Spin: or, How to Make the Media Shit Itself....

Ian McDuff

'Umm ... couldn't we just put out a press release?'

The brunet looked harried.

'Um – NO,' the blond replied, drily. 'This is the sort of thing you pretty much have t'do in person. You've been the one droppin' the hints, after all: going to take y'all's –' snicker – 'relationship to a whole new level ... floatin' the "wedding" hoax-rumor: I hope you get a kickback per page hit, all them folks racing to ET Online to find out there ain't no such of a story.... You called the tune, Joshy, time you paid the piper.'

'I'm going to throw up.'

'After the press conference.'

'Now.'

'No can do, sugarpie.' The green-eyed blond with the deep voice looked positively impish. 'We have us a bomb to drop, you, me, and the broodmare.'

'JAMES!'

'Sorry, babe, but you have to admit she does look like Toby's purty cousin –'

Josh studied his lover for a moment. 'You're grinning, but you're not fooling anybody. You can be catty as all shit, babe, but usually not about Bobs. We talked about this – you swore you were OK with it –'

'I was. Am. I.... I get jealous sometimes. After all, she CAN give you –'

'Nothing I want. Well. You know. James, love, please, you can't doubt my love for you, I –'

'Shush now. I never said it was a rational jealousy. It ain't a big sweat nohow. It crops up, I deal. Just know I never ever really doubt what we have – even when I doubt myself.'

'Guys?' An anomalously non-curly head poked around the doorjamb: they were all still getting used to the Justin-as-Tim-McVeigh look. 'It's showtime.'

The press – print, internet, radio, cable, broadcast TV; legitimate and otherwise – packed the room to the rafters. Joe, Chris, and Just were already seated, but stood as James, Josh, and Ms Roberta Thomas, just beginning to 'show,' walked in, all three holding hands. Several grim suits from Jive / Zomba were all but hiding in a corner, and Johnny Wright was set-faced, though supportive. All the band families were present, equally uncertain about James's and Josh's choices, but, again equally, as supportive as was given to them to be. Joe, Chris, and Juju had already made it clear that they were high behind this, two hundred percent: a fact underlined by their clasping hands with the three who had the announcement to make as they seated themselves, James and Josh all but colliding in taking care of Bobs's chair.

Josh, pallid and sweat-beaded, stood at the dais and spoke, his voice cracking. 'Um, you I guess all know who everyone up here is, and Bobs and Lance and I have like an announcement, and it's gonna take a little explaining so I'm gonna try and explain it and then maybe once that's done we can like take questions if you have questions depending on how the explanation goes and I guess I like better start now, huh, and anyway –'

The woman by his side poked him sharply in his babbling ribs and James pushed him down as he himself stood. 'What Josh is trying to say –'

'"JOSH"? You mean JC?'

James looked coldly and professionally at the reporter. 'I will not – we will not – be interrupted until after the statements are complete. Am I making myself clear? Good. Miss Thomas is pregnant. The child – no ultrasound yet, so don't ask – is either Josh's ... or mine. Josh and I will take custody of the child and raise the child, though of course Bobs will be very involved in his or her life.' He turned to Bobbie. 'Bobs, would you like to give the chronology?'

'Thanks, James.' There was another murmur at the use of Lance Bass's actual Christian name, a murmur swiftly stilled as Bobbie, still seated, leaned forward to her mike.

'Josh and I were married in a very quiet civil ceremony in Nevada three months ago – on the 12^th, to be precise. As agreed beforehand, we divorced on the 19^th. A week later, James and I were married, and divorced ten days after, again by agreement. This baby is going to be,' she smiled, 'as legitimate as all get-out. Especially since there's been one more union since, and there's no WAY that one will ever end in divorce....'

They both looked at Josh, who made a strangled sound. Then his azure eyes locked with James's sapphire, and courage and clarity suffused him as he stood, took James's hand, and spoke without hesitation. 'Last month, on the 17^th in fact – which was appropriate, since I'm part Irish and he has the green thing going – my lifelong love, James here, and I were joined in a ceremony of civil union, before God, our families, our beloved friend Bobbie – who has given us such a precious gift – and our brothers of the band, who propped me up –' Josh actually grinned – 'I was happy but nervous, a'ight? – and stood beside us both like they always have. We don't care what you call us – and I mean that a LOT of ways – and that includes professionally, but as far as we are concerned, we are Mister and Mister James and Josh Bass-Chasez, and there's gonna be a little Bass-Chasez crying his or her head off at 3:00 a.m. in about six months – and James, you know I'M the sleeper, so guess who gets the three o'clock feeding?' He turned back to grin at the press: 'Are there any ques– whoa.'

He was looking at backs, and overturned chairs, and a lot of empty space, as talking heads spun to face cameras going live and print reporters hunched over cell phones or raced for the phone bank outside. Wedding bells, nothing: if you listened carefully, you could hear only the bells the AP wire rings for stop-press bulletins.

'Told you you wouldn't have to answer a bunch of questions,' his husband grinned.

And there you have it.

- Ian