And then her voice poured through the walls and doors from rehearsal, and I shuddered to my core and felt thrown and struck against a rocky shore. My body ached; I wanted and yearned, and tears gathered in my eyes in a sudden terror that I had concocted the whole scene and she wasn’t mine. Oh God, if she wasn’t, I longed to die!
The morning dragged to afternoon, and no matter what I did, I was haunted. Christine… She was all I obsessed over. And then my prayers suddenly received an unanticipated answer.
A soft rapping on my office door shook me from imagination, and shouting a terse, “Come in,” I expected another intervention from an unhappy crewmember, maybe Reyer with a list of complaints for my integrated changes. Being in charge meant no one was happy. I could have caved to their every wish, and still they’d find something suitable for their grumbling resignations.
One could envision my astounded and aghast expression when Christine opened the door and scurried inside, blue eyes wide and yet glowing with light. She smiled when she regarded my rigid posture at my desk and darted to my chair with a soft laugh. Just like a dream… But with only a trembling hesitation in her extended hands, she lifted my mask away from my stunned features and found the horror beneath as if it were the greatest treasure in the known world.
Her little hands fitted gently to my cheeks, her skin so warm and real that it burned, and I shivered and lost a soft, unrealized moan merely at the tangibility.
“Christine,” I sighed, and my hands shook in the air as I opened fingers and slid them along the curves of her hips, gradually feeling her. As I tested her solid form and found its concreteness, I cried out and drew her to me until I could burrow my face to her belly and infect my lungs with her scent.
“Oh God, you feel so real!” I exclaimed and pressed kiss after kiss to the bodice of her gown. “If this is insanity, let me never emerge from its possession! I will willingly choose a fabricated reality if I can have even a fragment of my Christine to touch and hold. …Are you real, ange? Tell me that I’m not dreaming you.”
She never paused, wrapping eager arms about my neck and lighting upon my lap as if it were a known intimacy between us. I met her gaze with surprised delight in my own and found such a smile that it stilled my heart.
“I’m real, ange,” she vowed back, and I couldn’t help myself. I covered her elated face in frantic kisses, one after another, cherishing every tiny feature of her beautiful visage. She took each with a giggle and clutched me tighter with nimble fingers. “Shall I always acquire such a favorable reception? If so, I will escape rehearsal more often!”
“Rehearsal?” I halted mid-kiss at her temple and listened long enough to hear Mephistopheles bellowing out his lines. “Isn’t your scene approaching?”
“Perhaps,” she decided with an idle shrug. “But I have an imperative meeting with my manager that I would not dare disregard. They will have to carry on without me until you have given dismissal.”
“Indeed?” I fisted my hands in her dress, my knuckles bearing into her back as I fathomed one unanswered detail. “And…what did the Vicomte say to this clandestine meeting? Or is he awaiting just outside the door?”
“Of course not!” she exclaimed and set an appeasing kiss to my jaw. “He’s gone, Erik. I saw him last night and told him that my heart beats for the Opera Ghost alone.”
I wanted to believe her so much that my voice wavered in tensed hesitation and an excitement I couldn’t let myself find. “And…? What did he say? Is he out for blood and retribution?”
A fluttered laugh poured past her lips and tickled the skin of my disfigured cheek. “Raoul is not the sort for guns and blades. Yes, his heart was broken, and he tried to reason with me in his analytical, caring manner, but in the end, it is my choice. I don’t favor being the cause of such dramatics, you know that, but in this instance, it could not be avoided.”
“Thank God,” I breathed, and every muscle seemed to relax and drain of fear to know it was over. I wasn’t accustomed to winning and getting what I wanted in the end, and maybe I would have kept doubting if not for Christine’s soft body on my lap, proving at every breath that she was mine and wanted to be mine of her free will.
“So…what now?” she asked sweetly with the slightest wobble to remind her trepidations.
I had no intention of forcing anything upon her, but she timidly scooted closer to my telling desire, her shy eyes half-closed above her tentative smile. My God, she could tempt true angels to leap from the heavens in their final fall from grace to have her!
“I have no daroga waiting below,” I reported with the tinge of asked permission. “But tell me what you want, ange. …I could carry you away, make love to you with every ounce of passion in my body. …Is that what you wish, Christine?”
I couldn’t help but pose my yearnings when she squirmed against my aching hardness and stole my breath. I would argue she enticed blatancy.
But she ducked her eyes with her nod, and though I wondered if I pushed too hard, she shocked me to a shudder as her sweet lips met mine, urgent and demanding, firm in their pressure and deliberately sensual motion. How could I resist!
I barely hesitated as I lifted her into my arms. This was all I wanted from the world. Let it collapse and decay in our absence, and I wouldn’t mourn a single thing. I took what was important with me as I brought her into another secret passageway hidden in a back closet of my office. She looked about with fascination and then cast me a dubious, arched brow.
“You have your own way around the entire opera house, don’t you?” she asked, her amazement in a contented grin.
“How do you think I delivered my Opera Ghost notes into the locked management’s office? I would call my labyrinth of pathways necessary and conducive to any intelligent ghost’s way of life,” I teased with the words and savored the little giggle I got in reply. Oh, such bliss! She was happy; I was making her happy. There was nothing as wondrous.
The trip below was a test of patience, most especially when this stretch of my maze was laden in numerous traps. God forbid the typical bumbling managers ever found the hidden entrance. I’d taken extra precautions and had plenty of avenues to avoid with Christine warm and persuasive in my arms. The last thing I needed was to trap us in one of my many torture chambers.
My modicum of concentrated efforts kept me silent as I rushed us along, but she was equally quiet. I wondered over her thoughts and tormented my inner confidence with a terror that she didn’t truly want this. Perhaps she only consented because she knew how desperately I ached…
Dear God, the thought would not weaken its intensity despite my resolve to avoid distraction and pay attention to traps and corridors in the dark. …Well, if it were true, I was adamant to adore her so vehemently that she never regretted her choice. She was handing over her virginity to a monster composed of scars and damage, and even if the soul within was whole and penitent, the facts remained the same.
So much pressure to please when I’d never been in this position. Abuse was the only foundation in my mind, and that entailed pain and degradation. This was the first time desire was a pure thing, and I was so grateful to her for this gift that I was overcome.
With anticipation tingling my skin, I carried her inside my hidden house and straightway to the bedroom, experiencing her nervous tremors with her. “Have you been in this room before?” I asked. “In your exploration of my house during my absence, I mean.”
She glanced to my gaze with a secretive grin and revealed with a blush, “I laid in your bed a few times.”
“What?” I stuttered, mimicking her grin. Such an intimate detail, and how had I not realized as I’d slept in that bed that her aura lurked? My God, her cheek could have been in the same spot on my pillow where mine rested!
“Pathetic, I know.” Her smile deepened her blush. “But…your scent lingered upon the pillow and within the covers, and…I’d lie there and close my eyes and pretend you were with me. That was at the beginning when I was so certain yo
u’d come back, but then more and more time passed and hope felt foolish.”
“I’m sorry,” I couldn’t stop the apology from pouring forth as I set her upon her feet. But she scurried to the bedside without a word or even a shared gaze that I could read. Kicking off her shoes, she lifted the covers and slid within my bed, nuzzling her face into my pillow in the same place I’d restlessly shifted the entire night before, suffering insomnia with my musings of her. It was a paradox because my mind’s eye could bend time back and convince me that I lay in the bed, not her, and she was another fantasy. I hated the thought as soon as it appeared and quickly sought to shatter disillusionment as I followed her path.
Looming beside the mattress, I watched her curl on her side, facing me, her eyes finally upon mine with more hesitation than I wanted to see. “Do you think I’m foolish?” she asked, and I nearly chuckled at such an unexpected inquiry.
“Why would I ever think that?”
“Because I loved you so much that I went to such childish extremes to capture even a piece of you. You left, and I didn’t know if you’d come back. Did you realize that you were everything to me, Erik? That when you left, I was alone?”
I nodded. I knew it now. With delicate fingertips, I stroked her brow and admired the curls strewn across my pillowcase. “And I consider it an absolute wonder that you loved me so much. That last night before I left, I hurt you with truths I should have told from the beginning, and…I used this face to frighten you further, to punish you because I thought I’d lost you. Christine, …I can’t fix that, but I can make sure that for all its horror, it meant something and isn’t forgotten.”
The pads of my fingers marveled over her soft cheek, and as she lifted the edge of the covers in a timid invitation, I went eagerly and lay on my side facing her, tracing her features and half-afraid to do more than touch her face.
She was the one to reach for the clasps of her gown and expertly unhooked them, holding my eyes apprehensively at each parting inch of material. She asked without words if that was what I wanted, and I hoped the hunger in my returned stare gave her an answer when I could form nothing beyond the hoarse breaths passing my lips.
Her gown was discarded; she tossed it off the bed, and I shuddered as the sound of falling material echoed back. It was like a prelude, setting the mood before the first strains of a romantic symphony. Her corset was the next series of chords, modulating toward a lush melody whose arched shape was drawn along the gorgeous curves of her feminine body. She was music’s muse, molded in harmonies and dynamics, and my body reacted to listen to her symphony, crescendoing with her brilliant forte and swelling with the intense passion that poured free.
“Oh my God,” I breathed and extended shaking hands, fingers splayed wide to touch as much of her as I could at once. My grasp clasped either side of her ribcage and dug into the lingering cotton of her chemise, pulling it so taut that the shadows of her breasts deepened their hue to press flush and strain to be loose.
She wasn’t breathing; I felt no stir in the lungs beneath my palms, and to glimpse the widening of blue eyes, her fear felt like my own trial to overcome. I had to replace it with something glorious instead. Meeting her gaze one last second, I suddenly bent and pressed my mouth to one silhouetted nipple, savoring her sharp cry as it filled the air.
I carried a nervousness that I’d be awkward. Fantasizing what I wanted to do to her and actually doing it were two different things. Now I had substance between my hands, not imagined beauty but real beauty that was far more exquisite and yet fragile. I took care with every motion; kisses first, my misshapen mouth gentle in every affection, and through that flimsy chemise barrier, I felt her nipple harden and extend to meet me and considered it a great and humbling achievement. Her cries were soft whimpers, and I kept glancing at her face, only to find her gaze riveted to my actions. Oh, I thrilled to push her onward! And parting my lips, I found that yearning nipple with my tongue, lapping at intruding cotton and impatient to tear it free and taste skin. But…for her, I would take my time.
She burned my ears with her desperate moan, and I smiled against her breast and circled the tip with my tongue, shuddering when her hand darted out and clung to my hair. How overwhelming it was to be wanted! She scooted closer until her legs could overlap mine and arched nearer to my throbbing manhood, tempting more when I was already aching too much.
My hand slid beneath her chemise to find her other breast and learn its soft weight, and I groaned to my deepest depths to cup it in my bare palm, its tip just as pronounced and leaving its stamp behind. Never before had my hands known anything so flawlessly constructed as Christine’s body; every detail made me further certain she was more than any other mortal woman in existence. She was the true angel, and how fortunate I was that she arched and writhed against me, longing for my touch, garnering pleasure from my ministrations and no one else. It felt like a cruel joke of Fate, as if the second I surrendered and fully believed, she’d vanish and remind me I was worthless and not allowed such blessings.
But…reality was in every unexpected detail she created, surpassing my lackluster imagination. She shimmied out of my hold, but not to sever contact. No, she yanked her chemise over her head, threw it aside, and invited more contact.
I moaned my delirious delight and ran rampant eyes over her breasts, never hesitating to cup them in my hands and gently stroke their softness, teasing the tips with my fingers and savoring her immediate cry. Oh, that cry! Like music! And I wanted to swallow its beauty as I covered her mouth with mine and kissed every sound away.
Desire was such a fickle fire, consuming but more demanding than the control I preferred to keep. I wanted to spend forever in its suspended state, but I knew I had to have more before it betrayed me and soared to its eager culmination. No more waiting or trepidation, I slid one hand down her silken torso, following its baited path within every other layer. Skin was my guide and led me to her center.
Christine went stiff against me, dragging lips free and shivering, but she never spoke a refusal as my fingers slid along her womanhood. In truth, I was as afraid as she was. Had I ever had something so fragile in my care? I harbored a fear of touching her incorrectly or causing pain when pleasure was all I sought. But though she stayed all rigid muscles and tremors, she parted shaking thighs and encouraged with wide eyes locked on my face.
My fingertips grazed before daring to slip within, and our cries echoed off the headboard and permeated the air at the intensity of contact. “Christine,” I gasped and set desperate kisses to her temple as I stroked her and coated my fingers in her wetness. My touch was curious, intrigued, fevered, all emotions growing one out of the other. “You’re so wet… I want to drown in you!”
My impassioned declarations were returned in her gasps, and as I dared to probe deeper with a delicate thrust from an audacious finger, she shouted so beautifully that I memorized the timbre to play over and over in my mind.
“Oh, Christine, I’m going to be scorched in the heat of you, and I pray to God that you leave your own scars upon my body. Mark me as yours! Burn me to my core! I want to be yours, only yours for eternity.”
I meant every word. I’d been tortured by the shah to pointless scars, and what did they mean? Nothing but things I longed to forget. This moment with Christine was something I wanted to remember forever, but scars on the inside were not visible. I’d have permanent marks only in my veins.
My caresses were more certain with every second, and as she arched her hips to meet my thrusting finger, I shuddered and knew I had to have her. I freed my hands from the flames of her flesh, but before I could finish disrobing her, already grabbing for her petticoat, she extended determined hands to my shirt buttons, and I went numb and stiff with a terror that surprised me in its powerful devastation. It fractured desire with narrow cracks.
“No,” I gasped and shrank beyond her reach, reading hurt in her knit brow.
“Erik, please…let me undress you and see…”
&n
bsp; I could tell she fought for an accurate word: damage, scars, horror, all were unpleasant in their connotation and were only uttered in our heads. “I…I can turn out the lights first,” I offered brusquely. “It can be dark as a tomb down here, no revealing sunshine or daylight. The dark can be our ally, and then…it will make things easier.”
She shook her head, curls cascading along her pale skin and dancing across her breasts. I could not help but be entranced in every rippled motion. “I want to see you, Erik. …Please.”
“But…it’s an abomination. I undress you and uncover ethereal perfection, but if you undress me, you will not be so fortunate. It’s a shame really. You have to look upon not only this horrific face but a repellent body besides and still find reasons to desire. That…might be an impossible feat, and now that I’ve felt your arousal, …what if you cease desiring me?”
She shook her head more adamantly, her eyes overflowing in a compassion I wasn’t sure was enough to confirm for her. “I want you, Erik. Please trust my love. Scars are superficial; they can’t reach beneath the surface, but love does. …It’s just skin, ange.”
“And…is my face just skin to you?” I pushed doubtfully.
“No, it’s you, yours and mine just as much. But God made your face. You consider it tragic, but God works in mysterious ways…” A smile touched her lips with the sentiment before she finished, “He made that face so I could love it. He wanted to be sure I would see you for the extraordinary man you are.”
I had to touch her, so overcome with her words, and I delicately brushed my knuckles in a caress along her cheekbone as I reminded, “God didn’t create those on my body.”
“No, but they mean something just as important. They show your heart in blatant display. They are strength and self-sacrifice-”
“They are reparation for my dastardly existence.”
Scripted in Love's Scars Page 22