"Master." Even trying her best to sound hushed and reverent, her voice clattered about the small chapel. She hunched her shoulders in a futile attempt to soften the echo.

"Christine," he intoned from the shadows.

She gasped and looked around wildly, but his voice had come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, and she could not make out a corporeal form in the darkness.

All the better. He preferred her nervous. Uncertain. At his complete and utter mercy. An erotic thrill coursed down his spine that sent an actual quiver through his fingertips. Tonight was finally the night. How long had he admired her? No, it was more than that – admiration was something for poets, for fair-haired boys in the throws of first love… what the Opera Ghost felt for Christine was something very different. Something darker.

Lust.

"Have you done as I commanded?" he asked.

Her gaze dropped, and even in the dark candlelight of the chapel, he fancied he could see her cheeks redden. "I… yes, Master."

"More than once?" he pressed, one eyebrow raising.

"Yes, Master," she mumbled to the cobblestone floor. "Until the water – until I was clean."

That she had actually completed such an intimate, humiliating act on his orders – with no threat of real retribution – was intoxicating. To choose from the litany of sins he daily fantasized about her committing had been difficult, surely, but in the end, this had been the best option.

He could have had her strip and steal into la Carlotta's dressing room nude, for his perusal from behind the mirror.

He might still do that.

He could have had her lift her skirts and pleasure herself in the corridor, in the dormitories, frightening her with the false threat of someone finding her (of course, in her mind, the threat would be real).

He might still do that, too.

But in the end, this exercise – this experiment, rather – was about more than mere sexual titillation. It was about obedience. Control. How far was she willing to go? To what depths would she stoop? What humiliation would she suffer? Just because he had ordered it?

And if he were brutally honest with himself, he might admit that that damned bustle of her had tempted him with visions of what her pert little bottom looked like under her skirts for long enough.

Erik had always had a weakness for pert bottoms.

An enema. It appeared that Christine had passed his test. The first of many, he hoped. And his sweet girl had submitted to the degradation willingly. Interesting.

Erik clasped his hands behind his back and began circling her again, always in the shadows, always behind a trick of light, never close enough for her to see, but certainly close enough for her to sense.

"And you understand why you must do this, Christine?" he asked.

"To cleanse myself," she said with a grudging frown. "To make myself a clean and pure vessel, worthy of being filled by your Heavenly music."

Filled by his Heavenly music, indeed. Although resentment was clear on her face when she started her answer, her expression had brightened by the end, by the prospect of being filled with her angel's Heavenly music.

"Very well, child. Have you brought your quilt, as I instructed? Good, good, now spread it out – yes, there, in front of the altar. And the scarf – around your eyes, very good, Christine, that's excellent. You do remember," he praised her, as she tied the scarf around her eyes tightly. No peeking with his good girl; she obeyed him so very well.

"Are we to have a lesson, Angel?" she asked the darkness eagerly, slipping and using her old name for him.

Of sorts.

"Before we may have a lesson – before I agree to bestow my Heavenly music upon your corporeal being – I must verify that you have done as you said you have," Erik replied silkily, finally walking from the shadows to her side.

Christine's head whipped around at the sound of his shoes against the cobblestone.

"Easy, girl," he soothed, reaching out and caressing a golden curl. "You would not lie to your angel, would you, Christine?"

"N-no," she stammered, shaking her head blindly.

"And yet… why do I suspect that you did not follow every instruction I gave you at our last lesson?" he murmured.

Christine shuddered. Her cheeks flushed. Erik grinned. Of course he was right. She had obeyed him to an extent – but his last instruction had been too much, even for her.

"Christine…" Erik whispered in her ear. "Did you keep your finger where I instructed you to, while cleansing yourself? Did you make sure to rub that little button all the while?"

Her lower lip trembled. "I couldn't!" she wailed. Fat tears squeezed out from under the blindfold and ran down her porcelain cheeks. "Angel – Master – I felt as if there were something wrong with me. I could not bear the sensation, I am sure that there is something wrong with me –"

Erik let out a theatrical sigh. "If you have lied about that, what else have you lied about? I imagine you did not cleanse yourself at all. You are a shameless child, daring to request the Heavenly music of an Angel in your uncleansed, unworthy body. Do you seek to soil the Holy Word with your sinfulness?"

"No!" she cried, scandalized. "No, no, never, I didn't mean that, I promise, I did cleanse myself, I did it exactly as you told me to, at bath time, with warm water, and soap, and I did it over and over again, until the water was clean, I swear it –"

"You swear?" Erik interrupted.

Christine, good Catholic girl, clamped her lips shut, recognizing her offense.

Erik sighed once more. "I cannot trust you. However, I will give you one more chance to prove yourself. If I inspected you now, would I find that you speak the truth? Would you pass this test, Christine?"

"Oh yes, please!" she replied joyfully. "You will see that I haven't lied, that I've done as you've asked me and I have cleansed myself and prepared myself for your divine music."

"Very well," Erik said. He crossed his arms and licked his lips. "On your hands and knees."

To her credit, she only faltered for a split second before hastily dropping to her knees and then – a bit slower – dropping to all fours.

"Like this, Master?" she breathed.

"Exactly like that, child," Erik rasped. He slid his hand along the front placket of his trousers and adjusted himself slightly "And now reach behind yourself and raise your skirts. Lift them up so that they do not impede my celestial inspection."

Again, her hesitation was momentary. The sweet child did as she was told, and whatever she thought of her odd position, on her hands and knees in the chapel of the Opera house, in the middle of the night, with her skirts over her head as she spoke to a disembodied voice in the gloom, she did not share it with him.

Erik walked behind her so that he was faced with her lovely, white-linen-covered bottom. He rubbed his hands together and stepped closer.

"Be still, child," he breathed. "Your Angel is going to touch you."

He could hear her hold her breath and he approached and grabbed the two panels of her split pantalets and rent them almost in two.

"Now, Christine," he said. "Spread yourself."

Finally, she faltered. "Spread?" she repeated uncertainly.

"Your bottom," he hissed. "Spread it."

"Please, Master," she whimpered. "Please don't make me do that."

"Did you not say that you had cleansed yourself?" he demanded. "Did you not give me leave to inspect you myself? Did you not, in fact, beg me to inspect you, just now?"

"I did!" she whimpered. "I just – oh! Please, I cannot bear the shame!"

"Very well, Christine," he snapped. "If you cannot do this, you force me to take care of things myself. Hold still."

He grabbed the edges of her ass cheeks none too gently, and spread them apart as far as his index finger and thumb would allow. Christine squealed and arched her back, and Erik's cock jumped threateningly.

"There, now, that wasn't so hard, was it?" he asked reasonably. "But this will be infinitely harder to bear, now that you have willfully disobeyed your angel. Be still and accept your consequence."

He covered his gloved fingertip liberally with saliva, and spread it right there, over her sweet, winking asshole. She squealed again.

"Oh no!" she gasped, her head beginning to turn.

"Do you deny your Angel?" Erik demanded, pressing slightly on that little pucker.

"No," she whimpered.

"Good. Now, you must clench yourself, so that I may satisfy myself that your core muscles are in working order. These muscles are all connected, and they in turn work with your diaphragm. If your muscles are weak, your voice will not be able to fill the auditorium of the Garnier. Go on. Clench."

Bless her, the girl seemed to understand his ridiculous order. She made a small grunt of effort, and in response, her lovely little pucker winked at him obscenely. He gave it a little tap and she yelped.

"Again," he said hoarsely. "Do not stop until I say."

And so Christine grunted and squeezed and winked her tight little rosebud of an asshole at the Phantom of the Opera, over and over again, as he stared at it in rapt attention and tried to maintain control over his raging erection.

"That is…" Erik swallowed and adjusted himself once again. "That is very good, my dear. Everything appears to be in order, however…" he trailed off, and she stopped clenching with a gasp of relief. Spurred on by the sight of it, that naughty little hole, still quivering from her exertions, he tapped it smartly with the tip of his gloved finger.

Christine shrieked and arched her back. The little hole momentarily disappeared, tucked tightly between her lily-white bottom cheeks.

"I did not say stop," he said, breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry, Master," she gasped. She whimpered before slowly lowering herself back to position, reluctantly pressing out her bottom.

"Now, you will wink that asshole at me until Kingdom come, if that is what I desire," Erik ordered, reaching down and finally unfastening his trousers. He very nearly untied his cravat as well, the chapel suddenly feeling extremely hot.

"Please, Master," Christine whimpered, clenching and unclenching her anus obediently. "I don't understand…"

"What don't you understand?" Erik asked distractedly. Plump, pink, nether lips peeked at him from deeper between her legs, flashing that other lovely orifice and making his mouth water. What would it be like to taste her? To dip his tongue into the very heat of his little pupil, to make her sing her scales while balancing on his ugly face? Another assignment, another day.

"This feels sinful," she whispered.

Yes, and wasn't it delicious? He ran a gloved hand over her exposed flank and caressed her soothingly until he could feel the little tremors of tension throughout her buttocks slowly relax into stillness once more. With his other hand, he reached down and gave himself a cursory stroke.

"Your Angel would not lead you into temptation," he said. "What we do here is a holy thing, my sweet."

"But I am ashamed," she confessed tremulously.

The child didn't know it, but oh, how her words sent a jolt straight to his throbbing member. To see her in so undignified a position and to hear her lament the shame of it at the same time… His dear Christine, so sweet, so willing, so eager to please… and so damnably gullible. He tugged his cock once, twice, three more times in quick, rough succession.

How long would it have taken some foppish dunderhead to waltz into her life and ruin everything if Erik had not first taken her under his wing just a few short months ago? A box of cheap chocolates and a couple of even cheaper poems would have been enough to see her bedded – certainly not wedded – and booted out onto the streets, with an aristocrat's unwanted bastard growing in her belly.

For this maddening innocence, he felt a wicked desire to punish his sweet girl. Discipline her. Shame her for keeping his cock hard at all hours of the day and night, for keeping him in a suspended state of torture while she skipped along obliviously with the rest of those little ballet brats.

Such a story he had spun her! Angels, goblins, fairies… all the while instructing her to keep her delicate index finger pressed against her clit while she practiced her arpeggios in the evening so that he could watch her from the shadows, watch the expression on her face evolve from discomfort to alarm to horrified arousal and imagine it was his finger circling that pink little bud, his finger coaxing her into sweet, uncertain oblivion.

"If you are ashamed, it is because you know that you have sinned," he growled. He gripped one soft and fleshy buttock and squeezed. She whimpered, but good girl, she didn't move this time. Her obedience was intoxicating. "Have you?" he pressed. "Are you a sinful girl?"

"I – no, Angel, I'm not," Christine whined. "I just – I've never done this before, with Father Dupont or the instructors at the Conservatoire –"

It wasn't what she was saying, of course, but the merest suggestion of Father Dupont being anywhere near his angel's asshole had Erik seeing red.

"I am your Angel," he bellowed. He reached between her legs and pinched her lips together. "You should be grateful that I deign to teach you, to guide you, to keep you pure when your soul is so obviously blackened with sin. To expose yourself to me is to expose your sins to the Lord himself. Would you question Him as well?"

"No, never!" she cried.

"Then hold your tongue and obey while I examine you," he said. He covered his finger with a generous coating of saliva and, without much ado, pressed the tip into her ass. "Christ, that is tight," he groaned.

Christine let out a little whine, but remained dutifully silent, even as he pushed his finger deeper into her dark, secret channel.

"How does that feel?" he asked roughly, his finger pushed in to the hilt. Her muscles quivered around him and his cock twitched at the very thought – but no, he couldn't – it was too soon – not yet, at least…

She whimpered in response.

"You must moisten your finger, child," he guided her hoarsely. "Liberally, in your mouth – yes, very good. Now, it is time to complete the instructions you failed to follow alone. Find that spot between your legs – the hard little button – ah, yes, you've found it, I can tell – and now begin stroking it ever so gently. Good girl. This will help ease the discomfort of my inspection."

Christ. With one hand, Erik ripped his cravat from around his neck and tossed it aside. Infernal heat. In another moment, he would be shaking off his coat, and Heaven forbid he appear before his angel in such a state of undress.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled his finger out. She paused in her ministrations and he tapped her bottom cheek. "Do not stop." She began stroking her clit again, and Erik sank his finger once more into her ass. Was there ever such a sight? To see his innocent angel on her hands and knees before him with his finger wedged tightly up her ass?

"You can take more," he muttered to himself, eyeing her little hole as it tightened and unfurled with each new thrust of his finger. He glanced around, and saw that Father Dupont had left some holy oil on the altar when he'd said mass for the few pious theater folk in the Opera last week. A blessing! He pulled his finger out with a little pop and reached for the oil.

"Oh," Christine sighed. "Is it over, Angel?"

"No, child," Erik said through gritted teeth, wrestling with the stopper on the bottle. "I am not yet satisfied of your purity. But you have been obedient, so you may rest. Lower your arms to the floor. Very good. But no – ah ah! – you must keep your bottom raised high in the air. And you must keep touching yourself."

Damned bottle stopper. You'd think the blessed Father Dupont never anointed the sick or baptized infants or whatever the hell it was priests were supposed to do with this oil. Erik finally wrenched it open and after cursing it once more for dripping on his trousers – he'd send the Church his bill – he removed his gloves and coated the fingers on his right hand liberally with the oil.

"Steady, my girl," he murmured, holding her still with his left hand and pressing his right index finger to her sweet little bottom hole. It was as if she'd been sealed up with mortar. For the love of Christ, she was tight. "Not so tight, Christine," he said through gritted teeth, pushing his finger past that initial pucker.

She let out a little whine. "That hurts," she complained, as he tried to stretch her hole to accommodate his second finger.

"As well it should, you little minx!" he grunted, finally managing to shove two fingers past her tight sphincter. She cried out and arched her back again, but he pulled her back impatiently and held her tightly to him, his fingers stuffed indecorously up her ass.

"Ow," Christine whimpered.

Erik let out another exasperated grunt and reached around. He pushed her fingers out of the way, where she had been rubbing her clit with very lackluster effort, and took hold of it himself between his index finger and thumb.

"Useless girl," he scolded as she gasped and whimpered, still holding her tight against him, two fingers in her ass and two rolling her clit tightly between them. "I have to do everything for you. You cannot even follow simple instructions, and thus, it falls to me to ensure that even this, your basic bodily functions and complaints are taken care of. Do you imagine that your little friends upstairs require such assistance in their daily toilette?"

"No," Christine moaned. "I'm sorry, Master. I just – oh –"

There. Finally, he could feel the results of his ministrations, and damn it all, the wicked child was dripping all over his hand. He pulled his two fingers out of her ass and this time, poured some of the oil directly onto her twitching little rosebud. Now, he pressed three fingers to her pucker. She whined in resistance.

"Filthy girl," he hissed, pinching her clit extra tightly. "Look at you. Dripping on the floor, making a mess everywhere. I am an angel, come down from the Heavens to teach you, guide you, keep you holy, and yet here I am, forced to inspect your naughty bottom while you gush all over me and moan like a whore. Why, if I didn't know any better, Christine, I might actually believe you enjoyed the sensation of having my fingers in your ass."

"No," she insisted with a moan. "No, this is dirty, and shameful, and I am a good girl –"

"I think you are a slut who has been allowing gentlemen the pleasure of rutting your ass," Erik accused, shoving his three fingers in. She squealed and the sound drove him wild. "Behold! How easily I force three of my fingers within your most shameful, forbidden, orifice. How else but if it were already accustomed to being spread wide?"

"No!" Christine gasped. "No, I never – I would never! Please, Angel, you must believe me –"

"Hold your tongue, you shameless slattern," he grunted, yanking his fingers out and wiping them on her pantalets. He shoved his pants down and finally pressed the tip of his cock against her pink pucker. "I can see that you need greater cleansing than I had first anticipated. I did not want to do this, Christine, but you force my hand. I must cleanse you of your wickedness. There! Are you happy with what you've forced your angel to do?"

He asked the last just as the head of his cock popped through the threshold of her anus. His groan echoed throughout the chapel with her squeal and he feared he might spend right there, before even sampling the rest of her tight sheath.

"I'm sorry, Angel," she whimpered. Her knuckles were white where they clenched the quilt below them.

"You should be," he gasped, sinking deeper within his pupil until he had bottomed out in her ass and his balls brushed her dripping cunt. "To have such an unnatural perversion – the degree to which your cunt has lubricated itself, even as I have forced my entire staff in your ass –"

He groaned again, and withdrew before plunging his whole length deep within her once more. Once more, she squealed, and he felt the deliciously tight walls of her anus spasm and flutter around him. He covered his fingers in her own moisture and began plucking at her clit in earnest.

"Oh, Master," Christine moaned. Her back arched and Erik pinched her clit sharply.

"Nasty slut," he grunted. "Dirty, nasty, slut. Shaking that bottom at me – an angel! – for months now. I imagine you wanted this, just as you probably wanted to fill your ass up with soap and water and flush it out, again and again. You should be grateful that I am willing to cleanse your ass of sin. Filthy girl! Thank me! Thank me!"

"Thank you, Master," she wept.

"You must acknowledge your sin for God to hear it," he insisted. "Say that you're a nasty slut."

"I'm… I'm a nasty slut," she breathed. She let out another moan and arched her back. "Oh, Angel, I – I –"

"Nothing but a dirty whore, aren't you?" he snarled with another thrust, plunging into her very core. "A whore on your knees with a cock up your ass. You enjoy this treatment, don't you, Christine?"

Oh, but it was intoxicating, to see his angel trussed up thusly, to drive his wicked, corpse's cock deep within her tight, virginal asshole… to make her shame herself, call herself names, debase herself on her hands and knees in the very chapel itself. He couldn't hold out much longer.

"Yes!" she gasped with a sob. "I like it! God forgive me, I am a whore! Please, Angel, I can't stand it, please cleanse me of my wickedness!"

"You want me to drive it out of you?" Erik asked through gritted teeth. "Is that what you want, Christine? You don't deserve it, you useless girl. You don't deserve what I would spray inside of you. If you want it, beg for it!"

"Please," she begged. Shameless hussy, she actually thrust herself back at him, meeting his thrust and forcing a strangled cry from both their throats. "Please, I feel so dirty – oh, please, clean me out, wash me, cleanse me!"

"Clench those muscles now, Christine," he ordered, wiping perspiration from his brow. "You will not get everything handed to you – if you want it so badly, you must work for it. And you do want it, don't you? Oh yes, my girl, that's it –"

Heavens above, she was a fast learner. If he didn't know any better, he might have thought her a lightskirt from the Bois the way she was humping and squeezing his cock with her ass. She would be the death of him – and what a death! Driven to raptures by the vise-like grip of his sweet ballerina's anus!

"Oh, Angel, something's happening," she groaned, shaking her incomparable bottom at him like the saucy tart that she was.

Something was happening, indeed: her ass suddenly clamped down on his cock like a vise grip and a shudder coursed through her entire body. She cried out and arched her back and he felt her clit pulse and throb in his fingers.

"Oh, you wicked girl," Erik groaned. "If only the other ballet rats knew what a slut – such a nasty slut – you are, if only the managers knew how much you like it up the ass – look at you, coming with my cock up your ass –"

He withdrew and then surged forward with a roar that very nearly drowned out Christine's tortured moan. "You wanted to be cleansed? Then take it, take every drop in your ass, and thank me for it, you nasty girl. Do you hear? THANK ME!"

"Thank you, Master!" she wailed, as he pumped what felt like gallons into her still spasming anus. "Thank you, thank you, thank you…"

For some time, neither of them spoke, and only their heavy breathing could be heard in the Opera's chapel. One by one the candles guttered, until only one remained, casting the ghoulish shadow of their joined silhouette across the stone walls.

"You feel it there, inside you, don't you child?" Erik finally rasped, still leaning over her on his knees. "My essence."

"Yes, Master," she breathed in awe.

"This essence is holy," Erik continued, starting to see spots. He blinked a few times and took a deep breath. He hadn't spent like that in… well, ever. "You must hold it deep inside and not release it. You must not waste a drop."

He pulled out slowly and winced as she let out her own whimper. Immediately, some of his come started to dribble out of her now puffy and pink anus.

"But how, Master?" she fretted, squeezing her bottom tight in vain. "It's – I can't stop it."

"You must clench tighter, child!" he urged her. "But I also have this instrument to assist you. No, no, relax – I know it's cold – there you are."

From his pocket, he withdrew a squat, ivory curiosity that narrowed to a gently curved point at one end and flared out to a flattened base at the other.

A butt plug.

He slipped it right up her bottom and she cooed in surprise. "Now, that should help you keep it in. Let's tidy you up, shall we?"

Of course, it was bound to be slightly awkward, and Christine was nervous and slow-moving with the ivory implement in her bottom, but after a few quick dabs with his hankie, they were both set to rights and his dear Christine looked virginal and fetchingly shy once more.

"How long must I…" she trailed off and glanced down at her delicate little ankles demurely. Was there ever a more precious flower? His heart filled with tenderness.

"I will remove it tomorrow evening, at the start of our lesson," he replied. "And you are not to touch it until then. Do you understand?"

"Tomorrow evening!" she repeated in dismay. "But, Angel, I have rehearsal –"

His old knees had had it kneeling on this cold stone floor, but the thought of her doing high kicks and pliés with a plug in her ass nearly had him ready to go again.

"Then you must simply make a concerted effort to hold it in very tightly, lest the other dancers discover your secret," he replied sternly. "Do not forget, this is a great honor you have been given, Christine."

She lowered her head. "Yes, Master," she murmured.

It suddenly occurred to him that throughout this absurd exchange, after he had finished plowing his little angel's arse, she had been gazing at his masked face with nary a second glance. And yet, she still called him Angel. Master.

"You are a good girl, Christine," he said hoarsely. He reached out and lifted her chin slightly. To his horror, he saw tears fill her eyes.

"You will come back, won't you?" she sniffled.

"Darling," he crooned. "Of course I will. What would make you doubt it?"

"Do you promise?" she pressed, wiping a crystalline tear from an impossibly lovely blue eye and ignoring his question.

"Christine, I do not appreciate having my word second-guessed," he said with a frown. "Now tell me, why on Earth would you worry that I would not?"

"Because I'm a whore," she wept, covering her face with her hands. "A nasty, dirty, slut who likes –"

"All right, that's enough," he said hastily, holding up his hand. "Come here, darling." He pulled her into his bony lap, right there on the chapel floor, and took her cold little hands in his. "You are a precious girl, Christine. More precious than all the gold, silver, and jewels in existence."

"But you said –"

"And if you are a whore, Christine," he continued, "then you are my whore, and never was there a more cherished harlot in all the history of the world. Come now, don't cry."

"Was it wrong?" she sniffled, looking up at him through tear-filled eyes. "Angel – Master – I did feel pleasure. Am I really wicked? I don't want to be a bad girl."

"You are not," Erik said firmly. "You are my darling, sweet, girl, who obeyed her Master and did as she was told, and you will be rewarded for it. It brings me great pleasure to see you experiencing pleasure, Christine."

"Truly?" Her eyes were a heartbreaking, hopeful blue.

"Truly, my dear. But it also brings me great pleasure to see you displayed and punished and disciplined. Can you understand this?"

"Yes," she nodded with another sniffle.

"Very well, then, child. It is far past your bedtime, and it wouldn't do for you to be caught wandering the Opera at this hour. Come, your angel shall escort you to bed, and you'll have sweet dreams tonight, won't you?" He helped her to her feet and wiped away her tears.

"Yes, Master," she murmured.

And oh… even as he tucked her beneath her snowy white coverlet in a dormitory with a dozen other sleeping young ladies, the Opera Ghost's mind began to race with what he would do to his angel next.