Alice's Adventures in Steamland: The Clockwork Goddess

by Wol-vriey

  He’d get this conversation over with before seeking out the palace physician.

  “Anna’s sick,” her majesty said.

  “I agree,” Lord Busybody replied, “only a lunatic . . .”

  “No no, I mean actual ‘sick’,” Victoria clarified. She placed a heart-shaped cherry cake between her heart-shaped lips before continuing. “Under persuasive torture, all the Texans captured after yesterday’s attack confirmed it. She had an accident of some kind two years ago, and she’s not been herself ever since. They all refer to her by this odd name, ‘Mech-Anna’. Some others call her ‘the Clockwork Goddess’.”

  “Just like the caterpillar,” Alice mumbled around a mouthful of cake.

  “What caterpillar, Aunt Marie?”

  “That toy one we found in . . .”

  “. . .Arizona,” Lord Busybody filled in for her.

  “It came alive all of a sudden, when Dudley was about to experiment on it, and started saying the most absurd things.”

  “What things?” The queen asked.

  Alice let her ‘husband’ explain. Her flamingo-cup had wandered off to the far end of the table while she’d been talking, so she haughtily ordered a badger footman to retrieve it for her and refill it with lemonade.

  The badger ran off cringing to do her bidding. Alice smiled; in some regards it was rather pleasant being Marie Busybody.

  ***

  “The odd thing . . .” the Queen of Hearts began, “. . . is that none of the prisoners have seen Anna since her accident. Also, none of them know what kind of accident she had; they all just heard that it was extremely horrible.”

  “They’re commoners,” Dudley Busybody countered. “That isn’t strange.”

  “No, maybe not, in that sense. But what I mean is that for the past two years, she’s made no public appearances at all. No one outside the palace has seen her, and those within the palace are all cloak-and-dagger about what they’ve seen.”

  “Now that is strange,” Lord Busybody said.

  “Particularly considering the names they’re calling her now,” Alice added snobbishly. “Mech-Anna? Clockwork Goddess? Anyone would think she’s on life-support!”

  “Yes, and with delusions of grandeur caused by her illness,” the queen added. “Very perceptive of you, Marie.”

  Alice had no idea whether the Queen of Hearts was mocking her or not, but she did have an additional question. “The Chicago newspapers reported a series of ambassadorial missions to Texas since the war began. Did any of them have a personal interview with the queen?”

  Victoria put down her cake and peered intently from husband to wife and back again. “No, none of them were permitted to see Anna.”

  “And no one thought her behavior odd?” Alice asked.

  “Why should anyone?” the queen asked in return. “Everyone knows how temperamentally idiosyncratic Anna is. I remember you telling me how she only agreed to let you see the Grand Canyon on the condition you agreed not to take any rocks home as souvenirs. And Dudley’s her brother!”

  “Even had our airship inspected before take off,” Lord Busybody added, “to make sure we hadn’t hidden any of ‘her rocks’ with the ballast . . .”

  “Sounds like Old Maid Syndrome to me,” Prince Jackson said around a mouthful of cake.

  “Don’t you talk about your aunt Anna like that!” the queen snapped at him.

  Prince Jackson shrugged and sipped some tea from his hawk-cup. “Mother, Uncle Dudley, you really should have insisted she get married. From your accounts of what she was like at my age, you must have known she’d be problematic later in life.”

  “Jackson!”

  “Okay mother, Aunt Anna’s permitted to go to war because she’s never had an orgasm. I just think finding her one stiff penis compares a lot better to all the thousands dead since this stupid war of hers started . . .”

  The queen was once again turning purple with rage. Alice was certain she’d choke on a slice of cake soon if she didn’t calm down.

  “Look here Jackie . . .”

  “Calm down Vicky,” Lord Busybody said, shooting a black look at Prince Jackson, who ignored him. “Marie’s raised a valid point – if no one’s seen Anna in public since her accident, how do we know she isn’t too badly incapacitated to rule?”

  The queen’s anger instantly disappeared. In its place, a look of intense worry spread over her face. “What? Dudley, you can’t be serious.”

  “Now now, Vicky, I don’t mean that she’s dead,” Lord Busybody added. “But she may be in a coma. With good life-support machines, some have been known to last for years.”

  His brow wrinkled in thought. “What I suspect is that a group of unscrupulous individuals are taking advantage of Anna’s weakened condition to run the queendom themselves. They won’t let her die, because then rumors might filter to the public, and a successor would needs be named, but . . .”

  “But that’s horrible,” the queen said, her bosom heaving mightily in her heart-patterned robes. “Anna would be much better off dead, than in the hands of such swine.”

  “My exact thoughts,” her brother said, with a pointed look at Alice.

  “Come come,” Prince Jackson said, breaking in on their dark mood. He laughed heartily. “It’s a tea party. The war will still be on later.”

  His laughter was infectious.

  His mother and ‘aunt’ giggled simultaneously.

  His uncle shot him a reluctant look of gratitude for defusing the tension in the air. They resumed eating and watching the distant war-show.

  ***

  Alice was glad for the tea party. It took her mind off Lord Busybody’s request that she assassinate his sister, Queen Anna of Texas, which in light of their recent conversation (and his insistent gazes) suddenly seemed both more and less likely. She was confused as to which.

  Watching the far-off conflict (in which thankfully the airships were now getting the upper hand), she doubted that assassinating the queen, even if she were comatose, was even possible.

  ***

  It happened then. Alice felt the slightest of pressures on her thigh, through her dress. She refrained from looking under the table, even when the pressure became a distinct caress working its way towards her crotch.

  “Aunt Marie?”

  “Yes, Jackie darling?” The darling wasn’t an affectation. Lady Busybody clearly had more than just the standard auntie/nephew relationship with the crown prince.

  “What’s Chicago like?”

  “Chicago? Dreadful place. Gangsters and sluts on every street corner; so much so you’d think the soil of Illinois grew them ready-made.”

  Prince Jackson’s rubbing in her crotch built up an irritating sexual buzz in her vagina.

  Shit, what was she to do?

  Lord Busybody’s owl-cup fell off the table, its contents spilled.

  “Leave it,” Prince Jackson ordered the servers, who rushed to pick it up again.

  He waited till the cup had righted itself, peering inquisitively at Lord Busybody as if expecting him to pick it up again. Then, in a lightning movement, he snatched it off the grass and flung the cup skyward.

  Before the owl-cup could tumble back down to the rooftop, Prince Jackson pulled his six-shooter from its holster and shot it. The cup exploded into a cloud of meat and feathers in midair.

  Thankfully (to Alice’s mind), its remains dropped on the servers (not them), who rushed about cleaning up the mess.

  The queen took a sip of tea from her peacock-mug. “Now now Jackie. What have I told you about showing off your shooting skills at tea? I know you haven’t seen Marie in a while, but do try to control yourself.” She smiled. “You can show Marie your new guns later.”

  “Sorry mother,” Jackson apologized. He blew the smoke from the barrel of the six-shooter and re-holstered it, then turned back to Alice with a boyish smile. “Some more cake, auntie?”

  “Yes please, Jackie.”

  He reached across to one of the tortoise t
rays, cutting a slice of lemon honey cake from its back. “You really should try this – the cakes have been much better since mother threatened to relieve the bakers of their heads.”

  Alice nodded mutely. She was stunned by the crown prince’s callousness. More bothersome was the fact that he’d not stopped caressing her crotch for a moment since killing the cup.

  ***

  Lord Busybody ignored his nephew’s actions, primarily because of the pain he was in. He waved away the serving frog who brought him a quail-cup in replacement, then reached up into his hat and pulled out a white china cup.

  He’d momentarily forgotten the pain in his chest. Bringing his right arm down again proved to be exquisitely painful.

  “Damn!” he hissed.

  “Don’t swear, Dudley!” Alice reproved.

  “Shut up Marie! I’ll damn swear all I want! My damned ribs are broken . . .”

  Alice gaped at him in surprise as he removed his jacket. The right side of his white shirt was soaked red with blood. She winced as he peeled it off, revealing the three wounds where his ribs had torn through his flesh.

  The queen gaped in horror. “Doctor Lee! Doctor Lee!” she shrilled.

  Doctor Lee, an elderly, bearded Chinese man wearing a green suit embroidered with orange dragons, strode out from the rooftop penthouse. Her majesty pointed to her brother. “Fix him.”

  The doctor nodded. “Clear the table,” he told the servants. They rushed to comply, removing the cup-birds and tray-tortoises from the tabletop and dropping them on the rooftop where the tableware-animals walked about pecking at each other’s burdens and drinking from each other’s backs.

  Prince Jackson squeezed Alice’s thigh hard, then got to his feet, fixing her with a pointed gaze. “Come on Aunt Marie,” he said. “I’ll show you my new guns.”

  “Later Jackie,” Alice said, glad of the excuse. “Can’t you see Dudley’s hurt?”

  “Go with him Marie,” Lord Busybody said. “I’ll be fine.” He saw her intently stubborn look. “Please dear. This is going to be bloody . . .”

  Alice nodded and allowed Prince Jackson, now grinning like a child in a sweetshop, to lead her away.

  “C’mon Auntie, you’ll really like my new weapons.”

  Chapter 2

  Prince Jackson had lots of guns; rifles, pistols, machine guns, and many hard to classify which seemed to emanate from the pages of fantastic fiction. Some of them reminded Alice of Lord Busybody’s steam-thrower – odd firearms that looked almost prototypical.

  They were racked along the walls of his chambers like trophies. He had some hunting knives on the walls, too, but mainly guns. Having once worked for a gunsmith, Alice was very impressed with all the hardware on display.

  Once they were both inside his suite, Prince Jackson locked the door and walked over to join Alice.

  “So which are the new ones, Jackie?” she asked.

  His response was a vicious slap to her cheek, which threw her back against a mantelpiece and forced tears into her eyes.

  Alice was stunned. Prince Jackson’s face turned ugly. “How dare you shun me auntie; knowing that I trusted you?” He raised his hand to slap her again.

  Alice forgot herself. She slapped him back, hitting him as hard as she could. “How dare you hit me, you stupid punk!?”

  She was struck speechless when Jackson burst into tears.

  “Oh auntie,” he wept, rushing to hold her. “I missed you, missed you, missed you so so so much. You’ve no idea what it’s like living here with mother when you’re away . . .”

  Alice realized matters had taken a turn for the extremely odd when he began fondling her breasts.

  “No no no, Jackie,” she said, pushing his hands away. “It’s not right.”

  He looked at her through angry, tear-filled, love-stricken eyes. “That’s not what you used to say; you said you loved me, and would always be here for me, and then you left me and went away.”

  He wept so loud now that Alice decided to go through with whatever he and Marie Busybody had been getting up to before her banishment to Chicago.

  “Okay darling, don’t cry,” she murmured into his hair as he rode her towards his bedroom. “Auntie was just angry that you slapped her. She’s back now and won’t leave you again.”

  ***

  It didn’t take long for Alice to discover Prince Jackson’s odd sexual hang-up – He could only get an erection while suckling the breasts of an older woman as she masturbated him.

  Once Alice understood what he wanted, she obliged him willingly. She felt no twinges of conscience; she wasn’t his real aunt, after all. Prince Jackson’s penis was very big, but totally useless if not handled in the prescribed fashion.

  She discovered that Marie Busybody had gotten something out of the relationship as well. Once he’d cleaned himself off after his ejaculation, Prince Jackson performed cunnilingus on her. He did it very well, making Alice come twice, which came as quite a relief to her, since she was so pent up with sexual tension after faking so many orgasms with his uncle.

  Afterward they relaxed in each other’s arms. Prince Jackson suckled on her breasts for a while, then sat up and regarded her seriously. He now looked much younger, in his later teen years.

  “But why’d you leave me auntie? I missed you so.”

  “You know what your uncle’s like, Jackson. I suspect he might have even suspected something wasn’t right between us.”

  Jackson was surprised to hear this. “But why would he? You told me he kept sending you to come see me just to get you out of his hair.”

  Alice remembered Marie Busybody had a reputation for being quite a termagant. It made sense that Dudley would (in this case literally) drive her into the hands of another man.

  She changed the subject. “But you never even wrote to me. You could have visited me in Chicago.”

  “Mother forbade me to either write or visit you. She thinks you’re a nasty selfish prude. She thought you were responsible for me not getting married; now that she knows better, she wants you to help me get married. But then she threatened to chop off your head if I corresponded with you, and I didn’t wish that to happen, so I didn’t write.”

  Alice nodded. “Well, I’m here now.”

  “And I’m so glad, so glad. I’ve decided to do it after all.”

  “Do what, Jackie dearest?”

  “Why, kill mother of course. It seemed wrong at first, but the more I considered it, and saw how horrible she was to you, the more I wanted to send her off after granddad. I just wanted you around so we could work out how. You know how smart you are.”

  Alice was too horrified to reply. To avoid doing so, she pushed the crown prince’s head back down to her nipples and faked moans of pleasure while he suckled on her. After a while he got another erection and she masturbated him to orgasm again.

  Chapter 3

  An Explanation of Marie Busybody’s Relationship with Her Nephew Jackson

  Marie Busybody’s – the Duchess Vain’s – obsession with becoming queen knew no limits. Once her husband had refused to go along with her plan to kill her sister-in-law the queen, she’d switched her attentions to her nephew Prince Jackson.

  She’d at first thought the crown prince was homosexual. However, after three separate attempts to seduce him with excruciatingly beautiful drag queens evoked no emotional/sexual response from him, her ladyship realized that Jackson must’ve been concealing a much more severe sexual hang-up.

  She’d worried that he might be impotent, which would have made him sexually impossible to manipulate. After she’d wormed her way into his confidence and discovered his ‘mother fixation’, she heaved a monumental sigh of relief, realizing that the deed was as good as done. Lady Busybody had no love whatsoever for Prince Jackson. He was simply a pawn to be used and discarded once the prize was gained.

  Her plan was simple: convince the crown prince to poison his mother, then expose him as the murderer (possibly also as a homosexual, if that helpe
d sway public opinion against him). No one liked the crown prince anyway. Once he was incarcerated/executed for his crime, the vacant throne would automatically pass to Dudley.

  About servicing him sexually? She thought him pathetic – a grown man unable to achieve erection except for when he could imagine himself nursing at his mother’s breasts.

  Marie Busybody had shown Jackson how to perform cunnilingus on her. She liked getting head – it was the one thing she really missed about not sleeping with Dudley. He gave great head, too.

  The one flaw in her plan was denying Dudley sex during this period. Without this oversight, she’d not have been shipped off to Chicago, and he’d have been king by now already.

  Chapter 4

  Prince Jackson was cleaning the semen off his penis and Alice’s hands when Cheshire Cat’s head appeared in midair over the bed, its endless grin all aglitter with teeth.

  “Sorry to disturb you, my lord prince, but the queen says to inform you and . . .”

  The cat stopped speaking, surprised at what it had caught them doing. “Permit me to enquire, my lord prince, but isn’t Lady Busybody your aunt?”

  In a flash, Prince Jackson drew his revolver and shot Cheshire Cat square in the face. The back of its head exploded, splattering gore over the guns on the wall behind it.

  Cheshire’s head didn’t disappear after he was killed. It just floated there, dripping blood and brains on the bed.

  Prince Jackson ignored it. “Dumb nosy parker,” he mumbled. “I’ll have some servants clear it away.”

  “Did you have to do that?” Alice asked.

  “It would have exposed us.” He sighed. “I’m sorry auntie . . . really.”

  She forced a strained smile. “But how are you going to explain its death?”

  He laughed. “I’ll just say it didn’t knock before entering.”

  “It didn't knock?” Alice found herself laughing at the idiocy of the crack.

  They both got properly dressed again. Arm in arm, they made their way back up to the rooftop where the queen and a ‘fixed’ Lord Busybody waited.