Like Clockwork 82
Like Clockwork
Steampunk Erotica
J. Blackmore, Ed.
Circlet Press, Inc.
Cambridge, MA
Like Clockwork: Steampunk Erotica
edited by J. Blackmore
Published by Circlet Press, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Circlet Press, Inc.
Cover art © 2007 by Sandy Viktor Nys
The art of Sandy Viktor Nys may be viewed at www.hybryds.com.
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Table of Contents
The First Yearly Scientifiction Colloquium by Eric Del Carlo
Caged Dragons and Explosions by Helena Weiss
The Succubus by Elizabeth Schechter
Concerning the Ars Mechanica by Monique Poirier
Nightingale by Jason Rubis
The Clockwork Theater at the Midnight Fair by A.N.Cortez
The Beast in the Machine, by Lionel Bramble
Introduction
We want them to want us, you see. The machines, I mean. They are the linchpin of so many desires, the staples of our survival, the instruments of our leisure. We love them. We want to be loved back. It does not matter that they are other, unlike us in the most fundamental ways. It seems inevitable that the desire to own can so easily be transmuted to the desire to possess.
Surely, this disease must have also existed during the Industrial Revolution. When machines were seen as the saviors of humanity, the heralds of progress, there must have been those who spent a little too much time thinking about them; a little too much time dreaming about them. What would have happened to those dreamers if the machines had faces... Limbs... Lusts? What could they have accomplished if steam and clockwork could have been rendered into objects so fine, so complex, that they seemed to breathe with their own version of life?
Perhaps it’s best to explore this idea slowly, intellectually at first; perhaps delve into how someone can be affected by the merest thought of union with a mechanical being. We’re here to read erotic speculative fiction, a genre that has come into its own in our lifetimes. But what if it had, by sheer chance, seen light in the last years of Victoria, and our never-was world of airships and mechanized science? We readers and writers of science fiction can sympathize in Roland, whose story is told in “The First Yearly Scientifiction Colloquium” by Eric Del Carlo. He is successful young "scientifiction" author who discovers the joys of literary perversion in his chosen genre through a chance encounter with a fan of his “robotical” work. Science fiction groupies, who are turned on by robots, and who happen to wear corsets... This is right where many of us live, and now we can start to allow ourselves to be drawn in.
However, we’re probably not ready to go deeper yet. Maybe we should meet some clockwork creatures first, simple ones, just to see what they’re like. That’s how it would start, really. Simple, beautiful beings who seem to defy logic by existing, and yet are very, very real. It would take a unique kind of craftsman to create such things. He would have to have a skilled, analytical mind, and dreams that were both dark and enlightening. In “Caged Dragons and Explosions” by Helena Weiss, clockwork dragons look on while their brilliant inventor and his sophisticated wife seek reconciliation after an exhibition of his craft goes terribly wrong. He is defined by his craft, and his love for her, and she refuses to let him give up the art that makes him who he is. It is a love story set to a soundtrack of grinding gears and snapped corset strings.
We can believe in them now, I think. There might now be a small space in our minds where handmade beings of a bygone age could dwell. So, suppose clockwork could be assembled in such a cunning way that, rather than just imitate life, it could be given a kind of intelligence. Perhaps with steam power and patience it could be given a mind, with its own plans and needs. What would we do with such a mind? Why, lock it in a room, of course. “Succubus,” by Elizabeth Schechter, gives us a glimpse into a unique brothel where the men of high society must pass the Succubus's test before being allowed to enjoy the simpler pleasures the house provides. She is the most distilled version of our hopes and fears, everything about machine-intelligence that we think we want, but cannot face once we have it.
Maybe if we were more enlightened, though, we could give such a being rights, call it a person, let it live its life as it chose. It seems far fetched, but Monique Poirier, at the very least, can see how it would work. In her “Concerning the Ars Mechanica,” a society like this exists, and while it’s a kinder, gentler place for a fabricated being, it comes with its own unique problems. Kenneth has been obsessed with the clockwork arts all his life and, when he inherits his uncle's workshop, within it he meets the most complex—and beautiful—automaton he has ever seen. His struggle to understand how he is drawn to his uncle’s masterpiece reminds us that, no matter what we believe is expected of us, there are always stronger, more basic forces at work.
And, if we’re honest, we know what we want humanoid automatons for. How many lonely souls dream of someone created just for them? If attaining this one was simply a matter of handing over money, who wouldn’t be tempted? But then, where does the buying and selling stop? In “Nightingale,” Jason Rubis takes us back into his alternative Edwardian society where chimeras are bred for various services to humanity. Here he shows us some of the darker consequences of having so much power over a thinking being.
However, the trouble with thinking beings is that they can get ideas. One of the advantages of mechanical life over organic seems to be time. Perhaps they can wait us out, even lull us into believing they’re going along with it. That is what the Nobles and Gentles in “The Clockwork Theater and the Midnight Fair” by A.N. Cortez seem to believe. They all go out for a night of entertainment at the Clockwork Theater, blissfully unaware that the Theater has secrets that no one has guessed.
For a mind that has an indefinite stretch of time, with nothing else to do but think, and dream, the only solace can come from finding ways to rebel. That’s not to say, however, that the rebellion can’t be, well, fun. What starts off as a test of endurance for an adventuress in Her Majesty's employ becomes a sexual power struggle between a woman and a machine, in our last story, “The Beast in the Machine,” Lionel Bramble. This story, on its surface, is a highly erotic, Penny Dreadful-inspired romp. However, in its final scene, we catch a glimpse of what it might be like if our strange, twisted dreams came to be.
These are heady thoughts, and maybe you’re frightened by them, or maybe more than a little intrigued. Don’t worry, you’re still safe. These are stories about a past that never happened. We may have to face dilemmas like this in our own futures, but for now we can simply think about them, imagine the possibilities, and surrender ourselves to the outcome.
The First Yearly Scientifiction Colloquium
Anticipation of an adolescent intensity gnawed at my nerves all throughout the stately droning passage of the dirigible. I could not be impressed by views of the passing English heath through brass-framed portholes—not after the city of New York, not after the grandeur of the Atlantic crossing. That had been an airship: many-decked, every fitting burnished to a high gloss, equipped with men, with equally bright smiles wearing jackets the color of melting chocolate, there to tend to the passengers' every need. It had not, however, been the luxuries of that airborne hotel that had struck me: it was the tremendous speed of the ship, the vast vitality of its chemically motivated engines.
Every year of my life had brought fresh industrial wonder. I remember it as a wave rolling out of the east, as implacable as a sunrise, a great steaming clanking mechanized comber. It found us, even us, living deep in the Western American Territories. My father had feared it. I still see tears running on that sun-leathered cheek the first time he beheld an electrical light illuming.
I did not fear the mechanizations. Quite the contrary, I was exhilarated by what I waywardly saw as improvements to every aspect of my family's difficult life. My imagination was seized. I burned with breathless energies, beyond the merely juvenile, and soon I found an outlet for these vigors. I likened it to a venting valve when I was made to explain myself to my father, which only increased his sad fury. I was his son, and I meant to become a writer, and his anguish could not have been greater.
But I would not trade the least instant of New York's clamor and glamour for any of the time spent on my family's farm. The metropolis was madness, an impossible beast, seething and growling through the darkness and the day. Somehow I found my way. Somehow the fiction I had been furiously scribbling for years was now transforming into viable work. My words were seeing print, and the thrill of that was unequaled.
Then I discovered a new release valve. A new genre was breaking out, hot and contagious as a fever, and people were mad for it. Scientifiction, it was being called. I plunged into it. I produced cascades of stories. Periodicals were snatching up anything that resembled this modern fashion. Fresh publications were devoting their pages exclusively to this fiction which so embraced the technological glory of the present, as well as the flights of fancy that took readers into possible tomorrows.
I had found the work towards which I meant to commit the rest of my life.
Despite the predictions of pompous literary doomsayers, scientifiction persisted. Two years ago roboticals were quite in vogue, then narratives about extra-Earth activities moved to the fore of the genre. Thus, I had penned such pieces as "Breaking the Mechanical Heart" and "Captain Mangrove's Heroic Voyage to the Rings of Saturn." I was not famous, but I was maintaining a respectable livelihood. And each time I saw my words typeset and imprinted onto the pages of some glossily produced journal, I felt that same thrill.
Yet... I wanted something more. It wasn't necessarily a greater fame that I sought. I was a physically well-kept twenty-two year old man, earning my way in a field I cherished. I was a bachelor and felt fated to remain one. Authoring is a tireless preoccupation, and no woman should be expected to count herself second behind any artistic undertaking.
It wasn't the gentler sex that accounted for my growing yearning, however. My hunger was literary in nature, I felt. Yes, I was devoted to my genre. But I was starting to suspect that unexplored possibilities waited within the very parameters of my beloved scientifiction. Something more could be made of these stories of fantastic future happenings. And I wished to be the one who discovered those fresh potentialities.
These still-forming profound thoughts were with me as the small local dirigible carried me to the ex-urb of London where the First Yearly Scientifiction Colloquium of 1889 was being chaired. Word of the event had raged through the New York circle of magazine writers who shared my disposition toward this class of fiction. Some of these acquaintances, in my judgment, penned their works with a sardonic twinkle in the eye, with ironic tongue poked into cheek. They did not comprehend my reverence for the field, and I made no effort to clarify myself. Nonetheless, the announcement of the seminar was meaningful. It lent credence to the literary branch. That curious use of "First Yearly" also presumed future conferences.
As I had felt at the initial outburst of this marvelous brand of fiction writing, I sensed that this too was the start of some lovely and magical legacy. From the very moment I had seen an official handbill proclaiming the assembly, I had determined to set off across the ocean, irrespective of the cost, journeying farther than my limited father had likely ever conceived man could move.
****
The manor fairly sprawled. I was bewildered by what felt to be a dislodging in time, a notion as fanciful as anything I had ever read or authored myself. The setting, that great ancient pile with its expansive grounds and its parlors and drawing rooms and sitting rooms in endless succession, belonged to an age of quaintness I considered well and truly gone. There was no denying the resplendence of the estate, just as one could not disregard the slow crumbling melancholy of the vast stone sprawl.
I had acclimated too well to New York, I told myself with some amusement, that American city which was in a continuous state of rebuilding, refurbishing, modernizing. To find myself thrust among the trappings of lordly old England was disconcerting.
Yet this was indeed the site of the Scientifiction Colloquium promised by the handbill. I was merely one among a number of arrivals, and everywhere I turned was an eager face, a fellow enthusiast, someone whose mind and spirit had been touched by the wonder of the genre. Everyone was excited to converse, to discuss this or that author, that or this story. It was several hours after arriving before I noted how loosely organized this event seemed to be. People drifted individually or in groups from room to room through the spacious structure. Conversations became arguments; arguments transformed to laughter. Glasses brimmed with port, with nut-brown brandies. Canapés glided through atop silver trays borne by the great house's liveried staff.
Here and there, though, in a cavernous library or out upon the wide stony shelf of a terrace, someone would be holding forth in what appeared to be an official lecture. Some of these discourses were absorbing, the speakers engaging and passionate. Others of these orators were merely as long-winded as a steam-pushed plow cart. But all were speaking directly to the subject of the seminar, though coming at it from a variety of perspectives.
The day waned. Electrical lights came alive. More people arrived, running the gamut of ages and nationalities. Women were among the attendees. How all-embracing, I thought with some pride, was our branch of fiction.
I was certainly not the only writer in attendance, and decidedly not the most illustrious. Nonetheless, I made mention of my accomplishments in somewhat shameless manner whenever appropriate. I would then find myself eagerly interrogated. The questions, I discovered after a time, took on a certain uniformity. Two were most prevalent: How did you first get published? and From where do you get your ideas? In short order I had concocted pat but courteous answers to both these questions.
"I tell you it qualifies!"
"What have ghosts to do with future technologies? Dickens was no scientifiction writer!"
"This is a marvelous affair, just marvelous."
"I am planning a novel, actually. It concerns life on the moon. I conceive it as—"
"I daren't have another drop. I can scarcely hold myself upright as is."
"Have you heard that old Verne himself is scheduled to appear?"
"Ah, the father of us all."
It remained quite high-spirited, but the evening came, regardless. No formal meals were served, but the domestics did continue to offer sweets and finger sandwiches, and to replenish glasses with a variety of liqueurs. I did not know, I realized with a start, whose house this was. What prosperous and proper Englishman had opened his doors to so many strangers, after all? Some elderly eccentric indulging himself in his declining years? Or a younger master of the manor perhaps, one as taken with the exciting writings of fantastic tomorrows as any of us?
Whatever the case, the hospitality was evident, though the seminar as a whole was decidedly slapdash. This did not detract from anyone's enjoyment, so far as I could determine. The affair was slated to last several days. Those guests who had arrived the earliest had apparently been awarded bedrooms. Others, myself among them, had to fend. Again, I didn't mind. As the hours swelled toward midnight, people commandeered lounges and chairs. Pillows and afghans were passed about. I saw a man with whitening hair and florid nose who chuckled, "It is like I'm bivouacking back in the Punjab," as he lay himself beneath a white piano someone had been probing with inexpert fingers earlier.
I wasn't anxious about securing some suitable corner for myself. The whole notion of these sleeping accommodations was rather rustic and charming, recalling—for the first time with any hint of nostalgia—my rural youth.
With some rich pungent liquid or other swirling in a snifter, I wandered a wall faced with the spines of books. They appeared to be legal texts of some sort. I felt lazy and loose and pleased.
"Pardon, but I overheard your name earlier. Are you the Roland Creely responsible for `The Echo of the Clocks'?"
I turned. The lighting was low, and there were snores and dreaming murmurs in the large room's shadows. "Responsible? That sounds a shade ominous."
I saw teeth appear in a tawny face as she smiled. She looked slim, back-lighted as she was. "Are you the writer of the aforementioned work, then?" Her tone had a playfulness about it. She was not offended by my lack of formality.
The title had been instantly familiar. Yes, one of mine. But I required an extra moment to draw upon my memory, the process no doubt retarded by the drinks I had imbibed. Still, I was not properly drunk by any means.
"I did write that," I said, peering into the dimness for more details of her face. "It was, as I recall, what we in the trade call a robotical." Indeed. Such stories had been a craze within the field when I had written it. It had subsequently been reprinted overseas. I remembered being surprised by the money draft when it arrived by mail.
"Yes," she said, and her voice caught just slightly. Tiny glittering stones hung from her lobes; her dress was of some dark lustrous fabric. I wondered where her escort might be, and found myself hoping he would stay wherever he was. That thought, impulsive and thoroughly adolescent, nearly tickled a laugh out of me. She continued, "I have read and read that story. I have worn out the pages. I find it... beautiful."
I had received several compliments over the course of this day, but none of those adulations had so immediately moved me as did this one, from this bold female stranger. Suddenly, though, the nonchalant near-impropriety was simply too much. I had pledged to be on my best behavior. I had no wish to betray my provincial origins here in this foreign land of such convention and custom.
Setting down the snifter and drawing my shoulders square, I said formally, "I am indeed Roland Creely, at your service."
"It is my distinct pleasure, Mr. Creely. My name is Adara Gold." All was regular, proper. She had only spoiled the formality a little by retaining that playful—coquettish?—tone of voice. And she had neglected to reveal her status.
"Well, Miss..." I prompted.
"Yes, Miss. Miss Gold, Mr. Creely." She seemed to find the ritual amusing. Truth be told, I did as well. This sort of etiquette was growing less and less common in New York.
"Well, Miss Gold, the pleasure must surely belong to me." Pale light splashed her features as her head moved slightly. Her hair looked to be the color of dark honey. I found my interest in her appearance intensifying. She had a cool lavender scent about her.
"`The Echo of the Clocks,' Mr. Creely. As I said, I find it a remarkable and lovely tale. A story of love, I would say."
"Would you?" My voice sounded vaguely dreamy. I cleared my throat and cast about for the snifter I had put down. "I suppose one could call it such, despite its having a robotic being as one of the protagonists—"
My searching hand was quite abruptly caught. Smooth fingers closed over mine. I went still, utterly surprised. Her grip was firm, decisive. She had not taken my hand by any sort of accident. Her flesh was warm. She wafted a step closer. I heard the rustle of the dark fabric.
"I would like to talk to you about your story. In private."
A great giddy uneasiness surged through me. I was hand in hand with an unescorted, unwed woman in a near-darkened room, a woman who had expressed candid admiration for something I had created. Was this what being a genuinely famous writer might mean? Unattached—or, for that matter, attached—females throwing themselves at you? It was a silly puerile thought, and again I nearly laughed aloud at myself.
That unvoiced laughter, however, thickened in my throat. The dizziness I felt became a heat. In a rasp I said, "I would be delighted to speak with you, Miss Gold."
Not relinquishing my hand, she led me through and from the slumbering book-lined room. She seemed to move unerringly. From behind I could not help noting the fine but staunch line of her neck. Her hair was pinned into an elaborate architecture, and its shade absorbed every low-burning light we passed. Even when we crossed some part of the vast house where others where still awake and conferring over glasses and cigars, she did not release my hand. By now I hoped she would not.