Note: The Christine/Raoul scene occurs the same time as the Erik/Luci scene. It may help to go back and re-read the first chapter, where it is revealed Christine had killed Raoul in vain. Chapter 6 was an exploration of how he died.
"Well that was very brief," Madame Jacqui's voice was vile and unsentimental. "I haven't seen money spent like that over anyone in this house, not even you."
The stout woman lifted Luci's chin and examined her face from side to side. "Looks like he wasn't too rough on you. Well, I'm glad. I was worried he was 'of the crazy' when I saw how much he'd paid for the hour. To be honest, I almost told him to shoo. I've had girls get killed before, and no amount of money can make up for our loss in the end. What's the matter with you? Don't tell me he was your father!"
"That's just silly, Mame." Luci threw her shawl over her shoulders. "You know he's not my father."
"It's a popular fantasy that the girls all have here, you know -- that their father's will come to their rescue. Fortunately, I only take volunteers. But everyone in this damn house wants to sleep on their asses while eating a day's worth. Nobody wants to work."
"I'm too good at my job to not want to work."
Madame Jacqui was pleased. "What a smart rat you are. I should expect you to receive him again and often then?"
"I can't say. He doesn't seem the type to wear the same shoe twice."
"Well, then you get him new shoes girl, and quickly!"
***
Raoul was dead. Yes, he's dead. He's gone. And it was all Christine's fault.
***
Luci dreamt she was sweating profusely, and two hands were upon her areolae, messaging them, pulling them, making them hard and prickly. They grabbed and stroked her, milled themselves down her stomach to her vagina and inserted themselves with force, at which point, she arched and was flipped over carefully, like an egg in a pan, and he took her from behind.
She had no doubt in her mind whose hands they were since they'd been so bony that they had hurt her. But she found it pleasurable, nonetheless -- he wasn't her usual cup of tea, but what was different always felt good.
***
Raoul was dead. He was dead. He was dead.
Christine paced in Erik's kitchen, stopping only to eye the fresh loaf of bread on the dining table before she snatched it and took a bite so hard, she bit her herself. She sucked the blood right out of her lip, and took another bite before pacing about. Blood and bread: delicious.
Raoul was dead. What to do?
She had been waiting for Erik for hours, and it was late. So late that she wasn't entirely awake anymore. She stopped to search for a mirror in the kitchen, but of course, there were none. How could she forget. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a navy porcelain plate and checked her reflection.
Still lovely. In a desperate sort of way.
A noise came from the living room, and she dropped the plate. Shards of porcelain flew everywhere at her feet, and she clamped her mouth with her hand, as if her screaming would make it any more obvious that she was in the kitchen.
His shadow slowly appeared at the door and peered in. He had been outside in the rain and thoroughly drenched. He looked at her, perplexed, before pushing himself away from the doorway and disappearing again.
She followed him in to the living room and watched him drape his wet garments over the coat hanger before sitting onto the couch and gesturing for her to sit in front of him.
"Is the honeymoon over?"
Her brow furrowed and her lips pursed, but she held it in. She'd grown wary of his snide remarks and they did not amuse her. It was so like him to be kind one moment and cruel the next. His ambiguous moods kept her on her toes, and sometimes it was even charming, but it hurt all the same.
"Forgive me, but I had to see you."
Her eyes wandered to his mud-splattered shoes. She had never seen him in muddied shoes before. Perhaps he'd cared less for his appearance after she left him. Perhaps, he missed her, too.
She tucked herself into his blanketing shadow. There was comfort to be found where she was looked down upon but never down at, and she was warm in this cold place.
She thought she saw him tremble, but it was she who had been clenching her hands so tightly that she shook. He sat atrociously still, with his right hand draped over a cushion and the left moving to lift her chin to to him.
Any gesture -- a cough, a laugh, a whimper -- would have calmed her, but no. He gazed down upon her in a naked silence that shamed her down to the bone.
Alas, she raised her head in search of an expression in those yellow eyes, and to her surprise, they were gentle and perhaps, forgiving?
"Sweetheart," he said softly. "Where is your husband?"
She kept in mind that despite being a terrible liar, she was capable of working around the truth.
"He's gone," she answered. "And I can't find him."
"There's nebulosity in your voice, and I'm not sure I like it." He said as he lifted her chin with his hand and ran his thumb across the cut in her lower lip.
She guessed that nebulosity meant something bad.
"Explain."
"Well there's not much to it. I left the house yesterday morning, and he was gone when I returned. He took nothing with him except his wallet, and no one has seen him since."
He released her and leaned back pensively. "I suppose you think I'm responsible for his disappearance."
"Oh no," she laughed awkwardly to herself, "I would never suspect you." He shot her a look. "I mean, it wouldn't be like you -- to be so untimely."
"I had no idea you knew me so well."
I killed him, yes I did.
Christine moved and sat next to him. She could smell the faint scent of ambergris from his sleeve that she'd never smelt before. He had a curious look in his eye that irked her, but she shoved the feeling aside.
"Are you not pleased to see me?" She asked, praying for a kind answer. But he shook his head, and moved away, dragging the carrot of hope away with him. She frowned, brokenly, and asked him again.
"Are you glad to see me?"
"I will be glad to see you out, my dear," was his lackadaisical reply.
***
Erik saw her to the Rue Scribe. In the second that he unlocked the gates, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face febrilely into his chest. "I love you so terribly," she said. At this point he could barely bridle his heart, and he placed one arm around her waist and the other above her head and left just enough space so that they would not touch. The feathered moment was over quickly, and he's hands were at his sides again before she pulled away and ran off.
