“Oh, God! Oh, God!”
“You taste so good!”
“You gettin’ this, Len? You gettin’ this?”
“Don’t care if he don’t. We’ll do it again.”
“Yeah! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Yeah! Ten times more.”
Sue Ellen pulled back, and Mollie set to work on her.
Well … this kind of stuff has a certain sameness about it. If you’ve seen one of these, you’ve seen them all; and seeing the girls do it is no more a turn-on than the tape.
Hey! I’m not one of those guys that pretends nothing can turn him on. I’ve been with guys at strip shows, where an absolutely gorgeous gal is showing it all, and watched a guy pretend he was just so, so blasé. What’s boring is not the show but him. Who the hell’s he think he is?
Sue Ellen turned over, and Mollie ran her tongue up her ass. Sue Ellen moaned.
Am I gonna say I wasn’t turned on? If I said that, who’d believe me?
The two girls loved it. They loved to watch their tapes. They commented on them as if they were drama critics:
“What we supposed to think you are there, Mollie? A virgin?”
“You know, you lick sloppy sometimes.”
“I wondered when you were gonna come up for breath!”
They begged me, literally, to let one of them tape me taking sex from one of them. I refused. Flatly.
When we had a stack of tape cartridges, maybe a dozen of them, I began to take them, one at a time, into the city to a duplicating service. I knew what those bastards would do. They handed me back my original and my copy, and they sold the dozen or so other copies they had made. In a short time, Sue Ellen and Mollie were underground porn stars, their bodies and faces and voices known to thousands.
I waited a few weeks. Then I went into a tape-rental store on East Forty-third Street.
“Have you got the Sue Ellen and Mollie tapes?”
“Sue Ellen and…?”
“Mollie. Two gals doing it to each other. I hear they’re really something.”
“Well … yeah, I think we got one or two of those. You wanta rent one?”
“I want to buy one.”
“I’d have to have a hundred bucks.”
“How many do you have?”
“I think I got three. Y’understand, they’re not new. They been rented.”
“I’ll give you two hundred for the three.”
“Uh … two-forty.”
“Two twenty-five.”
“Deal.”
I went back to Connecticut and talked to a lawyer. I handed over the tapes and told him to view them. In a few days I talked with him again.
“What do you want, Mr. Cooper?”
“I want a divorce. Quick, easy, and cheap I bought those tapes in a store on East Forty-third Street My wife won’t want her father to find out that she—”
“I get you. Quick, easy, and cheap.”
I let Sue Ellen and Mollie live in the Greenwich house until the lease expired, that is, for a year and a half after I moved out. I paid the rent for that year and a half. That was all she got from me. Her father at Hale & Dorr was furious, mostly at her for letting me off so easy. He guessed something was radically wrong, though, and when Sue Ellen showed up in Boston with Mollie in tow, he knew what was wrong.
* * *
“How’d ya pull it off, for Christ’s sake?” my father asked. I told him, and he said, “Blood will tell. Uncle Harry couldn’t have screwed anybody better.”
I grabbed his hand and shook it. “You think better of me? I mean, seriously?”
He squeezed my hand. “Believe it or not, your mother would think better of you, too. And I mean that seriously.”
36
At twenty-seven, I guess I was smug. I thought I had some reason to be satisfied with myself. I had escaped from my marriage with little fuss and little cost. I was living with a forty-five-year-old mistress whose maiden name was Castellano. I was a rainmaker at Gottsman, Scheck & Shapiro. Only two years out of law school, I was well on my way to being made a partner in a law firm that was very respectable, though it was not one of the preeminent firms in New York City. No one else in my class had done any better.
Of course, I was reluctant to admit that contacts and luck had had a good deal to do with it.
Though we agreed that the firm would not become general counsel to Cheeks, my father sent me several clients. I did not get Charlie Han, but through Charlie I got two of his subcontractors: sweatshop operators. Vicky helped me bring in business besides Interboro Fruit. I need hardly say that she had a wide circle of acquaintances.
My relationship with Vicky broadened and deepened. We vacated the little love-nest apartment where we had been shacking up and rented—that is to say, she rented, chiefly—a much bigger place with a handsome view from the living-room windows of the East River and Roosevelt Island.
Her son was seventeen now and knew about me, which was a little awkward. His name was Anthony, and he was always so called, never Tony. Vicky’s widowed sister moved into the apartment that had been Vicky’s home, shared the rent, and Anthony lived there with her. He had dinner with us two or three times a week. Vicky went to his school functions and took him on his tour of colleges. The day they went to look at Yale, I drove them to New Haven.
The relationship between Vicky and me was anomalous, no getting around it. We had passionate sex together, but neither of us ever spoke the word love. Our living arrangements were as much like marriage as could be, but I never thought of marrying her and was certain she never thought of marrying me.
We were friends. Very good friends. I suppose we didn’t realize how good friends we were.
Cheeks continued to expand. I said to my father that he had to learn to delegate authority, that he could never build the really big business he wanted until he abandoned his personal, hands-on management style. His response was to lease a Lear jet, so he could fly farther, faster—a typical Jerry Cooper reaction.
It was the first time I had any influence on the business. He opened stores in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Louisville, Raleigh, Durham, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami—all within easy range of the little jet.
Then, shortly, he let me influence the business in a more important way.
Cheeks was a partnership, based on handshake agreements. When my mother was alive, she and my father had had a basic understanding that she owned half of his share of the business. But no document said so, and when she died her share was not listed as an asset of her estate. So, far as my father was concerned, Sal owned maybe twenty-five percent. He and Sal had drawing accounts and took money out regularly. So long as neither of them took so much as to alarm or offend the other, it was a good enough arrangement.
While he lived, everyone assumed Meyer Lansky had a small share, maybe five percent. He never demanded anything, but my father sent him a check from time to time, which he cashed without comment. When Lansky died and his estate proved almost insolvent, his heirs made no claim on Cheeks. My father sent a final large check to help with the funeral and other expenses.
Anyway, partnership, I explained to my father, was a dicey way to run a business. It involved too many uncertainties. I convinced him to form a corporation.
On January 18, 1989, Gazelle, Incorporated was chartered by the state of Delaware. The name was a play on Giselle.
It issued ten thousand shares of common stock. My father would own 5,500, which gave him clear control. Sal would own 2,500. I would own five hundred. Vicky bought five hundred. Unknown to my father, she endorsed her share certificates to me immediately—though we did not register the transfer on the records of the company. That left one thousand shares as treasury shares retained by the corporation.
My father was president and treasurer. Sal was vice president. Vicky was second vice president. I was secretary.
The board of directors was: Jerry Cooper, Sal Nero, Vicky Lucchese, Leonard Cooper, and Roger Middleton. Roger Middleton was a vice pr
esident of Allied Chemical Bank, where my father did his business and personal banking.
My father was not accustomed to reviewing his decisions with others, not since my mother died, anyway. Sal often interfered, but he did not try to take a regular part in running the business.
Now, I advised my father, he had to at least go through the motions of doing business as a corporation.
“Meaning I gotta do what?”
“It means you have to hold annual stockholders’ meetings and monthly meetings of the board of directors. You report to the stockholders and directors, tell them what is going on. They can make motions, and votes are taken. Minutes have to be kept.”
“Len … that’s a lot of bullshit.”
“I suppose it is. But it can make an important difference some ways, some times. Like … suppose sometime we wanted to borrow a lot of money—”
“Not likely.”
“Suppose. A bank would run an audit, which would include a look at the company’s minutes.”
“Jesus!”
I remember one meeting in particular, which had to do with expanding our line of merchandise.
Although our signature line was daring, it did not include much that could be called fetishist merchandise. The nipple clips were about as close to that as Cheeks stores came. What was more important, the line did not include S-M items.
Sal raised the question in a directors meeting. “Hey, I think we’re missin’ out on a line of business that could bring in a bundle.” He opened an attaché case he was carrying and took out a pair of shiny, nickel-plated handcuffs, then a pair of leg irons. “They also come in dull black,” he said. “They sell cheap. For a little more money you can get leather ones that strap on, with little padlocks on the buckles. Hey, there’s all kinds of stuff like this.”
He withdrew more items from the attaché case—battery-powered vibrators, one of them shaped like an oversized cock, hard-rubber dildos, a red rubber ball with a strap running through it, to be fastened in a woman’s mouth as a gag …
“Where’d you get those items?” my father asked.
“I picked this stuff up in a place on Forty-eighth Street. He does a business in it.”
“Stocking that kind of stuff would change the whole character of the business, wouldn’t it, Sal?” I asked.
“The business of a business is makin’ money,” he answered. “I’m sayin’ that for a small investment we can add a line that will damn well definitely make money.”
“There’s lots of things we could do that would make money, Sal,” my father said. “I’m not sure I want to get into any of them.”
“It’s related,” Sal argued. “Guys that come in to buy scanties for their girlfriends will—Well, some of them will buy vibrators or handcuffs.”
“There really is a brisk trade in this sort of thing,” said Vicky. She picked up the pair of handcuffs and examined them intently, distastefully, wrinkling her nose. “But it is true that getting into it would change the character of the business.”
Vicky did not keep silent in our meetings. She was a businesswoman in her own right, long accustomed to saying what she thought and to being heard. My father knew her character well and listened when she spoke. Sal, who was used to ignoring the judgments and opinions of women, had learned not to discount what she said.
I remember what she was wearing that day: a pale orange cashmere jacket over off-white linen slacks. Everything under those items was Cheeks merchandise. I had watched her dress that morning and could testify to that.
“It don’t hafta change the character of the business,” Sal argued. “Ya put this kind of stuff in a separate room. Some customers will be lookin’ for that kinda merchandise, and they’ll find it. They’ll ask for it. Lotsa customers won’t.”
“Well, I’d like to suggest something,” said Roger Middleton.
We had learned that Roger was a great deal more than a suit. He looked like a suit. He talked like a suit. But he was a shrewd businessman, with lots of useful ideas. And he was not unacquainted with our line of business.
“Shoot,” my father said. “Let’s hear your suggestion.” He was bored with the discussion. He intended to make a decision very shortly, and he had patience for just so much talk.
“This is an expanding business,” said Roger. “It has huge potential. But, Mr. Cooper, you run it like a country store, if you don’t mind my telling you so.”
“Even if I do mind, you just told me so.”
“Here we have an example. Would offering—” he paused and pointed at the handcuffs lying on the table. “—those bring in more customers, or drive away some who would be offended? We shouldn’t guess. We should find out.”
“How we gonna find out?”
“Two ways. First, we offer that kind of merchandise in a few selected stores and see how it moves. Also, we should do a demographic study of our customer base. Who buys in Cheeks stores? Men mostly? Or women? Young or old? We interview a selected base of customers and see how they’d feel about finding handcuffs in a store.”
To my surprise, my father agreed to Roger’s suggestions. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll try it in ten stores, say. Then, how we gonna do these interviews?”
“We hire a consulting firm to do the demographic study,” said Roger. “That’s their business: interviewing customers. They can do it unobtrusively, and they will know how to evaluate the answers.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised you got in mind a firm to do this study,” said my father.
“I do. Andersen, Brisk and Associates. There are other firms, but I have seen their work, and they are pros.”
“What will they charge us?” my father asked.
“That will entirely depend on how thorough we tell them to be. I am sure it will be less than two-hundred thousand dollars.”
“You think it will be worth it?” he asked Vicky.
“I’d do it, Jerry.”
“You wanta call them for us?”
We would be surprised by the outcome of both these ventures.
37
Andersen, Brisk & Associates did the demographics study. They conducted discreet interviews with one thousand of our customers. Their interviewers were innocent-looking little girls for the most part, but they had been intensely trained. Every question they asked had been approved by my father, by Vicky, and by me. The phrasing was not accidental. Their tone of voice derived from their training. Gazelle, Inc. paid $175,000 for the survey.
Many of the interviews were taped—after advising the interviewee that it would be taped “for quality control.” I listened to a good many, and they were very discreet.
“Let me assure you that, though I am audio-taping, you are not being photographed. I don’t want to know your name or where you are from. At the end of the interview I will offer you a twenty-dollar gift certificate. I will not try to sell you anything.”
The interviewer then established the age and sex of the interviewee and whether or not this was the person’s first visit to a Cheeks store.
“When you visit a Cheeks store, do you usually come alone or with a friend?”
“With a friend. After all, she’s the one who’s gonna wear the stuff.”
“Not in this store but in a few other Cheeks stores a new line of merchandise has been offered lately. It includes steel handcuffs and leather straps to restrain a person in various ways. Would the presence of such merchandise in a store make you less likely to go there?”
“How is it the French say? Chacun à son goût? Each to his own taste. What somebody else buys is none of my business.”
“Then would you consider buying, say, a pair of handcuffs?”
“Ask the woman who’s going to wear them.”
“Would you wear them?”
“Might be interesting.”
The results, ready in four months, were immensely interesting:
54 percent of our customers were men.
46 percent were women.
7 perc
ent of our customers, men and women, were twenty-five years of age or younger, 24 percent were in the range twenty-six through thirty-five, 34 percent were in the range thirty-six through forty-five, 21 percent were in the range forty-six through fifty-five, 9 percent were in the range fifty-six through sixty-five, and 5 percent were over sixty-five.
In the stores where handcuffs and the like were offered, 11 percent of the customers bought them, and of the 89 percent who did not, only 8 percent said they wished we did not offer that kind of merchandise.
Of the customers who did not buy handcuffs, etc., 46 percent said they might buy them sometime. Those customers were about equally divided between men and women. They also tended toward the higher age groups.
Sal had insisted on a question: If they were offered, would you consider buying whips? Of men, 4 percent said they would consider it. Of women, 11 percent said they would consider it.
12 percent of our customers said they preferred not being seen at our stores.
38 percent sometimes, or even usually, came with a friend.
Of those who came to the store with a friend, it was the friend who was going to wear the merchandise and that friend took part in selecting what was purchased.
39 percent wished we would offer underclothes for men.
Well … a lot of it was surprising, particularly that 39 percent thought we should offer sexy things for men.
* * *
Larkin Albert was enthralled. To design erotic scanties for men! I had met him several times and now sat down over dinner with him and Vicky at Four Seasons. Albert was dressed as usual, as a woman. Vicky was there at my father’s insistence. Albert, he insisted, was not above coming on to me.
Actually my father was kidding us, just to get Vicky to meet the man. Albert was not about to come on to any man. He might have tried to come on to Vicky, if she’d been alone.
I suspected at the time that Four Seasons knew who he was and what he was, and I wondered if he would have been made welcome there if he had not asked for my father’s table. He was, anyway, among the most glamorous women in the room, and was maybe the very best dressed. I remember his “basic little black dress.” I remember that I could not have guessed he was a man. She wouldn’t admit it, but neither could Vicky—though later she insisted she had known all along that he was a man.
The Secret Page 16