Clockwork Captive

by Anh Leod

  With a prayer for success, he pulled his gloves back on when he’d attached the wires and climbed up the roof, then slithered to the back of the house and dangled his feet off the roof until he found the window sill with his boots. Two minutes later he was back in the attic, pouring water from the brim of his hat back out the window.

  He sloshed through the empty room and opened the trap door an inch. Hearing nothing, he crept down, pushed the ladder back up and went to his room.

  Inside, he did a little jig. Time to go to the club and remove Celeste. He was utterly soaked, but he’d say he walked through the rain without an umbrella.

  At eight p.m., Mrs. Teagarden welcomed him into the hallway. “You’re h’eager tonight, Master ‘owell.”

  “I have plans later this evening,” he said, hoping his measured tones did not betray the pounding of his heart, still active from the exertions on the roof.

  “You’ll catch your death like that.”

  “Forgot my umbrella,” he said. “Noah could float his ark down the street tonight.”

  “I ‘ope all my customers are as eager as you.” She gestured him to the stairs and he walked up behind him, his dripping clothes leaving puddles on the carpet. At Celeste’s door she rapped hard.

  “Liza!”

  Celeste opened the door, her expression bored. She was a good actress, Brace saw with approval. Her little sneer reminded him of the way her mouth had milked his cock and he hardened instantly. He didn’t think he’d ever look at her without becoming aroused.

  “I’ll bring you a towel,” Mrs. Teagarden said. “Make sure you wipe the floor when you’re done, Liza. I don’t want the boards getting warped.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Celeste said.

  Brace winced when he realized the getting of the towel would cause a delay and another chance for the proprietress to get a look at Celeste. As if hearing his thoughts, she put her hand to her throat, covering the clockwork mechanism. He realized that one look at her had caused all thoughts of the magnet to flee from his brain. Had it worked? He had no way to tell until time passed and he could see if the hands moved.

  Mrs. Teagarden pulled the key from her bodice and placed it in the clockwork. Celeste stood as still as a statue when the proprietress huffed. “Well, I’ll be, the bloody thing ain’t turning.”

  Brace’s fast heartbeats increased to something that a horse might experience in a race. Why hadn’t he realized he ought not to have engaged the magnet until after Mrs. Teagarden had gone? He should have left the magnet on the roof unengaged and climbed up to connect the wires during his hour.

  He heard the door knocker hitting the door downstairs. Mrs. Teagarden huffed again. “Well, sir, you are a regular so you know the rules. I’ll be back to get you in an hour.”

  “Very well,” he said, fisting his hands at his sides.

  Celeste blinked fast.

  “I’ll just get that towel,” the proprietress muttered and stomped down the hallway.

  Celeste turned sideways so he could enter her room.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know just how the magnet would work,” he muttered.

  “We can still do this,” she whispered. “She didn’t notice that the time was off by ten minutes. I think her vision is going.”

  A minute later, Mrs. Teagarden was handing in a graying towel and Celeste shut the door.

  “We’d better go quickly while she’s downstairs,” Celeste said, once the footsteps were gone away. “They still can’t find me, right? The alarm won’t go off.”

  “It’s not wound.” Brace wiped his clothes with the towel and threw it the corner.

  “Right. We are free of the alarm completely, since the clockwork daytime routine, which runs on a secondary set of hands in a corner of the medallion, was disabled by Mrs. Teagarden as usual before the door was unlocked for the start of the night.” Celeste clasped her hands in front of her, as if to pray.

  “We don’t have to worry about it,” Brace marveled.

  They heard voices downstairs. Celeste blinked but didn’t move.

  “We need to go before she realizes another girl has a broken clockwork,” Brace said.

  “You’re right.” His words propelling her into motion, she opened the door, peering into the hall before gesturing him to come.

  They walked quickly to the end of the hall. Brace pulled the rope for the trapdoor and Celeste ran up the stairs. He could see a little light through the front window from the streetlamps. The rain must have slowed.

  “How do we get out?”

  “Through the window. I’ll go up first, then reach down and pull you up.”

  Celeste nodded. Brace shook his head and pulled off his coat, then buttoned it around her, while Celeste fretted about wasting time. “I don’t want you to get hurt. That fabric could rip.

  He opened the window and climbed out, then lay on the roof and wiggled his hands at her. It was evidence of her desperation that she didn’t hesitate to climb through the window and clasp his hands. In a moment he had her by the waist and they slid down the slope to the gutter between the two buildings.

  “We have to climb up now and repeat this in the other window.”

  Celeste pushed wet hair out of her eyes. “It’s a good thing I loved climbing trees as a child.”

  “I knew you could do this.” He gave her a quick peck on the lips. “You go first.”

  Her bare feet made it easier to climb up the slate tiles to the top of the roof, but he knew her knees would be sore after crawling back to the window, which thankfully he’d remembered to keep unlocked. The magnet could barely be seen at the far end of the roof, but he could smell it despite the rain. He left it there and wondered if any of Celeste’s fellow captives would try to escape that night.

  He went through first, but she didn’t need his help getting inside. Then he put a finger to his lips and they walked quietly to the trapdoor. When he opened it an inch to check, he saw a man in the hallway and put up his hand to alert Celeste. When the man entered his room, Brace pushed down the ladder and helped Celeste climb. They ran for his room, hand in hand, and were safely inside in a moment.

  “I hadn’t realized you wouldn’t have shoes.”

  “We aren’t allowed to keep clothes or anything in our room. I haven’t left that building since I entered it,” Celeste said, shivering. She twisted her hem, wringing out water.

  “The carriage should be downstairs by now,” he said, knowing this wasn’t the time to feel the emotions he certainly would when he truly considered the length of her captivity. “Can you give me my coat? I have a cloak for you. We need to cover your face and hair.”

  “And the medallion,” Celeste agreed, passing him his coat. “Oh, it’s dry,” she said happily when she wrapped the cloak around herself and pulled up the hood.

  “I have a parcel of food too, though it will be cold now.” Brace locked the door behind him. He’d send the key back through the post since it would be unwise to reappear on this street any time soon. Unfortunately, Mrs. Teagarden knew his real name, but hopefully she wouldn’t try to find him.

  They went down the stairs and saw a carriage waiting up the street. Brace recognized the driver as the man he hired and ushered Celeste out the door and down into the street, then back to the carriage. As it pulled away, he saw two men entering the club. The night’s business continued, and Mrs. Teagarden would certainly discover Celeste was missing at nine o’clock, but hopefully she’d be too busy to do anything about it until they were long gone.

  ~*~

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jonathan’s eyes widened with excitement as he peered at the clockwork medallion on Celeste’s throat.

  “Ingenious,” he proclaimed, straightening up. “I’m very happy to have such an unusual item in my collection. No doubt almost as pleased as you will be to have it removed, Miss Flaherty.”

  “Quite.” Celeste curled her toes around the bars framing the leg of the stool Jonathan had offered.

  Their cloth
ing was still damp, but Jonathan had stoked the fires in his work area and it was quite toasty as he set to work. Despite her ordeal, Celeste’s bright eyes had taken in the room with avid interest. Brace knew he’d found himself one amazing woman.

  His friend had set out a variety of cutting tools and a stack of soft cloths. “This is going to hurt, I’m afraid.”

  “Freeing me cannot hurt more than my initial imprisonment,” she assured him.

  Brace was amazed by how still she stood, how patient and stoic her expression, as Jonathan slowly cut off the clockwork medallion. After about twenty minutes he had sawed away the surprisingly thick bars pierced through her throat and removed the chain. Only one of the spots had bled and Brace had been quick with the towel, keeping her skin dry so Jonathan could continue working.

  Jonathan placed the medallion on another towel. “Toss the bloody one into the fire, will you?”

  Brace complied, wishing he could do the same with the medallion itself.

  “I wonder if the magnet destroyed the mechanism completely,” Jonathan mused.

  “I would expect so. It needed to be rewound in the morning, but it always worked through the night.” Celeste fingered her throat, covering the holes left by the removal of the clockwork medallion.

  Without speaking, Jonathan pulled a tattered sheet off of what seemed to be a board leaning against the wall, but turned out to be a mirror.

  Celeste stepped toward it and stared at herself. After an audible sigh, she said, “At least it is gone, but there is no way to repair the damage.”

  Brace gestured to his friend’s worktable. He rubbed his fingers together, meaning money, then pointed to himself, hoping Jonathan understood. His friend nodded and moved to the space and started rummaging through wooden drawers. From one of them, he pulled a small cherry wood box and opened it. He made a small sound of satisfaction and returned to the mirror.

  “Perhaps this will help for now?” he asked, holding the open box to Celeste.

  “It’s lovely,” she said.

  Brace craned his neck, trying to see.

  Jonathan pulled out a heavy silver chain. “I couldn’t sell it because it is not at all the current style, but I thought it was beautiful when I made it.”

  The chain was attached on either side to a frontispiece of rectangular silver. A slim channel of green stones was fixed across the metal.

  “Here,” Jonathan said, undoing the clasp and standing behind Celeste. He dropped the necklace over her head and settled the rectangular piece across her throat. “It covers the pierced spots perfectly.”

  Brace stepped to Celeste’s side as she admired the effect. She still wore only the thin white dress, the hem darkened by rain, but with the majestic necklace she looked like a queen.

  Celeste smiled. “I love it, but it must be so expensive. I have nothing to trade.”

  “It’s just glass beads,” Jonathan said. “I was going to reset it if I found a buyer.”

  “A gift,” Brace said. “I want you to have it, Celeste.”

  She turned to him and put her hand on his arm. Her eyes shimmered with happiness.

  Jonathan cleared his throat. “I’ll need to ready a bed for you. But stay here until I have a fire lit and find blankets. Twenty minutes or so?”

  Brace nodded without taking his eyes from Celeste. She stepped toward the mirror and her hips swayed a little, reminding him of an invention Jonathan had showed him once. Would it still be in those drawers of his? He wanted her to forget her ordeal.

  When the inventor had gone back to the house, Brace prowled through the workspace until he found what he was looking for.

  He pulled the foot-long brass cylinder from the drawer and walked back to Celeste, winding the invention’s side knob with his fingers as he went.

  “What’s that?” Celeste asked.

  He smiled and knelt before her. “You’ll see. Do you trust me?”

  “Of course.”

  He wet the brass tip with saliva. “Then watch yourself in the mirror.”

  He held the windup mechanism in one hand and lifted her skirt with the other. Her legs were parted about six inches, perfect for his purposes. He set the tip of the invention against her mons, just above her pearl, and let go of the dial. The little machine sputtered to life.

  Celeste’s pelvis jerked.

  “Lean into it,” Brace urged.

  Celeste complied, then she let her breath out sharply. “Oh, my.”

  “I wonder why he couldn’t sell this one,” Brace said, watching her eyes widen and her lips part.

  She gasped again with pleasure, then one hand pressed against the mirror as she used it to help her balance. Her eyes half-closed and she moaned.

  Brace slid the head of the cylinder between her legs.

  “Oh,” she cried, “right there, please.”

  She moved against it, her juices coating the brass.

  The scent of her arousal made Brace ache with hunger for her. His balls tightened painfully. He wanted to be inside her, but she was enjoying the device too much.

  Her other hand met the first on the mirror and he found himself sandwiched between her and the cool surface, her pelvis thrusting rhythmically along the metal surface.

  She groaned deeply, her forehead touching the mirror. “It’s slowing down, don’t let it stop.”

  Brace wound the dial, Celeste protesting because it stopped vibrating while he did it. He realized that a full wind didn’t last long enough for a woman to find her pleasure and that was probably why it hadn’t made it past the prototype design. Jonathan had some more work to do, and when it was ready Brace would be his first customer.

  He took his fingers from the dial and the cylinder began to vibrate again. Celeste shrieked with pleasure. Her hips jerked and she gasped as she found completion, a low, throaty sound he found infinitely erotic. He felt his cock leaking pre-cum against his underclothes. She pressed her cunny one last time against the vibrating device then tilted away, purring with satisfaction.

  “I’m finally warm,” she breathed.

  He pulled the device from between her legs and stood so he could set it on the low table he recognized from his last visit. When he turned back, he bumped a lever attached to the table and saw a puff of smoke, then the table began to vibrate. He must have engaged a motor. Jonathan had added it since he was there.

  When he looked at Celeste her eyes were wide. “It’s like a life-size version of that vibrating machine.”

  “It must be meant to be a bed,” Brace said, taking the small device from the table.

  Celeste walked, a bit shakily, to it. Fixing her gaze to his, she lifted her thin gown in one flowing movement and tossed it to the floor. Then, she sat down on the table. “Make love to me,” she said, lifting her feet to its surface and sliding back.

  He read the words from her lips because the motor was rather loud. Leaning toward her ear, he asked, “Wouldn’t it be more pleasurable for you to face down?”

  She smiled and turned toward his ear. “I like the way it feels on my back. Very relaxing after that long carriage ride.”

  He wondered how it would feel on his knees, but his cock could care less. When he unhooked his trousers and pushed down his underclothes, it sprang out. He sighed in relief at the taste of freedom. His cock jutted in Celeste’s direction, arrogantly demanding its turn. “Very well, then.”

  She held out her arms as he stepped onto the table, then knelt between her legs. He smelled rain on her skin, and grit, and the pungent scent of her arousal. A faint metallic odor wafted in the air as well, perhaps from the tools or her new silver necklace. He wanted to kiss the piercing wounds, to show her he didn’t find them appalling, but that should wait for when the sore spot had healed. For now, he could focus on other parts of her beautiful body.

  Her arms tightened around his shoulders as he bent his head to her nipple and licked her tenderly. The vibrations from the bed made him shake continuously, a strange sensation, but he could tell
from the way she stretched her back that it did feel good to her. He pushed his thigh up against her cunny, knowing the vibrations would move up his leg to her tender flesh.

  She groaned instantly, pressing herself against him. “That feels good.”

  He moved his attentions to her other nipple. Her soft flesh was womanly perfection. Could he make her happy? Would she stay with him after this night?

  When she arched her breast into his mouth, he forgot the longer term concerns, and let the taste and scent and feel of her flesh move him. His cock could not be denied, and the wetness of her cunny told him she would not complain when he joined them together.

  Moving his lips to hers, taking her mouth in an open, carnal kiss, he placed his cock at her opening and slid home in one long, eternal thrust.

  She cried out against his mouth, so loudly that he could hear the sound of her voice above the motor.

  He tried to work with the vibrations, but the bed moved so much faster than he did that he gave up after a few seconds and found his own rhythm. Her thighs slid up his and she spread her legs, giving him more access to her channel. He thrust harder, deeper. Her hips moved in time, creating a symphony of pleasures for them both. Her moist heat welcomed him endlessly and he knew the grand finale was not far away.

  It seemed the vibrations began to work on him then, sending his body off balance so the only thing he could focus on was the place where he joined with Celeste, the feel of sliding flesh. Her hands tickled down his back and she spanked him hard on each cheek, jolting him.

  “Faster!” she commanded.

  He wanted to laugh, but then she spanked him again. Obeying, he quickened his pace, trying to match the impossible speed of the bed.

  Or could he match it? The motor started to slow.

  “Finish before it does,” his lady ordered, spanking him again.

  His cock thrust harshly as he reacted to her hand. He’d never known he’d like to be spanked, but she was certainly teaching him how much he could take and still find it arousing. Letting caution evaporate, he thrust into her as hard as his own body demanded. Her fingers dug into his flesh as he drove himself. He lifted himself to his knees and pulled her hips against him, ramming her in a way he’d never dared with another woman.