The first time it happened, he'd been startled.
He'd taken a moment to lean up against the captain's cabin. Nothing he hadn't done before. But, for the first time, there'd been a feeling of being grabbed and held, and a sucking sensation when he'd pulled free that left him feeling repulsed. Uneasy, he'd tried to laugh it off as a moment of fanciful imagining, nothing more.
When it happened again, he'd felt the beginning tendrils of helpless terror weave their way inside him. And he knew. The ship wanted him, wanted him to become one with her.
She was irresistible, the Dutchman, demanding her complete possession of him.
When he'd told Will "What more can they do to me?" he'd been sure that he'd already reached the depths of his slavery to the cursed ship.
He'd been wrong.