| One Toe Out |
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Chapter 1
J’Twan, J.T. for short, Morrison, quarterback for the Atlanta
Jaguars, sat across from Marcella Narozzi, his publicist.
“This is fucked up. You know that don’t you?” she barked
not pulling any punches.
J.T. nodded. “I know.”
“This is a public relations nightmare.” She sighed, then
strolled over to the window and looked out over the skyline.
The sun was just setting, casting a honeyed glow over the
city. After twenty years in the business she had seen it all
and had cleaned up more messes than a cleaning lady. No
scandal or soon-to-be scandal was too big. Her biggest
coup was creating a campaign that convinced the residents
of a small town to drink the water after traces of
pharmaceutical drugs were found in it. She polished
tarnished images, she was the Spin Doctor. Marcella was the
lady to go to when people needed things fixed and they paid
her handsomely for it. She clasped her hands behind her
back. “You know that I respect you?”
“I do.”
“And you know that I always have your best interest at heart,
don’t you?”
He did, Marcella had been his publicist when he first signed
to the NFL, he trusted her totally. “I do.”
“And you know that I don’t give a fuck about your lifestyle
don’t you?”
“I do.”
She turned away from the window. “But everybody isn’t as
understanding as I am.”
“I know, but—”
She threw up her hand. “The video was pulled from
boobtube.com and all the celebrity gossip websites, but
naturally we can’t retrieve the video from the people who
have it in their private mailboxes. I called Barry—”
“Oh shit!” Barry Nevins was the owner of the Atlanta
Jaguars.
“I needed to go on the offense and not the defense, that’s
one thing that I learned while representing athletes. I told him
that it wasn’t you in the video,” Marcella reported in clipped
tones.
“And he believed you?” J.T. asked, his voice hopeful.
Marcella shrugged. “He didn’t fire you,” she said
dismissingly. “I think he was suspicious, but that’s all it is.
And I don’t think that he wants to wrap his head around the
fact that his one hundred million dollar quarterback might be
gay.”
“Did he see the video?” J.T. tentatively asked. Barry
controlled his future in football, one word from him and his
career would be over. J.T. didn’t want to do anything that
would piss him off.
A short thirty second video clip had leaked on the Internet
showing him giving head to another man. Fortunately the
amateur video wasn’t that great, so he wasn’t outed…this
time. The lighting and sound quality was horrible; a college
freshman film major could’ve done a better job.
He had been feeling extra horny that night and had a friend of
his arrange for a couple of men to get together. They had
gotten a cheap motel room on Moreland Avenue, the type of
place where occupants were quickly forgotten as soon as
they paid the fifty dollars for their room. The group had spent
the night drinking, smoking and popping pills and doing
things to each other that left even him, an award winning
quarterback, sore the next morning.
At the time he didn’t know that he was being videotaped, after
all the weed and alcohol he had consumed that night, they
could’ve taken him to Piedmont Park, a popular gay hangout
in Atlanta, and had him run around naked and he wouldn’t
have protested.
If it came out that J.T., the quarterback for the Atlanta
Jaguars, was gay, it would ruin him.
“What am I going to do?” he groaned. “It’s a sad thing that
America won’t accept a gay quarterback. I’m a man who
happens to love men, that doesn’t make me any less of a
human being does it?” Every day he got the urge to run
outside or go on TV and tell everybody that he was gay but
he squashed the urge, knowing that the backlash would be
horrible.
Instead of answering his question, Marcella strolled over to
her wine cabinet and pulled out a bottle. She handed it over
to J.T. for him to uncork it. Marcella pulled out two wine
glasses from her mini china cabinet and set them on her
desk. As soon as J.T. filled them, she lifted hers. She
brought the glass up to her nose and inhaled deeply, the
aroma instantly calmed her. She sipped while J.T. nervously
tapped his glass. “I’ve given this a lot of thought.”
There was hope in Marcella’s voice and J.T. desperately
reached for it. “Yeah?”
“Find a wife,” she said.
“What?” So shocked by her response, he nearly fell off the
chair.
“If you want to continue your lifestyle, you’ll get a wife, some
young lady, not a celebrity, and she must not have any
aspirations of being a celebrity. But a good hometown girl,
who would be willing to sign a pre-nup and have a whirlwind
romance. You two get married, you get her pregnant and you
all live happily ever happy. Let her know what’s going on so
that way she won’t be taken by surprise. You can continue
dating men, but keep it quiet…very quiet.”
J.T.’s head was swimming. “So we orchestrate this whole
relationship? My marriage? A baby? Who would go along
with this charade?”
Marcella snapped her fingers. “I can instantly come up with
twenty women who would gladly step into this situation and
exploit it for the goldmine that it is. But you don’t want a gold
digger, you don’t want a manipulator, you want someone
sweet, someone pliable, and someone who needs you just as
much as you need her.”
He looked helplessly at her. “But I don’t know anybody like
that.”
“Sure you do. You just don’t know it. I’m sure once you start
paying attention to the women around you, one will stand
out.”
“But what happens if I don’t find anybody?”
She pointed a finger at him. “Then, I’ll find one for you,” she
threatened.