“The Godfather” By Mario Puzo 265
Vegas who was the youngest madam of the most popular whorehouse in the wild west
days, back is 1880, I think it was. She likes to talk about the old days. You know what
she told me? That these gunslingers, those manly, virile, straight-shooting cowboys
would always ask the girls for a ‘French,’ what we actors 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, 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.
Dr. Kellner made his incision with the confidence of a pool shark 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 was called
perincorrhaphy. Suturing 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 held the vaginal flap, and
exposing the ani muscle and the fasci which formed its sheath. Kellner’s gauze-covered
fingers were pushing aside loose connective tissue. Jules kept his eyes on the vaginal
wall for the appearance of the veins, the telltale danger signal of injuring the rectum. But
old Kellner knew his stuff. He was building a new snatch as easily as a carpenter nails
together two-by-four studs.
Kenner was trimming away the excess vaginal wall using the fastening-down stitch to