“Pardon me, guv’nor.” A man in the largest top hat that Cage had ever seen pushed past them in an attempt to get to the exit of the transport ship that had brought them to the Victoria and Albert Spaceport. He laughed at his own cleverness, belching out a cloud of bourbon breath in Cage’s direction.
“Not at all,” Cage said. He gritted his teeth and tried to smile pleasantly as he stepped aside.
“Wow. Your accent is fantastic,” the man exclaimed, his voice dripping with a down-home Midwestern American drone. “Did you get a port card already?”
“No, mate. I’m actually English.” Cage shuddered at the thought. In the six months since Sugoi, the ports like the one at the base of Phoe’s neck had become commonplace. It wasn’t any surprise. Manticore Industries and their head psycho, Derek Machine, never missed an opportunity to make a buck. They even had a clever name: a mindjack.
The man nodded, looking almost disappointed. “That’s great. Honey, come here,” he called to a rotund woman with squirrel-like features. “Hey mister. Talk English to my wife. She doesn’t have a jack and needs to practice.”
“Pardon?” Cage couldn’t believe the nerve of this dolt.
Luckily, Phoe’s clumsy return from the lavatory interrupted any further pleas to perform like a trained monkey for the townsfolk. He’d never been so glad for her to step on his foot. “Sorry, babe.”
“No. Don’t be,” Cage responded. “Really.”
Mercifully, the exit doors opened and the two of them were rushed along on the wave of tourists toward the port. The place was bright and bustling. The entire spaceport was a replica of a train station circa 1850, save for the domed glass ceiling above them that allowed the artificial sunlight to stream in.
Every so often the shadow of a passing airship would block out the light. Tourists hurried to make their connecting flights and others were like slow-moving lemmings, pointing and taking pictures of everything with their eSlates. Phoe would have been one of them if Cage hadn’t kept a tight grip on her wrist, dragging her across the spaceport.
“God, would you slow down?” she squeaked after she ran over her heel with the edge of her suitcase for the third time.
“I want to get to the hotel.” It was no secret that Cage hated crowds. He always felt like he was one little tick away from shifting to some horrible creature and eating everyone. “And away from all these…tourists.”
“In case you missed it,” she started, “you are currently a tourist.” She snapped another photograph of a gaslight as if to emphasize her point.
“How can you, of all people, think this is pleasant?” he asked, narrowly missing a woman in a Victorian bustle with a latte and three hatboxes in her hands. “Did you see that you can purchase port cards to make you sound more Victorian?”
“That’s fun,” Phoe replied.
“Fun? Manticore can jack right into their minds and like good little morons, they’re paying for the privilege.”
“I know,” she muttered, not really paying attention. She was much more concerned with the Baedecker application on her eSlate. “Listen to this. ‘The Alice & Ludwig Pension is situated at the heart of Absinthia’s theatre district.’ Maybe we can see a show.”
“Pension. What do you mean, pension?”
“You know. A bed and breakfast. An inn.”
“I thought we were going to a hotel.”
“Well,” Phoe stammered. “We were, but I saw a holo for this in all of Stefan’s stuff. It looks so quaint and pretty.” She shoved the eSlate in front of him. “They have beautiful gardens and they serve dinner every night in the dining room. Just listen: ‘Each night at seven sharp, you and your fellow guests will be treated to an authentic Victorian dinner between six and thirteen courses.’ Doesn’t that sound divine?”
“It sounds nauseating. Who can eat that much food?” Cage was feeling self-righteous. He’d spent all that time on Kobi Six, watching those people struggle for every bite they put in their mouths. Decadence like she was describing was abhorrent.
She stopped in the middle of the corridor, dropping their bags. “Are you going to be like this the whole trip?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you have done nothing but complain about this trip since I booked it. You could be a little nicer.”
Cage sighed and stalked back to her. “Can you please not cause a scene right here in public?” He picked up the bags and started toward the rendezvous point: an enormous shop in the center of the spaceport.
“Please proceed to C. Babbage & Sons Emporium to validate your passkey,” an artificially cheerful cyborg voice droned. “Be reminded that once you exit the port, you will be inside a fully interactive environment. Please familiarize yourself with existing regulations per the Interplanetary Union. These can be found in your Baedeker. Thank you for visiting Absinthia.”
“I’m not making a scene. But I think that you could find it in your heart to be a little bit more enthusiastic. This is something I really want to do. I don’t ask for a lot, do I?”
He considered Phoe’s question and supposed she was right. Ever since they’d gotten hooked up, she had been content to follow him from one thing to another without complaint. She’d saved his skin several times in the process, so it shouldn’t be such a hardship to grant this particular wish. Even if he thought the whole thing was profoundly silly.
“You’re right, mouse,” he acquiesced, slipping an arm around her waist. “I promise I’ll stop being such a bear.”
“Well not too much, I hope,” she sassed, stretching up to kiss his lips. “I kind of like it when you’re gruff and overbearing.”
They continued through the checkpoint and into the shop, though calling it a shop was an understatement. C. Babbage & Sons Emporium was actually a series of shops where one could find anything they needed to have the “real Victoriana experience.”
Several places offered complete outfits depending on desired social classes. Others offered cards to jack into ports that would allow the user to speak with perfect historical diction. There were places offering historic hair design, handmade underclothes, and anything you could possibly need to complete your time-travel vacation. Cage wasn’t sure if it was ingenious or insane.
“Look, darling. We can buy an entire wardrobe for the vacation.”
“You can have whatever you like, Phoe, but consider renting some of it. After all, are you really going to wear a real whalebone corset ever again in your life?”
“Only if you ask really nicely,” she drawled with a wink, disappearing into a lingerie shop.
He felt awkward as they walked into the shop. Everything was pink and white lace, practically begging for his dirty “man hands” to soil them. He stood in the corner, watching as Phoe scrambled from one end of the place to the other. Within minutes her arms were piled with enough underwear to cover the bottoms of at least ten people. He stood so still that one lady thought he was a mannequin.
“Can you believe how beautiful these things are?” Phoe sighed, holding up a hand-sewn white nightgown.
“I’m rather partial to that little red thing you’ve got at home.” He was referring to the sheer red negligee and matching thong that Phoe had bought at the little fetish shop in St. Francisville. Whenever she wore it, Cage knew that he was in for a long night.
“Well that’s not appropriate for Absinthia,” Phoe stated. “But I’m sure there’s something here that will have the desired effect.”
“Well why don’t you model for me,” he suggested. It wouldn’t hurt to play along a little.
He followed her through the throngs of shoppers toward a set of changing rooms in the back. Evidently the shop had prepared for lots of husbands and boyfriends waiting, as there was a seating area with a few chairs. Cage shooed her off to dress and sat down in one of the fluffy, pink brocade chairs to wait.
He took out his eSlate and began tapping away at the screen. Unfortunately, the connection was nearly gone. “Great,” he grumbled to himself. He’d heard about regular eSlates not being worth a shit in the off-world colonies.
“You know, I came to the colonies to get away from things like this. It’s heinous.”
He looked up to see two women browsing the section behind him. They wore the traditional dress of schoolmarms, complete with tiny glasses perched on the ends of their noses and straw hats pinned to their elaborate hairdos.
“I heard it was a publicity stunt put on to entertain the tourists.”
“Why on earth would that be entertaining?”
“I guess for the same reason people like to watch those murder shows on their eSlates.”
The other woman scrunched up her nose, making her already owlish face even more sour. “Some people are sickos. Violent deaths are not supposed to be entertaining.”
“Well, if it’s for entertainment, no one is actually dying. It’s either an actor or maybe a cyborg. You know, re-enacting that old Jack the Ripper case.”
“Whatever it is, I don’t like it. It’s making me think twice about coming to Absinthia.”
The friend gave a hearty laugh and clapped the other woman on the shoulder. “You’ve been coming to Absinthia twice a month since the colony opened.”
“Yes, and I could always count on it to be a fun trip back in time. Now, I’ll be lucky if I’m not disemboweled in an alley. I heard that one of the victims was a tourist from Earth, like us.”
He wondered what the women could possibly be talking about. Stefan had warned Cage that Absinthia was the most interactive tourist colony that had ever been opened. Could it be that they truly were re-enacting the Ripper murders for the enjoyment of tourists? Because if they were, it was, at the very least, in poor taste.
Of course, he knew that everyone’s fantasy vacation was different. Phoe had wanted to come to Absinthia to experience life in another time. Others came to do things they’d never have the nerve to do in real life: carouse with whores, imbibe drugs, experiment with their sexual orientation, or some of all three. Still others wanted to pretend to be Sherlock Holmes or Oscar Wilde. The port cards would allow them any number of identities. Perhaps someone had paid to get to solve the Ripper murders.
Or maybe they wanted to be the Ripper.
“Cage. Help. I’m stuck.”
Cage could see her arms waving around over the top of the dressing room door. “You have to let me in, love.”
She fumbled around, banging into the door a few times with a series of crashes until finally Cage heard the lock click so that he could come inside. He glanced over his shoulder to be sure no one was watching and then barreled on through the door.
“What are you doing?”
“This…corset…is a little…too…small,” she heaved, flailing wildly as she tried to break free of the unforgiving fabric.
Cage couldn’t help laughing as his fingers fumbled with the complicated system of strings, gussets, and hooks that she had somehow managed to get herself tangled up in.
“Stop laughing.”
“Stop being hilarious,” he snorted, tugging at the satin bodice.
“It isn’t funny,” she whined.
“Just…turn around…” he ordered with a grunt. He helped her turn around, pulling at the front of the undergarment. “How did you get into this thing, anyway?”
“It’s supposed to go over your head. Then you tighten it with the hook and eyes.”
Cage pulled at the hooks, squeezing her nipples roughly in the process.
“Ow!”
“Sorry.” Finally, they heard an ominous ripping sound and Phoe’s bosom spilled out of the front of the corset.
“Oh no,” she cried, pushing the corset down over her hips until it fell at her feet. She stepped out of it and surveyed the damage. From the front, the garment looked fine, albeit a little wrinkly from all the pulling and tugging. But the back was ripped almost completely in two. “Well good job, St. John. Now we have to buy a damaged corset that doesn’t even fit.”
“It’s not my fault that you have a dangerous bosom.”
“So it’s my fault?”
Cage looked down at her breasts, now fully exposed, and offered a mischievous smile. “Yeah, kinda. You were too much for that prim little thing.” He pulled her into his arms, pressing her body tightly against him. “You’ve got wild breasts, love.”
Phoe giggled and stretched up for a kiss. Hungrily, he captured her mouth and was immediately aroused. The feel of her warm, soft body rubbing so insistently against his was enough to ignite the fire of his passion. Her breasts with their hard little nubs seemed to swell against the muscle of his chest. The contrast was something he’d come to appreciate over the course of their relationship. While his wife Corinne had been shy about her sexuality, Phoe had grown bolder with the passage of time. Cage found it so exciting that when they were together, all he wanted to do was throw her against the nearest wall and fuck her brains out.
“You’re such an animal,” Phoe moaned. “Remember we said no shifting in public this trip.”
“I can’t help it,” he whispered against her ear. “You bring out the creature inside.” He slid a hand down her back, cupping her bottom for a moment and then pulling her leg over his hip. Both were still clothed, but he could feel how warm and wet she was.
“Well, put it back,” she giggled. “We’re in public.”
“There’s a door there,” he noted. “You’ll have to be quiet.” Emphasizing his point, he bit down into the soft spot at the base of her throat.
“Cage,” she gasped. “Stop it now.”
“You’re the one who asked me in here…”
“Excuse me. The dressing rooms are for one occupant only.”
“Oops,” Phoe whispered. “We’ve been caught.”
“I could probably kill her really quietly.”
“Cage!”
“Do you need any help in there?”
“No, thank you,” Phoe called. “We’re all fine here. Thanks.” She turned back to Cage, her lips pursed so tightly that they were almost invisible. “Now shoo. Get out of here before we get thrown out.”
“Well what am I supposed to do about this?” Grabbing Phoe’s hand, he pressed it to his crotch where his desire was evident.
She blushed, giggling nervously. “Go…jump in a fountain or something.” He leaned in for another kiss and she pushed his face back. “Go.”