The word nocturne refers to a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night.

Nocturnes is my latest project, an anthology of short fiction in the Phantom of the Opera Universe. Ratings range from General to Explicit. Individual ratings and warnings preclude each entry.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1) BROKEN THINGS: Seeking to appease her own confusing desire and his, Christine attempts to seduce her Angel, and must come to terms with the true price of obsession. E/C. Leroux Canon Insert. Very Explicit. Fluff. 9K

Chapter 2) A CHIVALROUS MAN: After the disastrous encounter in the Bois, Raoul follows Christine's carriage back to the Opera, and sees something he never wanted to see. E/C, R/C. Leroux Canon Insert. Very explicit sexual content. TW's for very dubious consent, violence, and voyeurism. 6K

*Chapter 3) SAINT VALENTINE: The mob descends on the little cottage beyond the lake, as Christine says goodbye. E/C. Post Leroux Canon. TW's for dark themes, consent, violence. 3K

*new story added Feb. 28*

Broken Things by catcorsair

Seeking to appease her own confusing desire and his, Christine attempts to seduce her Angel, and must come to terms with the true price of obsession. Leroux Canon Insert. Very Explicit. Soft fluff, and just a tiny bit sad, plot. No additional warnings apply.

Dedicated to my dear friend Lillian, for always believing in the best of my Eriks.

They often spent the evenings in silence.

For nearly two hours now, since dinner, when Christine had shyly washed the dishes in the sink and planted them in his waiting hands to return to their corners within the great glass cabinet and the faded pantry, she had sat aside the Angel by the hearth as was their nightly custom, each in their own oversized leather chair, in near-perfect silence punctuated only by their breaths, the gentle, steady crackling of the slowly-dying fire hissing in the grate, and the soft slip of pages turning.

Tonight, it was torture.

Almost thirty minutes ago, Christine had cast her embroidery aside, clasped her fists in her lap, and in a preoccupied measure born of desperation, fixed her gaze into the dancing flames. Now her eyes stung and watered from the heat; her heartbeat, once steady, had reached a pounding tumult in her chest.

Beside her, oblivious to her extended agitation, Erik turned another page and gave a low sound of assent for something he had read; trying to ignore the shudder the intimate utterance had ignited in her, Christine bit into her bottom lip and dug her fingernails into her trembling thigh.

Now. It would have to be now, or never at all.

In an abrupt rustling of skirts, she stood, swiftly enough to capture her companion's eye; Erik blinked up at her from behind his dark mask, his book spread across his thighs, and said, stupidly, with an air that would have made Christine burst out in laughter if her mind were not otherwise occupied with more licentious things, "oh, is it late?" He sounded mildly disappointed as he added, "are you going to bed?"

She could manage no reply, causing his captivating eyes to narrow curiously behind their leather shroud, and his thin, broken lip to purse. With another deliberate sweep of her skirts that spoke to her resolve, and a heady, lingering exhale, Christine turned to him, and closing the distance between their chairs in a step, she dropped herself––with far less grace than she had hoped for––onto her knees in front of the Angel.

"Erik," she started, smarting from the clumsy landing. She took a long, somewhat-shuddering intake of breath, at the strange, unguarded look he gave her. "Erik, I––"

His hand lifted from the book in his lap as if he meant to stroke her cheek; instead he drew back at the last moment, floating his long fingers just far enough above her skin that she could feel the electricity radiating from his almost-touch. "My love," he breathed, gazing down at her as she pressed her mouth to his waiting palm, the barest whine slipping between her parted lips as flesh met flesh in that tactile consummation. His eyes closed as the pad of his thumb traced her jaw; when he opened them again, Christine noticed, the whites were shining and wet. "Goodnight, then."

"I am not tired!" Christine stammered, overloud, fully aware of how childish the words sounded on her lips.

Now she took up his hesitant palm in both of hers, and returned it to her lips, as Erik muttered, watching her pursed mouth brush over his splayed, rigid fingers, "Christine––what are you––"

"Let me," she told him, working to keep the tremor from showing in her throat. "Please, Erik… I fear that I am going mad."

It was true. Ten nights with her Angel, spent in silence by the hearth. How many times had he caught her eye, just so, flooding her cheeks and ears with hot, demanding blood? And how many times, in the private loneliness of the elegant bedroom he had prepared for her, had she whispered his strange name into her pillow, and imagined his spellbinding form silhouetted in her doorway?

But Erik appeared to misunderstand the meaning of her words. Now he cast upon her a look of abject horror and stammered, "I have driven you mad?"

She fixed her gaze to his lap. "A sort of madness, yes––" Blushing fiercely, she added, "surely you see my meaning, Erik!"

He swallowed, loudly, lips tightly drawn over his teeth as he stared at her without blinking, watching her glide her closed mouth over the lines of his palm in the most intimate touch they had so-far engaged in. When she parted her lips to press his index finger inside, curling her tongue about it as she sucked the cold flesh, warming him in her heat, he gave a low, suggestive groan, and tore his hand from her grasp. In the flickering firelight, her spit shone orange against his pale skin.

"Christine, you do not understand what you do––" he managed, staring at the wet mark on his finger, as Christine licked her bottom lip, missing the salt-taste of him on her tongue.

"I understand perfectly, Erik," she said, meeting his clouded gaze. "Do you?"

Now, despite his ignored utterances in protest, she took up the book from his lap––he raised his free hand from its cover when her fingers met its leather spine––to place the large volume, gingerly, on the floor to her side. As Erik sucked in a breath, pursing his thin lips into a tight line, Christine placed both palms on his thighs, and on a shuddering exhale she hoped would not reveal her nervousness, slid her hands heavily up his legs toward the crux of him.

"Oh, I––" he stammered, " ah––"

He was already stiff, that forbidden, erotic rod easily discernible beneath the tenting of his fine trousers, and the idea excited her: that so simple an act on her part could affect him so. She had long suspected––at least, since he had revealed himself to her as a man and ferried her beneath the Opera, to hide her away in his subterranean home––that he had desired her. And surely he did; how could she mistake such an indication as this?

When her thumbs slid into the crease where the hot promise of his sex met thigh beneath the heavy fabric, she raised her chin, biting her bottom lip to steady her trembling, and capturing his unreadable, nerveless stare, she breathed, "do you want me to keep going, Erik?"

His fingernails dug into the cushion at either of his sides. He swallowed, shook his head rigidly. "Christine," he said gently, after several moments spent looking down at her, as Christine swept the pads of her thumbs against the sides of his stiffening shaft, biting back her own unfamiliar desire, "you do not need to… this is not why I brought you here…"

It was not the response she had anticipated. Now her palm swept over his sex, cupping him in a hand; Christine could feel him hardening to full potency beneath her trepidatious touch, see the bulge of him, tautening his trousers to bursting. As he stared at her, unblinking, she curled her fingers, carefully, about his unmistakable length, squeezing just enough to force his closed-mouthed groan and his jaw to quiver, as she whispered, "but I want to see you, Erik––"

And then he coughed, and took up her groping palm in both of his, raising it from his groin to hold imprisoned in the air between them, even as his cock twitched in his trousers below, seeking the warm promise of her lost touch. "I would never ask this of you, Christine," he said brusquely, and she wondered why he looked as if he might cry. "Never. Sweet girl––you do not understand. I am not clean. There have been others…this––no, I am not worthy of this. Not from you."

But she could not accept such a disparaged response. Her body knew what it must do; now, as if her mouth had a mind all its own, Christine felt herself lowering, kissing the tip of his hot cock where its dampness fought his trousers, even as he held her fingers captive in his sweating fist. She heard his weakened, breathy groan above her, sensed his erratic heartbeat, his heaving chest as, lowering her mouth again to brush him, she whispered, "Erik, I cannot fault you for taking lovers––"

"They were not lovers, Christine," Erik returned on an exhale, too-harshly, in the voice that often burst from him in in moments of anger, when his words took on an air that made Christine feel as if he found her stupid, naive. Then, meeting her wounded gaze, he added softly, "Christine, I am a weak man. I have done things––"

She was used to his self-hatred, his distrust of himself, his shame. "Please. Don't," she breathed, "not now… Erik, I want to do it. I want to touch you." Then, resolute: "give me back my hands."

He did.

Erik gasped when her fingers met his trouser-buttons; as she freed his hot length from its cloth prison his teeth drove into his bottom lip. His breath seemed to cease entirely as she exposed him fully her to gaze, her touch; now, staring down at his own nakedness, the open-mouthed woman hovering above his sex, he rasped out, "Christine, you mustn't––"

His cock was magnificent; exactly what she might have seen in her more lascivious visions, on one of her longer, darker nights; and yet she was unprepared for its majesty: straight as a statue, long, thick, and bloodied, it's hot, red tip peeking out from the embrace of his tautened foreskin. In a cruel, biting irony, Christine realized it's beauty must have felt a torture to him. She was sure he would have traded anything for his face to be regarded by a woman so. "Will you let me give you this?" she asked him, needing his reply, her breath tickling the soft hairs nestled about his sex.

He nodded, chin jerking rigidly as he glared down at her, his expression so severe it appeared almost angry. " Yes ," he spluttered out, acridly, then, on a shuddering, breathy moan, as she ran a fingertip up the underside of his shaft: "oh, no, no, no Christine, I am not worthy of it––oh, fuck–– "

When her lips brushed the tip of him, pink and shining and twitching, he groaned, almost-obscenely; as if all the air had gone from him, every muscle in his body seemed to slacken against the cushion at the intimate touch. It excited her to have brought about such a reaction in him, to have shattered his normally-stoic indifference, his chilly reservation, as his fingers curled meaningfully around the edge of the chair cushions, and his legs parted mindlessly to allow her closer. Christine dragged a palm over his heated thigh, kissing the bright pink mouth of his cock-head, suckling it, sliding her tongue over the flesh; her tongue slid beneath his tautened foreskin to tease the swollen tip of him and he sputtered, wide yellow eyes filled with water as they met hers down the rigid line of his torso, "Christine––Angel, please––"

Now an answering heat, a delicious, distracting awareness––exotic and yet, not without meaning––pooled between her thighs, as Christine drew her mouth down the impressive length of her maestro's shaft, thrilling in each helpless whimper her actions drew from his pinched-tight lips. She had taken up his heat with her fingers, and now as she kissed him, suckled him, traced his swollen veins with her tongue, she squeezed him too, just tightly enough to feel him there in her fingers, to know the hot mass of him was held in her hand. She noticed his scrotum was rising, the loose skin no longer hanging but tautened, smooth, as the ugly thing, half-buried at the crux of him, appeared to twitch and swell against his shaft; curious to what the action might inspire in her Angel, she stroked his eager cock in her surrounding fist, using his own moisture to ease her motion, up and down and up again, taking care to slip her fingertips against his tip, then bent and spread her lips wide to capture one testicle in the hot welcome of her mouth.

He groaned then, a carnal, feral sound, and bucked his hips against her full cheeks, throwing his legs open wide; when Christine released him from her mouth, licking her own spit from his soft scrotum-skin, his sweating palm came up to touch her cheek, to drag his mucid fingertips, trembling, over her skin. Christine noticed the water shining in his rabbit's eyes had overflowed and spilled, staining the black leather of his mask; he was crying, she knew, and though she could easily understand why, she did not want to think on it, for the knowing was much too painful. And so Christine stroked the rod of him, keeping his watery stare, as she traced the smooth seam up his length, dragging her tongue from testicles to tip.

It was such an easy thing, after all, to give him this.

He stank, only slightly; that musky, salted smell of man, erotic and forbidden, that in some men––like the opera's stagehands, leering at her from the flys and pressing their hot bodies too-close against hers as she passed behind the curtain, like the stable-boy, whose touch of her hand lasted one moment too long, whose eyes shone bright with something darker than friendship––felt like more of a threat than an allure. And yet, in Erik, the scent was erotic, seductive, honest; the odor of a man, wanting a woman.

Her maestro, her Angel; wanting her.

"Christine, you don't have to continue if you don't want to––" he forced out above her, hissing from between occluded teeth. He was watching her through his sparse eyelashes, staring down the leather arch of his false nose at her as she stroked his shaft, kissed it; adamant in her ignorance of his continued protestations, Christine opened her mouth wide, and watching his eyes widen behind the dark holes of his mask, she took the whole of his cock between her lips.

She wasn't sure what she had expected him to taste like. Like his man's smell, it was something she could not have imagined in her mind, yet suited him just the same. The taste was sensual, sincere––dirty, carnal, like the crush of a crowded street but sweeter. She savored him, the voluptuousness of him, in her nose and on her tongue.

"How can you bear it?" he said now, and Christine lamented that persistent insecurity in his beautiful voice, the pain, the stark, cruel disbelief: the unbearable evidence of his own self-doubt. It was as if he expected at any moment that she might scream, run, turn on him for what she did; circling his shaft in her small fist she dragged his length from the hot embrace of her mouth and raised her face to meet his, her stomach dropping at the expression of terror he wore. Terror, but underneath that, such passion, such desire––

"Erik," she breathed, spluttering from the drool that had pooled in the corners of her mouth. "Erik, there is nothing to bear. Do you not trust that I want you?"

"I cannot trust it," he said softly, glancing past her towards the fire. His cock pulsed and throbbed in her squeezing fist; when Christine brought her mouth again to enclose him, circling his tip with the fat of her tongue, he coughed and violently jerked into her embrace. His sudden movement thrust the length of him deep into her throat; in surprise, she retched against him, swallowing her own saliva, the sticky moisture from his tip, but before she had a chance to recover, he had captured her about either side of her face and drawn her carefully from him. Drool clung to her lips, her saliva pulling in sticky strings; his shaft shone slick and ruddy with her spit.

"Erik, let me––" she complained, reaching for him; but he was already attempting to close his trousers, blocking her attentions with a palm. She gave a small cry when, distractedly, he struck her flailing wrist.

"Please, Christine. I cannot suffer you this," he said miserably, meeting her eye for only an instant before his gaze darted to the floor: an apology, she knew. It was not the first time he had accidentally hurt her, and it would not be the last. "Thank you. Truly. But you owe me nothing. I will never seek to claim it of you, I promise you that. The music––I gave what I gave, freely."

Shame burned behind her ears, nauseating and consuming her. What was she doing? This was not like her, to throw herself at a man, even this one, for whom such human labels felt incorrect; he could not be constrained by them. She flattened her palms to the carpet at either side of his feet, and fixed her too-bright stare to the tops of Erik's stiff knees.

"Are you angry with me?" she said to the floor. He sighed.

She could not contain her whimpering moan when his palm stroked over her hair in a silent reply. At the suggestive sound, she sensed his body stiffen; beneath her, his half-concealed cock twitched in the folds of his fly. Feeling her body's response to his touch, her nipples tightening beneath her bodice, her belly warming and stirring in excitement, she dragged a hand again up his tensed leg, over the calf and behind the knee. When she again reached his groin he did not stop her, though she felt the clamminess of his palm still pressed against her cheek; now, because he had not stopped her doing so, Christine busied at his fly with both fingers, again freeing his still-eager length from the rushed cover of his trousers. Pearly liquid pooled at the tip of him, dribbling down the curve of his cock-head to disappear within the fine dark curls crowning his sex; in the secret place between her thighs, Christine felt her body do the same.

"Erik, please," she began, unable to meet his eye as she carefully palmed his shaft, sensing every tremor, every twitch in his body as his hips eased into her touch. " Please, " she told him earnestly, trying to hide the fearful shame in her tone as she held him now with both hands, as if his cock were an idol that she prayed to, prostrate on her knees like a sinner before his altar, "do not make me beg to please you!" She could feel the tears stinging in her eyes as she finally raised her chin to meet his stare. "Do not make me ask to touch your cock!"

" Christine! " he returned, shocked still. He looked mildly affronted at her behavior, and Christine might have laughed at the absurdity of the situation, had she not held the man's dripping length in her slack fist; had she not hungered for him, for it, in the slick warmth hidden beneath her skirts.

Instead, with new determination, she drew her fist up his still-swollen shaft, forcing his shuddering groan; his long fingers curled about her grip, her wrist, impeding her movement and shepherding her just the same. "Erik, do you want this?" she said seriously, pumping him with the meek guidance of his own hand, as his gaze bore into hers, darkened, hidden, intense, "I do not mean to force you into something––"

Could she have been wrong? He had never touched her with any kind of intimacy, never asked or demanded anything of her, it was true; was it possible that he truly only desired to mould her voice? That when he told her he loved her, he meant it as a friend, as her teacher––

By God, was his intention fatherly after all?

She loosed her grip about him, staring down at her spread fingers, as her cheeks burned with something she knew she could never take back.

What a fool he must think of her! She might have ruined everything with this one moment of crazed weakness. Why could she not control herself around him? He would surely regret ever taking her on as his pupil now––

But Erik said above her, rescuing her from her spiraling shame, "of course I want this, Christine. By God, I want you––I want you so badly. I want you so badly that it always just feels like screaming in here––" he tapped a finger to his temple, twice and too-hard, the sound strange and hollow against the unyeilding leather of the mask. On a sigh, he lowered his gaze to Christine, still bent between his legs, her fingers spread and gripping at his thighs, as his cock bobbed, searching, wanting, by her chin. She could feel the heat of it against her skin; now, hearing his confession, knowing his desire, she thrust out her tongue to again trace its full length.

He managed a ragged exhale as she breathed the words between kisses against the root of him: "then please, Erik, let me. I need this––I want you too––" When he rocked his hips toward her trailing mouth she added, moaning softly, airily, such that her breath stirred in his soft curls, "I want to taste you, I want to know what you feel like inside––"

"Christine, this––" he muttered, but the look he gave her was one of ravening desire; even behind the black shroud of his mask, Christine could see that he wanted her. It was almost frightening, that all-consuming gaze; his hands were shaking against the cushions.

"Erik, please," she hissed again, staring at him up the line of his erect cock as it rubbed against her chin, " please!" and as soon as she had said the word, his hand was at the base of her throat, dragging her forward; she opened her mouth, ready, wanting, and when she again tasted him on her tongue, she groaned atop the length of his hot shaft.

Without a word he forced her down upon him, too-hard, hard enough to set Christine's heart to racing, and still he did not relent; smothering her lips in his wet curls as he pushed her, groaning mindlessly, onto his cock: no, it wasn't what she wanted, no, but if he needed this, if he needed it to be this way––

She sputtered, gagged against his full length, buried, too-deep in her open, unprepared throat; she felt herself begin to retch, felt the heaving violence building in her chest, and still he held her there, his palm rigid at the base of her skull, as he thrust his hips further within her, fucking her unresisting face, once, twice, once more––

"Oh, fuck––" she heard him groan above her, the crude syllables drawn out and labored, "fuck. Fuck––"

Christine tried to relax her muscles against his assault; she slackened her jaw, let her mouth hang open. Let her throat become a passage for him as he drove himself inside. He was using her, she knew; fucking a hole instead of a woman, and she let him, knowing that it was likely the only way he knew how. It was as if he thought that should he release her, she would be gone. That if he did not bind her there to him, on him, and him inside her, by his fingers tangled in her hair, she would vanish, run screaming from between his thighs: like so many truths she had come to learn about him, Christine could not bear the horror of the understanding.

And so in agony she received him, all of him, again and again and again. His hips beat against her, pounding into her captured face as he grunted above, tangling his fingers, cruelly, in her yellow hair; and then, just when Christine could take no more, just when her lungs had begun to scream for lack of air, her jaw to sear at the width of him, and her cheeks to burn with the salted sting of her tears as she wondered if she would die, he dragged her from him with an obscene pop.

"Christine, oh God––" he breathed, staring down at her in horror as drool pooled and sputtered from her lips, to stain his trouser legs as she panted over him, coughing and retching, digging her fingernails into his thighs. She felt his cool fingertips anxiously brush her cheek, pad her throat, her wet lower lip, as he added in a ragged whisper, "oh, oh no––I knew I should not have let it get this far. Do you understand now? Do you see? Christine, Christine––Erik is not a good man, Erik is not good––" His eyes were shut tight behind the mask; now they opened, as he breathed, "my love, what have I done?"

Christine wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, gazing into his anguished, arduous expression, "Erik, has a woman run from you before?"

"Yes," he admitted, after a pause. The way his eyes darted past her to the wall told her not to press his answer. Meeting her stare again, he added, "won't you?"

She knew she could not convince him with her words; Christine had never been much for attractive speech. But she was pure of heart and kind of manner, and this, she could show him: this, she could make him understand. Now, though her throat still burned with his recent abandon, though the taste of blood teased at the back of her tongue, she pressed her lips again to the sodden tip of him, still bobbing there, nervous and wanting and ready between them, and as the shudder racked his entire frame, she whispered through lips that brushed his length, delicately, carefully, "I will never run. Never, Erik."

His voice cracked as he answered, clawing his fingernails into the armrests of his chair and easing his hips into her touch, "no matter what?"

"No matter what," echoed Christine, as she again took hold of his shaft in one hand, and eased her head down the length of him, swallowing him whole, until her lips met the wrap of her fist, and he groaned, bodily, enticingly in her touch.

When this man finally took her, she knew, it would be passionate, raw; nothing like the same sweetly-nervous manner with which Raoul had first slid his fingers inside her, back in their youth on the moors. She had felt no pleasure in those timid touches, save for the excitement of giving Raoul a part of herself that no other man had shared before, and yet she gave it gladly. She had caressed his bare thighs, trailed her fingers between his legs and up his shaft, even as he pumped the pink flesh in his own fist; and when he stroked himself to completion, Christine recalled giggling at the wash of fluid that spilled in the grass beneath them, staining the violets about her bare knees white. Raoul had never tried to enter her, not then, but even now, everytime she felt his soft, apprehensive touch on her hand or on her cheek in her dressing-room and the shadowed passageways of the Opera, she remembered the feel of his hot, nervous fingers inside.

Erik was no Raoul. When he took her, it would not be child's play.

But it did not have to hurt. She did not want to think on what her Angel's self-loathing reticence, his dangerous urgency proclaimed; had he ever forced a woman, before? Had he ever, in a rage of lust and anger––the sort of insane, devouring passion that she had sensed in him the night she first saw his horrible face, that she had just sensed in him now––lost control?

She had felt the threat in the hardness of him pressing at her stomach as he pushed her up against the living-room wall with his fingers wrapped about her throat, his black mask still dangling from her own. She had felt it in his other hand dragging over her abdomen, her hips, the fingers that curled in her skirts, raising them just enough for her to feel the cold subterranean air on her stockinged ankles, in the heat of his tongue against her flesh as his mouth opened over her straining jaw––but he had released her.

Just as she wanted to believe he had released them all.

And did it matter? Whoever he had been before Christine, he was someone entirely different now. She could see it in the look he gave her over his paper in the morning, how he left a cup of tea for her, brewed just so, on the table aside her favorite chair at night.

But she could still sense something darker underneath, like a living thing submerged in still, dark water, in his lingering, too-tight hold on her wrist, when she left him in the evenings for bed. How she found him waiting just outside her bedroom door, his expression clouded, almost cruel, when she unlocked it before breakfast.

He never looked as if he had slept.

She had always known, in a part of her that feared the truth, that murder could not be the worst of his crimes, if only for the ease with which he discussed it. But could she hold him to the standards of the rest of humanity, if humanity had abandoned him to a life such as this?

Was it love? She could not say. She did not know. It was passion, desire, gratitude. It was companionship.

It was hunger.

And this, this––her flesh––she could allow him to devour. She could feed him. And she could treat him as a man. She expected very few had done the same.

Now she told him, squaring her jaw as she met the fire in that yellow stare with her own, "Erik, please. It does not have to be rough. It does not have to be the only time. I am not going to run."

"I do not know any other way, Christine," he said simply, miserably, "I have never––not with someone who wanted––"

"Until now, Erik. I want. Let me do this for you, my way. Let me share this with you––" Again she wrapped her fingers, gently, about his shaft; a question. "Do you trust me?

She could hardly hear his reply over the pounding of her own heart.

"I want to."

But it was all the permission she needed. Urgently, almost in fear of her own hunger for doing so, she took him up again, quickly returning her fist to its rhythmic stroking of him, swallowing the whole of him as he sagged against the cushions. His body was ready: his mouth fell open, his head back, as his long fingers flailed about the sides of her working face, her hair, her throat, as if he were desperate to touch and at the same time afraid. When his hand finally settled against the curve of her collarbone, Christine moaned atop his length, if only for the sheer release, the relief the touch brought; as if in answer, he moaned bodily overtop, and Christine felt the gentle writhing of his hips beneath her as he eased his length deeper into her throat.

This time, she was ready.

As she sucked at him, harder, deeper pulls to his engorged length, she felt as if she drew something from him: that in each tightening of her cheeks, each pump of her fist, each wet lap of her curled tongue, she sucked the ruin from within him. And now it was only a mission, with which she gave her everything: she would draw it out, draw the sick out, and swallow it inside herself, where he could never find it again––

Above her, he was flailing, sputtering, surrendering, "ah––oh, my God, fuck–– "

She could feel him trembling beneath her; every muscle in his thighs, abdomen, arms, tautened and straining. His long fingers were splayed against his thighs. His testicles had fixed themselves to the pulsating base of his cock; he was ready, he was coming, he was going to give himself to her, give it all, fill her, fill her, and she would consume him––

And then his hands were in her hair, and he was guiding her head from his shaft; with a remarkable degree of reserve considering his recent abandon, he said, causing Christine to blush between his thighs, "we should stop this now, my love, I think…before you or I engage in something we will regret. Before I take something from you you do not wish me to."

She peered up at him from between his spread and tensed legs. Creamy liquid spilled down the length of his throbbing shaft, only a precursor to what Christine knew must follow. "But you haven't––"

"I don't need to," he countered, gently. "I shouldn't… it is far more than I deserved, Christine."

She knew she was pouting up at him like a child, pursing her lips and wrinkling her nose, even as his pre-seed clung to her chin. "Have I done something wrong?"

"You are not capable of wrongdoing, my love." He sighed, and the sound came raw, rasping. "But I am… right now, I truly am. I will not be able to stop myself. I should never have let this get so far. You are nearly impossible for me to resist, Christine, and I must."

"Why?"

He threw a pale hand over his eyes. "Because Erik will not make a whore of you!" he spat, adding in a low voice, "a victim…" As the hand fell again to the cushion, limp, he met her questioning stare and groaned, "oh, I am so sorry––"

Now, squaring her chin, Christine demanded: "what is it that you want from me, Erik?"

"What do I want?" he hissed, "Christine, I want everything. I want it all. I want your music, your voice, your soul––you know this––I want your devotion, your servitude, your worship."

Yes, she knew––and yet, these words, these once-unspoken truths, laid bare so, were too much; Christine could never have prepared herself to hear them. Her hand came up to press against her trembling lip as she muttered, her determined resolve crumbling in the wake of his speech just as it had so many times before, "Erik––I––I give it, freely––"

But he continued, glaring down at the kneeling woman at his feet, his fingernails slowly digging into his thighs until Christine was sure they would draw blood, "No. You do not understand. I want what Erik can never have––I want the touch of your hand, Christine, the smell of your hair. I want to wash your naked body in the bath, I want to feel the warmth of you, by my side, in a carriage on a snowy night––"

"Oh, Erik––" she sighed, breathless, but he had fixed upon her a look of consuming agony.

"And I want your cunt, Christine. By God, I want your pretty, wet, virgin cunt. You must have known. I want to take you, right now, to tear your skirts and panties, to fuck you against that carpet until you scream for me––"

" Erik! " she protested, because she knew she must––but the words had awoken something wild, stoking the flame inside of her; without thinking, she slid a hand beneath her skirts, seeking the ache between her thighs. Rising high on her knees, she arched her bottom into the air, to slip two fingers inside herself, feeling the moisture pool at her entrance and spill over and down the back of her hand at the invasion; now, digging her fingertips into his rigid thigh, she drove the fingers in, in, again, cutting her bottom lip with her teeth as she stared into the glowing pits of her Angel's wide eyes.

His hand reached out to capture her about her throat, just under her jaw, lacking the intention of injury but forcing her shuddering moan all the same, as he continued, his siren's voice rough, ragged, "Christine, I want to spread your thighs and drink up your pretty puss like a piece of ripe fruit. I want to feel your juices drip down my chin––"

"Oh, God," she muttered, her words coming breathless and rasping in the embrace of his fist as she pounded her slick fingers inside herself; it was maddening, these words the Angel spoke, intoxicating––

And she needed more. Erik glared as she took up his cock in her fist, even as she worked between her thighs, watching her pump it once, twice, before bending low to again swallow it, sloppily, wetly, between her lips, thrusting the whole of it into her throat. She drew her mouth up his shaft, over and over, moaning against his hot flesh, as her fingers toyed with her swollen clit in the bundled mass of her skirts; again, again, she sucked him, in a steady rhythm, in time with his thrusting hips, his fingers slowly clawing their way back into her hair and behind her throat. "Fuck, fuck––oh, fuck––" he was repeating, his pretty words having dissolved into grunting nonsense, as Christine moaned his own name on his ready cock, " fuck–– " tasting his man's-taste, his salted pre-seed that pooled in her cheeks and spilled out over his shaft to wet his trousers, his curls. Christine tore her fingers from her own sex to grope at his scrotum, to work his again-rising testicles in her fist, her fingers sticky with spit and semen and her own milky juices, as Erik groaned bodily above her, and then, as she met his haggared gaze, feeling the water spilling down her cheeks and the heat burning her ears, she said, not knowing what it was she begged for, her words soaked and dripping wet with him:

"Erik, please! "

And now he was chanting above her, his glare still capturing hers, consuming hers, "I want to put my fingers inside you, my cock, my arm. I want you to swallow me whole, Christine. I want to live inside you–– fuck ––" He groaned, and the sound was filthy, feral: "oh, God, yes, fuck, Christine––I'm going to––Erik is––"

"Do it, Erik," she breathed, "all of it. Do it––"

He stared at her as if he could not believe the words he had just heard, though Christine could hardly trust them herself. And yet a fire was burning within her, searing, tearing flames consuming her thoughts, until nothing remained but the man before her; and such emptiness was utter bliss––

She knew that he was repulsive. She knew that he had killed.

And she knew that he loved her.

She did not need to know anything else.

"Please––" she repeated, as she released him from her fist; now, senselessly, her mouth still working at his shaft, bobbing against him, suckling his fullness between her straining cheeks, she was blindly pulling up her skirts, bunching the fabric in her arms as she showed him her red knees, the tops of her stockings, the bare strip of her thigh. The cold air tingled against the exposed flesh of her rump, chilled the wet slickness between her legs. She wore no panties––she rarely did––

As soon as she had shown him the dark thatch of her cunt he had his hands on either side of her face, tearing her from his angry, throbbing, ready shaft, too-roughly and yet not roughly enough, as Christine gave a shuddering groan at his aggressive resolve. Still holding her skirts up about her waist, she panted before him, meeting his stare, presenting herself to his numb consideration, his frozen expression as if she gave herself is a gift. And so she was: she spread her legs, just enough, such that he could see her lips opening, see the barest tease of her inner parts, slick and shining with milk-white moisture; creamy liquid tickled her skin as it tracked the length of her inner thigh. Use me, she was telling him, lose yourself in me! His eyes were manic, frightening, sublime, as he almost-shouted, striking his own thigh with a tense fist, "come, girl! Climb atop me, Christine–– now! "

She stumbled over her tangled skirts, chest heaving even as she reached for him; the mania was building in her too just as she knew it ravaged in him. She could not think properly, she could hardly see, save for the purple weapon like a God rising from the Angel's stained trousers, that devouring stare behind the black mask––

"Quickly," he hissed, wrapping his own fingers about his shaft, stroking it once, twice, in his too-tight fist, " quickly! "

"Oh, God," Christine managed, senselessly, as his free had captured her about the bicep. Still holding her skirts, she fumbled into the fierce capture of his grip as he drew her towards him. She climbed him, stumbling, spreading her legs wide about his, even as he directed his cock between her thighs; and still he was staring up at her, and she at him, as if neither of them had the strength to sever the intensity of that connection, as if that connection were all that were keeping them afloat; now, throwing her arms around his neck, covering both their legs in her pile of wrinkled skirts, Christine bore down against him, her panting in even time with his own, such that they were sharing one another's breath. When the hot unknown of his tip slid against her slick folds, she cried out, senseless with the shock of the nameless sensation, and then, as his brow furrowed, causing the mask to shift on his face, Erik rasped, so close to her open, pleading mouth, so close that Christine thought he might kiss her, his cock sliding deeper against her, seeking out her entrance and barely tipping inside, "Christine, my love, tell me now, I must be sure––are you a virgin?"

"Yes!" she breathed, hanging from him and bucking her hips into the promise of his shaft, bidding him enter her, needing to feel him inside her, "yes––oh, God––Erik, I am, but please––"

Suddenly his movements were slowing, as his palm slid about her rear, taking control of her mindlessly rolling hips. She felt his tip at her entrance, barely stretching her as he guided her lower against him and eased himself inside. It hurt, only enough to set a shiver coursing up her spine and spread her mouth wide in a silent "o" of surprise; and then he was staring into her eyes and she into his, as his body tore, slowly, agonizingly slowly into hers, stretching her open and filling her with him. Christine could sense his heartbeat racing, feel his body shaking beneath hers, as his fingertips dug into the fat of her rear, and then both of his hands were on her hips, rounding her ass and dragging up to her waist as he circled her there, guiding her lower, lower, until she felt the wool of his trousers against her inner thighs, until her soft curls brushed against his own straighter, coarser hair. In pain, in lust, and with abandon, Christine cried out, feeling his fullness, the entirety of him, heating her core.

The Angel was inside.

"Am I hurting you?" he said, his siren's voice no more than a whisper. His grip at her waist tightened when Christine gave another moan, quieter and more wanting than the last. Terror showed in his expression as he added, "Christine, do not let me hurt you––"

"Oh, Erik––" she breathed, for a lack of an answer, though he seemed to understand her meaning all the same. The pain was swept from his expression as he slowly moved his hips beneath her seated form, pushing himself further within, "oh, Angel––"

She could hear the slickness between them, echoing against their bodies with every ebb of his body into hers, every flow as she received him; and Christine felt it too, like burning liquid, like hot syrup pooling between her thighs and spilling into the dark hair at the base of him, hidden deep within her. Curious, Christine pushed her skirts to her belly with one hand, wanting, needing to see the Angel inside of her––his possession of her, final, resolute––

Her answer, finally given. The choice, finally made.

"I didn't know a woman could get so wet, Christine," Erik said, softly, above her, watching her watch his claiming of her, his dry lips brushing the frizzy hair crowning her bowed forehead. Still Christine stared at the crush of them, transfixed by the union of their bodies: the soft wet flesh working against soft wet flesh, in some carnal function she had never entirely understood and yet instinctively wanted, desired, needed, from him; his cock, deep-red, swollen, furious, sunk within her and slid out again, milky fluid dripping down its shaft, as her pink lips spread open for each invasion; creamy white spilled over her thigh and into the crease of their conjoined bodies.

His voice cracked as he continued, "I did not realize it were even possible––" Looking up, Christine met his stare and saw his expression change, as something flashed across his features that turned her stomach and made her want to weep; and then it was gone, and his mouth opened wide in a shuddering, "oh, Christine––"

And then she was moving against him, not knowing what she was trying to achieve against his flesh but seeking it all the same, feeling his length slide deeper and pull away from her with her every thrust; she hungered for the ache of him––groaning with each push, delighting in each carnal utterance from her unknowing lips and his––and she hated when he slid away, emptying her of him. She hated being without him. The pain of his entry had deformed into something less tangible, less physical, only wet and hot and burning between her thighs; feeling the crush of his testicles, fat and soft and slick in the cleft of her rear, the erotic scratch of her bare thighs against his damp wool, her small, flat torso against his hollow, trembling one, Christine writhed against him, into him, on him, seeking the sensation of him with every breath. Pleasure had begun to tear through her; now his thrusts and hers were more urgent, more ravening, as his cock drove deeper and deeper within––and still Christine wanted more, more––

She flailed at the many buttons of her bodice, even as Erik bounced her, faster, harder against him, grunting his approval at what she was attempting to do, urging her on in his handling of her. Soon she had the fabric torn open, and her liner as well, as she attacked the steel fasteners of her corset; freeing herself with a groan, Erik bowed against her, pushing her hands from her breast with the force of his desire for the buried flesh––she dug them into his disordered scalp, upending and pulling at his dark, sparse hair as he growled against her––

"Erik, Angel!" she cried, exciting at the sting of his teeth against her tit. His tongue slid over the exposed pink of her nipple; Christine thrust her breast against him, into his open mouth as he groaned at her eagerness.

"You are my pupil, girl, and I shall be your master," Erik growled, wetly, against her fat flesh, drawing his teeth along the mounding curve of her tit; gripping the edges of her half opened corset, he tore it from her with a ragged grunt that resonated, deep between Christine's thighs. His balls struck fast and rough against her ass with the force of his fucking of her; now Christine cried out, rolling her hips into his ravenous thrusts, taking him deeper, harder, faster inside, as Erik continued, his Angel's voice stained with passion, his every manic syllable making her whine and moan, "I will fuck you every night, Christine. I will fuck you until you are so full of my foul seed that it pours out from all your orifices, that when you speak it is only my cum that forms your words, that when you breathe it will be my cum that blows from your soft, pink lungs. It will pour from your cunt when you walk, it will gush down your thighs and out from your throat when you sing upon my stage, and all men will know how the Phantom has fucked you––took you, owns you––owns you––Christine, oh, God, I need you, all of you––"

But when his hands swept about her throat, capturing her there as he pushed her down upon his cock, harder, harder, such that the straining muscle at the inside of her spread thighs began to ache, gnashing his teeth and glaring into her eyes as he began to squeeze, driving his hard thumbs into the hollow of her throat and stopping her breath, Christine spluttered, "Erik, no–– " and coiled her fingers, weakly, into his unrelenting hold.

And then he was sobbing, hot tears pouring down his alien cheeks as he released his killing grip, his fingers, splayed and trembling about her gasping, coughing throat. Sensing him go still within her, sensing his fear, his urge to flee, Christine brought her palms to his black cheeks, stroking the leather flesh, feeling his water spill over her skin, as she murmured, still rolling her hips against his static, tensed body, "Erik, it's all right––it's all right––"

"I'll kill you, in the end, Christine," he breathed, returning her stare, even as water still flowed freely from his wide-open eyes. "I love you, so, so much––"

And then she was kissing him, because she could not fathom another option, another response; kissing him, tasting him, feeling the narrow, pinched sweetness of his trembling mouth against hers. She broke from him only to gauge his expression––numb, blank, staring, but the rush of tears had dried––and then she plunged once more; but now he was ready for her, his lips parting for her prying tongue, and she could taste him inside. Searching, desperate, his ruined mouth opened wide against her own––perfect, pink––as he groaned out her name, and other words, senseless, desperate words that Christine could not hear over the rushing in her ears; and yet she sensed it, sensed his body, contorting and straining beneath her own, sensed the hot, wet fullness of him, spilling out from between the crush of them, as the spasm wracked his torso and thrust him deeper inside. And all the while, he was staring, staring, with water-stained, red-rimmed, glowing yellow eyes, and Christine could not break that stare; and then when it was done, when his chest only trembled against hers, like a butterfly, crushed and dying in her waiting palm, he dropped his head against her shoulder, holding her close by his arms flung about her back in the only embrace he had ever given her, and whispering her name, over and over, into the sweating column of her bruised throat, he began again to cry.

And as she stroked his sweat-dampened hair, sliding her trembling fingers over his malformed skull and down the back of his neck to his sharp, angular spine, its bones jutting out against her palm, she knew that she had betrayed him in this; that her promises had been unkeepable lies, and one day soon, when the world that he had so carefully crafted for the two of them fell apart, and the fantasy crumbled to sand at their feet, she would destroy him with a choice.

And he would lay his claim on her, forever.

But if he needed that, if he needed it to be that way––

A/N: Thank you for joining me in my newest project! For some time, I have wanted to publish an ongoing anthology of some of my shorter or less dense Phantom of the Opera stories, and so here we are! I write constantly, and have a lot of these that I work on concurrently with larger stories (to clear my mind), so please stay tuned for faster updates. The title is borrowed from a Kazuo Ishiguro anthology of the same name, and of course, the music of Frédéric Chopin. The word Nocturne refers to a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night.

Please comment/review! Your words feed my soul and make me write faster! I try my best to respond to every one. Also, never be shy about reaching out or prompting me, I am always open to new ideas!

Until next time,

-Cat