Before his seven-year marriage ended, King says he had it all: He and his wife, his high school sweetheart, were raising three children in Springfield, Ohio. They'd bought what King calls his "dream house." He had a well-paying job as a marketing executive.

They had it all, that is, until his wife followed him to the house of a fellow church member -- a friend who'd become King's lover -- one afternoon 15 years ago, and caught him in bed with the other man.

She immediately divorced him, but King stayed on the D.L. for years, dating women -- he was engaged four more times -- while continuing to secretly sleep with men.

"I bet you if I hadn't gotten caught I'd still be married today and living a double life," he says. (One of King's ads read: "Attractive black male seeking attractive black males on the serious low; if you're into women, contact me.") "Some women will go to their grave not knowing that their husband of 50 years is on the D.L. As long as he can get away with it, as long as he doesn't affect her, as long as he can keep his tracks covered."

Living two lives, says King, is "like having two fulltime jobs. You know how to take care of your home life: you have sex every Wednesday night and every Friday morning. You go to the Hamptons in the summer and church on Sunday. So as long as I stay on top of that, keep my wife satisfied, pay the bills, and come home every night, she won't even think about what I'm doing.

"But on the other side of the fence, when I put my other mask on, I'm constantly on the Internet trying to find guys," he says. "I'm talking to my D.L. friends to find out who's getting down right now and how can I make that hookup. I'm trying to make sure that the bill to my other credit card I have doesn't go to my home, but to my P.O. box. "

That's some serious compartmentalization. King says the secrecy of it, the taboo nature, was part of the excitement. "To have sex in the kitchen [with a man] while your wife and his girlfriend are in the living room watching TV -- that's exciting. Or in the garage working on the car, or shooting pool in the rec room, while the family is one room away."

Throughout the book, and in conversation, King declares his love for his ex-wife. But was he thinking about her at all during his hookups? I ask. "No," he admits. "She's over there doing her thing and she's happy and I'm happy with her. That's how we justify it: Stay out of my business -- this ain't got nothing to do with you."

But, I argue, as his wife and partner -- and as someone who assumes that he's not cheating on her with another man -- it does have to do with her and her health. "I don't know why I didn't think about her feelings or her future," King says. "I don't know why I was so selfish that I didn't think that what I was doing had an impact on her. As long as I could get away with it, I was OK with that. I really was. In hindsight when I think about that period in my life, I don't feel good about it."

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A week before my breakfast meeting with King and his manager, I heard King speak at a panel discussion about outreach and HIV/AIDS prevention for African-Americans in Washington. The audience -- around 50 people -- was mainly black and female. (After King's description of D.L. life, the women were apparently ready for honesty wherever they could find it: when the last speaker walked to the podium and announced, "I am a proud black gay man!" the crowd cheered.)

King's schedule is full of panels like these: hosted by not-for-profit HIV/AIDS organizations or college groups, King usually sketches his D.L. life for the audience and segues into a discussion of the AIDS crisis. For most of the four years he's been an HIV/AIDS speaker -- he was working the not-for-profit public health lecture circuit about AIDS and the D.L. when he was approached by a literary agent -- he's promoted and marketed himself, sending out brochures about his work and booking presentation dates. (His publisher is now supporting his national book tour). He won't say how much he earns through his speaking engagements, but his fee starts at $4,000. His audiences, like the one in D.C., are usually filled with women who gratefully tell him he's doing sacred work, women who are angered by his detailed account of cheating on his wife, women who feel threatened and scared by the thought of their man sleeping with another man. What King doesn't emphasize in his talks and his book is that not all black men are on the D.L., and that not all black men on the D.L. are HIV-positive.

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