Read Online The Human Body by Paolo Giordano - Free Book Online Page B

gorgeous, sexy, and tall, much more gorgeous-sexy-and-tall than he thinks he deserves (not that he’s tried to construct a complete portrait of Tersicore89; for the time being it’s easier to think of her as individual body parts, details). Third: the medium of the Net helps him confess certain intimate things that he wouldn’t otherwise dare say out loud. Having a woman’s body close by, its reality and urgency, has always inhibited him a little.
    Nevertheless, for some time now he’s had an urge to see Tersicore89. Not exactly in the flesh, not yet, but at least framed half-length by the webcam. It’s a desire that arose in him with the approach of the mission. She excludes the possibility, but he keeps insisting, even now.
    THOR_SARDEGNA: let me see you
    TERSICORE89: stop it
    THOR_SARDEGNA: just for a minute
    TERSICORE89: it’s not the right time yet. you know it
    THOR_SARDEGNA: but it’s been four months already!
    TERSICORE89: we’re just getting to know each other
    THOR_SARDEGNA: i know more about you than about that bastard Cederna who sleeps in the cot next to me . . .
    TERSICORE89: if i let you see me, you won’t listen to a thing I say anymore, all you’ll think about is whether i’m pretty enough and about my body and my breasts, which maybe you’d like to be bigger. you wouldn’t even see who’s inside anymore. you men are all like that and i’ve already been through it, thanks
    THOR_SARDEGNA: i’m not like that
    He’s lying—he knows it and she can tell. His most recent relationship, with Sabrina Canton, had ended in part because of a raised mole she had on her chin. Torsu couldn’t take his eyes off that dark growth. In the final weeks the mole had become gigantic, a chasm that had swallowed her whole.
    TERSICORE89: you men are obsessed with looks
    THOR_SARDEGNA: how about i let you see me?
    TERSICORE89: don’t you dare!
    THOR_SARDEGNA: then you’re the one obsessed with looks. are you afraid i’m not good-looking enough?
    TERSICORE89: no. that’s not it. you’d put me in a situation of being manipulated. showing yourself would be like saying, look, i have nothing to hide, and that would imply that i, on the other hand, since i won’t let you see me, do have something to hide, and that’s manipulation
    THOR_SARDEGNA: would imply??? you talk too complicated!
    Actually, it’s precisely her way of talking—that is, of writing—that fascinates him. He never would have imagined that something like that could interest him in a woman. It’s true, Torsu likes chatting with Tersicore89. In a few months they’ve each confided more secrets to each other than they’ve ever shared with anyone. For example, she’s the only one who knows about his mother’s recent stroke, and how now she drools a little whenever she eats. And Torsu, at least according to what she swears, is the only one who’s read the poems she writes at night in a leather-covered notebook. Not that he understood much, but certain phrases really moved him.
    TERSICORE89: when you come back from your mission . . . maybe . . .
    THOR_SARDEGNA: they might kill me this very day
    TERSICORE89: don’t even say that as a joke
    THOR_SARDEGNA: they could launch a rocket right here in the place where i’m writing to you and rip my arms and legs to shreds. my brain would squirt out of my ears and eyes, and smear up the screen and i wouldn’t be able to write to you anymore
    TERSICORE89: stop it
    THOR_SARDEGNA: never again
    TERSICORE89: stop or i’ll log off!
    THOR_SARDEGNA: okay okay. your tits aren’t really small though, are they?
    TERSICORE89: no. they’re big and firm
    THOR_SARDEGNA: describe them better
    TERSICORE89: what do you want to know?
    THOR_SARDEGNA: everything, how they look. how y—
    â€œIf you ask me, she’s a he.”
    The voice is very close to