Captive of Gor

3 Silken Cords

I stirred uneasily, shaking my head. It was a bad dream. "No, no," I murmured, twisting, wanting to awaken. "No, no."

It seemed as though I could not move as I wished. I did not like it. I was displeased. Angry.

Then, suddenly, I was awake. I screamed, but there was no sound.

I tried to sit upright, but I nearly strangled, and fell back. I struggled wildly.

"She's awake," said a voice.

Two men, masked, stood at the foot of the bed, facing me. I heard two others speaking in the living room.

The two men who had been at the foot of the bed turned and left the room, going to the living room to join the others.

I struggled fiercely.

My ankles had been bound together with light, silken cords. My wrists had also been bound together, but behind my back. a loop of the silken cord had been fastened about my neck, and by it I was bound to the head of the bed. I could see myself in the mirror. The strange mark, drawn in lipstick, was still on the mirror's surface.

I tried to scream again, but I could not. My eyes, I could see in the mirror, were wild over the gag.

I continued to struggle, but after some moments, hearing men returning to the room, stopped. Through the open door, I saw the backs of two men, in police uniforms. I could not see their faces. The two men with masks re-entered the room. They looked upon me.

I wanted to plead with them, but I could make no sound.

I drew up my legs and turned to my side, to cover myself as well as I might. One of the men touched me.

The other uttered a brief sound, abrupt. The other man turned away. The sound had been a word, doubtless of negation. I did not know the language. The men had not ransacked the penthouse. The paintings remained on the walls, the oriental rugs on the floors. Nothing was touched.

I saw the man who had turned away, who seemed to be a subordinate, remove what appeared to be a fountain pen from a leather holder in his pocket. He unscrewed it, and I was startled. It was a syringe.

I shook my head wildly, no!

He entered the needle on my right side, in the back between my waist and hip. It was painful. I felt no ill effects.

I watched him replace the syringe in its holder, and the holder in his inside jacket pocket.

The larger man looked at his watch. He spoke this time in English to the smaller man, he who had had the syringe. The larger man spoke with a definite accent, but I could not place the accent.

"We will return after midnight," he said, "It will be easier then. We can reach point P in five hours with less traffic. And I have other business to attend to this evening.

"All right," said the smaller man. "We'll be ready then." There had not been the slightest trace of an accent in the smaller man's response. I had no doubt that his native tongue was English. He perhaps had difficulty following the natural speech of the other. But when the other had spoken to him, curtly, in the strange tongue, he had obeyed, and promptly. I gathered he feared the larger man.

The room began to grow a bit dark at the edges.

The larger man came behind me and felt the pulse of one of my bound wrists. Then he released me.

The room seemed to grow darker, and warmer. I tried to keep my eyes open. The larger man left the room. The smaller lingered. He went to the night table and took one of my cigarettes and with one of my tiny, fine matches, imported from Paris, lit it.

He threw the match into the ash tray. He touched me again, this time intimately, but I could not cry out. I began to lose consciousness. He blew smoke into my eyes and noes, leaning over me. I struggled weakly against the bonds, fighting to stay conscious.

I heard the larger man's voice, from the doorway it seem, but it seemed, too, from far away.

The smaller man hurriedly left my side.

The larger man entered the room, and I turned my head weakly to regard him. I saw the two men in the uniforms of police leaving the penthouse, followed by the smaller man, who, as he left the house, was drawing the mask from his head. I did not see his face.

The larger man was looking down at me. I looked up at him, weakly, almost unconscious.

He spoke to me matter-of-factly. "We will return after midnight," he told me. I struggled weakly to speak, fighting the gag, the drug. I only wanted to sleep. "You would like to know," he asked, "what will happen to you then?" I nodded.

"Curiosity," he said, "is not becoming in a Kajira."

I did not 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." 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 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. 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 floors. I stood in the back of the elevator, while three couples and another man, with an attachA© 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 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 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 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 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 the mark, was not unattractive. It accentuated my softness. And I could not remove it. For an instant I felt helpless, owned, a captive, the property of others. The brief fantasy passed through my mind of myself, in such a band, marked as I was, naked in the arms of a barbarian. I shuddered, frightened. Never before had I felt such a feeling.

I looked away from the mirror.

Tomorrow I would have the steel band removed.

I stepped into the shower and was soon singing. I had wrapped a towel about my hair, and, dried and refreshed, though tired, and very happy, emerged from the bathroom.

I turned down the sheets on the bed.

I was safe.

My wrist watch, when I had prepared to shower, I had slipped into my handbag. I looked at it. It was four forty-five. I replaced the watch in the handbag. I reached to pull the tiny chain on the lamp.

I then saw it. On the mirror across the room. At the base of the mirror lay an opened lipstick tube, mine, which had been taken from my handbag, while I had showered. On the mirror itself, drawn in lipstick, was again the mark, the same mark, cursive and graceful, which I wore on my thigh.

I tore at the phone. It was dead.

The door to the bungalow was unlatched. I had locked it. But the lock had been opened, and even the bolt withdrawn. I ran to the door and relocked it, holding myself against it. I began to sob.

Hysterically I ran to my clothes and dressed.

I might have time. They might have gone away. They might be waiting just outside. I did not know.

I fumbled in the handbag for car keys.

I ran to the door.

Then, terrified, I feared to touch it. They might be waiting just outside. I moved to the back of the bungalow. I switched off the light, and stood, terrified, in the darkness. I pulled back the curtains on the rear window of the bungalow. The window was locked. I unlocked it. Noiselessly, to my relief, the window slid upward. I looked outward. No one was in sight. I had time. But they might be in front. Or perhaps they had gone, not expecting me to see the mark on the mirror until morning. No, no, they must be in front.

I crawled out the window.

The small suitcase I left in the bungalow. I had the handbag, that was important. In it were fifteen thousand dollars and jewelry. Most important, I had the car keys.

Quietly I climbed into the car. I must turn on the ignition, put the car in gear and accelerate before anyone could stop me. The engine was still warm. It would start immediately.

Snarling and spurting the Maserati leaped into life, spitting stones and dust from its rear wheels, whipping about the corner of the bungalow.

I slammed on the brakes at the entrance to the highway and skidded onto the cement turning, and then with a scream of rubber, and the burning smell of it, roared down the highway. I had seen nothing. I switched on the car lights. Some traffic passed me, approaching me.

Nothing seemed to be behind me.

I could not believe that I was safe. But there was no pursuit.

With one hand I fumbled with the buttons on my black, bare-midriff blouse, fastening them. I then found the wrist watch in the handbag and slipped it on my wrist. It was four fifty-one. It was still dark, but it was August and it would be light early.

Abruptly, on an impulse, I turned down a small side road, one of dozens that led from the highway.

There would be no way of knowing which one I had taken.

I had seen no pursuit.

I began to breathe easier.

My foot eased up on the accelerator.

I glanced into the rear-view mirror. I turned to look. It did not seem to be a car, but there was something, unmistakably, on the road behind me.

For an instant I could not swallow. My mouth felt dry. With difficulty I swallowed.

It was several hundred yards behind me, moving rather slowly. It seemed to have a single light. But the light seemed to light the road beneath it, in a yellow, moving pool of illumination that coursed ahead of it. As it neared, I cried out. It was moving silently. There was no sound of a motor drive. It was round, black, circular, small, perhaps seven or eight feet in diameter, perhaps five feet in thickness. It was not moving on the road. It was moving above the road. I switched off the lights on the Maserati and whipped off the road, moving toward some patches of trees in the distance.

The object came to where I had turned off the road, seemed to pause, and then, to my horror, turned gently in my direction, unhurried. In the yellow circle of light I could see the grass of the field, bearing the marks of my tires. Always the object, smoothly, not seeming to hurry, with the yellow light beneath it, approached more closely.

The Maserati struck a large stone. The engine stopped. Wildly I tried to start it again. There was a whine, then another. And then the ignition key only clicked meaninglessly, again and again. Suddenly I was bathed in yellow light and I screamed. It hovered over me. I fled from the car, into the darkness. The light moved about, but it did not catch me again.

I reached the trees.

In the trees, terrified, I saw the dark disklike shape hover over the Maserati. A bluish light then seemed, momentarily, to glow from the shape.

The Maserati seemed to shiver, rippling in the bluish light, and then, to my horror, it was gone.

I stood with my back against a tree, my hand before my mouth.

The bluish light then disappeared.

The yellowish light switched on again.

The shape then turned toward me, and began to move slowly in my direction. I found that I clutched the handbag. Somehow I had seized it, instinctively, in running from the car. It contained my money, jewelry, the butcher knife I had thrust into it before leaving the penthouse. I turned and ran, wildly, through the dark woods. I lost my sandals. My feet were bruised and cut. My blouse was torn. Branches caught at my clothing and hair. A branch lashed my belly and I cried in pain. Another stung my cheek. I fled. Always the light seemed near, but it did not catch me. I ran from it, forcing my way through the brush and trees, scraped and torn. Time and time again it seemed on the verge of illuminating me, yellow on the trees and brush only feet from me, but it would pass by, or I would turn away from it and run again. I stumbled on through the woods, my feet bleeding, gasping for breath. My hands, my right clutching the handbag, fought the brush and branches that tore at me. I could run no further. I collapsed at the foot of a tree, gasping, each muscle in my body crying out. My legs trembled. My heart pounded.

The light turned my way again.

I scrambled to my feet and ran wildly before it.

Then I saw some small lights beyond the trees and brush some fifty yards in front of me, in a sort of clearing in the woods.

I ran toward them.

I stumbled wildly into the clearing.

"Good evening, Miss Brinton," said a voice.

I stopped, stunned.

At the same time I felt a man's hands close on my arms from behind. I tried weakly to free myself but could not.

I shut my eyes against the reflection of yellow light from the ground. "This is point P," said the man. I recognized his voice. It was that of the larger man who had been in my penthouse in the afternoon. He no longer wore his mask. He was dark haired, dark eyed, handsome. "You have been very troublesome," she said. Then he turned to another man. "Bring Miss Brinton's anklet."