"Gwyneth Jones - Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Gwyneth)

conscious that he's in a fantasy world."
She started, accusingly. "I don't want to know his name."
 "Don't worry, I wouldn't tell you. "Lessingham" is the name of his virtuality persona. I'm surprised
you don't recognize it. He's a character from a series of classic fantasy novels by E.R. Eddison. . . . In
Eddison's glorious cosmos "Lessingham" is a splendidly endowed English gentleman, who visits
fantastic realms of ultra-masculine adventure as a lucid dreamer: though an actor in the drama,
he is partly conscious of another existence, while the characters around him are more or less
explicitly puppets of the dream ..."
He sounded as if he was quoting from a reference book. He probably was: reading from an autocue
that had popped up in lenses of those doctorish horn-rims. She knew that the old-fashioned trappings
were there to reassure her. She rather despised them: but it was like the virtuality itself. The buttons were
pushed, the mechanism responded. She was reassured.
Of course she knew the Eddison stories. She recalled "Lessingham" perfectly: the tall, strong,
handsome, cultured millionaire jock, who has magic journeys to another world, where he is a tall, strong,
handsome, cultured jock in Elizabethan costume, with a big sword. The whole thing was an absolutely
typical male power-fantasy, she thoughtтАФwithout rancor. Fantasy means never having to say you're
sorry. The women in those books, she remembered, were drenched in sex, but they had no part in the
action. They stayed at home being princesses, occasionally allowing the millionaire jocks to get them into
bed. She could understand why "Lessingham" would be interested in "Sonja" . . . for a change.
"You think he goosed you, psychically. What do you expect? You can't dress the way 'Sonja'
dresses, and hope to be treated like the Queen of the May."
Dr. Hamilton was only doing his job. He was supposed to be provocative, so they could react
against him. That was his excuse, anyway. . . . On the contrary, she thought. "Sonja" dresses the way she
does because she can dress any way she likes. "Sonja" doesn't have to hope for respect, and she doesn't
have to demand it. She just gets it. "It's dominance display," she said, enjoying the theft of his jargon.
"Females do that too, you know. The way 'Sonja' dresses is not an invitation. It's a warning. Or a
challenge, to anyone who can measure up."
He laughed, but he sounded irritated. "Frankly, I'm amazed that you two work together. I'd have
expected 'Lessingham' to go for an ultrafeminineтАФ"
"I am . . . 'Sonja' is ultrafeminine. Isn't a tigress feminine?"
"Well, okay. But I guess you've found out his little weakness. He likes to be a teeny bit in control,
even when he's letting his hair down in dreamland."
She remembered the secret mockery lurking in those blue eyes. "That's the problem. That's exactly
what I don't want. I don't want either of us to be in control."
"I can't interfere with his persona. So, it's up to you. Do you want to carry on?"
"Something works," she muttered. She was unwilling to admit that there'd been no one else, in the
text interface phase of the group, that she found remotely attractive. It was "Lessingham," or drop out
and start again. "I just want him to stop spoiling things."
"You can't expect your masturbation fantasies to mesh completely. This is about getting beyond
solitary sex. Go with it: where's the harm? One day you'll want to face a sexual partner in the real, and
then you'll be well. Meanwhile, you could be passing 'Lessingham' in receptionтАФhe comes to his meat
sessions around your timeтАФ and not know it. That's safety, and you never have to breach it. You two
have proved that you can sustain an imaginary world together: it's almost like being in love. I could argue
that lucid dreaming, being in the fantasy world but not of it, is the next big step. Think about that."
The clinic room had mirrored walls: more deliberate provocation. How much reality can you take?,
the reflections asked. But she felt only a vague distaste for the woman she saw, at once hollow-cheeked
and bloated, lying in the doctor's foam couch. He was glancing over her records on his notebook screen:
which meant the session was almost up.
"Still no overt sexual contact?"
"I'm not ready ..." She stirred restlessly. "Is it a man or a woman?"