Title: Manny Santos is Lori Meyers
Rating: PG-13 for Language & Subject Matter
Author: xECCENTRIC
Note: Loosely based on the NOFX song, 'Lori Meyers'
Nothing could've prepared me for what I saw when I put that porno DVD in my DVD player. I didn't notice it right off the bat but after awhile, the leading girl in the flick became more and more familiar to me. I didn't think it was seeing her in other porn films that brought up the recognition. She looked like someone I could've known a long time ago, someone I could've talked to. Boy was I surprised when I found out who she was. This girl that was performing all sorts of scandalous acts in my face, on the screen, was someone that I had talked to. She was someone I had dated once. The girl on the screen being dirty was Manny Santos.
When I realized who she was, I just sat there with my mouth hanging open and my eyes nearly out of my head for a full five minutes. I was so shocked. Manny Santos a porn star? Sweet, innocent, peppy Manny Santos doing porn? It was more than I could take. I think I lost my liking for porn for a whole week after I discovered that.
Sean was just as shocked. He had been drinking something and nearly choked to death. I heard him coughing and wheezing away on the other end of the phone. "Wha- [wheeze, cough, wheeeeze] What? Manny? Jesus' shit, what has the world [cough, wheeeeeze, wheeze, cough] come to?" I shook my head, though of course, he couldn't see what I was doing.
"Dude I don't know. I just can't believe it." He started viciously clearing his throat over the phone before he responded,
"Ditto."
"I need to talk to her. I feel like it's all my fault."
He cleared his throat some more. Then, "Why is that?"
I remained silent for a minute, before I replied, "You know we went out for, like, two days. I broke up with her, and I wasn't too nice about it either. Maybe it was that that caused her to become a whore."
There was silence from him on the other end before he responded, "Dude, I don't think two days of dating would make her decide to do that you know?" I nodded. He was right, but I still felt pretty guilty. Manny never dated after that incident. It seemed as if her doing porn was her way at getting back at me by showing herself giving ass to hairy guys.
"Maybe it's revenge dude," I replied.
"Hmm - well, it could be. I don't know, my former girlfriends don't become porn stars. But if that's what you think…well whatever. How are you going to contact her?" I shrugged. He didn't see it of course.
"Maybe look her up in the phonebook?" I suggested. He sort of laughed.
"Good luck." I could tell by the way that he said that to me, that he meant nobody with lives, even pornographic ones, ever put their names in phone books. I sighed and hung up.
Despite the fact that I had no way of contacting Manny, I was determined to do so anyway. Even though there was no way Manny could be in the phone book, I thought it would be worth a try. She wasn't, but luckily relations of her were.
I knew her address from walking with her to her house a few times before we had started dating, if you call two days' worth dating. That was the address I saw in the book, so I called the number to speak to her parents. Hopefully they would have a number or an address that I could call or visit.
When I called up her parents, it only took about two rings before someone answered the phone. It was an old sounding man, someone I assumed was her father.
"Hi, Mr. Santos? My name is Craig Manning, and I was wondering if you had a way that I could get in touch with your daughter Manny?" There was a bit of a silence over the phone, before the man replied.
"Why the hell do you want to talk to her?" My face became puzzled. He was saying that as if Manny was a type of disease or something.
"Just to catch up. I was a peer of hers at Degrassi Community School." Another silence, before Mr. Santos responded,
"Well, we don't have Manny's current number. We disowned her a long time ago." He hung up and I was left frustrated and dissatisfied.
I went back to the porn tape to try and figure out if it could give me any clue as to how to find Manny. I honestly had no desire to see Manny's cunt or how swallowing two guys at once again, but I felt like the answers were there. Luckily, I didn't have to see all of that, because my answer came to me as I watched the opening credits.
Probably one of the main reasons why I hadn't noticed that Manny was Manny was because her name hadn't been used to identify her. Manny had acquired a Porn Star name. 'Manny Santos'
obviously hadn't been porn-starish enough. Manny's Porn Star name was Lolita Fukyu. Since Manny looked kind of Asian, I could see how the last name would work. It made sense.
Crossing my fingers and praying to god, I looked for Lolita Fukyu in the phonebook. I almost died with happiness when I saw that it was listed.
Visiting Manny, Lolita, whatever you wanted to call her, was the hardest part of the whole ordeal. It was easier to think of meeting her when I wasn't that close to doing so. Actually having to do it scared me. I didn't know how she would react when she saw me outside her door.
Lolita Fukyu's address was in a neighborhood that wasn't exactly the best. Her tiny apartment was straight up and down the projects. I didn't think it was so wise, me being white and all, to be in a neighborhood like that. I seemed to stand out very brightly around the buildings. But I was willing to do anything to bring Manny out of doing porn. She had been too sweet for that.
I was relieved when Manny finally opened the door. I could see a group of mean looking black guys starting to assemble behind me. When she opened the door, she stood there and looked at me for awhile. I wanted to yell at her, "Let me in the goddamn house! Can't you see that people are about to kill me?!"
The reason she kept me out was because she was trying to recognize me. Her face was going through the same motions mine had done when I was trying to figure out who she was in the flick. When she finally did recognize me, she said uncertainly,
"Craig?" I nodded hurriedly, trying to show her that I wanted to come in. Hell, I needed to come in. She pulled me inside and closed the door.
"Craig, what are you doing here?" she asked after she had pulled me in. I noticed that her voice was different from what I had heard last. More raspy and raw, like she had become a smoker. True to my assumption, she pulled out a cigarette and lit up.
"Um I wanted to talk to you."
She sat down on a ratty looking couch and offered for me to sit next to her. I looked at the couch and say a rather large, mutated roach crawl across the seat. Not wanting to seem rude, I sat down next to her anyway. "About what?" she asked me once I had sat down, blowing a puff of smoke in my face. I coughed and fanned the tainted air out of my face.
"About…um…about…" She looked at me intently.
"Yes?" she asked. I looked down at the couch and saw another roach crawl close to my shoulder. I tried to imagine myself sitting on a nice, non roach infested couch, and closed my eyes.
"I don't want you to be a porn star Manny," I told her, my eyes still closed. There was a silence. When I opened my eyes, she was staring at me, a look on her face that clearly said, 'How dare he?' There was a long, uncomfortable pause before she replied,
"Who the hell are you to tell me what I should and should not do?" Her voice was angry. I hadn't wanted to make her angry.
"It's not that-"
"What the hell is it then?"
"It's just - Manny, you use to be so good and happy - it hurts me to see you like this. It hurts me to see you giving your body away." She just looked at me. Her eyes were squinted.
"It hurts you? What do you think I care about hurting you?" She stood up. I stood up too, more than anxious to leave the couch. "How could you think that I would care about hurting you after how you hurt me?"
"I wasn't trying to hurt you," I told her, putting my hands on her arms. "I just - I didn't like you like that Manny. That's all." She looked away from my face and towards her dirty floor. "I didn't expect
that you would do this because I didn't like you," Her head shot up. She looked at me, just as angry as she had been a few moments ago. She broke away from my grasp.
"Get over yourself! I didn't do this because of you - this had nothing to do with you!" I was a bit surprised, yes. Of course, I had been thinking that this was because of me.
"Why then?" She walked around her grimy living room, as if thinking about what she should tell me. Then she looked into my face, and sighed.
"I started doing this because, well, a few years after we had went out, I was - my older cousin raped me." I gasped. She nodded a bit, and then continued.
"From that point on, my body became less important to me. How could it not, me being forced to give up my virginity? Nobody knows what happened to me that night, not Emma, not even my parents. My parents disowned me when I decided to do this, but I didn't care. I honestly don't care about anything any more. Except..." She sighed again.
"Except what?" I asked her.
"I have a son." I collapsed back on the couch.
"No," I said. She nodded.
"Yeah. One of my, ah, endeavors, got me pregnant. The kid lives with Emma. She didn't desert me when she found out what I was doing, even though she disapproved. Anyway, he lives with her, and the money I make goes mostly towards him, to pay for his wellbeing and for college
if and when he goes."
I just nodded and blinked dumbly. There was nothing more than I can say. "Anything else?" she asked me.
"No," I replied my voice breaking. "I'll be - I'll be going now." She smiled at me.
"OK then." She saw me out of the door. "Walk to your car as fast as you can." That was the last thing she said to me before she closed her door.
As soon as I got home, I went to my bedroom and fell down on my bed. My original mission had been thwarted, but I was satisfied with answers that she had given me. I felt bad for her. I wanted to comfort her, but I knew that I couldn't. She had been through to much to be comforted. I sighed.
It is still hard to believe that she is a Porn Star though.
