“Takes dough,” Pep said.
“You seem to be doing great, Pep,” Mutzie said.
“I got no complaints.”
“What, actually, do you do?” Mutzie asked cautiously, suddenly fearful.
There was a long silence. Pep’s tongue darted from his mouth and he licked his lips.
“I’m sort of a contractor,” he said with a smile.
“Oh,” Mutzie said.
“Anyway. I do real good.” He observed her, patted her hand and they looked into each other’s eyes.
“I could really go faw you, Mutzie. Maybe make ya my one and only.”
His one and only. The reference was magical. It was exactly what she wanted. The suggestion validated her new makeover. She had made the right decision, indeed. She felt like somebody now.
“Really, Pep?”
“Really,” he said, whispering in her ear.
She was ecstatic and she didn’t want the evening to end. It was nearly midnight when he drove her to the front of her apartment building, and when he found a parking space, he shut off the ignition and the car lights.
Then he bent over and gave her a deep soul kiss while his hand gently squeezed her right breast, tight in its pointy brassiere cup. She wanted to unstrap her brassiere and let him kiss her bare breasts, but she didn’t want to seem too forward, afraid she might appear like one of those easy girls. It was obvious that Pep had a great deal of experience with women. She liked that. It meant she was in safe hands.
After a few minutes of kissing, he sat up.
“I gotta go,” he announced, turning on the ignition.
“Me too,” Mutzie lied. It was Friday night and there was no school on Saturday.
“We see each other tomorrow, right?” Pep asked.
“Tomorrow?”
“Late though. I gotta do sumpin first. You meet me on the corner, say, about ten.”
“That late?”
“Sure. We’ll take a drive.”
He bent over and gave her one more deep soul kiss and a squeeze before she left.
Seymour woke her up the next morning and sat on the edge of her bed, eager to hear how the evening had gone.
“Great, Seymour,” she said. “Pep is a prince of a guy.”
She told him about going to the restaurant and about the two men who had gotten fresh and what Pep had done to one of them. Seymour grinned.
“Bet they not walkin good no more,” Seymour said. “Go aftra Pep’s girl an ya could say goodbye to ya immies for a long time.”
“He was wonderful. I feel good with Pep. You know. Secure.”
“Ya put in a good woid faw me?”
“Of course,” she lied. In the excitement of the evening, she had forgotten.
“Good goil, Mutzie.”
She told him that she had met some of Pep’s business associates in the restaurant.
“Like who?” Seymour asked.
She searched her memory.
“A shortish guy named Reles. He called him Kid something.”
“You met the Kid? Kid Twist?” Seymour’s eyes expressed how awed he was by such an event.
“And an Albert.”
“Cheez. Albert Anastasia. Cheez. I can’t believe it. I wish I was a goil. Cheez. Albert Anastasia. He’s way up in the combination. Along with Pep and the Bug. Cheez. I can’t believe it.”
“What’s the combination?”
“You don know?”
She shook her head.
“Aw, it’s just a business name,” Seymour said, suddenly cautious and hesitant. “Nothin faw you to know about.”
“I’m gonna go out with him again tonight,” Mutzie bragged.
“Tonight? Pep’s gotta job. I know cause I’m gonna be wid him.”
“Then it must be after the job.”
“Cheez. You and Pep.” He waved a finger in her face. “Remember who put you guys in touch, so now you keep puttin in good woids for yours truly.”
Seymour got up. He patted his sister affectionately on the head.
“Who knew what kind of a sister I got,” he said. “I always thought you were a dumb brat.”
When she got to the corner at a little after ten, Pep wasn’t there yet, although the fellow he called the Bug stood there in a group of other men. The candy store had a fountain counter that opened to the outside and she ordered a small egg cream, nursing it while she waited. Occasionally the men looked at her with what seemed like genuine admiration. Already, she imagined, she was being treated as Pep’s girl. She loved being branded in that way. Pep’s girl. It was like a song.
At ten twenty, one of the pay telephones rang in the candy store and the man behind the counter yelled “Bugsy” and the man called Bugsy came in and answered the phone. He came back outside a few moments later and gave a thumbs up sign to one of the men who was standing around, then he walked over to Mutzie.
“Pep’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”
“Thank you,” Mutzie said, noting how considerate Pep had been to call ahead to let her know that he would be late.
She saw his Caddy pull up to the curb, and when he got out he straightened his clothes. But before he came forward to the corner she watched him buff up his shoes with a piece of cloth that he had taken out of the glove compartment. Then he looked into the Caddy’s side mirror and adjusted his hat, then, smoothing his jacket and straightening the handkerchief in his pocket, he moved toward the corner.
“Be a minute, doll,” he told her as he moved into the candy store followed by the man called Bugsy. They went into the back room behind the cigar displays and he was out fifteen minutes later standing beside her, looking resplendent, showing a broad,
sparkling smile as he put a hand around her waist and led her to the Caddy.
He opened the door on the passenger side for her like a true gentleman then got in on the driver’s side. Once in the car, he put the key into the ignition but before he turned it, he leaned over and gave her a deep soul kiss, squeezing her breasts. She reached out and caressed his tongue with her own and she could not deny the thrill that swept through her.
“You my baby, Mutzie?” he asked when he lifted his mouth from hers. She felt his breath in her ear, then his tongue as he tickled her there.
“Yes, Pep,” she whispered, meaning it. She had never been happier.
He held her for a few moments, then with one hand turned the ignition and moved the car out from the curb. He drove for a couple of blocks then parked the car on a deserted street near Betsy Head Park. It was dark and quiet but she could see his handsome face, looking mysterious and shadowy in the play of light from the nearest street lamp.
He put his hat carefully on the back seat, then bent over and soul kissed her again then put his hand under her dress and caressed her thighs. She had set limits in her own mind on exactly how far she would let him go and was certain that a perfect gentleman like Pep would obey the limits and be respectful of her. She would, she decided, go beyond necking to petting, and would let him play with her thing and touch him on his if he wanted that.
He seemed very gentle, very caring. After he soul kissed her, he kissed her face and she felt his fingers playing with her thing. She felt wonderful, like something warm and pleasant was tickling her.
“I’m real hot baby,” he whispered, his breath coming in
heavy gasps. Sitting up suddenly, he took off his jacket, carefully folded it and put it in the back seat. Then he unbuttoned his pants and, rising, exposed himself.
“Pep,” she said, stiffening suddenly, slightly confused by his action.
“Got ya a lollipop baby. Ya know what you gotta do.”
She looked at it, but then turned her eyes away, feeling his hands caressing her face, then her hair, then the back of her neck.
“Gobble,” he said.
She resisted as he tried to pull her head down over his thing.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I never thought …”
He pulled her head down until her cheek was actually touching his thing.
“You just grab and lick it like a lolly, Mutzie. Come on. Show me how much you love me.”
“Pep, please … I …”
With his fingers he forced open her mouth and it was suddenly filled with his thing and she was unable to talk and barely able to breathe. Then she felt a painful pull on her scalp. He had taken a handful of hair and was pulling her head back and forth. Her mouth was still filled with his thing.
“Open wide, baby. And watch the teeth.”
She was genuinely frightened now, not knowing what to do, unable to scream, her head moving painfully back and forth, his thing in her mouth, trying as hard as she could to keep her teeth separated enough for it to go in and out.
After awhile, he pulled her head back and his thing went out of her mouth. He looked at her face.
“You hurt me, Pep.” She started to cry.
“Aw, baby,” he said, holding her. “I didn’t know ya nevah did this. I’m sorry, Mutzie. Really I am.”
“I tried to tell you, Pep,” Mutzie said. He had grown gentle again.
“No problem, baby. I’m gonna teach ya how to do it right. Okay?”
She wanted to feel indignance and humiliation, but in his arms again, she felt oddly protected and inadequate. He had taken her to some place that she had never been before and she had no idea how to react.
“You forgive me?” he whispered.
She couldn’t quite decide what to say, but before she could make up her mind, he had put his hand under her dress. When she tried to push his hand away by grabbing his wrist, he put his other hand in the band of her panties and ripped them away.
“See, ole Pep is not hurting his baby,” he said, reaching out with his arms and pinning her against the seat with his body. “Besides, I got plenty of panty extras.”
“I’m afraid, Pep. Please. I’m still a virgin,” she whimpered. Frightened, she tried to push him away, but she was no match for his strength.
“Yaw gonna get it, Mutzie. Now you gonna be Pep’s numba one or ya gonna be Pep’s enemy.”
Given the options, she had no choice. Someday she knew it would happen. It might as well be with Pep, a person of experience.
“Will you respect me after, Pep?”
It was, she knew instinctively, the bedrock female paranoia, along with the terror of pregnancy. Soiled goods and disgrace, the litany went, passed from mother to daughter over the generations. At this point, the decision was out of her hands.
“I’ll respeck you better, Mutzie,” he whispered.
He had insinuated his body between her legs, which were
stretched out under him. She felt something move between her legs, something touching her thing, moving up and down her thing.
“Just promise not to hurt me, Pep,” she whimpered. There was no point in protesting. He was stronger, and insistent.
“Would I hurt you, Mutzie? Yaw my girl.”
“I swear I never did this, Pep.”
She felt the pressure of his body on her. He put both hands on the cheeks of her buttocks and thrust.
He put all his weight against her and she felt a searing pain tear into the middle of her. She heard herself screaming inside of her head, but no sound came out of her tightly pressed lips. Above her his body moved without pity, hard and relentless, pounding through her, splitting her.
“One tough cherry,” she heard him say hoarsely, like the grumble of distant thunder. For a brief moment, fully penetrated, he did not move and she felt his hand feeling around as if to validate what he had done.
Thankfully, the initial pain receded. She searched her mind for a way to react, reaching into her senses for some quiver of pleasure. It was there, vaguely felt through the rawness of her body. She had become a woman, she told herself. She had been fucked. In her mind, she had always thought of it as a violent, invasive act. So she had been forced to do what was inevitable. I’m Pep’s girl now, she told herself. She felt pride in that. Her life had entered another dimension.
Then he started to move inside of her. She felt a searing pain and was on the verge of screaming. Sensing that, he put his hand over her mouth.
“No,” he ordered, watching her eyes above his hand. She shook her head and he slowly lifted his hand, ready to pounce at
the slightest hint of a scream. She knew better than to do that, just laying there now, waiting for something to happen that might mollify the pain, listening to his grunting sounds as he increased the rhythm of his thrusts.
Then suddenly she felt this mordant curiosity, wondering if Jean Harlow had to submit to this ritual in such a crude and brutal way. Certainly she had never seen a hint of it in her movie life, although she supposed in real life Jean Harlow would be no exception in this regard. Every woman, except maybe old maids or nuns, had to get through this one way or another.
“You like it, baby?” Pep asked between gasps.
Actually, she was trying to like it, hoping that the pain would disappear completely.
“I’m gonna come, Mutzie. Here.”
He moved her hand to his thing and closed her fingers around it while he quickly moved out of her. Then she felt a series of jumpy spasms happening to his thing, then she felt warm sticky stuff on her arm. After a while, his thing became soft and he untangled himself from her, then got out of the car and straightened his clothes.
She got out of the car on her side feeling sore, her legs shaking as she straightend her skirt. She knew she was bleeding and she put her torn panties between her legs to keep the blood from ruining her skirt. Then she got back into the car and combed her hair.
Pep reached into the backseat and put on his jacket and hat, then got in beside her.
“You came through like a champ,” Pep said, bending over and kissing her forehead. “Not easy the first time. Sorry I had to be a little rough. Next time it’ll be nice and easy.”
Yet, despite the terror and degradation of it, she felt oddly
elated, as if she had made it through an initiation of some sort, a ritual that had to be suffered through. “I’d die if you made me pregnant.”
“Hey, Mutzie, I pulled out. You got the evidence.”
Pep started the car and drove toward Pitkin Avenue.
“You wanna grab a bite?” he asked.
“Please, Pep,” Mutzie pleaded. “I’m a mess. Take me home.”
Pep laughed and put his arm around Mutzie as he drove.
“Always get hot and hungry after a job,” he said.
She wondered about this, wondered about the kind of job that could cause such a reaction. She wanted to ask, but she supposed he would think it was intruding on his private business, men’s private business. This was all so new to her, so strange. Looking at Pep in profile as he drove, she felt that she had somehow grown closer to him through this violent act. She supposed that most women were penetrated in such a way the first time. There was just no possibility of avoiding it. He might have seemed ruthless, but wasn’t a certain measure of brutality required? After all, it was like breaking a seal and you couldn’t do that except by a good hard push. There was, she decided, no way it could happen the first time without hurting. No way. Every woman ever born had to go through it. God made them that way.