by Jean Johnson
His chuckle grounded her. Remembering her task, Rexei started scrubbing his shoulders and chest with the soap . . . and when he wiggled his fingers in her fundament some more, swiped a blob of lather onto the tip of his long, pointed nose. She wasn’t intimidated by the narrowing of those hazel eyes, however impudent her “attack” might have been . . . but the alcove soon rang with shrieks of laughter and the floor did get a bit wetter as he retaliated with tickling and splashing and snatching at the sponge to scrub her from nose to toes, too.
When it ended in breathless grins, they finished lathering a few missed spots, then rinsed carefully so they could climb out. Alonnen stopped Rexei from trying to use the damp toweling sheets to mop up the water on the floor, however. Instead, he held out one hand, flicked his fingers in a circle, and gathered up some of the dampness with a simple, wordless spell. Her look of surprise made him smile.
“You can’t work in the Lubrication Guild without learning at least something about cleaning up liquid messes,” he joked. A pass of his hand guided the bobbing, head-sized globule of liquid into the tub, where it joined the rest of the water in swirling down the drain. It wasn’t the only puddle on the floor, but it was a good start.
The mention of his alternate guild’s name made her blush. It also made her retort, “I’m not planning on spilling any of the pomade.”
His eyes gleamed with wicked humor. “Neither am I. Go fetch it to the bed, will you? I’ll join you as soon as I’ve cleaned this all up.”
Nodding, she retreated to the larger portion of the room. She didn’t go straight to the table, though; instead, she detoured to the iron stove and used the tongs to add a few more coals, ensuring the room wouldn’t grow cold anytime soon. Only then did she move to fetch the jar. Unlike the jelly, the contents of the plain container were a lot more liquid than viscous. Curious as to what it smelled like, Rexei worked on twisting off the stiffly screwed-on lid. It didn’t come off until after her fourth or fifth try, when she had reached the side of the largest piece of furniture in the room.
Like the previous brothel bed one floor below, this one had clean, bleached sheets, layers of blankets, and a mound of feather-stuffed pillows braced against the headboard. Sinking onto the edge of the equally feather-stuffed mattress, she carefully pulled off the metal cap and sniffed at the contents. The slightly oily smell, she expected. The hint of mint, however, she had not. Dabbing a fingertip in the translucent white liquid proved it to be quite slick, to the point that Rexei was not sure she wanted to touch the smooth glass with that hand again.
She looked around, but with no good place to wipe it off, she gave up and scrubbed it onto her stomach. Once her hand was clean, she was free to set down the jar and lid on the nightstand. Then she rose and pulled the covers back a bit, so that they would be on the soft linens instead of the scratchy woolens.
Only then did she notice that Alonnen had moved to rummage through the pack he had brought, now placed on the bench at the foot of the bed. But not to get out any spare clothes he had brought, no. Instead, she had a glimpse of something metallic and silvery. Noticing her curious look, he quickly tucked it behind his back and gave her a disarming smile.
“What are you hiding?” she asked, not fooled by his charm.
“A pleasant little surprise,” he demurred, moving to join her. “You’ll like it.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “What are you hiding, Alonnen?”
Sighing, Alonnen brought his arm back around. Clasped in his palm and resting along his forearm, the awkwardly shaped object took her a few moments to recognize. The long, gently tapered cylinder had a bent arm sticking out from the flat end, and a push button . . .
Oh. She knew very well what that was, even though she didn’t own one herself. Cheeks hot, she blinked at it, then at him. “You bought a crankman?”
“It was my late fiancée’s,” he confessed, “and no one bothered to claim it after she passed, so it’s now mine. I, uh, don’t use it often, but . . . Um. Here, let me show you another bit of magic.”
Muttering under his breath, he gripped the smooth cylinder in one hand, pressed the push-through button just below the crank with the other . . . and magic made the curved handle spin. She could hear the gear-teeth clattering faintly, rapidly inside the device as he wound its one-way spring, and she covered her overheated cheeks. He was using a spell to wind the device. One clearly tailored to this specific object. That was what made her blush. Rexei felt downright inadequate in her knowledge of such things—she could hide herself from a God if need be, but . . . everyday uses for spells? And for this particular use?
The spinning handle gradually slowed down as the internal spring stiffened in its resistance. When it stopped, Alonnen carefully pushed the button to the midpoint before releasing his spell, so that the handle didn’t spin the other way around in spring-wound release. Rexei blushed, knowing why he was being so careful; pushing the button all the way through its hole the other way would have sent the crankman rattling.
Setting it on one of the pillows so it would be within easy reach, he leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back, liking this lovemaking stuff more and more. Conversations that had gone half over her head in the past now made much more sense. Though most everyone had assumed she was male and had discussed things with that viewpoint in mind, she remembered the things discussed from the other perspective. One of those things was something an actress had tried on her, thinking Rexei to be a boy.
The moment her lips nibbled on his ear, he twitched. A glide of her tongue along the slightly fuzzy curve made him pant. And suckling on the lobe evoked an outright growl. Overwrought, Alonnen dragged both of them fully onto the bed. The crankman slid off its pillow and thumped into her shoulder, but both ignored it for a long while in the passion of their kiss. Rexei tried nibbling on his ear again.
Frustrated with too much stimulation, Alonnen pulled free, grabbed the crankman, and brought the cool metal down to her breast. Her brows narrowed in confusion, but he couldn’t smile. He just thumbed the button and pressed the rattling, buzzing, vibrating machine to her left nipple.
“Oh Holy Goddess!”
It was a good thing the room had been spell-warded against sound, for her shout echoed off the decadently papered walls. Alonnen teased each sensitive breast, switching back and forth as she shouted and clutched at the covers, at his shoulders, at his wrist, half clinging to his arm, half pushing him away. Thumbing the button to neutral, he leaned in close, admiring the little beads of sweat raised on her flushed face. “That,” he murmured, “is what it feels like to me when you nibble on my ears.”
Her brown gaze, soft and unfocused as she struggled for breath, sharpened. Looking at him, she stared into his hazel green eyes, clearly thinking things through . . . then deliberately slid her gaze to the side of his face and licked her lips. Staring at his right ear. It amused him that this bright, talented, cunning woman would dare to think about licking his ear some more in the wake of his unspoken sensual threat.
He did not turn the crankman back on, though. Instead, he slid the curved metal tip down between her breasts, along the soft curves and planes of her stomach, and teased the dark brown curls of her mound. Those eyes unfocused again, and her dark-lashed lids drifted shut. Her lips parted a moment later. So did her knees, granting him access to her netherfolds. Aroused by her acceptance of this passion between them, Alonnen focused firmly on plying the rounded tip down into her folds, between her netherlips. He gently stroked and rocked the quiet device a few times, then pulled away.
It was gratifying to see her hips lift in the wake of the crankman’s retreat, seeking more stimulation. The sight of her dew slicked over the polished metal made his hand tremble. He wanted to taste it, to toss aside the Clockworks toy and replace the cool metal shaft with the heat and the hunger of his mouth, and follow that with the heat and the hardness of his own shaft. Carefully, he refr
ained. Instead, he nudged her hand into taking the crankman from him, then helped roll her onto her side so that she faced away from him.
“Rub that between your legs,” he coaxed, gliding his palm along the underside of her thigh until she lifted it up and braced her foot on the bed. “Don’t turn it on, yet; just rub it against yourself.”
“Mmm . . . o-okay,” Rexei agreed. She was still a little rattled—pun inadvertently intended—by the way he had used the crankman, but she was willing to comply. Within reason.
The buzzing against her nipples had been unbelievably intense. Though the toy was purely mechanical, it felt as if sparks of electricity had arced down through her whole body, connecting her breasts to her belly, her loins, even her toes. She had no idea what would happen if she turned on the machine while pressing it to that little nubbin between her legs that felt so good whenever it was stroked.
She moved the metal against herself, while she felt him shift on the bed, no doubt fetching the jar of pomade. The metal, hard, unyielding, and polished nearly mirror smooth, felt good gliding between her folds. Pleasurable, mildly intense, and just enough of a distraction that she didn’t mind what he was doing with his fingers, slick and mint scented, between her nethercheeks. She stroked a little faster, a little firmer, feeling the cool ointment, the gentle insistence of his fingers . . .
“Now, bring it back up to your breasts,” Alonnen urged, hearing her breath quicken and seeing her skin beginning to flush with desire, “. . . and turn it on.”
“Uhh . . .” Do that to herself? Could she? Dare she? An impudent wiggle of his fingers reminded her why: as a very pleasant distraction. Ignoring the slick moisture coating some of the shaft, she brought it up to her chest, braced herself . . . and thumbed the switch. The wrong way, whapping herself in the wrist with the crank. “Ow!”
Her lover had the grace to stay silent, rather than laugh aloud . . . though she felt him shake a little from suppressed mirth. Embarrassed but equally amused, she quickly pushed the button the other way. The crank immediately stopped pressing against her arm in the effort to unwind its internal springs, and the inner, rubber-wrapped hammers rattled to life. Bringing the device to her breast, she didn’t tease the nipple directly, choosing instead to press and slide the buzzing, tapered tip along the gentle swell of her left breast, then the right.
The feel of his fingers probing and stretching her star, the occasional pomade-slick brush of his knuckles lightly, teasingly along her perineum, all of that made her blush and bite her lip against the urge to moan. Now she understood all the jokes in her boy-disguised presence about “a back door to the Heavens.” Now she understood why so many couples used this route to avoid an unplanned pregnancy. Not because it was the only way to copulate without that great risk, but because it was also very, very pleasurable—and this was just his fingers.
In fact, it added a whole new layer of experience to her sense of sexuality . . . just as the crankman added something new. An addicting level of pleasure, because the more his fingers pumped in and out, the more the metal case buzzed and tickled her breasts, the more she wanted of both sensations. Panting, moaning between heavy breaths, she moved the machine up to her nipples in little teasing touches. The polished metal rarely lingered for long each time, since that would have been too intense all at once, but she did gradually increase the length of time each nipple was stimulated.
Pleasure in front, pleasure behind . . . Guildra, tell me this is what lovers feel when reunited in the Heavens . . . ! Finally, his hand came over hers and shut the crankman off. Slick with pomade, his fingers were no longer prepping her body, but she could still feel something . . .
Oh. Oh my. He’s inside me . . . She blushed hard, her eyes went wide, and she felt a small tremor of a climax ripple through her nerves. His touch had distracted her from the realization that his shaft had actually entered her, replacing those fingers with a thickness that satisfied instead of scared.
“You feel so good,” Alonnen groaned, kissing her shoulder.
“A-Alonnen,” she gasped as he moved his manhood a little.
He nipped at the muscles underneath her skin, then sucked on the sting he had made, soothing it with lips and tongue. Working his way up to her neck, he lapped at the lobe of her ear. “Do you like this?” he asked, pausing to suckle on the soft flesh. “Do you like me nibbling on your ear? Does it excite you like it does me? Or is all this trembling and moaning because I’ve put my piston in your beautiful cog of a bottom?”
He suckled again. She shivered, and her leg wanted to twitch. “A-Almost as much . . . and . . . and more,” Rexei panted. “I want . . .”
“You want . . . ?” he growled, his tone conveying an unspoken promise to deliver on whatever she desired.
Swallowing, she confessed, “I want more.”
He shuddered and held on to her for a few seconds. She could feel his heart beating through his chest pressed against her back, felt his shaft twitching and throbbing faintly in time to that beat. Ignoring the slippery stuff on his fingers, Rexei twined her own with his, barely holding on to the crankman. She needed to anchor herself in him, not some mere machine, however blissful.
Finally, he moved. Slowly, patiently, Alonnen pushed deeper inside her untried back door. Plenty of pomade had made the trouble of friction minimal; it was simply the tightness of that ring of muscles that required caution and care. She moaned, feeling the lightning currents rushing out through her limbs, and he groaned with her, moved faster, feeling it, too.
His hand covered hers, turning her grip so that the crankman pointed downward. The damp metal slid down her belly, over her mound, and came to a stop between her folds, making her shiver from the press of it against her clitoris. Then his thumb shifted, sought, and pressed . . . and the machine throbbed to life, snatching away rational thought in a deluge of overwhelming stimulation.
Pleasure escaped in a wordless holler. Rexei clawed sideways at the bedding. Bucked against him. That made her breath catch from a slight stinging stretch at the move, but Alonnen used it, rocking gently into her, delving deeper. Bracing his own foot on the bed, he abandoned her hand. That let her pull back on the crankman, easing the rattling press against her clitoris, but it was for a good cause.
Pulling her leg up over his to open her up more, Alonnen thrust deeply, if carefully. He had to grit his teeth against the urge to buck and pound in fast, holding back against the demanding needs of his own pleasure. Each inward stroke delved a little deeper. Once he was fully inside, he returned his hand to hers and pulled the buzzing crankman up to her breasts. Only then did he move, using her gasp and twitch to pull his shaft partway out, then he pressed back inside. That in turn pressed her forward, bringing her nipple once again into contact with the machine.
Rexei gave up control of the device. Gave up control of her pleasure. In absolute trust, she cried—with a spill of tears as well as with her sobbing voice—while he teased and tormented her nipples. He almost stopped, hearing her breath hitch in sobs, but she caught his wrist and held his hand close, then released it to reach back to his hip.
Relieved, Alonnen resumed making love to her, wanting her to forever associate pleasure with him, with this moment in his arms, rather than all the fears she had suffered while hiding for over a decade from the False God’s minions.
He did his job well; Rexei pulled on the blankets and sheets when he tucked the tapered metal cylinder between her legs, but she knew better than to close her thighs against the vibrating invasion. And when he started thrusting in earnest, picking up speed in compliance with her broken pleas for more, more, more, she pushed back into every stroke, for it was just one more layer of deep, passionate stimulation in her mind-shattering pleasure.
Her writhing and trembling made it hard for him to keep the crankman positioned just right. During one of her thrashings, he tried a little too hard, bumped the tip past her sheath opening alo
ng the sensitive span of skin between it and her cog-star, and right up against his own flesh as he thrust. That not only stimulated the underside of his shaft, it also brought the buzzing metal up against his scrotum, vibrating straight through his flesh to his own perineum. Stars exploded behind his eyes.
Vaguely, he got the machine back into place; he knew he did because of the way she hollered and clenched up in pleasure with hands and toes and buttocks, limbs straightening and spine stiffening, but it was too late to stop his own eye-blinding, toe-curling bliss. His own body tensed, shuddered, then jolted like a bowstring snapping back and forth now that the arrows of his seed were being released. He shouted, too, a strangled sound that was too far gone to be her name, though he tried.
White-blinding bliss drained away rational thought. When it ended, he found himself shaking almost as hard as the still-rattling device. Carefully thumbing it off, he dropped it onto the bedding, then wrapped his arm around her waist. She, too, was still trembling hard from her own climax. Spooned together, still connected piston to cog, he held her while their hearts slowed and their breathing steadied. Every few seconds, her inner muscles clenched just a little in pure post-bliss reflex, making him bite his lip from the lingering pleasure of it.
Finally, the twitches ended, and Rexei could think again. Think and have enough energy to speak. “I . . . I don’t know if I can . . . do that again . . .”
Alonnen lifted his head a little, alarmed. “You can’t? Why not?”
“Because if this . . . if this is how the back door feels with you . . . I don’t think I can survive the front door version,” she half complained, half complimented him. “But . . . I, uh . . . think I’m insane enough to try. When I’m not a puddle of limp jelly, that is.”