Like a Wisp of Steam

Like A Wisp of Steam: Steampunk Erotica
by Cecilia Tan, J. Blackmore

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Innocent's Progress

An Extempore Romance

Hysterical Friction

In the Flask

Steam and Iron, Musk and Flesh

* * * *

Welcome to the Circlet Press ebook edition of: Like a Wisp of Steam

Steampunk Erotica

C.Tan & J. Blackmore, Eds.

Copyright © 2008 Circlet Press, Inc.

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Introduction

Steampunk is sexy. It just is. Sturdy girls in dirty lace and goggled ruffians and heroes committing indiscriminate acts of derring-do are the stuff of great adventure and epic fantasy.

You would think that steampunk erotica would simply be the next logical step. And yet, even though I represent many readers who are hungry for this genre, there's little out there to be found.
Like a Wisp of Steam
is a collection of stories by people who can dream in sepia, and want to share their visions with others. I hope that, by unleashing this collection on the world, we will inspire more writers to grow the budding genre.

The nineteenth century, especially its latter half, was a time of contradictions and hypocrisy. In Britain, technology bounded ahead at an astonishing rate, and with it came all the other sciences. This was the time of Tesla and Edison, of Curie and Pasteur, when science and its pursuit was something of a religion unto itself. But even the light of science could not dispel the darkness of militant "morality,"

and scientists, then as now, were often laboring under a political or social agenda. Vanessa Vaughn's story "In the Flask" is a tale of two such tame scientists, and what happens when they are let off the leash. No matter how hard those who lead us may try to control our appetites, there is no governing force, and no work of science, that can control the power of simple human lust. It seems inevitable that studying the body, and the way the mind works on it, would inspire steampunk scientists in ways they never could have expected.

The scientists weren't the only ones inspired by their new wealth of technology. Victorians, in general, loved their gadgets. The Industrial Revolution brought with it a mania for electricity and clockwork and all that those things could make possible. Doctors tired of manually treating women for

"hysteria" eventually turned to a device that could achieve in minutes what it took them hours of work to bring about: the G-spot orgasm. The vibrator was considered the miracle cure for all that ailed the Victorian woman. The advertisements promoted them for back health, and headaches, but they also mentioned vibrating chairs ... Thomas S. Roche gives us a look at what might have been in "Hysterical Friction," which stars a very nervous lady, an overly-helpful nurse, an ardent doctor devoted to his craft, and an extraordinary bicycle. Here we're allowed to look in on the model Victorian marriage, and the science it took to maintain it.

Maybe while the grown-ups were cheerfully vibrating away their troubles, their children were playing with gear-driven toys and dreaming of one day taking to the skies. Thank you, Jules Verne, wherever you are. You brought us improbable vehicles run on steam and gears, and the harrowing adventures they led to. All the submersibles and balloons led us to the grandest quest-seeker of them all: the airship. The dream of flight was a heady one in the nineteenth century, and mastering the skies was the great dream of men (and some women) everywhere. It's only logical that our heroes of the time-that-never-was would gallivant over Europe in ships run on sheer will. Who could crew such magnificent vessels but the most sturdy and able-bodied men and women the Victorian era wishes it produced? In "Steam and Iron, Musk and Flesh," Kaysee Renee Robichaud gives us Trista, the brilliant and lusty engineer, who stumbles into the kind of adventures one can only expect from an airship pilot. In the nineteenth century-that-should-have-been, adventurers like Trista navigated a country and community of flight, whether in service of their government, or in rebellion against it. They were soldiers, adventurers, rogues, and scoundrels. And, well, there's something about a woman in leather hanging from the rigging...

Which leads us to corsets. So many corsets. And, as if the corset isn't hot enough, now put a kind-of-emancipated woman in it and give her a revolver. The women of steampunk are not interested in parlors and dance cards: they have inventions to finish, terrain to cross, or men to save. And damn it, they're going to look good doing it. Peter Tupper introduces us to the Victorian era as it would have been without Victorian values, but no less rigid rules of social structure and propriety. "The Innocent's Progress" outlines the journey of a woman who refuses to let anyone else define her, from the point of view of one of her admirers. In "An Extempore Romance," by Jason Rubis, the Victorian age is coming to an end, and in its place is rising a world of almost alchemical science. Standing at the edge of an epoch, with her hatched maid at her side, is Amelia Lessington, lady writer and patron of a new sort of brothel. Part of their appeal is, of course, that you know they're not supposed to be doing things like this. For all of the differences between the lady of high adventure and the "angel of the house," one thing doesn't change: the corset stays on. The corset is the archetypal symbol of feminine repression in the Victorian landscape. Therefore, it is all the more delicious when some waif makes it into a uniform for rebellion.

After all, what it really all comes down to is rebellion. The Victorian era was one of incredible oppression and deep and wide class divides. The people below the wealthy middle class could not even dream of escaping the lives they led, so some read the adventures of people who were doing what they never could. Steampunk is the descendent of those tales.

Although Verne was always more interested in technological wonders and the hope they could bring, H.G. Wells was more realistic, using his adventure stories to decry some aspect of his world he knew was unfair. Every man and woman in these stories who dons the goggles or shortens the skirt is spitting in the face of the world that raised them. By taking to the skies or freeing the people of the streets, they use their extraordinary talents to bring grief to an establishment that would rather see them dead. It's moving, thrilling, and arousing. They are people we want to be. They are people we want in our beds. They are the stuff of pulp-fantasy of the highest order.

J. Blackmore

October 2008

The Innocent's Progress

Peter Tupper

After ten hours of incompetent performances, temper tantrums, crying fits, vomiting, and one or two death threats, the other two judges were ready to end auditions, but Ricar felt they were obliged to see one more. He called, "Next, please!"

The door to backstage, where dozens still waited for their chance, opened. A woman walked out onto the stage, her steps echoing in the nearly empty theatre until she stopped precisely on the chalk mark and faced the three judges in their armchairs.

Right away, Ricar could see a problem. She wore a simple blue and white dress, the costume of the Innocent, but it couldn't conceal her powerful shoulders and thighs, or the fact she was taller than most men. The effect was almost comical.

Chel, the choreographer and designer, gave a tiny snort of suppressed laughter at the sight, while Davis, the host and manager, just shook his head wearily.

Ricar professionally took stock of her appearance, the dress notwithstanding: perhaps thirty, good face, shapely body even without a tight-laced corset, legs a bit short but the right costuming could work around that. Too big for a Servant or Pet, too old for a Novice. She might make a good Beast or Fatale—with some exercise and training, perhaps even the Virago? "Your name, miss?" he said.

"Delyn, Alwyx sept, Yelwin clan," she said proudly. Her voice was clear and projected well, though Ricar could tell she spoke in a higher register than was natural for her.

"Your experience?" Davis asked, his fountain pen poised over his notebook.

"Two years in Diamond Dog company, one in Silken Cord, and one in the House of the Silver Fetter."

Surprisingly little experience for someone her age, but respectable, Ricar thought.

"And what will you do for us today, Miss Alwyx?" Chel asked, concealing her smile beneath her lace-gloved hand.

"The Innocent."

Ricar sighed. "What else can you do?"

"Well, Servant and Harlot, of course. Also Beast and Pedant."

"Can you do the Fatale?" Chel asked.

"It's not my strength." One of her hands reached for her dress buttons, then stopped.

Ricar rose from his seat and crossed the stage to the new hopeful. Up close, he could see that even in her demure white shoes, sans heel, Miss Alwyx was almost as tall as he was and probably heavier. "Let me see you do the Virago."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I never learned to do the Virago. Is there something else?"

That wasn't a good sign, he thought; he believed versatility was essential to a player. Still, he was curious to see what this woman could do.

"Very well. Let me see your Innocent." He fixed her with a stare. "Come here," he said in the grave tones of the Patron, one finger pointed before him.