"Mike O'Driscoll - The Future Of Birds" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'driscoll Mike)

"They always are," I tell him. "I don't feel well."
Mock concern creeps into his voice. "What is it now, my dear?"
"Bad dreams."
Spengler laughs, a brittle, humourless sound. "Don't be stupid, you know
they came for you." He goes on to tell me which costume to wear, which
jewellery, which perfume. "I'll expect you at eight. Be in a good mood,
Estela, don't disappoint them."
This life in paradise is my reward; it is the way I profit from the
disease. I remember months of preparation, even after the surgery -
instruction in oriental sexual techniques, as well more cerebral
refinements, French, German and English languages; literature; art - I can
hold my own in the most refined or debauched company. And I recall my
first years in Berlin, when the bars of my cage remained invisible.
I enter the bedroom, searching my body for signs of corruption. I lay on
the bed as Heinrich comes in with a crystal pipe on a tray. He loads the
bowl with dreamdust. As he heats it, my anticipation is tinged with the
hope that I won't dream.

Late afternoon finds me stronger, vaguely pleased at some dust-induced
memory. This sense of well-being lasts only until Rudy Thessinger calls.
"What do you want?" I ask him.
Laughter flows down the line, poisoning my brain. Rudy and I go back a
long way, to Rio de Janeiro, more than six years ago. Rudy brought me to
Berlin. He's Spengler's talent scout, my pimp.
As usual he enquires about my well being, then says, "I have some news
about an old friend of yours."
"What friend?" I ask. I have no friends, only clients.
"Was Rio so bad you've forgotten who took you away from giving head on the
Rua Princesa Isabel?"
I recall a name from the dream. "Cledilce."
"She's been in Paris a month, undergoing reassignment surgery."
"You've seen her?"
"The word is she looks stunning," Rudy says, ignoring my question. "You
can imagine what-"
I hang up before his mindgames begin to sicken me. The new image is fixed
in my brain, the face from my other life. Heinrich enters with a fix of
dust and I surprise myself by refusing it. I'm not certain what I feel,
but it is something strong.

Heinrich's skilled hands massage my dark flesh forcing tension from my
limbs. I sometimes wonder why he allowed - why any null allows - himself
to be surgically altered, his brain adapted so that the production of
endorphins is tied to certain emotional states. Is it enough to have all
feelings of self-interest sublimated into a desire to serve? To enslave
the brain in return for the slow dripfeed of endorphins to its pleasure
receptors? To be free forever of guilt and fear and stress?
Perhaps, in his rare moments of lucidity, he wonders about my alteration?
Images begin to clarify, take on meaning. I sift through the chaos of
memories, seeking to impose on them a sense of order.
I was not always Estela de Brito. I see a young boy, nine or ten, living