Seduction

Subject: Seduction Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:06 pm

Hello to all you phellow Phantom phans! Smile

This is a one shot I did for fun based off the Masquerade Ball in the 2004 Phantom of the Opera movie, but with my own twist. It is NOT a retelling of the movie! I hope you like it, and I would love to hear any thoughts or suggestions you have.

Laura
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During The Bal Masqué Of 1863…

“Come, come Christine!” Raoul lightly pulled her arm as Christine remained stationary in the middle of the hallway. Music filtered to them, a pleasant waltz which brought with it the desire to dance.

What causes her to hesitate? There is no one in this hallway but the two of us. “What is it Christine?” Looking at her innocent beauty, Raoul couldn’t resist the impulse to kiss her. He leaned closer and frowned when she pulled back. Furtively, she glanced up and down the hallway.

“Please don’t Raoul. Someone might see us.” Even as she said the words a tingle of apprehension traveled down her spine. Christine could feel his presence, feel his anger. She shivered. He was here. Her Angel, her guardian, her captor. Though she had thought the chains holding him to her had been severed long ago, they tugged at her now with increasing strength. I will resist it. I MUST! Christine glanced up into Raoul’s face. In his youthfully handsome features she read faint annoyance. I must choose to forget Erik. Perhaps, in time, she would forget him entirely. He has not approached me in weeks. Though the distance has been excruciating to endure at the first Christine was quickly learning to lean on Raoul for the support she needed.

“And what of it? It’s an engagement, not a crime,” Raoul admonished, gently cupping her face and looking deep into her eyes.

Christine sighed. “You are right.”

Raoul grinned. “Am I not always right?”

Christine gave him a good-natured smile of exasperation. “Let’s not argue.” She grinned.

Raoul offered his arm to her. “May I have this dance mademoiselle?” He asked when they had entered the ballroom.

“Of course!”

Deep within the shadows of the recently vacated corridor Erik cursed under his breath. How could Christine treat him with such a lack of respect or gratitude? He had given her everything – and this was how she rewarded him? By rejecting him and choosing that overdressed pampered pet of Paris society. Rage roiled within him. Erik gritted his teeth. He would make her think otherwise. She would be on her knees before him before the evening was over. A smirk of a smile twisted his expressive mouth. He would see to it that Christine was begging his forgiveness.

A chuckle rose deep in his throat and echoed softly in the dimly lit hallway. I will not force her. First she will beg my forgiveness, and then she will beg for me to continue in my…ministrations. Another chuckle rose in his throat. Seeing someone passing through the hall he easily swallowed it. After the man had passed, Erik drew his black cloak more tightly around him. Stepping quickly, and with the natural grace he possessed, he moved without a sound from the corridor.

As he approached the ballroom, sounds of music and laughter filled his ears. It irritated him still further. He would make Christine regret what she had done, if only for a brief few moments. Alas, but he could not bring himself to inflict the same measure of pain she had on him with her thoughtless actions.

Erik entered one of the many familiar hidden passageways. Moving with the stealth of a cat stalking its prey, he quickly located the place he sought. Now he stood in the wall just at the top of the stairs leading down into the ballroom. Bending over at the waist, Erik felt for the cloak and mask he had hidden there, the completion to his own masquerade costume. There. His fingers slid over the smooth fabric and he gripped it tightly. One brisk movement swept it across his broad shoulders and he secured his new mask. Erik took a deep breath and released it slowly, savoring the anger which still simmered and burned with intensity.

A few deft applications of pressure in the correct places suddenly opened the wall. Out he stepped, quickly closing the panel behind him. A gasp echoed throughout the room as people immediately noticed him and marveled over his sudden and unexplainable appearance. Erik stepped forward. Each step was like the clipped enunciation of a word, exuding his anger, arrogance, and possessiveness over what he deemed was his. The music came to an abrupt end. He smirked, reveling in the power he possessed over these simpletons.

“Why so silent, good monsieurs? Did you think that I had left you for good?”

Christine’s sudden intake of breath did not go unnoticed by Raoul.

“Have you missed me, good monsieurs? I have written you an opera! Here I bring the finished score, Don Juan Triumphant!” Erik drew his sword with a flourish. He threw the leather packet at the feet of the opera house managers and it split open, exposing the sheet music beneath.

“Fondest greetings to you all,” he said sarcastically, pivoting to face the entire group. “A few instructions just before the year so starts.” He turned and walked to face Carlotta. “La Carlotta needs to learn to act, not her normal trick of strutting around the stage.” He wiggled the feathers in Carlotta’s elaborate hat with his sword as he spoke. As her companion moved to protect her the masked man stopped him with the razor sharp end of his sword. He turned to face Carlotta’s very overweight companion. “Our Don Juan needs to lose some weight – it’s not healthy, in a man of Piangi’s age.” He poked the man’s expansive mid-section to emphasize his point.

Again he turned, this time to face the opera house managers. “And my managers must learn that their place is in an office, not the arts.”

Slowly, he turned again, this time to face Christine, who was now alone. Raoul had left to retrieve his own sword. “As for our star…” He eyed her and Christine felt somehow guilty, as though she had committed some horrible act. His eyes pierced her to her very soul. “Miss Christine Daaé…No doubt she’ll do her best, it’s true, her voice is good. She knows, but if she wishes to excel she has much still to learn. If pride will let her return to me – her teacher. Her teacher.” He breathed the words softly as he moved even closer to her. His eyes roamed unashamedly over her and stopped on her neck, where the ring sparkled on a delicate gold chain. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Your chains are still mine—you belong to ME!!!” He hissed through clenched teeth. Christine jumped at the suddenness of his attack and at the possessive vehemence of his tone. He grasped the ring and jerked, snapping the chain easily.

Christine felt her arm grasped, tearing her gaze away from the hypnotizing effect of his eyes. Erik jerked her to him then spun on his heel and pulled her up the stairs. So surprised was she that Christine failed to offer any resistance to his forceful pull. With but a gesture of Erik’s hand, they were suddenly engulfed in a thick cloud of red smoke and dazzling light. She gasped and then choked on the smoke, vaguely aware that the floor beneath them had opened up and they were descending at a terrifying rate. Christine let out a choked scream of terror as she fell farther, and watched the floor above them slam shut with a resounding sound of finality.

As quickly as their descent began, it suddenly stopped. Christine’s feet slammed onto a hard surface which felt of polished granite. She fell and immediately his arms were about her, supporting her. Christine opened her eyes and thought she recognized where they were. It was a passage quite familiar to her, the one they had always traversed on their way back to her dressing room after her lesson. Erik’s arms about her tightened and she struggled against their strength.

“Let go of me!”

“Nay mademoiselle. I find I like you in my arms.” His soft hiss of promise terrified her.

“So, Christine. Please inform my ears with the reason why you are disobeying my expressly stated wish! I told you to have nothing to do with that boy!!!” His words rose in volume with each syllable, until he was nearly shouting.

Christine trembled at the unconcealed rage in his tone. Still, though she feared him and was physically quaking at the thought of opposing him, she stood firm. “I-I like him. He has been my best friend since my childhood. I could not simply refuse to see him again. It would have crushed him!”

Erik laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, now I see the picture much too clearly! You do not hesitate to crush me, but that spineless little boy you cling to. Did you never consider what this has done to ME? TO ME!!!”

His grip on her tightened until it nearly cut off her circulation. She gasped in pain and winced. Erik pushed her backwards, deeper into the darkness. Christine had never been more terrified. With no way to see where she was stepping, she was relying solely on the fact that Erik held her and would keep her from falling into the bottomless chasm in the center of the stone staircase. Her heart rate pulsed higher and higher, her terror growing more with each step he pushed her.

Erik could sense her growing panic. As it rose, obvious in her expressive features, he grew calmer. More calculated. He allowed his hands to move slowly up the sides of her slim waist to rest on her shoulders. Christine now held onto him, clearly terrified of falling into the dark depths beneath them. He released his hold and she clung to him, not knowing where she was or where it was safe to step.

Christine inhaled sharply as his hands caressed their way up her waist to her shoulders. Impersonal in its black leather case, his finger traced the pulse throbbing in her neck. She shivered, this time not in fear. What is he doing?

“Ahhh, Christine.” He breathed her name, leaning closer. “You do not know how this separation has tortured me.”

Guilt pierced her, for his words were genuine and laced with an anguishing pain.

“I thought I had angered you Angel.”

She is weakening. “I was not angry at you, child.”

Now Christine became angry. “I am not a child!”

“Then cease acting like one.”

Christine could feel her cheeks redden in the darkness.

Subject: Re: Seduction Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:07 pm

His warm breath touched her neck and she felt his lips graze her cheek briefly. Her pulse raced. What was he planning to do?

“Are you a child Christine?”

“No!”

“Then why do you persist in seeing this boy? He is barely out of knickers, and hardly a man.”

“R-raoul is no l-ittle boy,” Christine stuttered.

“And you, my dear, are no little girl.” His hand traced down the swell of her bosom and rested on her hip. Christine closed her eyes, fighting the sensations his hands on her body inspired. She loved Raoul, not Erik. Didn’t she? At any rate, she had promised herself to Raoul.

Erik seemed to sense her thoughts. “You were promised to ME, Christine. How could you break your promise?”

Christine felt a cold, circular object press into her open palm. She immediately recognized it. “The ring! How did you find it?”

“You mean how did I find my ring you chose to discard in the slime of the street?” His words bit with underlying anger.

“Erik…I—I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

“And you expect me to believe that your engagement to that love-sick puppy was an accident?!!”

“N-no, I mean yes, I mean—.”

Erik softened his tone. “I have missed you Christine. How can you continue to develop your voice if you persist in refusing your lessons? Do you not know that it is only I that can bring you to the height of your potential? How would your father feel considering your absolute disregarding of his last wish?”

Christine felt tears start to her eyes. His voice lacerated her tender heart at the accusation. The last thing she ever wanted to do was disregard her father’s dying wish. Papa always wished me to sing, and perform in the arts.

“Christine, return to me. You know that only I truly love you…” His words came as a whisper, coiling them in her mind and echoing faintly in the stillness. “That boy would desert you at the first hardship which comes your way. Trust me—trust in your Angel.”

Christine closed her eyes, surrendering fully to the seductive power he welded over her.

“Say that you love me…Say the words,” he purred, gloved hands moving in a gentle arc over her hips and thighs.

Christine let out a sigh. She could resist him no longer. “Oh Angel…Forgive me for ever hurting you so. I never meant it.”

Erik smiled in the darkness. She was ready for him now. Christine had responded exactly the way he had planned. He brushed a kiss through her soft, springy curls. “Chrissstine,” Erik breathed into her ear, tentatively nibbling the delicate flesh of her right earlobe. “I love you. Please do not put me through that living hell ever again.”

“I love you, my Angel.” Christine’s delicate fingers sought his face and caressed his clean-shaven left cheek.

“Promise me that you will sever all connections with that boy.”

“Of course, Angel, I promise.”

Intense relief spread through him at her words. Simultaneously, his desire mounted at her touch on his skin. He pressed his hands to her shoulders, and pushed her back farther. Christine gasped as she was suddenly shoved back against the coolness of a stone wall. Erik’s hands encircled her waist, his thumbs gently brushing over her back. He leaned closer, tracing the outline of her lips with his gloved finger.

“Christine, I love you.” With that declaration, his mouth at last sought hers.

Erik’s kiss was not gentle like Raoul’s. He bore down on her, claiming her for himself and stamping his possession. The feel of his lips on hers sucked the breath from her, making her weak in the knees. His hands roved over her body, creating such spasms of pleasure that Christine wondered if she should feel such things. Was it proper to feel such incredible sensations of physical pleasure? She whimpered, unused to such intimate handling.

Erik pulled back just long enough to shed his gloves. “Trust me my dear and just feel it,” he rasped.

Christine forced herself to relax. Now his fingers were warm to her skin, rid of the smooth, cool feel of the leather gloves. You stupid girl—you know you want this. The thought came unbidden to her mind. His fingers groped for closer contact, pressed harder for a more definite feel of her. She shivered in shock and delight.

Suddenly, without warning, Erik's exploring fingers crept beneath the smooth silk of her bodice. She gasped, “Erik?”

“Hush,” His voice commanded softly. Velvety and yet smooth, it grazed her skin as his fingers kneaded her supple flesh. Waves of pleasure tingled in her lower abdomen and gradually blossomed, spreading a roiling physical heat that she had never experienced. Her knees weakened, but she forced them straight again. Erik’s hands explored every inch of her, caressing with infinite gentleness.

Desire burned through him and the muscles of his thighs contracted. Inhaling sharply through his teeth, Erik jammed his knee between her legs, bearing his mouth down on hers. She melted into him, her flesh contouring to his own. Erik ground his lower body against hers as he explored her mouth more intimately. Christine sighed deeply, wrapping her arms around his back, drawing him closer.

Erik slowly drew back and exhaled forcefully. I cannot progress any further. This is neither the time nor the place. His passion gradually cooled. Erik leaned forward once more, brushing his lips against her smooth cheek. “You will not see Raoul again…?”

“No, Angel.”

“Good,” he breathed his approval, slowly sliding his hands from her trembling body.

Christine clung to him as he donned his gloves and began to depart.

“Angel! Where are you?”

The impossible voice chuckled at her side. “Right here, Christine. Don’t you recognize where we are?”

Something clicked and the wall she had been pressed against creaked, then spun suddenly. The spinning sensation to which she was so accustomed swept her into the familiar surroundings of her dressing room.

Christine shook her head, clearing the momentary vertigo. “Angel?”

“Christine, do you love me?”

“Yes Angel,” she said again. “I can love only you.”

“Prove your love by refusing the boy any and all opportunities to see you.”

“I will, Angel.”

“Excellent…I will return for you this evening for your lesson.”

Christine’s skin fairly tingled with anticipation at the hint of promise in his softly spoken words.

“Until tonight…”

Subject: Re: Seduction Sun Sep 14, 2008 9:44 am

When you started out it sounded like a nice retelling of a scene in the 2004 film, but you really did a fine job of changing this and making it your own.

I loved the hypnotic power Erik has over Christine. You gave me chills. Well done! Brava!

Please write more stories soon. You have a natural talent for it.

Brava, brava, bravissimi! :p:p:p

Subject: Re: Seduction Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:36 pm

Thank you, Fay for the wonderful review! I am glad you liked it. I do have another idea swirling around in my brain...we shall see what comes of it! Razz

Laura

Subject: Re: Seduction Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:49 pm

Eek, you brought out the scary part of Erik. Nice. o.O He really is like a puppeteer (sp, I know XP) and Christine's at the ends of the strings. Scaaary but well done, cool beans. Very Happy

Subject: Re: Seduction Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:56 pm

Thank you haleybob for reading! I'm glad you liked it. So you thought this portrayal of Erik was scary? GOOD! Twisted Evil

Erik is very manipulative and calculating sometimes, don't you think?

Laura

Subject: Re: Seduction Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:22 pm

yeah this truly was a good read, gave me goosebumbs all over. lol

Subject: Re: Seduction Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:24 pm

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! I'm glad you liked it. Smile

So...there wasn't anything that stood out to you as conceptually silly, or grammatically incorrect?

Laura

Subject: Re: Seduction Thu Sep 18, 2008 3:48 pm

fine job.
you really made that scene your own.

Nay mademoiselle. I find I like you in my arms.”

i loved that part... bravo

Subject: Re: Seduction Mon Sep 22, 2008 7:40 am

Thank you, Devine_Muse for your review! I'm glad you liked it! I appreciate everyone who reviews, it is VERY helpful and encouraging! Smile

Laura

Subject: Re: Seduction Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:34 pm

Very good! I loved it. Brava.
One thing- since you're following the movie- it's “A few instructions just before the rehearsal starts.” and "Our Don Juan must lose some weight" - little things, but if you should want to fix them, there they are. lol
And since you asked- other than a typo or two, hardly noticeable when immersed in the story as I was, everything works well in that respect. (Though I did find myself wondering that her dressing room was below the level of the ballroom for them to fall that distance.)

I think you actually posted this at another forum a year or more ago- and at the time I said what I will tell you now -
I really want to see this story expand - more of it! I would love it if you would continue!