"Why not?" Gena's face wrinkled with curiosity. "What've you got in particular against Morton?"
"Stay with her for a couple of years and you'll see. But just for openers, she's what is known as a human sewer. Everybody, and I mean everybody, has a go of it in her bed."
Unable to find words, Dex strode away from the couch and from Gena's essential innocence. No matter what Gena did, no matter how many lies she told or how insincerely she lived, Gena could never understand Morton until a number of years had piled the crud on good and thick. Dex swallowed her hopelessness. It was a crime for Gena to waste her life and spirit with Morton. She'd be out on the street again in a couple of weeks. But Morton would keep her on the string. Using her. Dragging her back and forth whenever there was a lull among her new lovers.
"Don't forget," Gena cut into Dex's thinking, "this isn't going to be my first time with her."
"I realize that," Dex answered softly. "And unfortunately, it isn't going to be your last time with her, either."
Gena got up and came over to where Dex was standing near a window.
"But can't you see?" Gena pleaded. "I just can't let Morton get the better of me."
Dex looked down at Gena's clear eyes. Suddenly she wondered why it was so important for the girl to convince her that she had good reason for going back to Morton tonight.
"You can't let her get the better of you," Dex repeated. "But can't you see that she already has?"
CHAPTER NINE
As Dex heard herself speaking, it was as if a whole new world of horrors was opening to suck her in. Did she want Gena so much, so completely that she could settle for the position of second in line after Morton?
"Don't leave me," Gena's voice reached out as Dex began to edge toward the door. "Don't let me face Morton all by myself. You can't let me down now, Dex. You said you loved me."
Dex saw the sudden wretchedness bubbling up from deep inside the girl. All the surface playfulness had dissolved. Gena stood naked within the bitter anxiety of her own young, helpless state. She was no match for Morton and she knew it. Only, now, she was finally letting Dex in on her carefully guarded secret.
"But you were going to see her without me," Dex said. "And you were quite sure of yourself."
Gena flung herself against Dex's chest. "I have to trust someone," she sobbed, her words muffled but warm in the polo shirt. "And you're the only one I have. I believe in you, Dex. I need you to help me, can't you see that?"
Dex touched the soft crown of Gena's hair. The hair felt moist as a baby's. The scalp, hot and perspiring, pressed itself gratefully into Dex's hand.
"How can I help you?" Dex said softly. "If you think you love Morton, you'll have to go through that battleground all by yourself."
"Maybe I can forget her." Gena's voice was tight, the tone desperate. "Maybe you can take me away somewhere. We'll have a good time. I'll give you everything you want, that's a promise."
Dex smiled softly down at the girl and sighed. "Sounds beautiful, dear. But you know it can't work out. Wherever we go, it'll be the same thing. You'll kiss me and wish I were Morton."
Dex took the girl by both shoulders and moved her out to arm's length.
"If you let go of me," Gena said, "that might be the end of everything. Dex. I want to be good. I want to love someone decent and live a decent life together. Why won't you let me try? Why can't you take the chance?"
As Dex gazed into the wide, troubled eyes, she felt her own firm resolve begin to weaken. Maybe it was possible. Gena's idea could work if Gena really meant what she said. After all, the girl was nobody's fool. She didn't want to be stepped on and dragged through all the gutters of hell.
"I left Morton the first time, you know." She struggled to smile. "Maybe something inside knew that better days were coming."
"You left Morton? She didn't throw you out?"
"That's right."
Dex paused. All her instincts told her that Gena was twisting the truth around. But why should she? If she were Morton's slave, then she would be running off now instead of trying to save herself.
Dex let go of Gena's body and let her hands drop to her sides. Suddenly, she felt plunged down into the pit of a whirling vortex of indecision. There seemed no way to decide how to proceed.
"Well?" Gena said softly. "Are you going to stand there and let me walk out of your life just like that?"
Everything rose up in Dex to say: "Get the hell out".
"If you come with me," Dex said, the words stiff and measured, "we leave tonight. No good-byes to anyone. Nothing. Just drop all the old threads and go."
Gena's sudden, blossoming smile stifled the sound of Dex's impulsive daring. It blinded her to the knowledge of her own wishful dreaming. She knew only that this was her moment. No matter what happened afterward, at least now she was making the attempt. Giving all of herself and all of her energies to have Gena and keep her forever.
"I won't even pack a suitcase," Gena said. She caught Dex's hand in her own and squeezed it. "Let's go."
They were the very words Dex had wanted to hear from Ryan so many years ago. But she had never heard them until this moment. The nerves beneath her flesh made connections with each other, infusing her body with a new strength of force and will. It was a surge of power that Dex could believe. It felt good. It felt right. Her dream, coming true at last, was exactly the right size and shape, tailor-made to the size of reality.
Dex did not stop to ask herself the normal and logical questions. Survival would be hers. Theirs. Together.
"Only take a jacket," Dex said. "You'll need one where we're going."
Wordlessly, Gena obeyed. She took a heavy old mackinaw from the closet and draped it over one arm.
They left the apartment together, slamming the door and running down the steps without once looking back.
Dex found a cab parked at the corner. She pushed Gena in ahead of her and directed the driver to Grand Central Station. Beside her, she could feel Gena's warm glow of optimism. Glancing at the girl, she wondered where Gena got the control not to ask a million questions about where they were going and what they would find at the far end of their journey. Yet Gena did not seem to need control. She radiated contentment much more than expectation. What mattered most to her was that she was being plucked, miraculously, out of the jaws of Morton's flesh trap. And it was salvation that glowed, warming her back to life.
When they reached the station, Dex sat Gena down near the train gates, bought her a hot dog and an orange drink and went off to get the tickets. The big hall milled with people. An atmosphere of timelessness pervaded the high-vaulted room. Both light and air were artificial and continuous. The echoing announcements of arrivals and departures seemed to be emanating from a huge machine both timeless and deathless.
Dex stood for a few minutes on the short line that moved rapidly up to the teller. Tomorrow, when they had reached the town, she would wire her bank for money. The years of saving had been for something, after all, she realized. With the money in her fist, she could buy a good cabin on a couple of acres beside the lake. In time, they would expand the house. Until then, they would scrape along on whatever she could earn either working in town or free lance. Even out there in the sticks, there must be some companies who could benefit from her knowledge of advertising.
But all of that was tomorrow and the days after.
"We'll check into the local hotel," Dex said as they walked along the rickety platform.
The air smelled of grass and spring wildflowers. A noontime siren went off far in the distance. The sound curved across the bright sky airy with slow moving puffs of clouds. The train pulled out of the station and gathered speed, cutting through the hills. The two women paused to watch it disappear. Dex crossed her arms over the rumpled mackinaw that she held. Neither of them had slept during the five-hour ride. Now a sense of desolation born of fatigue surrounded them. Who could predict what the future held, here, without city or friends to lean on?