Yes, flung her, for I clearly remembered how the Chinese servant had tinkled and clanked when I treated him similarly, and it seemed a sure test. I had no wish to win a mistress who might begin jerking about in random circles when I got her home. But except for some devilishly insolent remarks, the only sound Coppélia made was the loud thunk of flesh and bone against wood. The squelching and sucking noises that ensued as I slipped my prick in and out of her bare twat were reassuringly human, too.
She pouted prettily about my rough treatment, but she soon fell into the spirit of the game as I stood at the foot of the table and fucked her till its legs squealed in time to her own gasps and cries. Perhaps fearing for the integrity of his furniture, Surprenant came up and gripped the head of the table. The wanton girl tilted her head back and puckered her lips in an invitation that he instantly accepted.
We later repaired to the bed, where we strove against one another, alternately and simultaneously, to harrow the playing field, claim the prize and cajole the judge. My opponent’s strategy was to dare me into excesses that should gag even a Frenchman: licking her cunt, for instance, that visibly ran with both our spunk. He reckoned without good old English pluck—and without my intense fascination for that deliciously hairless purse, no matter what filled it—and I followed him to root and guzzle with an eagerness that would have got a hog blackballed from a trough.
Coppélia endorsed my style by swallowing my prick as slickly as if it were an oyster, pulling it down until her pretty nose was buried in my balls. No woman had ever performed that feat, not even the infinitely talented countess, and I renewed my resolve to win this charming creature for my own.
Again the scoundrel tried to daunt me by sliding up behind her and squeezing his prick into her arse. I must admit it was a diverting sight, watching the pink rim of her bunghole stretch until it shone like satin to admit the thick, red worm, but my vantage-point was far too close for any gentleman to maintain, and I was forced to withdraw when the hair of his cods began tickling my eyes.
I hated to abandon her mouth—in fact it was damned near impossible, given the force of her suction—but I at last pulled out with a sound like a boot freed from a swamp and scrambled up to face her.
“I wonder—” I began.
“Do it, my lord!” she gasped, her eyes wild, her face flushed, and I forced my spit-slicked cock into a cunt that had become tighter than any virgin’s, owing to my antagonist’s bulky presence in the adjacent passage.
Back and forth we rampaged over the field, but I believe it was Coppélia who outdid us both. She was tireless, insatiable and, in the prettiest of ways, demanding. “Monsieur le Marquis, s’il vous plait?” she would say, and then, “My Lord Earl, if you please?” again and again ... and again. At last I could only lie supine while she impaled herself on my upright rod and bounced eagerly, her buttocks slapping a savage rhythm on my thighs.
After an eternity of this, when some last, lonely droplet of spunk had been dragged painfully up the path of my sore prick to dribble into the foaming sea of her quim, I closed my eyes for a moment’s respite. I knew that Surprenant was fucking her again, but I believed the hellish squealing of bedsprings would keep me awake, and that the tattered shred of my manhood would soon be hoisted once again to the ramparts....
I realized that I had been beaten when I woke alone in daylight.
* * * *
The marquis neglected his guests all that day and the following night, nor was the Countess of Nether Dunwich anywhere to be found. As for Coppélia, I conjectured that she was locked away in the cellar room, having her gears polished and her joints oiled.
True, she had passed the test the Chinaman had failed, but I suspected that Surprenant had attempted to disguise his genius by boasting only of his least masterly creations. The statue and the peacocks were machines, obviously, but so were the impassive servants and the passionate wench. What else but a machine could have taken on both of us so eagerly, so tirelessly?
Damme, it was bad enough to lust after a quiffing-machine without developing tender sentiments for it. Worst of all was to recognize those sentiments after I had lost the bloody device. I had lost the countess, too, at least for the night, but I consoled myself with the thought that Surprenant could not be at his best. My mood was not improved when the chimpanzee beat me at chess, and it deteriorated further when Cummerbund thrashed me at whist.
Phyllis had not reappeared by next morning, when our servants were packing for departure. I found her in the music room, idly fingering the pianoforte.
“You are not dressed for travel,” I said.
Cool, pale, heart-stopping in her slim beauty, she turned on me with the regal air that signaled murderous fury. “I am not going anywhere, Nether Dunwich. It appears that you have lost me in a shooting contest.” Her cheeks flushed, and she abandoned her chilly tone to spit, “Really, Neddy, even for you, this is rather a bit much!”
“Get your things together, you silly woman! I bet him a ride, not the mare.”
Her expression was gratifying. She was pleased but still furious, and perhaps even more furious for having looked pleased. She hurled the music at my head. Retrieving the pages, I saw the name of Herr Hoffmann, who seemed to be popping up everywhere.
“You’ll pay for this, you hound,” she said as she rose, but a brisk swat on the rump provoked a giggle that she viciously repressed.
“My lord, you shall oblige me by restraining from naughtiness with my mistress.”
Surprenant stood at the door, his eyebrow hoisted and his lip curled back in his most irksomely French way. By God, if I’d had a saber....
I said, “You misapprehended the terms of our wager, sir. You won. You have collected your winnings. Further intercourse with you would be odious to me and her ladyship. I beg you to stand aside.”
“Misapprehended, my lord?” He strutted forward. “It was not I whose already dim wits were further fuddled with wine. It was not I who began snoring like a swan before the contest was concluded.”
“Like a swan?”
“Yes, a swan, a swan, you species of swan! I compare you, and your father and mother, to the swan, the beast from which pork is manufactured.”
I shoved him when he made to lay a hand on Phyllis’s arm. It was a vigorous shove, but he took not one step back.
“If you have not misapprehended, sir, then you are a liar, a whoreson dog, and a Frenchman.”
“My seconds will attend upon you, Milord Swan, in your sanguine sty.”
“Sanguine?” I asked Phyllis when he had spun on his heel and stalked from the room. “Isn’t that a bit of a compliment? Not the sty part, of course....
“I should imagine he meant to say bloody.” She added, “I’m rather inclined to believe you, Neddy. Drunk or not, I’m sure you wouldn’t give me away for more than a week.”
I took heart from this, although he may very well have spoken the truth. God alone knew what I’d done under the spell of that mechanical woman.
* * * *
And so I came to kill the Marquis de Surprenant. You can scarce imagine my consternation when Mr. Jagger came calling with my seconds to tell me that he was not dead.
“Sir, I put a ball between his eyes!”
“So you did, my lord—”
“Damned well placed, too!” cried Lord Cummerbund. “But you must always shoot foreigners in the belly, didn’t I tell you?”
“—but I have seen similar cases, where the ball entered the skull but penetrated not much deeper.” Mr. Jagger had served as a naval surgeon at Trafalgar; he knew whereof he spoke.
“Unhappily, Nether Dunwich, he persists in demanding satisfaction,” Trelawney said.
“By God, he shall have it! And this time, Cummerbund, see that the pistols are properly charged—no! Not even the boldest cockerel can recover from a proper carving. Tell him it’s to be sabers.”
* * * *
Facing the marquis at sword’s point, I knew at last where I had miscalculat
ed. A man may take a ball between the eyes and recover, but no man could come back within a week to fight another duel, smiling as superciliously as ever, radiating health and strength and murderous intent. I was not facing the prize pupil of the demonic Dr. Koppel; I was facing his prize creation.
“I’ll not fight a bloody mannikin!” I cried, lowering my sword.
“Then you must surrender the countess, declare yourself a cowardly, lying swan, and most humbly beg permission to baiser ma fesse,” the marquis said. I never would have expected wit from a machine, but it added, “And, ah, yes, admit that you are an Englishman.”
“Jagger, examine this damned thing! It’s not a man, I tell you!”
“Steady on, Nether Dunwich!” said Cummerbund, while the others kept a pained silence.
“En garde!” the machine shouted as it lunged.
I sprang back. I had observed his style of shooting, I had known that I could get off an accurate shot faster than he could, but I knew nothing of his way with a saber. A cut to the right arm, another across the left cheek, a third that opened my shirt without breaking my skin, all of them delivered before I could even see them coming, soon taught me.
Trying to defend myself was useless. My eyes could no more follow his sword-point than his could have followed my pistol-ball in flight. I feinted, slashed, feinted and slashed again, but he diverted my blade as easily as I might have fended off an angry child armed with a willow-wand. I could only fall back, but he pressed me hard. My clothing was in tatters and I bled from a dozen wounds, though none of them was deeper than a cat-scratch. The thing was toying with me.
As we whirled in this deadly dance, my seconds swung into view. Their astonishment might have amused an idle spectator. These men knew me, they knew that no human swordsman could play with me this way. Strange as my words were, they must now be inclined to credit them.
“God damn your eyes, this is an automaton! Stop the bloody thing!”
Trelawney, my old sergeant-major, knew me better than any man, and it was he who sprang forward with his own sword to separate us. I screamed with rage and loss as the thing turned and ran the brave man through. Still screaming, I raised my saber and dealt a blow to its neck that might have severed a human head. After passing through some doughy stuff that was thicker and tougher than human skin, the blade stopped cold against metal. The impact numbed my arm to the shoulder.
“Son of a sodomite and a carrot!” the creature cried as it braced its boot against Trelawney’s chest and wrenched its blade free. “You would strike me while I employ my ass elsewhere?”
There was no blood. A flap of its integument had fallen free to reveal a neck made of glittering rods and wires.
Cummerbund blundered forward now, howling protests, and Mr. Jagger dithered behind him. I had no doubt they would meet the same end as Trelawney if they tried to interfere. Regardless of how it looked, it was to spare them that I turned and ran for my horse—only to find that the impassive seconds, more machines, had anticipated my move and blocked my way. When I swerved, they made no move to pursue.
Home was no more than four miles away, and the road was level, but I would never reach it at my present pace. But when I chanced a look over my shoulder, I saw that Surprenant had fallen far behind. His pace was steady, tireless, but slow: perhaps his creator had seen no need to make a sprinter of him.
Having caught my breath, I trotted on, my mind a-whirl with futile schemes for leading him into a swamp—but there was no swamp—dumping him in a river—but there was no river. I thought of pouring sand or molasses or acid into his works, but I had none of those things, and the plan would succeed only if he obliged me by peeling his skin and exposing his machinery.
My only hope was to reach home first and greet him with a musket or a battle-ax. Since the manor was amply supplied with both sorts of weapon, and since I was able to stay well ahead of him with no great effort, I allowed myself the luxury of some rude gestures and gibes over my shoulder. He plodded on silently, as if running required his full attention.
I was advising him to return to France and lubricate his mother when I was shocked out of my euphoria by a woman’s shout. Coppélia was dashing down a slope to my right on a course plotted to intercept me. Her long, strong legs carried her at a far faster clip than that of her fellow machine, perhaps even faster than I could manage at the moment, but terror inspired me to a fresh burst of speed.
Her style was more animated. She gesticulated as she ran, and shouted, but I could make out none of her words over the whooping of my own breath and the pounding of blood in my ears as I struggled to get ahead of her. Surprenant was a good mile behind me, but at a slightly lesser distance behind him, gallant Lord Cummerbund puffed along, waving his saber belligerently. I could only pray the poor man wouldn’t overtake the homicidal contrivance.
I was reeling by the time I reached the door of my manor, but the unfaltering footsteps of the mechanical female pattered ever louder behind me.
“A musket, quick!” I told the servant who came to answer my hammering at the door. He merely stared in confusion, perhaps not recognizing me in my bloody tatters.
I had no time to expostulate with him. I turned and raised my saber to impale the female horror, for it was upon me.
“No, my lord, you won!” she cried, easily dodging a thrust made clumsy by exhaustion.
“Are—you—mad?” I gasped. “I fled the field, I—”
“Not that duel, my lord! I was to be the judge, don’t you recall? I said that you won, but my master—the machine that calls itself my master—refused to accept my judgment.”
She had to be an automaton. I felt near death, while she had nothing to show for her exertions but a fresh blush to her cheeks. She must have divined my thoughts, for she tore her blouse open to reveal her quivering breasts. “Can you doubt that I am a girl of flesh and blood, my lord?”
The servant had not yet moved, and the wonders Coppélia had revealed now riveted him to the spot. “A musket, you idle rogue! Loaded and primed.” If he failed to recognize my wheezing voice, he surely recognized the blow that sent him staggering backward, for he scurried toward the gun-room.
Much time had been wasted, and Surprenant was now upon us, but he ran like a mummer in a pantomime, lifting each foot slowly and deliberately. I backed into the hall. I didn’t shove Coppélia away when she clung to my side.
Surprenant’s face was drained of expression, and his words were dragged out in a slow, hollow way, like words from the tomb. “The key,” he said, “the key, wench—pocket—”
“Neddy, this is the limit, the absolute limit! If you must drag naked sluts about, at least have the decency to drag them into the stable. My—oh!” The countess’s eyes had at last lighted upon the bizarre figure that Surprenant presented as he lurched through the door. “Monsieur le marquis, how delightful! I hadn’t supposed we would again have the pleasure—”
“Key?” I demanded.
“He wants winding,” Coppélia explained. “But I’ll see him in hell before I do it again!”
“Then you, too, shall die,” Surprenant said in an even hollower voice as he reached into a pocket of his coat. I scarcely noticed, so great was my joy at hearing him validate Coppélia’s humanity.
But he soon recaptured my attention. Dropping his saber, he reached over his shoulder with inhuman agility and tore his coat open down the back as if the broadcloth were flimsy gauze. Then, with a singularly sickening sound, not unlike the popping of a dozen wet suction cups, he parted the skin of his back and draped it forward, just as I had seen it draped when I came upon him and Coppélia in his bed-chamber. He applied the key he had withdrawn from his pocket to his back, and a series of metal clicks ensued.
The clang of a saber against the thing’s back announced Lord Cummerbund’s arrival. Surprenant dropped like a felled tree, but neither the blow nor the fall did him harm. He continued to wind himself. This revelation of his true nature was more than Phyllis could stand; sh
e collapsed in a swoon.
“See here, sir! We’ll have no more of your foul froggish tricks!” Cummerbund cried, and bent to seize the hand that held the key.
It had occurred to me to do this very thing, but I had thought better of it; and Surprenant now proved my reasoning correct. Whatever his weak spots might be, he was a machine, and he would literally have the grip of a vise. Cummerbund howled with pain and impotent rage as the mannikin clamped his wrist with his free hand.
“Where’s that damned musket!” I roared toward the rear of the house.
“No, my lord! The only way to destroy him is to destroy the essence of his being. I believe it is concealed somewhere at Noddingdean, hidden in some small and inconspicuous object. He boasted of this, saying that I would share his immortal, indestructible life.”
“No!” Surprenant cried, his voice now almost returned to its normal timbre. “Stay away from Noddingdean, you dog!”
As an accomplished gamesman I know a bluff, even when a machine attempts it. He wanted to divert me to Noddingdean. I recalled his prattle about the essence of his being, and my offhand suggestion that it might be concealed in a teapot. If not at his manor, if not in a teapot, then.... I turned and dashed up the stairs, Coppélia pelting after me. I also heard the heavy thuds of Surprenant’s feet as he came after us at an alarming pace, pausing only to throw Lord Cummerbund halfway down the stairs.
I burst into Phyllis’s chamber and flung myself at that damned cuckoo clock, ripping it from the wall as I had once intended to do. I nearly dropped it in shock and loathing, for it felt less like honest wood than moist flesh, and it seemed to wriggle in my hands with demonic life. The bird I had never closely examined, a grossly obscene, tubular thing, extended itself like a yellow worm as if to attack me.
Nasty Stories Page 16
