Chapter 5

“That’s good, I guess,” Sadie laughed. “Call Master and tell him I can’t wait.”

“Good news, I trust,” Master said when he picked up his office phone.

“Master, she looks forward to meeting you. She says mature gentlemen are attractive.”

“I may run a controlled study tomorrow morning without the drug. I need to gauge the effect my appearance and charm have on her, especially since she’s learned to put up with you. Tell her to expect me at eight. You will serve us breakfast in her cell.” He hung up.

“He wants breakfast with you here at eight.”

“Will you shave again me at seven? I don’t want any stubble.” She stripped off her gown and draped it over a chair. “Tell the others not to worry. Get a good night’s sleep.” She pulled me against her small naked body and leaned up to kiss me. When she broke away, she said, “That was supposed to be a kiss for luck. You forgot I read minds.”

Downstairs, Sharon said, “For her sake, I hope the drug fries her brain. Maybe she won’t understand the heat until it’s too late.”

Mary snorted. “For her sake, I hope she doesn’t understand what your sicko Master wants to use her for – some kind of breathing sex toy. I’ve done some crazy things, but the thought of him putting his ... I can’t even say it.”

“Please!” Belinda chided her cellmates. “Stop being so negative! Igor, do you think she has a chance?”

“Who knows? There’s something very odd about her, like with the voice. She kissed me before I came down here. Really kissed me, only for a second, but she moaned.”

“She moaned?” Frieda giggled.

“Yes, but ... I don’t know. She sounded like an older woman, my age, maybe, like she knew what she was doing.”

“My last boyfriend loved that,” Mary laughed. “He said it felt like I gave him complete control.”

“No. You don’t understand. She took control of me.”

“Who did? Sadie?” Sharon asked.

“She used Sadie to do it. The sorceress kissed me through Sadie.”

“Better than we do?” Belinda whispered, nuzzling her wild hair against my scarred chest.

“Differently. Like she could be any age she wanted. In that one second I felt like the first time I got kissed playing spin-the-bottle, and then like it was with my girlfriend, and my mother, and grandmother. And how I think it would be with a goddess and a whore. Were sorceresses also courtesans?”

“They probably were taught by older sorcerers. Maybe they slept with their teachers. I knew girls that did,” Frieda said.

“You said she’s a virgin, right? Sharon asked.

“Was, until Master made me break her with my finger.”

Mary said, “No girl can do all that in a one-second lip-lock. You may be right about her, or it, or them, whatever. She may rock his world. Then, you can hit him on the back of the head and let us out.”

“Nothing is that easy. I have to be up early, so I’ll say good night.”

I awoke before my alarm, well-rested, feeling better about things than I had in years. Sadie, or whoever she was, was my ticket – our ticket – out of hell.

“What is your plan?”

“I don’t have one,” Sadie said.

“She doesn’t need one. You don’t listen, Igor,” her other voice said. “Now shave her again.”

It was pointless to deny my feelings, and just as pointless to try to understand them. I feared Master, maybe more than death. But I was calm. What would happen would happen. The sight of Sadie’s pink, tender womanhood, glistening in the scented water I used to rinse her after she was smooth, did more to calm me than I would have expected. A man would make love to her one day. I prayed she would be able to enjoy it with her memories of today.

“You know what she needs, Igor. I can do much, but she needs to be in the mood for a man so I can use that to help the two of you,” the voice in both our heads proclaimed.

“I don’t have to read minds to know what you want, do I?” I said, running the soft terrycloth over her tender pink skin the refused to dry.

“No. I’ve watched stuff on the internet. Do you think Master will lick me?”

“I doubt it.”

“Will you?”

I bathed her again to remove traces of my saliva and her sweet secretions. She watched, grinning, as I washed and dried my face. “No wonder the girls in the dorm talk about it all the time!”

She dressed in the filmy white gown she appropriated, her black waves held with clips from a box in the closet. She looked pure, innocent, and a little awkward in her sexy attire, like she did on stage at the club. But she moved with a sensual grace I hadn’t seen before. Master would be pleased.

The clock in the laboratory struck eight, and the mumbling of the dogs fell silent. A moment later, Master unlocked the steel door and then bolted it behind himself.

Sadie sprang to her feet and stood, shyly covering herself with her hands. “Good morning, sir. I wasn’t sure what to wear.”