Intemperance X - the Life We Choose
Copyright© 2026 by Al Steiner
Chapter 6: Just What the Truth Is
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 6: Just What the Truth Is - INTEMPERANCE X is the tenth and final novel in the main Intemperance series. As the band headlines its biggest moment yet, decades of music, loyalty, and hard-earned love converge on one unforgettable night—where everything they’ve built is tested in front of the world.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Consensual BiSexual Fiction
By Wednesday evening—two days after the article that framed the Kingsleys as a functional polyamorous triple—the story had exploded.
The San Francisco Chronicle remained the only major outlet treating it as fact. No retractions. No hedging. Jen Collins stood by her reporting. So did the editorial board. Their position was clear: Jake Kingsley—rock god, record label exec, father of two—was in a committed relationship with his wife and his ... other unofficial wife.
Every other publication ran with the story too. But none believed it. Not really.
The Chronicle’s version was quoted, summarized, occasionally excerpted. But the narrative was always accompanied by distancing language—alleged, purported, claims, reportedly. The tone was one of humored skepticism, like they were indulging a child who insisted their goldfish had learned to talk.
The dominant consensus? Publicity stunt.
A desperate, coordinated attempt to counteract the Watcher’s revelation and stem the tide of gay rumors before it wrecked the Intemperance brand.
On television, the analysis was more vicious.
One panel show host on Hollywood Confidential called the Chronicle piece “the most elaborate closet door ever constructed.” A segment on E! Insider openly mocked the photo of Jake with both women on the couch, flashing it onscreen with the caption ’Three’s Company: The New Mythology’. Even Entertainment Tonight—normally the most diplomatic of the gossip syndicate—ran a poll on their website asking viewers whether they believed the Kingsley statement. After ten thousand votes, the result was 88 percent no.
Online, it got worse.
Discussion boards, fan forums, and blog comment sections filled up with bile. The standard position was that Jake was gay, had always been gay, and that the “happy throuple” narrative was pure Hollywood spin. A cover story. A beard-stack. A 2005 version of Rock Hudson, updated for the MySpace generation.
Theories abounded.
Caydee, it was claimed, was not Jake’s daughter at all—but Greg Oldfellow’s. One particularly prolific poster argued this was “common knowledge in the industry.” Cap, meanwhile, was allegedly conceived through artificial insemination, the sample procured at “a Satanic themed gay orgy involving no fewer than six professional puffers.” The commenter claimed that this was a “documented fact.”
Any user who dared to express doubt—who even floated the idea that maybe, just possibly, the Chronicle had it right—was immediately dogpiled. They were called morons, fanboys, fangirls, flat earthers, climate deniers, and in one case, “a closeted Muslim with a poly fetish.”
It wasn’t discourse. It was demolition.
At Kingsley Manor, no one was particularly shocked. Disappointed, yes. But not surprised.
Jake, Laura, and Celia all declined the sudden flurry of interview requests. Offers came in from Oprah, 60 Minutes, Larry King Live, and half a dozen morning shows that smelled a ratings spike and wanted to ride it. But none of them trusted it. Not the framing, not the edit, not the trapdoor beneath the second commercial break.
They knew how those interviews went. One “safe space” question, then the ambush.
No thanks.
They would not be going on tour as an exhibit in the museum of sexual oddities. They would not be sitting on a couch while some well-moisturized anchor asked them whether threesomes happened on weeknights or just weekends. They would not be debating their reality with strangers who didn’t even believe it was reality.
Let them say what they wanted.
Let the world pretend it knew them better than they knew themselves.
They’d told the truth.
And the truth, apparently, had been deemed insufficient.
By Friday, the pap mob was in full force at the Johansen Spot.
Not that they ever really left—but the rotation had thinned midweek, waiting to see if the story had legs. It did. So they returned, lenses ready, engines idling, eyes glued to the access road.
For the Kingsleys, it was just another siege. Not as frantic as the one that followed the Watcher’s original “Jake is gay” piece, but steadier. Meaner. More determined.
Jake, Celia, and Laura stayed close to home. Not because they were hiding. They no longer had anything to hide. They just weren’t ready. Not yet. It was still too crazy out there.
They wanted to go out together—openly. Casually. Like people who didn’t need to run optics through three layers of consequence. They wanted to hold hands downtown. Eat lunch as a trio without necks craning in the booths nearby. Let Cap point to Laura and call her “Lala” in public without some stranger turning that moment into a headline.
They wanted to live like the story had been accepted. Even if it hadn’t.
So they waited. Waited for the boil to settle to a simmer. Then, maybe, they could live like no one was watching.
But could they?
Jake and Celia had been under constant media scrutiny since their early twenties. Laura since the day the American Watcher edition had come out revealing that she and Jake were in a romantic relationship. That was a combined total of 57 years of living life on a lighted stage every time they walked out the front door. Of performing for the hidden crowd, projecting what they wanted those seen or unseen visitors to perceive. The idea of not performing was foreign. Unpracticed. Dangerous.
Still, the dream was there. To live, unapologetically, in full view of a world that couldn’t quite understand them. They didn’t know if it was possible. But they were ready to find out.
In the meantime, siege protocol remained in effect.
Yami still took Caydee to school and picked her up.
That part of the routine remained untouched. Even the most aggressive paparazzi had learned that harassing a child during school transitions played poorly in court and even worse in print.
So Caydee came and went in peace. Quiet drop-offs, quiet pickups. Yami didn’t make eye contact with anyone. She didn’t have to. No one tried anything.
Jake, Laura, and Celia left the house together every morning around 8:30, bound for The Campus. They returned around 5:30. Secured area to secured area. No detours. No errands. No surprises.
They stayed in the fortress. No one else entered. No one else left.
Except on Saturday.
The Ramirez family still came for dinner.
Ordinarily, even that would’ve been cancelled. But after some quiet observation, they realized something odd: The pap never followed them. Never took photos. Never wrote down their plate numbers.
The same van that would tail a garbage truck on the off chance that the driver might have seen Jake sucking someone’s dick, didn’t even blink when a Mexican family pulled into the Kingsley access road in a Toyota Tacoma and drove up to the house.
No published photos. No captions. No questions. No speculation about who those people were.
Jake and Jose had talked about it once—briefly, and with the kind of humor that comes from living a long time in America.
“They see Mexicans,” Jose had said, “and assume we’re here to clean the moat.”
“Or feed the fish in it,” Jake had added.
“Or polish the dragons. Whatever rich white people keep in their castles.”
They’d laughed.
Because it was true.
The Ramirez family came and went every Saturday like they were invisible. Because in the eyes of the tabloid press, they were. No threat. No curiosity. Just brown noise in the background.
Which, for now, made them the safest guests Kingsley Manor could receive.
It was January on the Central Coast—cold, windy, and damp in that bone-deep way that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with air density. Rain had come and gone throughout the day, leaving scattered puddles, low clouds, and just enough fog to make everything feel slightly smaller and slower.
Inside Kingsley Manor, things were warmer. Literally and otherwise.
Juanita Ramirez had asked to use the Kingsley kitchen for Saturday dinner.
That was new.
It had started the night before, during a quick call between Jake and Jose to confirm the visit. Somewhere in the middle of logistics and updates, Jake had casually mentioned that he was craving tacos.
“Real ones,” Jake had said. “But I’d never presume to make tacos for an actual Mexican family. That feels like it should be a felony.”
Jose had laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll volunteer my wife.”
Jake had tried to walk it back. “Come on. I’m not about to ask a guest to come over and cook for me.”
“She’s not doing it for you,” Jose said. “She’s doing it for your kitchen. She’s been dying to cook in that room since the first time she saw it.”
That had settled it.
And now, right on schedule, the Ramirez family arrived through the kitchen door.
The garage had been left open for them—the Ramirez family was inner circle—and they entered without knocking.
Juanita led the way, her arms wrapped around a large ceramic pot of frijoles refritos that had been cooking all day. The scent hit first—onions, garlic, slow-rendered lard—and drifted across the tile like a benediction.
Jose followed with a paper sack of produce and packaged ingredients—the kind that would only be needed for one thing: fish tacos. Real ones. She had everything she needed to make a huge batch from scratch, using thawed-out rock cod caught on their last fishing trip with the Kingsleys.
“Permission to invade?” Jose called cheerfully as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
Jake was already leaning in the hallway arch, smiling. “Kitchen’s yours. Just don’t gut the place.”
Juanita scanned the room, eyes alight, already slipping into her zone.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” she said in Spanish, and Caydee—practicing piano nearby—called back, ”¡Huele delicioso!”
Moments later, the rest of the Ramirez crew came through the door.
Emilia was first, carefully carrying a glass baking dish covered in foil and wrapped in a kitchen towel.
“Flan,” she announced, holding it like a sacrament.
“Hell to the yeah!” Jake said, stepping aside like royalty was entering the room.
“Please don’t say that, sweetie,” Laura said dryly.
“Sorry,” he said. “I talked to Ted Duncan on the phone yesterday. You know how it is?”
“I know how it is,” she replied.
Carlos followed with a small cooler in both hands, presumably containing the thawed rock cod that would soon become tacos. He kicked the door closed behind him with his foot and made a beeline for the counter.
“That’s all of it,” he said. “Mama threatened to murder me if I let it slosh.”
“You did well, mijo,” Juanita said without looking up.
The adults settled quickly into the rhythm of kitchen prep—bags opening, ingredients sorted, fridge door swinging, counter space negotiated. Jose poured himself a glass of water. Laura offered help and was waved off with maternal precision.
And then Caydee entered. She and Carlos locked eyes across the kitchen, walked toward each other with solemn gravitas, and launched into a full Bigg G style handshake sequence they’d been developing for weeks—forearms, elbows, backhands, two-palm spin, low snap, finger clap, and a mutual upward nod at the end.
It was flawless.
Emilia slid her flan into the fridge and turned around, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hey, did you heat up the pool like you said you would?”
Caydee made a face. “I said we might heat it up. But we didn’t. Because if we did, I would have to answer to Jill for using all the propane.”
Carlos raised an eyebrow. “Who is this Jill? You seem afraid of her.”
Jake, still leaning against the doorway, said, “Jill is a kid-eating shark who snacks on propane wasters for breakfast.”
“She’s not that bad,” Laura added. “Unless you touch the thermostats.”
“Or the pressure on the well pumps,” Celia said. “Or buy jet fuel at the wrong airport because it’s a dollar less a gallon somewhere else.”
“Or, really anything that involves the budget,” Jake said. “She’ll smell it on you.”
Emilia’s eyes went wide. “I hope I never have to meet her.”
“You probably will someday,” Caydee said. “But if she sees that you respect propane, she’ll let you live.”
The kitchen was already humming when the side door creaked open.
It was secured with a code lock but it was rarely opened on the weekends. The only ones who used it were Sean and Westin and they generally did not show their faces in “da big house” (as Sean called it) when not on duty.
But here was Westin anyway, wearing jeans and a soft charcoal sweater, hair wind-tossed from the short walk in—everyone looked up.
“Hey, Wes,” Jake said. “Wassup?”
“I heard a rumor,” he announced, “that authentic Mexican cuisine was going to be prepared in my kitchen, and I would love to observe the process.”
He said it with grace, but no apology.
“Why?” Laura asked. “You already know how to make Mexican food.”
“I beg to differ,” he said. “I am an expert in American-oriented pseudo-authentic Mexican cuisine. I have received rave reviews for my preparation of this.”
“It’s true,” Jake said, not missing a beat. “His carne asada tacos are the friggin’ bomb.”
Westin gave a modest little bow. “Yes, they are,” he said. “In any case, Señora Ramirez, I would be honored if you would allow me to observe and even participate.”
Juanita arched an eyebrow. “I’m not a chef,” she said. “I’m just a Mexican mama like a million others.”.
“Exactly!” Westin said, excited. “I’ve never had the opportunity to observe a real Mexican homemaker in action. There are generational secrets in this kitchen today, and I’d like to learn from them—for my own art. Respectfully. As an intern, if you’ll have me.”
Juanita blinked once. Then cracked a smile.
“Well,” she said, mock-gravely, “now I’m intimidated.”
“Don’t be,” Westin said. “I’m utterly in the student role in this interaction. Teach me, wise mistress of the cocina.”
She smiled. “Okay. I will show you my secrets to pescado tacos.”
“Wonderful.”
“But,” she added, raising a finger, “you may never know my frijoles refrito recipe.”
“Deal,” Westin said. “They do smell wonderful though. Can I have a taste?”
“No.”
From the other side of the kitchen, Laura laughed. “This is the happiest I’ve been all week.”
“Why’s that?” Westin asked, turning.
“Because you never let me taste anything,” she said. “Only Jake.”
Westin shrugged. “You don’t have Jake’s butt.”
“It is a nice butt, isn’t it?” Laura asked.
“It is the beef wellington of butts,” Westin said. “What we call in my world, big casino.”
“Hey,” Jake said, pretending to be offended (but secretly flattered that the gay community had a phrase for his butt), “I’m standing right here.”
“So you are,” Westin said. “Now, if all of you will vacate the kitchen, Juanita has generational secrets to share. Just think, Juanita, your great grandmother’s spice and preparation perfection will now cross into a different world and you are the conduit.”
“Madres de Dios,” she whispered. “I hope I can live up to that.”
They vacated the kitchen. The kids grabbed Cap and marched off to Caydee’s room to play something that involved him. Laura gave them a warning that if she heard so much as one cry of distress from him there were going to be some sore butts that would have to stand during dinner. Celia and Laura then retreated to the dining room to make sure it was ready for a Mexican fiesta.
Jake and Jose sat down at the bar in the entertainment room, each with a glass of Lighthouse Ale.
Jose had been in his new job for a few months now, and things were better than he’d even hoped. He’d already gotten a raise—modest, but meaningful—and he supervised a twelve-person crew that he described as “tight, smart, and no bullshit.” They weren’t friends, exactly. But they were amigos in the way that mattered: they worked well together, they respected each other, and they didn’t waste time.
His crew had been handpicked by Callum McTavish himself—every one of them recommended by someone Callum trusted. Jose hadn’t known what to make of that at first, but he’d quickly realized it meant they were all competent. Experienced. Zero dead weight.
Jake had quietly passed Jose’s name up the chain months ago, after a chance conversation with Andre Heliodorus. That referral had landed in the hands of McTavish, and McTavish had done the rest. The interview had been no-nonsense, no hand-holding, and no favors. Jose had earned the job on merit—and he knew it.
And now, for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t just working.
He was running things.
“I got a crew that actually listens,” Jose said, leaning back on the barstool, bottle in hand. “Takes some time to figure each other out, but we’ve got rhythm now.”
Jake nodded, sipping his beer.
“We had this issue out on the south perimeter yesterday—runoff trench kept filling, even with the subgrade. Turns out the lower drainage basin was sloped wrong from a resurfacing back in ‘02. Water was pooling at the junction.”
Jake raised an eyebrow, trying to follow. “That ... sounds bad?”
“It’s fixable,” Jose said. “Just took some digging. Literally and otherwise. Re-routed the runoff path, laid in gravel, reset the catchment angle. No more overflow.”
Jake nodded wisely. “Right.”
Jose smiled and took another sip.
He wasn’t showing off. Just proud.
The job had changed things. Not just the money or the benefits or the company-issued laptop that he still handled like a sacred relic—but the respect. The autonomy. The understanding that someone like Callum McTavish didn’t hand out jobs for charity. If you were on his crew, it was because you could do the work.
Jake took another sip of his beer and glanced out the nearby window, where the last gray remnants of the sky were finally giving way to blue.
“So,” he said, “how’d the course hold up during the bomb cyclone?”
Jose exhaled through his nose and gave a tired shake of the head. “Ese pinche cabrón nos partió la madre.”
Jake barked a laugh. That fucking bastard kicked our ass, was what he said. “That bad, huh?”
Jose shook his head. “Three days. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—every supervisor, every crew, and McTavish himself. Out there hauling branches, clearing drainage, resetting perimeter anchors. Looked like a damn jungle fell on the place.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “Damn.”
“We brought in contract labor too,” Jose added. “Ten guys on Tuesday. Twelve on Wednesday. All Mexican, of course. Every single one knew what they were doing. Didn’t have to explain a thing.”
Jake smirked. “Funny how that works.”
Jose tilted his beer bottle toward him. “We rebuild society when it all goes to hell. Just give us the truck keys and stay out of the way.”
Jake chuckled.
Jose continued. “Landscaping took the worst of it. Trees down, turf torn up, debris blown in from everywhere. A few fairways looked like war zones. The south path erosion was the worst—we had to build temporary retention walls and reroute a cart lane.”
Jake gave a low whistle.
“And the clubhouse flooded,” Jose said, like it was an afterthought. “Torrential rain came in under the north eaves. They’re saying some of the concrete roof tiles actually blew off. The structure supervisor was up there himself. In a harness. Screaming at the wind with that southern accent of his.”
Jake laughed. “Nobody hurt though?”
“Nobody hurt.” He took another sip, then rested his forearms on the bar. “They got most of it patched. Still some work ahead. But we kept it off the radar. Members were back by Thursday. No one knows how close it came to being a mudslide with a putting green.”
Jake lifted his glass. “Respeto.”
Jose clinked it. “Gracias.”
They sat for a few more moments in companionable quiet, the sounds of laughter and kitchen clatter filtering in faintly from the hallway. Then Jose swirled the ale in his glass and gave Jake a look.
“So,” he said, “first they say you’re gay, and your wives are helping cover it up...”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “And then we tell the truth.”
Jose nodded. “Right. You told the truth. And they don’t believe it.”
Jake let out a breath through his nose. “Apparently the truth doesn’t test well in focus groups.”
Jose smiled. “I don’t doubt you.”
Jake gave him a grateful glance but didn’t say anything.
“I mean, you told me back in Oregon,” Jose went on. “And it made sense. It made everything fit. That is how the truth works.”
Jake chuckled. “Not in the world of entertainment media.”
“You laid it all out,” Jose said. “Celia, Laura, Caydee, Cap ... the whole structure. You didn’t make it sound glamorous. Just honest. Practical.”
Jake shrugged. “It’s our life.”
“And a good one,” Jose said. “Messy, sure. Complicated. But good. You told them that, spelled it out, and they don’t believe it. I’m having a hard time understanding it even though I’ve lived in this country more than ten years now.”
Jake took a slow drink from his glass. “The story that sells the most is the truth in that world.”
Jose shook his head, amused. “You’re living every man’s fantasy, hermano. Two wives who like each other, who like you, and you’re not dead from the effort. You should be canonized prehumously.”
Jake grinned. “You want to write the petition?”
Jose pointed at him with his bottle. “Si. And then, in your immediate posthumous phase, I will press for sainthood.”
“Saint Jake of Polyamory,” Jake said, raising his glass. “Patron saint of getting away with it.”
Jose clinked it. “With style.”
Jake reached into the bar refrigerator and pulled out another bottle for each of them. He opened them, tossed the caps in the garbage, and slid the bottles over to the glasses.
“Why aren’t you suing them?” Jose asked. “That American Watcher place. They lied. They made you look like a...” He had to struggle for a moment to come up with a polite Mexican Spanish word for gay. There really wasn’t one, so he said, “ ... like de esos. One of them.”
Jake sighed. “Because suing them would be pointless.”
Jose frowned. “Why?”
Jake took a sip. “Libel law in this country favors the media. Especially when it comes to public figures like myself. They can say almost anything about me as long as they can argue it’s interpretation, opinion, or based on anonymous sources.”
“But it isn’t true,” Jose said. “Don’t they have to prove it’s true?”
Jake shook his head. “No, I have to prove that it’s false. And not only that, I have to prove that they knew it was false when they printed it, and that they printed it to cause harm to me.”
Jose stared at him. “That’s insane.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “But it’s the law. The idea is to protect the press from censorship. Which is a good thing. Except when it isn’t.”
Jose leaned forward slightly. “So what would it take? To win, I mean.”
Jake considered. “Leaked emails. A memo. A recording. Something that shows they knew the story was false and ran it anyway.”
“A confession,” Jose said.
Jake nodded. “Basically.”
Jose sat back. “And short of that, they can say you’re a joto, your family’s fake, and your kids were conceived in a lab run by Satan, and you just have to take it?”
Jake raised his glass. “Welcome to fame.”
Jose looked down into his beer. “This country’s got some weird ideas about freedom, hermano.”
Jake smirked. “You’re not wrong.”
1487 Vernon Street, Los Angeles
January 15, 2005
The apartment wasn’t big, but it was enough. Located in Van Nuys, in the squalid corner of the San Fernando Valley—the corner where things got swept to when guests were coming over. Two rooms, no real kitchen, street noise twenty hours a day, parking was a bloodsport, and plumbing that sounded like it was dying one scream at a time—but it had a lock, a fridge, and a folding table that passed for a desk. And there were only a few drug dealers working out front on any given night. Almost paradise.
Drew sat at that desk now, feet bare, bottles of Captain Morgan and Diet Coke at his side, an open laptop in front of him casting pale blue light across his face.
He was drunk. Not wasted, not falling-over sloppy. But drunk enough that the ice in his glass had long since melted and he hadn’t noticed.
The Chronicle article was still up on the screen.
He’d read it three times already.
Not because he didn’t believe it—but because he did. Every word. Every line. Every goddamn paragraph.
They got it right.
The journalist, Jen Collins—he didn’t know her, hadn’t even heard of her before this week—but somehow, she’d managed to say exactly what he had seen. What he knew. What he had argued for in the debriefs and pitch sessions while Valerie Sharp rolled her eyes and Paul Peterson cracked his knuckles like truth was something you had to beat into submission.
He got it right.
And no one cared.
He scrolled down, past the clean layout and the quote from Jake Kingsley about not hiding anymore, past the beautifully lit portraits and the timeline graphic with their “unorthodox love story.” He clicked into the comments section—something he’d told himself not to do.
But here he was.
Again.
Reading the same garbage for the fourth night in a row.
“This is obviously PR. Kingsley has been sucking cock for years.”
“Two women? LMAO. No straight man is that lucky.”
“The little girl’s not even his. Greg Oldfellow’s kid, guaranteed.”
“Nice try, Kingsley. You’re not fooling anyone.”
“This throuple thing is just damage control for the Watcher exposé. Sad.”
“Lemme guess—next he’s going to say he’s trans to really corner the victim market?”
“Flat earthers. That’s what you are if you believe this garbage.”
Drew stared at the screen, glass in hand, heart in freefall.
The truth was out there. Finally.
And they still didn’t believe it.
And the worst part—the part that made him sick—was that he had helped them get it wrong.
Not on purpose. Not with intent.
But it had been his lens. His angle. His shots.
Peterson had picked the frames. Valerie had written the copy.
But the light, the framing, the intimacy—that had been him.
They hadn’t wanted the truth. They’d wanted a story. And he’d handed them all the raw material they needed to twist it into one.
He swigged from the bottle. Closed the comment tab. Opened another folder—one labeled unused.
In it were 78 photos.
Unpublished. Unpitched.
Photos that didn’t match the narrative.
He stared at the folder for a long time before double-clicking.
The thumbnails bloomed across the screen—seventy-eight of them, stacked in uneven rows. No labels. No captions. Just the truth, sitting there like a secret too boring for publication.
Drew opened the first image.
Jake, Laura, and Celia on the couch in the main living room. Blanket over their legs. TV flicker on the wall as they watched a movie. Celia’s head on Jake’s shoulder, Laura curled into his side. No posing. No awareness of the camera. Just three people sharing intimate space like they’d done it a thousand times before.
He clicked to the next one.
Jake walking into the family room, catching Celia mid-task, kissing her on the lips as she sorted dominoes on a table. Laura visible in the background reading a magazine. The lighting wasn’t perfect. Framing was off-center. But it was real.
He clicked again.
Laura and Jake on the deck railing at sunset. She touched his face mid-laugh, fingers soft at his jaw. The way he looked at her—Drew had seen couples married twenty years who didn’t look at each other like that.
Next.
Celia and Laura, wrapped in a blanket on the outdoor chaise, drinking coffee. Hair unbrushed. Legs touching. Bare feet on the cushion.
Next.
The hot tub. Steam rising. Jake in the middle, eyes half-closed, Laura’s legs stretched across his lap. Celia leaning against his shoulder. Champagne glasses set off to the side. No tension. No performance. Just three people relaxed in each other’s company.
Next.