The Music Of The Night 1

She slept.

The Phantom stood at the foot of the bed, contemplating her lovely, still form. He regarded her coldly-- his angel, his magnum opus-- with the habitual sneer twisting his malformed face. Unbidden, however, the litheness of her small body began to inspire in him an insidious, growing hunger. The sneer dissolved, though the twistedness remained. He rubbed his chin pensively in time to the deviant music trickling through his poisoned mind. Ever before content to skulk in the shadows with menace and murder on the agenda, the Phantom thrilled to be so searingly near her warmth and youth: vulnerable vitality spread before him like a banquet of flesh, youth and silk.

She was his, after all, was she not? Christine, his protégé. His Prima Donna. There, lying in his bed, in his home, far removed from the prying eyes and bright intrusive attentions of others. He had brought her here, here where none could witness nor object, here where none could thwart his will or mock his wanting. And she had succumbed—- followed him, willingly, wantingly. Wantonly. She was his, alone.

A soft sound escaped Christine's parted lips, and she stirred slightly. The Phantom's eyes glinted with diseased steel. A deep breath swelled the sleeping diva's bosom, followed by a soft sigh that dipped her graceful waist. The masked man licked his lips, hands twitching unconsciously—- she was teasing him, beckoning to him even from the depths of her dreams, he could see it. She was here, she was his... and she wanted him. Who was he to deny his own creation?

Decision snapped his body into motion, and in an instant he was hovering over her on the soft sheets. Even in his desire, it was a conscious effort to push his half-masked face close to her perfect one—- but the sweet terrifying pleasure of her breath sliding against his long-denied skin was a succulent wine that made bold his cringing heart. One trembling hand hung heavy over her body, traversing its curves just a fraction away from true touch; he could sense Christine's hum of life sleeping beneath her perfect skin, the even thrumming of her blood within her flesh.

Oh, he envied that blood. He coveted its place so deep inside her humanity. It was hot, wet and welcomed—he belonged there, the driving force within her veins, the carrier of her every breath. The Phantom groaned softly in the back of his dry throat, using his thumb to graze her skin, tracing the blue lines on Christine's pale, limp wrist. He could feel the rhythm as he had felt the pulses of others, seconds before he choked it away—- but she was different. Why destroy what he had slaved to create, to entice, to entomb deep within his secret place? Her steady vitality called to him as tenderly as her voice had sung. She was his. She was no threat. She would not turn in disgust, or defiance, or disdain. The Phantom continued to trace the curving outlines of her body, finally sating his twitching fingers with the first taste of her living flesh.

Through the dense fog in her subconscious, Christine slowly became aware of herself—- and of him. The face of the Phantom was oppressively close; she swallowed the shriek and forced herself to remain still. Her senses surged awake as she struggled to process what was happening, and she trembled despite herself. The Phantom's hand swept possessively over her body, finally coming to rest on her throat. She fought to quell her convulsive swallowing, his sharp scent bold and uninvited in her nostrils. His eyes bored into her, and she knew he had realized she was awake.

"Christine, Christine...' the Phantom grated softly in her ear, his damp breath anointing her neck. "You have no idea. No knowledge of how I burn for you, how I long to escape the infected, miserable body and lose myself deep within your quivering flesh. Oh, my life, my angel! My Christine, open your eyes."

She could do nothing but obey. Her wide green eyes dilated with fear as they stared into the mask covering his cruel features. He projected madness and animal-naked desire, and she stifled a cry when he suddenly pounced. The Phantom pinned her body with his and hissed into her face, "Ahhh, yes, you feel it now. The power of the 'Music of the Night' is mine, sweet Mademoiselle Daae—- as are you." A predatory growl escaped him, and Christine's eyes widened further when he ground his hips heavily against her waist. She did indeed feel his power, the strength of his lust burning lewdly against her thigh. An unexpected jolt of answering arousal raked down the diva's spine, and her body trembled with new awareness even through her dread.

"But—-" she began, trying to free her arms from his pinioning grasp.

"No, dear sweet lady," the Phantom grated, breathing heavily as he tightened his grip. "Surrender to me. I will teach you, my angel, my beautiful Christine. This music, oh Christine, do you not feel it? Is it not precisely as I have described to you? You are mine, my angel, surrender to me."

She had no time to muse over this, for his red-misted passion demanded her undivided attention. With a flurry of sharp, impatient tugs, the masked man roughly divested Christine of her garments and flung them aside. Her milk-white skin was now the only concealment for her warm curves of living flesh, and that skin crawled with repugnance and dismay. She shivered while his shaking hands swirled over her bareness hungrily, and closed her eyes to avoid his hard, hot gaze—- but she could not escape the commanding pressure of his lust.

The Phantom was panting as he feverishly tugged off his own clothing, his body undulating unconsciously against her in libidinous anticipation. Christine's eyes remained tightly shut, but the blood was singing in her ears—was this the music he meant? Though he knew she feared him, the Phantom also knew she desired him; he felt her quake in response to the power of his distorted, lust-filled mind.

He stepped back for a moment (not loosening his hold on her, but merely lengthening it), and took a deep, shaky breath. He consumed her with his cold, crazed eyes, one hand clasped tightly around the woman's upper arm and the other slowly fondling his own engorged flesh. He considered her carefully, then with his shoulder suddenly pushed off the half-mask covering his deformed visage. The sweat that had collected beneath it dripped from his chin, and he shivered with relief. There! With one sharp clatter, the last barrier between the Phantom and his angel dissolved—what did it matter now? Let her look upon all of him. The head of his throbbing member quivered, and a thin bead of sticky fluid seeped from the tip.

Lying bare and stricken by his bruising clutch in the chaos of sheets, Christine shivered with apprehension and the cold. He saw her chill, and smiled almost tenderly as he covered her once more with his body. She gasped, feeling his heavy, masculine heat descend upon her, and the clammy shock of his fully aroused and drooling member on her thigh. His tender smile transformed to one full of malice and mockery as he watched her blanch. Tauntingly, he drew slippery suggestive circles with his fluids on her leg, gazing with perverse satisfaction at his glistening trail on her white skin. She squirmed beneath his weight, ignoring the beastly craving the Phantom had begun to awaken within her—the tormenting tingle of fire in her belly.

Christine's movements merely encouraged the Phantom, and he released his cock in favour of using both hands to thoroughly familiarize himself with her firm breasts and tiny pink nipples. He roamed over them, teasing each tiny nub to life—- she moaned in sweet confusion, tossing her head back and forth in protest on the pillows. She could not close her mind to the feel of him, the carnal pressure of his need swimming thickly between her legs while his hands played her upper body like his own personal pearly organ. She cringed inwardly as a guilty wetness escaped her tightly-closed thighs and bathed his prodding flesh in a tell-tale balm.

The Phantom kissed her then, his mouth trembling with restraint, and she mewed helplessly—- the music roaring through her brain was overwhelming, and her body answered his silent demands with a desperation she could no longer hide.

The twisted man groaned, sensing her unknowing surrender, and buried his disfigured face into her yielding neck. He found her ear, and clamped his teeth down on it as he fought for control, then soothed her yelp with a gentler tongue. Unknowingly, Christine lifted her hips, and the Phantom held his breath as his aching cock slid inexorably between her slick folds. With a hiss followed by a tense grunt, he drove himself forward. She squealed in pain and alarm, but he grabbed her shoulders and drove in again, deeper. She screamed, but he covered her mouth with his and swallowed the sound in his hunger. The scream turned to a moan, a sweet sound that echoed in his loins, and he licked the tears streaming down her face while he moved within her silken embrace.

The pain of her torn flesh only added to the building fire within her womb, and Christine gasped with his every thrust. The Phantom slavered like a beast, staring at her with unseeing eyes in a face only half alive. Her naked body was covered with the sweat of sex, and the sheets beneath her were saturated with tears and blood and the slick melting of her tortured insides. She was filthy and alive, and completely possessed by the man astride her, and even now she could feel the eruption beginning, his unyielding hardness shuddering in preparation to baptize her torn virginity with his seed. Wildness seized her, and her body flailed as boiling waves of pleasure crashed within her; she screamed without words, clawing in feral rhapsody at his back.

The Phantom felt rather than saw Christine's sudden spasm of vitality, mirrored almost immediately in her narrow tunnel as she clenched and re-clenched around the solid invasion he had wrought. The sensation derailed his control completely, and he roared as he slammed into her again and again, his heavy sac slapping wetly against her and his erection pillaging her irreparably in his madness. With a final unearthly sound of desperation, he reared back and drove in once more, his essence burst from him, his vision going white-hot and his body convulsing. The burst brought a final screaming shudder from the broken woman, and the Phantom collapsed on top of her with an agonized groan.

Christine began instantly to push away from him, but the Phantom cried out and pinned her down, his raw member still buried inside her pulsating depths. "Stay!" He gritted between his teeth. "Just stay, my angel. Let the music die. Listen, my love."

She stilled. The rough gasping of their breaths, the heavy hammering of their hearts, the slow pulse of their dwindling passion... the music wandered indelicately down from its fiery crescendo until it came to a thick, sleepy halt. An awkward silence settled densely upon them.

Gradually, Christine became aware of a familiar lonely satisfaction. It crept through her aching, exhausted body: the acceptance of a duty well performed; the weary pride of a perfect performance in a pure, faultless song; the loneliness of the vast separation of the performer from her audience. Countless times before she had felt that rich, sugary conceit, but never had it pierced so heartbreakingly deep.

A single tear slid down her flushed cheek, further dampening the pillow, and she began to realize the harsh need for perfection combined with isolation that so drove the Phantom to such heights of passion, violence and despair.

The Phantom lifted his malformed head from her bosom and gazed calmly at her tear-streaked face. "Now, Mademoiselle Daae, you understand."

***

Christine woke with a cry and sat up. Was it a dream? She was in her own bed, and sunlight was seeping through the curtains. The orchestra of birds outside was tuning up for its opening number, and the rich room was warm and still.

And a single red rose lay on her pillow.