1901: A Steam Odyssey
by
Lionel Bramble
Circlet Press, Inc.
Cambridge, MA
1901: A Steam Odyssey
by Lionel Bramble
Published by Circlet Press, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Circlet Press, Inc.
Cover illustration credits
Moon with crocuses Copyright © Myfairies | Dreamstime.com
Girl with goggles Copyright © Igorigorevich | Dreamstime.com
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Contents Offered to the Reader
Chapter 2: In Which We Become Voyeurs to Tantalising Encounters of an Intimate Nature
Chapter 4: In Which Miss Ravenwood Finds Herself Completely at Sixes and Sevens
Chapter 5: In Which the Major Turns the Tables on the Lady Cheyenne, with Wholly Unexpected Results
Chapter 6: In Which Miss Ravenwood Is Further Subjected to Unheard-of Gradations of Personal Stress
Chapter 7: Prisoners of the Tripods
Chapter 9: Additional Experiments in Intercourse
Chapter 10: Mars Is a Harsh Master!
Chapter 13: In Which the Lady Cheyenne is Reunited with an Earlier Adversary
Chapter 16: Of a Fire on the Moon
Chapter 17: Slaves of the Pleasure-Rays
Chapter 18: An Uncertain Outlook for Rocketry as a Practical Method of Inter-Planetary Transportation
In Which We Observe the Effects of the Marxist-Lampooning "Soho Bibles" on the Conduct of Young People in Modern Britain
From the Private Journals of the Lady Cheyenne Easterling
The night's kinema matinee featured a newsreel, purported to depict illicit congress between Karl Marx and Susan B. Anthony.
It was, I suppose, not impossible that Mister Marx and Miss Anthony had actually met. However, the beard of the kinematograph actor playing the founder of Communism looked suspiciously detachable near the sideburns, which themselves did not seem to match, in hue, the luxuriant chin-growth of the author of Das Kapital.
Despite these shortcomings, my companions for the evening found the presentation quite stimulating. Indeed, the newsreel seemed to elicit among the observers an entirely different reaction than that intended by its creators. Not only did it stoke the desire to emulate the sensual exercises so skillfully rendered; it also led me, at least, to wonder if it didn't imply that one should take a more favourable view of the social progress of recent decades.
At any rate, I found my companions eager to put into practice something resembling the athletic, if implausible, activities we had observed on the Palladium's gigantic full-colour screen.
Be that as it may, we retired to a favourite club called the Thunder Child, so named in honour of the warship that sacrificed itself so bravely to the invading Martian tripods during the recent so-called War of the Worlds.
My longtime intimate associate Steerforth and I flipped a shilling to determine which sex would be the winner—or the loser—depending perhaps on one's point of view.
"It appears, Steerforth," I said, as heads proved to be the winner, "that it's Gentlemen's Night."
"Capital," said he. "Topping." He spoke with wariness. Well he might.
"And Ladies' Choice," added Miss Olive Ravenwood, her bewitching violet eyes flashing with mischief and she hugged ever more tightly the arm of the last of our intrepid foursome, Major Bernard Lewis. "April Fools ain't in it!"
"Well, Steerforth," said the Major. "Anything for the Directorate, eh?"
The smile that I exchanged with the Major was meant to reassure, but for him I felt a certain sympathy. My impression of Miss Ravenwood was that she resembled her namesake: savory and delicious on the outside, hard and unyielding at her core.
In addition to her violet eyes, she had further lovely attributes: an odalisque's wide-hipped physique, a river of curling dark hair, and skin white as fresh paper but soft as silk. Her fair cheek was suffused with the blush of enthusiasm. I rather wanted to touch her myself. She spoke with a hint of a Manchester accent.
Miss Ravenwood was, among many other things, one of the Directorate's most accomplished recruiters—and interrogators. I had observed her at work; Steerforth and the Major had not. She was also the only woman who had lasted on the Panhedonic Engine longer than I. For that feat, she had my respect.
We commandeered a private room, clean but shabby, its floor wooden and worn, paint and paper peeling from the walls. Dim gaslight mingled nervously with sparking galvanic lamps, the two combined efforts somehow providing only rudimentary illumination. A single queen-sized bed of tarnished brass was angled carelessly in a corner, but it was not the centrepiece of the furnishings. That distinction belonged to a rough wooden chair with shackles for the wrists and ankles.
Other chairs were placed randomly about the room, some under dangling shackles. A variety of attention-getting devices decorated the walls, including a coachman's whip and a chambermaid's feather-duster. A divan upholstered in purple completed the furnishings.
Miss Ravenwood suggested we make use of a new device she had been right aching to try—viz., a series of spinning galvanic-magnetic rings, controlled by wireless devices. Developed from experiments I was only too familiar with, the rings had only recently been made available to the general public. They bore the nickname "cockchafers," but that was after an effect due solely to careless use of the devices.
We enlisted Steerforth and the Major as slave labour, forcing them to carry the means of their tantalisation. The rings' control element was no larger than a steamer trunk and no heavier than had it brimmed with lead ingots.
The gentlemen placed the heavy box in the centre of the room. It was a make and model intended for sporting couples, with twin independent control panels, both of which could be used to manipulate as many rings as the male member could reasonably be expected to accommodate. The rings and other accessories were stored in a convenient drawer built into the brass-studded control casing.
After not a great deal of discussion, Miss Ravenwood and I agreed that it would be best if both men stripped. Footgear, frocks, waistcoats, and shirtsleeves found their way to the floor or to the seats and backs of unused chairs. Trousers and—yes, we insisted—union suits and skivvies soon followed. The Major removed his goggles, and Steerforth his stovepipe hat.
Olive and I were also in accord as to another matter: We must take advantage of the appurtenances available in this rented room to restrain our gentlemen during the proceedings, to protect them under the pressure of their intense excitement.
We could not have asked for a more handsome contrast between our two male specimens. My slender Steerforth, who swam with me across the English Channel and possessed the sinewy physique suited to such an endeavor, took a chair beneath a dangling pair of shackles, to which Miss Ravenwood eagerly affixed him. I roped his ankles to the legs of the chair, demonstrating my practical knowledge of sailors' knots. His brown eyes glanced at me quizzically beneath his unruly shock of brown hair. We had shaved his body smooth just the other night, the better to show off the blue-black jagged tribal designs that swirled up half his front and down half his back. His phallus, the source of such delight to both of us, retained its characteristic odd twist and its small tattoo of Poseidon's trident; he had recently been circumcised in accordance with the latest fashion.
Meanwhile, the burly, bull-like form of the Major, that well-known champion weightlifter and wrestler, was soon secured—again by our eager Miss Ravenwood—into the chair supplied with wrist and ankle restraints. But that was not enough for her, who boasted of the Major's crushing power, and did not doubt that under duress he might find the strength to break free. Soon she wrapped his bared musculature (biceps and thighs generously decorated with anchors, mermaids, and skulls) in padlocked chains. With his receding red hair, fair freckled skin, and luxuriant red growth up and down his frame, he looked the picture of impatience. Yet he spoke mildly.
"This would do justice to Mister Houdini," the Major commented from beneath his copper handlebar mustache.
"No escape for your sort," said Miss Ravenwood.
She undid her skirts to step out of them, and removed her blouse to expose her snowy form. The sight of Miss Ravenwood's plump white breasts spilling out atop her tartan-plaid corset was sufficient to rouse both the Major and my Steerforth into a state of visible excitement, the tribute the male anatomy must perforce pay to female beauty enticingly displayed.
A necklace with a rough lead-coloured pendant lay on her bosom, the cold metal throwing the pale softness, and pinkening warmth, of her bare skin into a most wonderful contrast. She had further decorated herself with designs of a phoenix rising from flames that swirled about her crotch. Her lower back was a partial belt of astrological signs. Bright flowers of ink bloomed atop her feet. One well-toned arm hosted a veritable garden of multicoloured foliage. I noticed a tiny winged dragon perched aside her neck.
Up to this time I had observed Miss Ravenwood with a certain detached amusement. Recent months had found me in something of a funk. The Greater British Empire, to say nothing of the planet Earth itself, had only recently escaped destruction, and that most narrowly. The implications continued to sink in. It was not due to human effort that the hideous alien invaders had been defeated; rather, that task had been accomplished by the miniscule terrestrial creatures that swim under the microscope, to which the Martians had no immunity.
The failure of the Directorate to repel the alien invaders was a defeat I took personally. Yet the people of the Empire, the great and the humble alike, seemed to prefer to forget the invasion. That the Martians would try again—armed, perhaps, with improved bio-medical knowledge—was judged unlikely by the captains of government and industry, and the press. Surely, on the off-chance that the Martians did repeat their attempt to subdue the Earth, the gas and radium-dust that the Empire used (without shame or restraint) to subdue Greater Boerland and Ireland surely would make equally short work of the Martians.
I forced myself to snap out of my reverie. It was an age of scientific miracles and invigorating social change: A new century under a new monarch. And after all, we indeed had survived a threat to our very existence. Did not the good citizens of the Empire have the right to be happy, to enjoy life? Perhaps the only trials that remained to us were those of human making.
Such was the stew of my thoughts, provoked by Steerforth's physiological reaction to Miss Ravenwood's eye-pleasing nudity!
I admit also to a certain jealousy. Steerforth and I occupied unique and special places in our respective hearts. But we had agreed, prompted by our time's amazing advances in biological chemistry and the development of proofs against conception and disease, to maintain an arrangement of carnal non-exclusivity. We had both invoked that arrangement several times after the Affair of the Panhedonic Engine.
I did not doubt his love for me. Yet I firmly believed that his phallus, raised now in salute to our younger friend, rightfully belonged to me, rather than to this young Fabian!
Thus I unfastened my clothes, to join Miss Ravenwood in arranging myself in a fetching state of déshabillé. I undid the black crepe ribbon that confined my hair, to let my golden locks flow across my bare shoulders. Slowly I removed my leather corset and cotton blouse, unfastened my black crepe bloomers and red silken pantalettes, and, rather as an afterthought, elected to remain in my stiletto-heeled sharkskin boots.
Perhaps I should further describe myself. In accordance with my ancestry—Nordic settlers who conquered the Wisconsin Territory—I am fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and freckled, with a build so rawboned that I am almost gangly, finished with small breasts and long legs. Since my emigration to England I have undertaken to improve on nature, in the form of ancient Celtic decorations across the lower part of my abdomen. To this I recently added a tribal design across my lower back, a constellation of five-pointed stars about one breast, and a starburst on my left buttock.
Certainly the display of an unattainable—for now—female body is the very definition of tantalisation. I flatter myself, perhaps, that as I did so, the Major's mark of approval surged by as much as a good half-inch. Mark that, Steerforth, thought I.
Despite the Major's obvious excitement at the sight of two naked females, Miss Ravenwood provided him with redundant digital prompting, even as she applied the necessary lubrication via the oral medium. I oiled up Steerforth with the mineral product the Thunder Child Inn so thoughtfully provided its clientele. No "chafing" for our male friends!
I kissed Steerforth's mouth, slow and long, for he was making me hungry for him. I ran my fingers through his curly hair and bushy sideburns, stroked the late-night stubble that sprouted from his firm jutting chin.
Immediately thereafter, I fitted my cavalier with the rings.
Five should do, I decided, one stacked above the other, along the main thrust of his shaft. Some were tighter than others, so that they could pass each other, back and forth as they travelled hither and yon over his trident tattoo. Thus they would also accommodate the unusual twist in his shape which had delighted me so many times in the recent past. They floated without touching each other, repulsed by like magnetism, some round-edged, some straight.
Miss Ravenwood's saucy lips still worked away at the Major's formidable artillery. I suggested that she desist, "Save him for the main event, as it were."
With a loud puckering sound, she lifted herself from him, eliciting a grunt of longing from the Major. Her laugh was bell-like.
"This is nothing," said she. "You should get a load of him every night. He penetrates my defences, batters down my walls, and ravages me like conquered territory. He forces my surrender and makes of my body a pillage-ground. He wrings from me loud nocturnal exclamations that awaken the neighbours and inspire our landlady to new heights of bitter complaint. Insatiable, he is: a beast that ploughs me most cruelly. Tonight, then, I shall be avenged for all the pleasure he has forced me to endure!"
She laughed again, as if to reassure us that she spoke satirically. She took his broad tip once again into her mouth, puckered her cheeks, and removed herself with another popping sound.
"Right. Just an appetiser. Lady Easterling, could you help me adjust these rings? They don't seem to be quite wide enough."
"There's a trick to it; allow me."
I loosened the almost invisible catch, to widen this most practical ornamentation.
"Will that suffice?" asked I, returning the metallic object to Miss Ravenwood.
She was delighted with the result, and after applying mineral oil to her stalwart's staff, she fitted the rings over it. I was reminded somewhat of the planet Saturn.
"Let the games begin, then," I said.
I flipped a switch. The console box began to thrum with power, itself a work of modern technological art, with its polished casing of dark wood, its studs and rivets of brass, its clear polished dials and gauges.
By trial and error I tested the ivory dials and copper levers.
The disks and rings imprisoning our men began to spin, to travel up and down the shafts, thus imparting pleasure to their wearers.
On the console box, the dials twitched and quivered. Galvanic bulbs of blown glass flickered and sparked. From a speaker grille issued the whistles and chirrups of Marconi-Scope's "back-feed."
At a sudden throaty cry from my Steerforth, I realised that I was permitting the rings to spin too fast. I quickly corrected my error. Terminate our experiment in pleasure so early in the evening? That would never do!
"How is that? And this? And this?" I inquired of him, as each tweak of the dial made changes in speed, elevation, and direction of spin.
The catch in the rhythm of the men's breathing, their groans and sighs, seemed to amuse Miss Ravenwood. Yet a dark part of my own soul cherished the same enjoyment.
Steerforth's sudden hissing intakes of breath, his sighs of relief as I slowed the process, his moans—as I sped, then slowed, then reversed, the direction of the spinning devices, so that the one in the middle went clockwise and the ones above and below, spun counterclockwise—filled me with a satisfying sense of power and mischief. Why, I could toy with him for hours! Of course, eventually I would allow his pleasure to reach its climax. Sooner or later.
Bound fast to the Lady Jane's Panhedonic Engine, a device designed specifically to break my will, had I not suffered unimaginable pleasuring torment? Certainly, then, Steerforth could tolerate this. Certainly I, both first victim and first conqueror of my archenemy's Panhedonic Engine, could appreciate the test of human endurance represented by the "chafers."
Miss Ravenwood interrupted my thoughts. "D'ye feature it, Milady? Gleaming pistons, weightless gold, a complex clockwork mechanism: Rather a metaphor for modern times, like."
Indeed, they were most alluring to behold. Though the room was cool, a gleaming sheen of sweat had broken out over both male physiques. Steerforth tossed his head back and clenched his teeth. The Major, as the rings looped their friction-causing way around his prodigious axis, was turning the most fetching shade of red about his face, neck, and chest. His powerful pectoral muscles really did struggle against confinement. I began to worry for the tensile integrity of the chains.
Steerforth spoke up. "I am impressed by your restraint, Major."
"As I am by your self-control, sir." Both voices sounded a bit tight and hoarse.
Miss Ravenwood noticed me noticing. She pointed to a weak link in the tightening chain. "That one," she said. "Right above his left nipple." She made what seemed to me a minor adjustment to the spin-controls. The faint whirring sound of the rings shifted in modulation, to a slightly higher pitch.
This apparently small change echoed through the Major's body in a wholly disproportionate manner. His groan became a grunt; his grunt became a growl; his face reddened further; his muscles stiffened and tightened, and—crack— the steel link snapped under the pressure.
A length of the formerly tight heavy chain, now liberated from its stress, whipped away from his body and clattered against the nearer wall before it struck the gritty parquet of the floor.
Fortunately, he was restrained by additional chains; more fortunately, Miss Ravenwood dialed down the velocity of the spin.
"Have a—a care, M-Major," quoth my equally stimulated Steerforth. "You, you could put out an eye that way."
"Sorry," responded the Major with a grunt of temporary relief, as the spin of his tormentors slowed.
Miss Ravenwood sidled up to me. How sweetly of mint she smelled. Said she, "Now, I assume that our goal is to bring our men as close as possible to the edge of paroxysm, as many times as possible, and to keep them there at sixes and sevens for as long as possible?"
"My Steerforth would accept no less," replied I. My loyalty to him demanded that I put him through paces identical to the Major's. Else how could he acquit himself with honour?
"Shall we make this more interesting?" suggested Miss Ravenwood.
"What—what do you propose, Olive?" asked the Major, who was ignored.
Miss Ravenwood regarded me slyly through thick lashes. "We can delay the inevitable for only so long. You'll grant me that, won't you?"
"Yes," said I, witness to the changing shades of colour on the faces of Steerforth and the Major, to say nothing of the storm-like bluing of the shaft and bollocks of the former, and the turgid empurpling of those appurtenances of the latter.
"The odds are against both our experiments blowing up at the same time are right slim, eh?"
"Yes," I vouchsafed.
"So one or the other must—not to put too fine a point on it—erupt first?"
"That seems likely."
"Then let's say that the first to explode loses! The winner can take the lady of his choice to bed—or wherever else. Both of us, if he wishes. Observe the Major in his enflamed state. Doesn't he look good to you?"
"He looks delicious," I said, truthfully.
Her smile was wicked. "Well, Mister Steerforth, by the same token, looks a treat to me. Mind you, though—with you at Mister Steerforth's controls, and me at the Major's, mightn't we go too easy on 'em? It's not a proper contest if we go too easy on 'em, is it?"
"If Mister Steerforth has limits," I declared, "I have yet to discover them. But I take your meaning very well. I would not willingly deprive ourselves of the entertainment and satisfaction of serving as the controllers of their pleasure. Nor would I dream to cheat either gentleman of the full measure of sensation that they have so gallantly volunteered to experience. What, then, do you propose?"
"That we switch control panels."
"Why, Miss Ravenwood!" I exclaimed, as I immediately twigged to her meaning. "Are you not the most mischievous vixen who has ever walked this Earth?"
"This planet," interjected the Major, "or any other."
"I understand," said Steerforth between groans, "that some of the present mechanism that enfolds us was developed from studies of Martian technology?"
"Aye," replied the Major. "That the—the Marshies somehow never invented the wheel is well-known; what is less appreciated is their facility with magnetic discs—Unnhhh!"
As one, Miss Ravenwood and I tweaked the intensity of the tantalisation for a moment, to silence the men's distracting themselves from the singular cruelty of our ministrations.
"You thought the Martians were right cruel?" said my female companion. "Martians ain't in it."
For at that moment, I did switch places with her, and placed my hands on the controls of the discs that spun and rose and fell for the pleasure of the Major. Likewise, Steerforth's fate now lay in the tender and skillful fingers of Miss Ravenwood.
The control box hummed and clattered as I tested the dials. I turned them leftwards, to spin the discs as slowly as possible, and to hear the Major groan—in relief, or disappointment, I cannot say.
Miss Ravenwood subjected my Steerforth to like treatment.
"Try the central ring," she suggested. "That's the one I was working when the Major snapped his chain."
I followed her advice, gradually increasing the velocity of the rotation. This elicited a low rumble from somewhere deep in the Major's broad chest. I flipped the switch to suddenly reverse the direction of the rotation. I heard chain-links squeal in complaint, and upon observing the red impressions they left on his skin, I began to fear this Delilah had secured her Samson too tightly.
"Milady!" cried out the Major at the same time. "You drive me to distraction! Unless it is your aim that Mister Steerforth be the victor in this contest, I urge you to—to—to adjust the—the settings!"
I brought the centre ring to a sudden halt, yet by some trick of magnetism and conservation of energy, the upper and lower of the discs began to spin in opposite directions, eliciting a moan in a lower register. I tweaked the dials further, my intent being to prolong the Major's pleasure and also to challenge his stamina without breaking it like a chain-link.
"More oil, Major?" I asked. The sharp smell of the stuff, heated by the friction of the rings, had begun to fill the room. Without waiting for a response, I took the can over to his seat, crouched next to him, and applied a new gleaming layer to his quivering shaft, which was already burnished to a bright shine by the clear, viscous liquid.
Miss Ravenwood followed to repeat the honors for Steerforth. It was a curious thing, to watch another woman pleasure the man I thought of as mine. Unsettling, yes, but undoubtedly exciting. I daresay I have spent more time in bed with Steerforth than with any other, and vice versa. Yet I had never seen his pistoning appurtenance stretched so tightly as to fairly burst from its own skin, as it was now.
Miss Ravenwood grabbed Steerforth's empurpling cullions in one cool, sharp-nailed hand. "Milady," she exclaimed, "he is so warm down here. And I can feel the seed-engines just churning away."
"Working overtime," breathed Steerforth. "As, um, as it were." He swallowed.
As the most contradictory thoughts and emotions ran through my mind, she bestowed on my champion a playful warning squeeze. With his essentials still in her hand, she turned to address me, kneading him absently.
"Milady, there are other toys hidden away in the drawers of the control box. Some of them are intended to service the delight of the female. The Lady Jane Moonstone herself could not have imagined tantalisations so diabolical. Rings and discs fashioned to pleasure the breast and nipples. Devices to magnetically probe our nether secrets. Imagine."
I received this intelligence with cordial interest, and inquired as to what Miss Ravenwood had in mind. To myself I kept my opinion that only a fool would set limits to the imagination of the Lady Jane Moonstone—my former tutor and partner, now my arch-enemy—wherever she might be now.
"After we're finished with the men," said Miss Ravenwood, "perhaps they could return the favor. Or...we might apply the devices to each other."
Here she dropped her gaze demurely. And was that a blush I spied? Olive, you coquette!
"Or now," I suggested. "While we leave our partners to their fates?"
I placed a finger under her strong determined chin, to draw her closer.
"We last so much longer than these poor creatures. I propose—oh, what does our Designer Royal call it?—a calibration run."
I pressed my lips to hers, and felt the soft skin of her breasts yield against mine. My heart thrilled to her burning kiss. As we listened to the whirring of the rings and discs, and the sighs and grunts of our partners, Miss Ravenwood placed her hands on my face and kissed me harder, her tongue teasing the tip of mine. I felt myself growing moist, and my own probing fingers confirmed a certain mutuality on her part. I let her thigh press between mine, and felt myself melt against the taut muscles under the baby-fat of her skin.
Over the whir of the "chafers," the clatter of the box, and the plaintive moans of our men, I heard her whisper, in a voice warm and fresh as spring, quiet so that only I could hear, "Lady Cheyenne, mark me and mark me well. The Major is well-trained, and will outlast even your gallant gentleman. The Major will of course choose me, and I will allow him to take me. Then I will reduce you, Milady, to a state where you will be eager to serve me in the manner to which I have become accustomed. The sight will so rouse Mister Steerforth to new heights of passion that he will long to conquer me as I have you. I will allow him to try. Thus, by dawn, I will own you and Steerforth. Right worthy additions to my collection. Does that sound appealing to you?"
I thought it would be fun to let her try.
At that moment, however, there came a knock at the door, in a manner coded to be recognised by all high-ranking members of the Directorate as an Alpha-Priority message.
A telegram slipped under the door. Reluctantly, Miss Ravenwood and I abandoned each other's embrace. She read the coded message over my shoulder.
We both smiled at the news. Fate had chosen our partners for us.
"It seems, Steerforth," I announced, "that you are to accompany Miss Ravenwood immediately for an airship journey to the Antarctic, where your singular talents of mountaineering and hers of interrogation are needed to track down a series of clues regarding the mysterious disappearances of several Directorate agents."
In spite of the continuing challenges to their hardiness, Steerforth and the Major exchanged glances.
"Missing agents?" said the former.
"First I've heard," replied the latter.
"Likewise, the Major and I, due to my experience in aviation, and his in high-pressure deep-sea diving, respectively, are commandeered for a journey to—well, somewhat farther still."
Miss Ravenwood and I shut down the device, freed our contestants from their chains and shackles, and dressed hastily.
It did not escape my notice that before Steerforth got his skivvies and union suit on, she clapped over him a thick leather codpiece-like device, which she locked with the dark metallic pendant of her necklace.
Miss Ravenwood led Steerforth towards the Metro, which connected directly to the London Airship Platform. The distinctly still-uncomfortable-looking Major escorted me to the same tube station. We made small talk about the weather, and how we'd found the accommodations at the Thunder Child. We were to discuss little of our respective missions with each other, for who might be eavesdropping from the shadows?
On the way to the Platform, a common cutpurse dared to accost Miss Ravenwood. He wore a peaked cap and carried a gleaming switchblade. He demanded her favors and her purse, "In that order, if you please!"
Steerforth, distracted though he was by his recent ordeal, still maintained sufficient fisticuffs to do right by the blackguard. How foolish the cutpurse must have been, to pay my Steerforth no heed! The criminal barely acknowledged my love's existence even as Steerforth grabbed his collar, prised him from the ground, and planted him with a solid blow to the chin, all according to Marquis of Queensbury.
The Major, equally distracted, encased the ruffian in a police call-box for safe-keeping, with perhaps more force than was needed.
"I am acquainted with that peculiar glazed look in the eyes," pronounced Steerforth, as the Major locked tight the call-box door. "This unfortunate seems to be under the influence of one of the newer and more potent formulations of opium. Indigo-Fourteen, perhaps, or the Gateway to Unaccustomed Heaven."
Added Miss Ravenwood, "He can't be more than thirteen years old."
She seemed as surprised as I that our male companions needed no help from us to neutralise our assailant.
The arrival of the London constabulary, duly summoned by Marconi-Scope at the moment the police-box was activated, interrupted our conversation. As the constables hauled away the criminal, I found myself wondering how and why a person so young could go so wrong. I found myself wondering if it was not just the pall that the War of the Worlds had seemed to cast over the Earth, but perhaps some basic but reformable flaw within the social conditions of the Empire itself.
Cheyenne Easterling, social reformer!
If the idea makes my faithful readers smile, then I assure you that I experienced an identical reaction.
The constables spared a galvanic-carriage to drive us to our destination, where our real adventure awaited.
Airships of different shapes and sizes milled about the landing field like oversized inflated livestock. We found the designated freighter vessel, Woking, waiting for Steerforth and Miss Ravenwood. I kissed him farewell for now, but it was with some trepidation that I let him out of my sight, and delivered him to his assigned partner's diabolical imagination.
It was with some regret, too, that I realised that her imagination would not be keeping me company tonight, either.
The Major escorted me to the other side of the airfield, where the Proving Grounds bustled with light, noise, and activity round the clock. Here, we had been promised, the new Designer Royal would personally see off ourselves, our crew, and the Empire's first Zodiacal Clipper, an Aether-Ship designed to function outside the Earth's atmosphere.
For our mission, Reader, was to travel far across the Aether. Our mysterious, cloud-shrouded destination: mysterious Lucifer, the Morning and Evening Star, fair Hesperus, the Goddess of Love herself.
In short: We would travel to the planet Venus!
In Which We Become Voyeurs to Tantalising Encounters of an Intimate Nature
Letter never delivered, addressed to the Lady Cheyenne Easterling, from Mister James Jason Steerforth
En route to Pym Base, the Antarctic (and, later—points beyond!)
My dear Cheyenne,
I despair of this account of our journey reaching you—indeed, of ever seeing you again!
It is alien to my nature, as you are well aware, to dwell on what cannot be remedied. We are creatures of action, you and I; when we see what needs righting, we conduct ourselves accordingly, postponing reflection for a later, more appropriate, date.
The last time I remember wringing my hands over what-might-have-been was when I begged you to address me by my middle name, instead of by my Christian one, the latter being identical to that of a sailor drowned during a storm, who gave his life while rescuing others, on the English coast. Far be it from me to vex the Angel of Death, who, having already claimed one James Steerforth, would be perplexed to find a second one still walking the Earth. To say nothing of annoyed!
Even so, Cheyenne, I trust you will not laugh when I tell you that I do now believe the Angel of Death has taken earthly form, to come to claim me.
Mind you, I do not refer Miss Olive Ravenwood, though you may well come to understand why I might. An angel Miss Ravenwood may be, but strictly of the avenging variety.
Nevertheless, she and I—as well as our missing Antarctic agents—now find ourselves in quite the same desperate fix. We have exerted all our energies and invention to extricate ourselves. Having failed, I must break from action, and my only recourse now is to record and reflect. If I can only quiet and organise my thoughts, and in the process supply you with a nice and accurate record of what has transpired, I am certain a solution will present itself.
I shall begin, then, at the beginning.
Miss Ravenwood and I, having bid farewell to yourself and the good Major (fortunate Major, to enjoy a monopoly, however temporary, on your company), clambered aboard the Woking. Our airship was named, you will note, after that first fateful stand in the War of the Worlds. You shall see for yourself just how ghastly appropriate a moniker such a fine cruiser of the skies has been burdened with.
Accommodations on a freight-airship must lack luxury. Miss Ravenwood and I made the most of them, securing for ourselves a modicum of privacy among the canvas-covered crates that filled the cargo hold.
I am a sufficiently competent intelligence-operative to have taken a peek at the cargo-crate contents labels. Careful: Radium paint certainly claimed its due share of my attention. I recalled that Pym Base is a scientific research facility. Perhaps the radium paint was to be tested for its ability to withstand cold.
How naive such speculations seem to me now! Had I known at the time that Caution: Pitchblende salts and Magnesium powder: Handle gingerly were also essential constituents for new and improved versions of that gravity-defying substance known to the world as Cavorite, I might have been more suspicious. In my own defence I will merely note that the organ of mine gaining the greatest benefit of my circulating blood was most decidedly not my brain.
You will recall, Cheyenne, the state of high tension and excitement that the Major and I had been stoked towards by the felicitous combination of modern technology, two highly skilled operators, and (if I may say) your and Miss Ravenwood's considerable feminine wiles.
You may have noticed the extraordinary (and extraordinarily uncomfortable!) addition to my wardrobe that Miss Ravenwood gifted me with as we rushed to make our respective appointments.
I looked forward to being relieved of this encasement, and perhaps to find a private corner of the cargo bay in which I could take my burgeoning dilemma into my own two restless hands and wring from myself the hot spurt of relief for which my manhood fairly roared.
I hinted as much to Miss Ravenwood, who favoured me with a gently mocking smile. Her teeth, you will recall, gleamed with all the cleanliness, whiteness, and symmetry that is one of the chief new blessings of our modern age. (British dentistry reigns supreme over the globe, sure as the Greater Empire itself!)
As her smile dazzled me, she chided me thusly, "Mister Steerforth! You must think me right cruel."
She kissed me then, Cheyenne, and I hope that you will not be offended by my description of what transpired next. (If this letter is to be my last testament, then I pray it be truthful, omitting nothing.)
Not to put too fine a point on it: My body strained towards her under that confounded chastity-insurance of a thick leather codpiece. It was fastened tight by a belt that looped about my waist, and by straps that circled my thighs. I was secured tight, my very body a prisoner locked away from my own self.
My gorge rose at my confinement. At the touch of Miss Ravenwood's lips, something else rose, too. I felt the rings tighten about my manhood, felt myself swell rigidly, fit to burst them.
Miss Ravenwood seemed at that moment to take pity on me. Once again she let down her dark and lovely hair. She divested herself of her intricately embroidered jacket— but not her silk bustier, her tartan-plaid corset, or her pantalettes.
She allowed me to caress her firm, full breasts, yet I did so badly want to see them, to bare them, to pleasure them. Perhaps, though, I was able to communicate a certain amount of my passion through the fabric, for her voice caught on her breath as she said, "Wait, Mister Steerforth. One moment. Undo your trousers, would you? There's a good fellow."
She removed from around her neck the chain which held the magnetic key she had used to secure the codpiece. A single touch of the magnetic key would be sufficient to open the lock, to free the whelming inflammation of my member, which longed even for the touch of the cool air about us.
As Miss Ravenwood moved the key towards my prison, some recondite property of magnetism worked upon the rings which encircled me inside my encasement. The rings began to revolve again! My aching stones clutched within the codpiece, spurred again to the pulsing production of seed by the sweet pleasure of the spin.
I cried out at the stimulation and Miss Ravenwood, startled, drew back the key.
"Mister Steerforth," she said. "How I must apologise. Let me try again."
She approached my ring-caged manhood from another angle. The rings spun in the opposite direction. To be precise, I believe the one in the middle spun clockwise, and the encirclements above and below rotated in a counterclockwise direction.
I must have moaned or grunted, because Miss Ravenwood favoured me with another dazzling smile.
As to her next suggestion, I honestly cannot say whether it was a spontaneous inspiration, or if this is what she had planned all along—if this magnetic effect of the key upon my rings, so new to me, was truly unexpected by her.
"Mister Steerforth! Do you realise what this means? We may now continue the game so cruelly interrupted by our call to duty! How fortunate for the two of us!"
As she experimented further with various conjunctions and proximities, I gently urged her towards an alternative course of action. Or rather, I tried. I fear all I was able to produce was a stammer. As she worked invisible magick on me, my ability to finish a sentence, and eventually to form but a single word, deserted me.
"After all," she declared, "we've many hours to fill before we reach Pym Base. Hours that we can spend most fruitfully, exploring the limits of our capacities to resist. Yes, Mister Steerforth, I say 'our' capacities, not just yours. I, too, am aching good and proper."
I fear my conduct was not entirely that of a gentleman. I called—stammered—her Christian name, drew her close, and kissed her most ardently. I clawed at the fastenings of her corset, and cursed as they confounded me. I clutched at her breasts. I tugged at the fabric that denied me the touch of her twin lovelies.
It was with a mad satisfaction that I heard and felt the loud rip of that silk, and clutched the gelatinous give of that sweet sensitive globe with a single hot hand—until she pushed me away.
"Mister Steerforth! That was extremely naughty! And for that you must expect to be punished. Everything in its time! However, if you must see my mollies, then very well, and much good may it do you."
Her long slender hands parted her bodice, divesting herself of the tatters to which I had reduced that garment. She displayed without shame, and with no little pride, a pair of snow-white globes tipped with delightful pink puckers, one facing inward, the other out. I flatter myself that their visible spiraling towards erectness was due as much to my attentions as to the cool draughts that swirled around the crates.
I thought I heard a grunt or a moan from within one of those canvas-covered crates. But I believed it to be my own lamentation.
"Now, lie down on the deck and stay very still, Mister Steerforth."
I obeyed.
She knelt beside me, pausing only to remove her pantalettes, to reveal to my wondering eyes the world of wonder that lay beneath the fullness of her waist.
Really, Cheyenne, the new dyes the younger people these days are using are so vivid that they rival even your markings, and mine. All hair had been removed, the better to display the bright tattoos that framed her secrets. Wings of fire spread from her groin up towards her stomach, their tips hidden beneath the armor of her corset. The reds and yellows and oranges represented the glowing apex of the skin-illustrator's art, burning as if lit from within.
Her decorations made a perfect setting for the bare twin-lipped jewel that glistened between her legs. This pouting lily was gilded with an array of rings and studs of gold and silver and copper. I established at once by said moist sheen that she spoke the truth about her own mounting excitement.
She propped one pretty foot up on a crate, to afford me a better view, and more convenient access. She looked down at me with a haughty expression of indifference, and then looked haughtily away, as if to say, Yes, you may kiss me there, if you must. I shall permit it.
My lips brushed paradise, an intoxicating tang of softness and moisture, of warmth and life. I waited to hear an answering moan, an acknowledging sigh, a reply of affirmation—something from Miss Ravenwood. I ran my tongue up and down the rim of her rosy scalloped gates. I forced the tip of my tongue in between, to taste recessed honey, to invade her crevasse, to work my way slowly within.
All the time she held outstretched the dangling pendulum of the magnetic key. Miraculously touching without touching, it brought me to the edge of paroxysm again, but Miss Ravenwood's unerring instinct in such matters led her to yank away the key and let the spin gradually slow, leaving my by-now-perfectly-purple manhood stretched tight and shiny as the skin of a balloon (for so I imagined its state within its confines).
She had moved to create further mischief with her magnetic key, when it slipped from her skillful fingers (moist now with the perspiration of anticipation, it pleases me to imagine).
The key fell to the deck.
She darted deckward to retrieve it, and perhaps she elbowed the canvas that shrouded the container near which we cavorted. Or perhaps the canvas had become caught in the hooks or laces of her corset.
Before the cloth finished tumbling, Miss Ravenwood released a loud and piercing scream.
Indeed, so startled was I by its pitch and shrillness that I leapt immediately to my feet to see what was the matter. At almost the same time, I found myself with an armful of a very warm yet trembling Miss Ravenwood.