The Saga of Blanche, Past I

They always said that she had a little problem with mirrors.

That's normal.  Basic human nature.  We've all got a little bit of vanity, 
right?  

Right.  Unless your name is Coyreen, and you're known throughout the world as 
Coyreen, the Porno Queen, and suddenly your little problem has left a trail 
of corpses from Mexicali to Malibu.  That's when it becomes my business.  I'm 
a dick.

Detective, that is.  Private.  Oh, I'd been on the force once, years ago, 
before Coyreen had even been born.  (Come to think of it, that wasn't such a 
long time ago!)  But the job wasn't for me.  Maybe I wasn't good enough to be 
a cop; maybe I was too good.  We parted amicably, the department and I, and a 
lot of the old crew still works there.  Once in a while, one of them tosses a 
scrap my way.

Like they did on that mean, wet winter afternoon that seems so long ago......

I was sitting behind my desk in the tiny offices of Grimbros Investigations, 
Inc., down on the corner of Figueroa and Broadway, when the phone sounded 
off.  Not expecting much, I pushed aside the Racing Form and picked it up on 
the third ring.  "Yeah?"

"Hey, Grimbros, 'zat you?"  The voice was low, but friendly, and conjured up 
a very familiar face behind a blue serge uniform.  It didn't even 
mispronounce my name (it's GRIM-broze, but most people say grim-BROSS). "You 
know it is," I said noncommittally.  "You got somethin' for me?"

There was a laugh.  "Yeah, that's you, Grimbros," said the voice.  "No good 
afternoon, or how the Hell are ya, just straight to business.  You're all 
heart."

"No time for chatter," I grumbled, setting him up for an old joke.  "Since I 
left the force, I've had to work for a living."

A roar of laughter, quickly muted.  "Fuck, Grimbros, I'm tryin' to be 
inconspicuous, here.  I'm right outside the squadroom.  Okay, listen, it may 
not be much, but I think you might find a willing client if you were to visit 
a certain Miles O'Smiles.  He keeps bugging us about, um, one of our 
investigations, but shit, we've only got so much time...."

"Miles O'Smiles?" I repeated.  "You mean that phony Englishman who does the 
skin flicks?  Used to be that Coyreen chick's manager?"

The voice grew tense.  "No, tough guy, I'm referring to Miles O'Smiles, the 
prominent entertainment tycoon and grieving widower who might just have some 
paying work for a smart-assed acquaintance of mine."

"Oh, THAT Miles O'Smiles," I said.  "Well, I'm sure he's got a lot to say, 
now that his meal ticket's been canceled. Okay, my friend, thanks a lot."

"Remember now, dammit," the voice said, "any evidence of any crime - - - "

"Yeah, yeah," I interrupted, "you'll be the first to know. Hey, thanks.  I'll 
get back to you."  I dropped the blower back in its cradle and reached for a 
new pack of Luckies.  Well, well, I mused, you never know.  The little bitch 
just got iced a week ago, and her pimp ... excuse me, her grieving widower 
... was already crowding the boys downtown.  This oughtta be interesting.....

In ninety minutes, or Ninety Fuckin' Minutes, Los Angeles Time, I was at the 
O'Smiles residence in Palos Verdes Peninsula.  Thirty minutes after that, I 
had the story.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The coroner's report identified the famous little corpse as Coyreen O'Smiles, 
but of course she didn't start out that way.  When she got off the bus from 
Ramp, Oklahoma, her name was Ruth Anne .... well, let's just say Ruth Anne.  
Why cause any unnecessary embarrassment to the homefolks?

Like thousands of other young girls with stars in their eyes, but very few 
brains in their heads, Ruth Anne had somehow managed to scrape together some 
money for busfare; and one day, after Daddy had beaten and sodomized her a 
little less tenderly than usual, she climbed up on the 'Hound and rode it all 
the way to Sunset Boulevard.  Unlike most of these girls, Ruth Anne would 
succeed beyond her wildest dreams.  Her sweet, stupid little toes first 
touched down in Hollywood on her thirteenth birthday.

How'd she get into porn?  The usual way: she was going about her business, 
doing what was necessary to survive in the big city, and some enterprising 
young man pointed a camera at her.  It was as simple as that.  Within a week, 
she had done about a dozen 8-mm jerk-off loops, the kind you see in the 
quarter slot machines.  Three months after her arrival in Hollywood, she had 
landed her first full-length feature, which would also become her name: 
"Coyreen." Without The Artist Formerly Known as Ruth Anne, "Coyreen" would 
have been another unremarkable direct-to-video release; with her, it became 
bigger than "Deep Throat."  

No, I didn't see it, not until recently.  As he Grieving Widower was handing 
me my first week's expense allowance, he also handed me a videocassette, and 
said, "You'll never understand this case if you've never seen Coyreen." 

He was right.  I watched "Coyreen" that evening at home; within 24 hours I'd 
purchased, or ordered, every video she'd ever made.  I have never seen 
anything like her, before or since.

Imagine a fresh, enthusiastic, laughing girl with a blonde shag hairdo, a 
turned-up nose, and the bluest, clearest eyes you've seen.  Then imagine this 
same girl with full, heavy lips, so sensuous that she pouts even when she's 
smiling.  Finally, imagine this same girl at an even five feet tall, less 
than a hundred pounds, and size 36 breasts (real, not fake).  Got the 
picture?  Okay, this person is walking toward you, slowly unbuttoning and 
unzipping her "schoolgirl" uniform, coming straight toward you (or the 
camera), and she begins to literally drool with lust, a string of sparkling 
saliva dangling from her lower tip to one of her huge, peach-colored nipples, 
which are so large that they seem to encompass half the breasts.  She's 
coming closer, naked now, and you see her opening her clean-shaven little 
pussy with the fingers of one hand, and reaching out for you (whoever you 
are, man or woman) with the other......and as she begins to moan, and squeak, 
and whimper with desire, you realize....she's only thirteen years old.  And 
only you can satisfy her.  Oh, she might fuck or suck twenty men in a 
60-minute film, but that's only because she hasn't found YOU yet: you're the 
one she wants.  She tells you so, every time she looks at the camera.

That was her secret: not the big tits or the tiny waist or even that 
remarkable mouth; in Hollywood, those things are a dime a dozen.  But Coyreen 
could do anything, be anything, with either gender (and several species), and 
when she rolled those eyes toward the camera, she was thinking only of you.   
 

Well, that was half of her secret.  The other half, as everyone in the world 
now knows, is what gave her such unprecedented appeal: yes, when the movie 
was made, she really was only thirteen.  And in the fifty films that followed 
in the next three years, she was still merely a young teenager.  The most 
poorly kept secret in America: they're working an underaged girl....and 
getting away with it.  A year after she arrived in Hollywood, she was the 
subject of jokes and raucous comments everywhere from Oprah to 
Letterman....and nobody ever prosecuted.

Are you old enough to remember the appeal of Marilyn Chambers, the "Ivory 
Snow" girl who became the Ultimate Porn Goddess?  Her secret was her 
fresh-faced, healthy look: "hey, mister, I'm not a hooker or a junkie, and 
I'd love to swallow your cum!"  Well, imagine a 13-year-old Marilyn Chambers, 
and you'll have an idea why Coyreen became the Porno Queen.  When you saw a 
Coyreen film, you knew you were getting the real thing: yes, that's a 
13-year-old up there on the screen, with that guy's arm buried in her cunt 
nearly to the elbow; yes, that's a 14-year-old being gang-fucked by 
dildo-wearing lesbians; yes, that's a 15-year-old taking a dump in that older 
woman's face.  And they played it for all it was worth: in each film, Coyreen 
played the part of an adolescent, or, even better, a child.  And by the time 
she was 18, she and her director, the aforementioned Miles O'Smiles, were the 
proud (and rich) parents of twin baby girls.  It seems that whenever little 
Ruth Anne spread those creamy thighs, she produced.

She had it all.  She was as famous as Linda Lovelace, Monica Lewinsky, and 
Amy Fisher, all rolled into one.  She had a husband (they were married in 
Mexico, on her sixteenth birthday, after finishing production on the 
blockbuster hit, "Fuck in Acapulco"); she had children; she even had her own 
Webpage...plus about 200 "fan sites." She was Coyreen, and she wasn't even 
out of her teens.

On the other hand...she wasn't getting any younger, either.  And, although 
pregnancy and childbirth were mere interruptions (she continued to make films 
as late as her eighth month; her fans enjoyed seeing her pregnant), her 
career began to slow down after she turned 18.  Maybe they should have seen 
it coming; maybe they did see it coming, but couldn't do anything about it.  
Whatever the case, when Coyreen became "legal," half of her appeal 
disappeared forever.  

Millions of her fans remained loyal, of course, to them, she'd always be "our 
little Coyreen."  And her lawful wedded spouse, Miles O'Smiles, devoted most 
(though not all) of his time to promoting her; in addition to everything 
else, they were partners.  But other fans began to look for fresher faces, 
and younger (or less familiar) bodies.  Yes, Coyreen had been the best, but 
now she had done the unforgivable: she had become an adult.  

She did not take these things well.  Ever since she had been a young child, 
people had lavished attention on her because of her beauty and her 
youthfulness.  She was still beautiful (although a bit worn around the ages), 
but she couldn't be thirteen or sixteen forever, and she could sense what was 
coming.  She began drinking, hard; rumors of drug abuse were everywhere; and, 
perhaps saddest of all, she began to fuck, or be fucked by, anyone who might 
be interested. It was the only meaningful thing she knew how to do.  Her cunt 
had been her ticket to fame and fortune; but now, instead of being her 
palace, it became her prison.

So she fucked, and was fucked; and she broke that poor bastard O'Smiles' 
heart a thousand times, but he still loved her.  As time went on, she became 
less and less interested in the "family business," as they regarded their 
little corner of the porn world; and there was Hell to pay when Miles had to 
hire newer, fresher faces.  Coyreen's jealousy was unreasoning and absolute.  
But Miles was faithful, and he tried to help her through her difficult 
passage into legal adulthood.  He even ordered his technical staff to write a 
special program, the so-called "mirror.exe" program, to greet and flatter her 
whenever she went online to look at her Webpage and fan sites (which, 
unfortunately, were dwindling in number).  As soon as she logged on, 
"mirror.exe" would dazzle her with a new, randomly selected  slideshow  of 
images from her "greatest films," and "mirror.WAV"  would kick in, with the 
hundred-voice Watts Mass Choir singing "Who's the finest Queen you've 
seen?/We all think it's Queen Coyreen!"  And at first, this childish gimmick 
worked (as, after all, Coyreen was still something of a child herself).  It 
looked like Coyreen was trying to achieve a kind of maturity, since she had 
no other choice; she became a bit less selfish, a bit less jealous, and even 
got around to fucking poor old Miles from time to time.

They should have known, though.  Time doesn't stand still for anyone.

One morning (well, L.A. Time again; really afternoon), after waking up, using 
the bathroom, and getting her first cup of coffee, Coyreen sat down at her 
computer to run a Web-check for any recent references to herself that she 
might have missed.  (Miles' tech staff were trying to devise a Coyreen-Only 
Search Engine, but it still had a few bugs.)  Imagine her surprise when she 
saw, not her beloved mirror.exe program, but merely the standard desktop!  
Her brows furrowed; she felt a sudden, inexplicable chill.  (She was stark 
naked, of course, and the air-conditioner was very powerful, but she was used 
to that; the chill, I repeat, was inexplicable.)  She clicked the Start 
button, then typed in "mirror.exe" and waited.  Perhaps 45 seconds later, the 
desktop disappeared, and mirror.exe began its slideshow....but very slowly.  
The images crawled across the screen, becoming even slower, then stopped 
altogether.  The last image to be displayed was a particularly gooey cum-shot 
from "Fuck in Acapulco;" not one of Coyreen's favorites; and  then, finally, 
a blank screen.  And, to make matters worse, the thing was completely silent! 
 Where was the Watts Mass Choir?

"What the fuck!" Coyreen screamed.  She angrily jabbed her finger into the 
"Reset" button and waited.  After the machine rebooted, there was no trace of 
mirror.exe at all; merely a lowly cursor blinking mournfully in the corner of 
the screen.  Oh, shit, thought Coyreen, the fucker's in DOS mode!  What the 
fuck am I supposed to do now?  She snorted and slapped her hand against the 
side of the monitor.  "What's wrong with you, motherfucker?" she screamed at 
the computer.  "Where are you?  Where's my slideshow?  Where are my pictures? 
 Where are my singers?  Damn you to Hell, who's the finest Queen you've seen?"

Suddenly, the computer began to hum.  Coyreen actually gasped when the screen 
lit up: not in the familiar mirror.exe, or even the desktop, but merely a 
shimmering, silvery-blue screen with  three lines of bright red type, which 
blinked on and off slowly.  And here is what the type said:
mirror.exe/search
finestqueen 
Please Wait

"Please wait?" howled Coyreen.  "What in the fuck is going on around here?"

Then the screen blinked again.....