La Nuit Porte Conseil | An Erotic Story of the Phantom of the Opera

PART TWO

The boat waited as always––a lone sentinel on the stony shore of the underground lake. As soon as she stepped inside it began to move, coaxed silently along the inky waters by its submerged chain. When Erik took the boat with her, he would use a gondolier's oar to project them forward. Though the oar lay in the bottom of the boat, she dare not stand to try to use it should she topple over into the black water. Erik warned her to be wary of the water––she never asked why. There was much she never asked.

Now she fingered the handle of the oar where his gloved hand would have grasped, as she waited for the boat to make its slow, tortuous crossing. To her left passed its twin, the empty counterweight.

Erik would know she was coming.

She had memorized this journey like any familiar path. By now the far shore should come into view––softly illuminated by the dim glow of Erik's candles, his lamps, his hearth––and yet, there was nothing. Only pure, black, nothing. An uncanny dread crept under Christine's skin and beneath her ribs to chill her heart. She should be able to see his home by now. In her haste, she had not stopped to light a lantern or candle, blindly trusting her steps and the little boat to guide her here, trusting Erik to light her way. She had never been here in the dark.

She had never been anywhere so truly dark before.

Without warning the spectral boat struck the bank as Christine cried out in alarm. Her ears filled with the terrible crush of her own pulse. A tremulous hand flew to her heart to settle her pounding blood.

"Erik?" she called, swallowing. Black water licked softly at the unseen bank; a taint of moldering damp soured the gelid air.

There was no answer save her own thunderous breath.

He would have known she was coming!

The little boat lurched beneath her as she crawled from it, grasping at the algae-covered stones of the underground strand. On her knees she stumbled forward blindly; if she could only find the wall of his house, she could reach his door. Cold sweat beaded upon her chest and slid between her breasts.

Catching an arm upon an unseen stone she shrieked in pain, then gave a sob for something else. She crumpled forward miserably.

Then––a sound––ragged and raw, like a last miserable breath before death––

Christine stirred, staring into the haunted dark.

Her knees scraped the coarse stone as she crawled, spoiling her heavy skirts and battering her palms. Gasping in pain and fear, she stood, and thrust her hands forward to grope for the wall.

"Erik?" she breathed, to every resounding drip of water on black stone, every crashing ripple of the black lake upon the parapet.

She knew the way to his door; it was not far, but darkness invents great distances where there are none. Grasping the wall of the cavernous room with aching fingers, she tested the crags and crevices of its frigid surface until she found the hidden switch––the stony trigger that gave ingress to Erik's home. Exhausted, as her chest heaved with each ragged breath, Christine threw herself through the entrance.

Again she cried out to him as her frantic heart pounded; she had been so sure she would find him here. Waiting for her, with a comforting fire blazing––then––he would reach out a magnetic arm and draw her to that enticing warmth, to him––and sing, and stroke her hair so, so cautiously as she sat attentive at his feet––oh––and everything would again be so simple––the Angel would tell her what to do––

What a fool she was!

Now her timorous breath echoed in endless darkness. The penetrating damp crept beneath her wet clothes like rimy fingers and she shuddered, wrapping her arms about herself.