Wow, thanks again everyone, you've all been awesome with the reviews. I know I promised to get up the next chapter of Phantom Royale and I promise it will be up within a day or so…. Anyway, here's the next chapter.


Christine's POV

It was like Doctor Gangle was an angel sent from heaven…. I had a job, and a place to stay where I could check on Erik every so often to make sure he was alright. I returned back to the motel that night and told Erik what had happened…. He wasn't happy about the fact that I had to work because he was too ill, but I told him I didn't mind it at all….

For the remainder of the evening while Erik slept, I packed our things and got ready for the morning move. I made two trips that morning before the sun came up… During my first trip to the Café, I carried our belongings there… When I approached the door, I knocked and Dr. Gangle let me in…. He even took a few bags out of my arms to lighten my load of walking up the stairs. After placing our bags down, I told him I'd be back within the hour with Erik…. Getting Erik to the café was another adventure all its own. It was a twenty minute walk from the motel, but with Erik, it took me close to an hour…. After each step, my Erik would have to pause to catch his breath due to the horrible agony he was in…. I never let my arms leave his shoulder the whole trip. The last thing I wanted was for him to fall. By the time we reached the café, it was nearly dawn, and soon the streets would be crowded with people.

Once inside the café, I headed with Erik towards the staircase. From the counter, Dr. Gangle's eyes followed Erik's every step on the stairs….I believed him to be surprised that I had actually married an oddity…. Once upstairs into our new room, I laid Erik down on the old bed, and let him relax. He sat there looking around the small surroundings, hating it more than the motel…

"You can't be serious?"

"I am…." I said, pushing him to lay down.

"Erik shall go insane….. There is nothing but four walls.. Even our motel room was bigger than this…"

"Well it's the best I can do….. I need to keep an eye on you while I work. I can't leave you for eight hours a day in the condition you're in. Now do me a favor and help me by having some patience."

"For Christine, he shall try…"

I pulled up my hair, and tied it into a bun, before turning to Erik and giving him a quick kiss goodbye.

"Now rest…. I shall check on you soon."

I then left the room, skipping down the stairs to start my new job. Dr. Gangle was standing at the counter, counting the money that was in the register…. Once he was finished, he threw me a white apron, and told me to put it on.

"Each morning I open the doors at six a.m." he stated. "The oddities come for their morning tea and coffee perhaps a crumpet or two before heading to Coney Island. Breakfast is usually the slowest time of the day….. A lot of us oddities don't like the mornings…. Lunch time it picks up a bit because more of us take our breaks to get something to eat. They come in for tea and an afternoon sandwich or two…. Then comes the late afternoon…. Usually when they get off of work, they come to unwind here and read the paper or a book…..Come, let me show you where we keep the food."

I followed Dr. Gangle behind the counter, and through a door where a small kitchen sat. He pulled me over to a counter, and pointed to a contraption that was placed there.

"Now pay attention because I'm only going to show you this once….. This is how our coffee is brewed…."

He pointed to the top, where a glass container was attached to a another container that led to a small pot where a flame was heating up its contents.

"The beans are to be poured into the top container…. They circulate to the second container where a filter is placed…. Come here…"

He then pulled me over to a kettle that was boiling water over an open flame.

"You take the small kettle, and pour the hot water over the beans, which will cause the coffee to spill into the pot below it…. You are to keep it filled with fresh coffee…."

I followed him around the kitchen as he showed me where he kept his tea bags and crumpets…..

"Now at night, I will be gone, but you can have access to the kitchen to make you and your husband meals. I expect it to be kept clean…"

"Yes sir…."

"Alright then, come along it's just about opening time."

Once the doors were opened, I could already tell the freaks didn't appreciate me working here by the angered looks on their faces. I could already tell that my first day on the job was going to be hell. But I took their orders and poured them coffee like they asked…. They didn't seem happy, but neither said one harsh word to insult me…. Though I knew their way of insulting me, was not leaving me any kind of tip. At one point, I was coming out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee someone had ordered, when I noticed a rather bulky man entering…. He had strange tattoos all over his face, and he was completely bald. I ignored him for the current moment, and placed the coffee down on the table where my latest customer was sitting….. He was a rather thin man, with sharp spikes dangling off of his clothing…..He looked up at me with his bulgy eyes, and grabbed my wrist violently.

"Gangle has a lot of nerve hiring a normy around these parts…I should cut your arm off right here in this shop!"

I tried to pull myself away, but couldn't….. But there was no need to do it, because someone had done it for me…. It was the bulky man.. He came forward, and grabbed the man's hand and bent it like a piece of straw…

"Don't you talk to the girl like that…" his deep voice warned.

Dr. Gangle who had been down stairs in the storage facility came rushing up the stairs, and groaned at the sight of the two men.

"Seriously, Squelch? Must you show off this morning…."

The man Gangle had called Squelch put the man down, only to have him rush out of the café….

"I would not have touched him, if he hadn't touched the girl first….."

"I'm sure the girl could fend for herself…. She seems tough enough…."

Squelch turned to me, and then back to Gangle.

"You hired her?"

"Yes, I needed some help…. That girl was in need of a job…"

"There you go again…" Squelch argued. "Hiring someone who's name you never even bothered to ask. You do it all the time….."

"Names are hardly important to me…."

Squelch laughed, his voice deep and mighty. He turned back to me, and smiled.

"What is your name?"

"Christine….." I said shyly…

Squelch took a seat at an open table, and folded his hands.

"Well then, Christine…. Could I please have a cup of English tea and two crumpets? Peach jam spread on the tops of them if you please…"

"Right away, sir…"

"Please, call me Mr. Squelch…"

I nodded, and dashed to the kitchen to get what Mr. Squelch ordered. When I brought it back to him, I placed it down on the table and he thanked me.

"Thank you for helping me this morning…" I said.

"Not a problem…. You have to realize that there are just as much hatred towards us oddities as there is hatred in oddities towards normals like you….What I can't understand is why someone like you would want to wait on people like us….."

"I enjoy being around oddities…." I said. "I myself am married to one…"

"Really? That's not something you hear of everyday…. It's certainly a first for me. Tell me though, what is his oddity?"

"He….He is deformed… His face is malformed."

"And what made you like him? What attracted you to him?"

I smiled.

"I've known him almost my whole life….. He has a beautiful soul, one that can only be seen by me…. I love him…. With my whole heart. He's a good person…."

"Then so are you…."

We both smiled at one another, and I turned away when I heard someone entering the café… I waited on more customers, never even seeing Squelch get up and leave…. But when I went to clear his table, I gasped when I noticed he had left me a small tip…. Perhaps Squelch wasn't like the other freaks at all….. So far, his tip had been the only one left for me…..

When breakfast was over, Dr. Gangle had given me a few moments to go check on Erik. I went into the kitchen, and poured him a glass of juice before walking up the stairs to check on him. I was surprised to see that he was fast asleep, his arm hanging loosely over the side of the bed….. I smiled, and placed his arm at his side and tucked him in, placing the glass of juice on the nightstand. The pain must have been excruciating for him….. And I knew that sleeping it off was going to be the best way for him to heal…. Squelch had been the highlight of my day…. For the remainder of it was nothing but more freaks who didn't tip. I didn't understand what the problem was with me? I was a good waitress was I not? Had I not given everyone of them what they wanted at a speedy pace? I was just trying to make a living in the world just as they were…. At eight O clock, Dr. Gangle closed the shades in the window, and turned down the lights, leaving a few candles lit.

"You did good today…" were his promising words. "You've definitely earned your day's pay…."

I hung up my apron, and watched Dr. Gangle throw on his coat and head to the door.

"I shall see you tomorrow then. Have a good night…"

"Thank You…" was all I said before Gangle was out the door.

I had checked on Erik three times that day, and there had only been one visit where he was actually awake. I had brought him lunch, and he had thankfully been awake to eat it. After finishing cleaning up, I quietly made it back upstairs, to find Erik still asleep…. After changing into my nightgown, I came back down stairs and made myself a cup of tea before sitting down at one of the tables…. I sighed, and was happy to be able to unwind. I even took a romance book off the shelf, and sat there sipping my tea, and silently reading to myself… A few minutes later, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs….It took a few moments, but soon enough, I noticed Erik holding onto the railing and aching down each stair…..

When he reached the café area, I stood to help him, but he motioned me to stay where I was….. He was dressed in his pajama pants, and shirt, even the clothes he was wearing wasn't enough to hide the pain I knew his body was in. I pulled out his chair for him and helped him sit down…..

"Erik, you should be in bed…."

"Erik was tired of laying there. He also wondered where his wife was…."

"Down here….relaxing…"

The café was dark, with the exception of only a few lit candles…. I turned to my husband, glad that he wasn't wearing the mask…. I hated that thing more than his temper. His hand reached up from the table, and intertwined itself with my fingers, causing me to happily sigh…

"So tell Erik how your first day of work was?"

"As good as it could have been… I guess."

"Christine does not like her job?"

"No, it's not that….. It's just…. Well, people here aren't as kind as I would have thought them to be…. It's like they discriminate me for being normal…"

"But you must understand that they are only acting out in the way they are treated by others."

"I know…. But I'm not like other normal people…. I would never say anything hurtful to one of them."

"And in time they will come to understand that."

I scooted my chair closer to Erik's, and gently rubbed his arm.

"Do you want a cup of tea? I could make you one…."

"No, Erik is fine…."

I sat there beside Erik, with another question on my mind…. One that I hoped wouldn't make him upset.

"Erik, do you feel normal when you are around me?"

"Of course….. Christine makes Erik feel like any other person, even though he is not."

"Then why do you speak in the third person?"

Erik lightly squeezed my hand, and faced me.

"Because who is Erik? Erik could be a handsome prince… Erik could be anything Christine wants him to be… If Erik referred to himself as I…..then…. Christine knows who he is referring to….and everyone knows he's a monster…"

"Erik, please… I love you… Please don't refer to yourself as Erik. I want you to feel normal, I want you to speak to me like a human being, and not like an uneducated cave man…."

"Is that truly what you wish for?"

"Yes…. More than anything…."

"Would Christine giv….Sorry, I mean…that is, would you mind giving me a back massage?"

Oh I smiled! How I smiled to hear Erik speak to me like a human being…

"Of course, come on…"

"Erik has wan….I mean…Oh forgive him… It will take a while to get used not speaking in the third person…"

I blew out the candles, and took Erik by the hand, not caring about how long it would take him to get out of the mode of speaking in the third person. Once back in the room, I rolled the shirt off of Erik's back, and placed him down on his stomach…. As I massaged his back, he groaned in pure ecstasy and shivered against my touch.

"Christine has given Erik so much….. Is there anything he could do for her?"

My hands ran along his flesh, tracing every scar that he had….

"When you get better, I would like to go out one night to Coney Island…."

"I…I would love to…."

A little while later, I plopped down beside him, and couldn't help but notice how painful his exposed skull looked. I gently ran my fingers around each vein and crevice that was exposed.

"Does it still hurt?" I asked.

"Not anymore…."

His trembling fingers then took my free hand, and placed it on the center of his chest. His heartbeat thumped steadily against my palm, his cold hands pressing mine harder to his chest.

"Do you feel it?" he asked, his voice soft and seductive.

"Yes…." I replied.

"Do you think that perhaps my heart is just as deformed as my face? If I tore it out, do you think it would look normal?"

I removed my hand from over his heart, and replaced it with my lips….. I kissed the center of his chest, his heart pulsing against my tongue…This sensation had lit a fire within me, for within moments, my body was screaming for him…. I had begun tracing kisses from his heart all the way around his chest, reaching every scar, and both nipples…. His heart beat had sped up, and his breathing became labored….

"Oh…Christine…" were the words that escaped his lips. "Mon Ange…"

My kisses trailed all the way down to the lining of his trousers, and I indulged my mouth into the protruding pelvic bone that stuck out on both sides of him….. I had believed there to be no fire hot enough within Erik to take control….but I had been wrong. Moments after kissing his stomach, I felt myself being flipped over on my back, only to look up and realize that Erik was now laying on top of me….

His hands trembled within my hair, and his malformed lips had found my neck….Kiss after kiss, he trailed down to my collar bone, groaning with me, our voices in sync…. Raoul had never brought me such pleasure…. Raoul could never make me sing as Erik had….My nails gently dug into his back, causing him to groan even louder… Oh, how amazing my angel was….I wanted him to make love to me….. How I ached to have him take me and consummate our marriage. My hands ran feverishly over the buttons of his trousers, but I felt his hands stop me….

"Erik is not ready yet….. He is still nervous…"

"I'm nervous too, Erik…" I confessed. "But not enough to hold myself back….."

"Do you know that Erik is only afraid of one thing…."

"Yes, you've mentioned it before… But what? What are you afraid of?"

"Erik's only fear is disappointing Christine…."

"Disappointing me in what?"

"In everything…. He is afraid to disappoint her as a husband, and especially as a lover….. Erik does not know how to love… He doesn't even know how to make love…. He is nervous about feeling the pain his master brought onto him, and is afraid to disappoint Christine…."

I kissed him gently, and smiled.

"You could never disappoint me, Erik…. It will be amazing, this I know."

"Enough…please…." he begged, tears falling down his cheeks. "Your promised to wait until I was ready…."

"And I will…..I don't care, I will wait for you…"

"Thank you…."

"But would you….that is…."

"Anything…."

"Lay here with me…wearing no clothes…"

My husband trembled, and forced himself to nod…. I needed to know what it felt like… I needed to know what Erik's body would feel like up against mine… I wanted only what any other wife would want….

"Only in the dark…." were his last words before blowing out the candle on the nightstand.

I sat there, pulling my nightgown over my head, listening to the rustling of Erik removing his clothes…..I crawled underneath the blankets with him, and laid there waiting to feel his arms wrap around me….When nothing happened, I wrapped my arms around him, and settled our bodies against one another's….. It felt amazing… My bare legs touching his, our chests once more pressing together….our hips melting together as one…..

"Oh, Erik…."

My husband groaned, and our lips crashed up against one another's…..

"Doesn't this feel wonderful?" I asked. "Tell me it does…"

"Oh, for years this wretched body has wanted to feel this way….. Oh, how wonderful it is to finally be laying up against a woman like this….."

I once again kissed him, our bodies rolling around the sheets, heated passion melting us both….

"Oh, Erik doesn't care about the pain anymore…" he groaned into my hair. "Let all the pain in the world come to him if only to feel Christine like this forever…."

Was he actually saying this? Did Erik really want to make love to me….

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Extremely…..He is in heaven right now…Touch him…please touch him…"

I continued feverishly kissing him, my hand moving from his shoulder down to his hips…. I had only heard stories on how to please a man, and I only hoped those stories were right…. I had been expecting him to scream in fear when I touched him, but that wasn't the case…. His breathing soon became labored once more, and he pleaded me to continue… If my touch was truly making him feel this way then I wanted it as well…. Oh, how I wanted to feel as he was…. I begged him to touch me, and when he did, my breathing became just as labored as his….. We were two totally inexperienced souls, touching and experimenting with one another's bodies, testing what felt good and what didn't….. I never would have thought this night to go as far as it was going, but when our bodies could no longer take the agony of teasing any longer, I joined us both… It hurt, oh how it hurt me… But only for a few minor seconds…. I held back the pain, never letting Erik see it for the slightest of seconds… I knew if he saw my face, he would never want to do this with me ever again…..

I began straddling him, his hands placed to my hips, gasping and calling my name…. It felt amazing, and I too began calling his name…. I never wanted this sensation to end, but it did within seconds of joining our bodies….. The sensation was too breathtaking to Erik's virgin body to last more than a few seconds…. And I knew he felt terrible about it…. But I didn't care…. I knew we would do it again many times, but I knew that Erik's worst fear had come true… I knew he believed to be a disappointment…. For later that night, I awoke only to hear him crying silently to himself….. And I knew the coming morning was going to be anything but pleasant…..


Ok everyone, more to come soon. Please let me know what you think… Reviews are greatly appreciated…..I swear the wonder of what is going on in Paris shall be coming shortly…. Along with some new characters and familiar faces…