Captive of Gor Read Online Free

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