Captive of Gor (3 page)

feet and body I managed to pull it up beneath me. And then I had the handle in

my bound hands! But I could not reach the bonds. I held the knife but could not

use it. Then, feverishly, I cried inwardly (pg. 16) with joy, and pressed the

point into the back of the bed and braced it with my own body. I began to saw at

the cords with the knife. The knife, its handle braced against my sweating back,

slipped four times, but each time I put it again in place and addressed myself

again to my task. Then my wrists were free. I took the knife and slashed the

cord at my throat and the cord at my ankles.

I leaped from the bed and ran to the vanity. My heart sank. It was already a

half past midnight!

My heart was pounding.

I pulled the gag down from my face, pulled the heavy wad of soured packing from

my mouth. Then I was suddenly ill, and fell to my hands and knees, and vomited

on the rug. I shook my head. With the knife I cut the gag from where it lay

about my neck.

I shook my head again.

It was now thirty-five minutes after midnight.

I ran to the wardrobe. I seized the first garment I touched, a pair of tan,

bell-bottomed slacks and a black, buttoning, bare-midriff blouse.

I held them to me, breathing heavily. I looked across the room. My heart almost

stopped. There I saw in the shadows, in the dim light in the room from the city

outside, a girl. She was nude. She held something before her. About her throat

there was a band of steel. On her thigh a mark.

“No!” we cried together.

I gasped, my head swam. Sick, I turned away from my reflection in the

full-length mirror across the room.

I pulled on the slacks and slipped into the blouse. I found a pair of sandals.

It was thirty-seven minutes past midnight.

I ran again to the wardrobe and pulled out a small suitcase. I threw it to the

foot of the triple chest and plunged garments into it, and snapped it shut.

I seized up a handbag and ran, with the suitcase, into the living room. I swung

back a small oil, and fumbled with the dial of the wall safe. I kept, usually,

some fifteen thousand dollars, and jewelry, at home. I scrabbled in the opening

and thrust money and jewelry into the handbag.

(pg. 17) I looked with terror at the splintered door.

On the wall clock it was forty minutes past midnight.

I was afraid to go through the door. I remembered the knife. I ran back to the

bedroom and seized it, shoving it into the handbag. Then, frightened, I ran to

the patio and terrace. The rope of sheets that I had used to leave the penthouse

had been removed. I ran again to the bedroom. I saw them lying to one side,

separated, as though laundry.

I looked again in the mirror. I stopped. I buttoned the collar of the black

blouse high about my neck, to conceal the steel band on my throat. I saw again

the mark, drawn in lipstick, on the mirror. Seizing up my handbag and the small

suitcase I fled through the broken door. I stopped before the tiny private

elevator in the hall outside the door.

I ran back inside the penthouse, to get my wrist watch. It was forty-two minutes

past midnight. With the key from my purse I opened the elevator and descended to

the hall below, where there was a bank of common elevators. I pushed all the

down buttons.

I looked at the dials at the top of the elevator doors. There were two that were

already rising, one at the seventh floor and one at the ninth. I could not have

called them!

I moaned.

I turned and ran toward the stairs. I stopped at the height of the stairs. Far

below, on the steel-reinforced, broad cement stairs, ringing hollowly in the

shaft, I heard the footsteps of two men, climbing.

I ran back to the elevators.

One stopped at my floor, the twenty-fourth. I stood with my back presses against

the wall.

A man and his wife stepped out.

I gasped and fled past them.

They looked at me strangely as I pushed at the main-floor button

As the door on my elevator closed, I heard the door of the adjoining elevator

open. Through the crack of the closing door I saw the backs of two men, in the

uniforms of police.

Slowly, slowly the elevator descended. It stopped on four (pg. 18) floors. I

stood in the back of the elevator, while three couples and another man, with an

attaché case, entered. When we reached the main floor I fled from the elevator

but, in a moment, regained my control, checked myself and looked about. There

were some people in the lobby, sitting about, reading or waiting. Some looked at

me idly. It was a hot night. One man, with a pipe, looked up at me, over the top

of his newspaper. Was he one of them? My heart almost stopped. He returned to

his reading. I would go to the apartment garage, but not through the lobby. I

would go by the street.

The doorman touched his cap to me as I left.

I smiled.

Outside on the street I realized how hot the night was.

Inadvertently I touched the collar of my blouse. I felt the steel beneath it.

A man passed, looking at me.

Did he know? Could he know that there was a band of steel at my throat?

I was foolish. I shook my head, trembling.

I threw my head back and walked hurriedly down the sidewalk toward the street

entrance to the apartment garage.

The night was hot, so hot.

A man looked me over thoroughly as I walked past. I hurried past.

A few feet beyond I turned to look back. he was still watching.

I tried to turn him away, with a look of coldness, of contempt for him.

But he did not look away. I was frightened. I turned away, hurrying on. Why had

I not been able to turn him away? Why hadn’t he looked away? Why hadn’t he

turned away, shamefaced, embarrassed, and hurried on in the opposite direction?

He hadn’t. He had continued to look at me. Did he know that there was a mark on

my thigh? Did he sense that? Did that mark make me somehow subtly different than

I had been? Did it somehow, set me apart from other women on this world? Could I

no longer drive men away? And if I could no longer drive them away, what did

(pg. 19) that mean? What had that small mark done to me? I felt suddenly

helpless, and somehow, suddenly, for the first time in my life, vulnerably and

radically female. I stumbled on.

I entered the apartment garage.

I found the keys in my handbag and gave them hurriedly, smiling, to the

attendant.

“Is anything wrong, Miss Brinton?” he asked.

“No, no,” I said.

Even he seemed to look at me.

“Please hurry!” I begged him.

He quickly touched his cap and turned away.

I waited, it seemed for years. I counted the beatings of my heart.

Then the car, small, purring, in perfect tune, a customized Maserati, whipped to

the curb, and the attendant stepped out.

I thrust a bill in his hand.

“Thank you,” he said.

He seemed concerned, deferential. He touched his cap. He held open the door.

I blushed, and thrust past him, throwing my suitcase and handbag into the car.

I climbed behind the wheel, and he closed the door.

He leaned over me. “Are you well, Miss Brinton?” he asked.

He seemed too close to me.

“Yes! Yes!” I said and threw the car into gear and burned forward, only to stop

with a shriek of rubber, skidding some ten feet.

With the electric switch he raised the door for me, and I drove out into the

swift traffic, out into the hot August night.

Even though the night was hot the air rushing past me, pulling at my hair,

refreshed me.

I had done well.

I had escaped!

I drove past a policeman and was almost going to stop, that he might help me,

protect me.

But how did I know? Others had worn the uniforms of the police? And he might

think I was insane, mad. And I (pg. 20) might be detained in the city. Where

they were. They might be waiting for me. I did not know who they were. I was not

even clear what they wanted. They could be anywhere. Now I must escape, escape,

escape!

But the air invigorated me. I had escaped! I darted about in traffic, swiftly,

free. Other cars would sometimes slam on their brakes. They would honk their

horns. I threw back my head and laughed.

I had soon left the city, crossing the George Washington Bridge, and taking the

swift parkways north. In a few minutes I was in Connecticut.

I slipped my wrist watch on my hand, as I drove. When I did so it was one

forty-six a.m.

I sang to myself.

Once again I was Elinor Brinton.

It occurred to me that I should not follow the parkways, but seek less traveled

roads. I left the parkway at 2:07 a.m. Another car followed me. I thought little

of it, but, after some four turns, the car still followed.

Suddenly I became frightened and increased speed. So, too, did the other car.

Then, as I cried out in anguish, I was no longer Elinor Brinton, the one always

in control of herself, the rich one, the sophisticated one, she with such

exquisite taste and intelligence. I was only a terrified girl, fleeing from what

she knew not, a bewildered, confused girl, a terrified girl, one with a mark on

her left thigh, a circle of steel locked snugly on her throat.

No, I cried to myself, no. I would be Elinor Brinton! I am she!

Suddenly I began to drive coolly, swiftly, efficiently, brilliantly. If they

wanted a chase, they should have it. They would not find Elinor Brinton easy

game! Whoever they might be, she was more than a match for them. She was Elinor

Brinton, rich, brilliant Elinor Brinton!

For more than forty-five minutes I raced ahead of my pursuer, sometimes

increasing my lead, sometimes losing it. Once, grinding and spurring about

graveled side roads, they (pg. 21) were within forty yards of me, but I

increased the lead, yard by yard.

I thrilled to their pursuit, and would elude them!

Finally, when I was more than two hundred yards ahead of them, on a cruelly

winding road, I switched off my headlights and drove off the road into some

trees. There were many turn-offs on the road, may bends. They would assume I had

taken one.

I sat, heart pounding in the Maserati, with the lights off.

In a matter of seconds the following car raced past, skidding about a curve.

I waited for about thirty seconds and then drove back to the road. I drove

lights off for several minutes, following the double yellow line in the center

of the road by moonlight. Then, when I came to a more traveled highway, a

cemented road, well trafficked, I switched on my lights and continued on my way.

I had outsmarted them.

I continued generally northward. I assumed they would suppose I had backtracked,

and was returning southward. They would not suppose I would continue my journey

in the same direction. They would suppose me too intelligent for that. But I was

far more intelligent than they, for that was precisely what I would do!

It was now about four ten in the morning. I pulled into a small motel, a set of

bungalows, set back from the road. I parked the car behind one of the bungalows,

where it could not be seem from the road. No one would expect me to stop at this

time. Near the bungalows, north on the highway, there was a diner, which was

open. It was almost empty. The red neon lights of the diner loomed on the hot,

dark night. I was famished. I had eaten nothing all day. I entered the diner,

and sat in one of the booths, where I could not be seen from the highway.

“Sit at the counter,” said the boy at the diner. He was alone.

“Menu,” I told him.

I had two sandwiches, from cold roast beef, on dry (pg. 22) bread, a piece of

pie left from the afternoon, and a small carton of chocolate milk.

At another time I might have been disgusted, but tonight I was elated.

Soon I had rented a bungalow for the night, the one behind which I had parked

the Maserati.

I put my belongings in the bungalow and locked the door. I was tired, but I sang

to myself. I was exceedingly well pleased with how well I had done. The bed

looked inviting but I was sweaty, filthy, and I was naturally too fastidious to

retire without showering. Besides I wanted to wash.

In the bathroom I examined the mark on my thigh. It infuriated me. But, as I

regarded it, in fury, I could not help but be taken by its cursive, graceful

insolence. I clenched my fists. The arrogance, that it had been placed on my

body. The arrogance, the arrogance! It marked me. But beautifully. I regarded

myself in the mirror. I regarded the mark. There was no doubt about it. That

mark, somehow, insolently, incredibly enhanced my beauty. I was furious.

Also, incomprehensibly I found that I was curious about the touch of a man. I

had never much cared for men. I put the thought angrily from me. I was Elinor

Brinton!

Irritably I examined the steel band at my throat. I could not read the

inscription on the band, of course. I could not even recognize the alphabet.

Indeed, perhaps it was only a cursive design. But something in the spacing and

the formation of the figures told me it was not. The lock was small and heavy.

The band fit snugly.

As I looked in the mirror the thought passed through my mind that it, too, like