'Can that! I know you were. I picked it up from your vibrations. What's been eating you? You get plenty kick out of being my squaw, don't you?'
Knowing she must humour him, she raised a smile. 'Yes, of course, lots. You are a wonderful lover.'
'Then why the yen to quit??
Swiftly she searched her mind for some reason that would sound plausible, yet not offend or make him angry. After a moment inspiration came to her, and she hedged. 'I didn?t want to really. It was not until I was walking along the road that the idea suddenly came into my head. You see, I'd been looking forward tremendously to my initiation and on Saturday night, but for you, I'd have been made a Sister of the Ram. Don't think I'm not grateful to you for having saved me from that beast Ratnadatta. I am. But I do want to be initiated and I can't be until I'm back in London. I felt sure you wouldn't be willing to let me go; so I was toying with the idea of going while I had the chance. That was the thought wave of mine that you must have picked up.'
'Well, now,' he smiled, 'so that's how it was. Why in heck didn't you say so then, instead of giving me all that gup about wanting to buy beauty-parlour goods??
'But I did want to. That's all I started out to do.'
Turning away, he picked up the parcel, threw it on the bed and said: 'Take a look at that lot. Dames I've had here as house-guests before have known they were coming and brought their own muck. I oughta have realized you were shy of all the aids.'
Evidently he must have gone into Cambridge as the parcel contained a variety of the most expensive creams, lotions, powders, shampoos and scents, which could never have come from a village shop. As she thanked him for this generous present he said: 'I don't go for nightwear, either for myself or dames, but you'll want undies, nylons, mules and frocks. Just jot down the old vital statistics for me tomorrow and you can have all you wish.'
She thanked him again and while she was still examining the packets and bottles he went on thoughtfully, 'Bout your initiation. You don't have to go to London for that. I run a Lodge for some of my airforce boys down here. It's only if happen I'm in London on leave, or for top ceremonies, that I check in with old Abaddon's crowd. Most Saturdays I do High Priest for my own set-up. And I've this forfeit on my neck. That entails a sacrifice. Seeing you're so set on losing no time in becoming a Sister, I guess I'll make my blood offering come Saturday and initiate you myself.'
Her heart sank at his words, and sank still further as he added in a slightly reluctant tone, 'It'll mean loaning you for a while to some of my boys, but there's no avoiding that. Still, wouldn't be right for me to stand in your way of becoming a full-blown witch. I'll get a pay-off afterwards, thought You'll be qualified to act as my assistant in some private magics I've a mind to undertake. Two members of the cult always get better results than one.'
Avoiding his eyes she continued to ringer the bottles, miserably conscious that she had again overplayed her hand, and so now had fresh cause for dread. She could only pray that before Saturday some unforeseen occurrence would enable her to escape the threatened ordeal.
The evening and night they passed together differed very little from that which had preceded it but, in the morning when they were called, before going into the bathroom he pressed a switch at the side of the square black box he had brought up to the bedroom the previous afternoon. Mary was still dozing when his voice issued from the box. Harshly it commanded: 'Get your clothes off!'
Sitting up she stared at it. She had heard of, but never seen, a tape recorder. As she listened she realized that that was what the box must be and that it was now playing back the sounds it had registered in the room while she had been receiving punishment for her attempt to escape. She heard again her own terrible screams and pleas for mercy, then his voice again, followed by her moans and sobs as she had collapsed upon the bed. The sounds brought flooding back to her the memory of the agony she had suffered, and she shuddered afresh.
When he returned from his shower, he grinned at her and said: 'Just a reminder, honey. Don't try anything you wouldn't like me to know about while I'm on the job today.'
'I won't,' she assured him quickly. 'I've no wish to leave here. I'm enjoying every moment of it.'
'Some moments,' he agreed, his grin becoming a little twisted. 'But yesterday evening I had a feeling that you'd something on your mind. A looker like you couldn't have been running solo before I snatched you. Maybe it's that you've a boy-friend in London that you're getting boiled up to be back with. Guess I'd better fix you proper, so you won't land yourself in no more pain and grief.'
Coming over to her he took her face between his two great hands. His eyes held her like magnets for a minute, then they seemed to grow very large and she heard him say: 'Repeat after me, 'I'll not put a foot outside this house except with that big bastard Wash'.'
Steeling herself to appear willing, she said the words not once but, at his order, three times; then he released her.
Later in the day she resolved to test the strength of the spell he had put upon her. Having waited until Jim was out of the way she went to a door at the far end of the hall that led to the garden. Opening it she looked out across a lawn to a group of trees; then she told herself that she was going to walk over to them. But she could not. The hypnotic suggestion that he had implanted in her mind held her fast. Strive as she would she could not lift a foot to step out over the door sill.
In the hall there was a telephone and it had extensions in both the sitting-room and the bedroom. She had already thought of trying to get through by one of them to Colonel Verney, and now she considered that possibility again. She actually got as far as lifting the receiver in the sitting-room, but as the dialling tone sounded quickly put it down again. Since her absent captor had so swiftly and accurately become aware of her intentions the previous afternoon it seemed certain that his highly developed psychic sense would again warn him that she was about to betray him. She was no longer capable of even leaving the house. If he returned imbued with the belief that she had been endeavouring to bring about his arrest it was quite on the cards that he might kill her. The risk was too great to take.
She then searched the room for a book in the hope that it would take her mind off her wretched situation, but apparently the telephone directory was the only book in the house. Too depressed even to listen to the radio, for the remainder of the afternoon she abandoned herself to miserable forebodings about the next stages of this seemingly bottomless pit of afflictions into which, by her own actions, she had plunged herself.
Her gargantuan host returned much later than he had the day before, and the reason for his lateness was apparent when he had Iziah - a third coloured boy who did the rough work and serviced his car - bring in a great pile of cardboard boxes. They contained at least a hundred pounds' worth of lingerie and as Mary inspected it, being human, she could not help feeling temporarily cheered up.
Confronted with this sort of thing she found it impossible to hate Wash wholeheartedly, and felt more than ever
