The Aquarius Key: A Novel of the Occult

By Keith Rowley

Nothing can prepare Bill and Sue Williams for the assault on sanity set in motion by those who seek the Qabalistic keys to the scripture of the new eon. Beset by nightmares, overwhelmed by acts of betrayal and ritual murder, their lives are changed forever by forces they cannot see or comprehend

For Aaron Steen, the culmination of his lifelong quest for the Aquarius Key approaches. Manipulating the shadow power of the Qabalah, he sets in motion a sequence of events that will change the world forever, replacing the gods of Christ and Mohammed with a darker power, establishing a priesthood that will dominate humanity for the next two thousand years.

But he has little time. The ceremonies of blood must be completed; the Key Bearer must yield up the Holy Key; the Key Bearer must die. And all the while his enemy approaches, desperately seeking the truth in a world of Magick long discarded and forgotten by modern humanity.

Set in present day London and the stark beauty of North Wales, The Aquarius Key lays bare the history and practice of the ancient magical arts of Qabalistic Magick and the legacy of the West's greatest magician, Aleister Crowley.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 24, 2006
• ISBN: 9780595837694

Keith Rowley

Keith Rowley has studied Magick and Qabalah for thirty years. He has deep interests in the limitations of science and mathematics and holds advanced degrees in engineering and business. An expatriate Welshman, he currently lives in Perth Australia with his wife Hettie.The Aquarius Key is his first published novel.

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The Aquarius Key

♦

A Novel of the Occult

Keith Rowley

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Lincoln Shanghai

The Aquarius Key

A Novel of the Occult

Copyright © 2006 by Keith Rowley

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. (For Fiction Only)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-39373-2 (pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-83769-4 (ebk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-39373-X (pbk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-83769-7 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

The 19th Path: Lust

The Power of Thoughts

A Foretaste of Evil

The Prince of Disks

Nexus Occultum

The Knight of Swords

Dissipation

An Unwelcome Visitor

Betrayal

The Knights of Discs and Swords

Path XXXII—The Universe

Mentor

Thoughts

Hiatus

Path XXIV—Death

Rebirth and Illusion

The Reluctant Magician

The House of Binah

Probationer 00 = 0D

Steen

An Old Friend

A Strange Gift

Path IX—Yesod

Echoes

An Introduction to Metaphysics

The Venus Trap

The Sphere of Illusion

The Seven of Cups

Trust me, I’m a Magician

A Cloak of Darkness

Hell’s Emissary

Path VIII—Hod

Legacy

Cosmogony and the Eons of Man

Dark Refuge

Aaron Steen’s Rendezvous

The Dawn Ceremony

The Troubled Priestess

A Question of Time

Neophyte 10 = 10D

Equilibrium

The Magical Preparations of Aaron Steen

Steen’s Journey: Malkhut

Steen’s Journey: Yesod

A Test of Intellect

Steen’s Journey: Tiphareth

The Hanged Man

A Tortuous Tale

Steen’s Journey: Pachad

Interlude

Crowley

Three Keys of the Law

Hitler: The Magickal Demagogue

Aaron Steen and the Power of Pachad

Demons of the Past

The Guardian

The Magickal Threshold

The Golem

Zelator 2°=10D

Truth and Illusion

Isolation

Achieving Unity

Dead End

Betrayal

Blind Alleys

Reality Squared

The Five of Disks

The Torture of Memories

The Portals of Time

An Open Book

The Detective

Murder

Astral Visitations

Demons of Night and Air

Astral Warrior

Homecoming

Sefer Yetzirah

Regression

Precautions

Across the Gulf of Birth and Death

A Cry for Help

The Enemy Within

The House of Thoth

Levi’s Dilemma

The Zelator’s Craft

Aaron Steen: Lord of Pachad

Adeptus Minor 50 = 6D

The Claim of Aaron Steen

Secrets of the Sefer Yetzirah

Raising Myra Qadish

Unwelcome News

The End of Knowledge, the Beginning of Wisdom

The Seven of Disks

Brent Douglas

Across the Veil of Paroketh

Interrogation

An Unusual Case

231 Gates

The Mystery of Myra Qadish

The Turning of the Tide

The Temple of Gates

The Eight of Swords

Westville

Touching Evil

Imprint

Sacrifice

The Rhythms of Netzach

The Equinox and the Gods

Echoes

Projection

Credibility

Magister Templi 8°=3D

Wales

The Place of the Druids

Across the Abyss

Sacrifice

The Empress

A Vehicle of Power

Grief

Aaron Steen and the Magister Templi

Epilogue

Appendix A

Part 1: Magic and the Limits of Science

Part 2: The Life and Legacy of Aleister Crowley

Part 3: Magickal Theory

Appendix B: Elementary Qabalah

Figure 1: A Simple Schematic of the Tree of Life

The Tarot and the Tree of Life: A Brief Note

The Sephiroth

The Thirty-Two Paths

The Magical Grades

The Four Worlds of the Qabalistic Universe

Figure 2: Jacob’s Ladder

The Hebrew Alphabet and its Gematria

Appendix C

Source Materials, References and Further Reading

Thou hast no right but to do thy will

The Book of the Law 1:42

For my wife Hettie, the love of my life. For Paul, my friend through the best and worst of times. And for Aleister Crowley, wherever and whenever he may be.

The 19th Path: Lust

But to love me is better than all things, For one kiss, wilt thou then be willing to give all…

The Book of the Law 1:61

The Power of Thoughts

It was a beautiful day to be beautiful, a beautiful day to feel beautiful and Sue, quite unaware, shone brightly across the whole spectrum of human perception. She barely noticed the crowd milling and jostling around her as she flitted from shop to shop, speculatively eyeing the drop-dead dresses and skimpy lingerie outfits her husband so enjoyed peeling from her girlish body.

A few startled souls turned and stared, suddenly dazzled by a bright light at the edge of vision; but when they turned and looked, there was only Sue. Most shook their heads, puzzled, and moved on, but many of the men paused for a moment, running hungry eyes over her svelte figure.

Sue was excited. For the first time since she and Bill were married, there was hope, real hope. For years they had longed for a child, and the dream now seemed on the verge of fulfillment. How she ached for the touch and feel of a baby of her own, for the tender joys of nurturing a tiny precious life. For a decade, this hole in their life together had been the only blot on their happiness, and now at last, the impossible might really happen.

She was frightened of her own welling happiness though, terrified of yet another disappointment. At thirty-eight she knew she was traversing the final period of biological possibility; that if they were not successful this time then they would have to adopt, and Bill was stubbornly reluctant to even talk about that.

She glimpsed her reflection in the shop window and smiled confidently, pleased at the slender, and yes, dammit, the sexy blonde figure that smiled back at her. She

still wore clothes designed for women fifteen years younger, and turned heads wherever she went.

She enjoyed her power over men in a lighthearted sort of way, but judged most of them to be weak, guided more by their balls than their brains—except Bill, of course. When he entered her life she’d just about given up on ever finding a man who could match her mind (or her libido, she giggled). She’d tried other women for a while, and enjoyed the experience. But she was soon bored again, seeking a soul mate. That was over now. She had a wonderful husband, an affluent lifestyle, and the culmination of her dreams formed a bright, imminent vision at the core of her soul.

She peered through the window of a jewelry store at an exquisite diamond necklace, and for a moment pictured herself wearing nothing else, relishing the kiss of priceless carbon-ice against her skin. She sighed deeply. They were well off, but not that well off.

Another reflection appeared in the window. Sue gasped suddenly as chill shards of violation penetrated her head. A tall, bald-headed man with unfathomable eyes of naked darkness stared at her from the glass with such intensity that her stomach lurched. His image stood out in bright contrast to the vague wash of humanity fleeting across the reflective surface, burning its way into her brain like a solitary star in the corpse of the heavens.

She sensed a barrier in her mind disintegrating under the caress of irresistible, corrosive force that she instinctively feared, but could not identify. Her defenses collapsed, and a cold sea of strange thoughts overwhelmed her. Without further warning or prelude, she sank into a rich, dark cloud of unreasoning and overwhelming eroticism that shrieked its lust from every neuron. Surging currents of sensual energy crackled through every channel in her body. In shock and disbelief, she turned sharply to face the stranger. He made no move as Sue stared at him in utter bewilderment.

Neither young nor handsome, he was tall and lithely muscled, dressed all in black with a hooked nose and the shaved head of an ascetic. He smiled coldly, beckoned her to his side. Helpless, overcome with irrational desire, Sue followed him directly into a waiting taxi. The door slammed shut.

Despite the brilliance of the afternoon sun, the interior of the vehicle was dark, suffused with a cloud of insubstantial vapor that veiled the stranger’s face. His eyes glittered brightly through the unnatural shifting umbra, penetrating Sue’s mind with shapes and suggestions for which she had no words. Her blinded spirit responded only with indescribably intense longing. All other thoughts and feelings died as they arose, strangled at their moment of inception.

A tiny, desperate voice rose in her, railing against the irresistible rhythms of her surging erotic anticipation, begging her to resist. Then that too was washed

away in a tide of mental darkness. On trembling unsteady legs, she grasped the stranger’s arm and clambered out of the taxi onto the streets of a seedy and dilapidated precinct.

She stumbled, leaned heavily on the stranger, thrilling at the taught hardness of his flesh. Together they moved to the entrance of a shabby hotel. A few care-worn, bawdily painted whores haunted the pavement aimlessly: despised and discarded jetsam of the city’s tawdry nighttime. They stared at Sue curiously: expensive girls like her didn’t usually ply their trade in this place—Park Lane maybe, but not here.

‘Going down in the world are we…?’ one of them taunted her through a mottled mask of stale, cracked makeup. Her companions laughed raucously.

‘Looks like he’ll get his money’s worth deary…enjoys them stuck up does he.?’ another shouted, cackling loudly at her own immense wit. The stranger ignored them. Sue barely heard them. Her legs trembled violently. The stranger’s grip kept her steady as she stumbled yet again. He roughly pushed and half carried her up two flights of stairs before reaching the entrance of an anonymous room. She shivered at the rasping sounds of his labored breath, tingled at the probing of his eager hands as they surveyed her pliant body.

Supporting his helpless captive by her waist with one arm, the stranger open the rickety door and threw Sue onto the unmade bed. She gagged on the cold odors of smoke and stale urine that rose from the stained sheets. Her skirt rode up around her thighs, but Sue was beyond modesty. The curtains were closed, and in the half-light she saw the room was a tiny space containing little more than the tousled, sweat-sour bed, a chair, and a small sink. Some imprisoned part of her watched in sickened fascination as she sat up eagerly and reached for the stranger’s crotch, lightly running her fingertips over his hardness before unzipping him and teasing him with eager lips.

He moved over her silently, running cold hands over her breasts and abdomen, tugging roughly at her dress and underclothes, exposing her silky heated skin, driving her into a delirium of sexual passion with the silent commands of his mind and with his body of rippling muscle and adamant.

Sue’s whole being tingled, responding eagerly to endless spinning visions of orgiastic penetration and unspeakable pleasure as she offered herself again and again, begging the stranger, her stranger, to take her, to pleasure himself as he would. A monolithic sea of spectral naked figures whirled around her, writhing, thrusting, screaming, without thought or restraint. Pleasure was all, and all was pleasure without shame or restriction. The stranger did not tire.

As she plummeted into her fourth orgasm, consciousness slipped away and Sue plunged into comatose darkness. A small voice wailed within her, protesting violation. Then that too died.

A Foretaste of Evil

Sue woke alone. The transition from sleep was instant. She felt as though she’d been doused in icy water, and stared around her like a frightened rabbit. She was naked and bruised and cold, and barely suppressed a rising tide of cold vomit in her chest. Her tormented body was gorged on living memories that burned sick images into her retinas

A shadow stirred.

A familiar voice floated over the tangled chill of the sweat soaked bed. ‘Good afternoon Sue.’

Seth Rubenstein sat in the battered armchair at the bottom of the bed, wreathed in cigarette smoke. He grinned at her lecherously, mocking her quietly, ‘My, my—what would poor dear Bill say?’

‘Seth.?’

She was dumbstruck. Rubenstein was their family doctor, one of their oldest friends. In panicked staccato motion she reached for a blanket to cover herself. ‘What the hell’s happening.?’ she whispered, peering in fright and dismay at the familiar yet sinister figure. She shuddered as Rubenstein threw a stack of glossy photographs at her. They slithered over the bed like snakes, hissing venomous sounds of conjugal betrayal. She knew the content of those images even before she summoned the courage to look at them.

Rubenstein’s mocking tone rang again in her ears. ‘My my Sue, but you really have ways of pleasing a man don’t you.?’ Still laughing, he threw the last of the prints at her.

‘Now then,’ he continued cruelly, ‘before we begin our negotiations, I think a preliminary payment is due.just to show good will you might say.’

Sue stared up in blank fear at the menace of Rubenstein’s words. Her stomach lurched as the aged and emaciated figure of her old friend loomed over her, reaching for her shoulders with his impeccably manicured, bony fingers. She struggled furiously, tried to scream, but Rubenstein’s age belied his strength; he seemed altogether impervious to pain, no matter how viciously she tore at him with her nails and then in desperation with her teeth.

With a gesture, Rubenstein severed Sue’s voice from her throat and she could scream no more. Fearful for her life, she gave up the uneven struggle and cried silently as he roughly turned her over, carefully arranging her body for his perverted pleasure.

‘That’s better Sue.just so.you know what I want, don’t you.?’

He took her violently, all the while whispering words she could not comprehend: strange, mystical words that augmented her pain as he penetrated her again

and again, oblivious of her human existence, lost in a mad and hellish vision of pain and pleasure. He took his time, and over several hours forced her to every conceivable act of lust and depravity, all the while mocking her, describing his intentions in pornographic detail, reveling in her helplessness and revulsion.

When he had finally had his fill, Rubenstein looked down on her with contempt as he dressed and gathered up the obscene prints that lay scattered around the dingy room. ‘Not one word of this Sue,’ he threatened, ‘or your poor dear Bill will find these pictures in his office mail. Do you understand.?’

He repeated the strange gesture he’d made earlier, and Sue felt sensation returning to her throat. He grabbed her violently by her hair, holding his face a hairs-breadth from hers. ‘Do you understand me?’ he hissed.

Sue’s voice was a whisper of pain and shock and disbelief. ‘Yes, I understand. please.just don’t hurt me again. Seth, why.why are you doing this?’ she pleaded through her tears.

‘I’ll be in touch Sue,’ he sneered. ‘Just keep that pretty mouth shut, or else. and remember—that was the first payment.’

With that, he cast a final contemptuous glance at her and left, quietly closing the door behind him.

The Prince of Disks

A Qabalistic Lawyer, businessman, or craftswoman whose work is respected is more use in the world than a holy hippie or transcendental tramp.

Z’ev Ben Shimon Halevi: The Work of the Qabalist

Nexus Occultum

A pall of acrid cigarette smoke gently swirled and expanded over the dull mahogany surface of the boardroom table; and the broken coruscating brilliance of the morning sun gave play to the fluted intertwining threads, caressing each newborn form, even as it dissipated and died forever.

A hush fell over the meeting like a brittle shroud, and for a few moments there was absolute stillness. Bill Williams, owner and chief executive of MicroComm Systems, snapped a pencil under the table.

He stared hard at his colleagues, briefly holding the eyes of each in a direct, piercing gaze. His chief engineer John Winder, a balding beanpole of a man, looked down sharply at his hands, as did his two senior system designers David Jones and Ben Drummond. The rest of the team peered past each other across the table, awkwardly scrutinizing the unadorned gray walls. Only his young secretary Tracy seemed comfortable. She adjusted her short skirt and smiled quietly. She was a breathtakingly pretty, dark-haired girl, and the one person Bill avoided with the condemnation of his eyes.

Even seated, Bill Williams towered over most people. Beneath a shock of prematurely gray hair, his piercing green eyes continued to challenge them as he snapped the hidden pencil for the second time. But he maintained his outward calm as he posed his question, and when he spoke, his voice seemed neutral and unstressed.

‘Just repeat that for me John, will you please? Are you telling me that four weeks before our scheduled delivery of the Alpha Tracker System, you’re running three months behind schedule and that suddenly, out of the blue, we have technical problems with a subsystem we should have delivered six weeks ago?’

John looked down at his notepad, drew a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he exhaled, ‘I found out at this morning’s project meeting.’ Looking up at his boss he added, ‘And three months is bloody optimistic Bill.’

Closing his note pad with a peremptory snap, Bill Williams looked sharply around the boardroom table, making a rapid mental note of those who would not meet his eyes. He shook his head in disapproval and stood suddenly. With clumsy uncertainty, his colleagues rose to their feet.

‘All right,’ Bill barked, ‘.in two hours I want full status reports from all of you—in writing. I want software, signal processing and hardware: all of it, and no excuses, no bullshit.just the facts. Tracy, I want you in my office in fifteen minutes with the contract. John, you come with me.’

Turning to leave he added, ‘No excuses guys. This gets fixed or we pack up and find less demanding occupations.’

John followed him into his office, a slender shadow in the wake of his boss’s out-sized muscular frame. He was nervous. Bill was a decent but very hard man who permitted his staff few errors. No one who wanted to keep his job at MicroComm ever went ill-prepared into a meeting with this boss. Over the years, he had ruthlessly dismissed anyone who failed to live up to his exacting standards, and by a neo-Darwinian selection process created a design team that was the envy of the entire British electronics industry. ‘Think or sink’ was the dominant philosophy in MicroComm, and John knew he was on very thin ice. He was the chief engineer and an MIT graduate, but knew well enough that Bill was in many ways a better engineer than he was. Bill had an incredible capacity for seeing through to the heart of complex and sometimes seemingly intractable problems, often producing simple and effective solutions that were obvious only to himself.

The market loved him too, loved his charisma and his success. The investment community had long clamored for him to take his company to a public listing—a proposal Bill steadfastly and stubbornly refused on the grounds that if anyone was to get rich from his business it would be his staff, not a fickle section of the moneyed classes who cared nothing for his people, and knew little or nothing of his business.

Gesturing to a chair as he eased behind his desk, Bill spat his frustration. ‘Well John, how the hell can this be? Every week for fourteen months I’ve read your reports and never, not once, did I see any indication of this balls-up.

John raised his hands in the classic sign of surrender. ‘I’m sorry, it’s my job to know what’s going on, but quite frankly, the section heads haven’t been reporting accurately.’

‘For fourteen months! For fuck’s sake!—It’s your job to track these things—go and find out exactly when things went off track. Talk to the designers; cross check their inputs against the section managers’ reports and bring me your conclusions along with the others. We’ll deal with the sackings later.’

John flinched visibly, looking crestfallen and defeated. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That doesn’t hack it John—we’ve got to deliver or we lose the damned contract. Do you know what that will do to us? Now give me solutions’

‘I’ve checked,’ John replied. ‘There’s no way we’ll be ready in time.’ He pushed a pink cardboard file across the desk. ‘It’s all in there.’

Bill picked the file up and browsed through the summary of problems, flitting quickly to the conclusions of the report over which he pored for several minutes. His voice was muted as he gently pushed the offending document back across the desk. ‘What a mess.’

‘I know, but as you can see, there’s really not much to be done. We’ll have to ask for a postponement.’

‘Postponement..? Are you serious? You know damned well what the penalty clauses in that contract are.’ He raised his voice to a shout. ‘For God’s sake John, think. What looks like an Alpha System, behaves mostly like an Alpha System but isn’t an Alpha System? Or must I do your thinking for you?’

John remained silent, gazing into space. Within a few moments the hint of a smile creased his features. ‘Of course,’ he muttered, ‘.we can replace the faulty microprocessor units with off-the-shelf Pentium controllers.’

Bill looked up eagerly. ‘What about the peripheral controls and signal processing.?’

‘We can modify the control interfaces, but the signal processing is obviously out until our new design is operational.’

‘How long will all this take John?’

The Chief Engineer paused only for a few moments. ‘Three weeks tops, including the software conversions and porting; but we’ll have to put the new design on hold.’

For the first time that day, Bill smiled. ‘Good enough,’ he sighed.

‘But will they have it without the signal processing, Bill?’

‘You can leave that to me; just be on time with this. Get your team together

and I’ll see you and the others in ‘ He paused to read his watch, ‘.an hour and

a half.’

After John left, Bill remained at his desk. He had a lot on his mind. Quite apart from these unexpected and potentially disastrous problems at work, Sue was behaving in a way that he just didn’t understand.

iDammit!’ he exploded, driving his ham-sized fist into the desk; ‘What the hell’s wrong with you my love?’

Ever since being mugged a week ago, she hadn’t let him near her.

‘Where the hell are you hiding, Sue.? And why?’

The normal carefree, sexy, laughing Sue he’d known for ten years had vanished, replaced by a stranger who cried half the day and slept through the rest. He knew she was struggling mentally with something other than a simple mugging, but no matter how hard he tried he could get nothing out of her.

‘Why the hell won’t you let me in.?’ he whispered pleadingly. ‘I don’t under-stand.I just don’t bloody well understand.at long last we can have a child. our own child for god’s sake.what happened my love.? What the bloody hell happened to you out there?

He rose suddenly, shaking his head, still spitting unrelieved anguish. iFuck it all! he muttered, walking steadily around the desk, ‘.Fuck it all to hell!’

The Knight of Swords

This cup is said to be full of the blood of the saints. Every ‘saint’ or magician must give the last drop of his life’s blood to that cup. It is the original price paid for Magic power.

Aleister Crowley: Magick

And our Lady Nut is dividedfor love’s sake, for the chance of union.

Aleister Crowley: Magick

Dissipation

Peter drifted into painful semi consciousness. ‘My head,’ he insinuated through cracked lips. ‘Oh, my poor bloody head.’

As the cool oblivion of sleep receded all too quickly from his grasp, he buried himself under a fistful of blindly grasped blanket, hiding from the unkindly intrusion of the probing fingers of the midday sun.

And so another hour passed in flat 226 Benson Manor (affectionately dubbed The Hovel by its none-too fastidious inhabitant). The prevailing silence was unpunctuated, other than by an occasional groan of despair from the tangled mass of flesh and wool that lay despondently on the battered settee, hiding from the unwelcome day.

Eventually, the burgeoning day had its inevitable way, and Peter, his refuge of sleep dissolved by a combination of light, aching bladder and most importunate and persistent erection, woke to the inconvenience of daylight.

Shuffling into the tiny kitchen, he grasped the least-dirty coffee mug and peered suspiciously through red-rimmed eyes at the growth at its bottom. He dropped it

with a disgusted grunt, reaching instead into the fridge for a beer. Three minutes later and utterly lucid, he sat gazing at the ruin around him, pondering the true meaning of his existence and placing the events of the previous evening in a cosmic context. Beer had that effect on Peter.

Zen Buddhist, born-again Christian, Mystic, Member of the Brotherhood of Darkness, Vegetarian, Communist, National Socialist, Free Lover, Faithful Lover, Writer, Artist, Philosopher, Friend of the Earth, and Musician. His career had been eclectic and adventurous and amazingly unsuccessful, unless a rather carelessly acquired (and unused) bachelor’s degree in Physics and a rather esoteric master’s degree (also unsullied by use) for a thesis on multidimensional encepha-lography be considered.

A sudden sharp rapping at the door broke his silent reverie.

‘Mr. Williams; it’s me, Mr. Lock,’ a high pitched, rat-like squeal announced.

Peter ignored it.

‘Mr. Williams, ‘I must speak with you.’

The knocking grew hard and rapid, an insistent, brain-jarring staccato, but Peter continued to ignore his unwelcome visitor. On hearing the rattle of a key in the lock he lurched towards the door and shouted, ‘Okay!.I’m coming, I’m coming.’

A tall, lean, and rather scruffy middle-aged man loomed large in the passageway outside.

‘Come in,’ Peter grunted, turning away ungraciously.

‘No thank you, I’d rather not,’ the visitor squealed, peering apprehensively into the unseemly midday penumbra.

‘Mr. Williams, your rent is three months in arrears; we can’t go on like this.’

Peter turned to face his landlord and interrupted what he knew would become another soliloquy on the rise and rise of Steven Lock, and the merits of hard work.

‘Look, I’m trying. I’ll pay you as soon as I get a job,’ he said reasonably.

The landlord grimaced in disgust. ‘A job..? You..?’ he protested. ‘Look at you—who the hell do you think is going to employ a refugee from the sixties who doesn’t know how to use soap?’ he spat. ‘Either you settle up within ten days or you’re out. You hear me.?. Out!’

As the landlord turned to leave, Peter lurched once more to the doorway. ‘Bugger you too Lock,’ he shouted, slamming the door shut. He settled once more on the tangled make-shift bed and a queer, mischievous grin grew over his boyish features, accompanied by a gentle, whispered laughter. ‘Poor old Shylock,’ he muttered, ‘the spirit of a weasel and the voice of a rat.there’s definitely justice in the world after all.’ Still smiling delinquently, he returned unperturbed to his beer and silent contemplation of life.

An Unwelcome Visitor

From the first moment of her sordid debauchery, Sue lived in constant fear: fear of her husband finding her out, fear of her own bizarre behavior, and most of all, fear of Rubenstein. She’d known from the start that he’d be back.’fiut why?’ she pleaded.’ Why…?’

In the midst of her darkest moments of terror, it hadn’t once occurred to her that the bastard would come here—to her home. And suddenly, there he was at the front door, smartly dressed in a business suit of charcoal-gray wool, smiling quietly through dead eyes that made her shudder. She screamed, instinctively slammed the door shut so hard that the glass panels might have shattered. ‘Go away you bastard,’ she screeched, ‘leave me alone.’ And then through her tears and sobs of panic, ‘What do you want.? What the hell do you want.?’

Again a light, almost polite knocking sounded at the door.

‘Don’t be frightened Sue. I’m here to talk with you—that’s all.’

Consumed with panic, Sue howled like a banshee. ‘You fucking rapist bastard, go away. What the hell do you want? Why did you do this to me?’

Her knees trembled, and she fell heavily to the floor. For several minutes the plaintive sound of her sobbing was punctuated only by firm, persistent knocking. A shadow moved at the periphery of her vision. She recoiled in fear, realizing that he was somehow inside the house. The door slammed shut.

‘May I come in?’ Rubenstein enquired rhetorically. ‘I’m afraid the neighbors may begin to notice this little commotion, and we don’t want that, do we?’ He pulled her roughly to her feet, stared hard into her eyes as she struggled furiously to escape his grasp. ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he shouted. ‘Now let’s sit down and talk’

Sue tried to scream, but no sound issued from her gaping mouth. Rubenstein rudely pushed her towards the lounge. Consumed with hatred and fear, her skin crawled as she stumbled forwards with Rubenstein at her back. She shuffled into the room and turned, positioning a large leather armchair between herself and her tormentor.

‘Don’t worry. I’m really only here to talk,’ Rubenstein insisted.

‘If you touch me again you’d better kill me. In fact you bastard, you’d be well advised to kill me now, while you have the chance.’ Her words dripped venomous hatred. ‘You can be sure that given the slightest chance, I’m going to cut your fucking balls off and make you eat them.’

Rubenstein smiled quietly, shook his head. ‘Dear me Sue, you really have no idea, do you? Harm me?’ Broad lines of laughter formed around his mouth. ‘Harm

me indeed. You’ll never know, young woman, unless you are overtaken by excessive misfortune, how far I sit beyond the reach of your malice.’

With an effort of will he ceased his laughter and looked at her, an insect under a laboratory microscope.

‘What do you want?’ Sue spat.

‘Firstly, inadequate though it may seem, I wish to apologize. Our little tete-a-tete was an unplanned digression from the intended course of events. I really was a little overcome by your zeal with my friend, and got a little hot under the collar.’

‘You raped me you bastard.’

‘Now, now, Sue; rape is an ugly word. Unfairly compelled possibly, but really, not raped.’

‘You bastard.’

She launched herself at him in a maelstrom of blind fury, but in speed and strength he was far beyond her. In an eye-blink, he slammed her onto her back on the carpeted floor, where she gasped and wheezed in renewed panic. Rubenstein leered at her in a manner she remembered all too well. She squirmed and crawled away behind a chair as he calmly seated himself, faddishly brushing dust from his suit.

‘Really Sue, that was quite uncalled for. Now listen to me.I don’t have all day and I’m beginning to find you somewhat tiresome.’

With a supreme effort, Sue forced herself to her feet. If he wanted to rape her again she thought, then he could, and would have done so by now.

‘That’s better,’ Rubenstein said smugly. ‘Now then, where was I? A few days ago you were happily wandering around town window-shopping, when you were overwhelmed with lust at the sight of a rather strange man who had you ‘in his sights,’ so to speak. You followed him to his hotel room and enjoyed a rather intense afternoon of physical delight, did you not?’

Sue maintained her shocked silence, listening in a state of sickened anxiety to the one person she truly hated, but who was also one of only two people in existence who could tell her what had really happened to her, and why..

‘Now then,’ Rubenstein continued, ‘the first and foremost question that’s haunted you since then is just how the hell a respectable married woman such as you, without any apparent persuasion or compulsion and totally contrary to her deepest convictions, was persuaded to do this? What on Earth caused you to forget who and what you are, to the extent that you indulged in sexual acts the like of which you have rarely or never indulged in before?’

He paused for a moment, but Sue remained mute and attentive, listening to her tormentor in sickened fascination.

‘The answer is not simple,’ Rubenstein continued with an ugly, knowing smile. ‘Firstly, as you appreciate, the whole course of events was contrived, but not in the

usual sense inasmuch that your participation was more than willing, as indeed I could amply demonstrate should the need arise. But as you well know, that is only half of the truth. Unless your mind had somehow been manipulated,