Like a Wisp of Steam (11 page)

In time, after the buildup of sensation had become rather intense, he finally released me. I was sure my flesh was pink and more than a little raw after the experience, but none the worse for wear. Dr. Aubrey removed his hand from the back of my neck and stepped back a few paces. I timidly turned to face him. My eyes were hungry and pleading, but his were hard. There was no doubt who was master in this encounter and who was being schooled. Slowly, he undid the clasp of his heavy leather belt and pulled it through the loopholes of his waistband. For a moment, I wondered if he meant to use it, but he dropped it to the floor. Next, the doctor unbuttoned his pants and reached inside, freeing himself. I watched as he stroked slowly while still speaking to me in a whisper of a voice. "Is this what you want, Nicholas?" he asked.

I felt so ready then, like a coil flooded with electric current, pulsing with energy. "Oh yes," I breathed. "Completely."

"Then come here," he said. I came forward, and he pushed me to my knees, guiding my mouth toward him. One hand on my shoulder, and one at the back of my head, he urged me closer.

I heard him breathing faster as I used my lips on him at first, kissing the tip of him, and gently licking the length of his shaft. Only then did I take him in, allowing him to press into my lips, over my tongue. He groaned as he entered my mouth, and then began to move in and out. I brought one hand to the base of him, holding the skin taut. The other I used to gently caress myself. I was as hard as he was, thoroughly enjoying the way I was able to please him. I loved the manly rumble I heard at the back of his throat and the firmness of all his muscles. He pulled my hair now as he gripped the back of my head tighter, pushing deeper into my throat. Finally, I sensed his breathing change. I could tell he was close to finishing, but instead, he pulled out of my mouth and stopped.

I was confused, but it soon became clear what he wanted.

He pulled me to my feet and pushed me over the table again, roughly this time. The doctor was behaving like an animal; in fact, so was I. I swept several test tubes out of the way as he pushed me down, and heard them shatter loudly against the floor, but I cared for nothing. Each of us was purely focused on satisfying his own needs.

He was already slick from the touch of my tongue. Without pretext, Dr. Aubrey gripped me by the hips and forced his way inside of me. He was rough and desperate, but I did not struggle. In fact, I froze instantly as I felt him enter me. I felt held there, like a butterfly pinned inside a specimen box. I had no choice but to accept what was happening. Every muscle in my body relaxed as he thrust slowly into me again.

The doctor reached around to grab me, his wide palm working me in time with his own thrusts. He began to use me then, pushing harder and faster, and I loved the sensation.

Finally, I was able to give myself up to him. I melted against the table as he drove deeper. The squeezing and pulling of his hand was coaxing me into a frenzy. I could not contain myself much longer. As I heard the unsteady gasps of his warm breath, I realized neither could he.

He pushed into me one final time, to the hilt, and I came hard. I bucked forward, trembling and covered with a sheen of sweat. Warm white liquid spilled from me and drizzled over his fingers. Dr. Aubrey thrust twice more, pumping his last deep into me, and then relaxed as we nuzzled together, caught up in the final throes of our pleasure. We could not be certain of what would happen next, but in this moment we were content. I wondered silently if we would ever be able to repeat this experiment.

I no longer knew if I could contain these urges. I no longer knew myself. My thoughts were something powerful and unstable, like the fulminate we had discovered. Because in the flask such things are safe, but release them and you risk a reaction that cannot be undone.

Steam and Iron, Musk and Flesh

Kaysee Renee Robichaud

There was nothing more romantic than floating half a mile over the rooftops of a steam-belching, budding metropolis like Fort Detroit, under the brilliant white illumination of a nearly full moon. The skyship drifted on the currents, its three enormous balloons glowing like holiday ornaments with the emerald discharge of the sizeable boiler engine. Sure, the cauldron's brackish fluids were spilling over the skyship's filigreed railing, and the primary emergency whistle wailed the soft beginnings of a soon-to-be-shrill warning, but Trista Pirrup paid little mind because lovely Cecilia's full lips were gently pressuring that sweet place where shoulder meets neck.

"Oh, CeeCee..."

Her lips and tongue moved up along the carotid artery, tickling and teasing and sending shivers of delight through Trista's nerves. Such sweet sensations ... As they moved through her, Trista felt a sudden guilt at the realization that she should be reciprocating in some fashion. She should be ...

What exactly?

Her brain was overloading with emotional cues; her limbs felt awkward and overlarge. Trista allowed her hands, bound up in tightly sewn lambskin gloves, to caress Cecilia's back in heated circles, drawing what she hoped were curves of passionate fire through the girl's dress. The act felt foolish only one second after she had begun.

Beautiful Cecilia's hair was golden and wavy, her button nose slightly raised and her eyes a deep blue. Her face was narrow as a fawn's, making her wide eyes enormous. Her bosom was small, tightly bound beneath the hard buttons and soft fabric of her cream-colored dress. Beneath the hem of her ankle-length overskirt and crinoline underskirt, her long legs and tiny feet were bound up in stockings and tight boots.

She practically defined "dainty" and this only made her somehow more gorgeous.

Were she not being kissed in the place that raised the heat of every breath, Trista would certainly feel (as she often did) outclassed. Curly red hair and round face, eyes the color of dun pudding, broad almost mannish shoulders, a nearly obscene curve to her hips, and a pair of cantaloupes on her chest that could not be bound up into a properly unassuming size no matter how tight the corset she tried to wear ... There was a rough kind of prettiness to her, she supposed, but nothing that such a refined woman as Cecilia should find attractive. Certainly not...

But there she was, kissing Trista's throat. It seemed nothing less than an impossible dream!

Kisses.

And tantalizing touches. Cecilia's silk-clad fingers rubbed at her breasts through the lambskin flight jack, slow sensual circles that trailed down to Trista's hips. There, they urged her to lean over, and reached around to the tiny curve of her bottom, observing the arc through sensuous stroke. Cecilia took a firm hold as she moved from nuzzling Trista's throat to giving her a full kiss on the lips.

Trista made a startled squeak; Cecilia's slender tongue found its way into her mouth, and more slow circles followed.

No dance of tongues, this was a kind of lovemaking, and it set the top of Trista's head into the stratosphere.

Lambskin-clad hands caressed Cecilia's breasts, and the girl moaned softly, her beautiful eyes closing at the sensation.

The kiss broke, and Cecilia stared into Trista's eyes with a hunger. "Such a deliciously filthy engineer you are," she said, making the words into a lover's poem, before a nearly feral, frenzied expression filled her face, and she came in for still more kisses.

The pair of shrill whistles might have been Trista's internal thermometers sounding off extreme temperatures, so it seemed only natural that Cecilia should spread her jack, should open her shirt, should bare her corset and skin. It seemed only right to undo Cecilia's blouse, one slow button at a time, each release eliciting still more passion from the boundless well inside that delicate-seeming woman. Not so delicate at all. Her teeth ran along Trista's shoulder, while those silk gloves unfastened the corset, and when it fell free, Trista sucked in fresh air as though she had never really breathed before. Tonight, the cool autumn air was flavored with honey and musk, an earthy perfume to be certain.

Cecilia pulled Trista's hand along her leg, under the skirts, slow and strong and guiding her up and up. Kisses did not distract from the pleasure of touching garters and then the bare skin beyond. The lambskin gloves would be soft on that skin, Trista thought, but that was not enough for Cecilia.

Further up, to the crux, to a golden warmth as yet unknown, hidden beneath a gauzy veil of lace, easily shoved aside.

Cecilia plunged two of Trista's fingers inside her slick sex, shaking and gasping and then moaning the first sibilant syllable of Trista's name....

And Trista moved her fingers slowly, in and out, using her thumb to pressure the sweet place, slow rubbing—still more circles! Love was a circle!—and taking delight in Cecilia's spasms at her touch. Now it was Cecilia, earthy and dominant to this point, who was at a loss to control her limbs. The golden-haired girl now gazed into Trista's face with a kind of naïve wonder and begged for more,
faster
, and it was Trista who held the power to acquiesce or deny. Trista, who leaned in to kiss as she played below, Trista who—

Trilling whistles penetrated the clouds in her head, puncturing the pleasant, passion-induced miasma.

Oh
, thought Trista,
dear
.

The buildings were no longer below them, but towering around. All three emergency whistles wailed like unwatched teapots, and a new kind of flutter found its way into Trista's heart. Fear, this was.

"Don't stop," Cecilia whispered, "please!"

"But we're going to
crash
."

"Then let us crash as lovers crash!" Cecilia grasped Trista's wrist, to keep her hand firmly within her quim.

There was no helping it, Trista supposed. Crash they would, but if she could reach the venting lever, then perhaps the boiler would not explode when they crashed. Of course, whatever lay below would be soaked with the boiling mix—not simply water, the real science used mixtures of more toxic things to create the gasses necessary to power the technology. Simple water steam was for backyard hobbyists.

She reached her free hand for the lever, and found herself about three inches too short. She stretched, her fingertips brushed the lever, but then Cecilia yanked her back. Panting and grunting, she dragged Trista's fingers deeper still.

It was a difficult decision, actually, whether to try again for the lever or just give up and—

There was really no decision at all. Trista lunged for the lever, dragging her hand roughly from between Cecilia's legs with the sound of ripping lace—there went the doe-eyed girl's undergarments, alas, undoubtedly they were pretty—and Cecilia's whoop of surprise. Trista caught hold of the lever.

The sprawl was much larger now, the buildings looming over the airship. All too familiar, Trista half realized as she used all her strength to shove the lever.

The boiler began to vent its murk out the shunt valves, raining the stuff down on...

Oh, no
. Trista realized just where her skyship was crashing.

Those fourteen-story buildings around her belonged to the Cog, Clockwork, and Steam Technologies School of Engineering, home for both herself and Cecilia. And Cecilia's father, headmaster Wayne Foglio. The venting had probably sent the caustic goop down into the University's central quad, which she now recalled had been cordoned off for a new presentation by prodigy student Byron Pedigrew.

Then, Cecilia caught hold of her hand once more and pulled it home.

As the brass and wooden construct slammed into the glass and granite façade of the Headmaster's Office, smashing its way through, Cecilia howled with orgasm.

Balloon lines sheared, and the flat, boat-like bulk of the ship slammed atop the headmaster's desk and then crushed it nearly flat. There was no explosion. However, Trista felt the sudden wish that there had been. Something fiery to spare her the many smaller explosions to come...

* * * *

"And they kicked you out for that?" Heck Lansdale was a flat-featured fellow with an infectious grin, a slight stoop to his posture, and the kindness to buy a lady a drink.

Not that Trista felt she was a lady at all. Ladies did not get themselves asked to leave one of the Nation's most prestigious institutes due to charges of Grand Destruction and the unacknowledged breach of proprieties with the headmaster's only daughter.

"Well..." Trista suddenly wondered just how much she might have divulged. She had hoped to gloss over several of the facts, keeping names (and, well, genders) out of the mess, but this wine was a little stronger than she was accustomed to. "Yes."

"So, then you came to Chicago?"

"Because of the World's Columbian Exposition, I thought I might be able to secure a patron to continue my studies..."

With the World's Fair showcasing so many architectural and industrial marvels, she had assumed that she might ride someone's coattails into a position of financial stability. While the schooling was now beyond her, short of some miraculous change of tempers, she could pursue the science as a dedicated hobbyist, which was how many of the advances in the steam-powered technologies came about in the first place. Alas, the task turned out to be even more monumental than she had assumed, due in no small part to the fascination with Nikola Tesla's alternating current electrical power, which lighted the entire affair. Her disappointment was made even more unbearable by the loneliness of knowing so few people in the city.

"Well," Heck Lansdale said, waving for another draught of wine, "it just so happens that you might have found an interested party after all."

Trista was no fool. This gentleman had only just met her, and though she had discovered just how uncomfortable she could be around the specifics of love, Trista knew well how some persons of low character might woo. Ah, to be with CeeCee, again! She would do so many things differently, if given another chance. But despite the looks of absolute adoration Cecilia had given her, Headmaster Foglio had a fit over the handling of his daughter, expressed through spiteful and thinly veiled metaphors regarding his broken desk.