Part Three:
Christine's interpretation
It had been nigh on an hour since my Maestro had left me upon the stage, waiting for my curtain to rise, and still, his instructions bewildered me.
"When the curtain rises, you will take your bows and the performance will begin."
I had attempted to question him, saying that such was not the way Foust opened, but he would have none of it. After all, when had I become so foolish as to question the Phantom? I should have known better.
"Five minutes until curtain Mademoiselle," I heard one of the stage hands call, and I nodded my thanks. Whatever it was that Erik was planning, I had very little time to think it over now.
The curtain rose then, and I bowed just as he told me. I noticed quickly the lack of set and grew even more confused.
The music, sweet, dark, filled with an emotion I did not know. Was this the way he felt the release I needed so terribly? For it could have been none but his hands who wrote it.
The trance fell over me quickly, so quickly that I could not even feel the ropes beginning to bind themselves around me, seemingly from nowhere. I wanted to cry out, to plead with him to stop, but if I did, I risked not only exposing him, but he would never keep me if I could not finish it to completion.
Hearing the screams of the audience set me even more at edge, because I knew him. I knew that he would never allow them to leave. As discreetly as I could manage, I scanned the rafters, and not finding him, I settled back to accept whatever was to be my fate.
The ropes were not entirely displeasing, I decided. Perhaps they could even be enjoyed. Slowly, ever so slowly I began to relax into them, a low moan escaping my lips unbidden.
Cold, something cold and metal was the next sensation I became aware of. A blade, the gold ornate one he favored by its feel, and the pressure was a bit more than I was expecting. I cried out, but, there was nowhere to which I could escape, and strangely enough, I had no wish to do so.
The audience's distress became even more so; as they tried to leave, tried to brake through the house doors in whatever way they could. I watched transfixed by the fact that he had held them all captive and only for me, for my pleasure.
This spurred a new string of thoughts and desires within me, and I must confess they frightened me a bit. If they were here only for me, could I not make them squirm, make them gasp and moan, and better yet, could I not take my pleasure from their reactions? Truly, had this been his intention the entire time?
I returned from my musings just in time to feel the delicate silk of my gown slowly being cut from my skin. Again, there was the desire to growl at him for destroying such a beautiful thing, but when warm lips replaced the cold fabric, I no longer complained.
I remembered this sensation from earlier in the night, one of the ones that had driven me to madness. Feather light kisses covering each inch of skin he pain stakingly exposed, careful never to mark me even slightly.
Raoul could never kiss me like this, I thought, and my mind once again returned to my choice. Oh God, Raoul, was he in the theater? Would Erik make me an object of his revenge? Never, I soothed myself Erik would never hurt me.
As though my Ange sensed my distraction, the kisses intensified forcing me to focus only on his ministrations. I moaned low forgetting the existence of the audience for the briefest of moments, and suddenly, I heard answering moans, clearly not his floating up to me from the house.
Did they want this? Did they enjoy it? Could people really be so crude, but truly, was it crude?
Their moans and wants were driving me to madness, I wanted to touch myself, to bring my pleasure in the ways that he had taught me, but as I tried to move and writhe, only the taught and unforgiving ropes greeted me. Again, that ever fateful reminder, I had no control of the evening's performance.
A sudden shock of cool air brushed over my nipples, hardening them immediately, and as I looked down to discover its source, I realized he'd exposed them to the audience. My moans and theirs seemed to swell together in chorus as lips, tongue, and teeth teased the delicate buds to painful hardness. I hurt, I ached, and this was going to stop.
Suddenly, I was primal, growling, writhing, and I wanted him. I heard their moans grow three fold, but I didn't care. All I saw and needed was my Maestro.
The blade moved with a practiced earnestness now, and my gown was gone, hanging as a limp rag against my bound ankles. An interesting sensation, I thought, the cool silk on my feet and ankles as he worked.
Gasps filled the theater as the audience saw me fully, and again they tried to leave. There was pounding on both sides of the house doors, but it seemed that he would only make it the dark and driving beat to his music.
His tongue fell to my secret places, stroking and teasing as his teeth nipped my nub. My growls filled the house now, and the audience too could not stop their need.
I felt the cackle, felt his pleasure long before I heard it, but what I did not expect were the words that followed.
"Release for me!" He cried fiercely, and the sound of that command may very well have filled the house for the rest of eternity.
My body obeyed before I knew what was happening, and with a sound that seemed to my ears like the keen of some strange and exotic creature, I fell weak with my release, and the curtain dropped.
When the curtain rose again, the ropes still held me, but their grip seemed to have loosened ever so slightly, and the remains of my gown had long since disappeared.
A piece of silk ran gently over my skin, and I sighed with the gentle pleasure it gave me. It reminded me of so many things, the sheets of my bed down below, the inner layers of Erik's cloak, and even so many of my own favored gowns, but even with all it's nostalgia, it somehow managed to still arouse me. He added a piece of fur then, and I arched happily into the duel sensations.
Purring, was I truly purring? What sort of spell had he put me under? I remembered though, even as a child having a tendency toward the feline which was all too evident when father combed out my golden tresses with his fingers.
Erik was amused. I could feel the smile in his work as he dangled a piece of one of his ropes over my skin, inviting me to play with it.
'I am not your spoiled Siamese, Maestro, and I will not play with string like some simple house cat,' I growled mentally, 'besides, the ropes are still holding me.'
As though in answer, my wrists were released, and I could no longer stop myself from batting at the rope. I mewed and laughed happily as I did, suddenly released from whatever pressures the world had given me. My only requirement at this moment in time was to be this simple feline, to mew, to play, to obey, and I loved nothing more.
He released my ankles then as well, and collared me with a kitten's collar bearing a small silver bell. I was free, and I could play as I would. I continued with the rope for some time, the concept of time being completely foreign to me in that world of simplicity, until I spotted a most substantial ball of red yarn rolling directly toward me. The rope was no longer important.
I pounced, attempting to catch and conquer it, but it appeared to have very different ideas. Every time I would get near enough, the angle changed by the slightest degree keeping me from ever catching the foul thing.
I hissed and growled. I wanted it terribly; it was mine. When I was near to the point of defeat, beginning to curl up and mew in frustration, it came to me nearly unraveled, and I began to play.
I needed in to it and deciding this wasn't enough, I pounced, pinning and batting at it with a renewed vigor. My mews echoing through the house, I wondered how the audience might react to this drastic change, decided I simply had no care, and moved on.
Quite contented with my task of showing this ball of yarn that it was no longer capable of defeating me, I yowled and hissed with displeasure as it slowly began to become my cage. The netlike structure held me suspended in the air, and I continued to yowl now furious that he had disrupted my bliss.
Soon enough though, the silk moved over me again, and I was docile, contented in my simple acceptance of whatever he wished to do to me. Ah, that the world could have remained as simple as those brief few moments I was feline.
