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Steven held me hostage for three weeks, cooped up inside our condo! I mean, I’m not gonna complain, because he literally took care of everything, but how many times can a woman cuddle and eat, then cuddle, and sleep then cuddle and make love before she wants to go outside and do something besides cuddling? I remember thinking, ‘Literally, anything would be better than this.’
A week into it, I was over it, but Steven clearly was not. It was early in the afternoon, and we were on the sofa, cuddling, after eating a whole pepperoni pizza. I could feel the carbs and grease from the cheese joining the newly formed fat around my stomach and hips, but, of course, Steven lives near the best fucking pizza restaurant in Philadelphia, so I couldn’t help but eat the shit, knowing good and damn well that I was getting fatter and uglier by the second.
The local afternoon news started, and there was a segment about us! I grabbed the remote and turned the volume up full blast. Fuck the neighbors; we were on TV!
The reporter said, “In international news, one local couple has sparked a controversy that stretches as far as the Vatican, Washington DC, and Nairobi, Africa. Two unlikely lovers embark on a tumultuous love affair that starts with date rape but ends in matrimony. Here is the story of how one gay black man and one middle-aged black straight woman sparked the viral video that has caused unrest on every continent on the planet.”
The video cuts to A-Dog and Dom outside of the Onyx strip club talking to reporters.
A-Dog says, in a drunken voice, “Listen, listen. Steven and Josephine would’a never met if I didn’t catfish their asses! My clickety-clack on point, son! Ya feel me!”
The reporter asked, “What do you mean by ‘catfish?’”
Dom said, slurring every word, “Yo, the niggah wrote an algorithm that used Google to search the profiles of every online dating site in the whole motherfucking world to find a bitch that might be willing to fuck the gay outta his boy.”
A-Dog interrupted, “The shit worked too! I found twenty badass single bitches, trannies, and divorcees to choose from, and I picked the most perfect bitch in the whole world for my bro Steven in like 0.23 seconds! My data-mining skills are so tight that my algorithm found the only twenty bitches in the world who would be down for the ride, and a sexy-ass webcam personality named Josephine Lassel was at the top of the list. She ended up having to rape him in his sleep, but she ain’t gotta rape that niggah no more!”
The segment cut to a blurred video of me urinating on Darlene, a forty-five-year-old housewife from Bergen County, New Jersey. Darlene wasn’t into scat, or webcams, or the sex industry. She was a single mother. She started out married, but her husband got hooked on heroin when her kids were in Pampers, and she had to go from a housewife to a working mother to prevent child services from taking her kids. She worked two cashier jobs by day, but when she was strapped for cash, she would answer sex ads on craigslist.
One day, she came across my ad for models where I said, and I quote, “to perform in discreet sexual scenes on a small webcam show.” The first time she appeared, she wore a mask, but when my fans took a liking to her beautiful smile, they increased the gifts on the condition that she agreed to remove the mask. I left it up to her, which Darlene explained verbally while the webcam video played alongside her sitting on her porch in Bergen County, NJ.
She had aged well since we last worked together about fifteen years ago. Her two girls and one boy were in their early twenties now, and they all looked like Darlene, in a way, and a middle-aged white woman sat behind Darlene with one hand on Darlene’s shoulder.
Darlene said, “When I recorded that video, I was in desperate need of money. My babies are all I have, so when their father got hooked on heroin and ran off to live in New York City with his heroin-addicted mistress, I had to make a way for my family. I worked as a cashier, but that was barely enough to pay the rent. So, I learned how to use sex to help earn a little cash. Since I didn’t want to be a prostitute, I did the next best thing. I went online and answered a craigslist ad where I had to clean a man’s apartment, naked. It paid $200 for one hour, and I didn’t have to sleep with anyone.
“The next time I answered an ad to change a grown man’s shitty diaper, naked. That desensitized me to scat work, because that man made me rub the feces on his genitals so that he could use it as lubricant when he masturbated. The last straw for me was when I answered an ad where I had to let five old fat men grope me while they drank liquor and masturbated in a circle. Their backs were against one another, so they couldn’t see each other. All they could see was me as I moved around the circle, from man to man. I felt low, and dirty, and worse than a prostitute because of the number of men who participated, but I was $500 richer by the time I left. By the time I answered Josephine’s ad for models for her webcam show, I said, ‘Why not?’”
An off-camera reporter asked, “How was it working with Josephine Lassel?”
Darlene smiled the same way; wholeheartedly, carelessly, all teeth exposed; she had one of the purest smiles I had ever seen and had a way of making everyone else smile with her, even webcam fans.
“Jo was gracious, fair, and an excellent tipper! I made a consistent $1,000 per appearance, but when the fans gifts increased to over $2,000, I would get 50 percent of the rest; meaning if we earned $3,000, I left with $1500, but if we made $2,100, I left with $1,050. It was so transparent and fair. She showed me the total gifts she earned once every show ended. That’s also how I know she had to pay a portion of her half to the webcam company. She called it the cost of doing business and refused when I asked her to change her mind and take something out of my half to help pay them. She refused! That’s how it was working for Jo. To this day, she is the best boss I ever had.”
The reporter asked, “So you trusted her?”
Darlene asked, “Trusted her? I owe that woman everything. She helped me provide for my children and encouraged me to pursue nursing, and when our shows ended, and my kids were with my parents, I would sit in Josephine’s studio apartment in Philadelphia and study for class the next morning. She made me coffee and helped me make index cards, and she would even quiz me on medical terminology and equipment that she couldn’t even pronounce properly. We laughed, cried, and did whatever we had to do to get fans to increase their gifts during our shows together. I only left when one of my professors who had no idea about my side-job asked me out on a date. I never called Jo again after that date, because I had met the love of my life and I couldn’t face my sexual past once my partner, Elizabeth, was in the picture.”
Darlene grasps Elizabeth’s hand, the middle-aged white woman who was sitting behind her, and began to cry. “Josephine Josephs is about the nicest, sweetest, most sincere spirit that I have ever met, and my greatest crime against humanity, and Josephine, was that I never shared how one webcam model from Philadelphia helped a single divorcee from New Jersey raise a family, gain an education, and produce three college-educated adults. I have them here with me today because I also want them to know that it’s not what you have to do to survive that matters, it’s how you pay it forward to help others.”
The reporter asked, “What did you think when you heard that Josephine Lassel married a gay black man?”
Darlene laughed harder, more spirited. “When I saw Josephine and her gay husband on the internet, with his penis fully erect for everyone in the world to see, I laughed so hard that I cried! My son sent it to me because of the song, but when I saw my old boss covering her mouth, I screamed, ‘You better go, Jo!’”
The reporter asked, “So, you were happy for her?”
Darlene smiled again, as only she could. “She always said she wanted a husband who had a big dick, excuse my language! Only Josephine was sexy enough, bold enough, and courageous enough to trust love from a gay black man who was tricked into going on a date with her. Who am I to judge? I married a woman. I am happy as long as Jo is happy. I just hope that by doing this interview, she gets my love, and congratulations, and my promise that I owe her so much that I can’t begin to list it all here, but the first thing she’s getting from me is a wedding gift. Give ‘em hell, Jo! I love you, miss you, and thank you on behalf of myself and the family that you helped me create. God bless you, baby girl, and God Bless your new husband.”
Her family shouted, “Thank you, Mrs. Josephs!” and all I could do was look at my friend Darlene. Watching Darlene cry and smile and receive love from her family absolutely melted my heart and Steven’s too.
We both cried and cuddled each other tighter as Darlene showed me through the news how much she loved me. I was trapped in the house being smothered with love, and out there in the world was Darlene—a woman who, before this video, I would have probably forgotten her name if she wasn’t on the news with it in the lower-left corner of the screen.
I remember all of my models, and as their profile pictures were plastered on the television screen, and their faces and testimonies played, not one had anything negative to say about me. I couldn’t remember all of their names, but I remembered all of their stories, because that’s why I hired them.
They all needed money, desperately. They also needed compassion, and a handout, and an advance here and there on their next video. Whatever they needed, I did it because it’s hard to find a reliable model to piss on consistently, but to the models, I did it because I was a saint. I pimped them like my old webcam company and my parents pimped me, but the difference was I did care about them on some level.
The video cut to Donald Fresno, the CEO of my old webcam company, sitting in his office. Naturally, I never met him, but he had so much to say about me and what I was “really doing.” He had to be sixty years old, in a black suit and a striped tie, looking like he was being interviewed about the bitch who killed his child or something like that.
He said, angrily, “It was no coincidence that an ambitious webcam personality would ‘fall in love’ with an unemployed gay IT programmer. Josephine Lassel is what most sex workers are—a vulture. She will stop at nothing to leverage the decades of inside information she pillaged from my company. Like a fox, she schemed and plotted until she found her sheep in Steven Josephs. It is no coincidence that Anthony Dumonte, who works for the biggest government contractor in Philadelphia, wrote his algorithm and, in a fraction of a second, he finds the temptress Josephine Lassel; a middle-aged black woman who spent the better part of a decade watching her webcam following diminishing from a business that generated six figures annually to one that barely grossed five-k a month over the past three years, after deducting the exorbitant fees she paid herself and her models.
“She didn’t save her money, she blew it on talent, because her end game was never to retire on those earnings. When Josephine Lassel went independent last quarter and started hosting her own site, GoJo.com, she took 25 percent of our members with her. After the ‘wedding video’ leaked, we lost another 30 percent overnight.
“As I participate in this interview, we lose more of our members, all because we legitimized a serpent who came up by pissing on low-income people for an astronomical rate. Josephine could care less about the models she defecated on, or the gay American she shames each day she spends married to him. Their union flies in the face of everything we know about religion, the fall of Rome, AIDS babies, and common human decency! Josephine Lassel, or Josephine Josephs, or whatever alias she’s using these days, is only concerned with one thing—becoming the leading webcam provider in the US webcam market; religion, sexuality, and marriage be dammed!”
The reporter continues, “Josephine Steven Webcam, LLC, or GoJo.com, is earning an estimated 2.5 million dollars a month in gross sales based on the membership totals they have on the website, and the website has only been live for the past three months. Did a middle-aged webcam model really strategize her way from in front of the cameras to the top of the US webcam market overnight by seducing a government contractor and his gay friend, or did she simply ‘Luck Up?’”
The video cuts to A-Dog and Dom. Both are shaking their heads emphatically, and A-Dog says, “That’s stupid as fuck, man! They met like nine months before they started that company, and when they met, it was a fucking joke! I thought Steven was as gay as the world was round. Ever since I made him get head from a crackhead named Susie Suck-Ems, he went out of his way to show me that he was gay, and I went out of my way to find him his next Susie Suck-Ems. My plan was for Josephine to meet Stephen and embarrass him publicly. I mean, yeah, she did steal $500 from my PayPal account, and Steven did flip that shit in the cryptocurrency market, and they did use the profits to buy the servers that are running GoJo.com, but that don’t mean Jo working Steven.”
Dom laughed. “Let you tell it, that’s exactly what Jo did, niggah! The part he left out though was that he gave Jo that $500 and said she could do whatever she wanted with it, right or wrong?”
A-Dog said, “Facts.”
The reporter asked, “So, it was never about the money?”
A-Dog said, “Right. She didn’t take the money to go on the date. I gave her the money to pay for the date after she agreed. She smart as hell, so she invested it instead of spending it on clothes, jewelry, cars, and shit. I mean, I didn’t know her site was pulling in $2.5 million a month, because they don’t even have a car. They take Uber everywhere, yo! If Jo so obsessed with hoarding money, then where is it? She not using Steven to become the Webcam Queen of America, they just so dope as a couple, they create a natural synergy in every aspect of their lives. Niggah, they been locked in the house for the past week! They ain’t even returning our calls, and we were the only niggas at the wedding!”
Dom joked, “What if the news right, and Jo killed Stevie and she hopped on a plane to Mexico like six days ago and shit? Wouldn’t that be some shit right outta Snapped?”
A-Dog’s laughter changed to fear, and he pulled out his cell phone, dialed Steven’s number, and said, nervously. “Bro, come on! Answer the fucking phone yo!”
The video cuts to Alex, and his title reads, Alexander Chestnut, Acting CEO of Gojo.com and its subsidiaries. Since Alex started working for me, his mannerisms had gotten way more flamboyant. Apparently, his fans like him flamboyant, and because he’s always trying to secure his next bag, he had become the embodiment of the masculine yet feminine webcam persona that he created when I left the webcam game and put him in charge of production.
Alex was dressed in an Armani suit, and his eyebrows were perfectly shaped. He was sitting in his office at the warehouse and it looked like he really did a lot with the place. The production aspect was his area; all I worried about were the internet connection and the credit card payments. But in one week, he used his budget to present the illusion of a company similar to my old company, but instead of my old hating-ass CEO on the screen, there was my best gay worker, and the reason the wedding video went viral; Alexander Chestnut, Acting CEO of GoJo.com and its subsidiaries, whatever the fuck that means. A bitch couldn’t have been more proud!
I screamed at Alex on the television, “Now is your moment to shine, hoe! You better defend my honor, bitch!”
Steven laughed and then Alex said, “Get the fuck outta here! Jo check-in with me via text every morning. “
I screamed, “You better get his ass, Alex!”
Alex continued, “The bitch is fine! She on an Extended Honeymoon with her man, who yes, just so happens to be my ex, but it don’t matter. I love Steven, and I love Josephine, and I hate Tyler Jackson, I’m just saying.”
Alex explained everything about how he knew Steven and Tyler, and how he met me through Steven and how I did him the first time he appeared on my webcam. Then they played the actual episode, where Alex got fucked so hard that he cried, literally.
Alex continued, “I’m not saying that Jo be fucking Steven like that, but as a gay man with a big dick, I didn’t fuck Steven like that when I was fucking him, so maybe Jo more of a man than me. But if I had my choice between being fucked by Jo or a gay man, Jo got the only dick I want breaking down my walls. Okay?”
I yelled at the television, “Never again, but you cute though; in your little Armani suit! You better show them how Mommy takes care of her hoes! Yass, Alex!”
As I snapped my fingers and carried on, Steven laughed and the reporter asked, “So, do you resent Josephine, or Steven, or both of them for falling in love?”
Alex rolled his eyes, then laughed. “You would think that I’d be mad she took my Steven away from me, considering all the money he gave me over the years, but I was more upset when he proposed and made her quit the webcam game right after she signed me. The day of her wedding, when she called me, I didn’t congratulate her because I was thinking ‘Well, damn, bitch! You ain’t even gonna stay working until my little webcam show builds up a following?’
“Even the day before that, when she got engaged, while she was sharing the most important day of her life at the time with her webcam followers, her engagement, I was at home watching, pissed the fuck off! What was she doing! But to my surprise, the day she got engaged, she knew how to keep me and her employed at the same damn time. By that night, I had the keys to this warehouse space I’m sitting in and a list of thorough instructions that Jo dictated to me as we shopped for props, furniture, and office supplies; all on the day she quit the webcam game! That’s not a set-up, that’s a come up, and Jo know how to help a bitch get a quick come up, believe that!”
The reporter asked, “So she quit her show, but she’s still running the company?”
Alex chuckled, “Exactly! When she called me the next morning canceling our day to elope at City Hall, I was livid yet again. She left me with a laundry list of tasks and she was off marrying my ex! Meanwhile, there was that thought again that once they actually get married, she gonna neglect the business and we’re gonna have to close our site for good. I didn’t know what to do. How could I say congratulations when my whole world seemed like it was crumbling?”
The reporter asked, “So what did you do?”
Alex continued, “I called the only person who knew me and Steven and could appreciate the irony of me losing my trick and my boss bitch at the same damn wedding. I’m human, and I needed to vent! Sue me; well, don’t sue me, but I’m just saying, I vented to the wrong person. I called my friend, and Steven’s other hoe, Tyler. I’ve known Tyler longer than I’ve known Steven. The difference is Steven was a masculine bottom, but Tyler was an effeminate top, so me and Tyler would chill, do group sex, you know, turn up together, all the time, but we didn’t fool around with one another for years and years, you feel me? Tyler never mentioned his true feelings toward Steven until the damn wedding reception.”
The video cuts to Tyler, and I could see Steven tense up, and that drunken look of rage was back in his eyes. He was so mad he didn’t even notice me staring up at him, wanting to touch him but remembering what happened the last time I tried to touch him after he confronted Tyler.
Tyler was in the TV studio, sitting at the desk with the reporter. He looked as label whorish as the first day we met, and you know those eyebrows were arched to the Gods!
Tyler said, as effeminately as ever before, “I am head over heels in love with Steven Josephs. He telling everybody I was his hoe, but what kind of hoe you know fucks with an unemployed cryptocurrency trader? They don’t make no money. Yet, even after he left his high-paying job, I still loved him. But I stopped reaching out because I thought he was going through a midlife crisis and needed time to cool off and snap back into reality. When Alex finally told me that Steven was getting married, I drove to City Hall to see it for myself.”
On the screen appeared the only picture we have of everyone who attended our wedding day. Every other picture has three of us at most, but this picture had all four of us. Dom is looking upset in a white mini dress with a head full of cornrows on top of her head, sitting in the lobby of City Hall. A-Dog is sitting next to her, but he is staring across the room at someone, knowing him, a woman. Then I’m laying my head on Steven’s shoulder, while Steven is looking at me with more love than I had ever seen in any husband’s eyes on his wedding day. Our hands are clenched together, our body language says we are the only two people in the shot, but Tyler framed it in a way where you can tell we were all together.
I was quickly knocked back into reality when Tyler continued, “I did everything I could to cancel that damn wedding! I paid the clerk to act like they had a lot of weddings that day, and she kept moving them to the bottom of the list. After four hours, they were still there. So then I hoped A-Dog and Dom would get them kicked out, because they were flirting with everyone in the room, making all the grooms uncomfortable by flirting with their cousins and sisters and friends. But when one of the couples complained to the clerks’ supervisor a few hours later, they moved Steven and Josephine to top of the list. I was so mad!
“They got married and didn’t even notice that I was in the courtroom for the fucking ceremony. I watched the smartest, sexiest, most successful gay man I ever met make the dumbest mistake of his life, and he didn’t even see me. It was all about her. A middle-aged, dried-up, fraction of her younger self behind webcam hoe done came out of nowhere and stole my man, and all I could do was watch it happen! When they left City Hall and got in an Uber, I followed them. All of a sudden, the Uber driver stopped short, then boom! I rear-ended the fucking Uber! Could my day get any worse?”
The video cut to Alex again, who continued, “I learned at the wedding reception that the only thing Jo and Steven have to fear is that shady bitch Tyler! Like I said, I loves Jo, and I loves Steven, but the next time I see Tyler’s ass, I’m dragging that faggot on sight! He gonna call me and say, ‘Bitch, meet me at the hookah bar on Cecil B Moore; I got to tell you what I did to your boss!’ But when I got there, before Steven and Josephine showed up, he brought me in the bathroom and professed his love for me. I don’t want no Tyler, but I’m a man, so I figured an effeminate top should have a nice tight asshole, so when Tyler threw it at me, I tried it! I won’t lie, it was good and tight. I definitely had a little bit of shit on my dick upon impact! I beat it up like Jo taught me! Tyler wasn’t ready for me, and it felt good! But then, before I could even finish, Tyler starts jerking and carrying on, making a whole bunch of noise while I fucked him in the handicapped stall of the hookah bar. Next thing I know, this big-ass bouncer comes in, waits for us to get dressed, and drags us out of the bathroom by our collars, like we were two kids and shit. You talking about embarrassed! I just wanted to die right then and there.”
Alex choked up, “But when I saw Josephine standing there, and Steven, I couldn’t breathe! But when the bouncer said I was really at their wedding reception, and I looked at Tyler, he had this look on his face that... Whoa! I’m gonna need a minute, guys. I’m so fucking mad right now!”
The video cuts back to Tyler, and he is grinning maliciously. “I had to show Steven that if the problem was he wanted to fuck me in the ass, then so be it. To prove it, why not let his ex fuck me in the ass the way he used to fuck Steven, at the fucking wedding reception, and lose my ass virginity on the day Steven chose to abandon his gay self? How else could I show Steven how hurt I was? It was wrong, I know it, but it didn’t justify him holding a broken bottle to my neck. It didn’t justify Steven threatening my life publicly. Like I said, I loves me some Steven Josephs.”
The video cuts back to Alex, who is still choked up, but trying to stay strong enough to finish what he has to say. “I wish Steven had killed Tyler’s ass that night, but then Steven would be in jail, and Jo would be devastated, you know. But as it happened, I prayed that God would give Steven one win, you know. I was never Steven’s boyfriend, or Tyler, for that matter. We never loved him or shared our life with him. We used him for everything we could get. But Steven is like Jo in a lot of ways. Everyone is either necessary or a distraction. Necessary people you keep close, but distractions must go away. When I would see Steven, we had sex, he paid me, and I left. If Steven and Tyler had the same relationship, which they did, then how can Tyler say he loved Steven? A-Dog loves Steven, Jo loves Steven. Hell, even Dom loves Steven, but me and Tyler only know of Steven. There is a difference. I grew to love Steven, but Tyler—that queen just mad because nobody want her old hoe ass.”
The video cut back to the studio, and the reporter asked Tyler, “Were you and Steven ever in a traditional relationship?”
Before Tyler could answer, another face appeared on the screen. A white gay man in his early fifties sat next to Tyler dressed conservatively in a business suit. The white man motioned for Tyler to remain silent, which he did, surprisingly. The man was extremely masculine, and the only reason I knew he was gay was because he had both ears pierced, and his title read Edward Clemens Executive Director of Gay Lives Matter.org.
Edward said, “I reject that question due to the blatant use of the word ‘traditional.’ During a time when over half of heterosexual marriages end in divorce, the only thing that can be certain is that to be heterosexual and married means that you are more likely to end up divorced and/or with multiple sexual partners than your same-sex counterparts.”
The reporter interjects, “But aren’t you deflecting? What does a traditional relationship have to do with marriage when concerning Tyler and Steven? It was admitted by Tyler himself that he simply lost contact with Steven. There was no need for a break-up, or Dear John letter because, at least it seems like, no relationship existed between them.”
Ed retorted, “In the context of heterosexual relationships, maybe you are right, but when discussing gay ‘traditional relationships,’ my organization is better equipped to define what constitutes a traditional gay relationship in the context of Steven and Tyler; more so than you or your little television station.”
Tyler snapped his fingers. “Yes, Daddy! You needs to read him for filth!”
Edward continued, more defiantly, “When your heterosexual sons go off to war, you expect their wives and girlfriends to be dutiful. If a man is incarcerated, he wants his girl to hold him down. Meanwhile, Steven ghosts his lover of ten years, Tyler, and much like the dutiful partner, Tyler gave Steven the space he needed. That is an act of love. When Tyler found out that Steven was getting married, he snapped. Psychological breaks can occur during crimes of passion, and even the courts have an exception for the defendant in those types of cases. What exception does Tyler have?”
The reporter interjected, “But what gives Tyler, or any gay man, the right to receive closure at the end of a relationship? Why can’t Tyler just move on?”
Tyler snapped, “Because Tyler has a broken heart!” Ed gestured for Tyler to calm down, and Tyler did, as he continued, “No man or retired sex worker acting like her snatch is the cure for homosexuality can offer an acceptable argument as to why Tyler should have to get over his feelings and just move on, good sir! In gay relationships, what Tyler and Steven had was real. Heteros shack up for ten years and they can say they common-law, but when gays do it, the one who makes less money is considered a hoe, or a houseboy, or trade. Well, bitch, me and Steven was common-law married, so was Alex and Steven. Me and Alex had an arrangement that Steven didn’t know about, which was we fucked Steven but Steven never fucked us.”
The reported asked, “But why is this relevant now, after over a year of no contact, Tyler? Isn’t that petty?”
Tyler said, as dramatically and as heartfelt as I have ever seen him before, “You think I ain’t want to sit on my man’s dick? But Alex said that he didn’t want Steven fucking anyone, because the moment he starts doing that he’s gonna learn what everyone who ever saw Steven naked knew.”
The video cut to Alex, who said, “Steven could have had any gay man he wanted. He liked taking dick though because most gay men would see him naked and obsess over his dick. It’s weird like that with some gays. A niggah with a foot-long dick end up as a drag queen, and a niggah with a two-inch dick end up as a murderous homo thug. Size doesn’t matter in every respect. With some gays, they know they packing, but they only want to be packed. That’s why Steven and Tyler and I all worked out. Fuck what I felt, or what Tyler felt; the question was what did Steven feel? I think I know what Steven felt, and it’s that me and Tyler were never intended to be husbands once he got to know us. We were raised to use our dicks to make money, whereas Steven used his dick to show gratitude to the only person who didn’t obsess over it on the first date. I never obsessed over Steven’s dick, but Tyler did. If I let Steven fuck Tyler, Steven would have probably married him, because they both needy as hell emotionally. I don’t need anyone; I need this check, that’s all!”
The video cuts back to Tyler, who says, with tears in his eyes, “I need for gay men to stick with gay men, because lord knows we don’t have a lot of options. I want dried-up gay hags to collect cats instead of gay men, because, again, we don’t have a lot of options to choose from, so we will fight to keep the gays we have. And finally, but most importantly, I’m gonna need America to understand that if I decide to sue Steven and Josephine Josephs, as the common-law spouse who was there when Steven built his IT career as well as when he helped that dried-up cyber prostitute commit corporate espionage, then don’t call me the scorned ex, or the hater, or the homewrecker. Call me the common-law ex who is entitled to 50 percent of everything, bitch! Now what?”
Edward interjected, carefully choosing his next words, “Our legal counsel believes that Tyler has a case. Although we have not committed to representing Tyler directly, we have committed to at least cover Tyler’s legal fees, should he choose to pursue this case. The hard reality is that what Josephine Lassel did was blaspheme the sanctity of the gay relationship in order to achieve financial gain. Although immoral, because she did not sign a non-compete clause, she is well within her rights. However, as I stated previously, Steven, Tyler, and Alex were in a multi-year gay polyamorous relationship. If Alex is okay with letting Steven go with no legal repercussions, then so be it. However, if Tyler chooses to pursue legal action, not only are we looking at spousal abandonment but also domestic violence.”
Another video appeared alongside Edward. It was a close-up of Steven holding a broken bottle to Tyler’s neck the night of our wedding reception. The video played on repeat in slow motion over and over and over again. That look of rage on Steven’s face was piercing, even as I watched it from this perspective. Steven’s drunken rage was being shown to everyone in the city completely out of context, as if Steven was some kind of monster, as opposed to the loving, considerate, and compassionate man that I know and love.
But what sealed Steven’s fate was that instead of explaining why Steven was holding the bottle at Tyler’s neck like that, with that look of hatred in his eyes, Edward’s white faggot ass is saying, “Steven is so down low, or DL, that he literally repressed his gay self for over twenty-four months. When he saw his lover, at his wedding reception of all places, that is what triggered Steven’s psychotic break, which although it manifested itself differently than Tyler’s psychotic break, proves the same point. An ex who is an ex-factor would not elicit a response like this, unless there is love there.
“In Tyler’s case, he was at the reception for love, but Steven was murderous because, in his mind, he had killed his gay side when he said ‘I do’ to Josephine Lassel. To see his gay self in the same room as his DL self and explode like that is a hallmark indicator of a love affair between two men. Not paid sex, a gay love affair, that although it is not the same as what Ms. Lassel has orchestrated, it is still as legitimate as any other relationship that Steven can claim. Steven always has the right to remarry, but he is still on the hook for compensating his former common-law same-sex partner according to our state’s Same-Sex Marriage Amendment.”
The reporter said, “Look, I am not a lawyer, but that seems like a stretch, considering everything we have learned about this love triangle so far.”
Tyler snapped, “Well, even if you was a lawyer, I’d say you not the judge. I have ten years’ worth of receipts, videos, sex tapes, and text messages to prove that I was the main wife, Alex was our sister-wife, and Steven was our common-law husband.”
Edward interrupted, “Again, Tyler is using terms that suggest polygamy for dramatic effect, but in traditional gay relationships, this model is as old as the dawn of time. For more information about this complex legal issue, or if you feel like you have a case against a former same-sex spouse, please visit our website to learn how our organization can help you have your day in court. There is no law saying that heterosexual morals must be conformed to in gay relationships. Our gay rainbow is multi-colored because we are as diverse as the colors in a light spectrum. We will not fit nicely into any heterosexual concept of ‘tradition’ or ‘normalcy’ or ‘morality.’ Instead, we will be what we always have been—gay, in love, and proud.”
The reporter interjected, “There you have it, people. Everyone from the Vatican, to lawmakers in Washington DC, to reports of an unidentified man in Nairobi who claims that along with being a closeted homosexual and polygamist, Steven Josephs and his mother are racists. Literally, everyone is weighing in on the viral video, that sparked the viral song, that caused America to ask, ‘What is a traditional gay relationship?’ Is it what it seems, a same-sex union, or is it any relationship that an openly gay person enters into? As a heterosexual man, a father, and a brother, the only reason I cared enough to investigate this piece was because of the thought that was best articulated by Tyler during the last moments of this interview.”
The video cuts to a close-up of Tyler. It started wide but got closer as he said, “You heterosexual men need to step the fuck up, because when gay men and dried-up hetero bitches start shacking up, there’s gonna be a whole-lotta-bitches getting positive HIV/AIDS test results; mark my words. Know your status, Steven!”
Edward interjects, “Neither I nor Tyler are implying that Steven Josephs is HIV Positive, but if he is, does Josephine Lassel know?”
The reporter says, with a picture of Tyler’s unsolicited wedding photo on the screen, “What started as a funny viral video is now having legal, social, and public health repercussions that could be catastrophic to the gay and straight community here at home and abroad. The only way we will know for sure is when the couple speaks. But it has been over a week now, and they claim to be on an Extended Honeymoon, but where? Our news vans have been posted at their condominium for days, around the clock, and still, there is no sign of them. What is there to hide? If you let the people who know them best tell it, they’re in a lovers’ bliss, but if you let the people who knew them longest tell it, they’re in a gay nightmare. Who is right? I guess only time will tell. What is certain though is that whoever lands the next interview with Steven and Josephine Josephs will reach historic ratings, as the world watches to determine whether this is all a hoax, corporate espionage, or an attack on the gay community as we know it. Or maybe, just maybe, as eluded to by Josephine’s best friend, Dom...”
The video cuts to Dom and A-Dog, who are fighting back tears. They weren’t upset at me and Steven, they were upset at the world. They didn’t find the video funny anymore now that they had seen exactly what we were going through, from the inside as well as from the outside looking in.
Dom said furiously, and with pain in every word, “Fuck America, man. I am whoever I say I am, even if it’s all lies. Why I gotta be what you want me to be? Josephine and Steven deserve to be able to choose who they love and start their life however they choose. I don’t give a fuck if he fucking her, or she fucking him, or they fucking Shim, man. Let them be happy, man! Please! Cuz as hard as they had to work to find happiness, the last thing they should have to do is explain themselves to you, or me, or even God. God makes mistakes. I was a mistake. I should have been a man but I was born a woman. Now today, I’m transgender and a lesbian and a woman and a man at the same damn time. I decided that shit, not y’all! My best friend and her husband have the same right, man. And for all that HIV positive shit Tyler dropping, when his bitch-ass end up dead, you can find me, cuz I did it.”
A-Dog wiped the tears from his drunken face. “Naw, it was me. I did it!”
The reporter returned to the screen. “I guess we can add premeditated murder to an already lengthy list of accusations. Until next time, people, you have the right to choose your own happiness, just don’t let it affect me and mine. We are all interested in learning more about Mr. and Mrs. Josephs, but until they speak, all we can do is speculate. Now, let’s go to local traffic. Take it away, Jim!”
Steven walked over to the wall and ripped the flat-screen TV off. I screamed when I heard it crash to the floor.
Our neighbor yelled, “That’s so fucked up, man! This some fake-ass news, man!”
I heard something crash from upstairs. Then cussing from my left, and my right; the whole building was outraged just like Steven. We speak in passing; they hear us in here, like we hear them, so even they know we’re in love. Anyone who knows us know we would never plot to take down my old employer or to scorn Steven’s gay lovers.
I snapped on Steven and whispered, “Calm your ass down! You know that was some bullshit! Fucking up the only TV we got up in this motherfucker like you ain’t got no damn sense. What we gonna watch now, Steven? I ain’t trying to wait on no damn Amazon Prime! Love and Hip Hop come on tonight, man!”
Steven screamed, “But Tyler—”
And I said, “Fuck Tyler, Steven. These people online, and who don’t know us from Adam and Eve, they gonna think whatever they think regardless. Why let them get to you now, during our extended honeymoon?”
Steven stopped dead in his tracks and approached me with that look of rage again. This time, I wasn’t aroused or fearful of how it would be perceived by others; I was scared for myself! I never been in an abusive relationship, but it looked like Steven was about to slap me down! Instead, when he got to me, he hugged me so tightly that I could feel his heart racing through my titties, and these some big-ass titties!
Steven said, as he grit his teeth to contain himself, “This shit getting to me because I can’t be with a man, and I can’t be with a woman, and even after spending years fighting for two men who could care less about me, I can’t even be formerly gay. What can I be except your husband, Josephine?”
I looked at him, about to explode with anger again. “What else do you want to be, Steven? Huh? If God were right here, right now, and he asked you to tell him what you want to be, what’s your answer? Don’t think about it, just say it?”
Without a moment, or a beat of hesitation, Steven said in a calm and assured voice, “I just want to be with you, Jo.”
That was all I needed to hear from my husband. I hugged him as we rocked in each other’s arms for what had to be hours. I didn’t want to face outside anymore. I wanted to extend my already extended honeymoon a little longer.
I knew then exactly what I was gonna say to the first reporter who questioned me about my man and our HIV status. But why rush the inevitable? Now, with no television and two dead cell phones, all we had was each other, board games, cards, tic-tac-toe, truth or dare, and every other game we could think of. We played like two kids who had their parents’ credit card and were Home Alone with delivery service! I can’t even tell you how much we spent over the next two weeks. But I know for sure I gained nineteen more pounds.