Author's Note: This chapter discusses items that took place in my one shot phic: "The Final Touch"
The door opened but he did not look up from his blueprints. His mask and wig lay discarded on the end on the table; his shirtsleeves rolled up the top few buttons undone, his waistcoat gone. He looked exhausted, bags extending under his eyes but on he worked.
Christine closed the door to the work room and walked up behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders. She felt the tension instantly melt. "Erik, it's late. You haven't come to bed in three nights."
"I'm working on a new project. I hope to have it built for next summer. A house of mirrors where everything is distorted and dark. You won't look like yourself and you won't know where you are."
"So everyone will know how you feel?"
"Damn it, Christine!" he pushed all his tools away. "What do you want?"
She walked around and leaned up against the table so she could look into her husband's eyes, "We need to talk. If our marriage is to thrive we need to discuss what we need, what we want…" she lifted her hand and caressed his deformed cheek, "What we are feeling." Her fancy dressing robe fell open and revealed she was wearing her cream georgette nightgown covered with small flower embroidery and lace trim. He remembered it quite well from their honeymoon. It was tighter in the chest right now due to her swollen breasts, but he still adored everything he saw through it. What exactly was she up to?
"The man you were ceased to be when I almost died. Those crimes and sins are forgiven. You cannot keep hiding yourself away in anger and frustration. I am not running away at the slightest sign of volatility, so what do you have against a wet nurse?"
The Phantom rested his hand on top of his wife's, "I have already told you. Charlotte should have her mother's milk. I don't want her nurtured by another woman. We are a family and I want my children to know all the paternal love I never had!"
"A wet nurse doesn't mean I love Charlotte any less. And she would only be used on nights I perform. I love singing again. I didn't realize how much I needed it until it was gone. And you need me up there too, Erik." She pulled his face to her chest holding him in an embrace. "You need to hear me sing."
"I could reduce your schedule," He ran his hands down his wife's curves confirming that she wore nothing under the gown. "It would create a greater demand for you; increase the price of your tickets."
"What if that isn't what I want?" She ran her fingers through the now fully gray sparse locks of hair on her husband's head.
He cupped her behind, stroking the soft skin beyond the fabric. He sighed into her breasts, "You're making me weak, Christine…"
"No, Angel that is your lack of sleep."
"I don't want that either…but…but I don't want our family to suffer either," he bit at her nipple through the gown. A little milk trickled out.
This not going as I intended. He is expressing himself but we are getting nowhere with this discussion. Maybe it's time to address the other issue.
"You know Gustave had an idea," Christine massaged Erik's scalp with her nails.
"And what did our genius son come up with?"
"That my understudy could be Charlotte's wet nurse."
"You don't have one."
"Not even that gorgeous automaton. It's been almost two years since I found it. Clearly the only reason you still have it is you want it to sing as well," Christine pulled away from her husband and walked over to the vestibule. She pushed the door opened and looked her twin up and down. "You captured me so well. I never asked you about it when I originally found it…but what was it for?"
"Christine, please…please," Mr. Y ran to his wife's side, frantically spun her around and pulled her into a tight embrace. "Do not tease me like this! She was my first automaton. You still haunted me so I built what I knew. She was perfect…but she is also my shame! She knows my secrets and I can't bare to get rid of her!"
She looked at the madness in her husband's face, "Oh Erik, she's not real. I am real and I am here now. What secrets can she possibly know that you cannot tell me?"
"Christine, take me to bed! Let me make love to you! Let me pleasure you, prove to you I am worthy. And then tomorrow you can get that girl back and another. How many wet nurses do you want? You can have them! And we can increase your performance schedule! The new Ooo La La Girls are underwhelming anyway." He was frantic.
"Erik! You are being ridiculous!" She pulled away from him. "I am your wife! Phantasma may have all the mystery it desires but none so in these walls!"
Mr. Y walked over to the automaton and turned the key on her neck. She raised her head, opened her eyes and raised her arms from her sides.
"You've come a long way in making the movements even more lifelike."
"Yes, but SHE is the only one that is…anatomically correct." He couldn't look his wife in the eyes as he spoke.
Christine grabbed the side of the vestibule for support. "Erik…" She whispered clutching her chest with her free hand. "Are you saying…"
"Only a couple of times and I felt atrocious after! Even more like a monster than I already am!" He threw himself at Christine's feet. "That fateful night continued to drive me mad! I tried to recapture it, recapture the feeling of you!"
"But I am here now! And yet you kept it!"
"I didn't want to think about it. It was easier to keep her locked away than face what I had done."
"It was hardly locked up! Our son found it! I want it gone!" She took a few steps to leave, but turned around. She observed Erik crumpled on the floor and then looked back up at the automaton. Nothing was ever simple with him.
The Diva walked back over to her husband and knelt down in front of him. She tilted his head up, tears streaming down his cheeks. She wiped them away.
"Show me, Angel."
"Show you what?"
"Show me how you tried to recapture our first time together. Show me how it works."
"Oh God how can you ask such a thing?"
"I didn't ask you. I want no secrets between us," gently taking his hands into her she helped her husband to his feet. "I know your automatons can walk; will it make it to our bedroom?"
"No need," Erik pulled Christine into the vestibule.
It was a tight with three, but he closed the door and opened the door on the other side of the vestibule. The room was dark but for a little moonlight that shone through the windows. Erik turned the key on the neck and she took her familiar path to the bed that Christine could not see. He stepped into the room next
"Wait here, I'll light the lamps."
Lamp by lamp a bedroom was illuminated before Christine. The sheets on the bed were lumpy, his coat and waistcoat hung on the footboard. Clearly he had been sleeping in here the past couple of night.
"My old room. I preferred sleeping near where I worked before I was an old married man," he smiled nervously. "Did you want to watch from there or…"
Christine took a deep breath and walked over to her husband's side.
"It's all mechanical but soft touched based," His voice became matter of face. The same tone he used to take when explaining breathing techniques. She knew he was using it to distance himself.
He squeezed her hands: she lifted them and pushed the gold lame dress to the floor. Christine took a few steps closer to her understudy. She touched the breasts, the material soft beneath her fingers. They of course produced no milk. She squatted to make herself level with the automaton's hairless genital area. So was it really anatomically correct?
"There is a button between…" Mr. Y trailed off. "Push it once it will caress you in certain areas. Push it twice it will sit and then lay down on the bed."
Christine pushed the button twice and with a wrinkled brow, stared into the hole between the legs. Slowly she lifted her hand and stuck a shaking finger into the hole. Feeling the same soft material the body was made of, she gasped and pulled her finger out. She turned and looked up at Erik, "And you just climbed on top?"
"You make it sound so cold."
"Then show me otherwise," She stood back up. "Show me how you thought of me while you made love to my understudy."
Erik paced and ran his fingers through his wisps, "I…I…can't, Christine. I cannot just perform on demand. This whole ordeal is humiliating now, you can't expect me to be aroused by it when I have you!" He pulled her into his arms, "It was you I wanted! I wasn't proud of what I did with this thing!"
Christine noticed his changes of pronouns when it came to talking about the automaton. She kissed his cheeks, drying his tears, "Come to bed with me, Erik. With a fresh mind we will discuss all of this tomorrow."