The Dame Did It by Joel Jenkins

Hollywood
grapevine has it that he’s fruitier than a can of Del Monte’s
finest, and more ‘strange’ than a three dollar bill.”
    “He is not !” Gia exclaimed. “That man
is far too handsome and charming to be queer status!”
    Pinaro began laughing, while Ira continued
to scowl. “Trust me, honey, you’d get more loving attention being
married to your own fingers than the likes of him, if ya get my
meaning.”
    Pinaro’s next laugh at his own joke was
cruelly cut off as Gino turned and slugged him in the stomach. The
man’s swing was startlingly fast, with more than enough force to
send the well-muscled, much younger man to the ground. Pinaro held
a hand over his pain-wracked lower abdomen as he gasped for breath
and struggled to get back on his feet.
    “You stifle that talk in front of my little
girl!” Gino bellowed in his gruff voice, while he utilized every
iota of his willpower to suppress his own urge to follow up the
blow with a kick to his loyal employee’s face. “She’s a lady, not
one of those shameless whores you usually keep company with!”
    Gia moved forward and grabbed her father’s
arm, hoping to ease his legendary temper. “Papa, that wasn’t
necessary; you know Frank didn’t mean nothin’ by his comment. He
was only joking and being his usual self.”
    “Well, I don’t like his usual self when he’s
around you!” Gino hollered. He then turned back to the still
grounded Pinaro. “Just consider your hairy little bum lucky that I
got need of you right now, or I would personally kill you… with my
bare hands and feet. Now get up, fix your suit, and look
presentable again. You’re about to attend an important business
meeting, and you can’t do that looking like you slept in that
outfit.”
    “Sure… sure, Boss,” Pinaro gasped as Ira
held out his hand and helped him back to his feet. The tough young
bodyguard was thankful he hadn’t eaten lunch before taking that
punch, or he knew he would have lost it on the parking lot ground
and received further embarrassment.
    “Dammit, Papa, I’m not some chaste little
girl that don’t know nothing about the world!” Gia protested. “You
gotta stop coddling me like this!”
    “Watch your mouth, young lady,” Gino
replied. “It’s un-ladylike to use profanity, especially in public,
and that’s—”
    “—not how you raised me, I know,” Gia
finished her father’s sentence. “Well, maybe I’ve been raising
myself all these years too, ‘specially since becoming a woman, and
I know lots more about this stuff than you think.”
    “What do you mean by that?” Gino wondered
aloud. “Have you been whoring around behind my back? I told these
guys of mine to watch you! Or, maybe some of them have been
watching you a bit too closely ?”
    Ira gulped involuntarily, and loud enough to
be heard. Gino’s accusatory glare then focused exclusively on him,
instead of all three of his nervous guards.
    “Got something you wanna tell me, you filthy
Irish bug?” Gino asked the slightly trembling Irish/Italian hybrid
while grabbing the lapel of his double-breasted dress coat. “You
gonna tell me, or do I have to beat you until you do?”
    “Boss, I…” were the only words Ira could get
out before his voice petered out.
    “You son of a bitch!” Gino hollered as he
clenched his free fist and moved it into pummeling position. He
found his intention obstructed when his daughter grasped his raised
arm with surprising strength.
    “Papa, no, it’s not like that!” she pleaded.
“Ira and I are in love, he don’t treat me like no whore!”
    “In love?” the now thoroughly red-faced Don
said with astonishment. “What the hell do you know about love?
You’re only—”
    “— twenty-three , Papa,” she again
finished his sentence. “And Mama, God rest her soul, was younger
than me when you married her!”
    “That was different!” Gino insisted. “I
courted her the proper way, got her father’s blessing and approval.
I