Scripted in Love's Scars
Page 28
“How did you get away?”
“Intelligence and wit. You’d be surprised how much better such things work over violence.” I trailed my fingers along her cheekbone and nose, onward to outline her full, pink lips, every facet dearer to me than anything I owned. “I will fill your head with every detail tomorrow. But right now, I ache to carry you to bed and sleep in your arms.”
“Yes, please.”
That night after she found the haven of sleep again, I stayed awake and uttered prayers. For so long, doors to God and reconciliation had felt closed to me, but now to have escaped the shah and be home with Christine as my future, I felt redeemed. I prayed for us both that night and thanked God for putting her in my life to save me. My very own angel…
*****
It was Faust’s opening night…again. The patrons were not pleased with the delay, and as compensation, I vowed to host a Masquerade Ball at the season’s end. Ah, the upper class and their parties! It was accepted with positive responses all around, and I was suddenly the greatest manager the opera had ever had.
As I finalized details in my office, listening to the bustle outside in the corridor, a visitor came with a knock at the door. I was pleased to find it was the daroga, smiling his greeting. “I was nearly trampled on my way inside. Is this how every performance day goes?”
“Oh, they’re just over-exhilarated with pent-up anxiety from the first time we attempted to open. And every department has their own superstitions as well. The ballerinas used to perform some sort of chanted séance to the Opera Ghost as good luck before every show. Now that the Opera Ghost is their manager, they stood outside my office door this morning and chanted like cloistered monks at noonday prayer.” My report had the daroga snickering beneath his breath, but I got all-out laughter when I added, “They wanted to do it inside around my desk, but I banished them to the hall. Those girls are the most irrational little brats in existence. If they’d put as much effort into their dancing as they do endorsing each other’s fears and drama, I might actually start to find ballet favorable and worthy to grace the opera stage.”
“And didn’t Christine used to be one of them?”
“Yes, but she is the exception to every rule, and watching her dance in a tutu was an exercise in self-control. The Opera Ghost couldn’t haunt the ballerinas when he was too aroused with the concept of being anywhere near Christine. She tamed the ghost.”
“And the man,” the daroga added with another chuckle. “Or so it seems now that you are a husband.”
The title was still so new and odd to hear. Every time Christine said it, I felt my heart ache as much as when she spoke her love. Now to hear the daroga speak it, I fathomed its letters a privilege I was fortunate to own.
“Was this rash little ceremony a response to having to hear that Vicomte call her his fiancée?” the daroga posed, and I shrugged.
Rash and hasty. I’d practically dragged Christine to a church the day after our drama with the shah, but…well, dragged was a harsh word. Dragged but willingly so. She’d laughed most of the way there as she fought to keep up with my hurried pace.
“I didn’t want to wait a second longer. Near separation experiences have such an effect.” I eyed him with suspiciously arched brows that he only saw in half with my mask in the way. “And on the topic, when are you off to join your family?”
“Tomorrow morning. I wanted to see your opera first, so that I might fill my wife’s ears with its tale…albeit without the singing. If I imitate the melodies, she’s likely to throw a shoe at me and wish for my continued absence! Ah, it will be heaven to see her!”
I knew that feeling so well, enduring prison and torture with it in my heart, and all I could think as I watched the glisten of love in the daroga’s eyes was that I longed for Christine so that I could show her the same look.
“Well,” the daroga muttered, “actually, I also came to tell you that I have it on good authority that the shah boarded a ship back to Persia. His guards were caught, but he escaped to return to his evil ways.”
That was no surprise, but I’d heard that the caught guards were revealed as the shah’s men and sentenced to death. “The shah would be a fool ever to return to France,” I concluded. “He can hide behind his crimes in his country, but there is no mercy for such sins here.”
“I truly pray you are right because you and Christine deserve a blessed future without threat lingering.”
“A threat lingering? Oh, we have one of those!” I exclaimed with a smirk. “It’s called the Vicomte. It seems even a marriage does not rid us of his presence. He’s our new best friend, do you know? He comes to supper and lavishes attention on my wife. I would wring his throat, but my darling wife takes pity on his case and continuously poses the argument that dearest Raoul has no one else and would I really want to be so alone if I were in his place?” I rolled my eyes at the melodrama.
“And where is jealous Erik in all of this?” the daroga questioned with obvious skepticism.
“He is sustaining himself on Christine’s new seemingly brilliant idea of matching the lamenting, lovelorn Vicomte with her dear friend Meg Giry, one of those tutued brats. We just have to get Meg beyond her fear of the former Opera Ghost so that she may join us for supper, and then once darling Raoul is happy, we may all be happy.”
The daroga laughed and clapped his hands. “It’s practically its own opera show.”
“Oh, I know it, and I live it,” I reported sarcastically. “Hence what happens when one spends too much time in an opera house.”
“And why I will be getting out before you all corrupt me to be equally dramatic.” His grin held an element of melancholy as he deemed, “I shall miss you, my friend. We’ve endured hell together on more than one occasion now. It would be nice to share some pleasant memories at some point.”
“I’d call this one pleasant, and if you require more, then you need to collect your wife and child and bring them to Paris on a lengthy vacation trip.”
The daroga pondered such an idea with a slow nod. “Perhaps I shall. Besides, what would you do if I weren’t here to check in on you every now and again? I fear you’d miss me.”
I acted arrogant, even though his words rang true and commented sarcastically, “And the opera melodrama is already wearing off on you. Get out while you still can. Lest you start with tears and gushing eternal devotion to the Opera Ghost!”
I received a chuckle in return, and he decided, “Christine is quite good for your temperament. I don’t recall you ever being so droll. Give her my regards and thanks, will you?”
“Most definitely.”
He gave one last grin and a fond nod before finally taking his leave, and I was truly sorry to see him go. Certainly, he reminded me of the times in my life I’d rather forget, but he was also one of the only people I could call ‘friend’ and mean it. His presence would be missed.
I had five minutes of semi-peace with only the buzz of conversations in the corridor as company, and then another knock arrived. This time I knew who it was before she even opened the door and slipped inside.
I was in the middle of signing a paper, and before I glanced up at her, I demanded, “You are not a part of that chatter in the hall, are you? You best be preserving your voice for later.”
But all thought fled my brain and with it any care for vocal welfare or the show in general as I regarded her. She wore her frilly dressing gown, no layers or corsets, nothing but her curves highlighted by its fitted shape.
“Lock that door,” I ordered distantly, unable to tear my eyes from her body as she giggled and obeyed.
Never a hesitation, and once we were confined, she hurried to my seated posture and lighted upon my lap with a bold smile. “I missed you.”
“Oh? …I thought you’d be engrossed in preparations and crazy rituals like the ballerinas.”
She considered with arching brows as my hand lifted and trailed the smooth column of her throat. “Perhaps I am starting my own ritual, and now
before every performance, I will steal away with my husband the Opera Ghost and be voraciously devoured for good luck.”
“Voraciously devoured?” I quoted with a thrilled chuckle, and as she removed my mask, I did not hesitate to comply, burying my misshapen mouth along that tempting throat and lavishing skin with kisses. “Is this what you had in mind?” I asked and felt her shiver and lose her breath against me.
“Yes, yes, more,” she muttered and eagerly straddled my hips as my hand roamed the partition in her dressing gown and found her bare beneath.
“Vixen!” I scolded. “Maneuvering the crowded corridors in nothing but this silk wrap! How utterly brazen of you!”
She scoffed her disagreement and slid her hand to the buckle of my pants. “As far as everyone but you knows, I am wearing every proper undergarment beneath like the perfect lady and Opera Ghost wife.”
“Oh, and stealing into my office and locking the door behind you isn’t telling anyway?”
“No, but once I have you moaning and crying out, it will be,” she proudly concluded as her hand found its path into my clothing and eagerly stroked my erection without gentleness. And the little tart! She got just what she wanted as I shuddered and lost a fitful moan to be her willing victim.
“You are shameless!” I gasped with the hint of a chuckle. “And how lucky I am to have you!”
“So very lucky.” Her blue eyes glistened in impish delight and the bit of mischief I’d been starting to drag out of her. As such, she played no games with what she wanted, and lifting her hips over me, she took me inside in one quick thrust that made us both cry out.
It was fevered and quick, her body moving over mine with remaining articles of clothing rubbing in friction. I could feel the scars beneath sting and burn, and I didn’t care. I was equally as urgent. Let her tear open every wound in her vehemence, and I’d simply call myself blessed to be her victim.
I didn’t doubt we were overheard, neither of us bothering to keep the arrival of our pleasure silent, but I concluded it wasn’t a bad thing. Love and passion combined, and when everyone else perceived me as only the masked Opera Ghost, perhaps I should make it known that I was also a man worthy of Christine. I wanted us to seem as close to ordinary as we could get and strangle gossip and cruelty at the source, never to touch us again.
Entirely spent, she dropped weakened limbs and sagged against my chest, her body melting into mine as if bone and muscle lost tenacity and buckled. I had a sudden wish for clothing’s loss when her skin was such a delicious texture and temptation to mine. But I settled for remaining sheathed in her wetness and wrapped her up in my trembling arms.
“Now how are you ever going to have the strength to be the diva after that?” I questioned as I set random kisses to her hairline and temple.
“Oh, I have no worries about that,” she muttered back. “Give me five minutes to recover, and I will exceed your every expectation.”
“You already did,” I teased and nipped her earlobe with my teeth, savoring her delighted gasp and the way she arched her hips and made me stir within her. “Little diva, and you will have them all as eager to kneel in your shadow as I am.”
“And later, may I also be the diva with you and have you as I wish, succumbing to my every whim and command?”
I moaned my agreement before I could make words. “Yes, most definitely, my diva. Bend me to your will.”
She laughed her anticipation and wove her arms about my neck, pressing her face to my jaw as she whispered, “Can we spend forever this way, Erik?”
“That is my intention,” I promised and kissed her dark crown. “Forever, my beautiful wife.”
I felt her smile against my skin, lips pulled taut in the arched shape, and it was as savored as language. I wanted to keep it…forever.
Opening night was a rampant success, and Christine sang with more passion and vibrancy than I’d ever heard her. I watched from Box 5, out in the open where she could see me, never giving any regard to the glances cast up from the audience every time the lights brightened between acts. Let them stare and speak; nothing grazed me. I was more invincible as a man in love than I’d ever been as Opera Ghost. Because Christine lifted blue eyes solely to me during final bows, the diva with accolades all around and thunderous applause as her appreciation, and she blew me a kiss and made her love evident to every person in that theatre.
My greatest achievement. For all the agony we’d both suffered, we’d reached the happy ending where we could just love without any intrusions or fears. And as I blew a kiss back to her and gave her a supplicating bow from my box, she beamed with adoration, and I knew this, this love was what life was all about.
Love had given me a bruise at its first stirring, a bruise that never healed; no, it progressed its possession upon my heart until it flowed my bloodstream with its essence. A bruise became a deep and permanent scar, prominent and always on display, and I wore it proudly. It was a branded mark every person could see, vulnerable in its exposure, and yet it was the most beautiful scar I owned. I prayed love marked me again and again in scar after scar and showed the world that I belonged to Christine. Now and forever, I was hers.
Also available from Michelle Rodriguez:
Opera Macabre
Daydreaming Roses and Fairytale Monsters
The Angel and Demon Chronicles
The Devil’s Galley, book one
The Pirouettes that Angels Spin, book two
And Angels Will Fall, book three
Imprinted on a Demon’s Heart, book four
Manifestations of a Phantom’s Soul, volume one
Manifestations of a Phantom’s Soul, volume two
Manifestations of a Phantom’s Soul, volume three
Manifestations of a Phantom’s Soul:
The Untold Darkness
(available exclusively from Createspace.com)
The Opera Ghost Unraveled
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michelle Gliottoni-Rodriguez wrote her first novel in high school. Fifteen years later, she’s up to 29 and still counting. Fascinated with Gothic romances, she calls her greatest influences the works of the Brontë sisters and adds in an adoration for “The Phantom of the Opera” and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In August 2011, she published her first novel, a Gothic vampire romance titled Opera Macabre. Over the past three years, she has published another vampire romance and the first four novels in her series The Angel and Demon Chronicles. In addition to writing about vampires, angels and demons, she posts Phantom of the Opera stories online and has even had the honor of having them translated into German and Russian for worldwide fans. Due to the wonderful support of her Phantom “phans”, she published her Phantom novel, The Opera Ghost Unraveled, and three collections of Phantom short stories titled Manifestations of a Phantom’s Soul. This past fall, she also released a collection of dark stories called Manifestations of a Phantom’s Soul: The Untold Darkness, available exclusively on Createspace.com.
The other side of her life is a passion for music; she’s also a trained opera singer with a Bachelor of Music from Saint Xavier University in Chicago. She’s won various awards and accolades in the Chicagoland area and has portrayed such roles as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Yum-Yum in The Mikado, the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, and Isabel in El Capitan.
From writing at 4AM to practicing for her next performances at 7AM and then onward to being a full time wife and mom with an 8 year old, a 5 year old, and an almost 2 year old, one would call her life crazy, but she likes to think of it as “full” and blessed.
For more information on Michelle’s Phantom stories and original works, check out her website:
www.michellegliottonirodriguez.webs.com
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Michelle Gliottoni Rodriguez
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