"Carol Emshwiller - Boys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emshwiller Carol)

She washes me, changes the bed, and throws the bed clothes and my clothes out the door. Then she
gets the bullet out. I'm half out of my head from the leaves she had me chew so the pain is dulled. She
bandages me, covers me with a clean blanket, puts her lips against my cheek for a moment.

Then stands up, legs apart. She looks like one of our boys getting ready to prove himself. "We'll not
stand for this anymore," she says. "It has to end and we'll end it, if not one way, then another."

"But this is how it's always been."

"You could be our spokesman."

How can she even suggest such a thing. "Pillows," I say. "Spokesman for the nipples."

Goodness knows what the mothers are capable of. They never stick to any rules.

"If the answer is no, we'll not have anymore boy babies. You can come down and copulate all you
want but there'll be no boys. We'll kill them."
 "You wouldn't. You couldn't. Not you, Una."

"Have you noticed how there are fewer and fewer boys? Many have already done it."

But I'm in too much pain and dizzy from the leaves she gave me, to think clearly. She sees that. She
sits beside me, takes my hand. "Just rest," she says. How can I rest with such ideas in my head? "But the
rules."

"Hush. Women don't care about rules. You know that."

"Come back with me." I pull her down against me. This time she lets me. How good it feels to have
us chest to chest, my arms around her. "I have a secret place. It's not a hard climb to get there."

She pulls back. "Colonel, sir!"

"Please don't call me that."

Then I say тАж what we're not allowed to say or even think. It's a mother/child thing, not to be said
between a man and a woman. I say, "I love you."

She leans back and looks at me. Then wipes at my chin. "Try not to bite your lip like that."

"It doesn't matter anymore."

"It does to me."

"I liked.тАж I like.тАж" I already used the other word, why not yet again. "I love copulation day only
when with you."

I wonder if she feels the same about me. I wish I dared ask her. I wonder if my son.тАж Is Hob hers
and mine together? I've always hoped he was. She's made no gesture towards him. She hasn't even
looked at him any more than any other boy. This would have been his first copulation day had the women
not built their wall.