Blowing Off Steam

by Karen Mercury

  “Opium?” An enquiring voice came from the engine room doorway. “Yes, that’s what I’m here to discuss. You sons of a seadog!”

  Rushy, the reata dangling in his hands, turned to face Tobias’s silhouette. Tobias, perhaps not noticing Calliope’s disheveled form in the dim lamplight, stepped confidently into the filthy room, rubbing his hands together with fiscal glee.

  Tobias continued happily, “You old haymaking sons of bitches! The word on the street trickled down to old Attorney Fosburgh’s ears. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! You actually conked that twisted deviant riceman on the head with a safe? Why, when I heard that, I thought to myself ‘Tobias, you sly attorney. You chose the right men for this job.’” His gleaming eyes finally lit on Calliope, who was standing and stretching out her achy arms while trying to stuff her titties back into her bodice.

  Tobias’s expression darkened then. “Hey now. Who said you could punish my student? She’s my student, you flat-headed dolts!”

  Chapter Nine

  Calliope bristled at the attorney’s claims.

  Now that her breasts were safely stowed away beneath the corset, she confidently stepped up to the slimy lawyer and cried, “I am not your student, you wallpapered blowhard! My name is Calliope Cavendish”—for that was the elegant surname she had recently chosen for herself—“and I am the chef of the famous El Dorado steamer.” She sniffed and looked down her nose at Tobias. “Go get your Spanish fly elsewhere.”

  She was grateful when Field stepped forward, too, even putting a protective arm about her shoulders. “She’s right, Tobias. If we’re to continue doing business together, you’d best stop making ridiculous claims about her alleged former life.” Field looked down at her with an expression that could only be called fond, and Calliope’s heart swelled. “Fact, I’m rather sweet on her, so I don’t appreciate anyone else making uncalled-for remarks.”

  Calliope’s chest ached with pride and a vaguely remembered emotion she couldn’t quite get a grip on. Tears welled into her eyes unbidden, but she knew if she squeezed her eyes shut, a tear would roll down at least one cheek. “Sweet on her”? Had she really heard correctly? Not even her former husband Levi had ever gotten so downright flowery or romantic with her. Recently she had found herself dreaming beyond any hope that Field would make such a statement, but she had to keep chastising herself that it could never happen.

  Thomas Field Trueworthy, she was beginning to suspect, was the most upright, alluring, intelligent, and capable man she had ever met. He was fit as a fiddle and it was a stimulating thrill to watch him working the gleaming engine valves, particularly when he forgot to wear a shirt. When he strode through the dining room in his frock coat with the epaulets, his silky cravat all done up like a confectioner’s wonder beneath his powerful throat, Calliope’s knees turned into water, and she sometimes fumbled in presenting dishes to the big bugs that had staterooms in the texas. Now, to hear him say he was sweet on her made all else in the engine room fade out, and their eyes locked upon each other.

  Rushy might have been saying something like, “Sure as shooting, Tobias. Miss Calliope was mighty helpful in our encounter with Kwok Lee. She’s got horse sense and knows the workings of people’s minds.”

  Calliope’s eyes flickered over Rushy’s rugged, sun-browned face. Captain Rushy Wakeman inflamed her in a slightly different manner. She was attracted to his bold, straightforward mode of living. That he was obviously from the Alabama hill country, near her own Appalachian origin, made her feel close to him. And certainly watching his luscious, expert mouth gulping down mouthfuls of Field’s gushing semen roused her to heights she’d never believed possible. Was she stimulated merely because they were the two most muscular and clean-limbed men she had ever seen? No, watching them molest and work each other over with such abandon excited her because she understood their passion was born of their powerful feelings for each other.

  And she wanted to be a part of it.

  However, Rushy was the naughty one who should be punished. For the first time since the Utah Territory, Calliope had been intensely fired up by his experienced pawing of her just now. She had never been bound and groped by anyone who wasn’t paying her. To be bound and have her breasts massaged by two such virile men, well, this was a new and exciting thing. Sucking on Rushy’s delicious horse’s cock, swallowing his jism, then watching him spurt between her breasts while Field fondled his balls made her pussy juices flow so suddenly she was sitting in a mushy puddle. She was glad she wasn’t completely deadened sexually, as she’d feared, but she would have to make Rushy and Field pay for being such devils and bringing her back to life.

  Rushy continued, “She helped us drop those ricemen, sure as shooting. Her help was invaluable, Tobias, especially when it came to Kwok Lee.”

  “O-ho!” cried Tobias, having thankfully forgotten about how badly he wanted to spank her. “So pretty Miss—Miss whoever here, which part did she play? Did she help crush Mr. Lee like a bug by dropping that safe on him from two stories up, or did she bash old Wang Tao over the head with that hookah?” Tobias chuckled with admiration. “Boy, was that old Wang Tao ever loco. You don’t know what a favor you did to the Celestial community by dropping him in his tracks. A menace to society. They should have paid you for the favor of finishing him. Oh, wait. They did pay you, in a way. Didn’t you make off with not only the opium hoard but keep your gold as well?”

  While Field and Calliope regarded each other with amazed bug eyes, Rushy put out two calming hands. “Hold it right here, Tobias. Who in Sam Hill is Wang Tao? That buffalo riceman with a screw loose? No one bashed him over the head with a hookah—leastways, not prior to us departing. Is he dead? Kwok Lee just belted him with a bamboo stick, then shoved him so he hit his head on the safe.”

  It was Tobias’s turn to stick out calming hands. “Whatever, Captain Wakeman. Whatever. It’s my advice to take credit for whatever mayhem ensued at that establishment. Word on the street is that you’re a pack of vicious thugs to be reckoned with, and that’s a good thing in the cutthroat, often impolite world of opium smuggling.”

  Field said, “That’s another thing, Tobias. I just don’t feel comfortable steaming about with this shipment of illegal opium. I think this had better be our last exchange. I just need that gold to send back East.”

  Tobias scoffed. “Who said anything about illegal opium? We’re merely avoiding the heavy and outrageous import taxes the Americans place on it. Surely you’ve transported opium before and have seen it on your manifests.”

  “True,” Rushy admitted. He told Field, “I’ve transported a ton of it up the Sacramento, probably. It’s not illegal. It’s listed on manifests right next to the salted turnips, charcoal, and bamboo shoots.”

  Calliope found her voice. “Yes, it was I who belted Wang Ho or whatever his name was with that hookah thingamajig—remember, Field? Or you were probably too busy dropping that safe on Kwok Lee’s head.”

  Field stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Why, yes. Now that you mention it. Me and Rushy here were too busy, ah—”

  “Yes, I saw her,” Rushy claimed. “She tore right over and knocked that potato-head into the middle of next week with that opium pipe.”

  “Whatever,” said Tobias. “You don’t need to give me the details. The important thing is, you’ve got quite the rep now, at least on paper, and that’s good enough to give you credibility in the, shall we say, world of business. So I’ve just come back from a meeting with an even bigger frog. Your rep preceded you, and Mr. Haight had already heard your names through the word on the street. He’s got a vast empire of agents working for him, but he needs your particular skills, as well as your steamer, to get the stuff upriver where it’s urgently needed by ricemen”—Tobias swiveled toward Calliope with a knowing glance—“as well as the ever-increasing female population of Sacramento to soothe them from their well-known various female ailments.”

  Calliope elbowed Field. “See? I told you. Female problems. That�
�s what I’ve always used it for.”

  Rushy protested, “But we don’t have the particular skills attributed to us, Tobias! The jig is up. We just went in there blind, and they would’ve run all over us like fire in dry grass if a few…accidents hadn’t’ve happened.”

  Tobias pointed. “But you’ve got the steamer.”

  Rushy had to admit, “Yes. We’ve got the steamer.”

  Tobias threw up his hands. “That’s all you need!”

  “But what about the ricemen who are bound to be irate with us for doing in Kwok Lee and his associate?” Field inquired. “They weren’t just two isolated loco potato-heads. They’re bound to have associates of their own.”

  “Mr. Haight will take care of their associates,” Tobias stated. “All you have to do is steam this packet up- and downriver and let the shekels flow in. By the way, it’s probably best if you keep it in a safe of your own. Where is it now?”

  Field shrugged. “In my stateroom. In the bowls it came in.”

  “OK. Lock it inside a safe, inside your locked stateroom. Now, gentlemen. We have an important meeting tomorrow morning in town with Mr. Haight, so I’d suggest you get some sleep.” He looked sternly at Calliope. “And I mean sleep, young lady.”

  Calliope slumped her shoulders and looked obediently at the ground. “Yes, Mr. Smith.” Looking up, she shared an amused glance with Tobias. “I promise to be good.”

  “I’ll be watching you.” Tobias had a twinkle in his eye as he straightened out his embroidered waistcoat. He paused at the door of the humid engine room. “Oh, and that Celestial baby you stole? His rightful parents came to collect him from those Mormons. He had somehow wandered into Kwok Lee’s or was taken for whatever nefarious purpose.” He shaped his hand into a pistol and pulled the trigger at them. “Good job.”

  When Tobias vanished, all three opium smugglers breathed relieved sighs.

  Calliope cried, “Now we’re baby thieves to boot? Oh, my. I wanted a different career, but this is a joke.”

  Field chuckled, but already he was heading to a locker where he kept his fancy captain’s frock coat and, apparently, a bottle of whiskey. “Calliope, we won’t have time to sample that ofuyung, so just take it back to your stateroom. I think we deserve a sample after all our hard work murdering and thieving. We can try it in the morning. But here.” He poured her a cup of whiskey.

  She obligingly drank it down while he took a watch out of Rushy’s breast pocket. It was charming how affectionate and comfortable the two men were with each other, though she knew they’d only been acquainted a few weeks.

  “It’s past midnight,” Field stated. “Let me just adjust the beam and we can go up.”

  Field did some awfully manly stuff with valves, and they took off up the inner staircases that led to the hurricane deck, where their staterooms were located inside the texas structure. Inside the gallery was the central saloon lined with staterooms for the top crew and the high muckety-mucks. Since they were moored and it was past midnight, only the bartender and a few captains of industry lounged here. Calliope walked with head high and could have staked her affidavit that all heads swiveled to view them with a newfound respect.

  They stopped at her stateroom, and Calliope fished her room key from her pocket. “Will you let me come with you tomorrow to the meeting with Mr. Haight? Seeing as how, you know, I’ve already conked a Celestial outlaw with an opium pipe and am invaluable to you.”

  Field stood so close his body heat imbued her face and shoulders, and she leaned back against the door so her uplifted breasts could not be ignored. She’d always loved this power she had over men. Men were so silly, really. They went all to pieces at the sight of a woman’s swollen titties bursting from her bodice. It had been even easier to manipulate men a couple years ago when women were so scarce as to be mythical. But more women had arrived in California since then, and soon Calliope would no longer be a youthful belle.

  She must use her talents while they lasted, so now she clasped her hands behind her back and thrust out her chest. Both men instantly became blithering imbeciles, their eyes going glassy. She touched her thumb to Rushy’s slack lower lip. “You need punishing, Rushy, for mauling me without my consent. Although I did enjoy nursing your long…thick…penis, I don’t want you thinking you can just do it any time you get an urge.”

  Field stepped even closer, nearly on the toe of her slipper. “He will not be punished!” he snarled. Grabbing her wrist, he jerked her hand from Rushy’s mouth. “You don’t know this fellow, Calliope. Punishing him would only really be a reward. He’s a lady-killer, a—”

  “A deviant sodomite,” Rushy finished for him. Grinning sleepily, he grasped Calliope’s bare shoulders and bent at the knees, as though about to lift her with his pelvis and impale her against the stateroom door.

  Calliope stopped him dead in his tracks by saying, “You’re right, Field.” She suddenly dipped and ducked beneath Rushy’s elbow, going around his back to grab both his wrists. She held his hands tight at the small of his back and peeked around his arm. “His punishment will be that for once, you get the opportunity to fondle him.”

  A smile grew on Field’s face. “Ah.” Taking Rushy’s jawbone in his hands, he turned him to the door so that Rushy’s ass was pressed enticingly against Calliope’s lap. The dome of each muscular haunch pressed so alluringly, Calliope spread her thighs to cinch one ankle around the top of Rushy’s boot, further immobilizing him. Calliope knew her carnal appetite had returned for good when a trickle of cunt juice ran down her inner thigh, stopped only by the Arkansas toothpick pinioned inside her garter. “I like the way you think, Miss Calliope.”

  “Kiss him, Field,” Calliope commanded. “Kiss him hard and sloppy, the way you like it. I like watching you two kiss.”

  Taking Rushy’s head in his hands, Field planted an openmouthed, lusty kiss on the pilot. Rushy squirmed with agitation, and his brawny haunches wiggled so lewdly the petals of Calliope’s labia were mashed together. Her clitoris elongated and extended, as though she wished to fuck the rangy pilot through the layers of their clothes.

  So Calliope humped Rushy’s ass with her mound and exhorted, “That’s good, Field. Good. Slide your hand inside his shirt and pinch his delicious nipples. Get him hot and hard.” She couldn’t see, but she could tell by Rushy’s fiery snorting that he was being stimulated to unbearable heights, and he now knew how it felt to be unable to do anything about it. Craning her neck around Rushy’s arm, she commanded Field, “Now. I bet his crotch is bulging so he’s about to burst his buttons. Grab him, Field. Take his entire prick in your greedy hand and squeeze.”

  What had been designed to drive Rushy out of his mind was now doing the same to Calliope. Field snaked a hand down Rushy’s chest, lustily clutching Rushy’s muscular pectoral before tickling his way down the lean abdomen to grab a handful of straining meat. Rushy grunted his approval, his sucking mouth still latched onto Field’s. Calliope proceeded to hump her mons veneris up and down the crack of Rushy’s ass just as her last hairpin came undone and fell to the wooden deck with a click.

  The sudden foreign sound made her look aside, as though she’d forgotten where she was. The three gray-haired captains of industry sitting at one table looked at them mildly, slightly skewed in their seats as though watching a vaguely interesting banjo demonstration. The bartender must have completely bunked in for the night, and the industrialists did have moderate geriatric erections, so Calliope continued to direct Field.

  “Doesn’t that feel good, Field? Knowing how well you’re arousing Rushy, but he can do nothing about it?”

  “Damnation.” Field ardently slurped at Rushy’s mouth. “I’ve wanted to feel this massive cock for so long now.” He groped the bulging prick through the trousers in that expert way men had after decades of pleasuring their own cocks. Rushy now whimpered like a cowering dog, and Calliope could bet apples to another fruit no one had ever heard of that he’d never been manhandled like this, completely at anothe
r man’s mercy.

  In fact, Rushy detached from the kiss by banging his head back against the stateroom door, his panting coming all in a sudden rush as though he had finally cracked. As he humped Field’s groping hand, his rump also fucked Calliope’s steaming pussy, her spongy labia lips rubbing against her extended clitoris, nearly bringing her off. She had never achieved so many simultaneous near-orgasms while everyone was fully clothed.

  “Damn it all to hell,” Field groaned, taking a deep bite from the exposed expanse of Rushy’s throat. He massaged Rushy’s bulging tool with such enthusiastic expertise, using the heel of his hand to manipulate the glans that strained so eagerly, Calliope could view the outline of its pleasing mushroom shape through the fabric. Against the pit of Rushy’s throat, Field harshly uttered, “I want to just fuck you in the Italian way, you magnificent fucking stallion.”

  Calliope could tell then by the way Rushy suddenly choked as though drowning, hips jerking as his haunches contracted, that he was spewing inside his own trousers. A gush of pussy juice flowed down her itchy inner thigh, and she joined her tongue near Field’s to lick Rushy’s vulnerable throat.

  “Isn’t that good, Captain Wakeman?” she teased as Field’s eager palm coaxed more spurts from him. “Milk him, Field. Milk that delicious cock.”

  Bully for Rushy! As Field had predicted, what had been planned as a punishment had turned into Rushy’s reward—although he would feel sticky and grimy in a few minutes.

  “Hey! I told you to go to sleep!”

  Reflexively, Calliope cried, “Oh, dear Lord!”

  The three outlaws—and probably the three captains of industry as well—all leaped to attention at the painfully shrill shout. Oddly, it was Rushy who first detached from their clutch and took a few authoritative steps toward Tobias, who was leaning out his stateroom door and yelling down the saloon gallery.

  “Avast, you windbag!” Rushy hollered, loud enough to wake up the wolves. “Mind your own p’s and q’s! Get back in your bunk before I have you keelhauled!”