The Other Side of the Looking Glass Ch. 04

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.

"Have you enjoyed yourself ma voix," he asked for the second or third time since he had found her, his voice laced with extreme amusement.

"M... Maestro!" She gasped breathlessly, starting bolt upright and nearly covering the tile with her bath water. "I... I am sorry. How... how long have you been there?"

He laughed, and she blushed scarlet. He had obviously been there quite some time.

"For as long as your music has been calling me," he replied cryptically, "Now, as lovely as that performance may have been, you are late. Come, you must dress."

"Oui Maestro," she replied, still not completely certain how she felt at being caught unaware.

She took his offered hand, allowing him to help her from the bath. He dried her, gracing her with an adoring smile like nothing she had ever seen, and led her silently back into the main room of her apartments.

"Maestro, qu'est-ce que c'est sa?" She asked, slightly confused about his behavior.

"C'est rien ma Christinette," he replied as he helped her into her gown.

A short time later, they looked down upon the lovely view of the city the opera's roof supplied for them. The sun was just setting, and while this, coupled with the fact they had only had breakfast two or three hours ago, utterly bewildered Christine, she was quite certain Erik was completely expecting it.

He ran his fingers lovingly through her hair as he slowly returned from his own musings.

"Kneel mon amourette," he instructed gently.

Her heart was racing a mile a minute as she knelt. What could he be doing? What was this, and why did she have the strangest feeling she really should have remembered something?

He circled her, that tawny gaze once again falling hard upon her, and she thought she would love nothing more than to run away and flinch from it. Sadly, she knew this was no longer an option.

"Are you a willing slave," he asked, and his voice carried a tone of danger and control she had never heard before.

She nodded, this strange tone rendering her unable to speak, more appropriately feeling as though she should not.

"Speak," he commanded making it very clear he would not be trifled with.

"I... I am a willing slave," she responded timidly, her head bowed and her eyes lowered.

"And who do you serve?" he asked, his tone and his gaze never wavering.

"Only you Maestro," she replied, this time surety coloring her words.

"then, with this admission, and you're willingness to serve me, I offer to you my collar."

She started in disbelief as he clasped the amethyst lace of the slave bracelet and anklet upon her, this was what she had forgotten, that if she passed his test and did as he bid her he would collar and keep her. She smiled radiantly, the tears streaming down her face. She wanted to rise, to cling to him and curl safely into his embrace, but she knew better than to do so before she was bidden.

"With this gift," he continued, "I offer to you my shelter, my protection, and my love. I offer to you the challenge of serving me, in exchange for the care that I shall give to you. Do you accept the terms of this arrangement?" He asked gently.

"I do Maestro."

He leaned down to her and lifted her into his arms.

"There is one more thing," he began gravely.

"Oui Maestro?"

"In this place, the marks I have put upon you have a great potential to be seen for what they are. Therefore, I have another gift for you."

He placed a plane gold band on the ring finger of her left hand, as he carried her back down to his world and opened a door to her that she had never seen, the door of his own private chambers, his sanctuary.

Fin