The Secret (25 page)

“We’re an odd pair to be having a baby,” she said.

I stood up, went behind her chair, embraced her, and kissed her neck. “There’s something I’ve never said to you,” I whispered in her ear. Tears were running down my cheeks. “At first I was afraid to, for fear it might … spoil things. Then the failure got to be a habit. But I hope you know. I hope you’ve known—”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And I love you, too.”

“Then that settles it, doesn’t it? I love you, and you love me, and we’ve made a baby. The decision is up to you. But my choice is to go ahead and have it.”

Vicky nodded. “If it’s okay,” she said. “I mean healthy. If the tests show it’s okay.”

“Vicky,” I said, “if you and I are going to be mommy and daddy, I think we better get married.”

*   *   *

My father couldn’t believe it. “I threw her at you—or maybe I threw you at her—to get your mind off Tinker-bell. But … Christ, Lenny! Didn’t Vicky use the Pill?”

“A woman can take the Pill only so many years, and she’d taken it a
great
many. Then her periods—well, they became irregular. I mean, for a while she didn’t have any. So she stopped taking it. Then they came again, and she started taking it again. So—”

“Well I think you’re lucky. She’s a whole lot older than you, but she’s one hell of a woman.”

We were married by a justice of the peace. I don’t have to say why. The ceremony was held on the terrace of a country club in Westchester County, witnessed by a hundred invited guests and all the people in the swimming pool.

Vicky was married in a rose-colored dress, since this was not her first wedding. I wore black tie, as did my father and Vicky’s son. Melissa was bridesmaid and wore yellow.

The presence of the Friends of Friends could not be denied. Twenty times I was clasped in an enthusiastic
abbraccio
by men I had never met. A score of other times it was a painfully tight handshake, with a fervent
“Mazel tov.”
The Jews and Italians embraced each other and traded greetings and jokes as if they had been best friends all their lives.

Everyone was relieved, I think, by the simplicity of the ceremony. We declared our love, and that was it.

The Jews adopted the Italian custom of putting an envelope in the bride’s purse, a copious silk bag she carried for the purpose. After the reception and dinner and joyous dancing, Vicky and I retired to our bridal suite in a Scarsdale hotel. We poured the envelopes out on the bed. To my utter astonishment, we counted $58,000 in cash. No glassware. No silver. No toasters. Money.

*   *   *

Our little daughter was born squalling-healthy. A new set of envelopes appeared, containing enough money to pay for the girl’s college education—after it had lain in an investment account for eighteen years.

We discussed her name. Vicky’s maternal grandmother had been Filomena, and she favored that name. For some reason I will never fathom, that produced a hard emotional negative from my father. He all but begged Vicky to name the little girl something else. Vicky’s mother was Katerina. We settled on Catherine. Catherine Cooper.

Though we had other resources, we used the $58,000 as a down payment on a house in Greenwich, Connecticut. If it had been understood that I was a Jew and Vicky was Italian we would have been limited to one or two neighborhoods. As it was, nobody knew it, and we bought a house in the Riverside neighborhood, between the railroad tracks and the beaches of Long Island Sound. Catherine Cooper would grow up on a WASP street, apparently a WASP herself.

My father glanced at the tall old trees, at the manicured lawns, at the saltbox houses and the Saabs and Volvos in the driveways. He shook his head. “Shit,” he muttered.

42

Four years out of law school, I was made a partner at Gottsman, Scheck & Shapiro. A man who had been there seven years and was passed over left the firm. Others resented me. But I was a rainmaker.

I was elected to the board of directors of Interboro Fruit. Anthony Lucchese didn’t like that, but Vicky spoke to him as she spoke to everybody, in direct terms. “You expect a gift. Well, you’re going to get it, so don’t sulk if it doesn’t come as soon as you’d like. It was your father’s business. Now it’s
my
business. You’re in line to inherit it. But graduate from college first. I want an M.B.A. in administration.”

Nothing else that I did in business was as interesting as my small role with Cheeks. It was not just the line of merchandise, which God knew was interesting, but I was watching—now participating in—the growth of a major new business that would soon explode into a billion-dollar enterprise.

The number of stores grew. By late in 1991 there were a hundred eighteen stores and national coverage. The line had broadened immensely. I didn’t like it, and my father didn’t like it, but the line of sado-masochistic merchandise we offered became a big profit center, as Sal had insisted it would.

Besides handcuffs and leg irons and thumb cuffs and toe cuffs, blindfolds and gags, cock rings and spreader bars, we sold an assortment of whips, including riding crops and cat-o’-nine-tails.

The cat-o’-nine-tails was especially popular. Since it was not a single-strand whip, it did not usually cut the way a whip was all too likely to do. Users could develop a skill for using it, causing just enough pain to be sensual without risking injury. The flat strands landed across the naked buttocks or across the shoulders, spreading the impact over six inches or more of flesh, causing pain and raising welts, yet not cutting the skin, drawing blood, or making scars. Though some men took whippings, most of the victims were women, and they were more likely to show bruises on their wrists from tugging on their cuffs than they were to show welts.

Personally, I couldn’t imagine buying and using cats or whips or crops. Vicky liked to be chained, but she would not have submitted to flogging—and I would not have flogged her. But—the world has all kinds of people. I tried not to be judgmental.

“You’re naive, kid,” Sal told me. “It’s a kinky world, like it or not. Hey, you wanta see this kind of stuff in use? I can take you and show you.”

He did. One night he took me to an establishment in Brooklyn. It was an ordinary-looking bar on the ground floor, though occupied by more gays and transvestites than was ordinary. He spoke to the bartender, who called out the manager. Sal handed the man a couple of bills, and he led us along a hallway to a door that looked like the door to a supplies closet but was the entrance to the cellar under the bar.

It
was
a cellar: damp and dark, with brick floors and walls. It was divided into six or seven medium-size rooms. The manager took us to one of those rooms.

A naked man hung by his wrists from the ceiling. He could have stood, actually, but his knees had buckled, and so he hung. His ankles were chained together. He was gagged with a rubber ball strapped in his mouth. Short, narrow straps were buckled around his cock. A dog chain some eight feet long was clipped to one of those straps.

He was being “disciplined” by a dominatrix who wore a motorcycle cap with white bill and a pair of knee-high boots, and that was all. She held the chain, and as we walked in she gave a yank on it. The guy grunted deep in his throat.

“Stand up!”
she barked. “Stand up, you bastard.”

He straightened his knees and stood.

She handed the chain to a man standing with his back to the wall. This guy didn’t work there. He was a spectator, the same as I was. There were maybe ten of us, men and women.

“Don’t pull too hard. We don’t want to pull it off.”

The man gave it a tentative pull, just enough to elicit a moan.

The dominatrix picked up a cat-o’-nine-tails. “Want a whack?” she asked.

“Uhmm-huhmm,” the guy muttered through the rubber ball. He seemed to be begging for it.

She didn’t pretend. She spread her legs, brought the cat back across her shoulder, and gave the man a backhand lash across his butt. The sound of the impact of leather on flesh was sickening. A choking scream was stifled by the rubber ball.

“Want some more?”

He was crying, but he grunted an affirmative and nodded his head. She obliged him.

Well … the same kind of thing was going on in two other rooms. Spectators watched in dumb fascination. Whatever
I
might think of what I was seeing, these people were turned on by it; and I knew some of them were wondering if they could take it, or if they should volunteer.

A mannish-looking redheaded girl was being flogged by another woman. Her back and butt were criss-crossed with red welts.

“Lovers,” the manager said. “They take turns. Next week Wilma will be doing the flogging, and Carla will be taking it.” I could believe it. Carla’s back and butt showed white scars.

As we left, a lovely blond girl was being led in handcuffs toward one of the rooms.

“A lot of those people watching will get ideas from what they’re seeing,” Sal told me. “They’ll go home and make a lot of sore butts.”

In fact, we got a letter about how people used the cat.

Dear Sirs,

I thought you might like to read a story about how my husband and I use our cat-o’-nine-tails. Weekends we watch a lot of TV football. He likes it more than I do, and we’ve found a great way to make sure it’s not boring for me.

What we do is bet on one of the Saturday college games, one of the Sunday pro games, and the Monday night pro game. We pick our teams. Whenever my team scores, my husband has to give me five dollars for every point scored. A field goal costs him $15, and a touchdown with extra point costs him $35. I’m building one hell of a Christmas fund.

But
I have to take a whack from the cat for every point his team scores. For a field goal I have to take 3 across the shoulders. For a touchdown with extra point I get seven across my bottom. This makes the games a hell of a lot more interesting. You can imagine me rooting for my team’s defense!

Notre Dame didn’t score at all Saturday, so I got off with nothing. But on Monday night he had the Vikes, and they scored 42! With the 17 whacks I’d taken Sunday afternoon, I didn’t sit down comfortably until about Thursday.

We like your handcuffs too, and I wear them during the games.

I don’t know what we’ll do after the football season is over. Basketball scores are too high. Baseball we can work out.

Sincerely,

Matty L.

It was my suggestion that we publish a catalog and mail it widely. Frederick’s of Hollywood did. Victoria’s Secret did. So did a few other merchants of erotic merchandise, some of them sleazy. They knew what they were doing, though, even the sleazeballs. Their catalogs were printed on slick paper, and the finest color reproduction was used.

We didn’t list everything. In point of fact, we couldn’t have. We selected about two dozen of our best items, had them photographed on handsome models by professional photographers, and listed them in the catalog. We flew models to Paris and London and to beaches in the Caribbean. We spared little expense on this catalog. It was erotic and classy and won widespread attention.

For the best example, we offered a black fishnet teddy trimmed with black satin, with attached garters, to be worn with lace-top fishnet stockings. We pictured it with black panties, but obviously they were optional. Black, patent-leather, stiletto-heel shoes completed the outfit. We used two models to show this set. They were twins, and one seemed to be looking out from a mirror—except that she was reaching out and beginning to embrace her sister.

In the month after the catalog was mailed, we sold 35,786 of the teddies and almost as many of the stockings. Just 10,449 of the customers who ordered the teddy also ordered the panties. The shoes sold for $149, and we sold just 8,337 pairs.

Other merchandise offered in the catalog also sold well. Catalog selling was a whole new line of business.

From that point on, I received a salary as a director—$40,000 per annum for my part-time participation.

My partner share of the firm’s income drew me $54,000 from Gottsman, Scheck & Shapiro.

If I had been taken in by Hale & Dorr, I wouldn’t have been doing that well.

*   *   *

Roger Middleton, our director from Allied Chemical Bank, lived in Greenwich as Vicky and I did—though in what was called Back Country, a far spiffier neighborhood than ours in Riverside.

He and his wife invited Vicky and me to dinner. Catherine was by now old enough to be left with a baby-sitter, so we accepted the invitation gratefully and showed up at seven on a Saturday evening at an Edwardian stone house that would have been called a mansion anywhere else but Greenwich.

We sat down on the stone-paved terrace for cocktails, and after a little discussion about the weather and so on, Roger remarked, “Well, the three of us make almost a quorum of the Gazelle board of directors.”

His wife, Ariana—a tall, slender, blond woman with prominent teeth—was unable to conceal her skepticism over inviting into her home an upwardly mobile New York Jew whose family business was intimate undergarments and a woman who was as connected as a person could get.

Roger quickly made it plain that he had not invited us simply to be social. He had something on his mind.

“How much attention have you given,” he asked, “to our suppliers? I mean, are you aware of who
makes
our merchandise?”

“We’ve got a very wide variety of suppliers,” I said. “Most of our merchandise is, in fact, made for us on special orders.”

“Much of it by Charlie Han,” said Roger. “Or by friends of his.”

I nodded. “And you are going to tell me he’s a sweatshop operator. Actually, Charlie owns no shops at all anymore. He takes contracts for merchandise and subcontracts to others.”

“Yes, and those subcontractors subcontract to still others. They try to build a barrier of insulation between the sweatshops and the ultimate seller of the goods. But that barrier is being broken. New York State inspectors and federal inspectors are tracing the line from sweatshop to seller.”