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humor. Afterward they played roulette together at the same wheel and won over a
hundred dollars. Still later they drove up to Boulder Dam in the moonlight and he tried to
make love to her but when she resisted after a few kisses he knew that she really meant
no and stopped. Again he took his defeat with great good humor. "I told you I wouldn't,"
Lucy said with half-guilty reproach.
"You would have been awfully insulted if I didn't even try," Jules said. And she had to
laugh because it was true.
The next few months they became best friends. It wasn't love because they didn't
make love, Lucy wouldn't let him. She could see he was puzzled by her refusal but not
hurt the way most men would be and that made her trust him even more. She found out
that beneath his professional doctor's exterior he was wildly fun-loving and reckless. On
weekends he drove a souped-up MG (to soup up – увеличивать мощность
/двигателя/ [su:p]) in the California races. When he took a vacation he went down into
the interior of Mexico, the real wild country, he told her, where strangers were murdered
for their shoes and life was as primitive as a thousand years ago. Quite accidentally she
learned that he was a surgeon and had been connected with a famous hospital in New
York.
All this made her more puzzled than ever at his having taken the job at the hotel.
When she asked him about it, Jules said, "You tell me your dark secret and I'll tell you
mine."
She blushed and let the matter drop. Jules didn't pursue it either and their relationship
continued, a warm friendship that she counted on more than she realized.
Now, sitting at the side of the pool with Jules' blond head in her lap, she felt an
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overwhelming tenderness for him. Her loins ached and without realizing it her fingers
sensuously stroked the skin of his neck. He seemed to be sleeping, not noticing, and
she became excited just by the feel of him against her. Suddenly he raised his head
from her lap and stood up. He took her by the hand and led her over the grass on to the
cement walk. She followed him dutifully even when he led her into one of the cottages
that held his private apartment. When they were inside he
fixed them both big drinks. After the blazing sun and her own sensuous thoughts the
drink went to her head and made her dizzy. Then Jules had his arms around her and
their bodies, naked except for scanty bathing suits, were pressed against each other.
Lucy was murmuring, "Don't," but there was no conviction in her voice and Jules paid no
attention to her. He quickly stripped her bathing bra off so that he could fondle her
heavy breasts, kissed them and then stripped off her bathing trunks and as he did so
kept kissing her body, her rounded belly and the insides of her thighs. He stood up,
struggling out of his own bathing shorts and embracing her, and then, naked in each
other's arms, they were lying on his bed and she could feel him entering her and it was
enough, just the slight touch, for her to reach her climax and then in the second
afterward she could read in the motions of his body, his surprise. She felt the
overwhelming shame she had felt before she knew Sonny, but Jules was twisting her
body over the edge of the bed, positioning her legs a certain way and she let him control
her limbs and her body, and then he was entering her again and kissing her and this
time she could feel him but more important she could tell that he was feeling something
too and coming to his climax.
When he rolled off her body, Lucy huddled into one corner of the bed and began to
cry. She felt so ashamed. And then she was shockingly surprised to hear Jules laugh
softly and say, "You poor benighted (застигнутый ночью; погруженный во мрак
/невежества/) Eye-talian girl, so that's why you kept refusing me all these months? You
dope (дурочка)." He said "you dope" with such friendly affection that she turned toward
him and he took her naked body against his saying, "You are medieval, you are
positively medieval." But the voice was soothingly comforting as she continued to weep.
Jules lit a cigarette and put it in her mouth so that she choked on the smoke and had
to stop crying. "Now listen to me," he said, "if you had had a decent modern raising with
a family culture that was part of the twentieth century your problem would have been
solved years ago. Now let me tell you what your problem is: it's not the equivalent of
being ugly, of having bad skin and squinty (косой, косоглазый; to squint – косить
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глазами) eyes that facial surgery really doesn't solve. Your problem is like having a wart
(бородавка [wo:t]) or a mole (родинка) on your chin, or an improperly formed ear. Stop
thinking of it in sexual terms. Stop thinking in your head that you have a big box no man
can love because it won't give his penis the necessary friction. What you have is a
pelvic (тазовый) malformation (неправильное образование, порок развития) and
what we surgeons call a weakening of the pelvic floor. It usually comes after child-
bearing but it can be simply bad bone structure. It's a common condition and many
women live a life of misery because of it when a simple operation could fix them up.
Some women even commit suicide because of it. But I never figured you for that
condition because you have such a beautiful body. I thought it was psychological, since
I know your story, you told it to me often enough, you and Sonny. But let me give you a
thorough physical examination and I can tell you just exactly how much work will have
to be done. Now go in and take a shower."
Lucy went in and took her shower. Patiently and over her protests, Jules made her lie
on the bed, legs spread apart. He had an extra doctor's bag in his apartment and it was
open. He also had a small glass-topped table by the bed which held some other
instruments. He was all business now, examining her, sticking his fingers inside her and
moving them around. She was beginning to feel humiliated when he kissed her on the
navel and said, almost absent-mindedly, "First time I've enjoyed my work." Then he
flipped her over and thrust a finger in her rectum, feeling around, but his other hand was
stroking her neck affectionately. When he was finished he turned her right side up again,
kissed her tenderly on the mouth and said, "Baby, I'm going to build you a whole new
thing down there, and then I'll try it out personally. It will be a medical first, I'll be able to
write a paper on it for the official journals."
Jules did everything with such good-humored affection, he so obviously cared for her,
that Lucy got over her shame and embarrassment. He even had the medical textbook
down off its shelf to show her a case like her own and the surgical procedure to correct
it. She found herself quite interested.
"It's a health thing too," Jules said. "If you don't get it corrected you're going to have a
hell of a lot of trouble later on with your whole plumbing system (водопроводная
система; plumb [plΛm] – отвес; лот, грузило). The structure becomes progressively
weaker unless it's corrected by surgery. It's a damn shame that old-fashioned prudery
([‘pru:d∂rı] – излишняя или притворная стыдливость) keeps a lot of doctors from
properly diagnosing and correcting the situation, and a lot of women from complaining
about it."
"Don't talk about it, please don't talk about it," Lucy
said.
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He could see that she was still to some extent ashamed of her secret, embarrassed
by her "ugly defect." Though to his medically trained mind this seemed the height of
silliness, he was sensitive enough to identify with her. It also put him on the right track to
making her feel better.
"OK, I know your secret so now I'll tell you mine," he said. "You always ask me what
I'm doing in this town, one of the youngest and most brilliant surgeons in the East." He
was mocking some newspaper reports about himself. "The truth is that I'm an
abortionist, which in itself is not so bad, so is half the medical profession; but I got
caught. I had a friend, a doctor named Kennedy, we interned (intern – студент
медицинского колледжа или молодой врач, работающий в больнице и живущий
при ней) together, and he's a really straight guy but he said he'd help me. I understand
Tom Hagen had told him if he ever needed help on anything the Corleone Family was
indebted to him. So he spoke to Hagen. The next thing I know the charges were
dropped, but the Medical Association and the Eastern establishment had me black-
listed. So the Corleone Family got me this job out here. I make a good living. I do a job
that has to be done. These show girls are always getting knocked up and aborting them
is the easiest thing in the world if they come to me right away. I curette (кюретка /хир./;
выскабливать кюреткой [kju∂'ret]) 'em like you scrape a frying pan. Freddie Corleone
is a real terror. By my count he's knocked up fifteen girls while I've been here. I've
seriously considered giving him a father-to-son talk about sex. Especially since I've had
to treat him three times for clap (триппер) and once for syphilis. Freddie is the original
bareback (без седла, на неоседланной лошади) rider."
Jules stopped talking. He had been deliberately indiscreet, something he never did, so
that Lucy would know that other people, including someone she knew and feared a little
like Freddie Corleone, also had shameful secrets.
"Think of it as a piece of elastic in your body that has lost its elasticity," Jules said. "By
cutting out a piece, you make it tighter, snappier."
"I'll think about it," Lucy said, but she was sure she was going to go through with it,
she trusted Jules absolutely. Then she thought of something else. "How much will it
cost?"
Jules frowned. "I haven't the facilities here for surgery like that and I'm not the expert
at it. But I have a friend in Los Angeles who's the best in the field and has facilities at
the best hospital. In fact he tightens up all the movie stars, when those dames find out
140
that getting their faces and breasts lifted isn't the whole answer to making a man love
them. He owes me a few favors so it won't cost anything. I do his abortions for him.
Listen, if it weren't unethical I'd tell you the names of some of the movie sex queens
who have had the operation."
She was immediately curious. "Oh, come on, tell me," she said. "Come on." It would
be a delicious piece of gossip and one of the things about Jules was that she could
show her feminine love of gossip without him making fun of it.
"I'll tell you if you have dinner with me and spend the night with me," Jules said. "We
have a lot of lost time to make up for because of your silliness."
Lucy felt an overwhelming affection to him for being so kind and she was able to say,
"You don't have to sleep with me, you know you won't enjoy it the way I am now."
Jules burst out laughing. "You dope, you incredible dope. Didn't you ever hear of any
other way of making love, far more ancient, far more civilized. Are you really that
innocent?"
"Oh that," she said.
"Oh that," he mimicked her. "Nice girls don't do that, manly men don't do that. Even in
the year 1948. Well, baby, I can take you to the house of a little old lady right here in
Las Vegas who was the youngest madam of the most popular whorehouse in the wild
west days, back in 1880, I think it was. She likes to talk about the old days. You know
what she told me? That those gunslingers (стрелки; агрессивные ребята; to sling –
швырять; метать из пращи; sling – праща; рогатка), those manly, virile, straight-
shooting cowboys would always ask the girls for a 'French,' what we doctors call fellatio,
what you call 'oh that.' Did you ever think of doing 'oh that' with your beloved Sonny?"
For the first time she truly surprised him. She turned on him with what he could think
of only as a Mona Lisa smile (his scientific mind immediately darting off on a tangent
(отклонился в сторону; tangent ['tжndG∂nt] – касательная; тангенс), could this be the
solving of that centuries-old mystery?) and said quietly, "I did everything with Sonny." It
was the first time she had ever admitted anything like that to anyone.
Two weeks later Jules Segal stood in the operating room of the Los Angeles hospital
and watched his friend Dr. Frederick Kellner perform the specialty. Before Lucy was put
under anesthesia, Jules leaned over and whispered, "I told him you were my special girl
so he's going to put in some real tight walls." But the preliminary pill had already made
her dopey and she didn't laugh or smile. His teasing remark did take away some of the
terror of the operation.
141
Dr. Kellner made his incision (разрез, надрез) with the confidence of a pool (лужа,
прудок; омут, заводь) shark (акула) making an easy shot. The technique of any
operation to strengthen the pelvic floor required the accomplishment of two objectives.
The musculofibrous pelvic sling had to be shortened so that the slack was taken up.
And of course the vaginal opening, the weak spot itself in the pelvic floor, had to be
brought forward, brought under the pubic arch and so relieved from the line of direct
pressure above. Repairing the pelvic sling (ремень, канат) was called perincorrhaphy.
Suturing (to suture [‘sju:t∫∂] – накладывать шов) the vaginal wall was called
colporrhaphy.
Jules saw that Dr. Kellner was working carefully now, the big danger in the cutting
was going too deep and hitting the rectum. It was a fairly uncomplicated case, Jules had
studied all the X rays and tests. Nothing should go wrong except that in surgery
something could always go wrong.
Kellner was working on the diaphragm sling, the T forceps (хирургические щипцы,
пинцет ['fo:seps]) held the vaginal flap (что-либо, прикрепленное за один конец;
клапан), and exposing the ani muscle and the fasci (фасции) which formed its sheath.
Kellner's gauze-covered (gauze [go:z] – газ /материя/; марля) fingers were pushing
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