Unmasqued Page 6

  “Now, monsieur…do not think I have not noticed how you have admired me,” she murmured, her hands quite busy with the buttons of his trousers. She stood much closer to him now, close enough that her breasts touched his collarbones.

  He had grown full and hard in her hand. What his cock did not have in length, it made up for in girth…and then some. Both sets of Maude's lips grew wet at the thought of him filling her to stretching.

  And it was all in the name of duty. Duty to Erik, duty to her little rats…a duty meant to keep everything moving smoothly at the theater. She smiled. She loved her job.

  Armand’s trousers slipped to his ankles, and she knelt before him, wanting to spice things up a bit, get him comfortable before she let him play with her. She had to stretch the sides of her lips wide to fit him in, and it was a pleasure to suck a cock that did not gag her with its length, but that filled her from cheek to cheek with hot, pulsing flesh.

  Her underdrawers were soaking now, and her nipples hard and pointed like little cannon. If he would just move a little, she could rub them against his knees…

  Losing patience, she reached up and grabbed his hands—which had been fluttering aimlessly at his waist as she worked his cock—and planted them firmly over the front of her breasts. The mere contact sent her aching nipples tightening further, and as she pulled away from him, stopping just at the head, she sucked harder as she massaged his hands over her breasts.

  She couldn’t hold back a groan as she felt the tension building; Armand seemed to catch on, for he began to move his hands of his own accord. Maude slicked her tongue over the underside of his cock, and felt him shudder and shiver in surprise. Mon Dieu, had the man never been pleasured thus? What would happen if she stuck her thumb up his ass?

  But she could save that little experiment for later.

  The buttons that confined her melon-sized breasts came undone easily, and when her bodice opened and they spilled from their restraint, the release was almost orgasmic. But she needed more. Maude reached behind her and found one of the seats. She let Armand’s erection slip out of her mouth as she pulled herself into one of the chairs.

  “Come here,” she said, but he was already scrambling after her. She urged him into place, straddling her, his thick cock pushing into her stomach.

  And she rested her head back, exposing white shoulders and two huge white breasts, tipped with rosy nipples that were so hard they hurt. She slid her hands under them and jostled their beautiful weight, offering them to him.

  Armand appeared to have lost any remaining shyness; he surged forward and grasped and grappled with them. Pinching the left nipple, he hefted and jiggled her other breast and then leaned forward to take it into his mouth.

  When his moist, hot mouth closed around her entire areola and sucked, hard, Maude jerked and groaned as pleasure speared down past her belly. She nearly came right then, but pulled herself back from the edge.

  His thumb teased her other nipple; his full, soft lips pulled on the right in a rhythm that matched the way she was running her hand up and down his cock. Faster, tighter, he sucked and she stroked, and the pool of wet between her legs grew larger and hotter, her sex growing and throbbing painfully. She moved her hips beneath him as he switched breasts, sucking on the left one, tweaking and thumbing the right. Pleasure built and grew, and still he sucked, and still she stroked, and held back.

  And when she felt his cock moving, the surge of liquid racing along toward the end, she loosened her grip, stopped the rhythm… Not yet, she thought. Not…yet…

  Armand groaned against her nipple, and if possible, it felt as though his erection grew larger; but then Maude wasn’t thinking about anything but the tugging at her breasts. He was moving back and forth between the two of them, sucking and flicking with his fingers. Her hips moved; her breasts were so tight a coin would bounce off them…She grasped his head and held it at her left nipple, and he sucked, and it got tighter, and her pip pounded and swam, and suddenly she exploded, shuddering beneath him.

  “Mon Dieu…mon Dieu…” he groaned, the words forming around her areola as he jutted his cock insistently into her stomach.

  “Oui, oui, mon petit ours, my little bear,” she breathed, rolling him off of her lap, over the arm of the chair, and onto the seat next to her.

  Just as she began to hitch up her skirts, and find the sopping hole in her drawers, illumination burst from the stage below.

  “Mon Dieu!”Armandstarted, jerking beneath her as she straddled him. He struggled to sit up from the slouched position that left his cock standing straight up like a lovely, hard column, but Maude pushed him back.

  “Non, my dear. No one can see us…Just do not make any noise. See?” She smiled her most wicked smile as she slid herself over the head of his upstanding cock.

  Armand flinched, sighed, eyes half closing…and then they popped open when she slipped him inside her like a pickpocket’s hand into a purse. It felt as though she could not open her legs wide enough. The sweet, familiar feeling of a hard cock, moving inside, slipping and sliding against her, sent another shudder through her, and Maude snatched in her breath in surprise. How lovely that it had happened again so quickly!

  She would have to keep her little teddy bear.

  His little moist mouth was a round O and she leaned forward to kiss it in thanks as much as for him. Maude thrust her tongue into his mouth just as she had thrust him inside of her, and she rocked on his hips, felt his hands come up and grab at her ass, and felt the constant pleasure of her raw nipples scraping against his coat. A silver button was in the perfect position to snag it with every rhythm, and she leaned closer, wanting more of the pleasure-pain there.

  She throbbed and slipped and slid, and he rocked frantically beneath her, his eyes as circular and wide as his mouth. It built and built, and she felt his erection change, shift under her, knew he was close, and just as he burst inside her, someone screamed.

  It came from the stage.

  FOUR

  * * *

  Joseph Buquet’s body had been found, tangled and gently swaying, in the stage lines that he had manipulated for nearly twenty years.

  If anyone noticed that Monsieur Moncharmin's trousers were buttoned up improperly, it was not deemed important enough to mention. There was too much commotion and apprehension permeating the Opera House for anyone to worry about anything but the Opera Ghost.

  For, as Erik and Maude had expected, the blame was immediately attached to him.

  “But look at how the cords are wrapped around his neck,” protested Madame Giry. “What an imprecise way it would have been to try to strangle someone. Surely it was an accident.”

  “The ghost frightened him and made him fall to his death,” shrieked one of the girls. Madame whirled upon her with frightfully sharp black eyes.

  No one, not even Monsieur Moncharmin, would have recognized her as the wanton with the spilling breasts and groaning, openmouthed exertions from only moments before.

  “You do not know of what you speak,” Madame told the girl sternly. “You had best learn to hold your tongue; else you might find yourself a victim of the Opera Ghost.”

  After the police had been called and the stage was cleared, the managers stood off to the side. Monsieur Firmin Richard turned to Monsieur Moncharmin and showed him a thick parchment note with his name written on it. “I have received this letter,” he told him.

  “And I have received one too! This Opera Ghost requires that we pay him twenty-four thousand francs per month or he will not allow us a peaceful existence.”

  “And my letter states that we must allow Christine Daaé to perform Marguerite in Faust tonight.”

  “But that is Carlotta's role! She did not sing last night, because she was angry about the backdrop falling…but certainly she has heard of Miss Daaé’s success and will return tonight to retake the stage.” Armand sounded ill. “What shall we tell her?”

  “Of course Carlotta will sing tonight,” Firmin replied, te
aring the parchment into two long strips. “Madame Giry is right; Buquet likely had too much to drink and fell off the catwalk. Do you not remember Poligny warning us about him? The Opera Ghost is nothing but a foolish person trying to scare us into paying him blackmail. Well, it will not work in my Opera House!” He dropped the parchment and watched it flutter to the floor.

  “And what of Box Five? The Phantom has insisted we leave it empty for his use. Madame Giry has explained it all to me.”

  “The ghost, specter that he is, does not need a box to sit in,” Firmin replied with disdain. “He is a phantom, and he can fly about the stage if he wishes to watch the performance. We shall let the box for this evening's performance.”

  ~*~

  Late in the morning after her grand performance, Christine was in her dressing room. The masses of flowers from the night before had been organized onto one small table and the floor next to it. The mingled scents of rose, lily, gardenia, and gillyflower were cloying and sweet.

  Three heavy gowns—rose, lavender shot with silver, and sapphire blue—lay carefully arranged over a chair. They were gowns that she never would have been close enough to touch if La Carlotta had not stomped petulantly out of the Opera House.

  If the backdrop hadn’t fallen and startled the diva, Christine would still be sharing a dressing room with the other chorus girls. There would be no floor-to-ceiling mirror of her own, but instead, a long narrow one, around which the twenty girls would push and shove and gather as they dressed.

  If the backdrop hadn’t fallen.

  She gasped.

  He had done it. He had made the heavy canvas drop to the ground, knowing that it would send La Carlotta into hysterics…certain that it would cause her to stalk away, to act the prima donna and refuse to sing.

  Carlotta had expected to be soothed and coaxed back. She had not known that the Angel of Music had made other plans.

  Christine had heard about the death of Joseph Buquet, and felt a tremor of fear. Her ange was a strict and demanding tutor, but he had never given her cause to be frightened of him. Even the first time the angel approached her, she had not been frightened.

  She had been praying in the small chapel, tucked beneath the grand stone staircase of the Opera House. It was the only place she felt close to her father, even though he was buried in a graveyard near the Bay of Perros. Even after nearly eight years, she grieved for him, missed his absentminded smile and faraway eyes, missed the way his fingers were always moving, always playing something on an invisible violin—even when he hugged her, or sat reading in his chair, or riding in a carriage.

  Papa had entertained her, and for a time Raoul too, with stories about the Angel of Music. “Every musician, every artist, who is worthy shall be visited by an angel,” he would tell them. “Perhaps only once, an infant might see his angel…and then grow to be a child prodigy. Or perhaps the angel would come more than once, and tutor one who has the promise of talent. But to be sure, if the angel blesses one with his presence, the musician is sure to be a success.” And then he would pick up his violin and play soft, haunting melodies like The Resurrection of Lazarus with such beauty that Christine was certain her father had beenvisited by an angel.

  When he died, she’d lost her music.

  It was only because of Professor Valerius’s influence that Christine had been allowed to join the chorus at the National Academy of Music, there at the Opera House, when she was twelve. He insisted that she’d shown great talent in singing, but that grief from the death of her father had suffocated it, and that it would return in time if nurtured.

  But the five years she’d been in the chorus, Christine remained a shadow of the quiet, melancholy girl who’d had the angelic voice her sponsor remembered.

  Until that day in the chapel.

  That day, as she often did, she spoke to her father, talking with him about her memories of their life and travels. She reminded him again of his promise to send her an Angel of Music when he died, so that she might find a way to express her grief in losing him. So that she might find her music again.

  And then, she’d heard him call her. “Christine…” Soft, haunting, barely audible. She looked around the small damp room, but saw no one. Her knees pressed into a thin rug, feeling the stones beneath, as she turned back and forth, looking up and down.

  And then she heard it again. “Christine…I am your angel…”

  And she knew her father had kept his promise.

  Now, three months and many hard-won lessons later, and the morning after her grande performance at the gala, she smoothed her fingers over the velvet petals of one red rose, thinking of what Raoul would say if he knew.

  Should she tell Raoul about the Angel of Music? Would he believe her?

  And then, suddenly from out of her silence, on the faint note of a sweet violin, she heard, “Christine…” Just as she had that first day.

  “Ange.”She bolted to her feet to close the door, then moved immediately in front of the tall mirror, watching behind her image. But she saw nothing in the reflection.

  “You returned quite late last night,” came his rich voice. “It will not do for the new opera star to forgo her rest and practice in favor of social obligations.”

  He was there, but she could not see him. Of course, she felt the way his voice slipped around her, embracing her, and she recognized his breath, moving in the stillness of the room, matching her own. In that way she could feel him. But she yearned to see him.

  “I am sorry, angel,” she replied. “I did not mean to anger you."

  “Anger me you will, if you continue to go about in the company of men until all hours of the morning.”

  The warning edge in his smooth voice frightened her. “I understand, angel.”

  “My name is Erik.”

  “Erik, oui.”

  “Last night I gave you pleasure, did I not?” The coaxing timbre of his voice set the hairs along her arms to rising.

  “Yes, you did, ang—Erik.” So much pleasure that she had dreamt of it, twisting and turning in her sheets, and awakening damp and panting with the memory. Her fingers trembled as she clutched them into the gauze of her dressing gown.

  “I wish to pleasure you in that way again, and more, Christine.” There was a wisp of roughness in his words.

  “I wish you to as well,” she replied, stepping automatically toward the tall, glinting mirror, as though she would find him there. Alas, she saw only herself: wide-eyed, her oval face pale but for the pink of her lips, and her long hair falling loose to her hips. She touched the cool glass with one hand, as if reaching for him. “Angel…Erik…I wish to see you, to touch you, to pleasure you too. Please…”

  The room was silent. Still.

  “Angel?” Christine asked, suddenly terrified that she had frightened him away. Had she been too bold?

  She strained her ears for the sound of his music, the beautiful tones of violin and flute—and, of course, his melodious voice—that would fill her ears and her being.

  Silence.

  “Angel?” she called again. “Erik?”

  Then she felt it again: felt him, his presence. Bold, strong, encompassing. “Christine,” he replied. His voice hesitated on the last syllable, then became smooth again as he continued. “When the time is right, we shall be one. But until then, you must practice patience. And you must work hard. And you must remember that I am your tutor, and I am the one who can bring forth your music.”

  “Yes, angel.” It was true. She had been able to sing, certainly, before the Angel of Music had come into her dressing room and into her life three months ago, but under his tutelage, she had blossomed and grown like a late-blooming flower unfurling itself under the intense heat of summer sun.

  “Now, I wish to hear you sing Marguerite’s aria. Carlotta will not be singing it tonight. You will.”

  Christine drew in her breath and felt her breasts straining against the corset that lifted and pushed them together. Her nipples were hard, stabbing
the light lawn chemise she wore, pushing against the firm boning of the corset.

  The music came from nowhere, and everywhere. It filled the tall, narrow dressing room, simmered in her ears, and pounded through her veins. As she began to sing, the lights dimmed somehow…The edges of her image in the mirror, her mouth wide, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed pink—all became gray as the illumination faded. Her arms, clad in the sleeves of a pale yellow dressing gown, rose gracefully as though to help express the notes, and the yellow silk slid back, down to her shoulders, baring her slender arms. She became the beautiful lady once again.

  True, clear, smooth…she sang, and Erik’s music whorled about her, his presence filled her…and then his voice joined hers. His dusky tenor mingled with her pure soprano, and she felt as though she were flying.

  Soaring.

  She closed her eyes and sang, felt Erik’s presence and the gift of beautiful music that he awakened within her. She knew then, in the deepest part of her core, that she could never be without him.

  She could never lose him.

  For he brought the best of her forward. He prodded, pushed, annoyed, and demanded the very best of her music from the very deepest part of her being. Somehow, he knew her. Somehow, he knew how to draw it forth, to make her feel this way. Exquisite. Powerful. Heady.

  The hair on the back of her arms, on the nape of her neck, and on the crown of her head rose, tense and sensitive, and still she sang. And he with her.

  Tears shimmered at the corners of her eyes; she felt them, warm and heavy, and then the trail they left down along her cheek. She felt her corset tighten with each gut-level breath, and then loosen as she held on to the highest, longest C note until she thought her vision would fade away, and still she drew in another breath to follow the C with an E.

  When the last of her notes faded and there was nothing left but her heavy breathing, and the ending swell of music, Christine opened her eyes.