"Rudy Rucker - Guadalupe and Hieronymus Bosch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

gives him power, aplomb. He's a suspicious genius with sharp eyes and a trapdoor mouth. I keep talking
to him.

"It's fabulous that you're drawing, Jerome. This hole will be an art grotto. I hope they don't paint it over
when we move." And surely we will be moving quite soon, with Jerome pulling in the Old Master bucks.
We'll be on TV. We'll get a condo in one of those beautiful new buildings across from the SJSU library
on Fourth Street.

I smile at Jerome and fluff my hair a little. I wear it long and black with henna highlights and Bettie Page
bangs. Too bad I didn't happen to shampoo and condition it yet this week. I look sexier when my mane
is lustrous.
Jerome thins his lips and shades the outstretched arms of a little man. He's digging on the excellent
twenty-first-century quality of my pencils and the luscious smooth whiteness of apartment dry-wall.
Sketching a picture of Harna and me snatching him. Harna looks like a fish as much as a car. She's
surrounded by glow-lines of blue light. Her prey is just now seeing the shape in the sky, he's holding out
his arms with that odd look of non-surprise. His unmade bachelor bed is in the far corner of his room.
The vortex from the aeroform is gonna cartwheel him into the arms of a voluptuous dark-haired
sorceress. Me!

"You're cute," I tell Jerome. He pinches the fingers of one hand at me again, the other hand busy with my
pencils. He draws terrifically fast. I'm really glad I bagged him. But I wish he looked a little happier about
it.

"Why don't we get to know each other better?" I say, imagining he might pick up on my tone. I unbutton
my baby-doll blouse enough so he can see my boobs—but not the runaway rolls of my stomach. My
breasts are a major plus, easily the equal of Pammy Anderson's. And they're natural.

But Jerome looks away. It occurs to me that maybe he still thinks this is Hell—which would make me a
demoness. I decide to play up to that. I cackle at him and beckon with witchy fingers, the light glinting on
my chipped black nails. My fingers are quite shapely, another plus feature. But they're not bringing
Jerome Bosch into my arms.

So I go get him. He tries to escape, racing around the apartment like a sparrow that flew in the window. I
shoo him into my bedroom and—plop—we're mixed in with the sheets, magazines and laundry on my
bed.

I give him a wet kiss and pull down my stretchy pants— keeping my top on so as to minimize that
troublesome abdominal area. Of course I'm not wearing panties, I've been planning this all along. I tug
down his sweat pants—and there's his goodies on display. A twenty-five-year-old fella here in bed with
me, the answer to a maiden's prayer. I roll him on top of me and pull him in. It's been a while.

But—just my luck—this turns into a totally screwed-up proposition. He comes, maybe, and then he's
limp, and then—oh, God—he starts sobbing like his heart is going to break. Poor Jerome. I cuddle him
and whisper to him. His sobs slow down, he whimpers, he slides off to one side and—falls asleep!

I feel down between my legs, trying to figure out if he delivered. What a thing it would be to carry
Hieronymus Bosch's baby! That would tie him to me for sure. I think I'm ovulating today, as a matter of
fact. Just for luck, I twist around and prop my feet up on the wall, giving the Dutch Master's wrigglers
every opportunity to work their way up to the hidden jewel of my egg.