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another occasion. What opinion could they offer Gaea that wasn't already obvious? It would be
impossible to have a ghost inhibit every wayward girl!
She was walking by a dark building. Suddenly a man appeared. He loomed up so quickly that she
couldn't even scream before his gloved hand clamped over her mouth. She struggled, but then felt the
prick of a knife at her side. "Quiet, bitch, or I'll cut out your rotten heart!" the man hissed at her ear.
She had no choice; he was too strong, and the knife hurt. She walked where he shoved her: into the dark
building.
Inside, he took her up a flight of steps and into a small room. He shut the door and turned on the light.
Ilka blinked in the sudden brightness. This was evidently an interior room, without windows; no light
would show outside. And what if it did? Surely the sound of her scream wouldn't carry, and if it did,
neighbors probably wouldn't care.
He threw her away from him. Ilka stumbled, and tripped over a bed she hadn't seen in the brightness.
She flopped on it, her fear increasing now that the immediacy of the prick of the knife was gone.
We've got to do something! Orlene thought. We got her into this, by turning her away from the dance.
We got rid of the creep, and brought on a horror! Vita agreed. I've heard about this kind. Even my pimp
steered clear of them. They rape and kill! It's called the slut/madonna complex or something. They hate
women.
It is a trifle more devious than that, Jolie said. There are a number of them in Hell, all of them surprised
to be there. To them, there are only two kinds of woman: the perfect, pristine, untouchable one, who is
to be worshipped; and the dirty, evil and sexual one, who is to be condemned. Unfortunately, such men
do have sex drives, which they can satisfy only with the evil variety of woman. At its extreme, they
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become serial killers of prostitutes. Jack the Ripper is the most notorious example, though by no means
the worst perpetrator.
I never felt easy about the purpose of Hell, Orlene thought. Now I see that there are those who do belong
there! This man-he glows a twisted black!
"Strip, whore!" the man exclaimed.
Ilka rolled over on the bed. She opened her mouth to make a frightened denial-but Jolie put an
overriding clamp on it. Don't talk back to him! she thought imperatively. He will take that only as
confirmation!
So Ilka was mute, externally. But internally she was screaming. He's got a knife! He's going to kill me!
He just grabbed me, and-
Stall! Jolie advised. Move slowly. Sit up, start to remove your clothing, but have trouble with the snaps.
Keep it slow, but don't stop. We shall try to help you.
Now the girl realized that she wasn't talking to herself. "Who are you?"
Some visiting spirits, Jolie thought. We stopped you from going with that cheap man at the dance. Now
we will help you get away from this killer, because it is our fault you fell into his hands. Listen to us,
and we will tell you how to escape.
Ilka was doubtful. "I must be hallucinating!"
Listen to us anyway, Orlene thought. Vita, you have had more experience with this sort of thing. Keep
her moving slowly, while maintaining his interest. I'm going to check his mind for clues to how to
handle him.
Check, Vita thought. We'll kick him in the balls if we have to. She was not thinking figuratively.
Jolie drew herself out of the host and floated across to the man. She entered him. This was distasteful,
because she had affinity neither with the male gender nor with the criminally insane mind, but she knew
it was necessary. Only her long experience as a ghost, and with animation of mortal hosts, enabled her to
do it.
She oriented on what she had expected: a twisted mélange of distortion and hate. The anonymous girl on
the bed came into focus: her skin was dark, not because of her race, but because of the filth of her
nature. She was a demoness, a succubus, a corruptor of man, evil incarnate: a creature to be used and
destroyed. She evoked unclean lust in him, which proved both her power and her nature. By yielding to
her lure, he corrupted himself-so he would expunge the guilt by killing her. Then he would be all right,
for perhaps a month, until he encountered another corruptress.
Jolie was revolted by the narrowness and certainty of his perspective. He had not bothered to ascertain
any part of the girl's true nature; he had simply assigned the evil to her. The evil of evoking lust in him.
She could either admit that she was a despicable whore or try to deny it; in either case she proved it.
But Jolie had known this much about his view of women before. It was an exaggeration of the view of
many ignorant men-and every man was ignorant to some degree. Even Roque, as just a man as she had
encountered recently, had this fixation: he related best to the forbidden fruit, the underage girl. Young
girls were by this distorted definition better, because they were cleaner. They had not had time to
indulge their whorish nature, so were more likely to be disease free, and less likely to talk back. Thus
Vita's youth and adoration overrode Roque's knowledge of her life as a literal whore, and he accepted
her without condemning her. But that was rare.
She had to explore the specific roots of this man's bias. There were always variations, and each case was
unique to itself in detail. There had to be something that would provide the key to defusing the
syndrome. She had to find it before things got violent.
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Through the windows of his eyes, she saw Ilka slowly stripping, having trouble with a broken fastening.
Her dress zipped up the back, and the zipper was difficult to reach, and evidently a thread had got caught
in it. Usually girls had assistance in getting in and out of fancy outfits; it had not been anticipated that
Ilka would have to remove hers alone. Actually, Jolie knew, she had put it on alone, so could handle it-
but the man was not in a position to know this. The man did not try to help her; it was part of his fixation
that the evil woman was using her unclean nature to seduce him, so she had to do it herself.
She was struggling, indeed, trying to get both hands on the stuck zipper. In the process she leaned
forward, so that her breasts showed to his gaze as her décolletage hung low. Jolie almost smiled to
herself; that was Vita's art. There really was some vamp in her! She knew that the man would watch as
long as he was seeing something interesting, condemning her all the while but not acting. It was an
excellent stall.
Meanwhile, Jolie was searching the man's mind and memories. She had had experience with this sort of
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