Josephine Josephs

By Luke Don

Josephine is a middle-aged webcam model who is looking for love, while Steven is a middle-aged retired computer programmer who is also looking for love but happens to be unapologetically gay.  After having their online dating apps hacked by Steven's toxically masculine best friend, A-Dog, Josephine and Steven are catfished and set up on a blind date.  Although the two immediately learn that they were catfished, they decide to continue to get to know one another better.  Josphine and Steven share their most intimate recollection of this unlikely love story after the world becomes aware of their union.  Although Josephine and Steven are convinced that their love is genuine and should be celebrated, the world disagrees.  Once Steven and Josephine's best friends, and former gay lovers, and social media all chime in with their opinion at the same time, tragedy could only follow.   Josephine and Steven define love on a level that only makes sense to them, but once they share their story with the world, everyone wants to know more about Josephine Josephs and her gay husband, Steven. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shaun Hardrick
• Release date: Dec 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393595496

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to anyone who just wants to be loved, without all of the sexual exploitation.  My hope is that Josephine will inspire you to accept love on love’s terms.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them.

Barack Obama

MTV 2008

Prologue

Steven

Isit on the set of the country’s most popular talk show, The Donna Seaworth Show . I am dressed as if money is of no concern. My neck is decorated in platinum and diamond chains that look so new they reflect every ray of light that hits the specular surfaces. My garments look as if I just stepped off of the runway, and the loafers on my feet are so unique they appear to be custom made. I am sitting with my wife, the legendary Josephine Josephs, who is dressed in the same fashion.

We ooze affluence, prosperity, and materialism simultaneously, while our body language seems as if it means nothing at all. Josephine smiles and playfully rubs my knee, as if she senses that I am looking for something and supports my search.

I look to the left of the audience, then to the right, and then I spot my best friend, Alexander Dumont, or A-Dog, sitting in the center. We exchange a subtle head nod, then a smile; then, out of nowhere, we erupt in laughter.

The host of the show, Donna Seaworth, cannot ignore this unplanned outburst. I see you found your buddy in the audience, Donna says, in an authoritative but friendly voice. Does that mean that y’all’s bromance is still alive and well?

The audience laughs and applauds A-Dog, who bows arrogantly.

After regaining my composure, I say, Yeah, Donna! Since he’s the reason why we're even here to begin with, I was like, ‘That Motherfucker better show up to repent for his punk-ass sins!’

Donna frowns. Okay. But try not to curse so much, please. We don’t want the FCC coming after us, see. This ain’t cable television; it’s network television, baby! We are already taping you two on a ten-minute delay, because your fiercely outspoken wife, Josephine, is known not only for her character but also for her offensive potty mouth; I'm just saying!

Josephine and the audience erupt in applause and laughter.

Donna continues, Although we already know most of the story, why don’t you take us back to the beginning of this unlikely and salacious love affair, Steven? I mean, no judgment, but the first time I saw your viral video and learned what inspired the chart-topping viral hit produced by the internationally renowned DJ Azod entitled ‘Okay, You Can Come in Now, Baby. We Good,’ I was mortified! But since Alexander Dumont just so happens to be in the audience, because my crew does their homework, why not start with your bestie and how he introduced you to your lovely wife, the irreplaceable and undeniably courageous, Mrs. Josephine Josephs?

While Josephine smiles at me proudly, the audience applauds us as if we just did something incredible. I laugh to myself one last time, then clear my throat...

Chapter One

Steven

Ican’t think of a time when Alexander Dumont, or A-Dog, hasn’t been my best friend. We grew up in the mean streets of North Philadelphia together, where you had to either fight, play football, fuck bitches, or else run the risk of being labeled a bitch. I mean, who wants to be labeled a bitch, right? I guess me. I knew as early as thirteen years old that I was gay, and it was largely due to A-Dog forcing me into sexual exploits with the neighborhood crackheads, hood rats, thots, and fat black bitches that boys like A-Dog loved to run through for sport.

That’s A-Dog, though. He can’t help it. God bless him though. He is the reason I hated the thought of being with a woman, yet he introduced me to my beautiful wife, in a manner of speaking. That came way later though. To start, that fool had me in the craziest sexual exploits as a kid!

I remember this one crackhead from Girard and Broad Street back in the day. Her name was Suzie Suck-Ems, and word on the street was she sucked a mean dick, boy! I mean, all the thugs used to talk about how she would make your eyeballs roll back in your head for a dime bag of hard and the promise of another session sometime in the near future.

Me and A-Dog had to be fourteen and sixteen at the time, and we were on Christmas break from high school. It was my freshman year, so me and A-Dog were finally able to attend the same school for the first time since becoming friends.

While A-Dog spent his days in school bragging about his hoes to the other bullies and hoodlums, and his tackles in gym class, and how he slapped some geek just for the fun of it, I paid attention in my classes, loved taking showers in gym class, and was known for never showing girls any attention. I was clean, handsome, and alleged to have a nice package, a rumor started in the very gym showers I loved to fake dirty in, but I didn’t play sports, fight, or chase girls.

Even though I was a proud gay in my mind, that wasn’t why I focused on schoolwork. School was my priority because I had big dreams, even back then. However, A-Dog said that because I was such a bitch my freshman year, I had to man up over Christmas break. If I knew what he had planned, I would have severed the friendship then and there, but God works in mysterious ways.

A-Dog came to my house on Jefferson and 10th Street to get me the day after Christmas so we could go and get ‘my gift.’ We walked in the freezing cold from my house to Girard and Broad, taking the side streets all the way there.

I kept asking, Where are we going?

A-Dog said, after I asked for like the tenth time, Niggah, stop being a bitch!

I said, I’m not being a bitch, bro! You scaring me. If you trying to get me to smoke weed, drink liquor, or shoot up some crack rock, then you crazy. I’m gonna be an IT technician when I grow up, just like Uncle Pete, and he said they be doing drug tests.

A-Dog was like, Steve, you fourteen years old, a freshman in high school, and you never even got a hand job from a bitch! Everybody know that sex comes before drugs, stupid!

When we got to Girard and Broad, Suzie Suck-Ems was waiting outside the subway station. As soon as I saw her 5-foot 10-inch frail body in those baggy tights and that dingy brown faux fur fox coat, I knew what A-Dog got me for Christmas, and I ain’t want no part of it. Susie wore a wig like old-school Diana Ross, but it was matted and so dingy that it looked like it stank. The final insult though was that the hoe ain’t have no teeth, but somehow, she managed to always be chewing a piece of gum! I got an A in physics as an undergrad, and to this day, I can’t work out the physics behind how the hoe managed to chew gum with no teeth!

Against my will, A-Dog forced me into the taxicab with Susie, threatening to fuck me up if I didn’t go willingly. He often did that to make me give him his way until I was old enough to beat him in a fight. Today was not that day, so I was forced to sit next to Suzie Suck-Ems, who popped that stink-ass gum so loudly in the back seat of that taxicab that the sound of gum popping haunts me in my nightmares even to this day!

The taxi took us to an abandoned townhouse on Germantown Avenue and Dauphin Street, which was like a mile in the opposite direction of my house. When we went inside, it was like A-Dog had prepared me a romantic date and shit. There was a little generator, buzzing in the distance, a long orange extension cord, maybe 100 feet long, and a portable electric heater. For ambiance, he had two dollar-store candles lit, Crown Fried Chicken, Pepsi, and all my favorite snacks, like Doritos, Little Debbie Cakes, and my absolute favorite, Swedish Fish! The little genius even mopped the floor and laid out a clean quilt for us. It was a good quilt too, like one of those thick, hand-stitched family-heirloom-type quilts!

Even though Suzie Suck-Ems repulsed me, A-Dog’s gesture actually moved me. A-Dog proved even back then that he knew me better than I knew myself, because that spread was the best part of the gift. However, when I turned around to thank A-Dog for the effort, I noticed that he was already outside the door! He looked so smug, as if only he was entitled to dictate who I boned, when I boned them, and even where I boned them! The door closed right before my eyes, and then I heard chains clanking. A-Dog had locked me and Susie in the abandoned house!

He yelled, Niggah, you either gonna die or you gonna bust your first nut in this motherfucking house this motherfucking Christmas break, you motherfucking faggot!

I turned to Susie, praying she was claustrophobic or oblivious to what A-Dog planned to do to me, but she acted as if I wasn’t even there. She was looking around the snack blanket for something.

I turned back to the door and asked A-Dog, Yo, why are you doing this to me? I’m gay already!

A-Dog kicked the door hard and said angrily, Steven, I’m tired of fucking niggas up for calling you a faggot! The only thing you haven’t done yet to prove them right is actually suck a dick! A real faggot would have sucked a dick already. That means your soul can still be saved, bro. You can’t fight, and you can’t play football, so at the very least, you gonna be able to tell niggas how you nutted in Susie Suck-Ems’ yuck-ass mouth over Christmas Break! Don't fight it, bro; get your nut, niggah!

Susie Suck-Ems yelled in a playful tone, Niggah, you better be lucky you paid me upfront and you got me something too!

I yelled at Susie, who was bending to take a seat on the quilt, What the fuck; you knew about this?

She waved her hand at me indifferently and started fussing with the snacks on the quilt. She pulled out a sandwich bag that had a white ball inside its mangled translucent casing. She pulled out a mirror, concealed underneath the Crown Fried Chicken box, and started clearing out a space on the clean and thick quilt. In that moment, I preferred weed, alcohol, heroin... I would have taken opium rather than put my ding-a-ling in Susie Suck-Ems’ yuck-ass mouth. So, while that skinny bitch sat on the quilt sniffing lines of cocaine that A-Dog left for her, I screamed every insult, threat, and promise I could, but A-Dog would not let me out of that house.

I ran toward the door, then into it with my right shoulder, falling on my back on the recently mopped floor, The pain was maddening! As my shoulder throbbed in pain that seemed to get more intense by the second, I screamed, Motherfucker, this statutory rape! I’m a minor, A-Dog. A minor!

A-Dog yelled back, You came here a minor, but you gonna leave this bitch a man, bro, I promise you!

Something about the thought of Susie Suck-Ems in a sexual capacity, in retrospect, was adrenaline producing, fortifying, and almost opioid-like. The pain in my shoulder subsided. I got back on my feet, and I searched for my freedom.

Three hours later, Susie Suck-Ems was stuck in a coke-nod, for lack of a better word. As her body swayed to the buzz of the generator, her head falling toward the quilt, the generator chugged a few times, then the buzz stopped. The electricity went out, and then the heater. Susie snapped out of her nod and looked at me. Her eyes were terrifying! Wide, bloodshot, and empty; those eyes stared at me as if to say, If I could get high off you, you would be dead already. I promise you, her gum popping and those eyes are the stuff that nightmares are made of, no matter how old you are.

I ran to the front door and I yelled, Motherfucker, this is endangering the welfare of a child! This snaggle-tooth bitch in here sniffing coke by candlelight like she got night vision, A-Dog! I’m scared! She gonna turn into a gremlin and kill me, niggah! Let me out of here, please, A-Dog! I’m cold!

A-Dog laughed and said, That bitch got a warm mouth, asshole, and pussy, niggah; pick one to warm up in or die of hypothermia. Trust me, you’ll thank me later, after you nut, bro! I’m trying to help you, boy! Trust me and put your dick in her stink-ass mouth! Go on, she won’t bite it; she want to get out of there too!

Susie prepared another round of coke lines with a razor blade. She did a coke nod and scratched her cheeks, her head bobbing up and down like a jack-in-the-box. ‘Naw... Naw, I mean, this more money than I made all week. Plus I got my little eight-ball, and my little Swedish Fishes, and my Little Debbie cakes; I really ain’t in no rush ta go. Besides, maybe God want me to help make the gays straight again. That mean I’m doing the work of the Lord, so, I could stay for another hour or so."

As Susie took a long sniff of coke, I kicked the door and screamed, but A-Dog ignored my pleas completely.

Two hours later, it was freezing inside that abandoned house, and the only way out was a broken window on the second floor. A-Dog had picked this house especially for me, which I learned when I found the only way out. Only he knew I was deathly afraid of heights at that time. When I looked out of the window in the second-floor bedroom, I had to look away at first; it seemed like a long fall back then. I mustered enough courage to look again and there was A-Dog, humping the air and holding his hands in front of his crotch as if he was receiving oral sex. He sticks his tongue out at me and humps the air even harder, more comically.

I walked back downstairs and Susie’s eight-ball was gone, reduced to traces of white residue on the surface of a small glass mirror, which had fingerprint streaks interwoven in the middle, then a silver razor blade on top of that. It was getting dark outside, and after I had finished all of the chicken, soda, chips, snacks, and Susie Suck-Ems was outta cocaine and apparently in a sleep-nod because she hadn’t moved in at least fifteen minutes, aside from shallow breathing and incoherent mumbling here and there, I looked to the door defeated, then back to Susie, who was now awake!

Boom! Just like that, she was on me! She looked like a lizard looks at a mouse it’s about to eat. Once the mouse is cornered, the lizard tilts its head to the left then to the right, then it attacks.

Susie did the same thing, but when she got face to face with me, instead of biting me, she looked me dead in my eye with those wide cold eyes, and yelled, Baby, if he ain’t trying to give me the dick, can I just take it? I ain’t got time for this shit. I got things ta do!

A-Dog yelled back, without hesitating, Rape him, fuck him, or make love to him, I don’t give a fuck; all I wanna know is when that niggah nut! Shit, niggah, I’m cold too!

Susie was uncharacteristically strong, and she grabbed me by my neck with one hand and pulled my pants down with the other, and that hoe gummed me so good in the dark, on an old school quilt, on top of candy wrappers, chip wrappers, and chicken bones. That shit felt so good that I forgot who she was. Thanks to A-Dog, I lost my virginity via oral sex, statutory rape, and crew love all