me at world: sorry guys

Title from "Evil," by Interpol.

The thin, bony hand—still encased in its soft, crème-colored kidskin glove—caresses Christine's cheek and plays with a flaxen curl that drapes over her exposed shoulder. The hand moves lower, fingers trailing slowly over the side of her neck. The fingers pause over her pulse, over the throbbing vein in her neck. Maybe it—he, Erik—would strangle her right here and now, and free her of this torment.

Rather: those cruel fingers press down, ever so slightly, and Christine squeezes her eyes shut and grinds her teeth in an effort not to cry out.

Corpse-like fingers pluck off the kidskin gloves and Christine tries not to collapse at the sight of the fleshless hands.

Or, perhaps they're not quite fleshless. The flesh of her Angel's hands is so thin as to resemble parchment. When Christine allows herself to finally open her eyes and see him, she can make out a tracery of dark blue veins running like rivers underneath the paper-thin skin.

The touch of those hands—twisted and cruel, capable of causing so much pain—is cool like a balm against Christine's overly heated flesh.

"Sing for me, my Angel," the owner of those hands demands of her.

Christine resists—she feels much too exposed and singing here, now, would expose her even more—but the hands and their owner demand her to do their bidding.

And so Christine parts her lips and sings.

She feels dry, brittle fingers open her white silk dressing gown and push the material off her shoulders. It falls to her feet in a hushed whisper that sounds so impossibly loud to her ringing ears. Christine is nearly naked now, clad in nothing but her unmentionables. Searching fingers roam her bare skin, drag broken fingernails over shivering arms that pucker with gooseflesh. When Christine lets her voice falter, the phantom pinches the skin at the inside of her elbow and something hot and tingling pricks at her nerves.

He is a demanding master, her Angel.

Crooked, fleshless fingers delve between her bare thighs and Christine cannot suppress a gasp as they push into her knickers. Those fingers dive between her slick folds and Christine is startled into silence.

"I said sing," the Angel commands, harshly.

Christine twists and turns away from the probing hands, but finds she cannot escape them. They chase after her, slipping and sliding back between her damp, quivering thighs.

Christine feels a sob threatening to escape her.

"Master," she protests, but the cruel fingers pinch her inner thigh until tears spring forth from her eyes.

"Do not disobey me," the voice hisses, and if it had a physical form Christine imagines it would be a snake slithering through the underbrush toward her. "Sing."

Christine closes her eyes and—trembling uncontrollably as the fingers continue to pluck at her strings—she parts her lips and sings.

Christine's never sung so beautifully, her soaring voice hitting every note to perfection. She hardly notices the fingers pressing into her any longer, so ensconced in the sound of her voice is she.

"Yes. Yes," her Angel murmurs.

One of his bony, withered fingers brushes across her fevered skin and Christine jumps, her voice coming out hitched and breathless. Her master clucks his tongue in disappointment.

"Master, I'm sorry," Christine gasps through a sudden rush of tears, "I'll be better. Please, Angel. Please don't be angry with me."

But her master says nothing. Those terrible fingers keep pressing in and in—invading her—and Christine's knees weaken until she starts to wilt like a flower left too long in the sun. She puts a hand out and presses her palm to one of the walls of her dressing room to keep upright.

"Perhaps you have yet another song left in you," her Angel croons.

"Yes, Master," Christine whispers, digging her nails in the drapery.

Suddenly the fingers disappear from between her thighs and, for a brief shining moment, Christine believes she's free. Her Angel has left her. This thought fills her with foreboding for some strange reason, though she knows she should rejoice. But her mixed emotions only last so long before she's being dragged down to the lush carpet and an unexpectedly strong hand is pinning her down.

The other is tearing at her flimsy dressing gown.

Christine reaches out, fingers skimming a red robe. She tells herself she only meant to push him away from her, but her treacherous fingers curl in the fabric and tug her Angel closer.

He settles over her and lifts her dressing gown to her waist, exposing her.

Christine should feel mortified, embarrassed, and she pushes away a tiny urge to tug her dressing gown back down. But her passions are stirring and running too hotly through her veins to listen to that nagging voice at the back of her head.

Her pulse throbs almost painfully between her slippery thighs and she longs to reach down and rub the ache away, but she feels almost paralyzed by the sight of the creature—man? is her Angel a man?—hovering above her.

"I want to hear every beautiful note," her Angel's voice hisses from behind his impassive white mask.

Christine digs her teeth into her bottom lip and nods.

Her Angel fills and consumes her, every vital piece of him pressing against that ache deep within. Christine reaches for more and more of him, hot and desperate and urgent. He seems to sense her need and moves with her, never allowing Christine to pull too far away from him. They dance as one, their bodies entwined, those horrible hands brushing against her face and tangling in her curls.

Her Angel hits a particularly soaring note and Christine sings with him, their enjoined voices rising toward the heavens.

Or perhaps only the vaulted ceiling of her dressing room.

"Join me," he hisses, digging his fingers into her hips. "Join me in heaven, Christine."

She feels her Angel's hot breath on her neck and then a sudden starburst of pain when his teeth sink into the soft flesh of her exposed neck. Christine cries out, ecstatic, and tosses her curls as she explodes and collapses inward like a dying star.

Darkness tinged with threads of gold rushes in on her, and she lay there for what seems like eternity. When Christine's soul returns to her body, she realizes she's been redressed in her dressing gown and tucked into her bed. The bite itches and burns on her neck and she presses her fingers against it. The delicious twinge of pain that shoots forth pools in the aching—empty—space between her legs.

Christine realizes she's alone.

She tugs her blanket up to her chin and stares at an elongated shadow that stretches across the wall like a creature reaching out bony fingers toward her.

It is not her Angel.

Christine finds herself wondering if this strange night was nothing more than a dream.

As she slowly drifts off, Christine thinks she can hear a soft voice calling to her but she cannot be sure.

And then darkness claims her for its very own and she knows no more until sunlight peaks through drawn curtains—she does not remember drawing them—the following morn.