Author's note: This initial chapter involves male-on-male handjob. Future editions will involve different types of sex. All characters are over eighteen.
*****
When I turned eighteen, we were as broke as a family could be. My mother, twin sister, and I worked crappy jobs just to make ends meet. After years of eating whatever we could afford and dashing from one rat trap apartment to the next, my mom finally called me into her bedroom one day and asked me to sit next to her on her old mattress that laid on a bare floor.
"Do you trust me?" She asked. "Do you trust your loving and protective mother?"
"Of course," I answered.
Because I did. I trusted my mother implicitly and willingly. I suppose the same was true for my sister. In spite of all the crap she must have put up with waiting tables or cleaning up other people's messes, she always met us at home with a smile on her face. She never let her own weary soul drag us down.
Occasionally, I could see her cave when moments of self-doubt and panic slipped in. Every once in a while, usually late in the evening, I'd catch her just staring out a window or hunched over the sink. I would have done anything to change her fortunes.
That was why, that afternoon when we piled into mom's crappy two door car and we sped off to a part of town I wasn't familiar with, I didn't question her judgement. Neither did my sister. And I'll never regret what came next.
"Don't worry," Mom told us. "We're just going to pick up a little extra work. Nothing we won't enjoy while we make a little cash."
When we pulled up to the grungy warehouse dock, there was a young man, just a few years older than me, sitting on a stool next to the entrance stairs with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He wore overalls over a tshirt and well-worn work boots.
"You Cathy?"
"Kristi..." Mother corrected.
"Right... right. Come on this way," he beckoned, putting out the half smoked cigarette on the sole of his shoe and then placing it on the side of an ashtray for later.
A creaky metal door swung open and we were ushered into cinder blocked lined hallway and then into a maze of poorly constructed set pieces. This was some kind of cheaply built photo or video studio but not like the ones I had seen on tv.
"Ron! Ron! They here, Ron!"
The young man yelled in a country accent and voice that was aged well beyond his years. He pounded at a heavy wooden door when we arrived at our destination. It was the only properly hung door I had seen, yet, and the only one that looked to be made from solid wood.
The heavy door swung open, nearly catching our guide in the face. He swept to the side and held the edge of the door as if he meant to pull it open for this Ron.
"Why didn't you get me sooner, Carl? I said get me right away!"
The man exiting the dark little office was as excited to see us as he was angry with Carl. There was some sort of editing equipment I spotted on the far wall and a monitor was flickering around the corner, out of sight.
"You said when they got here. So, here we are. Can I go get clean, now?"
"Sure.. sure..."
Carl released the door and shuffled away.
Ron looked like he was in his fifties. His voice was a little aged and raspy, like he'd smoked for decades. He was a little hunched over, too. It wasn't a defect, it was just that his posture looked like he'd been hunched over in front of screens for years. Otherwise, he looked like a handsome man, with a full head of greying hair and a couple of popeye forearms. He stood a few inches shorter than me but taller than my sister, Honey, my short mother.
"Welcome to our studios!" He announced, spreading his thick forearms in front of him. "My name is Ron, and I know this elegant creature is Kristi."
He took hold of one of my mother's hands and spun her around. Her yellow sun dress was faded but it fluttered while she turned and teased her curves just as well as new fabric would. There was something a little creepy and, yet, a little charming about Ron.
"Ron, this is Honey, my daughter, and my baby boy, Amos," she said, clutching my head down toward her ample bosom.
I was so embarrassed.
"Wonderful, wonderful..."Ron took a long look up and down my body and then stepped back and stared me in the eyes for an awkwardly long time. "He'll be great."
Nobody, outside of my doting mother, had ever called me great before that moment. I was lean and strong, thanks to a light diet and good genetics, but not a great athlete. I made it through high school, but I was no genius. And my situation at home meant I had a hard time keeping together relationships because we were always on the move and I was a little ashamed to show anyone where I lived. My pride swelled a little when Ron said I'd be "great" without ever making me pass a test or prove myself.
Then, he swiveled to look at my sister who looked concerned as she bit her lip and looked back at my mother. A moment earlier, Ron made me glow, but, in that moment, I suddenly wanted to smack Ron for the way he was staring up and down Honey's long frame.
"Such a lovely young woman," he finally pronounced. "And brilliant like her mother, I bet."
"OK, since we're on a tight schedule today, I'm gonna ask the ladies to go sit in the lounge..." he motioned to an old sofa pushed up against the wall outside his office with an old tv on a table just a few feet away.
"My assistant, Alice, will be right back and she can get you all coffee or water, or whatever... but mostly just coffee and water. Just relax. Famous Amos, come with me, my man."
Soon, I was off, again. This time, following Ron through a maze of cheap little sets. After a couple turns, we arrived in a room that resembled a little office with a desk in one corner and a sofa on one wall. A very expensive looking digital camera sat on a tripod facing the sofa and a less expensive looking handheld video camera sat on the desk.
I began to get nervous.
"OK, Famous Amos. Here's the deal. You want to make some money?"
"Of course," I replied while returning the man's enthusiasm.
"Great! You're mom could have made a lot of money, I'm telling you. I mean before..." he gestured to me. "But she wanted to raise kids, so who was I to stop her?"
This was getting weird.
"Do you want to make some cash, my boy?" Ron was adjusting the tripod as he looked at me. He sort of shepherded me toward the wall with the couch.
