That Dratted Affair with the Dream Engine

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

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"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.