The e-mail came two days later; it was short and sweet. They loved your legs! Underneath was a link to a steam-punk video blog. I'd never had much interest in steam-punk until Lumi had contacted me with her commission. It seemed rather silly and superficial to me; Victorian clothes and ray-guns, whale-bone bodices and brass pistons, just another dress-up game. But a commission was a commission, I desperately needed the money.
The video was coverage of some kind of ball or party. The centerpiece was a huge Victorian pump engine, gleaming piston rods looming over the crowds, its restored paintwork fresh and unblemished. Somehow, it looked dead to me, like the preserved carcass of an extinct animal. The vlog presenter, looking snappy in a monocle and pith helmet, interviewed people about their costumes, where they had got them or how they had made them. It got dull and repetitive very quickly.
Then he found Lumi.
She had a tall black feather in her hair that bobbed as she moved and a bodice artfully distressed with rips and tears, a black choker tight on her pale neck and long black satin gloves that covered her arms to above the elbows. Ivory colored layers of distressed petticoats floated at her waist with a ragged bustle hanging behind, barely covering her hips. Below that were the brass legs I'd made, the metal gleaming, the cutaway sections infernal with red light and turning gears. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, smiling for the camera, her teeth flashing between red painted lips. I watched it over and over, drinking her in.
YOU ARE READING
Less Of Her
Short StoryClaudia is a shut-in, a nerd. She creates custom cybernetic limbs, unique works of art. Lumi is everything Claudia is not, exotic, exciting, outgoing. Claudia comes to realise they both have their secrets. Secrets that will tear them apart.
