"Kate Wilhelm - Julian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

passage over the threshold of puberty. He never had recalled any content of
the nightmares anyway.

"How about your fear of water, Julian?" Rachel asked gently.

He hated her for bringing that up. It wasn't the same kind of thing, he felt
certain. "I almost drowned once," he said shortly, harshly. There were some
nods, and even a glimmer of sympathy here and there. Someone else began to
talk.

Later he walked back to his dorm wondering why he had lied, why he had felt
that rush of hatred for Rachel, the only girl on campus whom he thought he
might be able to talk to, or ask out. Quickly there came the rationalization
that he felt safe fantasizing about her because she was so unattainable.

Rachel caught up with him. "I'm sorry I brought that up," she said, putting
her hand on his arm. "That was bitchy. I thought it might help you to talk
about it while others were talking about the same kinds of things."

She was pretty, one of the best students on campus, and one of the most
popular. He was amazed that she was aware of him enough to know he feared
water. Kim must have told her. He felt certain her hand on his arm was an
apology even more than her words. Brusquely he shook her off and strode ahead
faster.

"It's all right. Forget it," he said, and turned in toward the nearest
building.

The following year he was forced to take a health class to fulfill his
requirements, and he sat through it glumly, bored, sometimes doing homework
for other more demanding classes, sometimes simply brooding over his present
life, his future, his past. All seemed equally hopeless. The teaching
assistant was talking about various organs of the body, their relative size
and importance.

"The largest organ of all, of course, is the skin. And probably it's the most
complex. It's flexible, we can bend our joints and it gives, we can gain or
lose weight. It has a one-way permeability. Perspiration can get out, but
from the other direction it is totally waterproof..."

Julian clutched the desk top while the room spun. He saw the naked woman
walking toward him, wet all over. He closed his eyes hard and put his head
down on the desk and waited for the nausea and dizziness to pass; when he
felt able, he got up and left the room.

Blindly he walked, then sat down, and again put his head down, his eyes
closed.

His head ached, his eyes teared, and he stared through the eyepiece of the
telescope fixedly, holding his breath until suddenly there she was. She was