"Christopher Priest - The Discharge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Priest Christopher)

title, remembered how?): The Swain of Lethen in Godly Pleasures. This one was painted in bold
pigment on a stiff wooden board.

All that could be seen of The Swain in reproduction, or from a distance, was what appeared to be a
smooth field of uniform crimson paint, intriguingly plain and minimalist. One touch of a hand or a finger,
though, or even (as I knew I had tried) the light press of a forehead, would induce a vivid mental image of
sexual activity. For everyone it was supposed to be different. I myself saw, felt, experienced, a scene of
multiple sexual activity, a young man naked on a bed, three beautiful naked women pleasuring him, one
straddling his face, one his penis, the third reaching beneath his body to press her face against his
buttocks. All was bathed, in this intense imagining, in a lubricious crimson light.

Now I had become the swain himself, in godly pleasures.

I was surrendering to the imminent passions the women aroused in me. A lust for physical release was
rushing through me even as the extent of the enigma about Acizzone surrounded me. I felt myself
hastening to the moment of completion.

Then it ended. As swiftly and deftly as they had taken up their position, the women lifted themselves
away from me, deserted me. I tried to call out to them, but my labored breathing emitted only a series of
excited gasps. They stepped quickly down from the bed, slipped awayтАФthe door opened and closed,
leaving me alone.

I discharged my excitement at last, miserable and abandoned. I could still in one sense feel them, could
detect the traces they had left behind of their exquisite and exciting perfumes, but I was alone in that
dim-lit, sound-throbbing cell and I expelled my passion as a man alone.

I lay still to try to calm myself, all my senses tingling, my muscles twitching and straining. I sat up slowly,
lowered my feet to the floor. My legs were trembling.

When I could I dressed quickly and carefully, attempting to make myself look as if nothing had just
happened so that I could depart with at least an appearance of calmness.

As I tucked in my shirt I felt the residue of my discharge, cold and sticky on the skin of my belly.

I found my way out of the room, along the corridor, into a large sub-floor area, filled with music and the
sound of overhead footsteps. I saw a glint of bright-red neon lighting, limned against ill-fitting doors. I
struggled with iron handles, pulled the doors open, found a cobbled alley between two massive buildings
under the tropical night, sensed the smells of cooking, perspiration, spices, grease, gasoline, night-scented
flowers. Finally I emerged into the clamorous street by the waterfront. I saw none of the black-caps,
none of the whores, none of my shipmates.

I was thankful the club was so close to the quay. I was soon able to reboard the troopship, check myself
in with the marshals, then plunge into the lower decks and lose myself in the anonymous press of the
other men who were there. I sought no one's company during my first hours back in the crowded decks.
I lay on my bunk and pretended to sleep.

The next morning the ship sailed from Muriseay Town and once again we headed south towards the
war.