"David Gerrold - Love Story in Three Acts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

LOVE STORY IN THREE ACTS
by David Gerrold




CONTENTS

Act One , Act Two, Act Three




The author of this story is young enough, to live in the up-to-the-minute modern, electronic
world of today. He is also old enough to be concerned about our relationship to the machines that
we are manufacturing in ever greater numbers. And he is well acquainted with the gadgetry of
flashing lights, glasseyes and twisting wires—one of his television plays was a much-acclaimed
episode in the "Star Trek" series—and has no fear of them. With cool craft he takes a long look at
some of the possibilities of the future.




Act One
After a while John grunted and rolled off Marsha. He lay there for a bit, listening to the dawn
whispering through the apartment, the sound of the air processor whining somewhere, and the occasional
rasp of his own breath and that of Marsha's too. Every so often, there was a short sharp inhalation, as if
to say, "Yeah, well…"
"Yeah, well…" John muttered and began tugging at the metal reaction-monitor bands on his wrists.
He sat on the edge of the bed, still pulling at the clasps, the fastenings coming loose with a soft popping
sound. He reached down and unfastened similar bands from his ankles and let those fall carelessly to the
floor.
Then he stood and pad-padded barefoot across the floor to the typewriter-sized console on the
dresser. Behind him he heard the creak of the bed as Marsha levered herself up on one elbow. "What
does it say?" she demanded.
"Just a minute, will you," John snapped. "Give me a chance." He ripped the readout from the
computer and went through, the motions of studying it. This was the deluxe model which recorded the
actual moment-to-moment physical reactions of the band-wearers. The jagged spiky lines sprawled
carelessly across the neat ruled graphs meant little to him—they were there for the technicians, not the
laymen—but at the top of the sheet was the computer's printed analysis. Even before he looked at it,
John knew it would be bad.
"Well…?" Marsha demanded acidly, "did we enjoy ourselves?"
 "Yeah…" he muttered, "About thirty-four percent…"
"Hell!" she said, and threw herself back on the bed. She lay there staring at the ceiling, "Hell…"
"I wish you wouldn't swear so much," he muttered, still looking at the readout
"Hell," she said again, just to see him flinch. She reached over to the night stand and thumbed a
cigarette out of the pack.
"And I wish you wouldn't smoke so much either. Kissing you is like kissing another man."
She looked back at him, "I've always wondered what your previous experience was. Your technique
with women is terrible." She inhaled deeply as the cigarette caught flame.