"John Varley - Steel Beach" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

She was wearing a frilly red blouse that went well with her silver-blonde
hair, and the second badge of our profession: a battered gray fedora with a
card reading PRESS stuck into the brim. She had recently had herself
heeled. It was coming back into fashion. Personally, I tried it and didn't like
it much. It's a simple operation. The tendons in the soles of the feet are
shortened, forcing your heels up in the air and shifting the weight to the balls
of the feet. In extreme cases it put you right up on your toes, like a ballerina.
Like I said, a rather silly fad, but I had to admit it produced attractive lines in
the calf, thigh, and buttock muscles.
It could have been worse. Women used to cram their feet into pointed
horrors with ten-centimeter heels and hobble around in a one-gee field to get
more or less the same effect. It must have been crippling.
"Says there's a security interlock available, to insure fidelity."
"What? Where's that?"
She gave me the faxpad reference. I couldn't believe what I was
reading.
"Is that legal?" I asked her.
"Sure. It's a contract between two people, isn't it? Nobody's forced to
use it."
"It's an electronic chastity belt, that's what it is."
"Worn by both husband and wife. Not like the brave knight off to the
Crusades, getting laid every night while his wife looks for a good locksmith.
Good for the goose, good for the gander."
"Good for nobody, if you ask me."
Frankly, I was shocked, and not much shocks me. To each his or her
own, that's basic to our society. But ULTRA-Tingle was offering a coded
security system whereby each partner had a password, unknown to the other,
to lock or unlock his or her partner's sexual response. Without the password,
the sexual center of the brain would not be activated, and sex would be about
as exciting as long division.
 To use it would require giving someone veto power over my own mind.
I can't imagine trusting anyone that much. But people are crazy. That's
what my job's all about.
"How about over there?" Cricket said.
"Over where? I mean, what about it?" She was headed toward a patch
of green, an area that, when completed, would be a pocket park. Trees stood
around in pots. There were great rolls of turf stacked against one wall, like a
carpet shop.
"It's probably the best spot we'll find."
"For what?"
"Have you forgotten your offer already?" she asked.
To tell the truth, I had. After this many years, it had been made more in
jest than anything else. She took my hand and led me onto an unrolled
section of turf. It was soft and springy and cool. She reclined and looked up
at me.
"Maybe I shouldn't say it, but I'm surprised."
"Well, Hildy, you never really asked, you know?"
I felt sure I had, but maybe she was right. My style is more to kid
around, make what used to be known as a pass. Some women don't like that.
They'd rather have a direct question.