Unmasqued

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, rick ety 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 Daae, 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 and 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 came 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 Christines 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.