Title: Manny Santos is 'Lori Meyers'

Author: Bland

Rating: PG-13 for Language & Subject Matter

Notes: Loosely based on the NOFX song, 'Lori Meyers' Punk In Drublic, 1994. This is a revised draft of the original story, which was posted in the early part of 2003. I've changed it to go along with events in Season 3. I've also changed the ending because I've pretty much hated it from the beginning. Hopefully this will be as well-liked as the original, if not better.

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Manny Santos is 'Lori Meyers'

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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 that I had seen her in another porno, it wasn't that sort of recognition. She looked like someone I had known, someone I could've talked to. Boy was I surprised when I remembered who she was. This girl that was performing all sorts of sex acts to my puzzled face was someone that I had talked to. I had dated her a few times. The girl on the screen being dirty was Manuela AKA Manny Santos.

When I finally realized who she was, I just sat there with my mouth hanging open and with my eyes popped out of my head for the longest time. I was so shocked. Manny Santos, a porn star? She had gained a reputation for being the school slut in her 9th grade year thanks to a one night stand in which she ended up getting impregnated by me, but this took everything to a new level. It was much 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 when I called him and he nearly choked to death. I heard him coughing and wheezing away on the other end of the phone. "Wha- wheeze, cough, wheeeeze What? Craig are you serious? Manny? Wow, what in the hell has the world cough, wheeeeeze, wheeze, cough come to?" I shook my head in disbelief, though, of course, he couldn't see me.

"Dude, I don't know. I'm so shocked right now." He started viciously clearing his throat before he responded,

"Ditto."

"I need to talk to her, to find her somehow. I feel like it's my entire fault."

He cleared his throat some more. Then, "Why is that?"

"That shouldn't even be a question - I knocked her up and gave her the reputation as the town whore. How could it not be my fault?"

There was silence from him on the other end before he responded, "Good point, but you have to remember that this is Manny's decision. You didn't tell her to become a porn star." He was right, but I still felt pretty guilty and it still seemed as if her becoming a porn star was her way at getting back at me by showing herself giving ass to fat, ugly guys.

"Maybe it's revenge dude," I replied.

"Well, it could be. I personally think you're being paranoid, but whatever. So, are you going to contact her?" I shrugged, an action invisible to his eyes.

"Yeah. I was thinking that I could maybe look her up in the phonebook..." He sort of laughed.

"Good luck with that buddy." I could tell in the sarcastic way that he had replied that he knew nobody with a life, especially a pornographic one, would ever bother to put their name in a phone book. I sighed and said my goodbyes. As I hung up, I couldn't help

feeling jointly shocked and hopeless. Would I be able to find her?

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Despite the fact that I had no way of contacting Manny, I was determined to make contact with her regardless. The determination to contact her was almost with stalker-like zeal, but unlike a real stalker, I didn't plan to murder her when I finally found her. Even though there was no way Manny could be in the phone book, I thought it would be worth a try to look. She wasn't in the phonebook, but her parents were. I decided to call the number listed to speak to her parents. Hopefully they would have her number or address that I could call or visit.

When I called 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. /p

"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 Manuela?" There was a bit of a silence over the phone, before the man replied.

"And why the hell would you want to talk with her?" He said that as if Manny was a type of fatal 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 her current number. We disowned her a long time ago." He hung up and I was left feeling both extremely frustrated and extremely discontent.

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I went back to the porn tape to try and look for clues, to see if it could lead me to Manny. I honestly had no desire to see Manny's giving head to Ugly Sleazebag #1, but I felt like the answers had to be there. Unfortunately I did have to sit through another round of disturbing yet arousing Manny sex I am a guy after all, but I got my reward for it when the credits began at the end of the movie.

The character that was played by Manny was credited with a different name, a name that was not Manny Santos. '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 name worked.

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. I had found her at last.

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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, but actually doing it scared the shit out of 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 safest. Her tiny apartment was straight up and down in the projects. I didn't think it was so wise, me being so very white and all, to be driving around in the ghetto. I easily stood out. But I wanting to stop Manny from taking the route that she was taking. She had been way too sweet for that, even if she hadn't been so innocent.

I knocked on her door, number 27. It was a long while before she answered, which made me think that she wasn't at home. I was preparing to leave when her door opened. I had been more than ready to bolt because, I could see a group of mean looking black guys start to assemble a few doors down. For a moment she stood and looked at me as if she was in shock. I wanted to yell at her, "Let me in the goddamn house! Can't you see that people are about to kill me?!" I nearly did, when she said,

"Craig?" I nodded hurriedly, trying to show her that, yes, it was me and I really needed to be let in. She pulled me inside and closed her door. "Craig, what are you doing here?" she asked. I noticed that her voice was different from what I had heard last. It was more raspy and raw, as if she had taken up smoking. True to my assumption, she pulled out a cigarette from a pack on a nearby end table and lit up with a lighter that had come from her jean pocket.

"Um...I wanted to talk to you."

She sat down on a ratty looking couch and motioned for me to sit next to her. I looked at the couch and say a rather large, mutated roach crawling across the seat. But, 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 crawling close to my shoulder. I tried to imagine myself sitting on a nice, non-roach-infested couch, and closed my eyes.

"I don't agree with you becoming a porn star Manny. You're too good for that, you should be in a more respectable job" I told her, my eyes still closed. There was a long silence. When I opened my eyes again, I saw her staring at me, a look on her face that clearly said, 'How dare he?' There was longer and very awkward silence before she replied,

"Who the hell are you to tell me what I should and should not do?" Her voice was very angry and dangerous sounding. I hadn't wanted to make her angry and I definitely didn't want her to get dangerous.

"It's not that-"

"Well, what the hell is it then?"

"It's just - It hurts me to see you giving your body away like this..." She just looked at me, her eyes squinted into tiny slits.

"It hurts you? Why 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 much you had hurt me?" /p

"I wasn't trying to hurt you," I told her, putting my hands on her arms. "I just - l screwed up thinking that I could handle you and Ashley at the same time that's all. Yeah I lied to you but it wasn't because I had some desire to see you hurt. That wasn't the situation at all." She looked away from my face and towards her dirty floor. "I didn't expect that you would do this because of how hurt you were that I wronged you so many times..." Her head shot up. She looked at me, just as angry as she had been a few moments ago and 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 more than a bit surprised. How could this not have anything to do with me?

"If not me, then why would you do something like this?" 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...well after everything, I was... my older cousin started sexually abusing me." I gasped. She nodded a bit, and then continued.

"From that point on, my body became even less important to me. I figured that if I was wanted so much that I had nothing to lose than coming into a profession like this. Since prostitution is illegal and I couldn't handle being a stripper, I decided to pursue this instead. Nobody knew about the sexual abuse, not Emma, not even my parents. My parents disowned me when I decided to do this, but I didn't care. I still don'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. It wasn't ours; you know since I got that one aborted...it was from my cousin. He got me pregnant again. The kid lives with Emma. She didn't desert me when she found out what I was doing, even though she heartily 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, completely speechless. "Anything else?" she asked me.

"God, Manny..." I replied my voice breaking. "I wish that I had known before...I wouldn't have been so judgmental. Not that you really had any reason to tell me, but it's just mind-blowing all that you went through after...after everything." She nodded and sat back down on her couch. I didn't join her; a whole roach family was out to play.

She looked up at me and sighed a bit. "You shouldn't have been so judgmental in the first place, Craig. But it's your nature, I guess. You're so self-centered that you think everyone else in the world must be as righteous as you. Which, might I add is completely absurd considering that you aren't so pure yourself." I ignored her and turned around, walking to her door. I put my hand on the doorknob and turned back around. "Guess this is goodbye then." She stumped out her cigarette on the couch.

"Guess so." I forced a tiny smile for her, nodded and opened her door. She said nothing as I left.

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As I drove back to the brighter side of Toronto, I thought about everything that she had told me. I felt sorry for her because of all that she had been through in the past and all that she was going through in the present. It was overwhelming the many hardships that Manny Lolita Fukyu Santos had to face, but the thing that amazed me was that she was so strong, taking everything at stride and in good humor. Though my original plan for the visit had been blown apart into tiny pieces, I still felt that something good had come out of my visit. I finally understood, or was starting to understand, Manny's motive for things. I had the truth now.

But it's still very hard to accept that Manny is a porn star.

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That's it, folks. Feedback is definitely welcome and it isn't hard to give. Thanks!