relationship with your husband unduly submissive.'
'Do you really?' said Eva, beginning to perk up. 'Henry always says I'm too bossy.'
'Please,' said the doctor with something approaching a shudder, 'I'm not in the least interested in your husband's opinions or in his person. If you choose to be, that is your business. Mine is to help you as an entirely independent being and, to be truthful, I find your self-objectivization highly distasteful.'
'I'm sorry,' said Eva, wondering what on earth self-objectivization was.
'For instance, you have repeatedly stated that and I quote 'He did it three times' and again 'He did it twice...''
'But he did,' Eva protested.
'And who was the 'It'? You?' said the doctor vehemently.
'I didn't mean it that way...' Eva began but Dr Kores was not to be stopped. 'And the very word 'did' or 'done' is a tacit acceptance of marital rape. What would your husband say if you were to do him?'
'Oh, I don't think Henry'd like that,' said Eva, 'I mean, he's not very big and...'
'If you don't mind,' said the doctor, 'size does not come into it. The question of attitude is predominant. I am only prepared to help you if you make a determined effort to see yourself as the leader in the relationship.' Behind the blue tinted spectacles her eyes narrowed.
'I'll certainly try,' said Eva.
'You will succeed,' said the doctor sibilantly. 'It is of the essence. Repeat after me 'I will succeed.''
'I will succeed,' said Eva.
'I am superior,' said Dr Kores.
'Yes,' said Eva.
'Not 'Yes',' hissed the doctor, gazing even more peculiarly into Eva's eyes, 'but 'I am superior'.'
'I am superior,' said Eva obediently.
'Now both.'
'Both,' said Eva.
'Not that. I want you to repeat both remarks. First...'
'I will succeed,' said Eva, finally getting the message, 'I am superior.'
'Again.'
'I will succeed. I am superior.'
'Good,' said the doctor. 'It is vital that you establish the correct psychic attitude if I am to help you. You will repeat those auto-instructs three hundred times a day. Do you understand?'
'Yes,' said Eva. 'I am superior. I will succeed.'
'Again,' said the doctor.
For the next five minutes Eva sat fixed in her chair and repeated the assertions while Dr Kores stared unblinking into her eyes. 'Enough,' she said finally. 'You understand what this means, of course?'
'Sort of,' said Eva. 'It's to do with what Mavis Mottram says about women taking the leading role in the world, isn't it?'
Dr Kores sat back in her chair with a thin smile. 'Ms Wilt,' she said, 'for thirty-five years I have made a continuous study of the sexual superiority of the feminine in the mammalian world. Even as a child I was inspired by the mating habits of arachnidamy mother was something of an expert in the field before so unfortunately marrying my father, you understand.'
Eva nodded. Fortunately for her she had missed the reference to spiders but she was too fascinated not to understand that whatever Dr Kores was saying was somehow important. She had the future of the quads in mind.
