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Dom and I walked hand and hand into the hookah lounge. She just said we were going out to hang out with A-Dog, but she didn’t mention that Steven was invited too.
When we got there, Steven hadn’t arrived yet, and I noticed a man sitting at the bar dressed in a business suit. Somehow, I knew that had to be the legendary A-Dog. He looked like a stereotypical dog, undressing every pretty woman he saw with his eyes.
Even though I’d never met A-Dog, I spotted him immediately, because I hated dating his type as a single woman. He was flirting with one of the bartenders, Chantel, who was never afraid to share that she was a hardcore lipstick lesbian, but only A-Dog would be bold enough to try and ‘teach her’ how to be straight.
Dom said, jokingly, “A-Dog, Chantel is mines, niggah! She don’t even like no dick.”
A-Dog looked at Chantel seductively. “You never know until you know, and the only way to know for sure is to really know. So why don’t you come here and let me teach you something real quick.”
Chantel rolled her eyes at A-Dog and gave me a hug. It was obvious that Dom had told her what was going on with me, something that A-Dog picked up on as well. He abandoned his scumbag persona and gave me a big hug too. It was a sister-in-law kinda hug. Chantel handed me a cognac, neat, then went back to her conversation with Dom.
A-Dog began, “First of all, I want to say sorry for hacking your Christian Mingle account.”
I laughed so hard that I spit some of my drink on my blouse. “It’s all good. You did a good thing for your friend, even if he doesn’t see it.”
A-Dog smiled. “The thing is, you did the thing that I could never do. You made my bro happy.”
I said, sarcastically, “Until I fucked it up, right?”
A-Dog continued, “No, you didn’t fuck anything up. If anything, you changed the game for Steven in a way that I could never do, even if I hacked the FBI. You already know he’s lonely, and he wants more out of life than what he can find with gay men, but you don’t know that you, like me, have the power to make Steven whatever you want him to be. You just have to understand the rules.”
I was intrigued. “What do you mean by ‘the rules?’”
A-Dog said, “Look, Josephine. I picked you out of twenty women, transgender women included...”
I was shocked, “Steven likes trans women?”
A-Dog shrugged. “Hell if I know, I just learned that he could nut inside a real-life pussy. That is shocking enough, even if he was asleep when it happened. That man is full of surprises these days. But like I was saying, I picked you because of how you handled the men you had on your webcam show.”
“What does that have to do with Steven? He’s not into dildo play, and neither am I.”
A-Dog interrupted, “No, but he is into being aggressively catered to. Those be the rules, boo! I don’t care if it was Susie Suck-Ems or the muscular fudgepackers he asked me to hook him up with at the gay clubs, my bro likes someone who knows when and how to take charge. But you proved that when the sex is over, it’s the things you do together that made him love you. Those gays made him horny, but he never loved none of them. They were disposable because he never loved them. Cater to him and love him, aggressively. Then poof, you got a man who loves you, bitch!”
The way A-Dog ended in a fake gay voice made me laugh, but to hear him confirm that Steven loved me, I was speechless. When I told Steven I loved him after the alleged rape, he never said it back, he questioned it.
I asked, “Steven loves me?”
A-Dog snapped, frustrated, “Why the hell you think he’s so mad about you raping him?”
I said, “He said he was mad because I just took it without asking, but I didn’t mean to hurt him, I just wanted him, A-Dog.”
“Look, Josephine, I’m not a woman, so I can’t just choke the niggah out and make him fuck bitches. I’m not a gay man either, so I can’t fuck the shit outta him and make him fuck with bitches. If anything, that would just make the niggah more gay, because I got that good dick. Ya feel me? But my bro don’t look at me like that, so even if I wanted to come at him sexually, it wouldn’t work. All the gay men he dated and fucked over the years had the equipment to get his attention, but they didn’t care enough about him to get to know him for six months before they went in for the dick, which is glorious if you let the boys at the gay clubs tell it. Admit it, you liked the dick!”
I had to confess, with a girlish giggle, “A-Dog, I absolutely loved that dick!”
A-Dog smiled. “See, now imagine if the next time you want that dick, you cater to him first. Imagine if the next time you want to be fucked by him, you fuck him first. How would that make you feel?”
I knew that instant what A-Dog was saying. The issue wasn’t that I took Lil Stevie, it was that I didn’t find a way for Steven to go first.
I asked, “Did Steven tell you all of this?”
A-Dog said, “Not exactly. I know my bro, and I picked you because you’re feminine enough to be the love that my bro needs, but you’re nasty enough and freaky enough to just take the gay shit until you like it. The best thing about watching you fuck a grown-ass white man up the ass was that you did not flinch when you got shit on your dick. You just made that shit about the dude. I never fucked a dude, but after cruising gay clubs for over twenty years, it seems like gay men like Steven like men who will grab them rough, fuck them mercilessly, then, when they finish fucking the shit outta them, they take care of Steven, and by the end of the night, everybody’s happy! However, let’s say one of those gay boys did what you did and fucked my bro without him knowing, he would have called the cops, did a rape kit, and had that nigger charged as a sex offender. What he did with you though?”
I thought about it, then hung my head in shame, knowing even more that A-Dog was right. “Honestly, all Steven did was take a shower. I was so embarrassed that I just left and we haven’t spoken since.”
A-Dog smiled. “Now, Imagine if you stayed, and when he got out of that shower, still dripping wet and feeling unloved, you pulled out your magic WigglyDicks.com dildo and showed him why all the straight men who into chicks with fake dicks pay you top dollar on the internet? You either gonna get shit on your dick or get the fuck off the pot, Jo. I can lead a faggot to some pussy water, but I can’t make him drink it forever. If it was me, I’d drown in the pussy waters of you, but since you kinda like my sister now, I don’t want you like that, anymore.”
I looked at A-Dog knowingly. Although he joked, he had set me up perfectly, yet again, but this time I wasn’t laughing with anyone else. I was working on getting my man back.
I saw Steven walk into the hookah bar. He looked so handsome, and I missed him so much that I just wanted to run to him and hug him.
A-Dog whispered, “If you don’t know how to keep my bro happy, then let me know, because there are nineteen other prospects on my shortlist. But if you ask me, you just the bitch I need to help my bro be happy. He don’t need a dildo; he needs someone to love him. However, to prove your love for him...”
I simply said, “Say no more.”
When Steven made it to the bar, he and A-Dog shook hands, then A-Dog stood up and said, “If you two would excuse me, I’m about to go and steal Chantel away from Dom. You know what they say; when God closes one gay door, he opens a lesbian bush. You two work this shit out, okay?”
Before either of us could respond, A-Dog was off to the other side of the bar with Dom and Chantel. Steven sat next to me, in A-Dog’s old seat, and he started to speak, but I cut him off and said, defensively, “Listen. I left your house because you embarrassed me.”
Steven looked at me like I was crazy. “I embarrassed you?”
I grabbed him with one hand by the face, dug my nails into his cheeks, and clenched my teeth so as to threaten him with each word. “Don’t interrupt me!”
Steven’s eyes changed from disbelief to concern. We locked eyes for a while, and I made it clear that he was not to speak until I was done.
“For six months, I have gotten to know you and I admit, I didn’t see us going anywhere. I just knew that I was happy, Steven. Happiness is the one thing I can’t seem to be able to buy. We talked about this already. But I don’t think I raped you, Steven. We bonded, I love you, you’re mine! I will take it when I want it, and I don’t make any apologies about that. If your dick don’t get hard, cool, no harm no foul; but if it does, then I do whatever I want with it, whether you’re awake, drunk, or in a fucking coma! You got that?”
Steven just nodded, his face relaxed in the palm of my hand now, so I relaxed my grip. “The only thing I did wrong was I left without telling you to your face that I refuse to let you go. You are my man, and you have been since the night after our first date. Anything I can do to please you, all you have to do is ask. But if you never tell me what you want, and I just take what I want, that’s not rape, Steven. That’s closed mouths not getting fed, and as you learned already, sometimes I don't know when to just keep my mouth shut.”
Steven smiled. “I understand what I did wrong, Josephine. And you’re right. I didn’t see it that morning, but I see it now. When I committed to you, I didn’t make any amendments or state any exceptions to commitment. I gave you all of me, and you gave me all of you. I was stupid for not finding a way to co-exist with you in every way, but I won’t be stupid again. I know what I want from you, I know how to co-exist with you, but the thing is it only works if I don’t have to explain it.”
A-Dog was a genius. He prepared me with the final piece to the Steven puzzle and he did it in a way where everything that happened after that point had nothing to do with him, or Dom, or anyone else other than me and Steven. For six months, we went against the norm and defined our own relationship. So far, I had confirmed that Steven could please me. Now all I had to do was show Steven that I could please him, and thanks to A-Dog, I was certain I could.
I stood up from the bar, grabbed my man by the hand, and led him to the front door. I heard Dom and A-Dog cheering, along with everyone else in the bar, all of which had heard everything Steven and I said, but we weren’t embarrassed or ashamed. We were in love, and it was time for us to stop playing around with the idea of being a couple and just be coupled.