Part four: Postlude
Two figures lay, so tightly curled around one another that it would have been difficult to determine where one form stopped and the other began. Both had slept a night filled with dreams of surrender and rapturous bliss, and still, though the rest of the world was bathed in light, they slept on.
It was Erik who stirred first, slowly attempting to remind himself where he lay. He rarely felt sleep and to have slept a full night, this confused him. Slowly, he remembered, and a smile of pleasure crossed his usually dark features. She had done it. She had surrendered to him and passed his test. Now, she would be his.
The lightest of sighs called him back from his musings, and he turned to see his young lover beginning to stretch.
Bon matin, ma chatenne," he purred as he tenderly stroked her face.
"Bon matin Maestro," She replied timidly.
The truth was, at this very moment even Christine was filled with the fear of the Phantom. She had done as he instructed and surrendered to him, but was he pleased? Would he keep her? The questions raced madly through her mind.
"You were beautiful last night ma voix!" he purred huskily as his tongue snaked across her bottom lip.
"Maestro, so soon?" she asked nervously.
"Non pet, non," he assured, "You had quite enough last night. I will not torture you so."
He rose, fetching a black silk dressing gown from the bedpost, slipped it over his shoulders, and beckoned her to follow him.
Following obediently, it became apparent to her just how hungry she was, and he seemed to agree that she would eat. Her Maestro was beautiful, in profile, she mused as she watched him make her tea and cut the fruit that would be her breakfast.
"You will eat my pet, and then you will dress. I have a surprise for you."
"A surprise Maestro?" She questioned as she began to sip the tea he had passed her.
"Did you forget what I had promised you ma Christinette?"
Though she was shameful to admit it, she had forgotten. She remained so caught in the visions and rapture of what had happened between them, that anything he had told her before hand no longer seemed to matter.
She lowered her eyes, trying not to meet his with the hope that he would not notice her forgetfulness.
"You have forgotten, haven't you amourette?"
She nodded, to ashamed to speak, and he chuckled.
"'tis all the better for my plan then. Eat now, I have work to do to prepare. We will leave in two hours time."
He placed the plate of fruit before her on the table, turned, and left the room. She ate in silence, confused by this strange turn of events, but he did not seem angry, and thus, she allowed the silence to pass over her blissfully.
Her small meal finished, she cleaned the dishes in haste, anxious for whatever it was her Erik was planning for her.
As she entered her room, she gasped aloud. There, lying upon her bed, was the most beautiful gown she had ever seen. It was a simple thing, made of only white lace and leaving very little to the imagination, and with it, was she seeing this properly, and with it a veil of the same white lace, and pearls of the highest quality to adorn her delicate neck and wrists.
She would look to him like a bride appearing before her groom, she pondered with the slightest bit of fear. She knew that she wished to be his, but for some unknown reason, the prospect of marriage seemed entirely wrong for the two of them. Still, quelling down her fears, she removed her own night shift, and made her way to the bath he had already drawn for her.
Her body had already been long in the water when Christine's mind slipped unbidden to the vision. There he was in all the glory that had shadowed him the night before. She saw him step from the shelter of the flames once more and realized that they seemed more natural than any cloak she had ever seen him ware. He was, most truly, a creature of fire and one never afraid to burn.
She moaned aloud at this thought, as she contemplated what making love to him upon those very flames would feel like. Would it burn so terribly? Did she want it to burn? Truly, she was no longer certain.
She felt the wetness come, felt it grow, and remembered his lessons about pleasuring herself. Slowly, fearing to injure herself after all she had done last night, she parted the folds of her secret places beginning to stroke inside...
She was not aware how much time had passed, only that sometime within it gentle strokes had become animalistic writhing, and then become release. She could hear something, a voice, but it seemed so far away from the trance in which she currently rested that it surely could not be worth noticing.
