After an eternity, the darkness began to dissipate. With glacial slowness, nothingness gradually brightened into something. As one epoch faded into the next, and, then, another, the void gave way to corporeal reality. The universe, all thought and emotion, and the realm of human experience manifested before my eyes and in my throbbing gray matter. The dim lights of the control panel, glowing amber and green, crashed into being; shiny, brass levers jiggled, and exposed, clockwork gears hummed and ground away merrily.

Cocooned by dark-stained wood, spirals of copper tubing, and panes of leaded glass, I sat in the comfy seat, the only spot of luxury within the entire Contraption. Nausea, disorientation, and excitement filled me. Beside me, nestled in the packing fluff of an open wooden crate, a creature – some cute, odd thing – napped away as if we hadn’t traversed reality, space, and perhaps even time. Its camaraderie was a boon to my trip. Disheveled and exhausted, I felt elated as my vision cleared, my wayward father’s familiar laboratory materializing through the viewports.

“Well, Chuckaboo,” I said to the sleeping creature. “Time to see your new home. At least I think this is our home.”

After the trip I’d just had, I couldn’t be certain if I’d returned home safely or had once more gotten lost in the multiverse. This version of reality seemed to be proper, or at least close enough. My maiden voyage, quite the Nanty Narking excursion, had been a robust but exhausting adventure. As I opened the padded door’s latch, the smell of sulfur and a street tart's perfume assailed my nostrils.

A droning “Whomp phew, Wholumph Theeew” sound thumped throughout the vast chamber. Noting the pillars of steam at the far end of the lab, near the elephantine collection of shelved books, I discerned that the sounds and feminine moans emanated from that general area.

Undoing the leather straps of the seat, I snatched up the crate and looked at the creature. Chuckaboo, as I called him, was some unknown sort of mammal; I’d never seen anything even vaguely like him, before. His kitten-soft fur was spotted, like a leopard’s, but long and shaggy. Roughly the size of a puppy, with floppy ears and a prehensile tail, the thing reminded me of both a husky puppy and a jaguar somehow composited together. He latched onto me during my third stop while I was lost in the planes of possibility and refused to leave my side. At least he was friendly and smart. Chuckaboo was an exotic mix of cuddly cuteness with talons, fangs, and green, lizard-like eyes.

My attention turned to the rhythmic pounding and exhaled steam across the cavernous interior as I put my new pet down beside a glowing heater to help keep him warm. Like me, Chuckaboo appreciated the coziness of warmth.

Having learned my lesson when I once mistakenly found my way to some violent alter-reality that merely looked like my home, I readied my weapon, a needler, and set off. I wove through the tables, boxes, miscellaneous inventions, and strewn about parts of incomplete projects until I found the cause of the steaming commotion.

“Oooh, mmm,” the voice was moaning. “Oh, oh, oh, aaah!”

Bringing my weapon to bear, prepared to shoot the compressed-air-powered, metallic darts at any foe, I was relieved to see that Kayla, my friend and assistant, was the cause of the noise. She was far from distressed, making me laugh aloud when I saw her situation.

Kayla lay on the chaise lounge, her tanned skin complimenting the scarlet velvet cushions. Her voluminous polonaise was hiked up above her waist in a very unladylike fashion. Black hair cascaded over the lounge in disarray, matching the state of her petticoats. Her bodice was partially unlaced, allowing her to pull her large but firm breasts out of the confining, but quite shape-enhancing, torturous garment. She had taken advantage of that, freeing her luscious tits.

Her hands cupped and squeezed those magnificent breasts, occasionally lifting one to her lips so she could suck and nibble on her nipples. Adding to the intensity of what I saw, her legs were spread wide, her tuft-topped mound on display. Between her legs was the business end of her latest invention, the Orgasmatron. She seemed to have perfected it in my absence.

A large brass kettle of riveted plates, gauges atop it, boiled away, powering the sensual invention. Cogs, gears, and wheels of various sizes, the axles off-center, were driven by the steam. Her invention reminded me of the wheels and drive shaft of a locomotive. Instead of turning a drive wheel, the gearing pumped the main shaft, a large, bulbous, brass phallus on the end. The glinting metal plunged into her pussy as she squealed and moaned, withdrawing as the wheel turned, only to plunge into her once more. Dual hoses ran to a brass and wood lever box on the lounge beside her writhing body, the levers labeled “thrust” and “speed”.

My heart soared; I was home. It was definitely Kayla. “I see you got it working,” I cheerily observed.

“Oh, umm, aah, you’re back.” She moaned out in her passion.

I watched her fuck the machine, feeling my arousal crest. Her smooth skin and dark hair with those deep, blue eyes always made my blood boil. Proper ladies didn’t finger and lick each other in the night, let alone invent sexual-pleasure machines. Her voracious sexual appetites, stunning, exotic looks, and serpentine tongue were irresistible. It mattered little that she and I were not considered “proper ladies.” Her penchant for women and mine for either sex was scandalous. Our refusal to wear crinolines was infamous.

The large, brass dildo pummeled her cunt as she moaned and writhed on her invention. Her hands left her bosoms and slammed both of the levers to the maximum. The thumping sounds of the wheels turning and the steam exiting the steam box increased in tempo and volume. Kayla’s orgasmic wailing drowned it all out.

“Fucking cumming. Fuck me, this is better than any man,” she screamed.

I watched her in the throes of passion, amused. The little pinpricks of claws crawling up the back of my dress startled me, momentarily, until I realized that it was only my new pet climbing up to perch on my shoulder. He sat on my shoulder, watching her vulgar display of horny passion.

“Ariel,” Kayla screamed in terror, “there’s some monster climbing on you!”

I laughed, coaxing Chuckaboo out from under my hair. Her lamentations had scared him into hiding. “Meet Chuckaboo. He adopted me on my third stop.”

Kayla regained her composure, and, turning off the machine that had been fucking her, she straightened her skirts but neglected to tighten her bodice. “What is he?”

“Friendly. Other than that, I have no idea. I’ve never seen another creature like him.”

She eyed the cuddly mass of fur, warily.

“Chukaboo, meet my best friend, Kayla.” I then spoke to my assistant, who was smiling over her flushed cheeks and panting. “Hold your hand out to mine, so he can climb aboard and get to know you.”

She did. Soon, the cute varmint and Kayla were well-acquainted.

“I know the machine worked because it disappeared, but tell me everything. What did you see? Experience? Did you find any evidence of your father?”

I shook my head, my expression growing dour. “It will take a very long time to detail everything, but, no, no sign of dad.”

“I’ll need to know everything. Maybe on your next outing, you’ll find some sign of him. One can only learn so much in a day.”

“A day? How long have I been gone?”

Kayla gestured to the large clock on the nearby table. “Twenty-three hours and fourteen minutes.”

“That’s not possible! I’ve been gone for over eleven months. That’s not even counting the infinity between worlds.”

Kayla is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, perhaps even more intelligent than my missing father. Her reply was ingenious. “Huh? No. Twenty-three-and-one-quarter hours. I calibrated both clocks. They should be in sync.”

“Let me show you,” I sighed.

Arm in arm, passionately kissing each other to christen our reunion, I led her to the far side of the giant laboratory. She screamed with delight when she saw the gear-driven clock in the Contraption, her breasts flying free of her still-loose bodice.

Kayla went into what I called “speed mode.” Whenever her mind was focused on figuring something out or nearing an epiphany, her mouth spat thoughts and truncated ideas almost as quickly as her mind worked, jumping from one conclusion to another. Her verbal patter and musings to herself, when she was tinkering with her projects, were both amusing and informative.

“But, but…but how? There was only enough coal for a day. You’d have been stranded. That’s why we agreed you’d go and poke around for a few hours and come right back. I got so worried after the first few hours and busied myself with my inventions. I haven’t slept…wait. How is it still powered up?”

“You have to see this,” I exclaimed. I pulled her around to the firebox and opened it. “See? There!”

She stopped blabbering and stared and gave me a quizzical look. “A big lump of coal?” Her tone showed that she wasn’t impressed.

“No. The second reality I came to, right before the controls got all wonky, was this volcanic place. I was running out of fuel, so I grabbed one of the giant burning embers, and it stayed hot and glowing the entire time, for months on end! It never burns out. I have no idea what makes it always give off fiery heat.”

She nodded, smiling. Then, a look of comprehension washed over her features. “Phlebotinum, obviously. It’s powered by Phlebotinum.”

It was my turn to show off my dazzling intellect. “Huh?”

“Never mind that. I think I know what happened to Professor Summerland.”

“You see a burning lump of Phemblucution, or whatever you called it, and you suddenly know how or why dad disappeared?”

“No,” she sighed. “The time differential! Don’t you see? It’s obvious.”

It wasn’t. “I suppose I don’t see. In my defense, I had a harrowing journey, I’m exhausted, and I need a bath.”

Chuckaboo had heard enough. He let out some chirping, barking clatter, and climbed off Kayla, returning to his crate beside the pot-bellied stove and its warmth.

Kayla shook her head at me. “Maybe if you’d paid more attention to your studies, rather than fencing and roughhousing with the boys just to be bricky, you might have picked up a thing or two.”

“You fence, too!” My cheeks flushed as red as my hair.

“Ariel Summerland,” my raven-haired companion and lover scolded. “If your clock is accurate, you’ve been gone for nearly a year, but barely a day has passed.”

“And?”

“AND!? Think it through. How many times have you cut your hair in the past year, or shaved your legs?”

I pondered what she said. “Not once. So?”

“Are your legs hairy?”

I raised my skirt, showing her my smooth and silky, if somewhat scrawny, legs.

“Eureka!” she shouted, eliciting another chattering lecture from Chuckaboo, who was trying to sleep. “That means that time passes differently wherever you managed to go. If you were gone for nearly twelve months…” Her face scrunched up, adopting her “inner calculating” expression, quite foolish and amusing, as she paused.

She continued. “…hmm…carry the one and divide by Pi. Well, that means that the passage of time across the barrier is at, roughly, zero-point-zero-zero-two-seven-three-nine-seven-two-seven…and something.”

“In English, please?”

“Good thing you have me around. That means that for every year you spend wherever the Contraption goes, you age about a day. For all intents and purposes, it makes you immortal, ageless.”

“Not at all. I still had to eat and sleep. I picked up plenty of scars, as well. I can definitely be killed.

"Ageless. For all appearances, you’d never age.”

“Okay. So?”

“Think it through! If you never aged in another place, wouldn’t you settle down there and live the good life?”

The light dawned on my exhausted mind. “Oh, you think he’s still out there, living like a king as an ageless immortal.”

“It explains so much, like how he never seemed to age the past several years, why his second Contraption went missing along with him, leaving us stuck with the rickety prototype, and it also explains lots of things in his journals that I couldn’t figure out.”

“So, how do I find him?”

“Not you, us. But first, you have to tell me everything, so I can incorporate the new data into my theories. How about a spot of tea while we discuss these new turns of events?”

“How about we trolley over to the pub? I’m not in a Cat-lapping sort of mood and could use some serious tavern food and booze.”

She smiled. “Sounds good, lover. Draw yourself a bath, and I’ll get the carriage fired up. By the way, while you were gone, I also perfected the water cannon. Try it out.”

“Chuckaboo,” I cooed to my four-legged companion. “I’m going to take a well-deserved bath and then Kayla and I are going out to dine. Do you want to stay here and get acquainted with the place, or go with us?”

He popped his head up above the lid of the box and looked at me, then at Kayla. His head rocked slowly from side to side three times, as if he were considering what I’d said. His body made a perfect pantomime of a shrug, then he yawned and returned to his curled-up, sleeping position. I went to the bathroom to take my bath.

Of all of Kayla’s inventions, her constant tinkering has never produced anything better than the grand bathtub. Formed of porcelain, deep enough to submerge your entire body, long enough to lounge in, and glorious, the grand bathtub was fed with steam-powered hot water, a bubble machine for luxurious suds, and she’d been working on the water cannon for months.

It was still connected to the water lines, so I decided to take her advice and give it a try. The water-powered sex toy looked like a cannon, but, instead of a fuse or a touch hole, a water tube ran out of the shaft-like body and connected with the snaking water pipes. In place of a lethal muzzle, the gizmo ended with a vertical wheel, nubs of soft leather flaps mounted upon it. A new addition was a flexible, copper tube distending from the bottom of the wheel-shaped housing that ended in an adjustable nozzle.

Turning the valves, hot water poured from the overhead tanks into the tub. The water cannon whirred to life, the little leather tongues spinning wildly. The recently installed exhaust tube sprayed out jets of water, much to my delight. I immediately realized why she’d installed it and adjusted the flow to a gentle geyser of stimulating water.

Peeling off my tattered, soiled garments with the decision to incinerate them later, I eased into the bathtub and sighed in relaxing relief as the hot water soothed my aching muscles. The lever for the bubbles moved easily, quickly diverting some of the flow to the soap canister. I was rewarded with thick, lush bubbles, true luxury.

The crusty dirt accumulated from months of traveling adventure lifted itself from my flesh, soothing me as I grabbed the water cannon and placed it between my legs. I sighed when the little leather tongues, spinning with abandon, touched and massaged my clit. It was akin to having your pussy licked by a thousand tongues at once while jets of water pulsed and cascaded over the rest of your cunt.

“Holy fuck, this is great,” I shouted out before my body began to quake with pre-orgasmic shudders. “Fuck, oh fuck. Damn, that feels good. I’m cumming, already.” My orgasm was almost instantaneous.

“Mmm, nnnghh, aaah,” was all I could manage as the cannon blasted my pussy with volleys of pure, unadulterated bliss. It felt so good that I tried it on my nipples, shooting hot streams of water all over my chest.

Moaning in delight, I plunged the device back under the water, so it could massage and pummel my volcanic snatch into another orgasm. After that, I forced myself to turn off Kayla’s invention and cleanse myself. The steaming water had grown lukewarm before I had shed all the grime of my journey.

Appreciating the joy of fresh clothing, I dressed, slopped on some “high-class lady” makeup, and tightened my bodice laces. I was ready to head to the tavern for booze, sausages, and rowdy revelry.

“I heard your moans and screams all the way out here,” Kayla said as I entered the carriage house. “I take it you enjoyed the final version of the water cannon?”

“Enjoyed? You should mass-produce it and sell it; we’d be wealthy.”

“You mean rich.”

“Whatever. Let’s go. I haven’t had a decent meal in months.”

The uni-trolley, shining chrome and brass with two quilted, high-backed seats and a similar bench seat in the back, chugged along as Kayla steered it through the narrow causeways toward our destination. While not the most impressive trolley, it was a fine machine. Kayla’s and my father’s improvements had made it more powerful, and more efficient. On just a few gallons of steam, it could go further and faster than any other trolley or horse-drawn carriage we’d encountered.

The large, central wheel was gaily painted in bright colors, with silver, copper, and brass accents decorating it. It was a medium-sized central wheel, less than three yards in diameter; the size and intricacy of one’s trolley decorations is a sign of wealth and affluence. Ours showed that we weren’t the extreme upper crust, but we had enough influence to rub shoulders with the elite and aristocracy. Our destination, The Brass Goggles, wasn’t an elitist’s haven; it was a working-class place, regaled by artists, crafts persons, and the merchant class right on down to the urchins going there to get rowdy, powdering their hair with too many flagons or ale and getting half-ratted. Men tipped their hats as we passed; ladies nodded in a curtsy.

Kayla, exuberantly chattering away, her words coming out so quickly that I wondered if she ever took a breath, explained her theories about my father.

“Remember how he got to be more and more distant the last few years?” I nodded. “I firmly believe that he got lost on the other side of wherever the contraption takes you and either met with calamity or decided to nest wherever he landed. Given that he’s been gone over a year, nearly four centuries have probably passed for him in his subjective time. He probably thinks that we’re long gone.”

I mulled over her conclusions. “So, what do we do about it?”

“After you tell me all about everything you’ve encountered, and spare no detail, I’ll integrate the data into what I already know, and we’ll build a larger Contraption off of Professor Summerland’s designs. He had a four-seater all planned out, but couldn’t come up with a fuel-efficient enough to make it work. Your discovery of the Phlebotinum takes care of that. We just need to build the thing and go find him; easy as three-point-one-four.”

“Huh?”

“Pi, Ariel. As easy as pie.”

“I knew that,” I lied.

My dress was of deep, blue hues, fine, lace ruffles adorning it. A slightly darker bodice, fleur de lis in crushed velvet decorating it, gave my womanly figure a perfect profile. As we climbed out of the steaming trolley, parking it in front of the tavern, I cradled my prized parasol in the crook of my arm. A small charge of black powder could shoot the ferrule for twenty yards with almost pinpoint accuracy, and the center tube housed a thin but stout saber.

Kayla, as always, was dressed in finery. She was a study in reds and scarlet, making her seem a proper lady despite her preference to be covered in dirt and grease, working on yet another abomination of a machine her creative mind concocts. Together, we entered The Brass Goggles.

It was a blessed sight to my homesick eyes. Although I’d been gone for nearly an entire year, the place looked exactly as I remembered, as if I’d only visited it yesterday, which was technically correct.

Hans Eight-fingers, nicknamed after the results of a dirigible accident, waved jauntily as we entered. His mutton chops were showing a bit of silver, but he kept a good bar and served the best food.

“Ten, ten, and ten,” Kayla shouted to him. “Tankards of ale, Bags of mystery, and Smothered parrots.”

He nodded. “Beer, sausages, and absinthe coming up.”

We sidled up to the bar, the top all shiny, dark wood, brass rails lining the middle and bottom edge.

“Now, tell me all about your adventure, and spare no detail.”

I started in on the harrowing but exciting adventures I’d experienced, beginning with the endless blackness of the void that I experienced every time I’d engaged The Contraption. The first world I visited had the same topography as this one, except that it was tropical and people spoke a strangely accented dialect that was only partially like our language. I had spent only a few hours there, seeking signs of my father’s passage, to no avail. Having just enough fuel to jump one step further, I ended up in the volcanic world, and that was when things went awry.

I was detailing the hellish landscape when we were interrupted by a drunk.

“Whoot! Just look at you two doxies,” his breath smelled of cabbages and watered-down whiskey; his face resembled old cabbages soaked in watered-down whiskey.

“How much for either of you or both?” he leered. “I’d give a shiny Bob for you, maybe even half a crown.”

The man was ruggedly built, all meat and muscle. Dressed in low finery, a mockery of a noble's surcoat and ruffles, a heavy blade on his hip, he clambered forward, his hands reaching out to grope at our breasts. Kayla jumped off her stool as I dove into action. It seemed that we had been mistaken for mere trollops, street prostitutes. He would be in for one amazing surprise, inviting an altercation with his lewd advances. I was more than ready to go collie shangles with him if he felt bold enough to throw down.

I spun to face him, bringing my umbrella to bear, low. The sharp point of the ferrule tip stopped his lusty charge, pressing against his family jewels. My free hand raised into an en garde position.

“You seem to have mistaken we ladies for ladies of the evening,” I wryly stated. “Apologize and I won’t beat you down in front of all these people.”

He stooped, glowering at the steel threatening his gonads, and then laughed, combing back his thick, brown hair with his hand. “How about I stick you with my blade instead of my cock, then, if you want to get to mafficking?”

“Challenge accepted,” I quipped with a smile.

By then, all eyes in the pub were on us. Conversation ceased as everyone stared. Hans, the proprietor, clapped with delight, immediately washing the day's specials off the slate board with a grungy, wet rag. In huge letters, he hastily scrawled, “ODDS 3:1.” The odds were not in my favor.

“Give me ten pounds, six on her,” Kayla said, plopping the coinage on the bar top.

“Let’s sweeten our wager,” I said to my opponent. “If I win our little fencing match, you’ll drop to your hands and knees and kiss my friend’s toes while you beg for her forgiveness.”

“And when I win?” he smirked. When, not if.

“If your saber is half as hard as your steel, and you can keep it up even half as long as you can your sword, then I’ll fuck you for free. However, you need to brush your teeth, first.”

“Accepted. Where’s your sword?”

I removed my parasol from his groin and repeatedly slapped it against my open palm.

“Such a pretty umbrella, you tart. I like the pink color. Does it match what’s between your legs?”

His blade was free in a flash. As soon as the sword snicked from its scabbard, chaos erupted in The Brass Goggles. People were shouting out their bets, others scrambling to guard their precious drinks, and still more shouting encouragement to us.

The point of his weapon shot up, ending in a lunge aimed toward my midriff. I laughed, slapping it away, ending en quarte, and riposting towards his shoulder. He beat my umbrella aside, counter-thrusting. His technique was strong and competent; his face all smiles, a true gigglemug.

Back and forth we danced, neither of us immediately gaining the upper hand. I retreated to the sea of tables under the barrage of his powerful attacks. Backed up against an occupied table, he relied on the superior mass of his weapon and attempted a cross-cut swipe. My torso bent backward, pressing my body against the table. Hearing applause over my acrobatics, I plucked a full whiskey tumbler from the hands of one of the men occupying the table and downed the drink before shooting back upright with a balestra ending in a feint-lunge and an appel.

“Summerland,” I told him as he fell back under my ruse. “I’m Ariel Summerland. Remember that for when you apologize.”

“Ha,” he retorted as he swung his blade high, crashing down in a vertical strike that would have cleaved my skull, had I not seen the telegraphing of his intent. The table I had so recently leaned on was split in twain as I danced away, laughing, striking his buttocks with my parasol.

“You fence like old people fuck, slow and sloppy.”

My foe grimaced at my rapier-like wit and attacked. We wove through the tables, his mass forcing me back until we’d reached the far wall. Ascending backward, I lured him in, fighting defensively, as I went up the stairs onto the balcony. At a landing, he stumbled. Rather than lunge and end the bout, I leaned my umbrella against the railing, grabbed his head with both hands, and humped his face with my crotch.

“It isn’t time to lie down, yet, unless you surrender, that is.”

He lashed out with a blind slash of his weapon, pinning my parasol in its place. His look of triumph at trapping it faded when I grabbed the handle and unsheathed the actual blade.

“Clever girl,” he saluted.

Redoubling his efforts, he climbed to his feet and advanced up the final flight of stairs. Allowing him to get that far, I jumped atop the balcony railing, ducking under his wild, high blows and jumping over his feeble attempts to trip me with the business end of his blade.

When I reached the far wall, I stopped. He nodded, “Victory, you and your body are mine. You have no place to go.”

“Think again, Rumple Foreskin,” I jibed as I let myself fall back, plummeting towards the ground floor. Just before gravity overcame my mass, I pushed up and out with all the force my legs could muster, back-flipping as my feet went above my head. Spinning in the ether, my hands caught one of the hanging chandeliers. My newly freed blade plummeted, landing point-first and embedding itself into an empty table. I swung on the hanging light, somersaulting down and landing on my feet, my hand resting on the grip of my sword.

“Come on, slowpoke. Stick me with your little pointy bits. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.”

Goaded into fury, he threw his sword at me. It shot towards me like a clumsy spear; I stood immobile as it clanged to the floor, a foot or so to my side. He shrugged, his shoulder slumping in defeat.

“I apologize to the ladies,” he announced to the abrupt and explosive applause of the pub-goers.

An hour later, Kayla and I were headed back to our home, my father’s small estate, with our toes recently kissed.

“By my calculations,” Kayla said matter-of-factually, “I should have the luxury Contraption built within a fortnight. Then, we'll go and find your father.”

“Good to know. I know I’ve just gotten back, but compared to the other worlds I’ve seen and traveled, this place is boring.”

"Rest easy, Ariel," Kayla chuckled. "Not only is the game afoot, but we have a grand adventure, a quest, before us."

To Be Continued...