Captive of Gor Read Free Page B

understand him.
    “You might be beaten for it,” he said.
    I could not understand.
    “Let us say simply,” he said, “that we will return after midnight.” Through the
    mouth hole in the mask I saw his lips twist into a smile. His eyes, too, seemed
    to smile. “Then,” he said, “you will be drugged again.” “And then,” he added,
    “you will be crated for shipment.”
    (pg. 15) He left the room.
    I pulled at the cords that bound me, and lost consciousness.
    * * *
    I awakened in the bed, still bound.
    It was dark. I could hear the noises of the city’s night traffic through the
    door open to the patio and terrace. Through the open curtains I could see the
    tens of thousands of bright rectangles of windows, many of them still
    illuminated. The bed was drenched in sweat. I had no idea of the time. I knew
    only it was night. I rolled over to see the alarm clock on the vanity, but the
    face had been turned to one side.
    I struggled with my bonds, wildly. I must free myself!
    But after a few precious minutes of futile struggle I lay bound as perfectly as
    I had been earlier in the afternoon.
    Then suddenly new sweat broke out on my body.
    The knife!
    Before the men had burst into the penthouse I had thrust it beneath the pillow.
    I rolled on to my side and, bound, lifted the pillow away with my teeth. I
    almost fainted with relief. The knife lay where I had left it. On the satin
    sheet I struggled to move the knife, with my mouth and the back of my head,
    toward my bound hands. It was a painful, frustrating task, but inch by quarter
    inch, I moved it downward. Once it fell to the floor and inwardly I cried out
    with anguish. Almost choking, from the loop on my throat, I slid half out of the
    bed and felt for the knife with my feet. My ankles had been crossed and lashed
    securely together. It was extremely difficult to pick up the knife. It fell
    again, and again. I cursed the neckrope that bound me to the head of the bed. I
    wept. Far below, in the streets, I heard the siren of a fire engine, and the
    other noises of the city night. I struggled, gagged and bound, silently,
    torturedly. At last I managed to get the knife to the foot of the bed. With my
    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