Mrs. Bobby’s Mom
By Amy Lane
In an embarrassment of riches, I had Randy’s book, Jackson’s book, and Eric Christian’s book floating around my head at the same time. Jackson and Randy’s books were going to coincide, and they might even have moved down south, except I wrote this little ficlet, and the next book changed shape overnight.
Yes, for those of you wondering, I think there will definitely be a short at some point, showing Isabelle and Cowboy making a home together, because they both have so much more love to give.
“G’NIGHT, MRS. Bobby’s Mom!”
Isabelle Roberts turned toward the very attractive young men who had just escorted her to her car and smiled gently. “Thanks, guys. You know, you don’t have to walk me to my car—”
“Oh no,” the first one—a young blond Viking who went by the stage name of Ricky—said soberly. “It’s a rule.”
She held back a smile. They were all so sober and responsible—and so young. Even the twenty-five-year-olds were young. “A rule?” she asked, although she sort of knew.
“It’s one of the first things they tell us,” said the Viking’s friend. “Rudy” was his stage name at present, and he was smaller—nearly her height—and was probably not quite nineteen. He’d tried hard to work out enough to mask his slender grace, but unless he did steroids—and Johnnies prohibited it—that wasn’t going to happen.
“They?” she prodded, remembering when her Vern was this age. He’d had a lot of the same secrets as these young men, and getting things that weren’t secret out of him had been like pulling teeth. He was a little older now—twenty-three as opposed to nineteen—and as always, preternaturally mature for his age, but she still had her arsenal of tricks to get him to come clean.
“The older guys,” Rudy said, nodding like it was a secret society. Well, in a way, it was, right? “And the bosses. Dex and John. They always come by and say ‘Remember to make sure gets out okay. We need to keep her.’”
Isabelle laughed, the sound coming much easier than it had four years ago. Yeah, it had been hard to get the hell out of Dogpatch, California, and she was still not okay with the sacrifices her son had made for her to come down here and live a better, freer life, but she was free now, and she could laugh or smile or even flirt at these sweet, highly unavailable young men who made her feel like she was a queen and would never, ever let her go out to her car alone, even in broad daylight.
“Well, you’re all very kind,” she said, allowing her smile to reach her eyes. “But you both need to get home safely too.” The shoot had been in the hands of a new photographer today, and while the feedback had been pretty good—his videos did well, with a quick-cut style that apparently appealed to today’s younger viewers, and the models all said he was professional and even funny at times—the guy was also “Not Dex or John.” Dex and John had over two decades combined with shooting porn, and they were very good at getting in and out (pun always intended) as quickly as possible. The new guy—Vic—tended to close down the office around eight, and the escort from the models as the sky grew dark in early May was welcome.
“No worries.” Rudy grinned at her. “We’re staying at the flophouse now. It’s pretty awesome!”
She didn’t even want to know what awesome meant. Bobby had stayed there for a couple of months, and when she’d asked him about it—since so many of John’s models spent time there—his response had been a sort of grunt about, “Too much testosterone, too many penises, not enough clothes.”
She didn’t need to know any more. She did know that Dex’s younger brother and one of the former models had taken on a sort of unofficial supervision of the place, to make sure the kids—eighteen did not make them adults—stayed healthy and hopefully on some sort of track that would help them realize a life beyond porn. It had taken her a while to get it, that some of these young men weren’t here for the money. Whether it was for the acceptance, the challenge, or being the star of their own lives, there were other reasons to be in the business. Some of them, she’d figured, were just really horny and had the judgment of lemmings, so there were worse places to end up than a porn studio that tried to keep kids from losing their nut in a totally tragic and nonsexual way.
It was weird how some parents freaked out about their kids having sex, or who they were having sex with , as though doing a thing with their bodies before their smarts kicked in somehow made them older or dirtier or more sinful. It simply made them kids , oftentimes going, “Hey, what does this button do! Oh wow! That was fun—let’s do that again !” The rest of their emotional needs were not automatically met because they found that humans sometimes had magic buttons. In fact sometimes the magic buttons got in the way, and it was the adults’ job to look out for their kids when they were off chasing magic buttons and threatening to get plowed over by trains.
So she was glad that Rudy and Ricky had both found the flophouse—and that there were other people watching out for them who might understand the needs of people with their specific buttons. But she really didn’t want to know what went on there.
“That’s wonderful,” she said kindly. “You enjoy your stay. Tell Henry and Lance hello for me.” Henry was Dex’s little brother, and Lance was his boyfriend—the flophouse supervisors.
“Oh wow!” Ricky said, his eyes as big as a little kid’s. “We’re totally late for our scene dinner.”
“Oh my God!” Rudy, too, a little freaked out. “I’m starving . We gotta go, —bye!”
And with that they took off into the night, leaving her to start her vehicle to head home to her cross-stitching and her murder mysteries and her cats. Vern and his boyfriend, Reg, had gotten her two kittens for Christmas—Cornish rexes, who had the shortest, most tightly crimped fur. She adored them and had tried to ask where they’d gotten such expensive animals, but Vern and Reg had been sort of vague about the whole thing.
She loved the creatures—they were affectionate and playful and made her little two-bedroom apartment so much less lonely. She’d originally thought that Vern might stay with her when she’d chosen the place, but it had very quickly become evident that once he and Reg had gotten back together, they were partners for life. It was okay, though. John Carey, her employer, paid her more than enough money to keep the place, and she had benefits too.
And of course the special assignments that John sometimes asked of her that they didn’t tell anybody about.
It was funny that she would have thought of that now , because as soon as she pulled out of the Johnnies parking lot, her phone rang. She hit the button on her dashboard and John Carey’s voice came through, quiet and tense, and she was instantly on alert.
“Isabelle?”
“Mr. Carey, are you okay?”
“Oh yes—”
“Galen?” she asked. She did love John’s boyfriend—he was just so charming with his suits and his southern drawl.
“We’re both fine, Isabelle,” he said, his voice taking on that gentle timbre that was probably why all the kids seemed to worship him. “It’s just… I’m going to need your help tonight. We’ve got another one.”
“Oh my,” she said. “What size? I’ve got a closet full of clothes, unless he’s bigger than Vern or smaller than Reg.”
“Closer to Reg than Bobby,” John said. “But he’s going to need a long bath and a haircut. Galen is sending Henry over with some antifungals and some lice treatments. Prep the bathroom and start dinner—we’ve fed him a burger, but he needs something real.”
“Oh my,” she said. Her voice dropped. “How young, John?”
“Fourteen,” John said softly. “Hit on Galen and me as we were coming out of a meeting. Swears he’s drug free, but I don’t think that’s always been the case. I’m going to have Henry sleep on your couch tonight, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” she said, because sometimes it was necessary. “But fourteen! John, where is he going to go?”
“We’ll find a place,” John said. His voice lightened a little. “We always do, right?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll go get things ready.”
“Thanks, sweetheart. We’ll meet you there.”
Fourteen was young, she thought unhappily. Usually when John got hit on by a street kid—and because the NA meetings he and Galen attended once a week were held in a battered church in a sketchy neighborhood, it happened far more than it should have—the kid was at least sixteen—old enough to understand how to behave in at least a transactional way. “Here, kid—we’ve got a place to squat, three hots and a cot, but you need to be nice to . We’ll try to find you a place that’ll let you get a real job and get back on your feet.”
Sacramento had one of the few shelters for LGBTQ youth in the state, and oftentimes, the kids had ended up there. If the kid was over eighteen, John offered him a job—not in porn, unless they asked, but at Johnnies or one of the other businesses he’d been developing to help the kids who either were ready to quit porn and needed a helping hand, or who had been out of the street and just needed a job and a place to stay. Isabelle understood that this was how the flophouse had started, although John had sworn her to secrecy about the fact that he paid the lease, and if any of the kids there couldn’t make rent, he made up the difference.
Isabelle knew that some of John’s favorite kids were the ones who’d jumped in to the business with both feet to try to “pay their own way.” She also knew, because John had confessed to her one quiet, melancholy night that this was one of the primary reasons John had stopped shooting scenes himself.
It just hadn’t felt right, when the eighteen-year-old who’d seemed too damned young to hit on him was suddenly naked and having sex in his camera’s lens. If Isabelle hadn’t come to regard John so highly already, that confession alone would have done it for her. It wasn’t only the kids who “aged out” of porn—John had matured beyond it too. He still thought it had its place, but the place was not for him.
So he’d passed the torch, and he and Dex had taken the business in a direction that gave the kids who’d fucked themselves silly on camera a place to now be mature, sober adults without the spotlight. Someday, she thought wistfully, Vern wouldn’t feel the need for that harsh glare showing the world who he was.
She knew that he was so much finer a man than the body God had gifted him with, but that was something he’d figure out eventually.
So Isabelle had become John’s way station as he was trying to place kids. Not every placement was a success, but she liked to think that having a kind voice, a place like a home—even a home they’d never had—and some good meals meant something to those who’d stayed with her.
And of course, she and John had gotten a routine together.
SHE BEAT John to her apartment by about ten minutes, which—after greeting the kittens and then confining them to her own bedroom with the litter box and food and water in her adjoining bath—gave her time to put a trash bag in the foyer to gather the old clothes and to throw some plastic-coated liners on the couch and one of the kitchen chairs and the bed. She got the ones with the flannel on one side, so the liners were comfortable to sit on—and didn’t creak—but she’d had to get rid of a couch early on in this endeavor because lice were nasty little creatures who didn’t go away .
She had the paper gown, booties, and shower cap on the counter in the bathroom—Henry would probably do the honors of shaving the poor boy’s head—and she’d laid plastic on the floor.
She’d also put a variety of bubble baths in the room with cartoon-character bottles. It was surprising and heartbreaking how a SpongeBob bottle would sometimes break down the kids with the hardest, most “been there done that” facades.
So very often these kids hadn’t had a chance to be children. They’d jumped right into sex work and trying to make a living on the streets because anything was better than being at home.
She was rummaging through the closet, deciding on a brand-new T-shirt and some gently used flannel pajama bottoms and briefs for the boy when there was a knock on the door.
The young man huddling in a used towel behind John was skinny, naked, and shivering—and yes, crawling with mites.
“Come in,” she said, gesturing to John and the young man, and Henry and Galen behind him. “Henry, I’ve set everything out in there. You may want to run the bath. Your change of clothes is in the basket in the hall by the washer.”
“Thanks, Ms. Roberts,” Henry said, because he tried to be humble. She knew he could be pugnacious and stubborn and irritable—but he was also a good boy, and she gave him one of her best smiles.
“No problem, Henry.” She lowered her head and looked their new friend in the eye. “Hello there,” she said. “I’m sorry—we’ll get you all cleaned up in a second. I’ve got some food in the fridge—I was planning on potato soup, homemade, and some homemade bread. Does that sound good when you’re out of the bath?”
The boy stared up at her, his mouth round and inviting in spite of chapped lips, his cheeks red and burned from days outside, but still fair. He swallowed a couple of times and said, “That sounds really good, ma’am,” and she saw his eyes welling up. “I… I shouldn’t be in your home.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “But let’s do get you clean. I’ve put covers on the chairs and couch and the bed, until we’re sure all the crawlies are gone, so wherever you see red flannel, that’s fair game. I know it sounds fussy, but as I’m sure you know, these things aren’t fun at all, and its best to get them before they get you.”
She smiled at him, and he smiled back—a small miracle of grimy teeth she was still proud of—and then Henry gestured with his chin. “Come on, Cowboy. Let’s get started. Mrs. Roberts makes really good soup.”
They moved out down the hallway, and she turned to John and Galen with raised eyebrows. “Cowboy?”
John grimaced. “He swore it’s his real name. I don’t… I mean, you know. He’s fourteen—that much we got out of him. For all we can tell it could be.”
She grunted. “Well, to hear my son talk, it’s still better than the one I gave him . This one looks like he’s been on the street for a while—will Lance be by in the morning?”
John nodded. “Yeah. And don’t worry about coming in tomorrow. I already asked Kelsey, and she can come in for the day.” John’s old receptionist had quit work at Johnnies to get her degree in child development so she and an ex-model named Ethan could run a day care out of the home they shared.
“Bless her,” Isabelle said. “But I’m sorry to miss the baby.” One of the perks of the job, she’d realized very quickly, was that gay, straight, or bi, young people tended to procreate—or have siblings that procreated. When Vern had come out, she’d quietly mourned the loss of grandchildren she’d never have, but now, in addition to the Johnnies models who treated her like the mother they’d never had, she was pleased to be surrounded by children who adored her. She got to be the nice lady with cookies in her drawer, or who could be counted on to babysit, or who got to give away presents at Christmas and sew samplers for birthday gifts. All the love she’d been too exhausted and frightened to shower on Vern when the two of them had huddled in the shadow of his abusive father, she was free to strew around her like flowers down a garden path, and her son told her—often and with feeling—that he was so proud of her for doing it.
“She’ll make it up to you,” Galen said warmly, and she glanced at him.
“Galen, please sit,” she said. “My recliner is waiting for you.” The poor man was white-knuckling his cane, and the fatigue of pain tightened around his eyes.
“Thank you, Isabelle,” Galen said, “but John and I were hoping to leave you here while we made some more calls. I’m afraid our young friend told us some very concerning things while we were on the way over, and I need to consult with my law partner for a bit. That’s best done at his home.”
He approached her as she busied herself in the kitchen and kissed her cheek. “We treasure you, Isabelle Roberts. If anybody can help this young person, it’s you.”
She gave him a rather watery smile. “Be careful, Galen. You and John are very much in danger of being philanthropists.”
“Hush your mouth,” he said gently, before turning to his partner in kindness. “John?”
John offered his arm to Galen before saying, “Isabelle, if you do not expense any of the things you need, I shall feel free to reimburse your check with sheer guesswork.”
She gave him a sharp look as she carved up the loaf of homemade bread she’d baked the night before. There was plenty, and she thought Henry and Cowboy would enjoy some of it toasted with cheese. “Your guesses are terrible,” she told him. “No mother in the world needs that much money to feed a child.”
“I wouldn’t know,” John said blandly. “I was raised by wolves. You do it or I will. Now please call us if you need us—and definitely update me in the morning.”
The first night he’d done this had been with Cotton, and John had spent a sleepless night on Isabelle’s couch, making sure the sloe-eyed, hurt child he’d brought in wouldn’t turn on Isabelle in the middle of the night.
There’d been others since—Randy and Vinnie included—but none this young. She knew that leaving Henry here was John’s best investiture in safety.
“We will,” she said. “Now go, get Galen home. You two let me know what’s going on with him. He can’t feel safe here if there are going to be surprises.”
They assured her that they would—and that they’d take the bag of clothes from the porch to be burned—and then left her to prepare dinner. She did so, keeping an ear out for Henry’s progress in the bathroom as she worked.
There was a quiet rumble of speech both during and after the electric buzz of the razor, and then the run of water in the bathtub. She was alert for the harsh breath of warm water hitting chafed skin and the quiet sobs that came with it. Living on the street in stiff clothes for long periods of time often generated sores, and that a hot bath was sometimes as painful as it was beneficial. She heard the pouring of water from a cup, which meant that Henry was helping the boy get clean, talking the whole time. She made out something about Henry and Lance’s new kittens, and Henry’s job working as a PI at Galen’s law firm, and how Henry’s brother’s boyfriend had turtles and snakes and a giant iguana named Mrs. Quincy. She knew all of this, of course, but she was sure that to a frightened boy being promised the world, that hearty rumble of gruff chatter was like being told fairy tales. Real life couldn’t be that normal, could it?
Finally, just as she was worried that she’d toasted the bread too early, Henry and the boy emerged from the hallway, both of them wearing the clean pajama bottoms and T-shirts she’d set out for them, including soft, faded hoodies that covered the boy’s thin arms. Henry had a full trash bag that he placed outside the door to take to the dumpster in the morning before he gestured to the boy to sit down at the table in front of a hearty bowl of soup and toasted bread with cheese.
Isabelle settled herself down in front of her own bowl and blew on her spoon before tasting. “Mm…,” she said, then smiled at her new charge. “I like lots of spices, how about you, Cowboy?”
He swallowed as though his mouth was watering, and he picked up a spoon and sipped, not even wincing at the heat. “I’ve never tasted homemade,” he confessed. A smile spread across his pinched features, something unplanned, she suspected, and marvelous. “It’s really good,” he said in surprise, before taking a bite of bread and digging in.
“Well, young man,” she said, winking at Henry, “you keep praising my cooking and you and I will get along fine.”