Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20A | 20B | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25-26 | 27 | 28-29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35-36 | 37 | 38A | 38B | 38C | 38D | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42-43 | 44-45 | 46 | 47 | 48-49A | 49B | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57A | 57B | 58-59| 60 | 61 | 62 | 63

PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

64

IN THE FOLLOWING week, Trey was careful to tell Marina everything that had happened at the speak—sometimes in boring detail—and she appreciated that he was trying to earn her trust. Some of his stories made her laugh. Some made her cringe with vicarious embarrassment. She got to know his people and some of the regulars through his more detailed stories and descriptions. His regular girls were still on strike on Marina’s behalf, which she found oddly touching. He needed that revenue, but he hadn’t mentioned being indecent with Marina at all, much less pushed her for anything. All he had to do was ask her to be a good wife, tell his girls Marina had participated, and he’d have his earners back.

But he hadn’t.

What he did do now was slowly kiss her awake in the late mornings when it was time to get up, before they settled in to talking about books and trading notes. Then he’d kiss her again, long, slow kisses she was beginning to enjoy and wondering if those tingles in her between were where lust started.

She didn’t dare talk to Dot about those—or anything else having to do with Trey. Dot had been jealous of Trey before. Now she was almost unbearable about it, having found out Gio was in love with her, that Dot was also harmed because of the bet, and that her father wasn’t about to allow her to take up with him again.

Bishop had been furious they’d gone to the speak—Gio had gone to him the very next day and ratted them out—and Dot was grounded for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Marina or Gio: he knew Marina would try to talk Dot out of her foolishness and Gio wouldn’t put up with Dot’s willfulness. But no matter what, Marina would buckle under Dot’s nagging and Gio was still a Sicilian mafioso mired in the guts of the Machine.

So when Dot was allowed to compete at an open-call dance contest, Marina took the opportunity to beg Trey to go.

And bring Gio.

Trey no more wanted to cross Bishop Albright than Gio did, but he asked because Marina wanted him to and he gave Marina just about everything she wanted. Lo and behold, Bishop Albright agreed, although, Trey said with a dark look at Marina, not without much begging on his part and much growling on Bishop Albright’s part.

Gio was thrilled and terrified.

Dot wasn’t to know until he arrived, and then she wouldn’t be allowed to be with him out of earshot of her father.

“She screwed that pooch,” Trey muttered.

“She’s better off now than she was when she thought Gio didn’t like her anymore,” Marina countered.

“How’s that?” Trey demanded. “She isn’t going to get what she wants. Ever.”

“She knows he didn’t break up with her because he wanted to, and that he loves her.”

“We’ll see how long that lasts before she gets mad and does something willful and stupid, and gets you to think up a plan, because you can’t tell her no and make it stick.” Marina said nothing. “Yeah, see, you agree or you’d have argued about it.”

Marina sighed.

The contest itself was incredibly fun, all those couples in their pretty outfits twirling and sliding to happy music. It made Marina wish she could dance like that, but even if she had time to learn, she wouldn’t be able to: Trey wasn’t interested and he would never allow her to dance that way with someone else, not even a man like Dot’s dance partner.

Gio was simply ecstatic Dot had listened to and accepted his explanation of what he did at the speak and what he was doing with all those women. Marina had not told her what Gio’s job used to be.

Dot was still a little skittish around him, but with Bishop Albright chaperoning, it was enough for her.

For now, at least.

Dot and her partner came in fifth place, which, amongst a hundred four couples, was pretty good for amateurs.

Since Dot couldn’t go anywhere with Gio, the three of them said good night. Trey and Marina dropped Gio off at the speak and continued on to Kresge’s. It was there Marina decided to broach the topic of indecency herself.

“I have an idea,” she said when he seated her.

“Hold that thought, Sugar. I have to tend my business.”

Marina watched him go to the counter and place their order, then hurry to the back restrooms. She dug her book out of her bag and began to read.

Soon enough, the booth wiggled a little. She looked up from her book to start the conversation again, but gasped when she saw a completely different man who was looking at her as if she were … interesting. She gulped a little.

“Hullo, sweetheart,” he drawled, his eyes heavy-lidded.

“Uh … hello?” she asked in a small voice. Was she supposed to be polite or not? She didn’t know but she’d been taught that being polite at all times didn’t hurt anyone.

“What’s a nice girl like you doin’ here all alone on a Saturday night?”

“Um, I … ” Her brain wasn’t working because she was scared and she didn’t know why.

“Jimmy.”

Marina closed her eyes in relief at Trey’s voice and his tone.

“Dunham!” Jimmy said jovially, but with a touch of irritation. “Haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays. Whatcha up to?”

“Been busy runnin’ my speak,” he said affably enough.

“Your speak?”

“1520 Main. I own it now.”

“No kiddin’,” he said in awe. “Proud of you, man.”

“Thanks.”

“I bet the girls are really crawling over you now.”

“They know better. Got married.”

Jimmy looked genuinely shocked. “Married! You?!”

“Yeup. Got a bun in the oven, too.”

Jimmy smirked then. “Aw, I see. Got buckshot in your ass, didja?”

“Nope.”

Jimmy craned his neck around the rest of the busy drugstore. “You leave the little missus at home? Naw, I know you better’n that. If you had a piece on the side, you wouldn’t’a brought her here. Where’s your woman? I wanna know what kinda looker you got to marry you.”

“You’re sittin’ with her,” Trey said flatly with narrowed eyes.

Marina knew that look.

Jimmy did too, apparently, because he glanced at Marina, then away again quickly, as if Trey would kill him if he looked too much longer. He slid out of the booth and vaguely nodded in Marina’s direction. “Ma’am,” he murmured before saying something respectful to Trey, then slunk away. Marina turned clear around to watch him shimmy through the fountain customers and skedaddle out the door.

“Be right back,” Trey muttered.

Lickety split he was back with her catawba flip and his lime rickey. “Marina,” he began. “I like you all gussied up, hair, makeup, but now we got another problem, which I didn’t think of, which is my usual mode of operation.”

“What?”

“I ain’t the only cat who thinks you’re interestin’ lookin’.”

Marina blinked. His speech was lazy, which meant he was upset. “I … ”

“You ain’t pretty.” That hurt oh, so much. “You’re never gonna be. You’re mighty attractive. You catch a man’s eye an’ keep it. On the upside of cute. Not handsome, the way it’s meant on some girls. You just got somethin’ about you. Sweet and bubbly—”

“I am not bubbly,” she muttered. “You’re seeing the shadows from Dot.”

“‘The shadows from Dot,’” he mused. “That was a right fine way o’ sayin’ that. Sometimes your words don’t come so you say a lot of ’em. Sometimes they come so sharp an’ fine, they’re genius.”

Marina gulped and wondered why it was so difficult for her to take compliments. Even with her sewing, she felt completely at ease hearing Mother complimented, but if anyone did it directly to her, she wanted to hide. So why was it important he tell her she was pretty? She’d be just as embarrassed as usual if he did.

“Bubbly’s not right, you got a point, but there’s somethin’ there. A man just knows you’d appreciate him and make him feel like a man. You an’ Gio don’t care for each other, but he still feels ’at. It’s just he likes Dot’s bubblin’ over ’cuz he ain’t like that an’ he never met a girl like that who wanted to bubble all over him, make him feel special, see? You’re both smart as whips, just in different ways, an’ those ways suit us. I told you that before.”

She nodded, more at ease now that he admitted bubbly wasn’t the right word, and what he had said was exactly what she needed to hear.

“An’ know what else? Now, you’re gonna be all embarrassed again an’ this is a public place, but I’mma tell you anyway. I’ve seen you naked, Sugga, an’ you got a body a man’d sell his soul to touch.”

She gasped and clapped her hands to her mouth. “Trey!” she choked.

“Now, I ain’t kiddin’ an’ that ain’t me the good friend sayin’ it. It’s me the man your husband sayin’ it.”

“I’m fat!” she hissed.

“You’re pregnant. You weren’t when I got you that way.”

“I meant then! And then after the baby comes!”

“You would be if you let yourself go,” he agreed, “but you keep on workin’ hard as you do an’ walkin’ or whatnot, an’ it’ll stay the way I like it. Nice tits, ass, and fat in all the right places, what where a man can hold on.”

She whimpered.

“I ain’t done. You seen my granddaddy. That’ll be me in forty years, so you an’ me can be fat’n’happy together.”

Marina gulped, the vision of them together in forty years, old, fat, and gray, comforted her so much it was proof she was tetched in the head. “Your grandmother’s tall and slender. And silver. She’s pretty.”

“Handsome,” he corrected. “But she’s kinda like Dot. You and she’d get along like gangbusters. She wrote and asked me when she can come visit, but I ain’t had a chance to get back with her. I said I’d talk to you an’ see. No need droppin’ visitors on your head.”

At that moment, their food came, and as they were both hungry, they dug in with gusto.

“So what’s your idea?”

“What if … That drug, is there—”

His jaw dropped.

“No, Trey, listen. I’d be willing to … If it could help—”

“No,” he snapped. “I want you conscious and natural.”

“When?” she asked, irritated.

“I don’t know! Marina—”

“If you will please allow me to explain,” she said with quiet dignity.

He waved a hand.

“I understand that you’re losing money because your girls won’t come back until you and I have been indecent to my satisfaction.”

His mouth tightened.

“I also realize you could lie to them and say we had so they would come back and do their jobs again, but either you have and they don’t believe you or you haven’t.”

“They ain’t gonna buy anything I say,” he sneered. “They’re too savvy for that. The second I say it, they’ll be over’t the house wantin’ all the details to verify it.”

Marina’s breath caught. “Uh … ”

“Yeah, so there’s your fair warning.”

“I could—” She cleared her throat. “How would they know I’m not lying?”

“You’re probably a good liar, but you ain’t that good. Too many things you can’t know and questions you can’t answer.”

Marina sighed and closed her eyes. “All right then. That’s just another reason for you to, uh … the, uh, sweet tea.”

“Marina, I don’t like you when you’re high,” he gritted out. “How many times I gotta tell you this?”

“Yes, but my idea is different!” she whispered, leaning over the table toward him. “You said I was given too much, didn’t you?”

“You had to have been,” he grumbled.

“Then … don’t … give me much. I would think, if I only had a little bit, I also wouldn’t be as, um—” She felt her face flame.

“Insatiable.”

She gulped. At least Trey wasn’t laughing at her. He never did. “Yes, of course.”

“Liquor will do that.”

“I thought of that, but liquor’s yucky and I would upchuck.”

Trey was wearily shaking his head. “Marina, that is the second-worst idea anybody has ever had.”

“No, Trey, please. Ever since you said you had to figure it out and I just needed to play along when you did, I’ve been dreading it. I want to get it over with.”

“Dreading,” he said flatly. “Havin’ sex with me. Get it over with? That’s worse than being a chore!”

She shrugged helplessly. “What do you expect?” she said softly. “Who likes waiting to take a test she can’t study for but isn’t allowed to fail?” He was so angry, his face was flushed, but this was too important to her. “If you want me to respond correctly, this is the only way I can see.”

His jaw ground. “Is that an ultimatum? A threat?”

Now her irritation was turning into anger. “No. It’s a statement of fact. This is who I am. It’s who you liked when we were courting, and the reason you’re angry with me now is because you want two opposite things. I can go the rest of my life without being indecent. You are the one who can’t make up your mind because you don’t like whoever I was when you got me in the family way. My body knew what to do even though my mind was gone, so I have to assume that with less of the drug, my body will respond the right way without my mind leaving completely or getting in the way. Correct?”

“I can allow as how that might be true,” he muttered.

“You also promised me you wouldn’t be indecent with anybody else, but I have been told over and over again that men have needs. You say you don’t think with … that part. Of you. But if you didn’t have those needs, you wouldn’t look at me like you do when you want to—”

He opened his mouth, but she was not going to allow him to interrupt.

“This is my offer to help you get your girls back. I am not going to be able to do it myself. So … Oh, I know! Think of this as a competition between you and Dot, and I’m giving you a way you might be able to win because I can’t win. You two are tugging on me, but since I live with you, I feel it more from you. But then what? The morning after, will you have won against Dot or am I going to be a loose woman you don’t want to look at?”

Trey winced.

“Or something else entirely different? I honestly don’t understand how you can be on the same list as Dot anyway, since she’s a girl and you’re a man.”

“Oh, God,” he groaned.

“I can’t talk about books with her because she doesn’t like to read,” she whispered earnestly, leaning across the table, “but I can’t gossip with you because you don’t know who we know and you don’t care about what we care about. Why can’t there be two lists?”

He leaned across the table. “Because other than books, there is nothing else I can give you that she can’t. Except this.”

“Give me?” she asked, incredulous. “What can you give me that would fix this? You took my virginity, you took my womb, and now you want to take my virtue?”

His face paled. “I— I— Please explain that,” he croaked.

“How you see me: virtuous or not. You’ve been in a dither because you want something from me but you don’t know what it is. Want. Everything we are is because you wanted something from me and you took it. You see me as virtuous because I didn’t know and I was completely out of character. The second I am willingly indecent with you as myself, you will not think of me as virtuous, therefore I would not be. And now you speak of giving. You know what you gave me? You gave me a baby I didn’t want!”

“I gave you a house and a car and a freezer,” he whispered angrily.

She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, staring at him stonily. “You didn’t give me that. You gave you that. The right tools so I could do the job right. Everything you give me is to make up for what you took and it’s never going to be enough as long as you’re holding my virtue over my head.”

“Oh, my God,” he groaned, looking thunderstruck. He dropped his head back against the booth and closed his eyes. “I hate it when you turn lawyer.”

Marina blinked, startled right out of her anger, but not her point. “Trey, please. Please don’t make me live the rest of my life this way, living with your resentment whether I do it or not. If that’s the way it’s going to be then you can’t be my best friend, either. And if it’s going to be like that, then … I don’t know what then. I have to stay with you because my baby needs a father and I don’t see that you would be a bad one and you will provide for us, but … Father and Mother had separate rooms—”

“No!” he barked, his vehemence surprising her. “Rule number two: You sleep with me.”

“But why?!”

“A chance,” he snapped. “A chance for me to … When I’m ready.”

“And yet when we discuss it, that’s all you do and you get angry and I live in dread of failing your test no matter what happens. I worked out a compromise and you’ll get your girls back. It’s up to you to take it. Meanwhile, I will not talk about this any further and if you’re ever ready to take what you need, don’t blame me for not knowing how to participate correctly.” With that, she picked up her book, found her place, and, feeling very proud of herself, began to read.

64

If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.

Speakeasy staff.

Donations can be made here, if you so desire.