"Alfred Bester - Galatea Galante" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bester Alfred)

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"Reg, we all know that. We've chaperoned Gally every moment outside, you, me, Claudia."
"Not every moment. Charles. It could have happened with this innocent in five minutes."
"But nothing ever happened with a man! Nothing! Ever!"
"Dear love, you are pregnant."
"I can't be."
"You are, undeniably. Charles?"
"Gally. I adore you, no matter what, but Reg is right. The pregnancy band is undeniable."
"But I'm a virgin."
"Claudia?"
HR MNS HV STOPT "Her what have stopped"
Corque sighed. "Her menses, Reg."
"Ah so."
"I'm a virgin, you wicked, detestable men. A virgin!"
Manwright took her frantic face in his hands. "Sweetheart, no recriminations, no punishments, no Coventry, but


I must know where I slipped up, how it happened. Who were you with, where and when?"
"I've never been with any man, anywhere or anywhen."
"Never?"
"Never . . . except in my dreams."
"Dreams?" Manwright smiled. "All girls have them. That's not what I mean, dear."
R MAB U SHD MN
"Maybe I should mean what, Claudia?"
LT HR TL U HR DRMS
"Let her tell me her dreams? Why?"
JST LSN
"All right, I'll listen. Tlrll me about your dreams, love."
"No. They're private property."
"Claudia wants me to hear them."
"She's the only one I've ever told. I'm ashamed of them."
Claudia fingerwagged. "Tell him, Gally. You don't know how important they are."
"No!"
"Galatea Galante, are you going to disobey your nanny? I am ordering you to tell your dreams."
"Please, nanny. No. They're erotic."
"I know, dear. That's why they're important. You must tell."
At length, Galatea whispered, "Put out the lights, please." The fascinated Corque obliged.
In the darkness, she began, "They're erotic. They're disgusting. I'm so ashamed. They're always the same . . . and I'm always ashamed . . . but I can't stop ....
"There's a man, a pale man, a moonlight man, and I . . . I want him. I want him to . . . to handle me and ravish me into ecstasy, b-but he doesn't want me, so he runs, and I chase him. And I catch him. Th-there are some sort of friends who help me catch him and tie him up. And then
they go away and leave me alone with the moonlight man, and I . . . and I do to him what I wanted to him to do to me ...."
They could hear her trembling and rustling in her chair.
Very carefully, Manwright asked, "Who is this moonlight man, Galatea?"
"I don't know."
"But you're drawn to him?"
"Oh yes. Yes! I always want him."
"Just him alone, or are there other moonlight men?"
"Only him. He's all I ever want."
"But you don't know who he is. In the dreams do you know who you are?"
"Me. Just me."
"As you are in real life?"