Steel Kisses

by Laura Strickland

The hulking man snorted.

  “Look,” Reynold pressed, “do you want this one or not?”

  The man stepped back and eyed the vehicle before he walked around it, looking it over. “This cab’s damaged.”

  “Had a run-in with a fire wagon,” Reynold lied smoothly.

  “On both sides?”

  “You have no idea what it’s like back there. The Crystal Palace is burning down.”

  “The place with all the steamie whores? Shit, might as well burn it down. Have to be a frickin’ millionaire to go there. Though I’ve heard you can’t tell the machines from real women, and they’ll do anything.”

  Reynold struggled to keep his expression under control. “I couldn’t say.”

  “Still, not sure I’d want something full of steam yankin’ on my favorite part, if you know what I mean. Fire, you said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’ll probably all melt anyway. Buddy, I can’t take this cab.”

  Aw, hell. “How come? If it’s the scratches…”

  “Gouges, more like.”

  “Aren’t you just going to take it apart anyway? Not as if you’ll be driving around town with it.”

  “But I sell the panels. Can’t do it.”

  Reynold climbed out of the cab. Of a similar height, the hulking man was twice as wide. “I’ll have to leave it here anyway.”

  “Hey, wait!”

  “What else am I supposed to do with the damned thing?” Reynold fixed the man with a glare. “I understood you had a quota. This was supposed to be the last delivery.”

  “Yeah, I got a customer waiting for the boiler. But this thing, all marked up like this, is incriminating.”

  “Better get it knocked apart as fast as you can, then.”

  The man grunted like the bear he resembled. “All right. But tell Vern the price just went down. And I never want to see you again.”

  Reynold didn’t want to see him again, either, didn’t want to see Vern, for that matter—or another steamcab.

  Wouldn’t have to, now that Lily waited back at his flat.

  At his flat.

  Despite the fact that he’d just delivered stolen goods and—technically—had more in his possession, his heart bounded.

  “You got it,” he told the fellow, and hoofed it as quickly as he could from the shadowy yard. A long walk lay ahead of him, but Lily waited at the end of it. Lily and her companion…shit, what had he done?

  ****

  He stopped for supplies at a late-night market on the way home, to pick up food and some bottled beer. Against all likelihood, he was starving and tried to remember when he’d last had a meal. Breakfast, probably. The shopkeeper asked him if he’d heard about the fire, and he acted surprised.

  “The place is a loss,” the man declared.

  “Yeah? Everybody get out?”

  “Not sure. They say the flames lit up the sky.”

  The city now seemed strangely silent. Reynold went the rest of the way without encountering anyone. His street echoed to his footsteps, and his heart began to pound as he climbed the stairs. What would he find? An empty flat?

  What if the two automatons had fled? Panicked…could they panic? He worked the lock with unsteady hands and opened the door to find them side by side on the shabby sofa, Chastity with her hands folded, and Lily…

  Of all things, she appeared to be reading a book.

  She leaped to her feet when she saw him, and the book slid through her fingers to the floor. She flew to embrace him, wiggling close in his arms.

  He juggled the sack from the shop, but forgot about it when she kissed him. His heart sped again, for another reason this time. But he drew away and eyed Chastity, who remained in her seat, unmoving.

  “Is she all right?”

  “Yes, Rey. She has put herself on standby so we may have some privacy.”

  “Oh?” Reynold squinted at Chastity who sat with her eyes open, staring at nothing. The sight struck him as unsettling. “Where did you get the book?” He certainly possessed none.

  “From Chastity. She suggested I should read it and try out some of the ideas on you. She and I discussed it and came to the conclusion you would be more comfortable without an audience. I have used some of her supplies to cleanse myself and am ready.”

  Reynold’s lips parted, but no words came.

  Lily searched his eyes, her ice-blue gaze cool. “You were gone so long, I’m well into the book and have all sorts of ideas.”

  “You don’t say? But we—uh—can’t just leave her sitting there like that, can we? Not all night.”

  “We are on standby every night in the dormitory. We don’t sleep, as such. But Dr. Landry always seeks to reserve our power. It’s all right, Rey. It isn’t the same as shutdown.”

  Reynold tried to imagine it—a dormitory with rows of beds and all the automatons lying motionless, their eyes open. An involuntary shiver wracked him.

  Yet Lily stepped away from him—not far—and began to unfasten her clothing, what little she wore. A laced-up chemise and a pair of ruffled bloomers. The former came off over her head, revealing her perfect, globular breasts. She wiggled out of the latter precisely as might a human woman.

  No—much more eagerly.

  Now the sack slithered through his fingers and hit the floor.

  “Lily—”

  “Yes, Rey? Or should I call you Lover? I really think I should, for that is what you are. Would you prefer the floor or the bed? For some of the positions, we will require the bed. First you tie me up. Then I tie you…”

  “Lily.” He seized her shoulders, somehow keeping his hands from sliding down to cup those perfect breasts. His head swam. “You don’t have to do this—pay me back, I mean.”

  “Pay you back?”

  “For helping you. I don’t expect it.” Hope was another thing entirely. “I would have helped you anyway. And you’re not a prostitute. Not here.”

  She stood perfectly still for a moment. “I do not understand. I want to touch you. I want you to touch me. Not like the clients. This is different.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You are my lover.”

  Reynold swallowed convulsively.

  “But,” she said more slowly, “I understand I must defer to you.”

  “No, you don’t have to.”

  “I am only an automaton; you are a human. The choice must be yours alone.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  She tipped her head. “I am not familiar with that word. ‘Shit’ I do know. It is a colloquial for…”

  “Bullshit’s pretty much the same.”

  “Shit from bulls?”

  Reynold began to laugh helplessly, the day catching up with him. He laughed till his sides hurt and tears came from his eyes. “Lily, you’re adorable.”

  “Is that good?”

  “It’s very good.”

  “Then you still desire me?”

  “I still desire you.” Couldn’t she tell? Maybe not. She tended to take things at face value. “But I want you to make your own choices. Here—with me—we are equal, like human and human, understand?”

  “I understand. Then I may unbutton your shirt?”

  “You may.”

  “And your trousers?”

  His heart started banging again, enough to kill him. “If you like.”

  “I do not see how we are to proceed with them on. Oh! I see you are ready for servicing after all.”

  He could scarcely be more ready, but he caught her face between his palms. “Not ‘servicing,’ Lily. That’s your past.”

  Something flickered in her pale eyes. “To love me.”

  “Yeah, I’m ready to love you.”

  ****

  Sweet lord in heaven, she was going to kill him—his adorable, little Lily who now lay in his arms with her head on his shoulder, curled up like a kitten. The room had gone quiet and dim, their recent activities having ceased.

  Or paused—he couldn’t quite tell which. Hi
s senses leaped, and his heart took up the now-familiar beat. If he lived ten days, it would be a miracle. But what a way to die.

  His half-stunned eyes moved around the room and fell on Chastity, still seated on the sofa. It had taken him a while to get over the fact that she sat there while he and Lily…the word “indulged” floated through his seized brain.

  They had indulged one another.

  He’d enjoyed it in a holy-shit-I’m-gonna-die sort of way. Had Lily enjoyed it also? Hard to tell. But she wanted. He could no longer question that—she wanted to be close to him. Wanted to touch him. And now, for the moment, she seemed content.

  She cuddled closer in the bed and wrapped her arm around him. She felt so much like a woman, she made it easy to forget she had a boiler beneath those beautiful breasts and a shutoff switch tucked under her arm.

  He supposed he should try to talk to her, come up with a plan for tomorrow when the world came rushing back in, decide what he was going to do with his two charges.

  Instead he whispered, “Lily?”

  “Yes, my lover?”

  “How far did you get reading that book?”

  She stirred against his shoulder, not moving far. “Miss X had met her lover, who introduced her to what he called ‘the delights of the flesh.’ He seems to be very inventive, does he not?”

  “He does.” Reynold reflected on it, squinting at the ceiling. “You mean there’s more?”

  “I believe so, Rey.”

  “And you intend to read the whole book?”

  “Oh, yes. It is most edifying.”

  He’d never live to see his next birthday. Did that matter? Hell, no.

  Groping through the tangled emotions that filled him, he asked, “And did you enjoy what we—what we shared together?”

  “I found it very satisfying. Which is curious because, as Miss X’s lover said, they are pleasures of the flesh, and strictly speaking, I do not have flesh.”

  “You do, though.” Unwisely perhaps, yet unable to help himself, he cupped one breast.

  “I have skin. But what’s inside is not real.” She moved suddenly. “Does that make you desire me less?”

  “No.”

  “Even when I remind you I’m not a real woman?”

  “You don’t need to remind me. I saw your switch, remember? Lily, I still desire you.”

  She ran her hand down his body, her touch delicate and seeking. “I can tell. Too bad I did not have time to read farther. There are no new things left to try. I like doing with you things I’ve never done with clients. It makes us different.”

  “Certainly.”

  “I wish to do these things only with you.”

  “I wish that also.”

  Her fingers caressed him. “You appear ready for more love. Would it be wrong to repeat what we’ve already practiced?”

  Reynold choked.

  “Would you be bored, Rey?”

  “I wouldn’t. I can’t imagine being bored with you.”

  “That is good. I will strive to assure it remains so. And tomorrow, will you bring me more books to read?”

  He would—if he lived that long.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “What you going to do now, eh, with your pretty little dove gone?” Sasha prodded at Reynold the way a torturer might at his victim’s open wound. “I hear a whole bunch of those fancy automatons melted in the fire—nothing left but scorched steel.”

  Reynold made no reply. The two men had walked down Niagara Street from the alley to view the aftermath of the fire. Half the Crystal Palace still stood. In fact from the front, other than signs of scorching, it looked little different from before. The rear and north side, however, where the fire had started, were gone.

  “You mean they died?”

  Sasha regarded him with insolent blue eyes. “They cannot ‘die,’ you fool-without-a-brain. They’re machines. Didn’t you ever get that through that thick head of yours?”

  Reynold thought about punching Sasha in the face and dismissed the idea. It wouldn’t get him anywhere, and after last night’s excesses, he didn’t have the energy.

  It had gone hard with him leaving Lily and Chastity alone in his room so he could report for work. He worried about what they might do there without him and had made them both—Chastity having roused from standby—promise they would not leave the room.

  Would they get bored and restless? Could automatons get restless?

  Chastity had told him she meant to try and analyze the formula of the enzyme wash that kept both her and Lily healthy. Lily has kissed him goodbye.

  He promptly lost control of his thoughts and felt his eyes glaze over. What a night! He hurt from head to foot in the best possible way.

  He wanted to do it all again.

  But that didn’t answer the question of how he might continue to hide the two automatons. What could he ultimately do with them? He couldn’t begin to guess.

  A policeman, catching sight of them, strolled down the street from his post in front of the Crystal Palace.

  “Move along now, gents. Don’t need any gawkers here.” He had a rich, Irish accent and a set of shoulders like a bull.

  Sasha, being Sasha, looked him up and down. “I don’t take orders from you.”

  “Perhaps from the mayor, then? Or the warden down at the jail?”

  Sasha—the ass—toed up to the officer. “You arresting me?”

  “Sasha, come on. We need to get to work anyway.”

  “Listen to your friend, sir,” the officer advised.

  “He is no friend of mine. And I do not take orders from machines.” He shot a look at Reynold. “Can you tell that’s what this is?”

  Reynold’s gaze flew back to the officer. He hadn’t been able to tell at once, but at second glance, the man looked familiar. Had Reynold seen him with Mrs. Gideon in the tavern that one night?

  “He’s still in authority,” he told Sasha. “Let’s clear off.”

  “Your companion has some sense, sir,” the officer told Sasha. “This area isn’t safe. We are to keep people out of the vicinity. I will arrest you if you do not comply.”

  Sasha sneered, “So what happened to all the frilly bits, then?”

  “Frilly bits, sir?”

  “The mechanical whores that were in there.”

  The police officer showed no reaction. Well, he wouldn’t, would he?

  “The interior of the structure is still being assessed—very dangerous work. Many of Dr. Landry’s Ladies have been removed from the premises.”

  “Was there much loss of life?” Reynold ventured.

  That made the automaton turn bright green eyes on him. “Yes, sir, I am afraid so, though as I mentioned, losses are still being assessed.”

  Well, then, Reynold thought, maybe two more missing Ladies wouldn’t seem too suspicious—yet. He might have a bit of breathing room.

  “He is a fool.” His gaze on the officer, Sasha jerked his head toward Reynold. “I keep telling him those things were never alive.”

  The officer replied flatly, “A number of humans were also in the building when the fire broke out.”

  “Do they know how the fire started?” Reynold inquired.

  “No, sir, that has yet to be determined.”

  “Well, thank you. Come on, Belsky. We’ll be needed at the coffin shop.”

  “Coffin shop.” The officer tipped his head. “Would that be McMahon’s?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Liam McMahon is a friend of mind.” The officer offered Reynold his hand. “Patrick Kelly. Please tell him I sent my greetings.”

  “Reynold Michaels. I will.”

  They shook hands while Sasha muttered darkly, turned on his heel and stalked off toward the alley.

  Reynold looked into Kelly’s eyes. “I hear you were recently married. My felicitations.”

  “Thank you, sir. My wife and I are very happy.”

  Reynold longed to say so much more, ached to ask this automaton what he felt, if he
loved—how he’d fought his way out of the stigma lent by being a machine. Only he couldn’t, for Sasha chose to stalk off in disgust rather than give Patrick Kelly the time of day.

  Of course, Sasha truly was an ass.

  Reynold said none of it, just nodded and followed in Sasha’s tracks. When he looked back, Kelly had returned to his post in front of the Crystal Palace, where he stood looking utterly human.

  ****

  “I have concluded I cannot analyze this,” Chastity declared. “I have failed. I do not believe I have ever before failed at anything.”

  Lily joined Chastity at the kitchen table, upon which lay what might well be every bowl and plate Reynold possessed. The largest basin held their remaining supply of enzyme wash, the ingredients of which Chastity had spent the day seeking to determine, only now admitting defeat.

  “Why are you unable to identify the ingredients?”

  “I do not possess the necessary information. I am able to tell one component from another, but the formulations were not included in my basic intelligence.”

  “Just like we were not taught the location of our shutoff switches. Dr. Landry, believing we would be always under her care, did not think we would ever need the information.”

  “Dr. Landry,” Chastity said succinctly, “never expected us to take control of our lives—which is what we have now done. Unfortunately, Sister, our independence will not last long if we cannot duplicate this vital fluid.”

  “I am regretful I neglected to bring my bundle.”

  “We would still run out eventually.”

  “But it would have lasted twice as long.”

  “I have discovered something about myself, Sister. I do not like to fail.” Chastity looked at Lily. “Is it good to have ideas about ‘self’?”

  “I think so. It is a human characteristic. Miss X has many ideas about herself.”

  “I supposed it would feel better.”

  “I have observed that humans frequently do not feel good about themselves. Our clients often did not. I think even Rey does not always. And he is so…perfect.”

  “Yes? I will include that in my intelligence. Being human is complicated.”

  The lock on the door rattled; Rey came in carrying several bags and bundles.

  “Rey! Welcome home.”

  “Thank you, Lily. Is everything all right here?”