Safe Harbor - 19

"I’m allowed to have feelings and to act on them if I want to," Kurt replied.

"Yeah, I know you guys can marry and all that." Bobby bit his lip. "I sorta looked it up," he admitted as he pulled free of Kurt’s grip.

"While you were researching did you also find out that us ‘guys’ can be priests even if we’re gay?"

"Well…yeah." Backing away he looked at Kurt. "You saying you are?"

"Well…yeah," Kurt replied, smiling as he mimicked Bobby.

"Doesn’t mean anything though. So you’re gay. Doesn’t mean you’d be interested in me. I’m just some stupid damned kid who lives on the streets, and you know what I do to survive."

"Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be, either. And you’re not stupid, Bobby. Stubborn, yes, because you won’t let anyone help you. Too damned stubborn to realize you could have a life off the streets if you’d just let go of the idea you’d lose your ‘freedom’ if you did."

"How do you know about that?"

"What? That you equate living the way you do with being free? It was just a guess but I gather I’m right, although I think it’s got more to do with not trusting anyone than it does with being free. You’re afraid if you do you’ll be trapped or betrayed."

Bobby shook his head. "I trust you, and Nance."

"Nance?"

"She’s this waitress at the diner I go to. She’s maybe the closest thing to a real mom I’ve…" Bobby scowled, realizing he was revealing something to Kurt he had kept carefully hidden from everyone. "She’s a nice lady who treats me good."

"Bobby…" Kurt’s voice was soft and full of concern, "what exactly did you mean about a ‘real mom’?"

"It’s none of your damned business. I shouldn’t have said that."

Kurt nodded. "No, it’s not my business. Your life, past and present, is your business. However sometimes talking to someone about it can help you see things more clearly."

"I see things very clearly." Bobby rubbed his arms as if he was cold, turning away from Kurt’s caring look. "I see the fact my bitch of a birth mother died from an overdose before I was seven leaving me with the bastard who had been her most recent boyfriend. He whored me out to his bar friends when I was eight so he could afford his drugs. Told me if I said a word to anyone he’d beat the shit out of me more than he already did. He liked to watch when they made me suck them off or lick their clits while he fucked whatever whore he’d brought home with him. Orgy time, every weekend. By the time I was eleven I knew what it was like to have a cock up my ass but I was too drunk most of the time to care. The only thing he didn’t do was make me take drugs. Said why waste them on a kid when alcohol worked just as well." Bobby turned to stare with tortured eyes at Kurt. "I see all that very clearly and I wish to hell I didn’t."

His smile was bitter as he finished his story. "When I was fourteen, on my birthday actually, the bastard decided to give me a ‘treat’ and let three creeps he’d met in a bar have me at the same time. When they walked in the door of the trailer, him with his arm around his latest whore, I knew what they had in mind ‘cause they were debating who got my ass first and who got my mouth. So…I got out of there. Out the window, out of the trailer park, out of the town where no one cared about me. Made it here and… Guess what I learned as a kid paid off ‘cause it’s how I survive now."