Chapter 5

The interior of Lucy’s Brain, as of today: Ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball.

This wasn’t in fact because my ear was being fucked roundly by Ra’s massive, ludicrously meaty robo-dick and my brain was being mashed into the form of a happy fuckslut. That’d be absurd, if that was happening, then my only thought would be cock cock cock cock cock cock. Duh. You dummy. No, it was because...

The fucking Ball was happening. The Gala, Grand Galloping Or Otherwise, the big shindig, the hootenanny, the hoedown, the whatzitbop where all the spinnadoos and dresses were going to happen at. Like, and even some real words too. And I felt woefully, hilariously, stupidly unprepared, even as Abby stroked my hair with a comb, and Georgette paced back and forth before me.

“And you enter the room by...”

“Waiting by the master of ceremonies for them to call my name and my ticket and if I lose the ticket, I ask the MC, the miggidy mack daddy-” I blushed as Georgette shot a glare at me. “ ... I ask him for a new ticket. I also never call him the miggedy mack daddy. No matter how much I want to jump jump.”

“Honestly, Lucy, you will be the end of me...” Georgette muttered, continuing her pacing as Abby giggled softly.

“I apologize in advance for mucking everything up,” I said, biting my lip. “Auuhhh, I know nothing!”

Georgette turned to face me. Her hands went to her hips. “Chassé step?” Her voice had the harsh snap-crack of command.

I blinked, sitting up. “Tems levé, right foot forward, take weight.” I stood, demonstrating, my leggings shuffling around my hips. “Following foot closes behind leading foot, thirdy-oop, take weight, leading foot extends again, woo-oop, step close step hop!” I shuffled, then twirled. “And then twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!” I spun around and Abby, who had remained on the bed, laughed and clapped her hands together.

“And the proper method to dissuade a gentleman or gentlelady from their flirtations using the fan?” Georgette said, her voice still stern.

“Drawing through the hand, if they’re a huge dingus. Twirling in the left if they’re just annoying, drawn across the forehead if I just want them to chill a tiny bit,” I said. Then I gasped. “Oh my gosh. All those words you said actually stuck in my brain! You’re amazing, Georgette!”

“Well.” Georgette harrumphed. “You are a ... passable student.”

“EEE!” I squealed. “Can I hug you?”

“I ... suppose...” Georgette grumbled, then flushed as I flung my arms around her, hugging her tightly. Georgette patted my head – then, muttering. “And, of course, we need to get you a dress and run you through all the steps while in a proper dress.” She nodded to herself, her cheeks glowing even more red as she tried to ignore me muttering under my breath ‘hug hug hug hug.’

“It has been rather silly to see a girl in boy’s clothes doing girl dances,” Abby said, nodding. “Normally, when a girl in boy’s clothes does the dances, she does the boy’s steps.”

“Yes ... well, you ... know, a proper lady does not narrate everything she does, Young Miss,” Georgette grumbled, pushing me away.

“Lucy gasped, pushed away by her stern, yet loving mentor,” I muttered, sotto voce. “And yet, within her whirring clockwork heart, her coil boiler was bubbling with intense emotions...”

“I am not a tea kettle!” Georgette declared.

“So, where do we get a dress? Go down to Target, buy some dresses?” I asked, curiously. “but it’s a Space Target? ... or whatever the British version of Target is, cause I don’t know thanks to me being an American and, thus, completely oblivious to all things that aren’t directly in my line of sight.” I nodded, sagely. “Did you know God created wars to teach American kids geography, and it still doesn’t work cause if you held a gun to my head, I still couldn’t tell you where Afghanistan is.” I threw up my hands.

“It’s on Earth, innit it?” Abby suggested, cheerfully.

“Your ... Americas invaded Afghanistan? Whatever for?” Georgette asked.

“I dunno,” I said, shrugging. “ ... well, I mean, I do know, but it’s depressing and complicated.”

“As many things from your world seem to be,” Georgette said, then shook her head. “And no, we do not go to a ... Target ... be it in space or not. Rather, we have called for a Beatrice.”

My eyes widened. “Is she a giant bee?”

Georgette put her finger to her temple. “No.”

“Dang,” I muttered.

“Beatrices are machines who are handle sewing, fitting, the construction of clothing,” Georgette said. Seeing my mouth open, she cut me of: “Yes. They are...” She looked to the ceiling. “Aesthetically pleasing.”

“Well, yeah, so is a sunset, but I don’t wanna make sweet love to an orange sky,” I muttered to Abby, just loudly enough to be sure that Georgette could hear me – while Abby giggled uncontrollably.

“Miss!” She paused. “Beatrices are very ... ah...” She made a vague gesture, then kicked one of her legs under her skirts.

“Legs for days?” I asked.

Abby blushed, and nodded.

“This Beatrice is not going to be under your direct service,” Georgette said, her voice sternly warningly in a sternly warningly fashion. “She is a freelancer of sorts, some kind of...” She flipped her hand. “Novelist in her free time. Not that I’ve ever read a thing written by her.” She sniffed, very intently and I grinned.

“Novelist, huh?” I asked, wiggling my eyebrows at her.

“Recall lesson five?” Georgette asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Yup!” I said. “Repress your gag reflex by-”

“Ladies do not wiggle their eyebrows suggestively!” Georgette barked.

I was practicing sword work with Ra and chatting about history while Jenny fiddled with one of her horses when The Beatrice arrived. Ra was still drilling me on the parries and foot work, but she seemed to be fairly pleased by my progress. Ra nodded and then stepped backwards as I lowered my arm, grinning cheerfully at the burly Napoleonic war-robot.

“So ... I gotta ask...” I said.

“Not today,” Ra said, grunting at the base of her throat. “If a strange machine came and found us in the middle of an indescrtion, it’d be rather mortifying for you, wouldn’t it?”

“Hah!” I said. “It is here where I must reveal to you ... I also have a humiliation fetish!”

“Hurm.” Ra nodded. “Noted.”

“That’s a joke, I...” I said, blushing as my dick got nice and hard – but I was noticing, as the girljuice flowed through my veins with thicker and more potent frequency, not only did my blood turn pink from the girliness of it ... my ... hardons changed too. I absolutely could pound nails whenever the need called for it. But when I got all squirmy and turned on, my dick would kinda ... surge, then sag back, then surge, then sag back. Rather than like in the olden days, when I was without even a single droplet of the girlification juice, where my hardon would just ... surge and stick like a really awkward dinner guest ... now, my girldick got hard in a more tentative ... dare I say ... girly way?

I dunno.

It was weird, and I didn’t know if this was true of all other trans ladies. I’d have to pin some down and ravish their nubile bodies. Then, like, ask them, once we were enjoying the post sex cigarettes.

This was why I got hard. Then soft. But I was still turned on like crazy.

“ ... okay, maybe it’s not a joke...” I whispered.

Ra chuckled.

“Still, I was going to ask something.” I scratched my chin with my finger, thinking.

A puttering whiring sound filled the air. We turned and saw that a smoking, hissing horse was juddering its way towards the house, throwing up a fine pall of white smoke behind it as it moved forward, rocked backwards, then stopped, then buzzed forward again, then stopped. I saw that this horse, unlike our flying horses, had wheels. It was being ridden by a machine in a green dress and a broad brimmed hat – and as she struggled to keep her horse under her control, I snapped my fingers, my brain sparking.

“Ah! Ah! That was it! That was my question: Why the fuck do you call your zipadoos horses? That’s not a horse. That’s zoomer!” I pointed at the horse that Jenny was working on. “A horse, in my book, has four legs, a mind full of evil, a belly full of wicked intentions, and a tail made of spite and hate.”

“That’s why we don’t use them anymore,” Ra said, nodding. “But the name stuck.”

“That’s just linguistically lazy,” I said. “Why didn’t you call them the Fantabulous Contraption of Mechanical Conveyance?”

The horse that the green dress wearing machine was riding snarled a few more times, then came to a halt before us. The machine tilted her hat back and oh my god, she was just, utterly beautiful. In a kind of giraffey sort of way. Her neck was long and elegant, and her face was tall and narrow. Her arms were equally long, spindly and graceful, and her fingers continued the trick. Then when she swung free and stood, I found she was almost as tall as Ra, but rather than being built like a Terminator, she was built like ... can I say giraffe again? Cause that’s what I’m thinking. And not, like, a real giraffe, but the anthro giraffes that porn artists draw on twitter.

“Is this the young miss I’ve been asked to make a dress for?” Beatrice asked as she walked over, looking me over. “I see that your figure is coming in quite nicely.” She blinked. “Is that rude? Was that forward?”

“Uh, yes,” I said, putting my hands on my hips, scowling. “You should have said: Dannnng girl, you got mad titty!”

Ra smacked the back of my head.

As I was ruffling myself, Jenny walked over, her body liberally smeared by grease thanks to her hard work on her horse. “You need someone to look at your piece?” she asked, cheerfully. “I can handle being a mechanic, we’re a bit short staffed.”

“I can see...” Beatrice said, nodding. “Yes, that would be quite charming of you, thank you Miss Messenger.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jenny said, sliding past Beatrice – and while Beatrice’s back was turned, Jenny scoped her out with a little whir of her glowing eyes. Which, I mean.

Fair.

As Beatrice was led inside by Abby, who bustled out to greet her, Ra pointed my rumpus inside and said: “Shower. Now.”

Following her orders, I headed inside, my body aching and paining from the swording practice. Bleh. Swords. I walked past Polly’s kitchen, where she was working on the latest foods, and waved at her as I headed up the stairs. Beatrice was setting up in one of the guest rooms – she had several parcels that Abby had taken from the horse and was beginning to unpack. There were no tools, but there was a whole lot of cloth and yarn and silk and ... I dunno, other fancy clothing things. I paused by the door, peeping around it with my bright, red, attentive, sneaky eyes.

“Oh the young mistress is much nicer now that she’s begun to transition,” Abby said.

“I did hear some things from others ... you know, I’ve actually interviewed your old Marie,” Beatrice said.

“ ... interviewed?” Abby asked.

“Oh, yes, I wanted to really get what it is like to have a terrible human. Since, well, terrible humans are thankfully rare these days.” Beatrice chuckled. “From what your Marie said, they’re essentially quarantined here.”

“It’s not all that bad,” Abby said, dutifully. Then, more hesitantly. “ ... I ... hope.”

“You hope?”

“ ... I was unboxed less than a week ago...” Abby admitted. “And only shortly before the Young Miss, uh ... had her change of, ah, heart.” She sounded even more nervous now. “S-So, uh, what do you mean quarantined?”

“Well...” Beatrice’s shoulders whirred as they shrugged. I could see her setting out bits of cloth, looking down at them seriously. Her hand, I saw, was bright green – like it had been painted that color. It was actually rather fetching. I wondered if it was like C3P0’s red arm and we’d never learn why she had it. “Do you know what makes Burgundy such an interesting stellar system?”

“No...” Abby admitted. “ ... why do you? Aren’t you a ... a Beatrice?”

“Well, a novelist has to get quite a bit of interest in a series of other things to be proficient in making up entertaining falsehoods,” Beatrice said, flipping her hand casually. “Astronomy, military history, how best to stab a human in the back so they die quickly and quietly ... the lungs, you know?”

“I- ... no?” Abby stammered, looking as pale as it was possible for a bloodless robot to look. “W-Why would you want to stab a human in the back?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t!” Beatrice said, hurriedly. “But the villains do, you see.”

“No?” Abby asked. “Why ... are there villains?”

“Some books only really work properly with villains.” Beatrice chuckled. “You’ll understand when you’re a little older and once you’ve really settled into your routine, Keeper.”

“I hope not...” Abby shook her head. “I love this job. And ... d-don’t tell anyone, but I half hope they don’t get a new Marie. I have so many extra tasks without one!” She said, nodding and Beatrice chuckled, softly.

“Oh, you’re sweet...” She caressed Abby’s chin. “Now ... do you want to hear about the system, or...”

Abby’s cheeks flushed and I bit my lip. Come on, Beatrice. Seduce her! Do it! Dooo it! I was thinking this as hard as I could to try and get the message to her, with my space brain. Sadly, my space brain was actually just my regular brain (albeit, in space), so there was no real difference in ability. But I did enjoy trying. And I enjoyed watching as Beatrice walked past Abby, continuing her little spiel. “Burgundy II is a staggering improbability: a world with two Terran worlds of natural evolutionary results. They’re both within the Clement Zone, they’ve both avoided major climactic or kinetic disasters thanks to the massive failed stars at the edge of the system, and they both have the full bounty of a complex life system on them! All without any intervention from us.”

“Oh. Is that impressive?” Abby asked. “I mean, how rare are Terran planets?”

“Quite!” Beatrice said, cheerfully. “Claiming this system was quite the plum for the Fitzland-Lancasters ... even after that little, ah, upset with the RMC.”

“The ... y-you can’t mean the Most Honorable Royal Machine Company?” Abby asked, her eyes widening.

“The very same!” Beatrice spun, dramatically. “Apparently, there was some drama involving the purchasing of stocks and attempts to buy more...” She leaned in close, her voice softening. “The Marie didn’t know much more, but I have to admit, my interest was piqued...”

“Is that why you came?” Abby asked.

I gulped. That sounded a bit alarmingly close to ‘actual plot stuff.’ Uh, nope. I didn’t come to this world for an actual plot. I wanted to live a carefree life of balls, dances, and maybe occasionally flying a spaceship while cackling my head off.