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As awkward as our first sexual experience was, in retrospect, it seems like fate was in control of our relationship from the moment we met. Free will was once a powerful force in my life—my ability to arbitrarily determine and detour my charted path in life based on my hopes, dreams, and aspirations was what gave me a sense of control over my lonely and sexless world.
Then I met Josephine, and suddenly, I lost control over my ability to determine my course. Every decision from the first night we consummated our relationship in Josephine’s apartment was influenced, if not decided, by Josephine.
She never forced me to do anything that I objected to because I never objected to any request she asked of me. Fate vs free will is no competition; fate is love, God, and eternity, whereas free will is Satan, envy, and only survives for a human lifetime, in most instances. That which is for eternity is divine, so that is the best way that I can describe life after Josephine and I solidified our commitment to one another; I reached heaven on Earth.
A few months after we got back together, Josephine moved in with me. I converted my guest bedroom into a webcam set for her, and she began broadcasting her show from my house. Up until that point, we had talked about her work, but I never really had any significant questions, aside from the obvious
“Is it embarrassing?” “Are your customers nasty?” “What did your mother say the first time she saw you fuck a man up the ass?” I learned quickly that there are other questions to ask an admitted webcam personality.
The first question is, “How messy can one of your scenes get?”
I saw Josephine do one scene where she hired a model, blindfolded her, made her get on all fours, and slowly, like for over an hour and a half slowly, Josephine, who wears a full-body black latex suit during these segments, let hot wax drip from a penis-shaped candle onto the model’s back. I was shocked to learn that WigglyDicks.com sold over 100 different types of penis-shaped novelty items, including candles.
The model’s white skin turned red with each drop, and the model moaned seductively each time a drop of the hot wax landed on her back.
Since Josephine was the dominant character on her shows, she cursed the model as if she was less than trash.
Josephine kicked the model in the ass with enough force to leave a red mark on her butt, and said, “Bitch, my fans want you to moan louder, and my fans always get what they want.”
The model screamed louder, but Josephine kicked her harder and snapped, “They can’t hear you, hoe! Moan louder!”
The model followed instructions, then Josephine said, “Yes, bitch! See, now my customers sending me more gifts. What else y’all want me to do to this bitch?”
Josephine looked at her computer screen and said, as if unfazed by what she read, “Okay, y’all want some of the black scat, huh? Go-Jo never denies her fans, so, where y’all want me to shit at; on her face or on her back?”
I never asked what the fans decided, because I was so disgusted I left the set, but I did help clean Josephine’s poop off of a white woman’s back, a black woman’s latex bodysuit, and a hardwood floor all in the same day! I learned really quickly that webcam stuff can be a messy business; literally.
To be fair, I made a couple of hundred dollars for helping with the cleanup, so I guess I can’t really complain about it. What’s relevant though is that I wasn’t as creeped out by helping with the clean up as I thought.
Josephine humiliated her models on set, but off-set, she treated them as if they were prized members of the ‘Go-Jo’ team. The models’ appreciation after the ordeals made me see that what freaked me out initially was really just a complex business transaction between two separate women-owned businesses. I had to respect the mess that was Josephine’s life, as she had to respect mine.
Sometimes the two worlds collided.
Like four months into our living together, my ‘old friend’ Alexander popped up unannounced during the taping of one of Josephine’s scenes. Josephine was cleaning her room up, which was as pissy and as shitty as the last scene I shared, but it was because Josephine was in there fucking the shit out of a male actor. They messed up the room, and the fans were paying to watch Josephine clean it up ass naked while the male models sat and watched her, obediently.
Needless to say, they were busy, so when I rushed to open the door after the first ring of the doorbell, I intended to intercept the second ring. However, the arrogant son of a bitch decides to ring the bell six more times before I opened it.
Before I realized who was there, I snapped, “Why are you ringing my doorbell like you’re crazy?”
Alex is tall, six foot four inches, solid muscle, and dresses like a twenty-year-old rapper, even though he is really thirty-five. To the average black gay man, Alex is an Adonis, but I know him well. He is unemployed, in an IRS sense, but gainfully employed as a male whore. He was one of the two guys I retained prior to meeting Josephine, but it had been over a year since I had spoken to either Alex or Tyler, but you would assume based on his comfortability with me, that we were lifelong friends.
He smiled, which is another one of his superpowers, then playfully pretended to punch me in the stomach. “Damn, Stevie! That’s how you greet ya boo?”
He leaned in for a hug, but I stepped back, and asked, “What’s up?”
Alex looked shocked, as if he was surprised that his powers weren’t working on me anymore. “Are you mad at me or something?”
I said, indifferently, “Why would I be mad at you, Alex?”
“Because the last time I saw you we were cool, but then you go MIA for over a year, and now, after I came all the way down here to check on you, you got me standing in the hallway like I’m a Jehovah’s Witness or something. I’m fucked up right now, I barely had enough for the Uber ride here, and this how you do me?”
I said, as coolly and collectedly as I could, “Alex, a lot can change in a year. Besides, you never showed up at my door unannounced before so, why are you here?”
Alex looked around, nervously. “Can you invite me in at least, so we can talk in private?”
I knew it was a bad idea, but I let him in any way. We stayed by the front door so as not to disrupt Josephine’s show and because I was nervous! I was not ready to expose Josephine to my gay past, but I wasn’t so into our relationship that I had forsaken all others either, you know what I mean? I had to think about it for a split second, so in that time, it seemed logical to lend an ear to one of my prized gay players just in case I ever wanted his services again. According to Josephine, that was always an option to be discussed if necessary.
Alex looked around and asked, “You have company?”
I said, without thinking, “Yeah, I have a roommate now.”
Alex was intrigued and looked around again. “Oh, where is he? Is he cute?”
I said, “Yeah, she’s gorgeous, smart, hardworking; everything you aren’t. So if you don’t mind, we have a strict no-company policy now. You can still text me though.”
Alex looked at me shocked. “She? You living with a woman now? That’s crazy! I could never share a space with a bitch, man!”
I snapped, “I don’t share a space with a bitch. I share a life with a woman.”
Alex laughed. “Yeah, right! She ain’t got enough dick to fill the asshole I dug out, niggah, and I know you don’t want to fuck no pussy!”
I continued, nonchalantly, “No, she’s my woman, Alex, and I bust her ass anytime she wants.”
Alex snapped, “But that’s not what you want!”
“It’s what I want if it’s what she wants!”
Alex said, as if talking to someone he had wrapped around his fingers, “Bitch, you mine!”
I looked at him so defiantly that there was no mistaking my preference. “I’m her man, she’s my woman, and you are not welcome here as long as I’m with her.”
Alex approached me and said, seductively, “So, you told her about us?”
I was stunned; like a fly to a Venus flytrap, those eyes attracted me, profoundly. Alex has a way about him that makes every gay man quiver in his presence. His muscular arms are distinct even through his long-sleeved shirt. His legs are thick and strong, which are accentuated by his tight-fitting jeans. Even his size thirteen sneakers, clean and unworn, hit the floor firmly and intentionally with each step. Alex commanded attention, and he had mine, even though I hate to admit it.
I asked, nervously, “What is there to tell?”
Alex looked me in my eyes, and I was back in my pre-Josephine mindset. Alex knew it, and leaned in close enough to kiss me, but didn’t. Instead, he asked, “So, if she don’t know about me, why can’t we still see each other?”
That question snapped me back to reality. I looked at Alex and it all came back to me. The abandonment, the great sex in the evening and single breakfasts in the morning, the text messages and phone calls that went unreturned for days, weeks, and even months at a time. Why can’t we see each other? Before I could answer, Alex looked behind me as if he had seen a ghost.
I turned around, and Josephine was standing there, ass naked, holding her laptop in one hand, and a leash that was attached to a rhinestone-studded collar fastened tightly around her model’s neck in the other. She was standing as if she was Mother Nature herself; poised, radiant, slaying everything and everyone who looked upon her perfect body. Her male model looked up at her, ignoring me and Alex completely, and Josephine spoke to us as if we were in the scene of her webcam show.
Josephine bent over, pointing her beautiful ass at Alex, then unleashed her model and said, “Get out of my sight, you worthless speck of a man!”
Josephine’s model left, without giving Alex and me a single glance, then Josephine walked toward Alex. Her bare feet hit the floor as intently as Alex’s size thirteen sneakers had a few moments before, and Alex was mesmerized. Not in a sexual way, but in a domination vs submission kind of way. Alex had always been my top, but in this moment, he looked at Josephine as if she was his top, and she wasn’t even wearing her strap on!
Her body language told Alex before she even made it to him that he thought he was walking into a hen house, but he actually walked into a lion’s den, and she was the lioness, whereas I was the cowardly lion, who looked to her for leadership, guidance, and to kill prey like him. When Josephine reached Alex, she ran her free hand from his perfectly chiseled abdomen to his beautiful dark lips.
She gently rubbed his cheek and asked, “So, you’ve come to my home for what?”
Alex looked at me, nervously, and then Josephine slapped him hard in the face! Alex was the kind of man who could knock out several men in one fight, but in Josephine’s presence, he wore a look of fear that I had never seen in him before. Alex looked at me again, and then Josephine grabbed his cheeks with her free hand.
With her palm underneath his chin, and her fingernails sinking deeper into his cheeks, she screamed, “Eyes here, pussy! Why are you here?”
Alex shuddered and said, “I came to see if Stevie had a few dollars for me. I didn’t mean any disrespect. That’s how we do.”
Josephine looked at me in a way to say, ‘I got an idea,’ and I knew where she was about to go. I cringed at the thought, but I knew that we were no longer in my condo, but rather, we were on her set, and the rule on her set is that I can watch or participate, but I can’t stop it. I can’t fight her direction, and four months into our living arrangement, I had seen enough to know that there was a reason none of her models stopped her and her fans seemed to always want to see more. I had to accept her vision or remove myself, and although I was conflicted about the thought of my lady fucking my ex on camera for hire, I knew that I couldn’t look away.
Josephine released Alex’s face from her grip and then began rubbing his chest seductively. She looked to her laptop then said, “My fans said Steven can’t give you any money anymore. A man is supposed to work for his keep. You are a man, correct?”
Alex stuttered, and said, “Yes.”
Josephine slapped Alex harder. “If you want to work for me, you gotta be a strong man. Are you a strong man?”
Alex stood defiantly, and fully erect I might add. Josephine looked down at Alex’s best attribute and shrugged it off like it did nothing for her.
Alex, noticing her indifference to what he considered to be his best asset, said in his most masculine voice, “I am the strongest motherfucker I know. Ask your man.”
Josephine looked at her laptop and smiled as if she saw God himself on the screen. It was obvious that her fans were sending her gifts to get her to do an extended show with her new shitty dick victim, ‘Alex the gay Adonis.’
Josephine looked at Alex and said, in the most aggressive tone I ever heard her use, “Get your faggot ass in the guest bedroom, get faggot-ass naked, and put that faggot ass up in the air; and you better be on your hands and knees by the time I get there, or else. If you are as strong as you say you are, you’ll leave here with 50 percent of my gifts. Go!”
Alex ran to the guest bedroom without giving me another look. Now, when he shows up for his shoots, he doesn’t even acknowledge me. Josephine came into my world and stole everything, including 50 percent of my gay sex partners. I wasn’t jealous, spiteful, or even scorned. I was proud. My woman was beautiful and aggressive, and over time, she became our main breadwinner.
Of course, business was great on my end, but over time, I spent less time trading cryptocurrencies and more time helping Josephine grow her business.
We built a small server room in my old office to process credit card payments and membership data, and by the time we had lived together for a year, Josephine’s server hosted 1,000 other webcam girls, who all paid her a modest monthly membership fee and shared 30 percent of their gifts with her company, Josephine Steven Webcam, LLC, or gojo.com, for processing the payments, etc.
My trading activity couldn’t compete with Josephine’s revenue, and because it was my idea to go out on our own, and I had given her business my guest bedroom, office, and technological skillset, she split everything with me after expenses.
I used every weekly payment for the first two months to buy an engagement ring. I wasn’t sure when, or how, but I knew that I wanted to marry her.
Two whole years had passed since we first met, and she had single-handedly used her messy show to give me a life that was filled with hope, and legacy, and adoration, both given and received. But when I’m honest with myself, the more I saw her in her element, the more insecure I felt; as if when she left, everything would suddenly go away.
Josephine was a force to be reckoned with in business, love, and in life; whereas I was just a gay man in the midst of an identity crisis, I guess. I watched this woman come into my life and flip it upside down. Then I watched as she ran through her male models and Alex in a way that showed me she could do the same to me if she chose, which made me feel as emasculated as when she raped me; allegedly raped me, I mean.
How could I be enough for her, forever? Despite the fact that I knew she loved me, and I knew she was fully invested in our current relationship, my play at a proposal was a way to tame a woman who had shown no signs of being tamed.
Why did I have to tame her? It was the only way to insert myself into the decision-making process, I guess. An engagement ring was the only thing I could give her to compensate for everything she brought to my home when she blessed it with her presence and vision.
One night, as we sat in the living room watching the evening news after dinner, Josephine laid on the sofa with her head on my lap. They ran a story about a group of homeless teenagers who were arrested on prostitution charges in South Philly. All of the kids involved were males, but none of their identities were revealed. Josephine’s body was relaxed before the segment, but by the end, it was tense and frigid.
I asked her, “Do you know someone who was a teenage prostitute?”
Josephine wiped a few tears from her face. “I only met one. Your ex, Alex.”
I was shocked. Alex had never shared that with me. “Alex never told me that.”
Josephine said, “Why should he? His whole life, all he has ever been seen as is a sexual object. It started when he was thirteen. He reached puberty early, and he didn’t have parents who were involved in his upbringing, so while they worked to make ends meet, Alex worked to keep up with the Joneses. Grown-ass men would give him a few dollars to have their way with him, and over time, it became the only way he knew how to make a living. He got stronger because that’s what the guys paid top dollar for, and he got smarter too; over time, instead of working the streets, he developed a clientele that kept him in a place that was nice enough to call home. He was lucky. If he wasn’t smart enough to get stronger and off the streets, he might have ended up like the boys on the news. One decision, one mindset, one plan can be the difference between life and death for some kids out on these streets. It’s sad.”
I was taken aback and impressed at the same time. Where was I at when Alex was sharing all of this information about himself? I wasn’t jealous, but rather, I felt bad for Alex. But then after watching Josephine look into the distance, as if consumed with the thought of Alex, I got jealous! Why the fuck was that faggot spilling his life story to my woman? Why the fuck was she crying and pensive? Had I been stupid enough to let the next man spend quality time with my woman? I was livid. I felt duped. I was desperate.
It wasn’t how I planned to do it, but, in a jealousy-driven moment of weakness, I started, “I had a plan too, in fact, I have a new plan every week it seems, since you moved in.”
Josephine looked at me with her smile and charm on full display. “Oh, a bitch got you changing your life and shit?”
I smiled. “No, a woman has me planning for the future, for the first time in my life. I see a traditional house, and exotic vacations, and everything we ever wanted! I see a woman who loves me and will take on the world for me. I never had that before, so I keep having to re-plan because every time I come up with a way to give you the world and everything you could ever want, I realize that you already gave me what I’m trying to give you. Whether it’s love, money, time, care, or growth in every sense of the word. I can’t find anything to give you that you haven’t given me ten times over already. I may keep changing my plans for the rest of my life, but as long as you are a part of my life, I know that I don’t have to achieve any of my plans. All I have to do is love you, and be there for you, and pray that no matter what, you’ll never leave me the way you met me.”
I started to cry, without knowing it, and continued, “I don’t want to forget how it feels to be loved, Josephine. I don’t mean general love, like what I have with A-Dog and my family, but the love you provide me with every day you choose to stay with me. I’ll trade in every man I ever met in life for a lifetime with you! I’m not a man, or a gay man, or a black man. I’m just your man, Josephine. I swear it.”
I ran into the bedroom, leaving Josephine looking at me as if I was having a psychotic break. I ran back into the living room and sat next to her, with the unopened ring box in the palm of my hand.
Josephine looked at the box, then looked at me, and she wiped the tears from my eyes.
Before she could speak, I continued, “I bought this ring with the first money we made from your webcam business. Every dollar was spent here. I knew you would say yes when I bought it, but I held onto it because I’m scared. I’m scared that one day, when you realize that you’ve been in full control the whole time, you might find someone else who is stronger, or loves you harder than I can. If you take this ring then leave me, Josephine, I’m gonna die! Nothing else is going to matter! If you think for one second that you and I may not work then you have to say no, because I can’t live without you, but something in my soul keeps trying to prepare me to lose you. I can’t ignore the thoughts in my head.”
Josephine leaned back and looked at me, intently. She wasn’t touching me, just looking as if she was thinking about my proposition. She was contemplating forever, and she hesitated, like I knew she would. My intuition was correct, so I thought, and while I sat on the sofa holding Josephine’s engagement ring, the news ended, and Josephine and I sat there, looking at each other, with no words spoken. Relative loneliness; the story of my life! Just when I think free will is at play, fate shows me yet again that some men have no say at all; myself included.