Authorette's note: Happy Christmas everybody! Hope you enjoy the big day and what better present could you receive than a new chapter! What can I give in return to honour such a gift? I hear you ask, well it's simple; one review and I'll be the happiest girl on the net! Happy Christmas once more! This chapter is dedicated to Stephy, the bestest ever spell-checker, grammatical bitch and licentious word giver! You go girl!

An Angelic Touch

1870, November 1st

Untold hours had passed since Christine had fainted, and she was now peacefully lying on the gold chaises-lounge, situated in my study, a red velvet throw covering her perfect form. It was really quite amazing, the way she fell, quite perfectly into my arms. I recall standing there for a good few minutes, just standing utterly still, supporting Christine's knees with my right arm and her upper back with my left. I stared down at her face, and noticed the tears drying on her cheeks, making her thin layer of rouge drip down her face, causing my angel to resemble a porcelain doll that had been carelessly ruined.

Ruined by me.

I cursed my vile temper, my vile personality, my vile manner, my vile self. Only a monster such as I could have hurt an angel's weak heart so. Even after all that had happened, all the pain that Christine had caused me, I forgave her. I forgave her again and again in my head, as I stood there in that dark passageway, water steadily dripping on my head as it leaked from the floor above me. I now decided that I would take my sleeping angel back to my home, where I would allow her to rest and then… Well, that could all be decided nearer the time.

I wasn't entirely sure why I was even bothering to take her back with me; after all when she came to she'd probably just run up away screaming and shaking, as she had done before. The sensible thing to do would have been to return her to her dressing room for the boy to find her.

But why should I? I thought to myself. Why should I sacrifice the few hours of pleasure that I would gain just by having Christine asleep in my house so that a frivolous dandy could hold her in his dainty arms for a little longer?

I picked my mask up from the floor, and after wiping it clean with my cloak, placed it back on my disgusting face, all the while tightly clutching Christine's body to my own, turning her face into my chest and trembling at the sensation. I then realised how terribly cold my angel must have been, and maybe still was. I could feel the chilled air nipping at my arms, and the garments that covered them were far weightier than those that warmed Christine. I quickly removed my cloak and wrapped it over her, as though she were a sleeping child.

But she was not a child; she was a grown girl, and a beautiful one at that; I reflected as I descended the crude stone stairs that led to my home, five storeys beneath the world and its mocking cruelties.

As I entered my home, I felt a feeling of relief fall over me; perhaps even a feeling of happiness. I remember recalling that the scene could almost resemble a groom returning home after his wedding, carrying his beautiful bride across the threshold. I smiled, and carried my 'bride's' body into the study, bypassing my bedroom; a coffin is no place for an angel to lie. I removed the paper that lay strewn across my chaises-lounge, one of my few remaining links to my poor unhappy mother, and softly placed Christine's body onto it, as if she were an antique vase.

I removed her sodden shoes, and replaced them with a pair of my warmest slippers. A shiver was sent up my spine as I touched the rosy balls of her feet and saw her slender ankles, as bare as could be, only a few inches from my lips. I noticed that her dress had ridden up, revealing all her skin below her knee. The sight of that expanse of creamy skin captured my every breath, and set my manly thoughts alight. I wondered if this was how Don Juan felt before he seduced his many women?

I will not lie, I had seen many a naked woman in my time at the opera house. In fact, one of my evening rituals was to observe the more mature ballerinas changing for their performances! Although this may sound perverted one must understand that I wasn't always an elderly man with waning eyesight and a shameful limp. Once I was a young man, a extraordinarily gifted young man, that despite his monstrous body and vile mind, had the thoughts, feeling and desires of any other man. Besides, I was most certainly not the only spectator of this private show. Many of the other workers used to find pleasure in gazing over those beautifully bare bodies as they passed from one outfit to another.

However, I had never had the heart to view Christine changing,; even though it would have been more than easy to do so, I simply could not. I sighed longingly as I admired her smooth skin; although I had seen a naked female form before I had never been close to one.

Licentious thoughts suddenly tumbled into my mind; I could…. If I wanted…. She would never know and then I would be…

No. No, I could never, never do such a thing. I felt even more repulsed by myself than usual for allowing such a thought into my mind. My daydream had gone too far; Christine was not my bride, she was my pupil. Yes, I had to think of her like that: a pupil. I tossed the throw that normally lay on the armchair across her body and I hastily left the study in favour of the drawing room, to maintain Christine's safety and keep my ever chaotic emotions under some form of control.

I decided that I ought to change my suit, since its trousers were ruined with damp and wet. As I selected a simple pair of black breeches, a clean shirt, brownish-gold waistcoat and matching cravat from my mahogany armoire, my gaze fell upon the red cloak that I had tossed on the floor. I remembered how it had covered my Christine's sumptuous body only a short while before, it's velvet fabric falling onto her form and hugging her curves. I lifted the cloak to my pitiful stump of a nose and inhaled the faint scent of Christine's perfume that it carried. Like a love-struck child, I swore that I would never wash that cloak again.

Once I had changed, carefully folded my cloak and placed it on the cushioned headrest of my coffin, I adjured to the kitchen, where I began to prepare a small bowl of chicken broth, in case my angel awakened hungry and didn't flee back to her viscount. It was just as I began to ladle the soup into the finest china bowl that I possessed that I heard a rustling noise coming from the study.

After checking that my mask was firmly set on my face, I dashed to my study and quietly opened the door to find Christine standing in the middle of the room, her eyes wide in bewilderment and fear. As I entered the room she spun around on her bare feet and upon seeing me, her whole body stiffened as she tried to appear calm and collected.

"Really, if you don't cover yourself adequately you will be bound to get a chill. Especially in that thin dress," I pointed out mildly as I gestured to the red throw that had been abandoned on the floor.

To my surprise Christine suddenly straightened her back and said in a forceful voice that I didn't think she possessed, "Monsieur, I do not know where I am, nor why you have brought me here, but I demand that you return me to my home."

I raised one of my nonexistent eyebrows; it was strange how in her last few words she'd been busy calling me her angel, trying to deceive me into returning her to Raoul, and now she was as cold with me as could be. I was right; she had been trying to trick me. She didn't care an ounce for me, though I cared with all my repulsive heart for her.

"My, my Christine, I'm surprised that you haven't set about escaping back to the arms of your lover already. After all, it was him that you abandoned me for, was it not my dear?"

I observed Christine drop her eyes to the floor and begin to slowly wring her hands, something she'd done for as long as I'd known her when she was nervous. "Please, I did not come here for - I didn't even come her at all - you brought me, and I want you to take me home," she said, her voice shaking with her final words. I felt my temper rise once more and as the mind began to conquer a sharp reply, Christine spoke once more.

"Please. Please Erik, please just take me home. That's all I ask, please take me home." She uttered, tears welling up in her blue eyes. Her tears touched my heart and in a moment of thoughtlessness, I extended my bare, skeletal hand, and placed my fingertips lightly on her shoulder. At this gesture, Christine looked up at me with a strange emotion that I didn't recognise in her eyes, and she did as no other woman had dared to before: she took my hand and held it loosely in her own.

My heart sang a melody more beautiful than even I could produce, and for the first time in my life, I was happy, for I had not just been touched by a mere woman:

I had been touched by an angel.