I found myself legitimately curious in Phil's kind of work. And not in a perverted way, but just what it was like, sort of. And… I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to hear the raunchier details, but who wouldn't? I figured I was just a sexually repressed teenager who was suddenly taking out all his urges on this one very attractive friend of his.

Over the next few days, the routine was always the same. Everyone –minus myself at first, but eventually I fell into their sleep schedule— would wake up around noon. Then "Daddy" (Phil told me I could call him Dane, but never to his face) went out and brought back breakfasts in greasy bags for everyone. I never got any myself, but Phil was always nice enough to give me half of his. That was the one actual meal of the day, if you could call it that. The rest of the day everyone but Mr. Dane was mostly cooped up in the musty motel room, and it quickly became stifling. As for food, the girls would snack a little throughout the day –Phil would sometimes offer to take me for a quick dinner, I guess honing in on how I wasn't used to eating only once a day. And I felt guilty for it, but I always took him up on the offer just to get out for a bit.

The two of us were walking –hand in hand— down the sidewalk to find a fast food place to eat at. I tried not to hide my burning face in my hand too much. Why? Why did he need to always hold my hand so openly like this? I sort of wanted to pull it away, but not only did I not want to offend him when it was a gesture made so innocently (which, given his line of work, came as quite a surprise). But in the end I didn't want him to stop holding my hand like this. I hated it but at the same time, every time we were apart, I felt my palm tingling to cup his own again. It felt dirty to me. I know this all started because I'd been jacking off to gay porno honestly I just really was not comfortable with my sexuality. If I liked girls –which would've been so much easier— I would still be sleeping in my warm bed at night, instead of a dirty carpet, and be surrounded by a small cozy family who loved me rather than a pimp, some prostitutes and my one friend –who, when it came down to it, was no better than the others, was just as low down but maybe a little –or a hell of a lot nicer.

So why did I want Phil to keep holding my hand so badly? I tried to convince myself to be disgusted, like I knew I probably should've been. I forced to mind just what kind of dirty people he'd touched with those hands –least of all Dane. (Yeah, it didn't take much effort to figure that out.) I wanted to be repulsed and find my own way, without his help, but… the way he smiled, especially when he smiled at me, it made me just sort of forget what he did every night. I knew he actually cared about me and always said how he wanted to keep me safe, even if he was too shy to say it to me directly. This was the Phil I wanted to know- in fact, I could just say I wanted to know and to be friends with Phil –not "Kitten."

We ended up at a Wendy's, and Phil told me to let myself splurge a little, giving me the money for the both of us while he found us a table. It was twenty dollars, all in fives or singles. I gulped hard, thinking about exactly how much Phil- or "Kitten" made every time he serviced a client, because if it was this sort of cash it really wasn't enough. I knew where most of the money was going, and I felt guilty to know that the rest was probably being spent on me.

I was so lost in that tragic thought that I almost missed the cashier asking if she could help me. I awkwardly answered a "yes" and ordered the both of us Son of Baconator meals, with medium fries and sodas, and medium Frostees. I waited a few minutes at the counter, bored, and turned back to see where Phil had gone off to in hunting out a table. He was meanwhile spinning around in a chair at one of the tables for two, head tilted back and hands folded on his chest. Sensing that I was watching, he peeked an eye open and smiled at me, and I couldn't help but smile back.

At last I got our food to our table. He grinned as I sat down with the tray, and pushed his fringe out of his eye. "Took long enough," he laughed. "What did you get?" I told him, and he looked down at his lap briefly before back up at me. "That was sweet of you, Daniel, but I think I'm gonna have to take a lot of it to go. Not used to eating that much."

I usually hated being called Daniel, but something about the way it sounded in his voice made me not really mind it from him. I unwrapped my burger and look him in the eye. "You're too thin for your own good," I noted. "You need to eat something more than plain egg sandwiches once a day." Half sandwiches, with me around.

He sunk into his chair, and it seemed a long minute before I'd convinced him. He picked at his food, seeming to struggle with each bite, and I wished he'd just relax and let himself eat like a normal person.

I felt just as awkward asking the question as he'd probably feel answering it. We were sitting outside the second-floor room of the motel, which was a bit out of the wall-to-wall-buildings area of the city, but still in a very urban sort of setting –everywhere was concrete or asphalt, and it was always wet, just like the inner parts of the city. We were sitting next to each other, on the edge, with our leg hanging through the rusty bars of the obligatory railing, when I awkwardly asked him.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"Do you want to… tell me anything about, you know… your night.. job?"

He huffed out a laugh. "You don't want to hear about any of that."

But I kind of did. And I felt wrong for asking but I was actually curious. "I…"

He got himself up. "Let's go inside, shall we? It's fucking cold out here." He reached out for my hand and I took it gratefully.

It was Sunday, and that night Dane didn't take the girls out at ten, like he usually did. Phil still had to go, though, and made sure I was in my sleeping slot before he came out of the bathroom in the night's outfit. The first time I'd seen him dressed like that, it made me feel sick and (I'm horribly ashamed to admit it) slightly aroused. I never wanted to see him like that again, and I think he sensed it, and tried to make it so I wouldn't.

I didn't like talking to the girls much. On top of having seen them in their nightly getups, too, they honestly had an almost dirty look to them during the day, as well. It made it difficult to distinguish them from their jobs –and it didn't help that I didn't know anything but their "nicknames," I guess.

But curiosity got to me, and I had to ask. "Why'd he only take Phil tonight?"

I sat up and saw that I'd caught their attention, and immediately regretted it. Angel shrugged. "Kitty gets the most customers, and Sundays are slow business. Daddy charges more for Kitty, so he makes more; and Daddy saves money only renting the one motel room, rather than six."

That definitely caught my attention, and I sputtered out a response. "Motel rooms? You mean, here?" I got a few nods, and was kind of shocked by the news. They'd hardly ever gone anywhere at all, and were on the ground floor, or a few rooms down from here. I'd never noticed, and never would've known.

Again, it stayed stuck in my mind that Phil did this kind of thing for –apparently not much money. I curled up on my side, nausea settling in at the idea.

They didn't return at around three like they usually did. Or four, or five –I was kept awake with worry. It was finally at seven in the morning that Phil came stumbling back into the room, head and arms hanging loose and looking just absolutely exhausted. Dane took him into the bathroom, and it was maybe ten minutes before they came back out, Phil now in tattered pajamas.

He collapsed onto the bed. He let his hand hang over the side for me like he always did, and I took it, kissing the back gently and hoping he was too tired to notice. I listened as Dane woke the girls up, hissing at them to not wake "Kitty" up in the morning for any goddamn reason. The mattress shifted next to me as he got in with Phil, and I heard him whisper something about him being a "good kitten." I needed to actively prevent myself from vomiting.