"Joel Rosenberg - Hidden Ways 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

Which was really okay with Torrie. He wouldn't have thought the combination of an oversized beige chain-knit sweater and black
tights to be sexy, but somehow or other it was. Tights? No, he had called them tights, but that was wrong. Leggings, Maggie had
said. Leggings or stretch-pants or just pants, not tights. That was the trouble with women's clothes—funny names. A shirt was
either a top or a blouse, but never a shirt. Tights were leggings. Ignorance was strength, maybe.

"What are you smiling about?" Maggie asked.

"Oh, nothing," Torrie said.

Maybe it was that the leggings showed off her legs well while the sweater announced that it concealed the rest of her. Or just
maybe, Torrie thought, it was that it had been a full three weeks since he and Maggie had celebrated his Class A épée win with a
couple of icy bottles of Columbia Crest chardonnay—nobody said good wine couldn't be 86.95 a bottle—a quart of fresh
strawberries, and a surprising quartet of condoms. It was getting pretty damn irritating, and Torrie was finding himself snapping at
people without having any cause.

"Ian," Torrie said, "maybe you ought to think about taking up bed making."

"There a lot of money in it?"

"No, but maybe it'll hide the fact that you think sheets need to be changed every other semester or so."

"Well, there is that. Itches if you don't." Theatrically, Ian scratched at his crotch. "But I do make the time to change my underwear
almost weekly, honest. And, hey, don't you think you're driving a bit fast?"

"If I thought I was driving too fast," Torrie said, "I'd slow down."

It was Maggie's turn to chuckle. After a moment, Ian joined in.

Torrie relaxed. He liked Ian—Ian Silverstein was quick with a joke or a smile, and his intensity at his studies was a good example
for Torrie, who tended to slack off the books and spend too much time in the gym—but Torrie always had a little bit of worry at
the back of his head about him. Ian was just too intense sometimes. Kind of funny that somebody with that kind of drive and fire
had gravitated toward the foil, the most nonviolent form of fencing, but Ian was like that.

Torrie settled himself into his seat. He had deliberately saved the last driving stint for himself. The trouble is, what's normal is what
you're used to, what you grow up with. City folks didn't understand how to drive out here.

The gently rolling countryside around Minneapolis had long given way to the flat plains of the east Dakotas: the road was as
straight as a chalk line, and even though it was only one lane in each direction, Torrie didn't have a problem violating the posted
fifty-five speed limit by a solid thirty miles an hour. You just pointed the car straight and set your foot on the gas until the car
started to complain, then backed it off a little.

Through no coincidence, stop signs out in the country were larger than in the city, and you could see the big red octagon a mile
away. Crossroads were the same—there was no point in slowing when you could see for yourself that there was nothing even
approaching the intersection.

Occasionally, a car would whoosh by, going in the other direction, and even more rarely, a huge semi would approach, and Torrie
would have to fight the wheel as the vortex of its passage tried to pull them from the straight path, but the drive was easy.

Here and now it was. During a snowstorm, it would have been suicidal to do this. Then, even at a reasonable speed, it was possible
to find yourself in a ditch, your car quickly being buried. It had happened a few times to Mom, and even once to Dad.