“My! You say thirty-nine percent? Well! What a challenge!”
“Challenge?” Vicky asked.
Albert grinned. “About seven percent of women—an unscientific guess, not based on a study like yours—think their boobs are too big. Maybe another ten percent think theirs are just right. Which leaves eighty-three percent who think theirs are too small. Men—I’d guess ninety-five percent of men wish their cocks were bigger, no matter what size they are.” He shrugged. “The challenge of designing men’s scanties is to make them think their undies make them look bigger. And that is one hell of a challenge.”
He would solve the problem.
* * *
My father had chosen two stores in Manhattan—Midtown and the Upper East Side—and one in Stamford, Connecticut, one in Boston, one in Jersey City, one in Philadelphia, and one in Washington for our experiment in selling S-M merchandise.
He stocked them pretty much the way Sal suggested, with steel handcuffs and leg irons, leather versions of the same, and leather collars. He expanded each store’s stock of nipple clips. The printed instructions that went with them suggested they could also be attached to the labia or the foreskin of an uncircumcised male.
One item he allowed surprised me. It was a gag, consisting of a soft rubber ball pierced with a narrow strap that could be buckled behind the neck, making it impossible to spit out the ball. Of course, the subject’s hands would have to be cuffed behind the back.
We wondered if we would not run into trouble with local authorities, once we began selling this kind of stuff. It didn’t happen.
Sal visited the stores and asked for volunteers to model these things. In every store, at least one young woman did volunteer.
Some of these girls were pretty good actors. I went to the Midtown store and watched a girl model. She stripped to Cheeks scanties, black of course, and then the woman manager cuffed her hands behind her back and locked on a pair of leg irons. Finally she shoved the bright red ball into the girl’s mouth and tightened and buckled the strap. The girl took it for a few minutes, stumbling around the room and showing off. Then she began to struggle and shake her head and moan. When tears began to run down her cheeks, the manager unfastened the gag, and the girl hung her head and wept. Another clerk came in and led the “victim” out of the showroom. Five minutes later, out of sight of the customer of course, the girl was laughing and drinking a Coke.
The customer, embarrassed at having put an innocent kid through such discomfort, bought a set of cuffs, shackles, and gag. I wondered how he thought some other young woman was going to react at being restrained the same way.
Oddly, this line of merchandise generated curiosity in Vicky and Melissa. One evening when we were having dinner in my father’s apartment, Melissa went in the bedroom and came out carrying handcuffs and leg irons, which my father locked on her. She blushed and grinned and muttered something to the effect, “Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”
Vicky volunteered that she would try it, just for a minute. My father took the things off Melissa and handed them to me. I fastened them on Vicky. She walked around the living room, lurching and awkward. The one minute was enough. She demanded I take them off, and I did.
In our own apartment, later, she told me she wanted to try them again. I picked up a set at one of the stores. That night after dinner she stripped to a pair of panties and a bra, and I locked the chains on her. She tugged at the cuffs, apparently pretending she really was a prisoner. She did not stumble in the shackles, quickly gauging the length of the chain and the length of the steps she could take. She walked around the apartment. When she sat down beside me I felt the crotch of her panties and found she had soaked them. I pulled them down, and we made love without removing the cuffs or shackles.
She liked them—within limits. Sometimes she wore the handcuffs and leg irons for a whole evening.
This kind of stuff sold. It was never a major profit center, but Cheeks sold handcuffs, leg irons, and gags. The nature of the business was changing.
* * *
Larkin Albert called us to his studio to see what he had designed. My father, Sal, and I went to his little show.
Larkin—I had begun to call him by his first name—had hired four models to show us the line he knew would sell. Charlie Han had worked the items up for him. It was all of ribbed combed cotton, a sort of knit with some stretch in it.
Okay. The four models came out wearing Larkin’s designs. Each of them was a young man with a shaved and lightly oiled body. One of them was muscle-bound.
The underwear was striking. The big-line companies like Jockey had been selling slingshots for years. No one would be shocked by bikini styles in men’s briefs. Larkin had designed thongs. Straps circled the hips to attach front to rear. One of the designs had no rear. A string ran from the back end of the pouch, up along the anus, and reached the string coming around from the corners of the pouch. Most of the styles, though, had a definite pouch in front and a stretched cover for the butt.
My father shrugged and spoke quietly to me. “Colored jockstraps.”
“Maybe,” I whispered. “But … I think there’s something more to it.”
There was.
Standing before us at this point was a handsome young man with an out-of-season tan and a hairless torso. His male parts filled the pouch of his thong. In fact, they stretched it.
“Ken,” said Larkin. “Pull it down and let the: gentlemen see how you are hung.”
Ken smiled nervously, but he pulled the thong down to his knees.
His penis was nothing unusual. He didn’t have a hard-on. He had a normal, circumcised penis.
Larkin gestured to him to pull the thong up again. With the cotton stretched over him again, he looked huge.
Larkin had solved his problem. And the solution was simple. The pouch was sewn to capture the scrotum as well as the penis. In other men’s briefs, and in jockstraps, the scrotum and testicles were allowed to hang between the legs. In Larkin’s designs, the scrotum was lifted like breasts in a bra. The pouch was filled, overfilled. And this shoved the penis forward and made it look twice its real size.
The other three models were told to shove their thongs down and let us see what they had. One was bigger than average. The others were average. But with their underpants in place, they looked like they were hung like horses.
Cheeks had another line of merchandise. It would prove highly profitable.
38
JERRY
As my son Len became more and more involved in my business, I told him more and more of the history until he knew most of it. I did not tell him much about the Boiardo feud in Philadelphia. I told him that the man who paid for his first pair of Gucci loafers was a don. That was, of course, Don Enrico. I told him the old man was dead, but not exactly how he got dead.
That whole deal in Philadelphia was a pisser, an absolute pisser. Don Napolitano—Ice Cream—was whacked out. Don Enrico—the Chef—was whacked out. And we’d had, supposedly, a cozy relationship with both of them. Jimmy Lead Eyes told Sal we had to be nuts. Then Jimmy Lead Eyes got whacked out. He was found with a cigarillo between his teeth and a bullet hole between his eyes.
This kind of stuff wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. The problem was that men like Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, Cosa Nostra statesmen who had worked to keep the peace, were gone. A new breed of dons had come along, cowboys who wanted to make their mark fast—amateurs compared to the old guard. John Gotti was typical of them: reckless and flamboyant, impulsive and cruel, swaggering. Some of the older capi complained he was giving Cosa Nostra a bad name.
What was more, for the time being there was no capo di tutti capi and no commission. There was no one who could demand peace and enforce it. In a real sense, nobody was in charge. Nobody could make rules and make them stick.
In Philadelphia there was no one I could go to and say, “Look, I’m not a made guy and don’t belong to nobody. I’ll cooperate with anybody. Just tel
l me who.”
If there had been anyone I could have talked to, I figure he might have said something like this to me: “Okay, Cooper. You exchanged the kiss of peace with the Chef. Then you turned around and let Ice Cream collect dues from your workers, plus you hired his truck to deliver your merchandise. You’re right when you say you don’t belong to nobody. You’re fair game for anybody.”
At least we would have known where we stood. As it was, we didn’t know from what direction the knife might come. It was possible nobody gave a damn about us. The dons had plenty to worry about without giving much attention to four little stores selling women’s undies. Both dons had been a little condescending, after all.
We had four stores in Philly. Sal and I talked about closing them. But to hell with that. We might get run out of town. We weren’t going to just run.
“It may be dangerous,” Sal warned me. “Those guys don’t play fair.”
“It may be,” I agreed.
We weren’t about to have other truckloads of merchandise blown up. I sent Sal over to Jersey City to talk to the heirs of Tony Provenzano. We arranged that our stuff would be driven from New York to Jersey in New York trucks driven by Teamsters. In Jersey the stuff was transferred to other trucks and driven to Philly in tracks driven by other Teamsters men who worked for the Provenzanos. I figured none of the Boiardos, one family or another of them, would want to provoke a gang war by attacking those trucks. And I was right. Our shipments went through without trouble. The off-loading and reloading ran up our costs, but it was worth it.
Okay, I was right. But I had fucked the Boiardos, both clans of them, the Enrico Boiardos and the Napolitano Boiardos—which were still active families in spite of the fact that their dons had been whacked out. One time the Enrico heirs highjacked a truck driven by a Jersey Teamster—to test the waters, I suppose. The heirs of Tony Pro took quick and effective revenge, killing a nephew of Don Enrico.
What the hell? It wasn’t my fault. If these people were animals, they were animals. I didn’t make them animals. They didn’t get that way from anything I’d done. You can rationalize anything, anything at all, with thinking like that.
* * *
One evening I was sitting at a table in Bookbinder’s. I was negotiating with a painting contractor about repainting the inside of two stores. He was supposed to meet me for dinner, and he was late.
“Excuse me. You’re Jerry Cooper, aren’t you?”
I looked up into the face of the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life, more beautiful even than Giselle, though I am reluctant ever to say that.
I’m not sure what it was about her that made her the most beautiful girl I had ever seen; all I knew was that she was. She had high, visible cheekbones, and her jawbone clearly defined her chin. Her face was long, her hairline high, giving her a tall forehead. Her shoulder-length glossy blond hair was simply styled to hang smooth, with no sharp lines. She wore no makeup. Her eyes were blue, light blue with little flecks of green. Her nose was straight and short. Her lips were full and sensuous.
Her face was, in fact, flawless.
She was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans that rode her hips and would have revealed her navel except for her tucked-in yellow Izod shirt. She was, in fact, not dressed for Bookbinder’s, and was a little conspicuous there.
“I’m called Filly—Filly O’Reilly. My name is Philadelphia, actually, but everybody calls me Filly., like a little female horse. You wouldn’t be aware of this, but I work for you.”
“Really? Where?”
“Walnut Street. Can you spare me a minute? I hope I’m not interrupting or interfering, but can you spare me just a minute? You’re waiting for someone. I’ll get right up as soon as he—or she—comes in. Okay?”
“Sure. Sit down.”
I was already fantasizing about her.
She sat down in the chair to my right. “I have a little problem,” she said, “and—”
She was interrupted by a waiter who asked if she would like a drink. She hesitated. I said of course she would. She asked for a martini up, with an olive.
“A problem with your job?” I asked her.
“Sort of. It’s embarrassing, Mr. Cooper. My problem is with Mr. Nero.”
I nodded. I could imagine. I knew he banged the help, and I could understand he would never overlook Filly O’Reilly. “The problem is?” I asked, trying to sound sympathetic.
“When he comes to Philadelphia, he wants to … screw. Wants to? He insists! And he hurts me, Mr. Cooper. He’s a monster. He’s more than I can take. Did you know that? Did you know he’s got…”
I knew what she meant.
“After he screws me, I’m sore for days,” she went on. “The last time I was bleeding and had to see a doctor. The doctor said Mr. Nero had torn me. If he’d take it a little easy, it might not be so bad. But he won’t. And he won’t leave me alone, either. Honestly, Mr. Cooper, I’m afraid of him. I really am.”
I believed her. This wasn’t the first time a girl had complained of Sal’s size and vigor—though they usually didn’t complain to me.
“What do you think I can do about it?” I asked.
“I figured you’d have more influence over him than I do. I’ve got none, almost.”
“Why don’t you just tell him no, you won’t go out with him?”
“I’m afraid he’ll fire me. Anyway, he knows where I live. He took me home one night, late. I’m afraid he’ll come to my door. Mr. Nero is a scary guy. I don’t think he’ll take no for an answer.”
The waiter brought her martini. She took a demure sip. She was a girl of great contrasts. She sipped her drink so modestly I wondered if she would not have drunk it through a straw if she had one.
“How’d you know where to find me?” I asked.
“I overheard Louise calling for your reservation.”
“How come I didn’t see you?”
“I was in the back room, where we model things. I was showing off some hard-on undies. You know … undies that give guys hard-ons. Like that. We don’t come out in the main store when we’re wearing undies and so on.”
I frowned. I didn’t know what to do about this, if anything. What could I do, for that matter?
“You ever see his schlong?” she asked, her eyes widening. “Did you ever see that thing?”
I nodded, quickly adding, “At a urinal,” in case she might get another idea.
She sighed heavily and shook her head. “Hey, I’m not a virgin, Mr. Cooper. I’ve had ’em in me, plenty. And … if you say anything to him, he’ll probably tell you he always gives me a nice present afterward. Which doesn’t make me a hooker. I’m not that, goddamnit. If he just wasn’t so fuckin’ big! Or if he’d just take it a little easy. And he … he’s connected, isn’t he? He’s—well, he’s one of those guys. Isn’t he?”
I had a dumb idea. “Tell you what,” I said to Filly. “When you see him next, tell him you’re my girl and I don’t like it when you do it with anybody else.”
She grinned. “Mr. Cooperrrr…” she purred.
The painting contractor never appeared. I had dinner with Filly, then took her to my room in the Rittenhouse.
When she was naked and I dropped my underpants, she reached for my cock and squeezed it lightly, gently. “Now there,” she said, “is a schlong a girl could learn to love!”
I ran my fingertips over her boobs. They were big, but not awkwardly big; firm, yet soft. They seemed to welcome my hands, and when I squeezed them she arched her back and chuckled. She had a great bush of pubic hair that had never been trimmed, and when I ran a finger through it and into her moist, slippery crevice she grabbed my hand and led me to her clit. It was engorged. I mean, Filly had an erection, about like what I had.
“I want you to fuck me out of my mind,” she said. “And I’m going to give it to you like you never had before.”
Giselle and Melissa were by no means the only women I’d ever had, but generally I stayed faithful to the wom
en who satisfied me. I had no formal obligation to Melissa. We were not married and had never talked about marrying. I cherished her, but I did not love her.
Before that night in the Rittenhouse Hotel was over, I had fantasies of settling a nice piece of money on Melissa and moving Filly into a new apartment in Manhattan.
I could smooth some of her rough edges … me, a rough-edged guy if ever there was one smoothing off a girl! But I could march her around New York, my twenty-two-year-old chick with the perfect, youthful face and the luscious body, dressed in style the way I could dress her. Hell, I was sixty years old that year. I could put aside my forty-year-old mistress and take a twenty-two-year-old.
Or maybe I could keep both of them! How about that? Melissa and Filly, both! It was the dumbest idea I ever had, but that was how much I wanted this girl. I thought of myself as a sort of worldly guy, who knew his way around. Filly needed no great skill to make a fool of me.
39
I had no great difficulty in getting Sal off Filly. To him, she was just another piece of ass. He could have cared less.
“Kiddo. When a cunt takes money, that makes her a whore. I was dropping a couple hundred on her every time. Not bangles and beads—cash.”
“She claims you hurt her. And you know why, and how. She says her doctor told her you—”
“She never said any such thing to me. I’ve had gals say that. She never did.”
I didn’t know which of them to believe. I had never entirely trusted Sal. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even sure he had really fired the shot that killed Jimmy Hoffa. At that point I was ready to believe the girl, and I forgot what Sal had said.
“Tell you something else,” he said. “Some guy called me. Name of Spencer. He told me the broad was bad news. I told him to mind his own fuckin’ business. What was I gonna do, be intimidated by a piece of tail? Anyway, I figured the guy had something in mind, so I brushed him off.”
The Secret Page 17
