Chapter 2
TWO
JOSH
Good idea, adopting a dog. Bad idea, agreeing to drop him off at my sister’s doggy day care when I was working. Violet meant well, she always did, but the increased contact gave her increased time to drive me insane.
She means well. She means well. She means well.
That was the mantra that got me through the day.
She was a few years older than me and had always taken her role as big sister seriously.
In high school when I’d started to struggle with my identity, it was Violet who saw the change in me.
It was Violet who silently kept track of my moods and had noticed that something was wrong with me.
It was Violet who, upon getting her driver’s license and her first car, insisted on taking me for a drive.
I thought we were going to the mall, but instead Violet drove me to the lake and we sat on the shore.
I asked her why we were there. She just looked at me and informed me that she didn’t know, but when I felt like telling her, she was ready to listen.
We went there every weekend for a month before I finally cracked.
I didn’t feel like a girl, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I had no trans friends. Hell, I had no gay friends. I was surrounded by kids who fit the mold and that made it all the more terrifying for me to think of breaking out of mine.
Violet looked at me and then flung her arms around me and squeezed me so tight I couldn’t breathe.
She was my champion from that day on. She joined the local Pride chapter, drawing confusion from our parents who couldn’t understand why their heterosexual daughter wanted to be involved with those people.
Right from the word go, Violet was like my knight in shining armor. She convinced them to let me join the Pride chapter with her. At first they were reluctant, and it wasn’t until she said it would look good on college applications that they finally relented.
When I confessed that I hated my long hair and that sometimes I wanted to pull it out of my head, she took me to a barber shop and had them cut my hair off.
Nice and short, she told the barber. The first one wouldn’t do it, so she took me to a different one.
And when they wouldn’t do it, she called a friend that she met at the Pride meetings and we went to their house.
Sitting in a stranger’s kitchen with a bath towel draped around my shoulders, I got my first real haircut.
My parents were not okay. But Violet fought them for me while I huddled upstairs in my bedroom, knees to chest.
High school continued to be a minefield.
A balancing act of making the changes I could while dreaming of the ones I couldn’t.
And Violet… She took a gap year to stay close and look out for me.
And then she took another, and it wasn’t until I finally graduated two years later that she finally went off to college. With me.
She never did stop fighting for me. She moved in when I got my top surgery. She was the first one to cut our parents off when they refused to accept me and tried to convince me to go to therapy.
The only thing she didn’t like was my choice in career.
Violet begrudgingly accepted that I was allowed to do whatever I wanted with my body, including making porn—a term she hated.
Though I most often felt like I owed her for all the things she’d done for me and all the times she’d gone to bat to protect me, I’d never been willing to compromise on this.
Violet wanted nothing more than for me to meet a nice guy and settle down.
She thought that maybe if I met someone, then naturally I’d stop making adult content.
Which was why agreeing to let her watch Nitro when I worked was a bad idea because it gave her an opportunity to do things like introduce me to other single dog parents when I went to pick up Nitro.
The latest victim of her scheme was a meek kind of guy named Marcus. He looked like his own shadow intimidated him, and his dog was this trembling chihuahua fear-biter, and honestly, like dog, like owner.
He was nice enough, but he wasn’t my type and by the time he left, it was apparent that we had nothing in common. When the door shut behind him, I snapped my gaze over to Violet.
“I really hate you right now,” I told her.
Bending over, I clicked the leash onto Nitro.
“I thought we went over this the last time you tried to set me up with someone. Yes, I’m gay.
Yes, I’m attracted to men. But just because a man is also gay, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to be attracted to him. ”
“I know that.” Violet looked at me like I’d slapped her. “Marcus is just really nice, he’s new to town, and I thought you both could use a friend.”
“I have friends, and Marcus can make his own. Don’t drag me into it, Vi. I’m serious.”
I almost wanted to tell her about the hot guy I’d met at the dog park.
The hot, older guy. The hot, older guy I’d maybe jerked off to while thinking about.
He just had really nice hands. And eyes.
And a great smile. And our dogs were siblings, of a sort.
He had one of those faces that seemed familiar somehow, but I knew I’d never met him before.
I’d have remembered a face like that. If I’d not had to leave to make it to a shoot, I’d have maybe asked him if he wanted to get a coffee. But Lukas needed me to be on set so I could help film.
That was something else Violet didn’t know, and I felt like a shit for keeping it from her, but I’d started to be on camera less and be behind it more.
I also spent a growing number of hours editing footage.
There was something magical about taking hours of raw footage and turning it into a masterpiece.
Even the scenes that had no plot still managed to tell a story, and I liked the challenge of having to find it.
“I just want you to be happy.” She let out a sigh. One of her own dogs, Charlie, a massive Great Dane, came up next to her and sat down, then proceeded to lean on her and demand head scratches.
“I am happy. I’m happy with how I look, maybe for the first time in my whole life. I’m happy with my friends, and my new dog, and my old job, and I don’t want to change a single thing about my life right now.”
Violet bit her lip, something she did when she wanted to say something potentially stupid, but was trying not to.
“Just say it.”
“When was the last time you went out with a guy? Like romantically, as Josh. Not for work, as River.”
Violet managed to say my working name without grimacing. Maybe she’d reached a new level of acceptance of my career. But I doubted it. It would remain a point of contention between us.
“Why does that matter?”
“You can’t tell me you’re not lonely, Josh.”
“I’m alone, yes. Lonely? Not so much. Look, I don’t expect you to understand, okay, but my life is fine the way it is.
I don’t need a date. I don’t need a boyfriend.
I don’t need more platonic friends.” I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the next part of my speech.
“I think you should go on a date or two. Maybe one of the nice single doggy parents who come through here. Like Candace with her huskies or maybe Joel with the French bulldog.” During our years with the local Pride chapter, Violet had come out as pansexual.
I hadn’t known what that was at first, and she explained that she was attracted to people regardless of their gender.
“I don’t have time to date,” Violet dodged.
“You do have time. Because if you have time to meddle in my dating life, you have time to cultivate one for yourself.”
Violet scowled at me. “Are you dropping Nitro off tomorrow?”
“No. I’m working from home tomorrow.” I still did a lot of solo content for my subscribers, but I also had a side gig editing footage for other content creators.
Most of them worked in the adult industry, but I’d also branched out to other creators recently because of a fellow adult star with a sister who did a lot of make-up and fashion vlogs and didn’t have time to edit everything herself.
Besides, if I ended up needing someone to watch Nitro for a few hours, I could always text Hottie McDogpark. David. His name was David. I needed to remember that so I didn’t embarrass myself.
I wasn’t against dating, but I was against Violet having opinions about the men I dated.
I loved her for all she’d done to protect me, but even now that I was an adult, she had a tough time turning that instinct off.
Her reaction was always to protect first, accept second, and it got tiring to try and talk to her about any sort of relationship I had.
No one was good enough for me in her eyes unless she got to vet them first. Like poor Marcus.
In my opinion, I wasn’t the only one our parents had screwed up, but that wasn’t a fight I was willing to pick. Violet was the only real family I had left, so even though she could drive me crazy sometimes, I cut her some slack.
“I’ll go to yoga with you this weekend. We can get breakfast after.”
Violet’s expression softened. “I’m sorry about Marcus. I really thought you’d hit it off.”
“No more meddling, Vi. I’m serious. You have to promise me.”
Violet let out another sigh, like it was such a big thing I was asking of her.
“Fine,” she relented, though I noted her reluctance. This probably wasn’t over, but I’d take the temporary victory. “But you’re buying breakfast. And we’re going to Bennett’s for waffles. No weird green smoothie things.”
“You have no sense of adventure.” I laughed.
“Maybe not, but I have a strong sense of self-preservation.”
“See you Saturday, pain in my ass.”
“Saturday. I’m holding you to that.”
If only it had been that easy to ask out Hottie McDogpark. I was on the way home when my phone buzzed with a text, and if my heart raced a bit when I saw David’s name flash up on the screen, then that was between me and Nitro, and no one else.
Doggy play date? I have Saturday afternoon free, David said.
You’re on. Nitro and I will be there, I texted back.
And maybe I could work up the nerve to ask him to lunch or dinner… or something even more appetizing.