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

PART THREE

"Erik?" gasped Christine, as she realized he had gone and her fingers worked dementedly in the empty air. "Erik!"

He must not leave her!––the blind panic was returning, creeping and nauseating in her dry throat––it was too dark, much too dark to be alone––

Then in the black nothing she heard a swish of movement followed by a familiar series of metallic clicks; the sound pounded and shattered in her night-sharpened ears. Behind her, the gas fireplace rushed suddenly to life; startled, she spun to face it. Erik stood with his back to her at the mantle, the silhouette of his shoulders hard and imposing as he stared into the blaze. Christine could not see his hands, but knew his long fingers worked with the little brass dials that controlled the gas flow to the hearth.

In the sudden brilliance of the fire, the Louis-Philippe room took shape around her, and yet it was not the comfortable shelter of her memories. Erik's fine furniture lay toppled far from its places as if thrown, as his drapes crumpled in red heaps upon the stone floor. The piano bench splintered about the base of an empty bookshelf, surrounded by fallen books with gaping, paper mouths. Even the coffin––his bed––twisted from its elegant pedestal to the floor.

And his music... all around, covering every inch of the half-shadowed living room, were strewn sheets and rolls of his music, his manuscripts, his notes––these pieces of Erik, discarded and destroyed.

On her knees Christine gathered the scattered papers nearest her in reverent hands and lifted them delicately in Erik's direction. "Erik, what happened––"

"What are you doing here, Christine?" he said acidly.

She had no answer to give. Her still-feverish cheeks burned.

"My wedding is in two days––"

"I know."

Christine stood and placed the precious papers carefully on the seat of the leather chair she had righted. Her knees smarted; she wanted to rub the sore flesh, to sit, but shame prevented her. What must Erik think of her now, screaming his name in the dark, begging before him upon her knees?

Who was this woman he had made of her? Christine could not recognize herself.

Her gaze swept the wreckage of Erik's belongings. "This was your doing," she said.

"Yes."

"Just now?"

"Six days ago."

"Oh," she breathed, understanding. "But this is your home..."

"It is no home for me now, Christine."

The edges of him blurred in the orange half-light before the hearth; Christine could not tell where darkness ended and Erik began.

Now she moved towards him over the scattered remains of his things. With each step, Christine lifted her sodden skirts above her white ankles; Erik turned and studied her movements intently. When their eyes met, she flushed and shivered visibly. His dark stare narrowed.

"I am leaving Paris, Christine," he said, after a pause. The huskiness of something unsaid flavored his words; Christine could feel the weight of it.

She remembered stories he would tell her, mere sketches so vague, so lacking in detail she almost couldn't trust that they were true, if not for their strange, alluring teller. He spoke of exotic travels, time spent in the Orient, in Italy, in Russia, as she knelt at his feet like a child. How she ached to hear them told again.

Truly he could have told her anything, then, and she would have believed him without question. She would have followed that voice anywhere.

Once, he had said he was an Angel––