Adult-FanFiction.org : Books

Do I Dream Again?	By : LaurieBaker Category: M through R > The Phantom of the Opera > Het Views: 10050 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
The red wine spilled upon the copy of the Epoque, giving the newspaper the appearance of being drenched in blood. How appropriate with the words ERIK IS DEAD standing out in the background of the advertisements.

“Blast!” the drunken man in the mask cursed, but then thought better of it.

No matter, Erik said to himself as he stumbled from the bed and poured himself another glass of Pinot Noir. The rumors of his death had been highly exaggerated anyway. He laughed at his own joke with a slight hiccup before returning to the naked form in his bed. He stroked the feminine flesh, momentarily cuddling up to the woman and losing himself in fantasy.

At last, he had thrown his pride and fastidiousness to the winds and hired a working girl to warm his bed. Who knew that this creature of the night would ultimately keep him alive just a little longer?

The night Christine had run away from him, in a moment of complete despair, Erik had tried to commit suicide. After smashing all of the mirrors in his hideout with ironic bitterness, he took a shard of mirror, slicing it across his wrists. He laid back on the ground, quite ready never to live another day of the cruel life he had been fated with. Damn Madame Giry for finding him and saving his life! The cuts had not been very deep in actuality and he recovered quickly.

Several nights later, he wandered the streets and back alleys of Paris, contemplating how he could end his life in peace without some foolish do-gooder trying to save him from himself. Usually, he did not like to be out of doors for so long, but he was too restless, too tired of fighting with memories. He needed the escape and no longer even cared if he was arrested. That was when he saw Elissa.

Elissa was no typical prostitute, lewdly displaying her wares while licking her lips suggestively. She appeared a bit of a thin waif, obviously chilled in the night air and wrapped up in a blanket too thin to be of much use. Apparently, her career as a whore was not going well. Yet while her figure was even more skeletal than his own, her face was pretty in a delicate sort of way. And she had beautiful honey blonde hair that shown in the moonlight.

“Please, Monsieur,” she begged, touching him gently on the wrist. “I shall do anything you like. And I am not too expensive.”

What it must cost that girl to throw herself upon the mercy of a masked freak such as him? How desperate was she in need of money and clothes and food?

Erik felt something he thought was dead inside of himself: compassion. Besides, he thought that he would at least end his life as a man and not as a pathetic love-hungry virgin.

“I shall give you payment, food and clothing in exchange for your services,” he offered. “But I do not want to copulate in the middle of an alleyway like a tomcat. If you like, you shall come to my home for our exchange. My privacy is dear to me and you shall be blindfolded until you reach my bedroom. Those are my terms.”

For a moment, fear flashed in her brown eyes at his unusual requests. Yet starvation seemed the more imminent threat. She agreed.

Erik led the woman blindfolded to the new area of the catacombs that he had staked out for himself. After his original home had been nearly destroyed as half of Paris was out to kill him, he had to relocate to his alternate hideout underground through a series of complex trap doors. Paranoia was sometimes a valuable ally. He had thought that he was being overly cautious when he had created the spare rooms to serve as a bunker in case of an emergency. But now, that little plan had saved his life as he knew that the police would never be clever enough to find him there. Yet, he was a man with a price on his head and he had to be cautious. His new rooms were deeper into the bowels of the earth and smaller. While even Erik felt a bit claustrophobic in this new space, what he hated the most was the loss of his possessions, particularly his large pipe organ. It would take some time to be able to restore what he had lost. As of yet, he had done nothing to rebuild the destruction of his life. All of his creative instincts seemed to have shriveled up and died at any rate.

After a few sessions of sex, Erik found that he liked the poor prostitute that he had rescued. The way to Elissa’s heart was through her stomach. After a few sandwiches and sweets, she would become quite amorous and do her job enthusiastically. It was not love, but it was not bad, and not nearly as demeaning as he had feared for all of those years. She had given him quite an education in the art of fucking. Not only did she please him with all of her prostitute’s tricks, but he had even managed to sincerely make her reach a few real climaxes as well. It was no mean accomplishment to make a woman of the streets really feel something in bed besides the weight of gold coins.

There was another reason he consorted with Elissa, one much more compelling than simply trying to help a human being survive poverty. If he squinted his eyes and ignored the color of her hair, he could pretend she was Christine. When he had enough to drink, he could almost convince himself that he was really with her, his true love. And as he lost himself in Elissa’s flesh, he would close his eyes and pretend…

At least, in that way, Christine could still be his…for he had always loved her, it seemed…ever since she was a peevish chorus girl…

------------------------

"Think of me…think of me fondly…"

“Again!” Erik bellowed through the two-way mirror of Christine’s dressing room.

“Think of me…think...”

“Again!”

“Think of…”

“Again!”

“Thi…”

“Again!”

“Oh!” Christine Daae cried out in indignation, turning away from the mirror petulantly as she prepared to storm out of the room. “You cannot be a true angel from the heavens for you are simply insufferable! I will not allow you to torture me in such a fashion!”

“As you wish, my dear…” he answered. “And this is the payment I get for trying to help you? Oh, well. I understand the Opera Populaire usually replaces their dancers every few years. What shall happen to you, I wonder, once you are ousted from the corps de ballet? Shall you become a seamstress? Or perhaps a chambermaid all buried in black and white?”

Stopping in her tracks, Christine straightened her shoulders proudly. Assuming an expression of dignity she could not possibly be feeling, she walked back to the mirror and glared at her reflection with turbulent rage.

“Oh, if looks could kill!” he taunted with a chuckle.

“I do not see why you have to be so mean to me,” she chided him, narrowing her eyes at him even when she could not see him.

Erik wished he could reach out and hug her tight. Even when she was being a brat as she was now, he preferred her churlishness to her fear. And she had come a long way from that depressed sullen creature that he had first encountered…

When Erik had first spied her on the stage during a production of Hannibal, dancing in the chorus, he was completely captivated by her face and body. She was his dream girl, the one he had always fantasized about when he dared to dream of a wife. Yet, her eyes were always so sad and she never smiled. Why, even in his pitiful state, he felt absolutely jovial in comparison to her.

What made him continue to watch her with such fascination? Lust? Idleness? Curiosity? All three?

His mild interest blossomed into something more as he started to take to spying upon her in her dressing room. At first, his interest was purely as a spectator. How he loved to watch her change clothes, hungrily drinking in the sight of her breasts and legs! How he wished he could see her without her cumbersome undergarments and really feel sated! As she dressed, she would sing to herself. Her voice was good, yet rough and untrained. What an entrancing diva she would make with the proper skills! How wondrous it would be to see her in the center of the stage rather than that insipid Carlotta!

Unable to turn away from such a brilliant dream, Erik began to rack his brain as to how to make such a thing happen. As he would watch Christine, she would often get down on her knees and pray, particularly before a performance. She would talk to her dead father and ask him when he was going to send her the Angel of Music. She would cry and plead how she needed his guidance so much. Erik felt envious of a man who was so wanted, even if the poor sod was dead. That was when the plan began to take shape…

For the first few times, when he came to her in the guise of the Angel of Music that her father had sent to her, she was justifiably terrified. She seemed more concerned that she was losing her mind than anything else. Often, she fretted that her grief for her father had driven her into some sort of nervous breakdown. She would ignore him when he spoke to her and beat at her temples as if she could drive him away out of her psyche. It had taken quite a lot of convincing on his part to make her see that he was no hallucination and that he only wanted to help her.

As it was, Christine was now so close to becoming the diva that he wanted. Her sullenness had disappeared. She had grown more confident every day. In fact, like a delicate flower, she was blossoming right before his eyes. She need only apply herself…

“My dear, my point is that you must be in the correct frame of mind to sing the song before you even open your mouth for the first note” he explained, doing his best to sound patient. “Do not concentrate on your looks or your voice. Concentrate on what you are singing about. You are seeing your lover for the very last time. You are pledging your heart to him, begging him never to forget you, though your parting is inevitable. The audience wants to see you feel that way. They want to feel that way too. People do not attend the opera just to hear beautiful music and perfect voices. They want to be swept away in the story as well. It is your responsibility as a performer to meet that obligation.”

“I am trying to, Angel…” she pleaded, all pride forgotten.

“I am sorry, my dear, but I do not believe you.”

“Maybe it is simply because…” she stopped.

“Yes?”

“I have no lover,” she confided with a blush. “I’ve never had one. What would I know about parting with such a person? What would I know about losing what I’ve never had?”

Erik groaned softly to himself. Oh, how he would like to rectify her problem! Yet he was as inept as she was in such matters of the heart.

“Your father then,” he answered gruffly, hoping his lust was not evident in his voice. “You miss him, do you not?”

“Of course, but, Angel,” Christine stammered. “That is not exactly the same thing.”

“Do not take things so literally,” he advised. “Obviously you miss your father differently than you would miss a lover, but the audience does not know that. As long as you concentrate on someone dear to you while you sing, that is what matters. Do you think that when Piangi plays Othello that he ruminates on some woman he killed in the past who has cheated on him? Of course not!” Then with a cruel laugh, he added, “Although I find it hard to think on any woman marrying him at all.”

Christine giggled charmingly in response, making his heart melt.

“He probably thinks on some grocer who cheated him of his change or of some bill collector pleading for money,” Erik continued with his lecture. “Whatever the event, he concentrates on it so much that he feels every bit as much of a murderous rage as Othello would feel when he slays Desdemona. Understand?”

“I think so.”

“Good.”

Secretly, Erik felt like Piangi was an atrocious actor who thought of nothing on stage but his next payment and hearty meal, but it would not serve Christine to know that.

“Remember it is better to make inaccurate choices than none at all. It is better to be wrong and alive than correct and dead. Now begin again…”

Christine took a moment before she sang. Her expression softened. Erik swore he could actually see her eyes shift as she imagined her father’s face before her.

“Think of me, think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye…”

“Bravissima, my dear,” he whispered. “Much better, my diva, my love…”

-----------------

When Erik sent Elissa on her way with a nice purse full of change in order for her to buy a new dress for herself, he then sought out Madame Giry. With a gesture, he managed to lure her away from her rehearsal.

“Please, Erik, you know I don’t like to be bothered when I am teaching! And you smell like you’ve been bathing in alcohol! Really, it’s disgraceful!” she complained.

“Any news?”

“No, my dear,” Giry answered him with an irritated sigh, rather put out. He had asked her the same question every day. He supposed that anyone would be driven to distraction, even the unshakeable Giry.

“What is taking them so long?” he raved. “That Vicomte swore he would marry her at once. Well, why in the hell hasn’t he?”

“Will you please lower your voice!” she whispered fervently. “Really, you shall be caught in no time if you keep up with this habit of intoxicating yourself into oblivion.”

“Why haven’t they married?” he asked, ignoring her comments about his state of sobriety, or lack thereof.

“It’s a mystery,” Giry shrugged with seeming indifference. “Perhaps they are planning for a large affair. Such things take time.” Her eyes saddened at his forlorn expression. “Please, Erik, forget about her. It is all done now. She thinks you are dead. All of Paris thinks you are dead. There is no changing the past.”

With a furtive glance, she looked upon his wrists briefly, noting the faint marks where he had hurt himself.

“I do not want to see you hurt anymore than you already have been,” she whispered. “I only mean to be a friend to you, Erik.”

“I am not trying to get her back!” he snapped at the woman. “I merely want to know if she is married now or not! That is all! Is that such a horrible crime?”

With a curse, he stormed off and back to his new bunker.
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Do I Dream Again?