Steamlust (24 page)

“It won’t hurt you, you know,” he said, voice full of spite. “I do control it.”

He reached for her hand and took it, his grip surprisingly warm, as though the metal fingertips had a pulse, and the smooth battered leather of the palm were still living skin. Still, Violet flinched.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shrinking back.

“You? Sorry?” Gustav raised an eyebrow. “A Catter, apologizing to a miscreant and a rebel?”

“Don’t,” she said, tugging at her hand. But his grip was firm. Of course it was. It wasn’t entirely human. He probably couldn’t read her signals, Violet thought, trying to stop herself from panicking. Couldn’t feel her try to shake him loose. There was no feeling in his arm, after all—

“Oh, come now,” Gustav said, almost whispering. He smiled at her. “We have to try out your machine, after all.”

“No!”

“No? It was a very expensive commission, my lady. Surely you wish to satisfy yourself that it works?”

“I trust you,” she said, hopelessly. His hand held her wrist casually, belying the strength of his hold on her.

“Do you?” he said. “Do you really?”

Their eyes met. His were a deep, dangerous brown, like metal that had rusted, been tempered by time and experience. Violet was no weak, simpering girl. But she wasn’t used to meeting people as forthright as Gustav. The men in her circle were powerful, buoyed up by riches and inherited empires. They put on a good show of force and bravado.

Gustav was different. He had virtually nothing, yet he carried himself with the ease of a prince. With his rough, ragged shirtsleeves and his wild, shoulder-length hair he managed to wear the look of a man beautiful enough not to need polished boots and well-cut clothes. It was the way he moved, Violet supposed. The way he held himself. The way he…touched her.

She was silent as he pulled her toward the center of the room.

“You want me to sit?” she asked, obedience coming far more naturally than usual.

It was, in fact, a fainting couch, he’d told her. Not for sitting in. She would lie prone over it. Facedown. The thought did indeed make her feel faint.

“First things first.”

His voice was as low and quiet as an idling engine. “Remove your clothes, please.”

Violet felt the blood drain from her face.

“How dare you.”

Gustav merely inclined his head. “Violet.” It was the first time he’d used her name. “Remember the measurements I asked for?”

Though she thought it impossible, she blushed harder. Her face must be as beetroot red as a scolded child’s. She gave a hard nod. How could she forget? Sharing her intimate details with a stranger—it had been the most intrusive and excruciatingly embarrassing conversation. Well, almost. Asking for the machine itself should surely have been her worst nightmare. That first visit, that exhilarating leap into the unknown. She had felt herself on the edge of life, that day, ready to scream or swallow the muzzle of a gasgun. Desperate enough to do something insanely reckless.
You’re hysterical,
she’d told herself, and then she’d gone out to find a steamcab.

She had found herself in Gustav’s infernal den, and she had met the man with a bravado and daring to match his own. “For my health,” she’d said, almost smirking. “As my dear friend Amelia was advised by her own physician.”

Of course, she wasn’t married. But meeting Gustav, she was certain that this detail would not bother him. Not with a
purse full of coins and not with a customer as formidable as the daughter of Lord Catter himself. She’d almost felt dizzy, as she stood in front of Gustav’s laughing, bold brown gaze. For once, the idea struck her that she might use her power for her own satisfaction, rather than let it use her.

At the same time, she had felt herself so overtaken by rising sensation that she had barely trusted herself to stay upright. As though her body might swoon with the rushing tides of pulse and breath, as though she might lose control at any moment.

The feeling had returned.

“Measure twice. Cut once,” he said. “I cannot check the fit through thirty layers of lace.”

“This is necessary?” she said.

“It is, if you wish your commission well made,” Gustav said reasonably. “And I did warn you this would be an intimate process.”

“Your threats have not been forgotten!”

“I merely reminded you of the need for discretion. A project like this is not without risks, as you know. Sensitive information must be kept under wraps, for protection.”

“Whose protection? I think you care not for my honor, sir! If my father knew what you were doing…”

“He’d disown you,” Gustav said mildly, refilling his glass and taking a leisurely swallow. “You’d be cut off with nothing. Milady.”

Violet trembled. But it was rage, not fear, that spurred her onward.

“You would not emerge unscathed,” she said. “Remember that.”

“No. But I think of the two of us, you have more to lose.” He came close, then, and the smell of whisky on his breath swept
over her. “Far more at stake than your inhibitions, don’t you think?”

“You’re enjoying this,” she said, reaching for the button at her throat. “You want to see me broken.”

“Not broken,” he said. “Merely—undone.”

She shrugged.

“I am not afraid of your scorn,” she said.

Then there was no sound, only the muffled pop of her buttons and the swish of silk as she pulled her bodice apart. She would not let him see her cowed.

“I have defied men greater than you, sir.”

“Yes. But I bet you never let them see your underwear,” he said, idly, walking round his machine as if he’d lost interest in Violet’s striptease already.

She barked a laugh at him.

“Don’t fret, madam.” He eyed her gravely. “Remember, I am doing this for your pleasure.”

“Pleasure. You make it sound like a mere whim.”

“Were not for the whims of the rich, I’d be a pauper.”

“It’s more than idle fancy!”

“How so?”

“I am not married, sir.”

“I had noticed,” Gustav said.

“Unmarried ladies are not greatly popular, you know. Even if they have chosen to be so. If I wish to live alone, I must—Oh, what would you understand about it? Having your whole life mapped out already. Having to fight for every scrap of independence.”

“Perhaps more than you think.”

Gustav was bent over the machine, adjusting a strap. Violet looked at his false fingers, noticed how delicate they were, how skilled the movements. As she watched, a calm came over her,
like a draft of cold air after a thunderstorm. She dropped her arms. Her heart fluttered in her breast, like a bird trying to escape a calico cage. Violet removed her dress in silence, only the rustle of fabric disturbing the air in the studio. Outside, there were shouts in the street and the whistle of steamships passing, floating into the Upperspace where they would circle above the smog and bustle of the city.

“Good,” Gustav said lightly. “Now, here.” He touched her arm more gently than she’d thought he could, with his warm, flesh and blood hand, and motioned for her to lie, facedown. With as much grace as she could muster, Violet kneeled on the padded leather and slid down until her body was nestled against the curves of the chair.

“Part your legs, this way,” Gustav murmured, touching her calves very gently. He circled her, making small adjustments to her position, checking that she could reach the levers and handles. Lying prone, with her cheek against the cushion, Violet noticed a curious sensation. Despite her agitation, the chair invited her body to unwind. It supported her, like the body of a lover, she imagined—it was firm, generous, enveloping. Rising to meet her between her legs, with dips and hollows at her breasts, chin and knees, it molded to her shape perfectly.

The leather warmed and softened under her, and she felt herself melt into the chair—had she ever felt this cared for, this mellow? A fleeting word tickled the back of her thoughts. Was this how it felt, she wondered, to be loved?

“Ridiculous,” she murmured.

“Beg your pardon?”

“It fits,” she replied, “very well.”

“Of course,” Gustav said. “But we need to test the working of it. Here, let me.”

Violet bit her lip. Gustav’s hand had fallen on her thigh. He
dragged her legs apart, not roughly, but as though she were a doll to be posed and adjusted according to his whim.

“Ready?”

Violet murmured her assent. Gustav bent down low so that his mouth tickled her ear.

“Don’t struggle, now. This will be easier if you hold yourself still.”

He took her left hand and led it to the polished wooden handle.

“Just very easy, now, pull this back.”

Violet did as she was told. Underneath her, cogs ground against each other. A pulley creaked. There was a loud sigh, as steam escaped, and an insistent hum as the power ran from the central steampillar and entered the machine. And she felt pressure rise against her pubis, the chair extend and curl upward, as though a large, stiff tongue were pushing against her, digging between her legs. The chair shook and hummed, as though the tongue were singing to her, a song so unbelievably warm and expansive it terrified her.

She pressed her mouth tightly closed.

“Good. A little more,” Gustav said, his voice tight. She felt his hand burrow into her drawers, and let out a gasp.

“Shh,” he said, laying his other, mechanical hand on the small of her back. “I’m just checking.”

It was enough, she thought, to be lying half undressed in the crepuscular, squalid studio. Enough that she had shared her most shameful and abominable desires with him and found herself trapped in a cage of her own making. That he would now lay his hands on her—

“Stop,” she said, suddenly. With no little difficulty, she pulled herself upright. Her bodice was awry and her clothes crumpled. Yet her defilement had not made her a mewling wreck, at least.
A hot coal burned in her breast. This feeling was familiar. Violet was angry.

“Sir,” she said. “This has gone far enough. I cannot tolerate you mocking me any longer.”

Gustav stood, his face a mask.

“I do not mock,” he said.

“I came here,” Violet said, standing and pulling at her clothes, trying vainly to cover herself though everything seemed to be slipping. “I came here because I needed something from you.”

“And I have made it,” Gustav said. “Haven’t I fulfilled the brief?”

Violet looked down at the chair, which was still buzzing, gently. Its curves suddenly seemed treacherous, its embrace just another cage that sought to trap her.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “How could I have thought you ever would?”

To her fury, tears rose up to accompany the words, spilling generously from her eyes. She turned her head away.

Gustav sighed.

“I believed I was providing you with a machine to service your needs, my lady.”

“No. More than that.” Violet fixed her eyes on the closed doors of the furnace, behind which burned the engines that kept the buildings running.

She had never fully understood the exact workings of the city, the giant burning columns that provided the power harnessed from the steam, the railways that crisscrossed the streets, carrying coal and wood, the curious and complicated machinery that converted that power into useful apparatus—she knew only that when she needed something, it appeared.

Her every wish, dream or fancy, instantly fulfilled—just so
long as it was approved by her mother, father, the gentlemen of the court, and the unwritten and unbendable rules of etiquette that governed her everyday life and it seemed, by some unarguable and inexplicable logic, kept the world running smoothly.

“I needed something to sate my wants,” she said, her voice flat and dim. “A machine that would assuage my frustrations—”

She bit her lip. “The inner life of a lady, sir, is not as peaceful as you may imagine.”

Gustav laughed.

“I do believe you’re admitting it at last.”

“Sir?”

He stood and approached, scratching his stubble with his machine-hand. Violet had an inkling that he knew it frightened her. She suspected he enjoyed the shiver that she could not quite suppress.

“That underneath all that fine lace, you have what everyone else has.”

Violet narrowed her eyes.

“Could you stop yourself from being coarse for once? Do you even have it in you?”

“I’m not talking about your body’s natural appetites.” Gustav nodded at her. “That’s your own imagining, my lady.”

“I’m talking about…” he laid a hand on her chest, where the shelf of her bosom rose and fell faster than it ought to, “…your heart.”

His hand was warm. He kept it there. Nestled in the valley of her breasts, she was surprised to find it comforting, rather than threatening. She looked up at him. For once, there was no rusty fire in his eyes, only a deep and quiet warmth.

“I do not need to love,” she said.

“Or to be loved? Forgive me, but I do not believe you.”

She pulled away, but he tugged her back, replaced his hand.

“It beats,” he said, softly. “I can feel it.”

“Yes, it beats. Whether I wish it or not.”

Violet raised her chin.

“When I lie abed, alone in the darkness, I am at last able to let go of the damned smile I must wear day in and day out, the cursed, cultivated, ladylike mouth that I paint on in the morning and loathe from the moment I wake until the hour I retire. I jam my hand between my legs. I stroke myself. I induce such paroxysms that I could scream.”

Gustav did not let his eyes drop.

“And yet it is not enough,” he said. “Is it?”

Violet stepped forward. She kissed him hard. Hard enough that his stubble scraped her cheek. At first, her tongue darted into his mouth as fast as a flickering flame. Then, as they sank against each other and his warmth flowed into her body, she let it meander a little, over his lips, to taste the salt there, the fire of the whisky.