Then he buried
his fingers in her throat and the gleam of his eyes made her
soul quail.
"Don't kill me!" she cried, in the clutch of cowardice for the
first time. It was not death that she feared but the phantom
of things worse than death that can be conjured to the
imagination by the fury of a personality which is utterly
reckless and utterly cruel. "Don't kill me!" she shrieked.
"What the hell are you doing?" shouted Jim from the other room.
"Shut that door," replied Freddie. "I'm going to attend to my
lady friend."
As the door slammed, he dragged Susan by the throat and one arm
to the bed, flung her down. "I saw you were a high stepper the
minute I looked at you," said he, in a pleasant, cooing voice
that sent the chills up and down her spine. "I knew you'd have
to be broke. Well, the sooner it's done, the sooner we'll get
along nicely." His blue eyes were laughing into hers. With
the utmost deliberation he gripped her throat with one hand and
with the other began to slap her, each blow at his full
strength. Her attempts to scream were only gasps. Quickly the
agony of his brutality drove her into unconsciousness. Long
after she had ceased to feel pain, she continued to feel the
impact of those blows, and dully heard her own deep groans.
When she came to her senses, she was lying sprawled upon the
far side of the bed. Her head was aching wildly; her body was
stiff and sore; her face felt as if it were swollen to many
times its normal size.
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