"Kathleen Ann Goonan - The Bride of Elvis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

almost see down and touch, they were so real to her. Maybe she'd just never taken the time to look at a human before.
Was this what Elvis was singing about in all those songs? Good god, what a feeling! No wonder Kings acted so nutty.
They just lost their fool minds. She felt like singing herself. The hell with being a Bride. The ship would never be back.
She knew that lots had fallen by the wayside, forgotten their bracelets in a moment like this with no part of the King
around, no sweat-soaked scarf, no little plastic twist-box of cells or hair to align the gene sequences correctly. What
got born three months later were mutant half-human kiddies. Human birth control didn't work for them because it was
the pheromones that allowed the sperm and eggs already in them to join. The powerful spray of pheromones human
males gave off during love-making did that too, but things got just a little twisted with those alien pheromones.
Those mutants, and she might conceive one any minute, if she kept on like this, were the thousands of women --
always women -- with sad, yearning faces who trudged past the coffin, not quite sure why they felt so strongly about
Elvis. They were good for the budget, though, and it took a heck of a big bankroll to fund the checks that got sent out
every two weeks so that everyone could get enough to eat. The full-lined ones matured quickly, almost twice as fast as
humans, so there were a few generations now, and where they came from was dim legend to new kiddies. She had her
mother to thank for being so strict and making sure she listened every morning and kept the faith, though sometimes
she had her doubts too. She'd been lucky to be a Bride, which kept it all fresh and real in her mind.
And now all hell had broken loose, and she wanted to stay with this human man. "Roy," she whispered, and he
drew her close against his chest. All her yearning loneliness was gone. She'd never have a man on the ship, except that
one strictly delineated time. They were simply obsolete. All but one. There was always one King. But this particular
King had gotten much too rowdy toward the end, what with a whole weird alien planet spread out before Him. Best to
keep Him in cold-sleep, all His vital parts preserved, all the necessary genetic information still intact, before He ruined
it altogether with his silly drugs and wild ways. Just a big kid, but Kings always were. Spoiled and rebellious. Never
listening.
Darlene looked into Roy's eyes. This guy was different. Maybe the human way was better.
She kissed Roy back. She opened her mouth and drew in his tongue, felt his breath become deep and slow as hers.
His lips were soft on her face, his hands felt so good on her breast, on her thigh--
Afterward, without saying anything, he turned on the truck and drove as if he were in kind of a daze. She buttoned
her blouse, bent down to snag her panties from off the floor and pulled them back on.
Finally, he said, "Damn." But that was all he said.
She didn't feel much like talking either. She could feel the conception within her body, just like she had when she'd
grabbed His scarf, and it didn't feel horrible like they said it would. Her mother had told her how creepy it would feel,
how sickening and awful when the mutation was taking place.
It felt good.
It only took another forty-five minutes to get there. They drove past fields fringed over with new green growth,
through a little town which had an old wooden grocery store with a faded red Coca-Cola sign. "Closed on Sunday,"
the sign on the door said. A few pickups were parked next door at the Bar and Grill, and a black dog lay under one of
them, trying to stay out of the rain. The courthouse was the nicest building in town, which was only two blocks long,
with its dome and pillars.
"This is Sudden," Roy said. "It's the county seat." He turned just past the courthouse onto a narrow asphalt road
which changed to dirt after a few miles and climbed the narrow rim of a red clay hillside. At the top was a doublewide
with a screened-in porch and rose bushes blooming all around, pink, red, yellow. A black satellite dish was right next
to it. "It's not much, I guess," Roy said.
It's not, she thought, but said, "It's nice."
"This is Ma's," he said. "That cabin over there is mine. I built it from a kit."
"Really," she said.
She looked all around, at the low green hills below them, the fields laid out so sure and true, with all those neighbors
down little back roads. She felt good here, more at home than at Graceland, watching those meters, seeing that throng
of sightseers file by, putting up with the jealousy of the other Brides because she was first in line once they got back
to the ship, and they were just backups. Hell. It was all a stupid fantasy. Why not stay here? It seemed like home, and
Roy felt like home too. She could have a future here. Not forever, or even close. But no one would have forever, now
that the King was gone.