"Madeleine E Robins - Abelard's Kiss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robins Madeleine E)

letting the lover overbalance and roll forward over the beveled top of the tank
wall. Even so, Susannah had to pull with both hands, palms flat against the
malleable flesh, until the creature was wholly out of the tank. Susannah stared
at her palms, which tingled from the contact.

Abelard waited, unmoving. Tentatively Susannah reached out again and touched it,
stroking the warm surface. The flesh of the lover kissed her hand, rising to
follow the line of her arm, nibbling tenderly at the soft skin of the inner
elbow. Susannah sighed, shifted from kneeling to sitting, pushed gently at
Abelard's surface with her free hand until it was enveloped in soft, suckling
tissue. The lover was warm like the touch of breath against her skin. Seen
closely its surface was a dusty rose, lined, porous and unappealing; after a
moment Susannah closed her eyes. Then there was only the touch, the slow sliding
pressure on her arms, a kissing of flesh on flesh.

In the still of the room there was the faint singing of her breath and nothing
else. She floated from touch to touch at the lover's whim; there was nothing to
do but be there, be touched. No responsibility for the lover's pleasure, no
necessity for talk or reassurance. Just her own sensations, intoxicating.
Abelard swarmed over her, nuzzling and kissing, rocking her gently in the first
orgasm, clinging warmly.

Gradually the stroking at her throat, her breasts, her inner thighs and labia
became more insistent, probing. The lover seemed to absorb the energy of her
arousal, feeding on it. Susannah was once distantly aware of how strange it was
to have no one to hold on to, no shoulders or buttocks to knead. When she
stroked the lover its skin kissed back, another sensation, distracting, and
after a moment or two she let her hands fall to her sides.

The lover went on stroking, probing, kissing, shape-changing. Susannah grew
tired, overexcited and raw. Her languor turned into heavy-limbed paralysis: it
was impossible even to shudder away from the ceaseless warm caress that went on
and on. At last, dizzy to fainting, Susannah rolled away from the lover,
shivering in the sudden uncovered cool of the room. She lay for a long time,
boneless, flushed and exhausted against the pillows. When she turned over she
saw Abelard, vaguely forlorn, returned to its squat ovoid Shape. She knew she
should put it back in its tank again -- how long since she had coaxed it out? --
but it was still difficult to move.

Finally she did rise from the floor, pulling on a robe, to attend to the lover,
urging it back toward the tank and, at the last, pushing it over the shallow rim
again into the nutrient bath. At the first touch of her hands the creature began
its slow kissing again. Susannah felt as if every cell in her body was
electrified by sensory memory; after the quick shove it took to up-end Abelard
into the tank, she pulled away, panting again, waiting for the electric charge
to dissipate. Foggy with surfeit she sank back to the floor. After a while she
drifted to sleep where she lay.

At work the next day Susannah was tired and stiff. She found herself drifting
into daydreams, her eyelids suddenly heavy and her mouth pursed in a soft "o" as