SPARKS
Anna Meadows
I would have been the first to concede how much better things were for me back when I behaved myself. Back when I rarely went out, when I only saw friends whose politics my father had approved beforehand; we were only allowed to sit in the salon and drink the hibiscus and rose-hip tea that made me so drowsy I no longer parted the curtains to catch a glimpse of the outside world. Back when my parents spoke of betrothing me to men whose company I could comfortably stand, and when I wasn’t in love with a twenty-one-year-old boy who always had crescent moons of soot and ash under his fingernails.
Back when the clockwork corsos didn’t stalk me like a pasture rabbit.
I had only moments until their brass teeth would tear into me. My thoughts, which I knew might be my last, strayed to Ezra; instead of longing for the neat linens of the bedroom where I had slept until I was eighteen, I wanted nothing more than the touch of the boy who had first led me away from the safety of my parents’ walled gardens. The boy who had first taught me the landscape of the black market liquor trade that had flourished since the Ban. I wanted his hands up under my skirt, tearing my slip in his haste to reach the warmth and wetness beneath my crinoline.
But he wasn’t there, and knowing I would never again feel the heat of his breath against the hollow of my neck filled me with more dread than my approaching hunters.
I had none of the liqueur on me. But I had three-dozen autumn damask roses and two pounds of Parma violets under my coat. They were tucked neatly inside the red satin of the lining, but the corsos could still smell them, so I ran, holding my coat shut and trying not to let my heels call out my steps on the wet cobblestone.
Thanks in no small part to Ezra and me, roses and violets had been banned, and gardeners grudgingly filled their flowerbeds with clove-pink carnations and peonies, whose fluffy frills I loved, but the more reserved groundskeepers found garish.
Each of the clockwork corsos had a large, sturdy shape and a dark gleam, distinctive of the dog breed that was their namesake. As a child, I had once seen a month-old canine corso—a real one of course, since the clockwork corsos were always built full size. The puppy had a sad but determined face and a coat so shiny it looked like damp coffee grounds. It had belonged to the daughter of an Italian businessman who visited my father whenever he was in the country. The puppy’s little body had been so warm on my lap; now I could find no resemblance to the brass and wrought iron creatures policing the streets and country roads, searching out contraband blooms.
I had chosen tonight because I had heard that the worst of the clockwork corsos were in the shop for repairs. But I recognized the growl of their gears from blocks away, the sound echoing off the brick buildings. They had been fixed and released from the shop early. If they cornered me, they would tear me to pieces. I had seen it happen to a man who had tried to smuggle a dozen bottles of juniper-berry gin into the city. Ezra and I had been walking home when we saw a crowd gathered, and he pulled me into him and whispered, “Don’t look.” Before Ezra shielded my gaze, I saw that a corso’s tooth had come loose in the struggle, the triangle of brass glinting in the dead man’s neck.
Whenever the corsos killed a man, the authorities termed it a mechanical failure, an accident. They recalled the involved dogs for inspection only to release them hours later. But they knew what their hounds were doing; they had designed them for it.
I ran toward darkness, down the alley between E. P. Logan’s Clothier and the hat shop that always smelled like chamomile. There was no use calling for help. Even if the businesses hadn’t been shut for the night, no one would have helped me for fear of looking guilty. I pressed my back against the damp brick, willing myself to disappear into the wall. But the corsos weren’t searching for me by sight. Even I could smell the violets and roses. My clothes and hair were soaked in their perfume.
The corsos paused at the corner, the metal of their bodies creaking as they sniffed the air. In no hurry, they turned their heads toward the dark where I hid. The gas-flame blue of their eyes grew brighter as their iron joints creaked, readying their bodies to lunge.
They would make no sound as they tore my throat open. They had not been built to bark or snarl like living dogs. Only my screams and the grating of metal on metal would cut through the silence on the empty street.
A few more points of light joined the glow of their eyes. At first I thought more had come. But the new lights were too low to the ground, and instead of gas blue, they were tinged with violet, like iolite. Even the corsos stopped to watch them glide over the cobblestones. The biggest among them lowered his head to sniff one. Electricity arced through the iron and brass of his frame, lighting it up pale purple, and he clattered to the ground. The others drew back, skittering away from the remaining little lights. But one by one, they too glowed with the same violet sparks and then fell, eyes vanishing as their brass lids snapped shut.
I couldn’t move. I had lost my night vision to the hounds’ eyes and the little wisteria-colored lights. The corsos blocked my path out of the alley. They had been stunned, but they could shock back into life at any moment.
The last little point of glowing violet rolled toward me. It was nothing but a clear glass marble, with a tiny lavender spark captured inside. But I didn’t have enough breath to run from it, and it came to rest against the side of my boot. Its heat and electricity shimmered through my body. My head fell back against the brick, and my bangs cleared from my eyes, letting me see the blur of the stars and the thumbnail slice of moon.
I saw him running toward me. Though I could only see his silhouette, I knew his shape better than mine, because I had touched his body more than I had touched my own. My hands had learned him in every second they’d spent on his back and thighs. But he couldn’t have been there. He had emerged from my fever dream. If I wanted it enough, he would push me up against the wall and take my weight on his hips.
The warmth in my temples made me dizzy. He held me and put his lips to my ear, whispering my name as the stars and moon went dark.
I dreamed of him in the sweet, damp haze of touch and bayberry candle glow.
Hours later, I surfaced from sleep to the feeling of chambray cotton sheets, worn soft by years of washing. The scent of violets and roses mixed with the soft spice of ashes and cloves. Cambric and ash: it identified him as well as a fingerprint.
“Ezra?” I said before I was awake enough to open my eyes.
I could feel his weight on the bed as he sat near me and stroked my hair. “It’s all right,” he said, and stood up again. “You’re all right.”
I shut my eyes tighter and then let them relax open. It was still night, but through the space between the shades I found a thin line of pink that traced the hills and mesas along the horizon. In an hour or so, it would be morning.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
He shrugged, his back to me. “We still run similar routes.”
“I haven’t seen you.”
“I haven’t wanted you to.” He turned up the lamp, the same pressed-lead glass we’d made love by a year earlier. He looked almost as young as the last time I saw him; a faint shadow of stubble along his jawline made him look barely older. Locks of his hair fell in his eyes, and the lamp lit up the red strands that hid within the brown like stray threads. His trousers had the same pinstripes I remembered, and over his collared shirt he wore a waistcoat he had inherited from his father. It used to be big on him, and now it fit; even though he had a little more muscle to him now, he must have had it taken in.
My coat hung on a hook near the bureau, with my crinoline next to it. I had on only the velvet of my dress over the cream-white of my slip. I hadn’t been this naked in front of a man since the last time I saw him.
He’d loosened the lacing on my corset. I could breathe. I sat up, and my hair fell around my shoulders. He’d freed it from its pinned curls.
I combed it with my fingers. “Were you planning to take advantage of me?”
“If I were, I wouldn’t have left your dress on.” He filled with water two chipped vases that had belonged to his late grandmother. “You wouldn’t have been able to sleep in your coat.”
I recognized things from where he had last lived, where I had lived with him for a few months. The railroad pocket watch his grandfather had given him was on the bureau. The lamp gave off an apricot glow I knew by heart. I remembered the rosewood table where he set the vases. But this was somewhere else. It was far enough out in the country to see the mesas, instead of right in the city.
He slipped the Parma violets and damask roses from the lining of my coat into the water. “You’ve got to stop wearing your corset so tight. You’ll crack a rib.”
I wore it that way without thinking. My mother used to tell me, “Better in pain than unkempt.”
“It’s a habit,” I told Ezra.
“It’s a bad one.” He checked the flowers for crushed petals. “Who’s your grower?”
I sat on the edge of the bed, letting the toes of my stockings catch dust from the floor. “I am.”
“Where?” he asked.
“My sister rents me a half acre on her land.”
“Luisa?” He almost laughed. “She never wanted you involved in the first place.”
Luisa, like my mother, had never wanted a Reyes woman like me involved with a gringo like Ezra.
“Her new husband is a businessman at heart,” I said. It wasn’t exactly the truth. I had stayed with them for a few weeks after I left Ezra. Within a month of seeing me leave my bed only to help Luisa with the housework, my brother-in-law suggested that starting a garden might help my mood. He turned a blind eye when he realized the flowers I grew helped produce spirits rather than lift them.
Ezra’s mouth was the exact color I remembered it. Once when he was sleeping, I had matched it to the outer petals of a blush moss. I wanted to kiss him so badly it stung between my legs.
We had worked together once, taking flowers to the distillery Samuel Arlings had concealed in his barn, and then smuggling the product away. Ezra had worked in the city as a chimney sweep since he was eight years old, so no one thought anything of his going in and out of houses, where he brought the quarter-liter bottles. Our regular buyers furnished him with keys and allowed him in when they weren’t home; he hid the contraband bottles inside the masonry of their unused chimneys, where they would find them, but the authorities wouldn’t.
Our friends had asked why we never opened our own operation, but there was an art to making violet and rose liqueur. It took more time and skill than the bathtub-faucet alcohol that had come into vogue since the Ban, so dreadful it needed three parts cream or orange juice to salvage it. Parma and rose liqueur, if made well, could be sipped pure, but the flowers were so delicate they had to be distilled with water instead of steam.
Ezra still wouldn’t look at me. He kept his back to me. I slid off the bed and put my hand on his shoulder. How hurt he looked made me unsteady, and I braced my other hand on the rosewood table. I’d always thought he’d fall in love with the next girl who carried roses inside her coat.
“I thought you left me to go back to your parents,” he said, checking the flowers again.
I slid my hand down over his shoulder blade and said nothing.
“If you were going to keep working, why did you leave?” he asked.
“Because I knew you’d get yourself killed,” I said.
“I know how to stay alive.”
“Not with me around.” I took his face in my hands to make him look at me, and I felt the soft bristle that had grown in since he last shaved. “I drew too much attention to you. I thought that whenever we got caught, at least I’d have my family’s reputation behind me. The name Reyes means something. I had that. You didn’t.”
“Your family’s name.” He pulled away from me. “Hell of a lot of good that did you last night.”
I grabbed his hand before it left the table. His fingernails still had soot under them, but he had cleaned them recently, so the whites were silvery gray. “Thank you,” I said. “For saving my life.”
He smiled the smile I’d first fallen in love with, uneven because he’d lost some of the feeling in one side of his face to a childhood illness. “You had a lot of good petals up under your dress,” he said. “Would’ve been a shame to see them ruined.”
My hand traveled up his arm to his neck, and my mouth found his. I caught the taste of spiced wood on his tongue; he hadn’t broken the habit of holding a dried clove between his back teeth when he was working. He gripped my waist like he always had, trying to feel my body under my corset and slip.
His mouth broke from mine, but he still stayed so close we kept our eyes shut. “Is that really why you left?”
“Yes,” I said, giving up the truth before I could think to lie.
“You didn’t go back to your parents?” he asked.
“I couldn’t.” Not after being with him. Not after making love at midnight and watching the sun rise over the mesas when we were still drunk from it.
His thumbs grazed my cheeks, his forehead resting against mine. His hands bore patches of calloused skin, but his touch was so gentle that the roughness on his palms felt as soft as lilac leaves. He held aside a loose curl and kissed my forehead; I tried not to think of how he used to say my hair reminded him of black magic roses. I was so sure this was a good-bye that I gripped handfuls of his waistcoat fabric; I would not let him go.
He moved his head so his eyelashes brushed my temple. He was taking in the scent of my hair. “Marry me,” he said.
I opened my eyes.
“You may have been worried about me,” he said.
“I still am,” I interrupted, pulling away enough to look at him.
“And now I’m worried about you.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Think of it as strategic business. If we’re married, no one will ask questions when we’re together.”
I tried to tickle him through his waistcoat and shirt. “Who said I’d work with you again?”
“You already are. You just didn’t know it.” He kissed me again, once. “Are you going to answer my question?”
“You first,” I said. “I want to know how you saved me last night.”
He smiled again, like full dawn after rain. He knelt near his bureau and pulled up a board from the floor, unveiling a faint violet glow.
“Lightning marbles.” He offered his hand to help me to the floor. “Sam gets so many strikes out on his farm, we thought we’d do something with them.”
“You still work for Sam?” I knelt next to him. “Why haven’t I seen you?”
“I didn’t want you to,” he said. “He’s teaching me to distill.”
I cleared a slash of hair from in front of his eye. “Good.” Sam’s wife had wanted him to retire for years.
Ezra looked down at the floor. “He figures I know how to handle flowers by now. Even the delicate ones.” He pushed the board out of the way.
Beneath the floor, an old jewelry box held a dozen or so marbles, blown-glass and all different sizes. Within each, tiny veins of electricity sparked and pulsed.
“How do you catch it in there?” I asked.
“You’ll have to marry me to find that out,” he said.
I tried not to smile. “How do they work?”
With a pair of porcelain tongs, he lifted one of the bigger ones to the light. It shimmered like raw amethyst.
“When it makes contact with a conductor, the lightning tries so hard to get out that it melts the glass away, just leaving the electricity.”
“So you can shock police guards and former lovers?” I asked.
He cringed. “I didn’t mean that to happen. I thought you’d run. Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to touch something if you don’t know what it is?”
“My mother told me never to touch anything,” I said. “Especially you.”
He lowered his head so his hair would shadow his blush.
“What if you accidentally shock yourself?” I asked.
He laughed. “It hurts.”
“Then why did I…”
“Because you’re smaller than I am. And I’m used to it.”
I wondered how he pulled the electricity from my body enough to take me home, if my skin let off little shocks when it met his, if the charge passed through the petals in the lining of my coat as he held me. I wondered if it was still inside me, if sparks still spread heat through my body.
“They’re dangerous,” I said. “You shouldn’t be carrying them.”
He set the marble back in the wooden jewelry box. “They’re the only way to stall the corsos.”
“You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I won’t.” He lifted out another with the clay tongs, cupping his other hand to receive it.
“Ezra, no!” I said.
It landed in the hollow of his palm. A halo of violet glowed around his arm, and he fell back against the floor.
“Ezra.” I cleared his hair from his face and felt little shocks on my fingertips. “Ezra.”
He laughed, his eyes still closed. “I told you. It hurts, but that’s all.”
I shoved his shoulder. “Don’t do that.” I took his hand and kissed the faint burn in the center of his palm.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll fade. It always does.”
I climbed onto him and kissed him. I could almost feel the remnant lightning on his tongue.
He opened his eyes. He was trying not to breathe hard, and his lips were trembling for it. His pupils dilated and constricted with the slow rhythm of a lighthouse.
We grabbed at each other’s clothes. I unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt. He unfastened my dress and slip. Too impatient to strip him naked, I undid his trousers and slipped my hand inside. He was already hard. Later, when we were lying in bed together, I’d tease him for it, but now I couldn’t wait, even for the few seconds of a passing flirtation.
He wanted to look at all of me; he was so hungry to see me naked I could feel it in the way he took hold of my lingerie, like it bound me and kept me from him. He pulled away my bloomers and freed me from my corset. He kissed the undersides of my breasts like he was thirsty and they would turn to water against his mouth. While he followed the lower curves, his fingers explored the rings of brownish-pink at the tips of my breasts, like he was learning to draw them.
I straddled him, my knees on either side of his hips, and guided his erection inside me. He bit his lower lip to stop its trembling. His hands moved so easily from my breasts to between my thighs that I did not realize they were there until his strokes drew out more of my wetness. The tiniest sparks, so small I couldn’t know if they were real or imagined, leapt between his fingers and the pearl that held my deepest lust.
I put all my weight onto him, and it both heightened his pleasure and maddened him, because he barely had the freedom to thrust into me. But he knew the way inside me, as no other man did, and I opened to him so he could reach that last trace of electricity that his amethyst lightning had left the night before. When he found it, his own seed of newer lightning, still in his body, shuddered through his hardness and met the spark I held within my darkest place, just as dawn soaked the room in rose-gold light.
He said my name. I answered with his, my palms mapping the contours of his chest. He said mine a second time. “Yes,” I said as I kissed him, an answer I would give again to any question he asked. “Yes,” I said, as involuntarily as the noises I made when he touched me between my legs. “Yes.” A response to the question he’d asked but that I’d left suspended between us, unanswered, in lantern light. “Yes.” A cry for more of everything: his mouth on my neck, his hands on my breasts, his erection growing harder as he moved inside me.
Yes, things were better for me when I behaved myself. But I preferred the desperate heat we held between our bodies, and the sweet, slight pain of our shared lightning.
GREEN CHEESE
Lisabet Sarai
Oh, I do beg your pardon! Are you hurt? Please, allow me to assist you…”
Caroline Fortescue-Smythe scowled up from the ground where she sat in a crumpled heap of skirts and petticoats. The tropical glare behind him made it difficult for her to see his features. Nevertheless, despite his impeccable English, the man who had slammed into her was clearly Siamese. He extended his hand to help her to her feet. His other hand clutched some bulky contraption of leather and brass, embedded with lenses that glittered in the sun.
“You should pay attention to where you are going,” she grumbled, brushing the dust from her heavy clothing. Perspiration trickled down her spine and her stays dug into her ribs, adding to her foul mood. “I’m not injured, but I might easily have been. You were barreling along like a locomotive.”
“I am so sorry,” the young man repeated. “I was trying to capture images of the race.” He pointed to the strange mechanism he carried. A cheer rose up from the crowd as some stallion or other crossed the finish line. “I was so focused on the horses, I didn’t see you.”
Caroline snapped open her parasol. In its welcome shade she felt fractionally cooler. “What is it?” Aside from the lenses, it did not look like any camera she’d ever seen.
“My latest invention,” her companion replied, pride evident in his voice. “A moving picture recorder and player.”
“Like the Lumières’ projector?” The French ambassador had been boasting about this marvel of Gallic technology at some official function only last week.
“You are familiar with their work?” He favored her with such a warm smile that it melted a good deal of her annoyance. “My videographic device is similar in function, but much faster and more versatile. The same machine can both capture and display moving images. You see, here, I can show you the last race…” The stranger drew her closer and indicated an oval-shaped glass panel built into the side of the recorder. He pressed a button. Sleek equine shapes galloped across the glass surface, the motion so smooth and natural that Caroline was astonished.
“Of course, the images can also be projected externally, for public viewing,” he continued. “I am working at the moment on the problems of color and sound.”
The enthusiasm in the young man’s voice banished the last of Caroline’s anger. He stood far closer to her than would normally be proper, his bare hand clutching her gloved one. When she took a shallow breath (the only sort permitted by her corset), she caught hints of cloves and jasmine. The scent, in combination with the pitiless sun, made her briefly dizzy.
She examined him more closely. Although he was dressed in Siamese costume, silk pantaloons and a formfitting white jacket with brass buttons, he wore his coal-black hair cut in Western style rather than bound into a topknot. His complexion was the color of antique ivory. Behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were like pools of melted chocolate. His beardless features looked boyish but his broad shoulders and narrow waist suggested he was at least as old as her own twenty-three years.
“Quite impressive,” she said, finally. “My father will be interested to hear about this.”
“Your father? Oh dear, please forgive me once more. I get so involved with my little projects that I completely forget my manners.” He drew himself up to his full height, a few inches taller than Caroline’s petite stature. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ruangkornpongpipat Suriyarasamee. Please, don’t even try to pronounce it! My friends call me Pete.” He squeezed her hand and gazed boldly into her eyes. “I hope that I shall be able to count you among them.”
Caroline felt hot blood climb into her cheeks. “Suriyarasamee—I’ve heard that name, I think.”
“My father is one of the wealthiest merchants in Bangkok—quite fortunately for me, since he has ample resources to support my investigations. I am surprised that a foreigner would be aware of him, though. Who are you, if I might ask?”
“Caroline Fortescue-Smythe, at your service,” she replied, still embarrassed by her earlier rudeness. “The daughter of Thomas Fortescue-Smythe, Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s ambassador to Siam.”
“Ah, that explains it. My father frequently attends diplomatic parties. You may even have met him.” He released her, reluctantly it seemed. “Well, Miss Caroline—I do hope you will allow me to use your given name according to our custom, since Fortescue-Smythe is almost as much of a mouthful as my own moniker—I am truly delighted to meet you. And I apologize most sincerely for my clumsiness.”
“There was no harm done.” Caroline realized that she was still blushing. Meanwhile, her heart danced a hornpipe under her tight bodice. “I—um—I should get back to our box. My father will be concerned. Please excuse me…”
“Wait!” He snagged her hand once more and heat shimmered through her. “Do not go yet.”
“I must. I’m sorry…”
“It’s such a pleasure to converse with you. It’s not often I meet a woman, Siamese or European, with any interest in technology. Look, are you engaged this evening?”
“Tonight?”
“I’ve arranged a little performance at my house, for some of my friends. Another one of my creations. I’d love for you to come see it. With your father, of course.”
“Well…”
“I’ll send an invitation with the details to the ambassadorial residence this afternoon. I hope I will see you this evening. Until then, Miss Caroline.” Pete raised her hand to his lips as though to kiss it, but appeared confused by her glove. Finally, he turned her hand palm up and pressed his lips against her bare wrist. He lingered there for an endless moment. The wet tip of his tongue flicked across her pulse point. Electricity arced up her spine.
He smiled into her eyes, nodded, and moved on, pointing his recording device once again at the horses thundering down the track. The strip of naked skin between her glove and her sleeve tingled long after he’d disappeared into the crowd. It was several minutes before she recovered.
Caroline threaded her way through the spectators pressed against the rail, wondering at her reactions to the charming, unconventional young man. Normally she was quite immune to masculine attention. Freddy had been flabbergasted when she refused his offer of marriage, especially after the scene in his uncle’s library. She’d been curious, that was all. True, she’d enjoyed the experience, but it was not after all so different from pleasures she could administer to herself. Why would she want to submit to a husband? In any case, her father needed her.
She reached the diplomatic boxes. Mrs. Vandervoordt smiled and waved as Caroline passed, her apple cheeks pink in the heat. Her husband, the Dutch ambassador, yelled at the top of his lungs as the horses swept by, his stovepipe hat practically toppling off his bald head. The Lázaro-Batistas and the Ortegas called out friendly greetings. Monsieur Charbonnet, however, gave her the briefest of nods, his mouth puckered as though he’d eaten an unripe plum. She returned the minimum acknowledgment custom permitted.
Wedged between British Burma and French Cochin, Siam was neutral territory. Up on the moon, though, Britain and France were fighting a bitter war.
“Caroline!” Her father stood so that she could settle her voluminous skirts into her seat. “Where have you been? I was worried.”
“Sorry, Papa. I met someone—a rather clever Siamese gentleman, though not, I think, all that accustomed to Western women. We’ve been invited to his house this evening for some sort of entertainment.”
“Really, my dear, we can’t go charging off to some stranger’s place, especially a Siamese…”
“He’s quite rich, Papa.” Caroline pulled off her glove and reached for the iced lemon juice waiting next to her chair. “I believe you know his father—the name’s Suree-something.” As she raised the glass to her lips, she caught a whiff of cloves—Pete’s distinctive scent, clinging to her skin. The heat was suddenly unbearable, despite the awning arching over their box. The tangy liquid slid down her throat but did nothing to quench her fever.
“I don’t know…”
“There’s also the possibility he could be of some concrete assistance,” Caroline argued. “He’s a talented inventor. He might be able to help with the war effort.”
“All right, all right!” Her father threw up his hands. “We’ll go, if that’s what you want. Now hand me the program. Which horse do you favor in the next race?”
Their carriage drove at a sedate pace along Wireless Road. Dusk had brought a hush and a hint of coolness to the city. Starlings twittered in the trees that arched over them. Frogs boomed in the canal paralleling the road. Night-blooming flowers perfumed the air.
Caroline heard a low buzz, coming from behind. As the sound grew closer, the pitch climbed to a whine, as though a massive mosquito were pursuing them. A shape emerged from the semidarkness, something like a giant metallic cigar. It hurtled past their coach, disappearing into the tree-hung shadows ahead. The wind of its passing ruffled the curls on Caroline’s forehead. The horses shook their harness and whinnied in fear.
“Bloody French bastard,” her father swore. “Showing off. What a waste of viridium!”
“It might be one of the Siamese nobles,” Caroline countered. “I heard that several of them have acquired these vehicles.”
“I’m sure it was Charbonnet. He was trying to run us down.”
“Papa, there’s no way he could have known we were in the carriage. I’ve heard that visibility is extremely limited inside those things.”
“Hmph. He has his spies. He probably knows exactly what we’re doing tonight.”
Caroline allowed the subject to drop. Her normally phlegmatic father had a sensitive spot when it came to the French.
Viridium. That was the cause of it all. Discovery of the rare, energy-rich element in 1872 had turned the world upside down. Gold and silver became near-worthless as viridium prospecting grew to a frenzy. A few fortunes were made. Many were lost. Alliances shifted and conflicts erupted as countries struggled to maintain control over their viridium resources and acquire new ones.
Powered by viridium, airships could circle the globe in two days. Ships could dive beneath the seas. Viridium sent rockets to the moon. Britain had arrived first, France a few months later. On that barren satellite, Major Stanley T. Harkness had found vast deposits of the crumbly green substance, coating the floors of lunar craters like algae at the bottom of dried-up ponds: a practically unlimited supply of viridium. Three years later, the rival nations were locked in a battle that had claimed thousands of lives and come close to bankrupting both economies.
The carriage pulled up before a stone wall two stories high. Caroline’s father announced their names to the liveried guard. The carved wooden gate swung open, revealing a lush, torchlit garden, through which the coach proceeded. They halted in front of a substantial dwelling. A familiar figure emerged onto the veranda.
“Miss Caroline! I am delighted that you were able to join us. And you must be Ambassador Fortescue-Smythe.”
Pete was dressed less formally than he’d been at the Turf Club, in loose white trousers and a matching tunic. The snow-white costume emphasized his athletic build. His complexion appeared dark in contrast. His feet were bare. He looked incredibly exotic.
He clasped her hand in both of his. The scent of clove and jasmine swirled around them like incense.
Caroline swallowed hard, struggling to control her reactions. “Ah—um—Papa, this is Ruangkornpongpipat Suriyarasamee.”
“Bravo! You have an exceptional memory!” Pete practically danced over to shake her father’s hand. “Sir, I’m honored to welcome you to my humble abode. But do call me Pete. Please, come inside. The others have already arrived.”
After removing their shoes, they followed their host into a spacious, high-ceilinged room floored with polished teak. Roughly a dozen men and women lounged on cushions around the periphery. Low tables set before them were crowded with food and drink.
The musical babble of the Siamese language faded as Pete entered. Their host introduced each of his jet-haired, doe-eyed friends. Their one-syllable nicknames fled from Caroline’s memory as soon as she heard them.
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Pete urged, indicating a pile of unoccupied cushions. Then he noticed the ambassador’s discomfort. “Or would you rather have a chair, sir?”
“That would be excellent, thank you.” Caroline’s father sounded deeply relieved.
“And you, Miss Caroline?” She thought she caught a hint of laughter in Pete’s voice.
“The cushions are fine, thank you.” With some difficulty, she lowered herself to the floor. The full skirts of her evening frock definitely hampered her movements. Pete beamed.
He settled himself on the pillows next to Caroline, so close that his sleeve brushed against her bare arm. She considered whether she should attempt to put more space between them. Ultimately she decided that doing so would be obvious and thus impolite. Pete grinned at her, as though he knew what was passing through her mind.
“Well, then. I think we’re ready to begin. Kai?”
One of the women brought out some sort of musical instrument, a flat, triangular box with metal strings stretched from one edge to the other. She cradled the box in her lap and struck the strings with tiny hammers. A cascade of silvery notes shimmered in the night air. They coalesced into a strange but haunting melody.
The music continued for several measures. The anticipation was palpable. A humid breeze floated in through the open windows. Did the smell of jasmine come from the garden outside or the man beside her? Caroline could not tell.
In a curtained doorway opposite them, something stirred. A long-fingered hand pulled back the drapery. A dainty foot shone on the dark wood floor. A lovely face appeared from behind the velvet hangings.
A doll about half human height, costumed in brocade and crowned with gold filigree, stood before them. Placing its palms together, it raised the fingertips to its forehead and bowed to the audience in a gesture of respect. Then it began to dance.
Caroline had seen performances of the Siamese classical forms by some of the court masters. This automaton appeared no less skilled. Her movements (the doll exuded such a feminine quality that it was impossible to use the designation “it”) were as precise as one would expect from a mechanism, but they conveyed emotion as well. When the music became languorous and sad, the robotic dancer’s limbs seemed weighted with sorrow. When the tempo quickened, joy and laughter animated her gestures. The aesthetic effect and the technical achievement were equally astonishing.
“She’s incredible,” Caroline murmured to her companion. “Truly amazing.” Pete captured her hand, without taking his eyes off his creation. The coolness of his skin against hers made Caroline wonder if she was running a fever.
The music reached its end at last. The dancer bowed once more and retreated behind the curtain. The guests broke into excited chatter.
“Excuse me for a moment, Miss Caroline.” Pete rose to his feet in a single, fluid movement. “I must go accept the congratulations of my friends. I will return shortly.”
Caroline also stood, with more effort and less grace, and made her way to her father’s side.
“We’ve got to get hold of that,” the ambassador whispered. “Automatons like that would allow us to win the war.”
“What? Dancing dolls?”
“Soldiers, girl! If you can teach a robot to dance, you can teach it to fight. Think of our poor boys, lumbering around up there in those cumbersome spacesuits, carrying a portable atmosphere around on their backs! Clockwork soldiers don’t need air, or food or water… It’s the break we’ve been waiting for, if we can only convince this young genius to work for us.”
“But Siam is officially neutral, Papa. How are we going to convince him?”
Thomas Fortescue-Smythe fixed his daughter with his shrewd eyes. “I thought you might have some ideas, Caroline.”
So it was that Caroline found herself alone with Pete, the last of the guests to leave. She would have been angry at her father for sacrificing her virtue (as he imagined) to political expediency had this not coincided so completely with her own desires.
“I regret that your father became indisposed,” said Pete, pouring her another glass of excellent French wine.
“Spicy food frequently disagrees with him.” Caroline settled back into the cushions, closer to Pete. To her disappointment, he sighed and sat up straight.
“It’s well past midnight. I suppose that I should call for the carriage.”
She laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s not really necessary, is it?”
He started, then allowed her to pull him down to her level. “Caroline? What…?”
She removed his spectacles, stowing them on a convenient shelf behind them, and gazed into his eyes. She watched the emotions chase each other through those velvet depths: surprise, disbelief and finally understanding. Still, he hesitated. Tired of being patient, Caroline leaned forward and kissed him.
As though the touch of her lips had freed him from constraints, he grew suddenly bold, pulling her to his chest and thrusting his tongue into her half-open mouth. He tasted spicy and unfamiliar, utterly delicious. Although she had begun the kiss, he soon assumed control. Freddy had been annoyingly tentative, but Pete clearly knew what he was doing. His hands engaged in wanton exploration, molding her silk-sheathed breast, thumbing the nipple, then slipping under her skirts. She gasped when he brushed the bare skin on the inside of her thigh. Sparks flared wherever his fingers traveled. Her quim felt soaked and swollen, aching for his attention. Her many-layered garments were a sweltering prison.
She stroked his lean thigh through his trousers, then allowed her hand to creep upward. Pete groaned into her mouth as she cupped the substantial bulge she discovered in his groin. He wore no undergarments. The bulb nestled in her palm, quivering and damp, while she ran her thumb around the ridge. He tensed, thrusting into her fist. Under the fabric, his prick felt hard and smooth as polished river stones. It was long and slender, as exotic as the rest of him.
His lips slid away from hers to nuzzle the sensitive skin below her ear. Her heart fluttered against her stays. Her cunny throbbed, wet and hungry. His cat tongue swirled across her throat while underneath his hand groped blindly, seeking a way into her knickers.
“Oh, Caroline,” he breathed, rocking against her hand while fumbling with her petticoats. “That’s marvelous! But these bloody skirts…”
“Shall we retire to your room, then? I should very much like to remove them.”
“Indeed, a capital notion…” With some difficulty, they untangled themselves. After retrieving his spectacles, Pete assisted her in rising to her feet. The white tent at his groin made her think of a schooner’s sail. “This way, please.”
Seizing her hand, he pulled her through a shadowy corridor to a room near the back of the house. Compared to a European bedroom, it was rather bare: a mattress arranged upon a pedestal, a carved teak wardrobe, a low table circled by bright-hued cushions. Several oil lamps shed a golden glow on the scene.
Without preliminaries, the Siamese man untied his sash and pulled his tunic over his head, then pushed his trousers to his ankles and kicked them into a corner. Caroline found herself transfixed by the alien beauty of his smooth, hairless body. Aside from the curly black nest surrounding his rampant cock, he might have been fashioned of marble, like Michelangelo’s David. Still wearing his glasses, he settled himself onto the mattress with a broad grin on his handsome face. Now he reminded her of some classical satyr, his rigid prick rearing up from his loins, taunting and tempting her.
“Well?” He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you’d like to remove your clothing.”
“Indeed, though I fear it will take me somewhat longer than you.” Despite her earlier boldness, Caroline’s cheeks grew hot under his scrutiny. She reached behind her, struggling to release the long line of buttons that fastened the tight silk bodice.
“Might I offer you some assistance?” Laughter lurked under his politeness.
“No, no, I can manage.” The notion of a man undressing her was simultaneously shocking and arousing. Her hurried coupling with Freddy had been mostly clothed.
The bodice fell loose. She slipped it off her shoulders and set it on the table. One layer at a time she peeled off the ruffled tablier, the overskirt, the underskirt and several sets of petticoats. Finally she stood before him wearing only her corset, chemise and drawers.
She strained to reach the back lacing, without success. Pete’s eyes were glued to her near-naked form. She’d never had to deal with a corset without her maid. When she was breathless from trying, she swallowed hard and beckoned to her audience.
“Please, if you don’t mind…” She offered him her back. He was on his feet in an instant, his deft fingers plucking at the laces. She filled her lungs with a grateful breath when the corset released its iron grip on her torso.
“Oh, thank you…oh!” Pete had slipped his hands into the loosened garment and captured her breasts. He cradled their fullness, kneading softly. Waves of pleasure rippled through her. She relaxed against him, delightfully aware of his cock prodding at her bum. The scent of cloves tickled her nostrils.
“Caroline,” he murmured, burying his face in her blonde ringlets. “You are so very lovely.” He rolled her taut nipple between the fingers of one hand while slipping the other into her damp knickers. Her cunny ached for him but all he did was brush his fingertips across her pubic fur. Lightning sizzled through her. Her sex clenched and wept.
“Oh…please…”
“Yes? What can I do for you?” His fingers tapped gently on her mons, driving her wild, but still he did not enter her.
Caroline whirled around and pressed her barely clad body against him. “You know what I’m talking about!” His hard prick poked at her belly. She seized it and delivered a desperate squeeze. “Take me. Please, I need you inside me.”
One slender finger slithered into her soaked cleft. “You mean, like this?” He flicked his tongue across her earlobe.
“Yes! No! I mean, more! Please!” Caroline pumped his erection. A second finger slid into her, grazing her * and making her writhe. “I want you—this—oh, god, please!”
She danced on his hand, pleasure coiling tighter with each breath. Then he did something—touched something—deep inside her, and everything exploded. Sensation drenched her, sharp, sweet and wet. It was glorious, intense, almost unbearable.
She would have collapsed had her partner not supported her. While she still shuddered, rivulets of delight trickling through her senses, he swept her into his arms and bore her to the bed. Her few remaining articles of clothing disappeared as if by magic.
“You astonish me,” Pete told her, kneeling between her spread thighs. “I had been led to believe that European women were cold creatures who cared more for propriety than the joys of the flesh.”
“Most are, I suppose…oh! Oh, my! What are you doing?” The question was rhetorical. Caroline understood, intellectually, that Pete was licking her cunny—she just couldn’t believe it. His lips fastened on her * and sucked until she thought her hot little bead would burst. His velvet tongue delved into her, while she squirmed and moaned and begged for his cock.
Finally, when she thought she could bear no more, Pete relented. He crawled up her body, his flawless skin like satin against her heated flesh. He pressed his lips to hers. He tasted like raw oysters—like her quim, she realized. Meanwhile, his prick slid into her lubricious folds without the slightest effort, as though that was where it belonged.
With Freddy, there’d been some pain at first. Pete’s cock was pure delight. He filled her empty places, places she hadn’t known existed. His thrusts were fluid, unhurried, giving her time to appreciate each instant of contact. When he buried himself in her body, she felt complete. When he drew back, sweet friction across her * tempered the loss—along with the knowledge that in a moment she’d be full once more.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, trying to pull him deeper. He plunged into her, again and again, smooth and regular as a well-oiled machine. His face, hovering above hers, showed every nuance of feeling. He hid nothing from her. Lust, gratitude, joy, it was all there for her to read. His full attention focused on her. She understood, suddenly, that she was equally transparent. He knew her. He saw her hunger, understood her unconventional ways and did not judge her.
Little by little he picked up the pace. The climb toward release was so gradual that her climax took her by surprise, stealing her breath, welling up from her core and spilling over. When the pulse of pleasure finally died away, she opened her eyes to his smile.
“Ti rak,” he said. “Would you be willing to turn over?”
Caroline rolled onto her stomach. “Like this?”
“On your hands and knees,” he urged, grasping her hips to pull her into the desired position. With her naked bum in the air, Caroline felt deliciously lewd. He reached around to pinch her nipples. The tiny pain woke echoes of her climax.
“Sweet, you’re the answer to my every dream,” Pete murmured. Then he rammed his cock into her so hard she thought he’d split her open.
“Oh…!”
“Too much?” He paused, his bulk stretching her to the limit.
“No, no! I love it,” Caroline cried. She was not lying. “Argh!”
He drove into her again, forcing the breath from her lungs. Sharper pleasure bloomed in her depths. “Oh! Oh! Oh…!”
In their new position, he could penetrate to the very root of her. He jerked behind her, grinding his pelvis against her buttocks, his rhythm wild and irregular. Gone was the grace, the control, he’d exhibited before. He f*cked her like a savage, like an animal. Caroline adored it.
She still felt connected to him, despite his frenzied lust. She sensed the growing tension in his body. She was aware of every detail. When the hot cylinder of flesh drilling into her swelled, burst, and flooded her, she rejoiced. Focused on her partner, she did not expect the whirlwind climax that swept her away.
Some time later, she regained her senses. Pete lay beside her, apparently asleep. His pale, oval face was the picture of peace. The corners of his mouth turned up in a half smile. She smiled herself, recalling their shared passion.
All at once, she remembered her mission. A pang of guilt shot through her. She hated to bring up the topic of the automaton. What if Pete thought that she didn’t care? She couldn’t bear to have him believe that her motives were merely political, that she’d tried to buy his cooperation with her body. For one thing, it wasn’t true. Right now, Caroline didn’t give a damn about the war. All she wanted was more time in Pete’s company.
“What are you thinking about, ti rak?” Pete put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. “You look so serious. Do you regret…giving yourself to me?”
“Oh, no!” Caroline raised her chin to catch the kiss Pete bestowed. “Not at all. It was wonderful.”
“You’d consider doing it again?” He circled a nipple with his forefinger, making her squirm.
“Do you doubt it?” She stroked his penis, which stirred at her touch. “No, I’m just concerned about my father, and the war. It’s not going well. If the French were to gain control of all the viridium on the moon…”
“Viridium?” Pete laughed. “That’s just so much green cheese! Who needs viridium?”
“You’re jesting, right?” Caroline’s voice was sharper than she intended. “I would think that a brilliant inventor like you would realize the importance…”
“I’ve discovered a new energy source, something better than viridium.” Pete tangled his fingers in her soaked pubic hair, pulling lightly. Caroline moaned. “A sort of bio-fuel. It doesn’t emit toxic vapors the way viridium does. It doesn’t need to be mined. We can grow a more or less unlimited supply—anyone can, not just wealthy countries like France and Great Britain.”
“Truly? You’ve tested it?” Caroline wasn’t sure how much of her excitement was intellectual and how much was sexual.
“What do you think powers my dancing girl? And my videog-raphy device? Of course they use tiny amounts, but I’m quite confident that my capsicum-based fuel could power airships in sufficient quantity.”
“Oh…capsicum? Ah—what’s that?” Caroline rocked back and forth on the fingers that impaled her.
“Chili peppers. Siam grows the hottest in the world, you know.” Pete grinned. “I’ve discovered how to turn that heat into usable energy.”
“Oh…oh, god…Pete… You can stop the war. You can save the world… When are you going to announce this?” Under Pete’s expert ministrations, Caroline was quickly losing the capability of coherent thought.
“Soon,” said Pete, as he found that special spot and launched her into ecstasy once more. “Rocket fuel is all very well, but right now, I want to get the video device and capture the way you look when you climax. I believe that’s the real wave of the future.”
Trembling with residual pleasure, blushing at the naughty implications, Caroline couldn’t help but agree.