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This place was sick! Okay, I’m used to living in a mansion, a huge place full of rooms that are always empty, their doors shut, and they just sit there, doing nothing, being nothing. This new place? Wow. Much, much smaller, but none of the space was wasted or unnecessary. It’s alive! I don’t know yet if the three of us will be running into each other or not. Maybe it’s inevitable. But if we do, I know we’ll just laugh about it. That’s how these people are. They’re wonderful! They both have a lively sense of humor, and I’ve yet to see any rough edges. No negativity at all! It’s nothing like I’d had when living with Dad.
I’d lived with him all my life, and he was uptight and intense, bossy, cheap and humorless. He had little time for me, which was good and bad—good because it was shitty being with him, and bad because he made me feel unimportant and not wanted. All he cared about was money, and finagling to beat someone in every deal he was involved in. He had all the money in the world and didn’t spend much of it. He just accumulated it. What’s the point of that? Dumb! It’s not even real; it’s electronic numbers on a form.
I guess my brother Clay has a lot of money, too, but I’ll bet he spends some of it. I can tell by his house. Everything here is beautiful. He dresses well, too, even if he probably doesn’t own a tie. The car we came home in is his, but Julia drives it; it isn’t some cheap or old thing, either. Just having Julia here, well, he must pay a lot for her to be here all the time. I’m glad he does; she’s fantastic! I must say, I’d never have guessed she’s a trained body guard.
I don’t know Clay at all, but from what little I’ve seen, I like. He looks happy. Dad never looked happy unless he’d just outfoxed some loser; then he forgot it and looked for another sucker. Also, Clay is gay. That should make living here so easy. Knowing that, I don’t have to hide anything. Everything I’m feeling, even just thinking, I can be out in the open with it. I’d had to hide it, hide myself, before. This is all new to me, but Clay’s already gone through the same things. He’ll understand everything I’m experiencing. How great is that? No secrets. Just understanding and acceptance.
My room here is much smaller than the one I had back east. I actually had three rooms back there. Why not? I could have claimed ten or more of them and no one would have cared. But I only needed one, and that’s what I have here, and it’s perfect. Small, but it has everything I need. Including privacy. I don’t think anyone will just barge in on me in my room as the maids tended to do back home.
The bathroom sharing might be tricky, but again, who cares? If she sees me or I see her naked, I don’t think it’ll be a huge thing. Well, she might rhapsodize over my male beauty and wish, but I’m twelve and she’s around thirty. And she’s the wrong sex. So seeing each other? I think we’ll both blush and not say a thing about it. Or, if she is as easy-going as I think, she might make a funny comment to show there’s no problem at all. But I do know it’ll be funny and not demeaning.
I’m just starting to feel the hormones everyone told me would run my life for the next few years. I knew I was gay some time ago. I can’t really explain how I knew. I always liked looking at and having crushes on boys, but I didn’t think that made me gay. I just somehow felt different from the norm as I saw it. And I was right, because now, with the hormones beginning to tickle me more than ever before, it’s boys who kick-start my engine.
I’m really happy being away from Dad. I think I’m going to like living here a lot. I was mostly home-schooled back there because Dad was worried I’d be kidnapped and he’d have to pay to get me back; I hated that and wanted to be with kids my age. I hope I can go to a regular school here. I didn’t really have friends there; I want to make some here.
I wonder if Clay will have the same fear about me being abducted. We’d see. If so, I don’t think he’ll be worried about the money, as Dad would have been, but about me. I hope I’m right about that. But I don’t really know him. But I like what I’ve seen so far. He seems easy-going and happy.
It was dark when we arrived, so I didn’t get to see much of the place, but driving in, I could kinda feel the beauty, the trees and flowers everywhere. New Haven was grittier. It was a college town and much smaller than L.A. Seemed older and more worn out, too. The entire county there had a whole lot fewer than a million people, fewer than 200,000, actually. L.A. county has about 10 million! Some difference. I’ve seen a very small part of it, but what I’ve seen is beautiful and feels much different, a different world, from New Haven.
Tomorrow I am going to go out and walk around, see if there are any kids here. I heard there’s a pool. At home, we had our own, and I always swam nude. The pool wasn't where anyone could see me. Here, if it is a communal pool, I guess I’ll have to wear a bathing suit. I don’t have one. A detail to be worked out. There’ll probably be a lot of those.
But I feel free, suddenly. Like a prison door has been opened. I can’t wait to get out and look around.
) 0 (
I slept in a room and bed I’d never been in before, but even so, I got up late the next morning. Though my body was still on Eastern Standard Time and so three hours ahead of here, I must have been more exhausted than I’d thought. It was almost noon here. I wasn’t allowed to sleep that late there. No one made me get up here. Pretty nice!
I was still a little tired, though. Probably some of that was due to the stress of yesterday, and maybe some was because I was transitioning into a teenager, and teenagers like to sleep late, don’t they? So this was early practice for that. Another thing was, it was so quiet here. No trucks thundering around out on the streets. No staff rattling around, no one coming in to make my bed while I was still in it. I could get used to this really fast.
As I said, I was home-schooled back there. I’d gone to public school up till fourth grade, and after that Dad didn’t like me going out in public by myself any more. I think it had just dawned on him that if I got snatched it would cost him money. So starting with fifth-grade lessons, a tutor came at eight o’clock sharp on weekdays. I had to be up and ready for him by then. But too, the maid would come in to do my room by eight thirty every weekend day. I complained, and she just said she was following the schedule my dad laid down, and to ignore it would be to end up with her walking the unemployment line. If either he or I was to be mad at her, let it be me.
Sometimes her coming in was embarrassing. Everyone knows how boys are in the morning when they’re just getting up. You don’t want a woman seeing that!
Here, no one came in! So I slept, waking and dozing, till after eleven, which would have been after two in the afternoon back home.
I have to stop saying that. I hope home now means L.A., not New Haven. I have no regrets leaving there at all. Zero. Nada. Hey, living here, a lot of the people, a lot of the kids even, will speak Spanish, won’t they? I need to learn that. Nada is about the only Spanish I know. Unless ‘no way, Jose’ is Spanish, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t. I guess a lot of people back east speak Spanish, too, but not the ones Dad associated with, and I didn’t either. Not that I had any choice about that. That or much else, either.
I got up and decided a shower was a good way to start the day. That meant using the bathroom I shared with Julia. I had to get a grip on that. Like every other 12-year-old in the world, at least in America, I didn’t want any adults seeing me wearing only my skin.
When I first was told we’d be sharing, it seemed no big deal. That was bravado on my part. It would be a big deal if she saw me. Maybe not to her, but for me for sure. But I found the doors had locks on them, and if I took clean clothes in with me, I could shower and then dress, and there would be nothing to worry about.
That’s what I did, then came back to my room. Here, there wasn’t a maid, just the three of us, and it was possible Julia would do the picking up for me if I didn’t. Clay had said she was hired for security and that they shared the housekeeping. I decided I shouldn’t be a burden or a slob. I picked up my dirty clothes and then made the bed.
The clothes I picked up were the ones I’d worn yesterday and were the only ones I had, so picking them up was a matter of need. I’d either have to wash one set every day or buy more. I needed to discuss this with the adults.
I went downstairs and found Julia in the living room reading a magazine. “Ah,” she said, “it’s alive. It wakes. It needs feeding?” She laughed, then said, “Good morning!”
“I don’t embarrass easily,” I said, “but I feel like blushing and squirming.” I forced a smile. The worst thing I could do right off the bat was to let myself be intimidated or to act that way. “We need to talk about how things work here. And I do need food, but, well, that’s one of the things we need to talk about. I don’t know what’s what or how things work here.”
“I can cook you something, or we have cereal and milk, or you can cook something for yourself. This is as new for us as it is for you. I don’t embarrass easily, either, and I’m all for talking about things. Look, let me cook you breakfast, and we can talk while I’m cooking and you’re waiting and then eating.”
My smile wasn’t forced now. Julia made things so easy! She wasn’t into games or power trips. She wasn’t an Easterner! “Sounds good to me,” I said.
“Okay. Good. What would you like. Eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, French toast, waffles, hash—just name it.”
“Wow. Uh, I guess pancakes. This is so new to me. Back home I’d come down to breakfast and stuff would be in a warming tray in the dining room. I’d eat what was there. Already this is different; I get to choose and it’s cooked just for me.”
“Clay and I like a problem-free, easy-come, easy-go life. We hope you’ll fit into that, too. Why don’t you explore the kitchen while I’m cooking? See where things are. Then set a place for yourself at the kitchen table, find the syrup and warm it in the microwave. If you like butter, put that on the table, too. Oh, and both milk and orange juice are in the refrigerator. I don’t suppose you like coffee.”
The face I made answered her question, and she laughed. I did as she asked and had a pretty good idea where everything was and was seated before the first flapjack was on my plate. I ate three of them along with the sausage patties she’d cooked. I was stuffed, yet knew I’d be hungry again in an hour. I guessed this was one of those puberty things. Being stuffed and then soon starving was relatively new.
She sat with me with a cup of coffee and didn’t have any problem with answering the questions I asked. She was much better at this than Dad had ever been. To him, information was power, and he was careful about not giving much away without getting something in return. What a way to live!
I asked her what Clay did exactly. I knew he was a writer, had written a book that had become a movie, and he’d told me he now worked on a TV show at a studio, but after that, I only had guesses. So, what did he do every day when he went into work?
“Clay is modest and, maybe because he grew up with your dad, he doesn’t say much. Mostly he listens. You’re more garrulous than he is. But he has a relationship with the guy who directed his movie. You’ll certainly meet him if you’re here very long. His name is Grant Bellingly and he’s a year or so older than Clay. They’re bed buddies and also good friends. As I say, Clay doesn’t volunteer much. If you ask him a direct question, he’ll usually answer it. He won’t object to doing it, he won’t be annoyed, but you will have to ask.”
I heard something in her voice, so I asked, “Do you like him? I mean . . . well, really like him?”
“We’re adults here, Kiki. Do you mean, do I love him; sleep with him? Or have I ever? No. He’s gay and not interested in me that way. Would I if he asked? Maybe. Probably. Yeah, I like him a lot, maybe even love him a little, but mostly in a nonsexual way. He hired me after meeting me on a set. That job was ending and I didn’t have anything else lined up. He’s possibly the nicest guy I’ve met. But very self-contained and not very demonstrative.”
“But I thought you were some sort of security bodyguard,” I said. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be?”
“I am. I had training. But the work for women bodyguards isn’t abundant; male body guards get hired by the entire population, but we women only get taken on by other women. That job scarcity was why I tried film work as a stunt double. But the competition is fierce. The work I got was infrequent. It wasn’t enough to keep me fed. That’s why I was so happy when Clay hired me.”
She got up to get another cup of coffee but kept talking as she did. “My role here is as much companion as bodyguard. I do both. He could have hired a scarier bodyguard with more experience, but he liked me, and it’s worked out fine. The trouble is, today, too many of the bad guys have guns, and I don’t like to carry one. Sometimes I do when we’re going out and the place we’re going to seems a little dodgy. But usually I don’t carry.”
“So tell me more about what Clay does every day.” I got myself another glass of milk. Pancakes and milk go together like ham and eggs, though I’ve always liked bacon with eggs more than ham. Just saying.
“It’s like he told you, he works on a TV series. What he didn’t tell you is it’s the top-rated TV series being aired right now. It’s a kid-heavy show but written to appeal to adults as well as kids. Mostly kids around your age. It’s called Holly’s Outfit.”
“Hey, I watch that! It’s a great show. He writes for that?”
“Yeah. Ah, I’ll bet you’ve got a major crush on Hunter, huh?”
“How’d you know?”
“Clay tells me every kid in America has a crush on him, both straight and gay kids. He says he has to write scenes and lines for him that emphasize what makes him so attractive. Clay is in tune with kids your age, I guess. Probably from memory. But he also says he’s under pressure every week to make Hunter adorable but real; he writes most everything involving Hunter. There’s a reason the studio insists on this: Clay does a fantastic job with Hunter’s role, which brings in the audience. If kids tune in to watch him, their parents will usually watch as well, and that means higher ratings which translate into more advertising dollars coming to the studio. Clay gets disgusted with that. He’s a typical artist and the money side of the business has no interest for him.”
“He writes all Hunter’s scenes? Those make the show great! They’re the best parts.”
She laughed. I was repeating what she’d just said. But I was kinda shocked. Clay did that?
She saw my interest and kept going. “Clay table-reads the parts with the kid who plays Hunter. Get Clay to take you to work with him and you can meet the kid. His real name is Howard Baskings; his screen name is Hunter Daines.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Yeah, at a couple of cast parties. Howard is not the same as his character. None of the kids are.”
“Damn!”
She laughed again.
♦
Posted 31 January 2026