"L. Timmel Duchamp - De Secretis Mulierum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duchamp L Timmel)

the perks Elizabeth's favoritism could get him. When it comes to power, it
makes
even the physically most unattractive man or woman utterly irresistible."
Never
mind, of course, that Teddy himself reacted badly to women in positions of
authority, and had a real problem with the superstardom Marissa had achieved
as
a senior member of the PSD team. But there he stood, shaking his head and
chuckling so beside himself he nodded and winked at his colleague and rival
Barry Bayle.

I nudged Teddy's arm with my elbow. "What do you suppose the sainted father is
going to do?" I whispered. "Masturbate?"

Teddy cackled loudly, proud of his protegee's grand irreverence, and probably
hoping Bayle had heard.

But Thomas didn't masturbate, no. He bathed. And he did not take off the robe,
but merely shifted it around. (Well, it was cold. And thirteenth-century
religious considered it sensually tempting to see one's own body.) He started
by
slipping the robe down to his waist. Then layer after layer of binding he
unwound from his chest, and clearer and clearer it became that his breasts
were
the size of watermelons! In seconds I grew so hysterical I was soon terrified
I'd burst out laughing. I remember holding myself all scrunched up, my chin
tucked low, shivering. I kept thinking, I can't believe I'm seeing this, while
my mind scrambled for an explanation. Perhaps a combination of severe obesity
and a hormonal disorder? I remember thinking that medical historians would
soon
be writing dozens of papers speculating on the possibilities . . . And so we
all
watched him wash and then rebind his breasts and draw the robe back up over
his
shoulders. And then . . .

Oh god. Even now, decades later, I have a hard time with this. (I remember
this
part so very clearly.) It was such a shock. We should have been prepared after
Leonardo, but . . . But really, this was different. Leonardo was lovely,
graceful, physically fit. And not menstruating. But Thomas, well, he suddenly,
before our very eyes, became this mound of flesh stripping off a thick bundle
of
bloody rags from between his legs . . . According to my journal, my first
thought was that he'd castrated himself. (The idea being that the vision or
breakdown had already occurred, recently, and he'd taken a knife to his
genitals
in consequence thereof.) But no. No. As he removed the last of the rags, it
became indisputably clear. Though exceedingly obese and forty-seven, both of
which conditions might be assumed to have interdicted it, there could be no