And then came the next generation . . .
“First the Barbie Doll, and now the Welfare Doll,” Boob Roper quipped for the benefit of his millions of viewers. “You wind it up and it complains that you haven’t wound it up enough.”
Mom and Dad and many a Senator thought that was a real thigh-thumper. But not long-haired Sonny and his sister the social worker. “What’s funny about that?” they wondered.
“The Senate wants to ban biological weapons,” Boob Roper told an American Legion convention. “But two falsie manufacturers told them to stay out of their business!”
The Legionnaires roared while their bra-less daughters asked “What are ‘falsies’?”
“Know why so many hippies don’t want to go to Vietnam?” Boob Roper asked in a syndicated column he guest-wrote for Leonard Lyons. “Because they have only one * for their country!”
“Get it?” the businessman nudged his guitar-playing son.
“I don’t want it!” was the succinct reply.
In short, Boob Roper had fallen into the Generation Gap.
Full realization of this came to Boob Roper when he went to Vietnam to put on his annual Xmas show for the troops. His jibes at the brass—heretofore sure-fire with the men in the ranks—elicited sparse laughter. Worse, when he appeared in an open jeep on his way to put on a second show for the boys in the boondocks, the GIs along the road openly booed him.
Boob Roper returned home a shaken man. He closeted himself for two weeks with his personal p.r. man and with a top officer of a firm of p.r. consultants specially engaged by Boob to help him with his image problem. What emerged from these intensive discussions was a new Boob Roper.
For some years Boob had worn a pompadour toupee; now it was replaced by a hairpiece which straggled to his shoulders. His entire stable of gag-writers was fired, and word went out through the industry that only scribes under thirty need apply to fill the vacancies. The band which had supplied the music for his TV shows for ten years was replaced by a rock group, and his syrupy theme picked up a beat so strong as to render it unrecognizable. He turned down Muscular Dystrophy to do a benefit for Angela Davis. He told Earl Wilson he was in favor of legalizing pot. He invited Joan Baez to do a guest shot on his TV show and defended the anti-war statements she made on the air.
Most telling of all was Boob’s conversion to Oriental mysticism. He embraced Transcendental Meditation and became an ardent disciple of the Maharishi Unguentinanina. He arranged his schedule to coincide with the Maharishi’s, frequently traveled with the holy man, and appeared often—-the picture of humility—at the Maharishi’s lectures. (The rumor was that Billy Graham took this as a personal rejection and was furious with Boob.)
When the Maharishi came to New York, Boob was the most prominent member of his entourage. The newspapers carried pictures of them stepping off the plane at Kennedy together. One of these photos caught the attention of Regina Blue a few days after her steamy interview with Dwight Venable. The Roper visage staring prayerfully up at her from the tabloid took Regina back a few years. It conjured up memories of Hollywood, or, more accurately, Beverly Hills. It made her nostrils distend with the memory of the aroma of sheep-dip. . .
Regina Blue met Boob Roper at a party in New York. It was a casual enough meeting despite Boob’s compulsive wisecracking about the low-cut gown Regina was wearing. While everybody else laughed, Regina got Boob’s message loud and clear. She wasn’t surprised when he called her a few nights later.
It was a long-distance call from California. Boob had made inquiries and found out just exactly where it was at with Regina. He wanted her to fly out, all expenses paid, and be his “house guest” for a few days. He mentioned a figure that made Regina forgive the jokes he’d made at her bosom’s expense. She agreed to come.
His Beverly Hills mansion turned out to be a relic of the Hollywood days of overstated luxury. Ubiquitous palm trees formed a barrier between its ample grounds and the sightseeing buses which traveled the street beyond. The swimming pool was shaped like a five-pointed star. The furnishings were rococo but lavish. Gadgetry and gimmickry abounded, with buttons to push for hidden bars, movie projectors, escalator stairways and beds which rocked. And what a guest couldn’t get by pushing a button was readily supplied by the large staff of servants Boob employed.
Except for the servants, Regina was alone with Boob during the entire three days. Boob had planned it that way. Like many public figures who work on a tight schedule, he allocated his time carefully. And those three days were allocated to sex, not socializing.
Regina earned her generous fee. Boob drove himself from one orgasm to the next as if his performance was being rated by Gallup. Not that Regina minded. He wasn’t the first man who’d used her to try to prove something to himself.
However, on the last night, Boob came up with an innovation that Regina did mind. They were in his lavish bedroom when he made his desire known. “And now, for my last piece, the piece de résistance sans résistance,” he punned heavily. He opened the sliding doors of his mammoth wardrobe closet and rummaged inside.
Boob emerged with several items: a white sheep-skin costume with a headpiece like the head of a sheep; an overlarge pair of hipboots; a switch of the sort used by sheepherders; a red-and-black flannel shirt; and a collar with a small bell attached. “Put this on.” He threw the sheepskin to Regina. “And then meet me at the south pasture.”
“The south pasture?”
“That grassy clearing in back of the stables.”
“Hey! Wait a minute,” Regina called after Boob as he started out with the rest of the paraphernalia. “This outfit has holes in it!”
“I know that,” he called back. And then he was gone.
When Regina had donned the sheepskin costume, she immediately appreciated how strategically the holes had been placed. Her firm breasts stuck straight out, naked, from two of them. And the sheepskin had also been cut away to reveal her derriere and the pubic triangle at the base of her belly. With these exceptions however, viewing herself in the mirror, Regina saw that the illusion of sheephood worked remarkably well. She put on a robe over the sheepskin and went down to join Boob.
He was waiting, testing the resiliency of the switch, wearing the flannel shirt and the oversized hip boots and nothing else. He removed Regina’s robe, tossed it aside, and placed the collar with the bell around her neck. He stood back and looked at her. Then he whistled.
“Thank you,” Regina said before the appearance of a large sheepdog made her realize that Boob had not been whistling at her. “Oh! Isn’t he cute?” Regina dropped to her haunches to pet the dog.
Boob snapped his fingers. Immediately the sheepdog danced behind Regina and nipped at her heels.
“Ouch!” Thrown off balance, Regina scrambled away on all fours. “Make him stop!” she protested.
Boob snapped his fingers again and the dog heeled.
“What’s the big idea?” Regina wanted to know.
“I grew up in the city,” Boob told her. “When I was a kid, the idea of a farm seemed like ivories to me.”
“ ‘Ivories’?”
“Paira dice.”
“Paradise.” Regina translated. “So?”
“You know how it is when you hit puberty? Sex is a helluva lot more than just a number after five.”
“You lost me,” Regina told him flatly. “What’s the connection?”
“Chicks liked me. When I was in my teens, I got more lays than a Hawaiian tourist.”
“Then what was the problem?”
“They didn’t satisfy me. Nothing did. I had lots of girls, but that wasn’t what I wanted. You always want what you can’t have. I had these sex fantasies all tied in with making it on a farm. All I yearned for was to make love to ewe.”