moptop's second assignment
Emily doesn't want to go anywhere quickly, it seems, but she is definitely on her way... I just can't get the description of the machine right.
Chapter 2. First steps.
The Professor bowed to Emily; but not the cursory, polite movement he had made earlier. He lowered his head and bent his body gracefully to her, placing his right arm across his waist, his left held by side. She felt confused, flattered. There was a strange implication of respect in his salute: as though recognising an equal, she felt, or a worthy adversary; unsure how to react, but still unwilling to betray weakness, she bowed slightly back.
“Well, Miss Emily, Miss Evergood – it would appear that you have made your choices. Most interesting and most varied. Miss Emily,” again he favoured her with a small, respectful bending of his head, “You’re chosen way is harder. There is much to learn. I believe it would be best if I were to take you forward first. When you return, you will be ready to accompany your sister, I believe, wherever it is she wishes to go. You may indeed be ready to take her there yourself, without my guidance. We shall see. I have high hopes of your learning capacity.”
Emily found fierce emotions warring in her. Pride; defiance; awe; confusion; curiosity; fear; attraction; repulsion. How did this strange man go from crooked madman to compelling beauty? What did his words mean; they seemed to hold more import than they appeared? She held herself stiff, determined not to appear frightened, saying nothing.
Alicia, though, was in an excited panic.
“Oh, Professor, you will not go off, surely, and leave me here all alone? I would be so scared, in a strange place and no company! And Emily, Sir, you cannot travel alone together, surely! There would be such a scandal; we could never appear in society again!”
The Professor seemed to try to hide a smile, as one would from a child who wished to be taken seriously.
“Miss Evergood, you shall certainly not have time to worry on either count, I believe. I swear that you will think we have barely left, before we return again. Such is the wondrous nature of my machine.”
Emily staunchly told Alicia not to be a mouse, and after some more fluttering and flustering, Alicia finally subsided and allowed herself to be reassured. The Professor walked over to the internal doorway and waved Emily through.
The door shut behind her with a decisive click.
***********************
The room in which she found herself was large, with high ceilings. There was no furniture, but a waist-height bench ran along each wall, covered with glass tubes, Bunsen burners, microscopes and other scientific paraphernalia. In the centre of the room was The Machine.
It was the most peculiar looking thing. For some reason, Emily felt it was familiar. She could not pinpoint what it was that she recognised about it. It was made of a dully gleaming silver metal. The entrance faced her, raised some distance above the ground and accessed by a short set of steps.
On each side of the entrance, both creating and supporting it, were two great pillars, which tapered as they rose in a gracious curve towards each other, merging to meet at the top. They also curved around behind, so that they formed the whole casing of the machine.
The entrance itself was shaped somewhat like a teardrop, with an internal frame in some strange, textured material, echoing the teardrop shape and creating a smaller, dark, mysterious opening, through which she must pass and into which her gaze could not penetrate.
As she stared, the Professor stood wordless, watching her with eyes that were once again hooded and unfathomable. He motioned for her to circle the machine. She moved slowly around the pillars. Their smooth, elegant fullness made her want to touch them, to run her hands along their curves. As she approached the rear of the machine, she saw that they swept outwards and upwards, so that the rear of the machine was much deeper and rounder than she had expected. In the middle the pillars curved inwards towards each other again, to meet. They joined not in a flat plane, however, but they rolled towards each other and inwards to create a cleft, a deep crevice into which she wanted to delve…
She gasped in shock and stepped back. She was not able to allow herself to formulate what she saw, this enticing rounded rear, that wondrous dark doorway at the front… nor could she admit the meaning of the dryness in her throat, the strange excitement she felt within. She looked down and around herself in confusion, and caught the Professor’s mocking gaze.
“She is a beautiful creation, is she not? A creature of rare allure. Don’t be afraid - admire her, touch her, stroke her, enjoy her. She is there for your pleasure.”
Emily took strength from him, from his calm certainty, and reached out a hand to stroke the great cheek before her. She allowed her hand to roam gently, softly, up, down, across, in. As she reached breathless towards that tempting cleft, she found herself wanting to walk in, to immolate herself in the depths she knew were there. The shock of desire and flood of self-realisation was too much for poor Emily. She burst into tears, despising herself. The Professor quickly held her against his shoulder and stroked her hair, rocking her like a babe.
“Miss Emily, Miss Emily, come now, I thought you stronger than that. You will need all the strength you can muster, you know, on the path you wish to tread. Be brave, be honest with yourself. You only cry because you feel guilty. Do not. You too are a creature of rare allure, a queen amongst women, although as yet only a girl. Have heart, be ready. Hush. Now. Stand straight and listen.”
Emily sniffed several times, head down, and brought herself back under control. She shrugged off the Professor’s touch and stepped back to glare at him with close to her normal defiant air.
“Ah!” the Professor smiled broadly, now again blue-eyed, handsome, alluring. “How does he do that!” wondered Emily. “Good! That’s more like it. So, to business. The first thing we need to sort out is clothes: I intend to take you about 100 years forward, an era I have already explored – with great pleasure and with great sadness, I may say – and whilst I could pass as merely peculiar in my garb, you, I’m afraid, would look as though you were in fancy dress. If you would be good enough to pass me your jacket and a shoe, so that I might have something by which to judge your size, I shall be back in a few moments.”
He held out his hand, and she passed her jacket and shoe over dumbly, too dazed now to consider the niceties of removing her over garment in front of a male stranger. The Professor nodded, and she followed him back round to the front of the machine, where he rapidly mounted the steps and disappeared through the black opening.
Emily had hardly had time to wonder what he was up to when he reappeared down the steps, carrying various coloured bags made of some strange shining material. “These are made from plastic, Miss Emily, as indeed are many things in the future you go to. And they contain clothes into which you must change.”
She fingered the bags made of this strange, smooth stuff; and stared in disbelief and some distress as the Professor removed various items of clothing from them.
“Here you are. I’ve kept it fairly simple for your first try. We can explore dress further whilst we are there. In fact, it is an imperative. Put these on. You can go behind the machine if you wish. I won’t look.”
“Should I then wear my present skirt, Professor?”
“What? No, good grief no! This is your skirt.”
She goggled at the object he held up. It was straight, black, not a pleat nor a flounce in sight, and came, surely, to no more than just above her knee.
“But – but – it’s indecent!
The Professor burst out laughing. “Oh, my poor dear girl, I swear this is going to be one of the most difficult things to which to adapt! No, it is not, by future standards, indecent in the slightest. Coupled with the jacket – here – and the plain white blouse – here - it is, if anything, slightly severe; which, I decided, would be just right for you. Oh, and these are your stockings. You have no need for garters; they will stay up of their own accord. The top will wrap around your thighs and cling. And these are your undergarments. That is a bra.” Her eyes were almost popping out of her head. “This is called a thong. Now go on, quickly.”
Quite speechless now, Emily grabbed the strange items he had passed her and scuttled round to the back of the machine, trying not to look at the glorious silver buttocks that reared above her. She struggled with the unfamiliar clothing – how did one get into a bra? And was the thong the right way up? And those shoes – how could she ever balance on such heels? The skirt - was it supposed to have a split like that up the back of it? Surely it was exposing enough of her already?
Eventually she felt she had probably got things right. As she ventured, wobbling, back to present herself to the Professor, she felt furiously self-aware, as though naked still, with so much of her legs exposed. She was intensely conscious of her bare buttocks rubbing against the silky lining of the skirt.
“Hmmm, yes, you’ll do, I think. One more thing – take your hair down. There, yes! Let it run loose, it is magnificent, it would be like falling into midnight.”
Emily shook her head, allowing her waist-length dark hair to flow around her, and revelled in the feeling of freedom. She shook her hair down around her face and then flung her head up, a dark river flowing around her back and shoulders. It made her feel powerful, proud, beautiful and strangely wanton. She tilted her chin, stretched her back and smiled full into the Professor’s eyes.
The Professor smiled back, nodding to himself.
“Oh, yes. Perfect. Perfect choice.” Abruptly, he swivelled towards the machine. “Right, come on, time is wasting.”
He vaulted up the steps.
