"14 - Fighting Slave of Gor v2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

"The academic world, too often," I said, "is a refuge and haven for those who cannot manage more. Academic thinking does not have the same sanctions of success and failure as practical thought. The aeronautical engineer makes a mistake and a plane crashes. A historian writes a stupid book and is promoted."

She looked down. "Let us order," she said.

"I thought you wanted to talk," I said.

"Let us order now," she said.

"All right," I said. "Would you like a drink?"

"Yes," she said.

We ordered drinks, and later, dinner. The waiter was attentive, but not obtrusive. We drank and ate in silence. After dessert, we sipped coffee.

"Jason," she said, breaking the silence, "I told you before that I didn't understand what was going on with me. I don't."

"You wished to talk to someone," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"Proceed," I said.

"Don't tell me what to do," she said. "Don't tell me what to do!"

"Very well," I said. "Shall I call for the check?"

"Not yet," she said. "Please, wait. I--I do not know where to begin."

I sipped the coffee. I saw no point in hurrying her. I was curious.

"You will think that I'm mad," she said.

"If you will forgive the observation," I said, "you seem to me, rather, to be frightened."

She looked at me, suddenly. "A few months ago," she said, "I began to have unusual feelings, and urges."

"What sorts of feelings and urges?" I asked.

"They are the sort of thing which people used to think of as feminine," she said, "when people still believed in femininity."

"Most people still believe in that sort of thing," I said. "Your official position, whatever its political values, is a perversion not only of truth but of biology."

"Do you think so?" she asked.

"Clearly," I said. "But I would be less worried, if I were you, about what people believed to be true than about what was true. If you have deeply feminine urges you have them. It is that simple. Let people who have never truly experienced femininity argue about whether it exists or not. Let those who know it exists, because they have experienced it, set themselves to different problems."

"But I am fearful of the nature of my femininity," she said. "I have had frightening dreams."

"What sort of dreams?" I asked.