Gumdrop, Gumdrop, Let Down Your Hair by Jeannie Sakol - part of Chapter 01
1969 Genre: Vintage Sleaze | Sexual Revolution
GUMDROP BENSON—She's This Year's Girl. A candy-chewing, mindless adolescent from the backwoods of Tennessee, she boasts an ironing-board figure, a cloudburst of copper hair, and emerald eyes, and stands six foot two in her stocking feet. Gumdrop is an ingenious invention and a multi-million-dollar business—she's the biggest fashion explosion since Twiggy!
GAYNOR MONROE—A sophisticated, liberated career girl. Twenty-eight years old and with two divorces under her belt, Gaynor's job is to keep Gumdrop in line—and that's no easy assignment! It is a project that requires the patience of a saint, the brains of Einstein, the faithfulness of a dog, and the craftiness of a woman.
Follow Gaynor and Gumdrop as they match wits—and bodies—with the beautiful people in the struggle to stay on top...
Chapter One
Have you ever wondered how they find out?
Here is what happens.
The female person abstains from all fluids and medication for at least 14 hours before reporting to the doctor's office. There, she deposits her first sampling into a sterile container which is instantly refrigerated until a messenger speeds it to the laboratory.
The female rabbit, meantime, has been nourished to full maturity in sexual isolation. This ruthless concern for her virtue is neither spiteful nor callous. The harsh fact is that congress with a male of the species, however insincere, would disrupt her body chemistry and make it worthless to science and to the female person seeking enlightenment.
The male technologist draws five cubic centimeters of the female person's sample into a hypodermic. While a helper holds the female rabbit by her head with a towel, so she can't bite, he pinches the skin over her backbone and gently worries it free, injecting the liquid slowly under the loosened skin. He must be very careful not to hit the backbone. Spinal puncture causes paralysis and death.
Once the liquid has dissolved into her bloodstream, the rabbit is returned to her cage, tagged with the name of the female person concerned. Labeling is important since the outcome of the rabbit test is of no medical value in itself. Eighteen hours later, a pledget of cotton drenched in ether sends the rabbit to sleep, her slumbering body tucked neatly into an airtight cannister of the type used in kitchens to keep coffee fresh.
She doesn't feel a thing. The method of sacrifice is not only nicer for her but crucial to the test. Even the slightest physical violence may cause shock and hemorrhage which would spoil the results.
Now the rabbit submits to handling without the towel. Holding her upside down, the technologist raises a section of skin from the groin to the sternum and makes a long, shallow incision.
There is no blood. With a blunt instrument, he separates her intestines and exposes both ovaries by easing back the fallopian tubes.
The color of the ovaries tells the story. The idea is to detect the presence of chorionic gonadotropin hormones. If there are some, the ovaries turn the angry purple-red color of raw beef liver. This generally means the female person is pregnant. Since only a trained medical eye can interpret ovary colors correctly, the interpretation is open to interpretation, especially if later proved wrong.
For the most part, a negative reaction is viewed as definitely negative while a positive reaction may be positive or negative.
Much depends on the female rabbit's integrity, the technologist, the quality of refrigeration and the number of weeks the female person has been in suspense.
On April 1 8, 1967, a test such as that described was run through the West Side Laboratory for Dr. Jess Shenson, gynecologist and obstetrician, 634 Park Avenue, Manhattan.
The results: POSITIVE.
Serves 'er right ... walkin' around like that ... some outfit ... sit down, you can see clear to China ... No shame? ... you can say that again! ... no brains, either! Doctor, I don't understand ... Oh, doctor, please help me ... they don't understand? ... I understand plenty ... I saw those underpants, Miss Angel-Puss ... hand me that! ... don't understand? ... let 'em ask me ... I'll tell 'em ... serves 'em right ... all of 'em . .. .
Mrs. Edith Rodak arranged Dr. Shenson's mail in four distinct mounds. With the system she had herself evolved many years before, she grouped medical journals and pharmaceutical samples in one pile, checks from patients in another, lab reports in the third and, best for last, snapshots and birthday party invitations from the doctor's (and her) "babies," God bless 'em.
"No self-respect!" she said aloud, picturing the look of dismay on the girl's face. "Serves 'er right!" she dismissed it from her mind, turning now to admire her chalky-white fingernails pry open the container of Chock Full O' Nuts coffee she had picked up as usual on her way from the 68th Street subway station.
White nails gave patients confidence, she knew. Each morning, when she applied the creamy white dressing to her space shoes, she dug her fingertips into the sponge clear up to the cuticles.
Nurse Rodak attended all examinations, both to assist Dr. Shenson and to deter the occasionally overwrought patient from crying rape after the tension of such intimate exploration. She also doled out The Pill and checked out diaphragms for those still skeptical.
For her money, they could all go on The Pill. Let 'em all have fun, get blood clots, who cared? Not her. After all these years, she'd seen everything, but everything, kiddo, and the one duty she liked least was showing first-timers how to insert the ugly thing and making sure they did it right. The way they looked at her, you'd think she was enjoying it or something. The best advice she ever got at nursing school was never look a patient in the eye no matter what you're doing for them—even answering the phone.
"If that kid was mine—" she tapped the lab report, remembering again the girl's long red hair, obscenely short skirt and fluffy fur coat. "Thank God that part's over ... the one nice thing about getting old ... who needs it, anyway?" She sighed deeply, savoring the sudden rush of air through her chest, her nerve endings dead and unmourned, sipping her drink through waffle lips.
"Here comes the bride ... poom-poom-pa-poom ... " Serves 'er right ... what'd they expect?
The cardboard container warmed her waxen hand as she leafed through a pharmaceutical leaflet on prosthetic breasts and waited for the phone to ring.
Gaynor Monroe made herself a salami-on-white with mayo to calm her nerves while getting dressed. Nervousness sparked her appetite. She was ravenous, scooping out a glob of peanut butter with a finger, gulping down apple juice from the bottle in a vain attempt to soothe the beast of her anxiousness. It was after nine.
She had just phoned Dr. Shenson's office only to be told the doctor was ow-wutt and would not be ha-yuck until eleven.
Was the report there?
It was there.
Could she tell her the results?
She was sorry but the doc-tor did not permit her to divulge any infor-maaay-chun unless the doc-tor specifically left instructions.
And where was the doc-tor?
Delivering new—and presumably legitimate—babies, where else?
There was something terribly corrupt yet truly innocent about a salami sandwich for breakfast. It reminded her of taking lunch to school and gorging it down on the bus, unable to wait, at 7:30 in the morning.
Undecided about what to wear, she careened around the three-room apartment in a glorious state of nakedness, picking up newspapers, emptying ashtrays, wishing she could go to work like this. Except for the scar on her left breast, her body was unmarked, smooth as a nectarine (who had said that to her?) and showing the outline of the bikini she had worn in Aruba in February and under Brooke's sunlamp since.
The scar was a half-inch long and still frightened her. It marked the beauty spot, the velvet mole that Mickey had loved until he dug his nails into it and Gaynor was sure she had cancer.
She draped a chiffon scarf across her face, yashmak style—the harem queen. "Meant for pleasure ... to give men pleasure ... "
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