Read Online Glory by Alfred Coppel - Free Book Online
Authors: Alfred Coppel
Tags: Science-Fiction
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her, pierce her, embrace her, explore her as the sunlight did,
A peasant, yes. But a land-owning peasant. Jean Marq was French enough to care a great deal about that. For centuries France had slowly been slipping back into the medieval mystery of her beginnings. Perhaps, he sometimes thought, it had been the same when the continent began to awaken after the great plagues of the Fourteenth Century killed forty million souls and left vast tracts of field and forest abandoned and silent save for the cry of birds and the rutting roars of the stag.
Now two-thirds of the population of Earth were gone to the nearer stars. There was a great stillness in the abandoned cities, a melancholy peace on the breast of the empty land. Yet the great schools persisted. The Sorbonne, Cambridge, Columbia--the universities still produced scientists.
Marq was on holiday after the demanding ordeal of winning his tenure. He had come south to Provence for the sun, the sea, and the stillness.
He had met Amalie Delacroix and had had no peace since his first view of her working in her father’s terraced vineyard. She tormented him with her body, naked under skirt and blouse. She tormented him with looks and touchings and simply by being Amalie, eighteen and a woman. She even tormented him with long, speculative statements on how she would, if she could, apply for her passage to the stars (to which, in this time, every citizen of Earth was entitled), and spend a year or maybe two in cold-sleep so that she could awaken to a world alive with fiery young men who would not be afraid, as some were, to take her by force and make love to her.
Jean Marq listened and the sweat rolled down his back and his loins filled and he hardened and asked himself, “Does she mean what she says? Is that what she wants?”
He would lie awake at night sick with longing and perhaps even with love, though Jean was not a loving man.
Marq stirred in his pod and moaned. Oh, Jesu. Again he was following Amalie down the stone terraces of that ancient, vanished Provence. The great terraces that were like steps built for some dark and malevolent god.
He stood on a terrace above her, looking down at the flash of leg and thigh with which she favored him as the wind lifted her skirt. He felt the heavy pounding beat of his pulse in his throat and behind his eyes. His penis was hard and full. He called out to her, “Amalie, Amalie, attendre!”
The sound of his call echoed down the terraces and reached the cliffs that fell away to the empty sea. Somewhere there was laughter.
She had vanished and panic surged. Why did she mock him so? He felt the sharp stone shards through his light sandals, and then she was behind him--and her pungent woman scent was in his nostrils, and her arms were around him.
Let it be different this time, he thought in his dream. Please, God, let it be different.
He turned and they kissed; she curious, he hungry, searching. Her tongue flicked his, ran across his lips. Her breasts pressed hard and damp against his naked chest. They sank to their knees and she allowed him to open her blouse and search her nipples with his mouth. She tasted of salt and sun.
“Je t’aime...je t’adore.”
Oh, God, he heard her laughter.
She said, “Enough now, Jean. “ She pushed his face away from her breasts and sat back on her heels, her nipples glistening in the bright sunlight.
She frowned and said, “Now look at what you’ve done. You’ve torn my blouse. You are worse than the laborer’s boy.”
A thing of orange light flashed in his head. The stone terraces, the sky, the sea, the vineyard vanished, and there was only Amalie and her naked slobbered breasts. Love and hatred exploded. He threw himself upon her, lifting her skirt until it gathered around her waist.
“Stop this, you fool,” he heard her say. She always said it in exactly the same way, without fear, with a touch of contempt.
The sun pierced his bare back with spikes of light. Close to, behind
A peasant, yes. But a land-owning peasant. Jean Marq was French enough to care a great deal about that. For centuries France had slowly been slipping back into the medieval mystery of her beginnings. Perhaps, he sometimes thought, it had been the same when the continent began to awaken after the great plagues of the Fourteenth Century killed forty million souls and left vast tracts of field and forest abandoned and silent save for the cry of birds and the rutting roars of the stag.
Now two-thirds of the population of Earth were gone to the nearer stars. There was a great stillness in the abandoned cities, a melancholy peace on the breast of the empty land. Yet the great schools persisted. The Sorbonne, Cambridge, Columbia--the universities still produced scientists.
Marq was on holiday after the demanding ordeal of winning his tenure. He had come south to Provence for the sun, the sea, and the stillness.
He had met Amalie Delacroix and had had no peace since his first view of her working in her father’s terraced vineyard. She tormented him with her body, naked under skirt and blouse. She tormented him with looks and touchings and simply by being Amalie, eighteen and a woman. She even tormented him with long, speculative statements on how she would, if she could, apply for her passage to the stars (to which, in this time, every citizen of Earth was entitled), and spend a year or maybe two in cold-sleep so that she could awaken to a world alive with fiery young men who would not be afraid, as some were, to take her by force and make love to her.
Jean Marq listened and the sweat rolled down his back and his loins filled and he hardened and asked himself, “Does she mean what she says? Is that what she wants?”
He would lie awake at night sick with longing and perhaps even with love, though Jean was not a loving man.
Marq stirred in his pod and moaned. Oh, Jesu. Again he was following Amalie down the stone terraces of that ancient, vanished Provence. The great terraces that were like steps built for some dark and malevolent god.
He stood on a terrace above her, looking down at the flash of leg and thigh with which she favored him as the wind lifted her skirt. He felt the heavy pounding beat of his pulse in his throat and behind his eyes. His penis was hard and full. He called out to her, “Amalie, Amalie, attendre!”
The sound of his call echoed down the terraces and reached the cliffs that fell away to the empty sea. Somewhere there was laughter.
She had vanished and panic surged. Why did she mock him so? He felt the sharp stone shards through his light sandals, and then she was behind him--and her pungent woman scent was in his nostrils, and her arms were around him.
Let it be different this time, he thought in his dream. Please, God, let it be different.
He turned and they kissed; she curious, he hungry, searching. Her tongue flicked his, ran across his lips. Her breasts pressed hard and damp against his naked chest. They sank to their knees and she allowed him to open her blouse and search her nipples with his mouth. She tasted of salt and sun.
“Je t’aime...je t’adore.”
Oh, God, he heard her laughter.
She said, “Enough now, Jean. “ She pushed his face away from her breasts and sat back on her heels, her nipples glistening in the bright sunlight.
She frowned and said, “Now look at what you’ve done. You’ve torn my blouse. You are worse than the laborer’s boy.”
A thing of orange light flashed in his head. The stone terraces, the sky, the sea, the vineyard vanished, and there was only Amalie and her naked slobbered breasts. Love and hatred exploded. He threw himself upon her, lifting her skirt until it gathered around her waist.
“Stop this, you fool,” he heard her say. She always said it in exactly the same way, without fear, with a touch of contempt.
The sun pierced his bare back with spikes of light. Close to, behind
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