by D. L. King
Burton grinned. “I like that. It fits.”
“I don’t think he realizes what a true genius you are. I certainly did not. I would wager that you come up with new ideas for carnal machines all the time.”
“Oh, I do. If you only knew….”
“So give him your current inventions. Last year’s models, if you will. Then set your mind to devising the next generation of erotic technology.” Lin’s delicate fingers hovered like hummingbirds above Burton’s bare skin. “I can help you.”
Burton grabbed the fluttering hand and kissed Lin’s palm. “Oh? How will you help?”
Lin slipped off the chaise into Burton’s lap. “You can test them all on me.” She pursed her lips around one of Burton’s nipples. The older woman squirmed. “And Chris—may I call you that?”
“Christine,” Burton replied. The long-unused name was strange on her tongue.
“You can be yourself with me, Christine. You don’t have to pretend. You can take off your trousers and vest and be a woman again.” Lin’s nimble fingers slithered into Christine’s quim. “We could even travel together—a wealthy widow and her young secretary.”
Christine flipped Lin onto her back and straddled her, rubbing the artificial phallus back and forth in the girl’s slick crease. “Or we could travel as men. That would give us a lot more freedom. I could build you a clockwork cock of your own and teach you to use it. I could use my cock to take you like the boy you were pretending to be. Would you like that?” Lin’s eyes grew wide when the infernal device impaled her. She nodded, gasping, as Christine began to stroke.
“Yes, Lin—I think we’re on the brink of a brave new world.”
LAIR OF THE RED COUNTESS
Kathleen Bradean
An inch of ash flaked off Archibald Fraser’s cigar and dropped onto the back of the snarling tiger splayed at his feet. He glanced around the oak-paneled public room of the Adventurer’s Club and settled back into his chair as he stifled a sigh. When he’d been home, an urgent need to get out had driven him to the club, but once there, he found himself in a similar state.
The moment Archie had entered the club, the squire had attached himself with the tenacity of a leech. It was widely acknowledged, though never mentioned in the squire’s hearing, that he hadn’t set foot outside London in a decade. While the squire admired adventurers tremendously and relished dressing like one, he was deeply suspicious of clean air and plants that hadn’t been sculpted into topiary. The little Egyptian adventure he was so fond of retelling had either taken place twenty years ago, or, more likely, was cobbled together from the exploits of members of the club who had actually been there.
Toffy (Edmund “Toffy” Toffington, Third Earl of Stoke-On-Trent) bounded into the room and took the chair beside Archie. When he saw the squire, he began to rise, but then plopped back into place, resigned to his fate.
As the squire droned on, Archie sipped his whiskey and stared at the fire. He had no obligations in town. Perhaps he should simply board a train and head off somewhere. Just where, he had no idea. He smoothed his magnificent ginger moustache as he tried to decide. Scotland? No. France? No.
“Archie, I say, what do you think of that?” Toffy asked.
Archie hated to admit that he hadn’t been listening attentively. “Frightful,” he said.
“It is! If I wanted to see my wife, I’d go home.”
Archie realized Toffy had been talking about something other than the squire’s alleged Egyptian adventure. “Sorry. My mind was elsewhere. What’s this about Lady Toffington?”
“She’s joined that new Spiritualist’s Society. Bunch of damned women talking to spirits. Bad enough that she’s holding séances in our home, but now she’s visiting their club all the time, and it’s right across the street!”
“You don’t say.” Archie wasn’t married, so he wasn’t aware of how inconvenient it could be to run into one’s wife in public.
“You’re awfully quiet this evening, Archie. Touch of Amazon fever?”
The truth was that Archie was bored. He’d been bored before he set out to South America, was fitful while he was there and had suffered a bit of melancholia upon returning to London. The problem, he decided, was that no matter where he went, he remained the same.
“Are you dining here at the club tonight?” the squire asked.
“Er…” Toffy glanced at Archie.
Archie set his cigar on the elephant foot table beside his chair. “Maybe you’re right about Amazon fever. Can’t seem to hold still.” Even as he said it, he felt how true it was. He couldn’t stay where he was for another moment. “Maybe I’ll go check out that Spiritualist’s Club.”
The squire gasped. “But all those women.”
“A bit of adventure.” Archie winked at Toffy.
Toffy grabbed a newspaper and held it before his face. “If you see my wife, don’t tell her where I am.”
Alerted by the slam of the Adventurer’s Club’s door, a crossing sweeper ran ahead of Archie to clear a path through the horse dung and street filth. When they reached the establishment across the street without a befouling incident, the urchin raised his hand for his penny. Archie tossed it to him and mounted the stone stairs.
Feeling that he was being watched, Archie looked over his shoulder at the Adventurer’s Club. The curtains in the front window jerked closed. He harrumphed and turned back to the red door before him.
A stout hall porter answered the bell. “May I help you, sir?”
Archie shouldered past the man. “I wish to speak to the person in charge of this establishment.”
“I’m afraid that most of the members are attending a séance in Kensington.” The hall porter closed the door and followed Archie into the foyer. He extended his hand for Archie’s hat, but was rebuffed.
“Nonsense. Someone must be here.” Archie figured that the worst that could happen was that he’d be thrown out of the place. He almost welcomed such a scene. It would be something different, after all.
A staircase immediately ahead of Archie lead to the upper stories of the narrow townhouse. Oriental rugs covered the black-and-white marble floor of the foyer. Double doors immediately to his right were closed.
Archie pulled open the doors and stepped into a room he imagined was a parlor. The gas lamps were turned so low that it was hard to see. A round table covered by a fringed cloth sat before the fireplace. As his eyes grew accustomed to the twilight, he saw chairs and settees whose deep cushions were upholstered in jewel-tone velvets. Every small table in the room was crowded with pictures and knickknacks. It was a distinctly feminine room, but then, the spiritualist movement was largely composed of, and led by, women. He snorted. Every occultist he’d met on his adventures understood the importance of atmosphere. What the frilly room needed, he thought, was a mummified monkey’s paw and a few skulls.
The whisper of silk skirts close by caught Archie’s attention. He turned, and immediately his eyes were drawn to the luminescent orbs of a magnificent bosom, which, like twin moons, crested at a thin horizon of black lace. The woman those orbs were attached to sat in a leather wingback chair. She wore a dress of such deep garnet silk that she was almost swallowed whole by the shadows except for the ethereal luminescence of her décolletage.
Archie’s ruminations on the efficacy of sliding his suddenly turgid cock between those orbs were interrupted by a heavily accented woman’s voice that rang through the room like a whip crack.
“Even if we had been properly introduced, I would find your behavior wholly unacceptable.”
Archie flinched even as his cock sprang to full attention. It was as if he’d been transported back to his first year at university, when an upstairs maid in his dean’s service had taken much the same offense to his attentions. The maid spent the better part of the school year educating him in the proper expression of his base desires. Alas, during one of her afternoon tutoring sessions, his yelps had been heard, and the maid was summarily dismissed. His dean had ma
de it quite clear that sort of thing simply wasn’t done, unless, of course, it was the pert bottom of the young lady on the receiving end of the blows. With his academic career off to a tenuous start, Archie avoided further dealings with the fairer sex. Scandal was to be avoided at any cost.
“Who are you?” the woman asked. That time, her low voice caressed the nape of Archie’s neck like incense smoke wreathing a sinner’s prayer.
Archie drew himself up. “I’m seeking the person in charge.” He squinted. She sat only two feet away from him, but the features of her face were difficult to discern.
The hall porter, who had followed Archie into the parlor, bowed to the shadowy figure. “Forgive me, Countess. He shoved his way in here. I will call the footmen.”
Her gloved hand lifted. At the flick of her wrist, the hall porter backed out of the room.
A tapestry footstool slammed against Archie’s ankles.
“Sit.”
He was at least a foot taller than she, and his travels into rugged territory kept him in peak physical shape. He’d climbed mountains, paddled through dangerous waters, dined with indigenous chieftains and slept in Bedouin tents, and yet, one word from her, and he sank onto the footstool as if a hidden force compelled him.
His knees spread in an unseemly manner. He held his hat before his groin.
She lifted her garnet skirts just enough to flash a shapely, pale ankle. Her foot rose and with a kick sent his hat rolling across the floor.
“Leave it.”
Archie withdrew his hand. As his cock sent most urgent messages to his brain, he clasped his hands at his lap and tried to press his knees together.
The countess leaned forward. The sweetly resinous scent of amber and myrrh filled his nose. Her magnificent bosom was inches from his face. It strained against the tight confines of her dress and threatened to spill over the top. With great difficulty, he tore his gaze from the alluring sight, to her eyes.
Her lips curved, as if she found him amusing. Perhaps she did. His ungainly posture made it impossible to adequately hide his erection. Another emotion glinted in her dark eyes. Her foot pressed against his most delicate gentlemen’s parts.
“Madam!” As he flailed about in an attempt to back away, the pressure increased.
“I did not give you permission to rise. Be still.”
Archie stared at the slippered foot wedged between his thighs as if he were a bird caught in the hypnotic gaze of a snake. He huffed as any gentleman in that situation ought to, but then realized he wasn’t truly outraged. He could have escaped, of course, but for the first time in months, his ennui had dissipated. If nothing else, he was going to find out what this woman was up to.
“You try my patience. State your business.”
“I am Archibald Fraser.”
Her chuckle gave him an uneasy feeling. “Ah, so you are Mr. Fraser. I’ve been expecting you.”
“You have?”
The countess grasped a bell from the cluttered table beside her chair. The parlor doors banged open. Two footmen, better suited to bear baiting or dock work than their fine livery, entered the room. Archie craned his neck to look up at the mountains of muscle headed toward him.
The countess rose from her chair. “Bring the gentleman to my laboratory.”
She left the room in a swish of crinoline underskirts. The scent of amber and myrrh trailed in her wake.
Archie struggled to rise from his undignified position, but the footmen clasped their meaty hands around his arms and dragged him across the plush Oriental carpet before he could. While he was fit, he was no match for the two of them. As they yanked him down the dark hallway leading to a flight of stairs, he wondered what horrors awaited him.
The countess’s laboratory was below stairs. The walls were solid stone. In contrast to the murky parlor, gaslights glowed brightly at even intervals along the wall. He’d expected the bitter scent of chemicals and questionable concoctions bubbling away in glass beakers, but the far half of the room reminded him of the library in the Adventurer’s Club. It was the nearer part of the room that concerned him most, though.
Before him was a large contraption of copper and wrought iron. If he had stood on his tiptoes, Archie couldn’t have reached the top bar. Hinged arms swung out to both sides of the device, giving it the look of an upside-down spider. At waist level on the device, there was a padded bar before a platform. Two glass orbs sat on either side of the platform.
Beside the curious machine was a small wrought iron engine that looked a bit like a Franklin stove that had fallen over.
“Place him in the soul machine.”
The footmen forced Archie across the room to the device. He dug in his heels, to no avail.
“Help!”
The Countess laughed. “The room is quite soundproof, Mr. Fraser. With the door closed, no one will hear you.”
He struggled, but there was no escaping the grips on his arms. Within moments, his stomach was pressed tight to the padded bar. The footmen attached shackles to his wrists. One turned a crank on the side of the contraption. Slowly, his arms were pulled forward until he was bent at the waist, stretched out, chest down on the platform behind the padded bar. A belt went around the small of his back, forcing his midsection against the padding. He felt tugging on his legs. Before he could think of kicking, his legs were spread much as his arms were.
“You can’t do this to me! I’m an Englishman.”
The footmen withdrew from the room. The heavy door shut with a dishearteningly solid thud.
The Countess ran her hands over the glass orbs that sat just beyond the reach of Archie’s fingertips. “Do you like my soul machine? It’s been my life’s work to improve it.”
Despite his situation, Archie laughed. “You fancy yourself a scientist? A woman?”
“Do I seem the fanciful sort, Mr. Fraser?”
Her tone chilled his heart. She was obviously a dangerous type; intriguing, beautiful and absolutely frightening. She struck him as a formidable foe, a nemesis to be conquered, and yet, he found being at her mercy quite alluring. Despite being manhandled by her burly footmen, his erection had not wavered one bit. If anything, it was most insistent that he release it from his trousers.
Archie gathered his dignity. “Spiritualists are nothing more than frauds who bilk the credulous with their parlor tricks. Table rapping and other such amusements do not pass the test of scientific scrutiny.”
“I agree.”
That wasn’t what he expected her to say.
“That opinion can’t make you very popular around here. If you feel that way, why do you associate with these people?” he asked.
“Very good, Mr. Fraser. Why indeed?”
Archie rather liked that little taste of praise. He had a feeling that such approval was rare.
The countess stepped back. “As you may have guessed, I am Russian. Before I left my home, I was frequently at Peterhof. There, I witnessed Rasputin’s ability, with only murmured words, to stop the Tsarevitch’s bleeding. He was an awful man, Rasputin. I wanted to believe the worst, that he was a charlatan, and yet, I could not deny what he was able to do. From that moment on, I devoted myself to the study of those things that can be observed but not measured. These spiritualists are the only people I’ve met here who are open to such research. When you’re a stranger in a strange land, you take refuge where it’s offered.”
Archie was tempted to make a quip about strange bedfellows, but decided against it. “But no real scientist would dabble in the occult.”
“You obviously don’t count many scientists among your acquaintances. But I have much more in common with…” Her nearly flawless grasp of English seemed to elude her for a moment. “We are both adventurers, Mr. Fraser. You explore rivers and jungles; I, the human soul. This device allows me to observe a man’s deepest hopes and desires.”
He’d heard things about the Russians and their capacity for cruelty. After all, they weren’t truly European and not quite civili
zed. Their proximity to the Oriental mind had twisted them in ways he couldn’t comprehend.
“Then it’s torture, is it?”
The scent of her filled his nose like opium fumes when she moved one of the device’s many spider arms under the platform. He’d glimpsed a brass ring at the end of the pole before it disappeared from sight. Something pressed against Archie’s groin, but it was under the platform where he couldn’t see it. He felt his cock being maneuvered inside his trousers so that the ring encased it.
“I say!”
The fit was quite snug. He wished she’d removed his erection from his trousers before she’d stuffed it into the ring.
As the countess cranked a large wheel on the side of the device, Archie’s hands were pulled to the glass orbs. They were cool against his heated palms.
“Are you familiar with the scientific discoveries of Mr. Tesla? A most interesting man. I hope to meet him one day. These plasma orbs are his design, although I have improved them and modified them for my own ends.”
“What nefarious plan do you have in mind?”
She smiled at him a bit sadly. “You will feel tingling in your fingertips. Don’t be alarmed. It’s only a mild electrical current running through your shackles. It will pass through your hands to the plasma orbs. Now, this part is very important, Mr. Fraser, so I ask that you be attentive. If you raise your hands from the orbs at any time, the current will be broken, and all sensation will stop. If you place your hands back on the orbs, it will begin again. If at any time you feel you can’t go on, you will admit it to me, and I will stop the device.”
“So it is torture!”
“Something far worse. Something almost unbearable.” She bent close to his ear and spoke as if relishing the word rolling over her tongue. “Pleasure.”
The countess flipped a switch on the weird Franklin stove on the floor. It hummed.
Archie’s hands tingled. They almost tickled. His gaze was drawn from the countess to the plasma orbs. Inside them, colored lightning arced from the places where his fingertips touched the glass to a center rod. It was strangely beautiful. He’d never seen anything like it. As the lightning grew in intensity, he felt vibrations over his cock.