Chapter 5

Four days later, I got an e-mail from Reggie. There were a half-dozen photographic attachments -- ample-sized.jpgs with excellent composition and color.

I'd seen lots of comparable nudes on the Internet, although not lately. The stark clarity of the lighting, the unsubtle quality of the nudity, the almost-clinical exposition of the model's sexual parts, combined to remind me immediately of how perversely exciting such photography could be.

But, my God! When you knew the model. When you've spoken to her, danced with her, admired her. The level of excitement is magnified enormously!

And there could be no doubt. This was no look-alike. It was Shirley Kiner, in the flesh. And what flesh it was! Unlike the Penthouse pictorial, which had featured Shirley's stunningly blonde, "natural look" trimmed pubic hair, in these photographs her vaginal lips were entirely shaven. They were so closely shorn there was not so much as a suggestion that pubic hair had ever covered the terrain.

It was breathtaking -- literally! Unconsciously, I had momentarily held my breath as I drank in those incredible photographs. The photographer might be a son of a bitch, as Shirley had described him. But he was a talented son of a bitch, and he had found an incredible model. Compared to these steamingly provocative pictures, Shirley's aging Penthouse pictorial had suddenly become PG-13.

Reggie's accompanying e-mail message was brief:

Found these, readily enough, on an Internet newsgroup. Her name, on the photos, is 'Tasha, ' but it's pretty clear, isn't it, that it's our girl.

There's a 'Tasha Divine' listed as a cast member in an unrated film called 'Girls on Fire.' The description of the movie makes it clear it's a cheapo sex flick, but there's no indication whether it's hard-core. Date on it was 1997, suggesting it's possible that Tasha Divine is our own SK. No available pictures, though, identifying 'Tasha Divine.'

I sent Reggie back a brief acknowledgement, thanking him for the information. I printed out 8 x 10 color copies of the six.jpgs and called Herm to ask if I could drop by his house.

He told me to come ahead, and I took the pictures along, and a copy of Reggie's e-mail message.

Herm and Betsy looked at the message and the photos, and then helped me search the Internet for references to Shirley, or to Tasha, or "Tasha Divine."

There were a number of hits for girls named "Tasha" and several of them were good-looking young women. One of the Tashas maintained her own web site -- evidently solely for the posting of scantily clad photos of her.

But none of the photos was of Shirley, and there were no hits at all for the name "Tasha Divine."

"Girls on Fire" turned out to be a popular name for a skin movie. Three movies with that title had been produced in the past two decades. We did manage to zero in on the one Reggie had written to me about, and the film's cast list did include a "Tasha Divine."

No pictures. It seemed possible, though, that this was still-another movie in which Shirley had been featured.

"Is there any way to find out, for sure, whether this is she?" I asked Herm.

"I can think of two ways, offhand," he said. "One, try to find the movie on VCR or DVD, and check for yourself."

"What's number two?" I asked.

"Much easier than number one," Herm said. "Ask Shirley."

"Wouldn't asking her a question like that suggest a greater interest in her past life than I probably ought to be showing?"

"Absolutely!" Betsy said. I had been directing my question to Herm, but all he did, after Betsy had answered me, was to shake his head in agreement.

We explored further, on the Internet, looking for a place to purchase "Girls on Fire" online, but found no distributor who was selling it. We couldn't find either of the earlier titles that Betsy had identified, either.

"I think that's a positive sign," Herm offered. "If these movies aren't available for sale, it probably means they're not hard-core titles. I don't imagine there's much of a market, outside of Cinemax, or maybe 'Cheap-Motel Flicks, Inc.', for old soft-core movies."

What Herm said seemed to make sense, although I had no idea whether he actually knew what he was talking about. It seemed damned unlikely, though, that outside of major cities -- cities more major, even, than nearby St. Louis -- we would ever be able to locate any of these obscure titles for purchase on tape or disk.

If I wanted to know more about Shirley's film career, I might end up actually having to ask Shirley. In all likelihood, she wouldn't be pleased to be asked that question. Even the fact that her "friends" had been researching her past would probably not go down all that well.

"I'm going to call her," I told Herm and Betsy. I'm going to ask her out to dinner. And I'm not going to ask her a damned thing, about anything she's done, or not done, in the past decade."

"Good strategy," Betsy said.

"If you two hit it off," Herm offered, "maybe your second date could be to bring her over here for an evening."

"That would be great," I said. "I'll let you know if she agrees to go out with me at all -- and whether we 'hit it off.'"

Friday afternoon -- almost a week since our reunion evening together in the old home town -- I reached Shirley at the phone number she'd given me. She seemed pleased that I'd called.