Like a Wisp of Steam by Thomas Roche (best reads of all time txt) 📕

The uncertainty came to Trista again.

What were these limbs for? What were they meant to do?

"I don't," she admitted, between kisses, "quite know what..." Their mouths would not part for long, as though that might shatter what delicate bond they shared. "To do."

"What you're doing," Maggie said, through the same interruptions, "seems fine with me."

No gloves today. Trista's hands found the soft skin beneath Maggie's vest and blouse, found the tender flesh of her lower back, dotted with expectant sweat. Maggie's clothes came away beneath her fingers, and her own garments—the suede pants and rough cotton shirt that served her for tasks other than working on Benjamin—parted and fell under Maggie's more practiced touch.

The air was oddly chill, despite the warm candles in the wagon, and this only brought their bodies even closer together. Skin on skin led to a lovely friction, their mouths could not stop meeting, though they took to nibbling or suckling other offered flesh. They soon found a warmth that not even the naked flames of candles could touch. A heat that existed only between them, something to banish the skulking cold.

There was sweetness to the taste of sweat rolling slowly down a body, followed from throat down between the breasts, down to the slight rise of the belly, in a winding pathway around and past the indentation button of Maggie's birth, down to the glistening fur below, down ... The Shooting Lady's prized trigger fingers played through Trista's curly hair, as the steam engineer offered gentle pecks and then languorous tongue caresses to that bastion of warmth and honey between her legs. Maggie's gasps were heartfelt and soft, but with each moment of Trista's affectionate attention, they came louder. Words, sometimes. Nonsense, others. Both urged Trista on, urgings she could not deny ... As Maggie finally spasmed, she caught hold of Trista's hair and pulled, wrenching face up and away from her, staring into the engineer's eyes with such a frantic hunger that Trista felt a ripple of dread.

Then, Maggie leaned in, panther-quick, and the kiss was just as hungry as that expression. Her teeth caught on Trista's lower lip, not breaking skin but pinching for a moment, as the Shooting Lady guided Trista beyond the curtain, and then down on the coarse sheets.

She slid a hand below, tickling Trista's quim and sending such shivers through the engineer that any words springing from her lips were of a primal, guttural language unknown to the civilized world. All sense of limbs vanished under waves of a kind of heat and warmth and love that must have stemmed from the chaos that spat forth the world in days long forgotten, that flowed from the nexus of all time and space, from the mouths of gods. Trista was flying, despite the weight of her arms and body. She was among the clouds and aloft, as delicious pressure built inside her. She had to moan, to release that pressure, but even giving it voice, expelling it as sound was not enough. Still it built within her, under Maggie's hand and kisses. Was the Shooting Lady kissing her down there, now? Or were her rough, ruby lips on Trista's nipple?

Or nuzzling the soft hairs of her sex? Or somehow all of these and more?

Trista's toes curled, as sensations flooded her, and when that pressure grew to be too much, so much, she caught hold of the sheets firmly enough that she thought she must be ripping them. She leaned forward, not sitting up, not capable of that, but lifting her head so that she could stare wide-eyed at Maggie's hair and eyes. She whimpered as the waves of that beautiful moment coursed through her, carrying her to some place past the rude world of flesh and blood and steam and pain. Through to the realm of ideals.

It was as though the top of her head was gone. It was as though she had been thrown forcefully from her own body. It was nothing less than the most incredible release she had ever experienced.

Then, Maggie lay beside her, still full of kisses and stroking hands. Her lips and tongue had a heavy flavor, richer than chocolate or wine; my honey, she realized, this is the flavor ofmy honey.

They lay together, lost to all but the moment and each other.

They lay ... for what might have been hours, though it was but two at most.

They lay shivering not at the chill, which their united warmth battered away, but from the potency of their own lovemaking.

They lay...

Awake and drinking each other's spirits.

They lay...

And then...

They rose together, clasping and shivering and giggling and perhaps sobbing, but not really speaking, for there was nothing more to say. Nothing that mere words could communicate. They parted then, and the world grew a little colder. Then, Maggie's hand found Trista's, and they clasped tight, and the cold retreated once more.

For a time.

* * * *

The town of Brisbane, Arizona proved to be the ruin of everything.

For every day of the six months that Trista had been with Heck's show, Benjamin, the amazingly outdated cogwork man, broke down a little more. The blowing grit that ran through the tents on their southwestern travels was enough to speed the process. She found herself entertaining a ground-up reconstruction.

Of course, Heck could not afford that sort of thing. He tried, however, and gave her license to do as she saw fit (and could get away with from their limited funds), but poor old Benji was getting less and less functional.

Old Benjamin was an ugly galoot, but his features had grown on Trista rather quickly. A seven-foot-tall humanoid made from black iron. His barrel-shaped chest housed one large steam boiler, and from this stemmed the inner workings of the device itself, a miracle of clockwork that could be programmed by use of punched steel cards fed through his mouth into the processing apparatus filling his head. At full stoke, he could operate for nearly twenty minutes at a