That Dratted Affair with the Dream Engine

Christine Danse

Published by Christine Danse at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Christine Danse

Cover design by Christine Danse, using Artweaver and Picnik.com

Photograph of man by Celso Pinto, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/271583

Photograph of difference engine by Matthijs van Heerikhuize, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1185634

Photographs used under this image license agreement: http://www.sxc.hu/help/7_2

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. I encourage you to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this story, please visit www.christinedanse.com to discover other works by me. Thank you for your support!

"I've a surprise for you," said Annette, and I should have known I was in for trouble when she spoke those words.

Still, I let her take me by the hand and lead me through London's streets by night. We went on foot until Borough Road, where she hailed a hansom cab. I did not hear her muttered instructions to the driver. Only when we had passed the Thames did I realize that she was leading us toward the East End. "Love," I said, levelly. "I don't believe this is a very good idea." Long had I known that my wife could not be reasoned with. All I could do was attempt to dissuade her, though it was a fool's errand. Her stubbornness put a mule's to shame.

She patted my knee reassuringly. "Relax, dear. I know exactly where we are going, and we'll be fine. Promise." She gave me her winning smile and gently touched her hand to my cheek. My response to her died on my lips, and I settled back into the cab's seat with a resigned sigh.

Tight-lipped, I watched the buildings grow shabby and forlorn. All manner of shady figures populated the streets and bar fronts of the East End: drunks, beggars, and unfortunate women who shuffled on the street corners like molting crows. Annette patted my knee again, and I sullenly broke off my stare.

At last, we rolled to a stop on a quieter street. The glow of the streetlamps here was murky and diffuse, dulled by the haze of nearby industry. "Here we are," she said, disembarking and paying the driver. She began to walk toward a sooty brick wall. Only on second take did I see the cramped doorway recessed in the shadows there, mounted on a narrow flight of steps.

"Come on, then, darling," she said as I hesitated on the sidewalk. "It's really all right."

"Is this necessary?" I asked. "Your last 'surprise' nearly got me fired from the force."

She laughed. It was a sound like bells. "Oh, don't worry," she said. "We will be very much still this time, and I won't be bound inside of a freight car, and no steamdroids with batons will be involved." She seemed to think for a moment, then added, "Actually, no steamdroids will be involved at all." With a smile, she held her hand out to me, delicate fingers spread in an inviting gesture.

Despite myself, the memory sent a flush of blood over my cheeks and straight down to my loins. My pants grew uncomfortably tight. Reflexively, I ducked my head, cleared my throat roughly, and threw a quick glance up and down the sidewalk. We were alone. Annette stood quietly, her smile bright, her hand unwavering. I was compelled to take it and to follow her through the shadowed doorway.

She led me into a cramped foyer, straight up a treacherous flight of stairs, and down a dark hallway papered with peeling wallpaper. I had the uncomfortable feeling of trespassing, although she walked on with all the ease of a woman in her own home. I received the impression that she had been here before, and I was not comfortable with the idea. No, I was not comfortable with it at all. I began to wonder about all the unwholesome places she had been without me ever knowing. This could not be the first.

There was one open doorway along the hall, and it was through this that Annette led me. The room was a poorly lit parlor that smelled of grease and ozone. Sheets had been draped over the furniture, and almost every available surface was covered with a thick coat of dust. The place had the feeling of a forgotten attic.

"Good evening," said a voice.

I started and turned to find a gaunt gentleman regarding us through a pair of slender spectacles. The white shirt and checkered vest that clothed his person hung upon him ungracefully, as if upon a scarecrow. Though his limbs were long like an adolescent's, his balding head and lined mouth lent him the impression of middle-aged solemnity, an almost shocking contrast. His gaze alighted on me for the briefest of appraisals, then—as if finding me immediately unworthy of attention—settled upon my wife. I bristled.

"Mr. Foster," said Annette, with familiarity. "How do you do?"

The man nodded his head. The bespectacled gaze flicked to me again, and he said, "Very well. Is this your husband?"

"Yes," said Annette, drawing me to her side with a beckoning gesture. I stepped forward readily and placed a possessive hand around her waist, my gaze fixed sternly on this gentleman who presumed to be familiar with my wife. "Jeremy, this is Mr. Foster. Mr. Foster, this is my husband, Jeremy." She gave my waist a little squeeze, and I sensed the slight tease in her gesture, as if she sensed my thoughts.

He nodded again and repeated, "Very well." With a wave of his hand, he directed us toward the back wall of the parlor. "If you would please." As we stepped in that direction, he asked, "Sir, have you experienced dream-watching before?"

I was taken aback by the strange and unexpected question. In my pause, Annette replied, "No. This is his first time." She said this with a smile and leaned her head cutely against my chest. I felt a surge of anger and indignation welling up in me as I felt her dragging me unwittingly into an unknown and unsavory experience.

Mr. Foster said, "I see."

We came to stand before a large machine that stood against the wall, perhaps the only static object in the room that was not filmed with dust. With a jolt of surprise and recognition, I realized that it was—

"An analytical engine," I said, then blurted, "But it looks positively occult."

Indeed, "occult" was the only word I could find to describe the thing. It had the tall, narrow, rectangular shape of the engines used at Scotland Yard. However, half of its tarnished, vertical computing mills had been replaced with narrow glass columns of green, glowing gas, which roiled about in a stormy state of flux.

"You could say that," said Mr. Foster, with a sneer. "However, although it borrows heavily from Babbage's design, it relies primarily on alchemical principles and hermetic technology—what some may call occult, for lack of understanding."

I perceived his insult, and I did not appreciate it. However, before I could gather myself to reply, Annette added, "It's a dream engine, Jeremy. It allows you to experience the dreams of another person. It records them. Isn't that grand? Mr. Foster invented it."

I regarded the engine skeptically. "Annette, I really don't think—"

"Oh, Jeremy. Just one try. We're already here, and I have a surprise set up for you."

"This is not surprise enough?" I asked, incredulous.

"Posh! This isn't the surprise, silly! Come, sit down. I promise you'll be all right, darling!" She stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on my lips, then steered me into one of the thread-worn chairs that flanked the engine. I went with a frown. A wrong feeling had settled into the pit of my stomach, but Annette stood just in front of me, her knees pressed against mine, her hands holding mine, leaning over me with a warm and reassuring smile. "It won't hurt you, I promise. Mr. Foster just needs to put a thing on your head. Just a bit of gel and three little pads. It's cold at first, but don't pay it any mind." She kissed me on the forehead, and smiled, and released me.

I watched her back away, then turned my wary gaze to the gaunt Mr. Foster, who sorted out a tangle of wires at a small table in front of the engine. I had just begun to relax into the chair when he dipped two fingers into a jar and scooped out a quivering glob of gel.

As the man approached me with that greenish mound of jelly, I opened my mouth to protest, but at that moment, Annette sweetly said, "I love you." I deflated. I grimaced, and then the repulsive slime was being smeared across my forehead. This was followed by the placement of three small, flat pads. When I opened my eyes, wires trailed from my forehead from those pads, and Annette had seated herself in the chair on the other side of the machine. As I watched, she underwent an identical treatment. Gel, pads, wires. Catching my gaze, she grinned at me and winked.

"Mr. Foster. The one I prepared, if you would please," she said to our skeletal host.

"But of course," he said, and removed a rather ordinary-looking punchcard from a small box. He fed this into the engine, and—with a pull of a lever—the machine steamed to life.

Immediately, my forehead began to tingle under the coat of gel, and my stomach lurched as sudden vertigo caused the room to spin around me. I had time only to cry out in dismay before the parlor disappeared and I was swallowed into another reality.

The world around me was blue, and formless, and weightless. I had the feeling of floating in a cloudless sky. For some moments, I simply hung motionless, blinking myself into full awareness. There was a nagging haze over my mind, like the drowsy veil that blurred my dreams at night.

Yes. That was it, of course. I was—

"What do you think?" asked a voice from behind me. It was male, and it was at once wholly familiar and altogether strange. With a lazy twist of my body, I found myself turning about to face its owner.

A man floated as if in water several feet away, limbs casually buoyant. He was naked, with lean arms and an abdomen that was flat but undefined. His manhood dangled shamelessly in full view.

I was struck with an overwhelming sense of familiarity. After all, the face I gawked at now was the face that looked back at me in the bathroom mirror every morning.

I was looking at...me.

"Hello, Jeremy," said the other me, in my own voice. "I'm so very glad you joined me. I had always wanted to know what it felt like to be a man, and when I learned of Mr. Foster’s machine, the very first dream I watched was a man's. I thought it was a fantastic and intimate experience, and I thought you ought to try it. As a woman." The lips that I knew so well but seemed so alien quirked up at the ends. "Surprise."

At that, I looked down at my body. There: A pair of voluptuous breasts that I would have recognized anywhere, no matter the vantage point. Lily white, with smart brown nipples that always perked at the lightest touch or chill of the air. No, there was no mistaking these breasts, nor the fact that they swelled from my own smooth, perfectly white chest.

The "me" was Annette. And I...was her.

"I promise to make your first experience so very memorable," Annette continued. She—he?—smiled at me with my mustached mouth. "Go on," she said. "Touch them. They're real, and they're yours."

I wanted to call off Annette's nonsense, but curiosity or some other compulsion drove me to raise one of her—my—delicate hands and cup it under the curve of one breast. The flesh felt soft and smooth, just as I remembered it. However, this time, I experienced the dual sensation of touching and being touched. I could feel the warmth of my hand sliding over my own flesh. I squeezed.

Oh...

Annette chuckled softly in a way that had no right coming from my mouth. She floated toward me and closed the hand that should have been mine around the breast that should have been hers. Slowly, tenderly, she began to knead the flesh. She murmured, "Do you like it?"

I had no choice but to agree. I had an idea by now that I did not act under my own compulsion; rather, I was somehow just a spectator in a dream that was Annette's. In this dream, I responded by exhaling pleasurably. Annette's touch did feel remarkably good. I had never realized quite how large and pleasantly warm my hands were, or just how sensitive her soft breast was. I closed my eyes as I experienced both now. And then she flicked my nipple between her fingers, and my breath hitched and places in my body I had never had before began to tense and swell.

My eyes flew open. Annette smiled wolfishly at me, irises bright. "Oh, yes," she said, twisting the nipple gently now, then pulling on it slowly until it slid smoothly and elastically from her grip. "You feel it, don't you?"

I was mesmerized, caught by her gaze as her face dipped slowly toward mine. Her lips brushed my lips, moustache tickling. I could feel the warmth and solidness of her body closing over mine. As she slipped a broad hand over the smooth, cool skin of my back, I yielded like putty, relaxing against her grip.

"Yes," she mumbled against my lips. "You want this so very much."

With that, her lips closed around mine—gentle, firm, tender. Despite myself, I moaned wordlessly. My nostrils flared and I sucked in a deep breath of her. My senses exploded with the heady essence of man: sweat and spice and something inexplicably primal. I could not help myself, but captured his lips with own, my arms seeking his strong shoulders and curling around the curve of his neck. His mouth was so very delicious, and I was hungry for it. For him.

One of his hands slid down to the soft curve of my butt, while his other arm closed strongly about my shoulders. As he began to pet my ass, he sighed against me and brushed my lips with his tongue, inviting them to open. They did, and gladly. Gently, succulently, his tongue slid into my mouth, caressing my lips, my tongue. His breath was hot against mine, and I could sense his reserve, the force with which he held his animal passion back. It trembled in his arms, on his breath.

My stomach tightened. I wanted him. I wanted that—the animal, not the gentleman. I closed my arms around him and pressed my mouth harder against his, bruising. I plunged my tongue deep and moaned with my need.

He responded with a groan. The hand on my ass gripped hard at the plush flesh, the tips of his short nails edging into my skin. He pulled me even closer against him and closed his mouth like a beast's around mine, his tongue stroking deeper, curling and fighting with mine. Oh, yes...

With a gasp, he pulled away. We both drank greedily at the air. Hoarsely, he said, "Jeremy, I've wanted you... I've wanted you so badly like this."

Jeremy. Yes. I was Jeremy, and Annette—

Annette looked so rakish in my body, hair tousled, a sheen of sweat slicking her forehead. I found it difficult to swallow as I looked at her, struggling with myself. My entire body felt swollen and inviting, so craving of touch. I was overcome with the feeling of not wanting to be in Annette, but wanting Annette in me.

"Sshh. It's all right," she said with my voice, stroking my face with my fingers. So softly, so lovely, her touch trailing. "You are a woman now. You are so very beautiful, and I love you. Jeremy, I want you."

"Annette—" I began, but stopped cold at the sound of this voice—her voice—issuing from my throat. So delicate, so feminine. My hand flew to my throat.

She smiled, tenderly. "Sshh," she hushed again, and touched one finger to my lips. "Just let me show you."

Annette slipped her hands under my body so that she was cradling me like a child, or a bride. She kissed me again, this time softly, chastely. When she lifted her head away, I found that the infinite blue space had been replaced by a room, lavishly furnished in golds and burnt reds. Gravity had returned, and I felt as Annette lowered me down and set me upon the silk sheets of a large, luxurious bed. I trembled at the kiss of cool fabric against my skin.

There was a whisper of a troubled thought, as if something was—

As Annette stood straight, I was distracted by the view of her lean body. My lean body. But, I had never seen it like this before, chest solid, waist narrow, arms strong. So tall, towering over me. When my gaze slid downward, it froze on her engorged cock. With a chuckle, she lowered her hand to lightly caress and encircle its length. She said, "Jeremy, I love your cock. I love it so very, very much—even more so on me. Mm." She smiled, an expression that reminded me of a tiger. She asked, "What do you think?" She brushed her fingers along the shaft as I stared, fixated on its beauty—the smooth, taut skin, the swell of the head, the hard length of it.

A quiver ran through me as I remembered the feel of Annette's fragile feminine fingers on my cock—stroking, just like that. However, the flesh that swelled and burned in response to my lust now was not a cock, but Annette's flower-like vulva. As I stared at the stiff, statuesque member, I found myself licking my lips with a hunger I had never before known.

In a low voice, Annette said, "You can suck it, if you'd like."

Oh, could I? Another quiver of desire caused me to tremble delicately.

No. No, something was wrong, I—

"I'd like to feel your mouth on my cock, Jeremy," she said, breathily.

Oh, and how I wanted her cock in my mouth! How had I never desired it before? How had my mouth never watered at the sight, as it was now?

The man in me growled—an impotent sound, in this contralto voice—and I said, "You wicked vixen."

Annette smiled. "Oh, but I am not the vixen."

"No," I said, carefully. "No, I suppose you're not." I could not take my eyes from her erection, it tempted me so. "But when this is over..." I did not complete the thought. Instead, I crawled on my hands and knees to the edge of the bed. I could help myself no longer: I leaned forward and slid my lips over the smooth head of her member.

Reflexively, a groan issued from me, and I felt her shudder on contact. My nostrils flared and I took a deep breath. She filled me: firm and satiny and pulsing with heat. I moaned again and nudged my head forward, pushing her farther in, lips and jaw stretching for her girth. Above me, Annette growled and tensed. As I drew back, flesh sliding against flesh, she grasped the hair at the base of my head and pulled me forward again. The show of force ignited a flare of passion in my belly, and I found myself grabbing her muscular thighs, pulling her toward me with every thrust.

Just as her breath roughened into a new rhythm, she said, "No more." She grasped my hair and pulled me away, her cock springing from my mouth with drips of saliva. I cried out.

Annette pushed me back into the bed, and suddenly she was over me, limbs caging me, hot chest low over mine. "I want to save some for you," she grated, huskily, and kissed me on the mouth—sucking, pulling. The round tip of her cock poked, then slid, against the slick, voluptuous flesh between my legs. With some astonishment, I realized that I was very, very wet. She smoothed the stray, wet strands of hair from my forehead with her warm hands and said, "I want you to feel like a woman where it counts."

To accentuate her words, Annette dipped her hips and ground her cock against me. I had opened my mouth to say something, but only a wordless garble came out as the length of her slid deliciously over my folds, and I shuddered almost violently. She was smiling at me underneath the dark moustache and was thumbing my cheeks with the broad pads of her thumbs. Again and again, she slipped against me, drawing pleasure and desire from me in long strokes.

I had never— Oh, but I wanted—

"Annette," I said, a strained whisper.

She smiled, and kissed me, and slid against me. I cried into her mouth. My nose was filled with the masculine scent of her—the salt of sweat, the musk of man. When our lips parted, she pulled her head back to lap first one nipple, and then the other. "Are you ready...wife?" she—oh, he—asked in a throaty rumble.

His head rested just against my clitoris, causing a single point of white-hot need to kindle and grow. I could barely think for it. He tapped once, twice, with his cock. A wave of mindless lust screamed through me.

I bucked against him, seeking, thrusting, but he raised his hips so that he was ever just out of reach, only gently touching. Panting, I fell still.

"Tell me you want it, Jeremy," he said.

If I did not, I would go mad. I felt the edge of hysteria. I grit my teeth, then said, "I want it."

That wolfish upturn of his lips. "Be naughty to me, Jeremy."

I stared at him with wide eyes. I paused, then exhaled and whispered, "Fuck me."

His grin grew. "Yes," he breathed, licking my lips with a quick, lupine flick of his tongue. He pulled back, and when he thrust forward, his cock slid into me—stretching me, impaling me.

My breath caught and I stared up at him, slack-jawed. He hovered, unmoving, as he watched my face. Gaze fixed on mine, he drew back and advanced again—slowly, torturously. Again, he repeated the movement, while every muscle in my body tensed and trembled. Then, he stuck me with a quick, deep thrust. When he pulled back slowly, every nerve grabbed out for him. I closed my eyes and sighed, shudderingly. I opened them again to find him studying me. His eyes were hungry. He was playing with me.

I could not take it. "Fuck me," I grated. "Fuck me now." I grabbed his ass in my hands and pulled down on his hips, savagely.

With a grunt and a coarse laugh, he thrust deeply again, then again, and again. It stole my breath.

"Is this what you want, vixen?" he growled, and impaled me again. I couldn't speak to reply, only tightened my grip on his ass until he began fuck me—really fuck me. He thrust into me rhythmically until I shifted up and down in the sheets, the bed rocked, and his thighs slapped against mine.

His breath heaved like a bellows. Having found my voice, I cried out, long and loud. Above me, Annette grunted and pounded into me, his pace quickening as my voice deepened with desperation. I wanted him. I wanted him in me like this—deeper, faster, breath, sweat.

The heat between us grew, damp and tremoring. I could feel him grow harder inside of me, somehow more substantial. More imminent.

The hungry, burning need grew warmer and spread up my belly and over my thighs. Then, too, a tingling began, following wherever the warmth had gone, but slower and pleasantly ominous. I sensed an approaching brink.

"Say it," he ground.

The need demanded that I say the words. Gustily, I said, "Fuck me! Annette, fuck me!" Then, "I want you to come inside me!"

The tingling spread, and suddenly, it was all crashing over me and I was crying out and spasming beneath him. The muscles in my lower abdomen clenched and unclenched uncontrollably.

Annette howled and then went hoarse, collapsing over me. He panted, spent.

After a time, Annette rolled from me and lay at my side. One hand rested on my breast, petting and pressing idly. I was still almost painfully swollen, but already the desire began to stir in me again.

"I knew you would like it," Annette said, almost drowsily. His finger twirled around my nipple, causing it to pucker. Fires that had been banked began to slowly smolder between my legs. Lazily, lovingly, he began to squeeze my soft breast. He said, "We will have such a good time together. I know it."

Puzzled, I looked at him. He smiled at me, so very sweetly. He said, "This isn't just a dream, Jeremy. This was not the real surprise. Mr. Foster’s machine does more than transplant dreams. It can transport souls." He reached out to brush the backs of his fingers against my cheek, oh so gentle. The gesture was comforting, possessive, and sweetly...masculine. It both relaxed and scared me, but did nothing to my returning lust except fan the flames. He said, "The orgasm completed it, darling." Rolling onto his elbows, Annette leaned down to kiss me. His hand squeezed my breast again—this time, not lazily. "This is your new body, Jeremy," he said, smoothly mounting me again. "Surprise."

My eyes were wide. "No..." I breathed.

"Yes," he murmured. He was hard again. His cock pressed against my entrance, and I was already ready for him. It stifled every protest I'd had. I simply...wanted him. "Think of all the wonderful fun we shall have, my sweet. My wife."

He lowered his mouth to kiss me.

I came to. It was with a dry mouth, an aching back, and stiff limbs. My head was filled with cotton, and when I attempted to move, everything tipped and spun. I felt my stomach leap up against the back of my throat and struggled to hold it down as I rocked forward.

"Jeremy!" A body pressed against mine, slight and smelling of lavender. A slender arm hugged my shoulders.

I looked up and opened my eyes. "Annette?" It was her, dark curls framing her face. I struggled to make sense of my vision, of my world.

"It was just a dream, sweetheart." She kissed my damp forehead. Her eyes, when I met them, were clouded with concern. She said, "I was beginning to worry. When the recording ended and Mr. Foster disconnected us, we couldn't wake you. Are you all right?"

The stiff chair was real underneath me, its wooden armrests solid underneath my palms. My stomach had dropped back down to its proper place in my abdomen. I was breathing. My cock was curiously sore, and I was embarrassed to detect a sticky dampness in my trousers. But I was male. I was myself.

"Annette," I said, and my voice sounded so deep, so low in my throat. I licked my lips. I said, "Annette, no more surprises."

Her lips pursed into an innocent bow, and her brows knitted so delicately. "No, dear. Of course not..." she said, and kissed me. As she did, her hand touched my chest and brushed idly over my nipple. "...husband."

###

About the author:

Christine Danse is a native Floridian, a rather rare species of hominid with an aversion to the sun and a love of air conditioning. She has been writing stories of fantasy and the paranormal since she was old enough to hold a pen, and she has been telling them even longer. She is particularly fond of shape-shifters and strange steampunk, although she has yet to write a story that involves both. (The excitement might cause her to spontaneously combust.) She lives in Ft. Lauderdale with her dog, Bait; her best friend, Rhianna; and the two talking cats from whom they rent.

Connect with Me Online:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/dansedesirable

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/christinedanse

My home page: http://www.christinedanse.com

My Tumblr: http://whispersfromtrees.tumblr.com

Table of Contents

That Dratted Affair with the Dream Engine