Machine (3 page)

Only if they come at the bottom of a bottle
, Will mentally added.

Simon lit a cigar and squinted toward the gilded wagon. “Now I
truly
don’t like him.”

“You shoulda brung some rotten eggs and tomatas,” advised Muggins, still sullen about his empty can. “I always fill me pockets with ’em when I go to a music hall.”

The preacher’s message wafted brokenly around Will’s ears as he tended to his own business. Why did those words trouble him? From all indications, the Sensorians had a firm grip on the religious scene.

“A puritan in Purinton,” commented a young wag to his female companion.

“I find him rather frightening,” she replied. She lifted a jar of bath salts and daintily sniffed it. “Stern men are always so unpleasant.”

And dangerous
, Will suddenly thought. When he glanced up, he saw Simon approaching the ornate gold ingot on wheels. More than ever, the wagon puzzled him. Was it indeed a machine? But how did it do what it was alleged to do?

“Make no mistake, citizens,” the mystery man went on. “Grenda is not real. Grenda is nothing more than an illustration in a picture book—gaudily colored and pleasing to the eye, but no more capable of changing your lives than a child’s perfervid scribblings.”

Will’s sense of unease grew. Too many people were paying too much attention to the man. Even Simon, who had a male lover he adored, was inching closer—not that he was in any danger of being swayed. If only the same could be said of the other listeners.

The thundering sermon abruptly stopped. Even with music still playing and voices still lifting—in conversation and laughter, salesmen’s persuasions and song—the silence at that end of the plaza was immediately noticeable, like a large hole in a tapestry. Will looked up as he slipped three more coins into his money purse.

The velvet-clad man was pointing at something. Or someone.

Faces turned toward….

Oh, no.

Simon Bentcross.

“You,” Mr. Spiritorium proclaimed, “are dancing with the devil.”

“Then he must have the patience of one of your saints,” Simon answered with a laugh in his voice, “for I’d be stomping all over his cloven hooves. I can’t dance worth a shit.”

Nervous titters rippled through the audience. A few women made small, startled sounds, probably at Simon’s profanity.

The preacher glowered. “In making light of this, you’ve committed yet another grave error.”

Simon dismissively flapped a hand. “The only error I made, you sour old windbag, was bothering to walk over here.” He repositioned his hat at a raffish angle, turned, and sauntered away, cradling his bundled purchases in one arm and swinging the other carelessly at his side.

Much to Will’s consternation, the sour old windbag kept watching him.

Bentcross stopped at Will’s cart. “It’s time I have some fun. I’m going into the circus. Then I must get home to greet… a friend.” Softening, his gaze seemed to turn inward. “How queer it is,” he said musingly, “to miss someone after a day’s separation. I’m not accustomed to it. Maybe never will be.”

What he meant, of course, was that he wanted to be at his cottage on Whitesbain Plank Road by the time Clancy arose. They’d grown very close—in fact, would be as close as Will and Fan if not for one impediment: Clancy Marrowbone was a vampire, and Simon had had to endure missing him for periods much longer than a day.

“Do you suppose—?” Will reconsidered his question. He didn’t want to offend or otherwise upset Simon. Worse yet, infect Simon with his own groundless anxiety.

“Suppose what?”

Will improvised. “Your friend will approve of your purchases?” He couldn’t say what he’d originally thought:
Do you suppose Marrowbone is the devil you’re dancing with?
But that was absurd. How could a cultist or huckster, or whatever the preacher was, have knowledge of strangers’ private lives? It wasn’t as if Simon wore a placard around his neck that declared,
I am deeply in love with a beautiful male blood-drinker and we have intimate relations nightly.

“I’ve no doubt,” Simon answered with a smile, “my friend will be very pleased.”

T
HE
PLAZA
was all but deserted by midafternoon. Sellers and speech-makers had begun trickling away just after lunch, when the throng of browsers thinned. Some visitors sought further entertainment within the Marvelous Mechanical Circus. Others, their appetite for novelty sated, went elsewhere.

The affable inebriant Ernest Muggins simply got up, walked away from his table, and never returned. All he’d taken with him was his tin.

Will had just finished closing and locking his cart when a shadow fell over him, chilling the air. He looked up. Instantly, his breath caught.

The owner of the Spiritorium loomed over him. As if that sight weren’t unnerving enough, the man fixed him with intense violet eyes. “You exude the scent of Quam Khar,” he said without introduction or preface. “It’s faint but still detectable. Yet, you’re not Quam Khar. You haven’t the depth or complexity. You haven’t the dark corners where broken wings beat.”

What on earth was he talking about? Dumbfounded, Will stared. He tried to assume a neutral expression, but he’d always failed miserably at concealing his reactions. “I… no, I’m not Quam Khar.” Surely, Will thought, he looked far too ordinary to have such an unusual name.

The man didn’t answer, didn’t move. “Who’s your wife?” He stated the question quite unabashedly, as if he had every right to ask it.

“N-no one. I’ve never been married. I’m a bachelor.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. Will’s insides shriveled. Coldly slicing into him, layer by layer, that surgical gaze seemed to go on forever. “Not lawfully wed, eh? Then you’re a fornicator who preys on Out-dwellers.
That’s
what you are. A user of the Blessèd Damned.” He took a step forward. “What’s her name?”

Will blinked as his befuddlement, and his discomfiture, deepened. “I beg your pardon?”

“The woman. What’s her name?”

“I’m afraid I have no idea to whom you’re referring.”
Or what the hell you’re talking about!
Trying to still his quaking hands, Will pulled up the handle of his cart. “Now I must take my leave of you, sir. I have other obligations.”

“No doubt.” The man inclined his head. “Perhaps we’ll meet again, Master Marchman.”

Not if I can help it
, Will thought as he hastily pushed his much-lighter cart toward the circus’s employee entrance.

He couldn’t wait to get home.

“D
ON
’
T
LET
go. Not yet.”

Fan chuckled into Will’s hair as their embrace continued. “William, I’ve been working all day. I need a bath. In fact”—his voice lowered suggestively—“we can bathe together.”

“Yes. Oh, yes.” Will was glad he’d already shed his coat and vest and cravat. Appetite drove him now, and he had no patience for careful removal of clothing. Sometimes he found that stage deliciously erotic. Today he wanted Fan and himself instantly naked.

“I’ll go fill—”

“Wait.” Will reached for Fan’s face. Firmly cradling it, he claimed a kiss and made the kiss last, deepening it, enjoying the buff of Fan’s whisker stubble against his own, relishing the flex of soft lips around sinuous tongue. Fan’s skin smelled of rock dust and his hair of burning leaves. His mouth tasted of fresh water. His muscles were hard from a full day’s labor.

Will’s desire spiraled so rapidly, his cock hardened to steel in seconds.

“I could kiss you all night,” he murmured against Fan’s mouth.

“
Just
kiss me?”

“Yes.” Will squirmed. Fan’s mouth steamed over his. Will pressed closer. “Or maybe not.”

Fan’s laugh rumbled through the wall of Will’s chest. “I don’t think we’ll make it to the tub.” He traced the lines of Will’s body, sweeping his hands down Will’s back, fitting them to his waist, cupping and squeezing his buttocks. “Once I start touching you, I can’t seem to stop. Especially when you’re this hungry.”

Will moaned. Fan noticing his hunger always honed it. He opened Fan’s shirt and ran his hands over an expanse of chest as fine as Simon’s, over skin that was flushed and damp beneath its embroidery of black hair. Will nuzzled it, slicking his face with Fan’s sweat, teasing himself with the nudge of Fan’s nipples against his nose and cheeks, teasing Fan by sucking at them.

“Gods, William, you’ve turned into a satyr.” Fan thrust his fingers into Will’s hair and held his head in place. “But the prettiest satyr in history, I swear.”

Will would normally have laughed at that, but his craving consumed him. “I can’t help it.” He had a strong urge to climb up and down Fan’s body, to scale it like a lumberjack would a tree. “I want you so much I ache from it.”

“I can see that. I can feel it.” Fan pulled Will’s hips against his own, and the press of their cocks, equally rigid, sent a sharp current shimmying through Will’s pelvis and into his thighs. They kissed again, with greater abandon. Fan opened Will’s trousers and gave his cock and balls a tug, and Will cried out at the exquisite shock of it.

This was the perfect antidote to the poison spewed by that hateful man at the flea market. Passion fueled by love. Love fueled by passion. Will took a moment to look at Fan’s face. He wouldn’t want a single line erased.

Their movements through the kitchen were an awkward, lusty dance. Half-undressed, they spun and stumbled, careening off sink and stove, cabinetry and chairs as they gripped each other’s body: buttocks, back muscles, biceps. Finally, Fan all but threw Will onto the kitchen table. He whipped off Will’s trousers and drawers with a single impressive flourish.

Will smiled. “You can leave my stockings on. It’s getting cold in here.”

“I hadn’t noticed. Shall I fill the stove?”

“Don’t go anywhere. I mean it.”

Fan inclined his head. “Your command is my wish, sir.” He stroked his hands over Will’s belly and rib cage, chest and shoulders—slowly, so slowly, as if he were in awe. With his eyes and fingers, he seemed to study each ridge and plain and slope. Leaning forward, curling his hands over the table’s edge, he pressed his lips and tongue to each nipple. When he slid his mouth to Will’s crotch, he only lifted it long enough to play magician and make Will’s cock disappear. His purplish-black hair tumbled across Will’s torso, adding another caress.

Will gasped. His skin shivered. “Take me, Fan,” he whispered, gazing at the man he could easily have believed was an underworld prince.

“It’s you who’ll be taking me.” After lowering his trousers, which had been resting on his hip bones, Fan slid onto the table beside Will and lay on his back. When he lifted his hand from his abdomen, a vial of olive oil appeared. He must have grabbed it as they wheeled around the room.

His jack stood straight and tall and ready.

Will slicked himself and Fan, the air huffing in and out of his lungs, and Fan groaned as he watched. “Shall I hold myself?” he asked.

“No. I’ll do that.”

Fan smiled, knowing what he was up to.

Will straddled him. Eyes fluttering closed, he gripped the thick base of Fan’s cock and guided the sleek, plump crown through the ring. It was another of their private games. “
If you get it on the first try
,” Fan had once told him, “
I promise
I’ll
get it on the first try.”
So the next time Fan entered Will from behind, or with Will’s legs over his shoulders, his initial thrust would have to hit Will’s sweet patch. Will thought there was no feeling in the world, aside from climax, like a large rod deftly coaxing the honey out of him. Fan’s was as large and deft as he could ever hope for.

Will slid down, and up, and down a bit farther, clenching and relaxing instinctively. With each of his movements, Fan let out a protracted groan. They shifted their hips a bit, and Will wiggled… and there it was, the magic door. Will let out a quavering whimper and began pumping his cock.

“Share some of that beautiful property with me, William.” Fan played with the head, stroking and squeezing with his fingers.

When Fan moved his hand farther back, Will thought he’d die of pleasure.

The end came quickly, explosively, Fan breaking on a grunt, his hips bucking spasmodically and triggering Will’s release. Plumes of cream arced over Fan’s midsection and plopped gracelessly onto the low, tight ripples of muscle. Will could barely remain upright. The sensation coursing through him was tidal in its ebb and flow.

Drained of strength, he collapsed onto Fan’s broad chest, and Fan’s arms immediately twined around his back.

“Now we truly need that bath,” Will mumbled.

Fan chuckled and kissed his temple. “If you ever get tired of being a salesman, William, I do believe you could get a position in a carnival sideshow.”

Will pulled back and gave him a quizzical look.

“As the Human Geyser,” Fan said, and playfully slapped Will’s bare ass.

Even that was heavenly.

O
NCE
CLEAN
and dry and sated, they made a supper of bread and oxtail soup. Will finally told Fan about the Spiritorium and its grim-faced but luxuriously dressed owner. He related Simon’s encounter, and his own, then apologized for not remembering more details—including the odd name the man had spoken.

Fan listened intently. “How very strange,” he finally said, his chin resting on thumb and forefinger.

“I’m sorry that’s all I can recall, but I was quite busy. And his presence left me a bit shaken.”

“So you don’t know his name or where he came from?”

“No. I never thought to ask. Frankly, after all his railing about hedonists and fornicators and Simon dancing with the devil, I just wanted to be away from him.” Will grimaced at
the memory. “And that garish wagon he claimed was some sort of miracle-working machine.”

He rose from the table, went to the stove, and lifted the pot of water that had gone from boiling to steaming. “Well,” he said on a sigh, “I suppose there’s no point stewing about it.” After carrying the hot water to the sink, he poured it in.