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Emptiness	By : Josephine1881 Category: M through R > The Phantom of the Opera > Slash Views: 8257 -:- 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.

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Author's Note: I've been a very bad author lately - four months without a new chapter! Let's just say that life has kept me very busy. But I do think the latest chapter is worth the wait. Let me know whether you agree!

Disclaimer: See Chapter One!

Chapter Forty-Three

My sharp intake of breath was drowned by my sisters’ gasps of surprise. If it hadn’t been such a serious situation, I’d have laughed about how their hands flew to their mouths and their faces paled at almost exactly the same moment.

As it was, however, I was worried, rather than amused. After all, my sisters were both with child, and I was not sure whether such an excitement was good for them. Why on earth hadn’t I thought of that before? If anything happened to one of my sisters or their babies, it would be my fault.

Quickly, I leaned forwards in my seat and grasped their hands. Sitting like that, I could no longer see Erik, but at the moment, my sisters were more important.

“Stay calm,” I muttered, trying not to reveal that I was anything but calm myself. “It is quite all right... all right...”

“Raoul... Why is the Opera Ghost standing in my living room?” Sophie asked. She always tried her best to understand every situation, no matter how peculiar.

“Yes, what is he doing here?” Clarille added, sounding rather scared. “Tell us, Raoul,” she urged, when I didn’t reply straight away.

“He... I...” I stammered, feeling foolish. I knew how tongue-tied I became in such situations. Why hadn’t I thought about what exactly to tell them? Why hadn’t I written a speech and learned it by heart? “I... Erik?”

I turned around to face him. After all, it was he who had burst into the room and frightened my sisters, so the least he could do was help me out of the situation. Yet the only thing I saw of him was the hem of his cloak whipping out of sight as he left the room.

At once, I was on my feet.

“Excuse me,” I hastily called to Sophie and Clarille.

Then I was out of the room, too, chasing after Erik down the corridor. He was not exactly running, but walking quickly, and since his legs were longer than mine, I had trouble catching up with him.

Fortunately, my knowledge of the house worked in my advantage. Erik had turned the corner and ended up in the servants’ part of the building. He tried door after door, probably in order to escape through a window, but he was out of luck. I knew for a fact that ever since Sophie had had problems with theft among the servants, all the doors in the corridor were locked during the day.

Having tried every door in the corridor, Erik seemed to realise that he could not escape that easily. He turned around. His face showed no surprise to see me there. He must have heard my laboured breathing as I hurried after him.

“Would you be so kind as to let me through, so I can leave the house?” he asked. His voice was perfectly polite, yet devoid of any emotion that showed that he knew me, let alone cared for me. I might as well have been a doorman at the opera.

He took a few steps towards me, but I blocked his path, shaking my head wordlessly. At that moment, it was all I could do. I was still so out of breath that any form of verbal communication was out of the question.

Sighing, Erik took a step to the side, trying to get around me. Again, I blocked his path. He moved to the other side, and I did the same. It was like a peculiar kind of dance routine. I knew that if Erik decided to force his way out of the house, I wouldn’t stand a chance. He could have shoved me aside in an instant. Yet it seemed that he was reluctant to touch me.

At long last, I had regained my breath enough to speak.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I told him simply, blocking his path yet again.

Erik gave an annoyed grunt, but still he made no move to push me aside.

“I prefer not to stay where I am not wanted,” he replied, still in that peculiar formal voice. “Your invitation was very kind, but it is obvious that I am upsetting your sisters. So I would rather leave. I have matters to attend at the opera, and – “

“No, you haven’t,” I interrupted him. “That is not why you want to leave. You are frightened.”

For a moment, I felt the strange urge to laugh. The mighty Opera Ghost – frightened of having tea with two ladies of the Parisian society? Then, for the first time since we stood there, I looked at him properly. I looked behind the formal voice and the impassive face, and I saw fear and confusion in his beautiful eyes.

“And what if I am frightened?” he asked in a small voice.

Comprehension dawned on me in an instant. Of course he was frightened. I realised how much courage it must have cost him to come along to my sister’s house, to appear in front of Sophie and Clarille. And I hadn’t helped him at all. I had been there for my sisters, not for the man I loved. It had been important to comfort them, yes. But I hadn’t anticipated how much my reaction had hurt Erik. He must have thought that I was on their side, unwilling to help him, not even making the most basic of introductions.

“I am sorry, Erik,” I told him quietly. “I should have done more to help you.”

I extended a hand and gently ran it down the unmasked side of his face. He leaned into the touch, the expression on his face so pitiful that I felt a lump of emotion swell in my throat. I loved that man so much. I hadn’t meant to hurt him.

I leaned in for a kiss, but Erik turned away.

“What if someone sees us?” he breathed.

“They’d see two people who love each other,” I gave back calmly. “I don’t think there’s anything bad about it.”

It was easy for me to be brave. I knew that hardly anyone ever entered the servants’ corridor during the day. Then again, I had to start being brave someday, so why not there and then?

My words seemed to be good enough for Erik. His lips met mine in the sweetest of kisses, while his arms pulled me close. In that moment, there could have been dozens of people watching us, and I wouldn’t have cared – or, in fact, noticed. I was far too busy kissing Erik and caressing his face.

“It’s a shame that all of those doors are locked,” Erik remarked in between kisses.

“There was a maid...” I explained, gasping as Erik pressed his hips against mine. “She took money... from the other servants’ rooms... That’s why the doors... are locked... Only my sister... has a key...”

“Good thing I don’t need keys,” he muttered.

He moved away from me and took a small silver object out of his pocket. Then he turned towards the door right behind him. As I watched him, I felt at least part of my blood rush back into my head. It occurred to me that Erik could have easily opened one of the doors when looking for an exit before. Perhaps he hadn’t been quite that desperate to leave after all.

After just a minute or two, the door clocked open. Erik took me by the hand and led me... into a broom closet. He paused at the threshold and looked over his shoulder at me, frowning.

“Your sister locks her broom closet?” he asked incredulously.

“It’s the broom closet which the servants use to clean their own rooms,” I told him. “The maid hid the stolen money in here...”

Erik looked so crestfallen that I couldn’t help but laugh. It was obvious that he had hoped for a more convenient place, at least one with a bed in it. After a moment, however, he joined in the laughter.

“Well, it’s not exactly what I wanted,” he commented, looking at the shelves full of soap, old pieces of cloth and feather dusters and the assortment of brooms and buckets in the corner. There was barely enough space for two people to stand. “But it’ll do.”

With these words, he pulled me over the threshold and closed the door behind me. At once, we were plunged into total darkness. In a bigger room, I might have been anxious about the lack of light and the possibility that someone might lurk in a corner. In here, however, we had to stand so close together that I could feel Erik, even if I couldn’t see him. Besides, who would have wanted to lurk in a broom closet?

“No light?” Erik asked. “Well, I suppose the servants here know better places for such encounters.”

“Certainly, “ I agreed. “But there’s no time for us to look for them. I don’t know how long we’ve got before my sisters will form a search party and come looking for us.”

“They are very protective of their younger brother, aren’t they?” he wanted to know. “I can assure you that I’ll return you in one piece. But not just yet.”

It was a sign of how well I knew him that I could actually hear him smirk. He only had to take a tiny step forwards, then his body touched mine, from chest to... the more pleasant regions of our bodies.

I gave an involuntary moan. The situation was absurd, and yet thrilling. In my head, I knew that no one would come and find us. After all, everyone knew that the doors in this corridor were locked during the day, so why should they check them? Still, the thought of the risk that Erik and I were taking, just to be together, sent a flurry of anticipation into the pit of my stomach. My manhood stirred in my trousers, and Erik gave a small moan as it pressed against him.

Once more, our lips met in a heated kiss. Erik soon had me pressed against what had to be the only part of the wall not occupied by shelves or brooms. I couldn’t help admiring his good memory for a room he had only seen once. Or could he actually see in the dark?

This was not the time to find out. I was far too busy unbuttoning Erik’s trousers, while he did the same with mine. We didn’t speak, but we knew that we both wanted the same: give each other pleasure as quickly as possible.

There was a lot of fumbling in the dark – not to mention a moment of intense pain as I pulled back my hand a little too enthusiastically and hit it hard on the wall behind me. I gritted my teeth and nearly bit off Erik’s tongue, which happened to be in my mouth at the time. He gave an irritated grunt, nudged my other hand aside and undid his trousers himself.

The next moment, he had pulled out both my manhood and his and was rubbing them against each other. I moaned, nearly biting Erik’s tongue again. To be on the safe side, I let my head drop to his shoulder, where the thick fabric of his cloak prevented me from doing further harm. My hand took over for one of his, and before long, we were massaging each other’s manhood quickly, trying to give each other as much pleasure as we could, given the rather extraordinary circumstances.

If someone had happened to walk down the corridor in those minutes, they would have heard peculiar sounds coming from the broom closet: gasps and moans, followed by two little outcries as we found our release. As it was, we wasted no moment thinking about whether someone might have heard us. Our attention was solely fixed on each other.

By the time we re-emerged from the closet, our cheeks were still slightly flushed, but at least we were no longer panting. I went out in the corridor first, pulling Erik after me by the hand.

“I suppose you still want me to meet your sisters,” he remarked.

“Certainly,” I replied. “You didn’t think I gave you all that...” I gestures back at the closet. “...for nothing, did you?”

“Oh!” he made in an indignant voice, raising his eyebrow. “So you only did it because you wanted something in return?”

We continued arguing amicably while I steered him gently back the way we had come. Not for a moment did I think that he didn’t realise where we were going, but he neither commented on it nor tried to run away again.

The door to the sitting room was still open. Sophie and Clarille looked up when we entered the room. My hand was firmly holding Erik’s, and I rather felt like a mother dragging along a reluctant child. Erik tried to pull his hand away, but I clung on. This time, I would stand by him.

“Sophie? Clarille?” I said, my voice shaking only slightly with nerves. “This is Erik. He... he and I...” I cleared my throat, trying to ignore my thumping heart. “I love him.”

For a moment, there was total silence. It was as if no one dared breathe.

“Oh,” Sophie said eventually. “Oh... Tea, anyone?”
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Emptiness