In a World with No More Night
Enter standard disclaimer here. Some sexiness ahead.
xxx
Despite Erik's insistence to his health, Christine spent the next two days nursing him. She could scarcely blame him for his exhaustion, especially when the first afternoon and evening were spent retching in the privy closet. Christine offered him her mangled attempts at soup and porridge, which he accepted with a certain ironic tolerance. Had Erik had the energy, she was certain he would have teased her for her efforts. Ever the exacting teacher, he instructed from his bed, arranged like a king in velvet and silk. Christine sang scales and recited lyrics as she tidied the mess made from his emesis, sadly bidding farewell to the green velvet.
It's a good thing I don't sicken easily, she thought dryly.
For all her shrinking violet persona, she had a strong constitution and was able to nurse Erik despite the ill-smelling substances spilling forth from his belly. And all because of that accursed morphine! Christine had only the vaguest ideas of illicit substances. The managers had their cigars and their snuff, and several of the scene-shifters swilled laudanum by the quart, but morphine . . . and injected into his very veins! It seemed very exotic and dangerous to her. She hated it passionately for nearly killing him. What had possessed him to take it?
She glanced at his sleeping form, reassured by the steady rise and fall of his chest. Oddly, knowing about the morphine made her feel closer to him. Another barrier overcome; intimacy deepened. Maybe he would trust her when he saw that she wasn't going to leave. Maybe before the furlough was over, she would gather the courage to seduce him.
XXX
Erik rose from his bed on the fifth day of Christine's furlough completely restored. His sweet nurse, wrapped in all the trappings of one of the shah's nubile harem girls, was innocently asleep beside him, her hand woven with his. He glanced ironically at his lower half where the early hour in combination with Christine's presence in his bed had yielded predictable results. One could never credit Erik with making the same mistake twice, so he simply rose—albeit limping carefully until the tumescence abated—and went about his usual ablutions, including scrubbing his teeth and tongue with a paste of his own concoction made with sea salt and peppermint.
The remains of Christine's foray into pea soup stagnated in the kitchen, flecks of char dotting the thick green surface. Erik smiled, touched by her efforts, despite the fact that food of such quality in and of itself would be enough to cause vomiting. Luckily, she hadn't seen fit to fiddle with the samovar or he would have been in trouble! Grateful for something to do after days of limp-limbed bed rest, Erik tidied the kitchen—along with disposing of the humiliating evidence of his illness—and set a rich Persian broth to simmer for luncheon.
A curious contentment settled around him as he sat at his drafting table. While his mask had preserved the most rudimentary of defenses, Christine had seen him at his lowest—vomiting on her skirt!—and still she stayed. She nursed him. She cared. With this knowledge, Erik considered himself well satisfied with the world. Inspiration possessed him; his fingers itched to draw, to capture the magnificent innocence of her sleeping profile. If only he could imbue her sweet fragrance of violets into the page! Charcoal marred the pristine page in the first curved stroke. Erik lost himself in the simple pleasure of melding his vivid memory with his chosen medium. Ever conscious of his wandering charge and her peculiar talent of catching him unawares, an unfinished design sat at the ready.
"Erik! Thank God!" Christine cried.
Erik covered the drawing and swiveled in his chair in time to catch Christine as she flew into his arms. He would never become accustomed to the unique euphoria of her unthinking embraces, he thought. To think, for over thirty years no one had ever embraced him and in one week, Christine had gifted him with half a dozen!
"W—when I woke up alone, I thought you had . . . oh God, I was so afraid!" she cried, her lips moving in a sweet caress against his throat. His arms, unbelieving, closed around her.
His precious Angel!
"Oh Christine. Forgive me. I didn't mean to cause you pain . . . I am not so foolish as to repeat the same mistake again," he crooned, stroking her back, feeling the warmth of her through the shift.
God, she wasn't wearing a corset or wrapper. Beneath a thin layer of linen, she was naked. Half naked, and straddling his lap in the chair. She nuzzled his neck in blind, innocent affection. His nerves shamelessly translated the sensation as pleasure, gluttonous for her touch.
"I realize that now." Was he going mad, or had her voice softened to a husky timbre?
Erik did not wish to spoil the fragile pleasure of the moment with questions, so he abided happily in her thrall. How long had he dreamed of this? To simply share the same air as this delightful, perplexing creature? Christine pulled back far enough to look at him. In the golden glow of candlelight, she was perfection. Content to marvel, he was wholly unprepared for her to dart close and peck a quick kiss on his lips.
XXX
Raoul waited outside the ballet mistress' apartments, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. It was rumored that Erik Rousseau—the infernal O.G.!—had a connection with the ballet mistress, just as Christine had. Madame Giry could lead him to Erik and wherever he held Christine captive. A fierce pleasure rushed through him. It would be a fitting tableau, the righteous hero rescuing the maiden from the clutches of her mad professor! Surely it was only a matter of time before Erik was safely carted away to an asylum!
Christine wouldn't be safe until that day.
The door opened, revealing the slender figure of the ballet mistress' daughter, Meg. For a moment, Raoul was struck dumb by the marks of a beating on her face, ugly purple bruises marring her delicate features. Then he realized how rude he must look, staring slack-jawed at the evidence of a painful memory. Hardly the conduct of a gentleman. Wildly, his mind presented him with the image of Erik Rousseau threatening this slender girl with far worse than a bruised face if she breathed a word of Christine's whereabouts. His hero's heart instantly softened with pity and rallied with gallant intentions. Meg Giry's hazel eyes regarded him in silence, her face flat and expressionless.
"Pardon, Mademoiselle. I am seeking a word with your mother. May I come in?"
"Maman is not here, Monsieur. Good day," she replied and made to close the door. Raoul moved forward, insinuating an arm through the aperture of the door.
"Wait! Please. Might I have a word with you, then?" The pert bow of Meg Giry's mouth turned down in a pretty frown.
"You're the one who's issued a warrant of arrest for Monsieur Rousseau." A moment of triumph, to be sure, and a product of his desperation when the woman he loved disappeared off the face of the earth!
"Yes," he replied with a shrug. Meg's eyes narrowed. Or was that simply the result of the swollen lower lids? Raoul exerted the slightest of pressure, testing her grip on the door. She held fast.
"Will you go away after I've answered your questions?" she asked wearily. Raoul offered an impudent grin.
"Of course. Then I will be yours to command, Mademoiselle." A fugitive sparkle of amusement glittered in Meg's eye.
"Very well, then. Come in." the words were dry and nonchalant, as was the careless shrug.
Raoul entered the main parlor, eyes darting here and there as if to absorb some semblance of the history Meg shared with Christine. A childhood summer over ten years past and an adult infatuation seemed a very tenuous hold on her. Certainly more slender than the domination of a mad magician! He thought bitterly. Raoul settled on the sagging chair and politely declined Meg's offers of tea and biscuits. Meg settled across from him and raised an inquiring brow.
"Ah, yes. My questions," Raoul said, clearing his throat. Meg preempted him.
"To save you embarrassment, Monsieur, I will say that the unfortunate evidence of violence on my face has been dealt with. The one responsible is gone." Raoul processed this.
"Good," Raoul said with a savage satisfaction.
"Second, I will not betray Christine's confidence by revealing anything to you." Raoul stiffened.
"Now listen here, Mademoiselle-" Meg's tragic face hardened into an impenetrable mask.
"You listen here! Christine chose to go with Monsieur Erik for the furlough. And despite whatever you may think, I'm certain he has the most honorable of intentions! You slander my mother's judgment as her warden by saying otherwise!" Raoul rankled under the casual use of his rival's name, but realized sheepishly that Meg was correct.
"I can commend him in one respect: he draws great loyalty from his women," Raoul remarked with acerbic dryness.
A vivid vision of his mother's face rose in his mind's eye, gripping the back of his father's chair with white-knuckled fingers, her face a blank mask of pain, eyes the wild cast of a trapped animal. A marriage poisoned from its genesis. The Château de Chagny hid secrets around every corner. Raoul's cherished dream was a union free from secrets, a true, intimate marriage replete with honest love. It was laughable really, he a man of wealth, standing and looks, and still a virgin at one and twenty!
"Mademoiselle, I simply want to know that she is safe. That she wasn't under any sort of . . . duress." A small, secret smile played at Meg's lips and Raoul felt an unaccustomed and unexpected surge of attraction.
"Christine was not under duress. In fact, she seemed quite eager." Raoul frowned, troubled by the power Erik wielded over her.
"Be that as it may, I will not be able to rest easy until I see for myself that she is well. Where does this—Where does Monsieur Rousseau live?" he tripped a little at the thought of his virtuous Christine in the abode of her dark master. Meg shrugged.
"I don't know. If Maman ever needs to talk with him, he just . . . appears." This startled a genuine laugh from Raoul.
"A friendly and courteous Phantom, then!" he spat.
Suddenly, the room was intolerable, with those wide, watchful eyes set in that poor abused face, with the insufferable knowledge of his darling Christine in that madman's charge, and of his impotence in doing anything about it. Raoul stood, uttering stiff words of courtesy forced into him by strict repetition as a young boy. His angry stride, though, was of a jilted young man, bristling with hurt and anger. These feelings followed him out of the Populaire and chased after his carriage as he rode to the de Chagny townhouse along the Foubourg Saint-Honoré.
The sight that greeted him as his man opened the door was his brother Philippe, Comte de Chagny, sprawled snoring across a low couch near the fire, an empty brandy snifter upended a few inches from his limp fingers. From the reek of cheap perfume and the earthy stench of sweat and sex, Raoul deduced that his elder brother's female companions had just left. A quick glance around the room found the strongbox yawning open, its lock forced. And taken all their francs with them!
"Damn it, Philippe!" Raoul shouted in a rare show of temper. He kicked the couch, causing it to scrape across the wooden floor with a hideous screech. Philippe moaned piteously and roused, half-lidded grey eyes glaring down his aquiline nose at Raoul. A surprising feat considering he was soused, half-naked and unkempt.
"What is it Raoul?" he drawled.
"What is it? It's the fact that your whores just robbed us blind! It's the fact that even if they had not robbed us, you would have happily spent every franc on wine and women! It's the fact that our Father is dying. It's the fact that Christine could be in danger and there is nothing I can do to help her!"
During his rant, Philippe dragged himself to a half sitting position, scrubbed his stubbled face and made an attempt to order his shoulder-length black hair. Philippe yawned, beckoning him with a gesture.
"Come here and sit, little brother. I swear, Raoul, you're wound so tight it's a sodding miracle that you don't spring when you walk."
Raoul obeyed, a hot, ragged thing breathing in his chest. He'd spent too many years stuffing his emotions into a cramped little box to know what to do with them when they broke free. Philippe, the god of Raoul's childhood, oh how Raoul envied his older brother's loose, roguish charm, his flippant regard for the authority and etiquette that ruled his own life! With a sly glance, Philippe groped for the snifters and decanter and poured them both a tot of brandy. Raoul threw his back without pause. Heat chased its bitter gall, warming his insides. Philippe clapped a hand on Raoul's shoulder.
"Now, I'll be the first to admit, I am a bit," he paused to hiccup, "drunk. But that's the best way to be when tangled with such problems, I've found. A tried and true method."
Beneath the nonchalant humor, Raoul heard the vestiges of true grief. No doubt the results of Philippe loosing his wife and infant daughter in childbed half a dozen years earlier. The elder de Chagny had always been intemperate and wayward, but after that he was lost: a ship without a rudder.
"Ah, well. Whores always get their due. I could scarcely fault them for taking an opportunity that presents itself, the poor things. And Father has been dying for years. I doubt the old goat will ever give up the ghost. And this girl-"
"Christine," Raoul corrected testily. Philippe's grey eyes narrowed in mock irritation, a smile playing with the corners of his mouth—the full mouth women were so enamored with.
"Christine," he repeated, rolling his eyes, "she's the opera singer you're so mad over?" Raoul nodded, grateful the golden wash of firelight hid his blush.
"What grave peril awaits our shy Swedish maiden?" Philippe swallowed his brandy awaiting Raoul's reply.
"Her mad professor. Her masked Phantom," he spat, reaching for more brandy. Philippe snorted in irreverent laughter.
"Sounds dashing."
"God! I'm so mad with jealousy, I fear I'd kill him!" Raoul said. Philippe's dark brows rose.
"He must be quite the man to have attracted your ire, oh sainted Raoul. What sort of man is he?"
"Utterly insane. He threatened the managers when they tried to remove Christine from the lead role."
"Weren't you about to do the same thing?" Philippe drawled in that irritatingly superior way of elder brothers.
"That's not the point! He's clearly unstable, and there's rumor that he's some sort of magician!" Philippe's manner altered subtly, a sharper shine in his grey eyes.
"What did you say his name was?"
"Erik. Erik Rousseau," Raoul pronounced his rival's name with distaste, feeling pleasantly detached with the brandy. Philippe surprised him by leaping to his feet, uttering a long string of profanity under his breath.
"I've heard tell of this man. He's dangerous." Vague fear gnawed at Raoul's belly. He'd never heard Philippe use that tone.
Oh Christine!
"What have you heard? Damn it, Philippe, why didn't you tell-"
"Just stay away from him!" Philippe interrupted, face contorted into a ferocious mask.
Raoul rose to his feet and began to say something when Philippe threw his arms around him, grasping him close in a fierce embrace. Raoul was overwhelmed by his brother's taut strength and the overwhelming scent of alcohol and sweat reeking from his pores. Baffled, Raoul patted his brother's back, listening through the blubbering of his tears.
"Philippe?"
"Promise me," Philippe whispered against his neck, "just promise me, Raoul. Stay away from this Erik. He's dangerous."
"I will," Raoul promised.
Once Christine is free of him, I will, he thought. Philippe pulled back, grasping the back of Raoul's neck and offering a smile, firelight catching the trails of tears and the dew of sweat.
"You're a good lad, Raoul. Now, I think I'll need your help getting into bed."
"Of course, Monsieur le Comte," Raoul replied dutifully.
XXX
There. She'd done it. Tingling awareness raced through her, intensely aware of her provocative position astride his lap and his warm, sinewy strength surrounding her. Christine could feel the throb of her heart, heat gathering in her fingertips, her breasts, between her thighs. She'd plucked up her courage and kissed him. But now he was just staring at her! Had she done something wrong?
Her nerve failed her and she took in a breath to say something when Erik leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers in a butterfly's caress. A soft sound left her, caught somewhere between a sigh and a moan. She swayed toward his heat, the touch of his breath. He kissed her again, deeper, and Christine melted at the velvet rub of his lips.
She was drowning in sensual pleasure. Erik's scent was sharper, saltier, a pungent male musk. She basked in his heat, his power. His lips tasted of . . . peppermint? Christine craved more of the taste. Erik's long, musician's fingers tangled in her hair while hers fisted in handfuls of his shirt. Novel sensations burst in riotous bloom within Christine, a deep, yawning need, forbidden pleasure. Erik made a low sound that vibrated against her lips and shivered through her throat and chest.
So deeply connected.
Erik's mouth slanted across hers, widening the opening of her sealed lips. Startled, Christine opened her eyes to look at him, then was carried away by the sweet, wet heat of his mouth and . . . oh God, his tongue! It was a damp velvety caress along her lower lip, gently probing. The marvelous heat deepened, swelled, blurring the edges of reality.
Christine flung her arms around his neck, dragging him closer. He was the only cure for this ache, this tension, the only remedy for her burning fever! His magical fingers moved from their feverish grip in her hair, gently stroking the back of her neck and tracing the lines of her shoulders. Those deft fingers then slid down the line of her spine, setting nerves afire. Suddenly, his strong, warm hands cupped her hips, pressing her womanhood against its throbbing opposite, trapped within his trousers. Christine cried out at the sudden rush of pleasure.
The heat spread, the tension gathered even tighter. A greedy, grasping hunger gnawed at her, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. She was reaching, reaching for something . . . something only he could give her! She tried to speak, tried to beg for it.
Erik! Erik, please! She screamed wordlessly.
Erik's tongue plunged into her mouth, his rigid body surging up against hers. The world contracted to one shining point, this one man, this one kiss. All else fell away. She broke the heady contact of their mouths to cry out, a thin, high wail. Pleasure so exquisite it was almost pain exploded through her. Christine writhed in his arms, mindless in its throes.
Breath came in ragged sobs, her face buried against his neck. Erik made a low sound, hands stroking her back soothingly, dropping gentle kisses along the curve of her jaw and her throat. Christine clung to him as her heartbeat slowed, as the wild pleasure receded. It was almost frightening in its immensity and power. As the fever abated, mortification gradually replaced it and she shivered in his arms. Holy Virgin, she had . . . she had . . .
"Erik?" she whispered.
"Yes, Christine?" against her will, fresh pleasure bloomed at the sensual caress of his low voice.
"What . . . what j—just happened?"
"Le petite mort, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he crooned, doing something sinfully wonderful with his tongue to the curve of her ear. Christine gasped, both at his words and his action.
"'The little death?' That's what it's called? When the world went away like that?" she whispered, heat stinging her cheeks. Christine was grateful he couldn't see her face. She felt so young and ignorant.
"Yes," he replied simply. An awkward pause, broken only by the steady rise and fall of his breathing and his absent stroking fingers along her back.
"What, ah . . . what do you know of what happens between a man and a woman, Christine?" the slowing pound of her heart cleared room for her to think.
"Um . . . I know the rude mechanics of it but little else. I definitely didn't know I could . . . that you could make me, ah, do that while only kissing."
"Nor I. From what I've read, female satisfaction is somewhat elusive."
Not experience? She was tempted to say. A violent, possessive emotion rose up in her at the thought of Erik with another woman.
Christine pressed her lips against the starchy surface of his linen-clad shoulder, feeling pleasantly languid. Erik however, was stiff, tension humming through him. He shifted beneath her and brought the throbbing evidence of his desire to her attention. Christine gasped, pulling back to look into his eyes, those glinting blue-grey eyes and the supple line of his mouth beneath the black bandit's mask, his lips red and swollen, moist from their kisses. The sight inflamed her, roused a yearning for more of his lips and tongue.
"You . . . you didn't . . . ?" she stuttered, at a loss. He combed a wayward curl behind her ear with a faint smile.
"No, my dear. I did not."
"Do you . . . do you want me to . . ." She hated the idea of him left unfulfilled, especially when he had been so generous with her pleasure. But she also had no idea how to go about alleviating it.
"I'll manage. But . . ." he trailed off, his eyes somber, "We must speak of this. I must apologize, my dear. I have . . . complicated things. When you kissed me, I lost my head. I didn't mean to compromise things this way. I made a promise to Minette and to you that I would treat you with the utmost respect."
The words were poison in her ears. He was apologizing? Why, why would he tarnish this beautiful, fragile thing as it took its first breath? Complication? Did he see her as a complication to his success as a composer? He loved her! Why wouldn't he say so?
"I've seen the drawings!" she blurted, cutting Erik off mid sentence. His hand fell from her hair to hang limp at his side, as if the nerve had been severed.
"So you know." His tone was flat, emotionless.
"You love me," Christine whispered, her voice warbling. She was dangerously close to tears.
"Yes," he said, looking miserable, as if he'd bitten into a lemon. Christine was shaken by his lack of emotion. How was this the same man who kissed her with such incandescent passion? Why was loving her so dreadful?
He moved to rise and Christine slid off his lap to stand on shaky legs. Her thighs tingled with residual pleasure, firing tiny echoes through her body. Christine bit her lip in mortification at the embarrassing dampness between her thighs. Tears welled in her eyes. It rested on her tongue to say she loved him, but she bit it back. Christine hated that miserable, defeated look! Did he think she would mock him for loving her? Lord it over him like some sort of shameful secret?
"You should get dressed."
He wouldn't look at her. Christine wanted to scream and slap him.
"Erik?" she pleaded, shivering in the chill of his lair, bereft without his warmth. Christine wrapped her arms around herself.
"Yes?"
"Never mind," she said, retreating with what dignity she could to the safe haven of his room.
The room was outfitted with a thick wooden door which Christine slammed closed with vicious satisfaction. Two more days with this . . . whatever it was looming between them, with him staring at her with those enigmatic eyes—surely it was torture! Christine sank down to the rug against the door, no longer bothering to quiet her sobs.
xxxx
A/N: So? What do you think? I know I'm evil.
Never fear, dear readers, I will continue ASAP!