Author's Note: Greetings, all! This is officially the Sunday post, but it's being posted late Saturday night because it can be.

Humor Warning: We had another food and drink mishap recently, so it's time we do this now:

R E A D E R S:

It has been

2

days since our

last accident.

Safety first

Do not eat or drink
while reading humor fics!

Disclaimer: I don't own a white domino, either, so if Christine urged ME to show up last minute, it couldn't have happened. (Hmmm... Raoul pretends he's all embarrassed, but where did he get such a costume so fast if it was so mortifying?)

We headed in the direction of one of the smoking rooms when I happened to notice a black domino followed closely by a white domino headed in our direction. I elbowed Erik and indicated them with a nod of my head. Christine hurried past, masked face turned downward, scurrying to get past Erik as though she might not be noticed. But the boy, the boy in the white mask and cape stopped. And turned. And looked Erik directly in the face.

"Perros!" his voice said through his mask.

Erik looked back at him. "What?" he said, quite normally so that his jaw moved and anyone might have noticed that it was too sophisticated a mask to be a mask.

"Perros-Guirec!" Raoul repeated. "The Perros skull!"

Erik's eyes widened perceptibly. In my peripheral vision I saw the black domino impatiently and nervously waiting. Someone behind Erik read his cloak aloud again.

I met Erik's eyes. He seemed to read my mind. I grabbed his cloak. In an instant his hand shot out from his ornate cuff and clasped me about the wrist. I threw myself backward away from him and screamed with as much theatrical terror as I could muster, clawed at my own wrist with my free hand, and screeched as though in pain. An instant later Erik released his grip and I fell, quite naturally, onto my derrière in a most unseemly fashion, then scrambled to my feet and darted from the room. Erik followed, trudging like marauding death. Christine and Raoul "escaped" somewhere.

"Red Death!" I called leading Erik through the crowd. "Don't Touch!"

"Indeed." Erik said quietly beneath the collective voice of the crowd. "I feel as though I shall shatter if anyone else lays a hand upon me. Let us find something to distract ourselves, hm?"

A game of cards passed a mere half an hour, so Erik and I were on our way to treat ourselves to what promised to be particularly good cigars from some savagely exotic place when we were once again accosted from behind.

"Benvolio, is it you?" the high thin voice trilled.

"Benvolio?" I asked him under my breath in as derisive a tone as I could manage. He rolled his eyes and growled under this breath, "So, I enjoy English classics. Is that a crime in Paris?" He turned reluctantly to face the woman who had placed her hand on his shoulder before I could respond.

She wore a red gown and a gold mask and would have made an excellent companion for the red death, but Erik was not yet free. I glanced at my watch. No. Not yet. Meanwhile, she put both arms around Erik's skinny neck and draped herself down the front of him. She put her fingers over his mouth and pressed as though she knew it was his real face, but her words implied she fell for the mask trick.

"Hush. Don't answer. I know it is you. I would recognize your ears anywhere!" she said, and her pink little tongue darted out to make contact with the one nearest her. Erik seemed to melt into her, his hips pressing urgently against hers, his hands no longer under his power as they roved her back and inched downward, his face fully flushing through his makeup and beads of sweat appearing suddenly on his forehead. He moaned.

Thinking quickly, I shifted my voice to a high falsetto and screeched at him. "Benvolio! Benvolio, indeed! What do you think you are doing and who is this little wench?" Erik drew back and looked around in hot confusion. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Who is this tramp? Is this who you've been with instead of at home with Regan and Cordelia?" (I know some English theatre, too, you know!) I sobbed a high-pitched hurtful sound that I have sometimes heard women make. "What am I to tell them when they ask me why Papa is so seldom home, Benvolio? Shall I tell them you are out with this.... this..." I stuttered and stopped. Then I drew back my left hand and slapped him hard in the right cheek. Meanwhile, the lady in red hurried away through the crowd and escape the unpleasantness and leave her lover to offer his own explanations.

Erik's eyes went wide as he put his hand to his face suddenly.

"That's IT!" I screeched. "We're leaving!" I grabbed him by a fistful of cloak, turned on my heel and dragged him toward the foyer.

"Good God, Daroga!" he exploded when we escaped the crowd. "Why...." With his right hand he lightly fingered his reddened cheek. "That was entirely uncalled for!"

"It was for your own good, my friend," I told him.

"I am not at all certain I agree," he said, still dazed from the slap. "And for a dear friend, you are certainly beating me about the head and shoulders a bit too much for comfort."

I withdrew my watch hastily. "Get control of yourself then," I said. "It only another hour, Erik!"

He nodded dumbly. "An hour. Yes. That is certainly possible. Just an hour. An hour. I should like to be alone for a bit of that," he said dully. He turned to wander off down an empty corridor.

Before he could take more than a step from me, however, my eyes were drawn to movement down the corridor. It was a feminine form in a black domino leading a broader, stronger, white domino through a doorway that led to a staircase.

Erik must have seen them at the same instant I did, for he turned to me and mumbled, "That should certainly be sufficient to distract me," and hurried off in their direction.

He was gone then for surely most of that hour chasing the poor fools up and down stairs and into boxes and Lord only knows where else.

The clock had scarcely struck two when a cold bony hand gripped my arm. I turned. "Erik!"

"Christine waits for me in her dressing room. I will go to her now and we shall retire."

"But it's early yet!" I hissed. Early, considering. The party had really just begun, though I was already seeing nearly double.

He grabbed the back of my head roughly and brought my masked forehead to his bare one. His yellow eyes blazed feverishly through the eyeholes of my jester mask and blotted out all else."I will leave this blasted party now," he groaned through his teeth.

"As you wish," I returned. "But your two weeks is up at last. Maybe you'd like to..." I danced around a little, trying to imply he might catch up with all those women who had been laying hands on him all evening.

He turned away from me then, but with his hand upon the door he glanced back. "Christine Daaé is in her dressing room," he said meaningfully. Then he added, "Pitying me."

Shameless Begging: I apologize for dragging out this bit where you get to enjoy Erik enjoying Christine. The more I look at it, it doesn't really even look that "M" to me. And its a couple posts away anyway. I apologize for jumping around, but Daroga is SO ADHD.... Anyway, please review. There are thousands of ways to say "funny"; just check your thesaurus.