As for my beautiful wife, who knows what she felt more generally. Of course, thanks to my deal with the devil, we warded off a descent into poverty. But I now allotted more time for work. More precisely, I threw myself into it. I began to avoid my wife for fear that she might notice the scratches and bites on my body. I was Ariah’s, so she left marks on me, a slave owner branding her chattel with an iron. I would make love with my wife in the dark. It was excruciating. Another figure forced its way into my head. The incongruous image of a woman with a perfect body and a grotesque face. And – by this point I had lost my mind – I was disappointed when I didn’t see that repulsive face and when I wasn’t slapped, insulted, degraded. While my body thirsted for that electric shock, shards of that damned story would break off and rearrange themselves in my head.

She had indeed ensnared me, the devil woman. And because she was a real devil, she knew that she had done so. Stroking my back, which was still stinging from the raking of her nails, she said, ‘No woman can satisfy you like I do.’

How I hated to hear it, and how right she was. Her next statement was more chilling.

‘Leave your boring life behind. Come and be an adventurer with me.’

Had she become interested in me, or even fallen in love? Yet her attitude was more like that of a prophet with a new covenant to offer; she wanted to make me her disciple. I felt sick to my stomach but couldn’t stop to figure out where she wanted to lead me.

Maybe she had made the same offer to the six other men, the slaves who had managed to escape. And she called them failures.

Out of nowhere, bizarre whispers filled my head. The hissing of a demon. Come with me. Let’s run.

I tensed. These were the temptations of a devil, luring me, testing every weak point. But I bowed my knees in the presence of palpable evil.

‘There will never be a dull moment by my side,’ she said.

I wasn’t sure if I was encountering seduction or disaster, as I felt myself slowly sucked in. I began to imagine what would happen if I left my beautiful wife for this gruesome-looking woman. People would regard me as a corpse that had reappeared from the dead, disturbing the peace as it spread maggots around town. I would be unable to return to my world.

But maybe that would be unnecessary.

These thoughts were so foul that I needed to purge them. I flailed, sought a grip. I tried to revive the whole picture of my past, before I had become captive to this sick tale.

‘Experimenting together is such a thrill.’

‘What do you mean?’