"McHugh-VirtualLove" - читать интересную книгу автора (McHugh Maureen F)

Eventually, I couldn't stand it anymore. That's when I set up the green room. I
made Sulia, first. I didn't plan to wear Sulia but I knew she was amazing.
Sulia's the most into the moment of my personas. She's tall and she's got
comrows all the way down her brown back in a waterfall of hair. She's muscular
and sleek and innocently fetal with a beautiful open smile. I'd wear her in the
green room for hours, where no one could see me, just being her. Then, when I'd
pull the helmet off there would be this moment when I had to remember I was just
me. And I hated it.

But I have to be really riding high to wear Sulia. I built her first and she was
inspired, but I didn't wear her first.

I started with Terese. Terese is a pale wisp of a thing in a soft, flowered
dress, rose and pale green like spring to go with her pale hair. Terese doesn't
overpower a room, she works on it like perfume. Terese listens a lot and people
confide in her. People will say the most amazing, intimate things if you let
them. It was easy to be Terese because one of her traits is that she's still.
People think it means that she is calm. I can be very still.

Today I think I'll do Alicia. She's the persona I wear most often anymore.

There are a bunch of things besides makeup on the desk. There's a rose in a bud
vase -- that's Terese. If I pick up the rose I put on Terese. I pick up a fine
gold chain and I am Alicia, a sleek woman with long warm brown hair swept up in
a French braid. Almost all my personas have long hair. I worry about that, but
my hair is mousy brown and thin and I always wanted long hair even though it
would be so much trouble. Still, I am afraid it might become part of a
signature. They should all be different, all be individual.

Alicia looks back at me from the mirror, her sun brown arms bare and smooth, her
little ivory silk shift simple. That's Alicia, simple and unadorned and direct.

I point with the glove and I'm moving to the door. I open the door and go out
into the world.

The access is always a big lobby, with menus posted. I study the menus, skipping
the games, Illuminati, Knights Templar, Cthulu, Voodoo Horsemen, International
Spy, looking for places. Doc's is all right, I've been there. The Black Hole is
fun. Nightmare is a dud. Madame Stael's is one of my favorites, so I tap the
menu, and the elevator door opens. Take a deep breath in the elevator.

The elevator opens and I'm looking down a long room, something like the Hall of
Mirrors in Versailles. To the left are windows looking out on a garden, to the
right are huge, gilt framed mirrors, and between the mirrors are doors to
Salons. I head for the cafe, three doors down.

"Allo, Alicia," says Paul-Michel, the bartender. "Champagne?"

"A glass of Bordeaux." Paul-Michel is an eliza program. He'll let you pour out