"James Patrick Kelly - Chemistry" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

Lily let go of him. She reminded herself that this was a
man with a crew cut who practiced sales tricks. "And
what are you trying to sell me?"
"I don't know yet." His voice was low. "First I have to
find out if I carry what you want."
The elevator doors opened and everyone turned to inspect
the new arrivals. It was Old Man Skintights and a
thirtyish brunette in a caramel-colored suit. As the
dancers moved to welcome them, the fiddlers picked up
their bows.
"Never leave a prospect until you schedule your next
meeting." Steve grinned. "Shall we say, after this
dance?" He strolled away whistling but paused at the
edge of the garden and called to her. "I like you, Lily
Obviously." He disappeared behind a hibiscus covered
with red flowers.
There's a man who knows exactly what he wants, she
thought, and I'm it. She was at once pleased and scared
and slightly let down. Where had he gone so abruptly? To
rinse in cold water?
The caller tapped the belly of his bass. "All square
your sets ..."
Lily had intended to dance again, but that was what he
expected her to do. She thought it better to be
unpredictable, make his hands sweat. She spotted some
people gathered beneath a statue of a satyr groping a
nymph.
"Now you're getting into ideology," a nervous black man
said. "Ask Alice about that."
"About what?" said a woman in a poet's blouse and orange
tights.
"Keith here claims the female orgasm is vestigial. A
leftover, like an appendix."
"Should we kill him now," Betty said to T.J., who had
his arm around her waist, "or hear him out first?"
"Hey, I'm not against anyone's orgasm," Keith said
quickly. "My point is that in evolutionary terms, female
orgasm is irrelevant. Some societies don't even have a
word for it."
"We should make one up for them," said Lily. "How about
shimmer? Or leap?
"Oh yes, baby, yes, I'm rippling."
Alice shook her head. "Maybe you ripple, honey, but I
surge."
All the women laughed.
Keith wasn't giving up. "Women reproduce whether they
climax or not. With us, orgasm is everything. If we
don't come, there's no ball game."
"Ball game?" Betty rubbed against T.J. "Why is it that
whenever we try to talk about love, men change the