is so good to him and so pretty when she smiles," I felt his warm tears on the back of my hand, "You are my angel Christine, my only light from God, my love, my love."

"Please do not cry anymore, Erik." I managed to stumble out, "You make me sad when you cry."

He nodded, muttering something about tears of happiness, but I couldn't bare to see them any longer no matter what kind of tears they were. A smile crossed my features once again as he stood, lay a long kiss on the back of my hand before letting it go. He told me he would leave me to read so that he would be able to present me with pretty things within a few hours. Not because I am vain, only because I wanted the time to myself, I nodded again and let him leave.

Come supper time, he had returned with various boxes in his arms, ribbons tied neatly around them. Food, as I know he hardly eats and has never done so before me, is a requirement he doesn't always see fit to carry through. I was fortunate to have snacked on a slice of bread and cheese while he was away otherwise, I would not have received any dinner at all. He insisted that I go to the study to open everything that he had given me.

There were colorful hats, intricately designed broaches, new threads and designs for my cross stitching, and pearl earrings all laid out before me by the end of the evening. Even as I smiled and answered the overly repeated question, "Does Christine like her gifts? Does she want to stay with Erik as he will always want to give pretty things to his lovely wife?"

Needless to say, as the evening went further into the night, I found myself just as exhausted, if not more, than I had been in previous nights. Blindly, I told him I thought it was time for me to retire. For the first time that evening, he quieted and nodded slowly. The sudden change baffled me and I did my best to smile when I whispered, "Goodnight, husband." Looking back on this night, I could swear I heard him whisper into the air, "So it shall be."

I was already dozing in bed when I sensed him enter. The candle was still lit on my nightstand as I must have forgotten to blow it out before sleep fully overtook me. My heavy half open eyes watched him make his way to the candle to extinguish it with a puff of his breath. His eyes soon fell to my level and he must have known that I was awake for even as I shut mine to try and pretend, his long fingers began to weave into the hair behind my head and over my neck. I shuttered at the chill of his skin.

"My wife is not so tired," I wasn't sure if he was begging or not, "She is not so tired. She told him that she would not be if he left her alone for a short while and he did. He brought her so many pretty things…" His voice dragged on, as I felt a hand over my forearm, "Christine is so beautiful."

This time he did not sing, he did not wait, he simply made his way on top of me, slowly pulling the comforter down and my chemise up higher and higher to expose my bare legs. His hands were first very light over my skin and it was like the touch of a ghost. Once my chemise was up high enough, he moved the tips of his fingers from the base of my left breast down to my navel and then around to the small of my back where he lifted me gently to meet him. I only knew him to surely be a man when he pressed his sex up to mine and I tensed as I was suddenly wide awake and all too sure of what was to come. This time, however, as I was not relaxed in the slightest, he had to push himself hard against me I whimpered and clenched in discomfort when he entered me.

The sound seemed to bring him to attention and he stopped moving. I could still feel him, long and hard within me, filling me, and I shuttered and clenched my jaw when I looked up to him. His eyes lowered to mine and I felt his mouth on my forehead. The weight of his thin body rested upon me as he smoothed my hair away from my face with his free hand. He then wrapped his arm around the back of my neck and whispered into my ear, "Fear not my brave girl. Be calm."

If this had been any other living person on earth, such words would have done the exact opposite. Dear thought keeper, if only I could convey to you just how strongly the simplest of words from him can affect me! His words can evoke such terror and sadness, but they can also quiet my frayed thoughts faster than anything I can think of. He spoke such kind tranquil words to me that my shaking ceased and my eyes closed. The feeling of him within me became less intense as my body loosened and when he finally moved his hips again, my reaction was a mere gasp.

In time, he straightened his arm away from my neck and I could look into his eyes above me. His two golden eyes were peering down to me as if strained as his pace continued. Even in a far more relaxed state from when the event started, I could not relate to whatever he was feeling. Why would anyone ever want to do this? How could he be feeling such pleasure from my indifference? How could any man? And why was it that women still smile at men in the halls and on the streets after they've been deflowered? Was it all a lie? Some play for the men?

Finally, a shutter traveled up his spine and he pulled himself from me, the warm liquid once again staining my upper thigh only to be quickly brushed away with a foreign cloth. My chemise was pulled over my legs again, my body was covered with the comforter just as it had been. My mind, as it tries to protect my sanity, wishes me to believe such accounts are simply uninterpreted dreams and even as his beautiful voice eventually lulled me into sleep that evening, I write these words as fact to that which is sure to happen again and I will be at a loss for what I am to do.

Fourth Entry

I was fortunate enough to be able to return to Mama's house one last time before everything was sold off. Erik had asked if I had wanted anything and assisted me in carrying out a few boxes of items that were special to us. Her estate will be going to Master Valerius' second cousin whom I have met only once before. Most of the items that I sought to take with me I showed to them, some of them that while expensive if sold, were priceless to me. It was there that I was able to pull out an old notebook from the dusty office and it is within this empty book that I write to you now. I suppose I will add my previous pages from this week to this book tonight.

I have been a wife for a week, my husband has visited me in the night only twice, and I now have more hats, brooches, and jewelry than I'll ever know what to do with. You must understand that while I do not know if I am capable of loving this man as he loves me, I am grateful for all that he has done. In the large scheme of things, he asks so little of me as a wife. I am not required to do chores, or cook, or anything that a typical wife is expected to do to earn her keep. His only requirement for me is to stay with him and seeing as I have nowhere else to go, that isn't so difficult to do.

For this reasoning, I am lucky and grateful. He is a respectful man and as gentle as he can be. I do not know if I will ever be able to enjoy our times in the dark, but seeing as he has so much to offer me, perhaps one day I will become unshaped by them. Mama herself told me that a man has to learn how to please a woman and that can take plenty of time. She said that was what a marriage was for when two people were alone: to really learn each other. I am ashamed to admit that I am afraid to "learn" any more of my husband's physical traits.

It was nice to be out in the sun today. While Erik stayed in the darkness of the carriage with my boxed items, I took a walk in a nearby park. It was a bit colder than what I would have preferred. Winter will be arriving soon. But still, it was the sun, all of my needs have been met, and despite how I always thought things would be, I know that I am well taken care of with my husband.

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