"Spider Robinson - Copyright Violation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

up from a coma or a jealous husband was going to kick in the door or some other
slapstick disaster would spoil it—and was able to fully relax and enjoy myself. To
lose myself, to throw myself away, to expand to the size of the universe and trust
that there would still be someone to be when I recon-densed.
Perhaps, indeed, I became someone else in that timeless time—or perhaps it was
the glo-rious hours that led up to it which worked some kind of change on me,
developing, or maybe only tapping, wells of unsuspected strength.
Because I'm fairly sure the man I had been when I'd walked into that apartment
would have concluded such stupifying carnal excess with a deep sleep of hours, if
not days ...
Whereas I returned to something resembling normal consciousness, to a vastly
changed but basically recognizable reality, only a few min-utes after the last
generation ship left the launch pad. I waited until my breathing slowed, and lifted
myself up onto an elbow which was missing considerable skin, and said, "Tell me
about yourself, Marga; what do you do with your life?"
Something infinitely subtle changed in her face, and even without my glasses I
sensed she was unhappy with the question. The man I had been would have sprained
his tongue changing the subject. I waited, forcing her to make some reply, and the
wait was just long enough for me to notice that the silly crown she had insisted I
leave on was heavy enough to strain my neck; I reached up to remove it.
"Don't!" she blurted. "It's still saving—"
 There was no pause at all; I'm breaking the sentence only to indicate a barely
perceptible alteration in the tone of her voice as she fin-ished, "—the sweat from
running into your eyes, my love."
A moment before I'd have been prepared to cut my throat if she wished it. But she
herself had recently and repeatedly wakened in me the primitive male essence, the
killer-ape ancestry I had always thought to be purely theoretical. The old ape is
paranoid.
I removed the crown.
"Darling," she said, her lighthearted tone per-fectly plausible, "don't spoil it, now.
You look so handsome with it on—come, let me put it back on and I'll tell you
anything about me you want to know. How I lost my virginity, perhaps...?"
As she reached coyly for it I pulled it away and sat up. "Just a second, Marga." I
switched on the table lamp—we were on the floor at the time—and turned
fractionally away from her to study the crown. She made a grab for my elbow,
aborted it quickly.
The light was just a little better than it had been in the bar. I held the crown close
to my eyes, tilted it so the light picked out a portion of its interior surface in high
relief. Most of the intricate engraving was unfamiliar to me, seemingly purely artistic
in design, like the elaborate chasings on the outer surface, but a portion of it I
recognized. Rotating the crown slightly I made out another such portion,
extra-polated a total of three. It reminded me of a mouse I knew . . .
"I was afraid the sweat might be tarnishing the gold. It is pure gold, isn't it?"
"Yes, Fleming, but it's sealed against corrosion. Please put it back on? To please
me?" She sat up beside me and tugged playfully at one of my nipples.
I pondered for a half second. "Anything to please you, Marga." I swept back my
damp hair and put the crown back on my head, allowed her to adjust its position
slightly. "Now if you'll excuse me for just one second, my ... bladder is bursting."
I got up and padded toward the bathroom. Everybody has some cliche they use:
my back teeth are floating, or, my eyes are turning yel-low, or, my cup runneth over.