Unmasqued

"Oh, Christine," he groaned, pulling away yet holding her hips firmly against his. His erection raged against her, through five layers of clothing, sending her own sex to throbbing again. "We cannot…" He drew in his breath, steadying it. "My brother, the comte, and the messieurs Moncharmin and Richard await us… We cannot be much longer. We must go."

Christine pulled away reluctantly, feeling the ache of unsated lust. Any guilt she might have felt for her response to Raoul's feverish kisses so soon after her intimacy with Erik was quickly dismissed. After all, he had taken from her, and he had left her wanting more. Of Erik, she wanted more, but Raoul was tall and handsome and elegant… and Raoul, she could see and touch.

But his kisses were different from Erik's, and the way he moved his hands over her body was too tentative, as though he was afraid to touch her. Erik was bold, and knew how to pull and coax forth and peak her desire… just as he did her music.

"Oui, let us go. I am famished," she told Raoul, turning in the dark, presenting her backside to him. "Finish my buttons, my dear vicomte, and we shall be off to eat." And then back here to rest, she promised herself.

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 Daae 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.