Unmasqued

by Colette Gale

  She would sleep well; but tonight, she feared, her dreams would be filled with more than the memory of a disembodied voice. Tonight, she would dream of his touch as well.

  ~*~

  Erik moved along the catwalk like a starving panther—fast, silent, smooth. Hunger gnawing.

  He knew the upper workings of the Paris Opera House like he knew every other area, from the high, flat roof open to the moon and sun alike, to the backstage, to the dormitories so vast they were nearly a city unto themselves…to the cavernous tunnels and subterranean lake that snaked deep below.

  The Opera House was his domain.

  Music was his language.

  Christine was his obsession.

  True…he’d hardly noticed her at first. Until recently, he’d barely paid attention to the comings and goings of the dancers and singers. The dark, silent theater had been his bailiwick. After all had gone home in the early-morning hours, he’d roamed the backstage, the catwalks, the stalls, even the boxes and the grand marble foyer.

  But one day, perhaps six months ago, when it was still summer and the nights were short, he’d not returned to his little cottage in time. Or else she had been up early.

  He’d seen her come onto the stage just as she had tonight after her brilliant performance, alone. In the silence.

  She had done nothing so very unusual to capture his attention; surely Christine Daaé had not been the first young woman to stand on an empty stage and wish for the chance to make it her own. But that was what she’d done.

  Her long, dark hair was caught back in a simple ribbon. She wore her battered chorus girl costume; perhaps she’d been wearing it all night. Since then, he’d been close enough to see it and notice the darned slippers and the ladders decorating the backs of her stockings.

  She’d sung, there, by herself, on the empty stage. Not brilliantly, not even with much emotion, but Erik heard the promise in her amateurish voice.

  And then when she turned and he saw from his place in the wings the full force of her heart-shaped face, his heart—which had been protective steel for so long—softened. She looked so sad.

  Lonely.

  He wondered if she’d been alone as long as he had.

  Now, his breath ragged, his heart thudding, his erection excruciating, Erik finally allowed himself to stop, rest, leaning heavily against the rough brick wall that edged the very top of the massive space that included the stage and backstage. He was tucked up and behind the upper proscenium. In this dark, remote corner, the ceiling was only inches above him. His fingers trembled, and he stripped off his leather gloves, and they snapped softly in the quiet…broken only by his harsh breathing.

  At last, after months of watching, teaching, loving Christine from afar, he had touched her. Touched her.

  Touched her, and she’d welcomed it. There’d been no revulsion, no crying, no struggling.

  She’d had pleasure, had responded. Deliciously.

  What it had cost him to slip away. Let her go.

  Bringing the collection of empty leather fingers to his face, he breathed, smelled her on them, and tipped his masked face against the brick. His mask. Barrier to peace and satiation.

  He’d fashioned several of them of leather, tanning and tooling them as if he aroused a lover, until they all were smooth as skin. He had one of black, for when he wished to move about unnoticed at night, and one of cream, which blended with the color of his flesh. If he was to wear it, it must be comfortable, pliable, sensual. He must not be aware that it was on; it must become such a part of him that the only way he could tell it was there was by touch.

  Or sight.

  He rarely looked in the mirror, even when he wore the mask.

  The pale leather mask, more supple than even the gloves he held to his trembling mouth, covered just half of his face. One mangled eye. One scored temple. One ravaged nostril. One mottled, slashed cheekbone. And it curved around to sweep at the corner of his mouth, leaving his wide, sensual lips bare. It tied over his thick dark hair, at the back of his crown.

  A faint sound drew his attention; he pulled away from the wall and, holding the rail, looked down.

  A pale, ugly face gleamed up at him from the next catwalk below. Buquet, the ape.

  “Quite a show you put on down there,” drawled the man, looking boldly up at Erik. “A nice piece of pussy, and you managed to find your way down into it. Not that you’re the first, you know.”

  It was nothing for Erik to launch himself from the narrow, rickety catwalk and flip himself onto the one below. He landed, flat-footed and steady, and turned face-to-face with Buquet.

  “You are a coarse, stupid man,” Erik said, fury cold and steady through him. He might burn for Christine, but he had learned long ago to control his other emotions into efficiency. He did not rage; he acted with decisiveness.

  Buquet had the balls to laugh, yet Erik saw that he stepped back. Fear glinted in his eyes, displayed by the low lantern the man carried. “I'd be happy to keep what I saw to myself, if you allow me to watch—”

  Erik’s hand shot out and closed around the man’s throat. His fingers tightened over his windpipe, and lifted his weaselly bulk from the narrow wood planks. “If I find out you have even breathed the same air as Miss Daaé, if you even think to come within twenty yards of her, I will make your miserable life even more hellish.”

  The man choked and gasped beneath the same fingers that played the piano with such elegance and beauty. Erik constricted, then loosened them, and allowed the man to collapse at his feet. One leg dangled off the narrow walkway.

  “Do not let me see you or hear you again, Buquet.”

  He turned to stalk away, the frustration that had been centered in his cock now vibrating throughout his being. Rage and desire were a monstrous combination.

  “You’ll never have her, scuttling rat.” Buquet’s words were so soft, perhaps he did not mean for Erik to hear them. The coward. But Erik did hear, and he whirled back around just as the man leaped at him.

  Buquet’s lantern rested on the walk, leaving his hands free. One held the flimsy rope railing, and the other a glinting silver knife. “You’re naught but a sick devil, scurrying about in the dark,” he said boldly, brave now that he brandished his weapon. “You must hide your filthy self—”

  Erik kicked out, and Buquet dodged on the narrow footbridge, continuing to taunt him. “You bury yerself in the dark, and yearn for what you will never have. She won’t be looking on the likes of you, no matter that she spreads her legs when you force her. She’ll not spread ‘em for your cock, for the—”

  Erik stopped the mocking voice with both feet, slamming into the man's face as he lifted himself with the weak rope railing on either side. Buquet tumbled to the boards and, grasping at the rope with one hand, pulled himself up, the knife raised in the other.

  As he brought the knife down, Erik ducked and lunged, and knocked the man off-balance…and then felt the footbridge tip as he slid to the edge. Before Erik could turn, the walkway righted with a jerk, swaying mightily as Buquet tipped off and he hurtled through the air.

  He caught, tangled in the ropes from the backdrops and lights, hanging there as he frantically tried to claw himself free. Erik watched, and saw what was going to happen before it did…before he could move to try to stop it.

  Rope snagged around Buquet, and as he struggled to free his hands, one of the lines looped around his neck. As the last part slipped free from his arm, Buquet fell freely until that rope tightened its deadly grip.

  His neck broke with an ugly snap that echoed in the dark chamber.

  Erik turned impassively, picked up his gloves, and, leaving the lantern and the knife, walked off the catwalk to the iron ladder that lined the wall.

  They would find Buquet in the morning, and it would be yet another evil attributed to the Opera Ghost.

  The tussle with Buquet had eased some of the rampant lust coursing through his body, but as Erik climbed silently down the iron ladder, it all ca
me flooding back. Images swam there, haunting him in the dark as he forced himself to count the rungs. Anything to keep his mind steady.

  But the counting could not keep them away. The open curve of Christine's white neck. Heavy, walnut-colored hair brushing the part of his face that was bare, he imagined it falling in long waves down her pale back. Plump pink lips, wet and full like the lips of her sex, open and inviting. Panting, as she writhed on his finger. Hard pointed nipples, shooting up, jiggling and jerking with every shuddering breath she took.

  The vibration of her beneath his hands, between his palms. Her scent…roses and lavender and whatever it was that made her Christine. Slickness everywhere, the musky smell curling into his nostrils as he played her. Played her.

  His throat was dry and crackling and his erection surging, straining with need. Buquet's words haunted him.

  She will never spread her legs for your cock.

  You will never have her.

  Nothing but a sick devil, scurrying about in the dark.

  Buquet’s taunts mingled with memories of his youth, of those dark, horrid days with his brother, where the girls would scream at the sight of Erik’s face. And his brother would shove them at him, make him touch them. So he could watch them scream, and fight.

  Erik stepped onto the wooden floor of the backstage and turned. Someone was there,

  Madame Giry stepped forward, holding a lantern that sent stark shadows over her aging face. “Erik…did you kill Buquet?”

  “He killed himself,” he replied. “Though it was fortunate for me that he managed it on his own, for I sorely wanted to help him along.”

  Maude, known as Madame Giry to everyone else in the Opera House, moved closer to him. She smelled like lilies, an erotic scent for a woman nearing fifty. She was the same age his mother would have been, had she lived a full life and not died when he was merely twelve.

  The two women had been the best of friends, close as twins from their childhood in the south. They moved together to Paris to pursue dancing careers. His only portrait of his mother was one that Maude had given him of the two women together, and they could hardly have been more different. The young Maude was fair-skinned and fresh-faced, with generous curves, while Erik’s mother had the lithe, exotic beauty of her Persian mother and French father.

  Ten years ago, when Erik was in trouble and had nowhere else to turn, he came to the only friend he knew. Maude had been his protector ever since.

  “Buquet was a filthy man who did not know to keep his mouth shut. I have caught him spying on my girls more than once. He is no great loss.”

  “I will be blamed.”

  She nodded. “Yet another tragedy attributed to your legend. This will only serve to protect you further, Erik, and you know how important it is that you remain a mysterious, shadowy figure. As long as you remain a half-believed legend, you are safe. With a little prompting, the new managers will be inclined to keep you happy in exchange for a peaceful house.”

  “And you will continue to ensure that they do.”

  “I will ensure that they have every reason to comply with your requirements. I consider it my duty to keep them satisfied…on all levels.” In the low light, her face transformed with a meaningful smile.

  Maude loved sex, and she did not confine her lustful appetites to one partner, or even many. She had slept with legions over the years, and prided herself for hiding her great appetites behind a rigid, proper persona. “I’ll make myself acquainted with them first before I introduce them to some of the girls.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “Something I would be most happy to do for you, Erik. There are one or two who could be counted on to remain discreet. Or I’ll see them thrown out on the street.”

  “No,” he managed to say calmly, though his cock shifted beneath his trousers. “I’ll wait.”

  With a sideways glance, Maude raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “You are becoming as chaste as Christine is.”

  “Your girls might be discreet, but they will still gossip. And La Carlotta, though out of your chaperonage, has the loudest lips of them all. It is best if I remain the shadowy ghost I’ve been for the last nine years so that none can identify me.”

  Yes, nearly ten years of his life—one-third of it!—had been spent hovering in the shadows of this Opera House. Hiding and lurking and pretending to be nothing but a specter. Would he ever be free to live in the light?

  “As you wish, Erik,” Maude told him, with a gentle bow of acquiescence.

  After she left, and Erik felt the rage of his cock refuse to subside, he wondered at his instant refusal. He could have taken her up on her offer. It would be easy and quick.

  But he’d resolved years ago he would force no one to see his monstrous self. He wanted no more of the fear, of the revulsion, he’d seen in the girls he’d been forced to touch.

  He wanted none of them.

  None but Christine.

  THREE

  * * *

  Christine sat next to Raoul at the restaurant where they supped. In a quiet corner, at a table surrounded by a large, curving sofa, the five of them ate a late meal and discussed that evening’s successful performance.

  Raoul sat so that his thigh lined hers and the pointed tail of his coat flipped up over the back of her gown. He was solicitous and charming, ensuring that her wineglass was always filled with the deep golden Bordeaux and her plate had the choicest pieces of roast fowl.

  Next to Raoul sat one of the Opera House's new managers, Monsieur Armand Moncharmin, the one who had urged his counterpart to let her sing.

  He was shorter and stouter than his partner, with soft, puppy-dog eyes and little jowls that added to the canine impression he presented. A shy man, he appeared too nervous to look at Christine for long, although his gaze continued to dart back to her person when he did not expect her to be looking. This was the type of man, she thought as she slipped a grape into her mouth, who would be afraid to unbutton his nightshirt for his wife and would insist on making love with the lights off.

  Next to Christine, leaving a greater distance between her gown and his trousers than Raoul had done, was the other new manager. Monsieur Firmin Richard was the elder of the two partners, and he sported a neat, slicked mustache that did not dare to showcase any of the gray that winged his temples. His eyes were sharper and more considering than Armand’s, but Christine had already heard that Moncharmin was the one who handled the money, and Richard, the dandy who actually understood music, was the one who managed the personnel.

  Directly across the table from her was Raoul’s elder brother by a decade, Philippe, the Comte de Chagny. Later, Christine was to realize he had deliberately chosen that seat for the advantage it gave him. A more mature version of his younger brother, the comte exuded power and control from the condescending flare of his aristocratic nostrils to the thin, settled lips that curved in the faintest of considering smiles.

  In his shadow, Raoul seemed little more than a handsome, earnest boy who wanted desperately to gain his big brother’s approval.

  “I see from your uniform that you are a graduated member of the École Navale Impériale,” Monsieur Moncharmin commented to Raoul.

  “Indeed,” replied the vicomte, offering a smile to Christine, then returning his attention to the short manager. “I recently graduated from my training upon the Borda and found myself with little to do until I was invited to join my brother at his patronage of your Opera House. I cannot but think it was a serendipitous occurrence that of all nights, he should invite me to this evening's gala.”

  “Raoul graduated near the top of his class,” added the comte as he set his wineglass down with a smart snap, “and then embarked on a journey around the world. His sisters and I are pleased that he has chosen to return for a brief furlough before leaving on his next journey.”

  “Where shall you be heading off to next, then?” asked Monsieur Richard. “I myself cannot stomach the sea, even a short journey, for it makes me ill.”

  “My brothe
r wields enough influence that I was able to be assigned to the mission of the Requin which will not leave for several weeks yet.” Under the table, he squeezed Christine's fingers as though to let her know he would not forget her.

  “Is that the ship that is to search for the survivors of the polar expedition?”

  “Yes, indeed. The d’Artois. But I shall not be called for a month, so I will have plenty of nights to return to the Opera House.”

  “Our Miss Daaé was quite a triumph this evening.” Moncharmin braved a look at Christine, then reapplied himself to his potatoes.

  “Yes…but whatever happened to that Spanish singer? Carlotta?” spoke the comte suddenly. “Although our Miss Daaé turned many heads with her beauty and her voice, I am curious as to how such a young girl managed to snare the stage from the Opera House’s star. Unless it was part of your scheme as the new managers? Out with the old and in with the new, perhaps?”

  Philippe’s gray blue eyes rarely left Christine’s person, even as he spoke to his brother or the managers. They were heavy, calculating, and disturbing. When she moved closer to Raoul, pressing her arm against his as if to melt into the protection of his person, Philippe’s mouth tipped up at one side in a sardonic grin as if he understood and was amused by it.

  Richard replied, “Carlotta was overset by an accident on the stage today, and it was decided she should rest her nerves this evening.”

  “An accident?” Raoul asked, concern in his face as he looked at Christine. “Somehow I had not considered the opera to be so dangerous.”

  “It is no more dangerous than crossing the street, unless one is foolish enough to believe in the stories about the ghost who haunts the theater,” Richard grumbled.

  “An opera ghost?” The comte wasclearly amused. He drank again from his garnet-colored wine, and refilled the glass with a flourish.