Free Out of Bondage by Linda Lovelace Page A

again. What reason did I have for feeling that Victor might be different than the others?
    “This is a story I can’t properly evaluate,” Victor said. “It’s outside my entire scope of experience. I’m a trial lawyer and I make a living measuring the truth of what people say. However, there’s no way I know how to evaluate this. I just can’t relate to the things that you’re telling me. All I know is that a social, legal and moral wrong has been done to you.”
    “Can you help her?” Larry asked. “Is there anything we can do?”
    “Let me think about it,” Victor said.
    “Can we put these people in jail? Can we sue anyone?”
    “I have to think this thing through,” Victor said. “I always tell people if there’s a social need that must be met, then there has to be a legal way to meet it. The lawyer’s job is to find that way. And, if it can’t be found, to invent it. That’s why I’ve always said that legislation is civilization’s alternative to revolution.”
    Nothing happened at once.
    Well, that’s not quite true. We came to Long Island and Victor and his wife, Carol, became our friends. For a long time they were our only real friends. I got to know Victor well. Dozens of times I heard him tell people, “We’re just a small, country law firm”—but that’s only half the truth. He is always jetting around the country, dividing his time between his firm’s local bread-and-butter cases and cases involving national social issues. When I think of Victor Yannacone, I think of a modern-day Don Quixote—a man looking very much like an unmade bed—always on the run, dragging a briefcase behind him, racing for one plane or another.
    And this time I was the maiden in distress.
    When Larry and I ran out of money, Victor was the one person we could turn to for help. He sent us money. When we were at our lowest ebb, in need of food, Victor somehow showed up with cases of College Inn bouillon and sacks of flour. Don’t ask me why this particular combination. All I know is that there are few memorable meals you can make of this but you can find a way to survive. Particularly if you like soup with dumplings.
    Neither Victor nor Carol had ever seen an X-rated movie. When Victor heard the name Linda Lovelace, he had only the vaguest awareness of who I was. Carol had never even heard the name before. I don’t think my celebrity status hit Victor until one day when he was calling a Manhattan doctor on my behalf and the doctor was impressed for all the wrong reasons.
    “Victor, this is one case I’d love to handle,” he said.
    “I don’t think you understand me,” Victor said. “There’s a lady in my office who’s obviously in trouble and I just want somebody to take care of her in a hurry.”
    Hearing that kind of thing made me trust Victor. I was impressed by the fact that he didn’t suddenly neglect Larry for his new movie-star client. Which was just as it should be. Larry, after all, was the client long before I came into the picture. And Victor seemed to sense that our situation—total poverty just as our first child was coming into the world—was taking a severe toll on Larry.
    Just how severe none of us yet realized.

eleven
    Larry was falling apart. But I wasn’t paying attention. Other things filled my mind, such as making preparations for my unborn baby, eating enough and staying warm. If I hadn’t been so concerned with these things, I might have noticed the early signs.
    Instead, I probably did more harm than good. Larry was becoming obsessed about my life with Chuck. He was asking more questions and seeking more details. I should have recognized this as a form of self-torture. Instead, I answered all his questions candidly and tried to tell him everything that had happened to the former Miss Linda Lovelace. Everything.
    My own pain was so strong that I didn’t bother measuring the pain this was causing him. One day I found myself describing the little games Chuck devised