“I’m gonna get hurt.”

That’s what Deondray Gossfield, 47, recalls saying to himself in the fall of 1996 after meeting Quincy Gossfield, 46, through mutual friends. Together for 24 years and married for seven, the directing/producing duo behind the indie hit gay series The DL Chronicles, has experienced magical highs and devastating lows in their decade's long relationship—long before their nuptials were televised in front of an audience of millions at the 2014 Grammy Awards, and long before they became the public face of Black gay relationship longevity.

Quincy, a Chicago native, and Deondray, a native of Los Angeles, were simply two scared twenty-something's chasing their Hollywood dreams while trying to figure out who they were individually and as a budding couple during an era where secrecy often meant safety. But unlike Quincy, Deondray had been in relationships with men before and was afraid of what would happen if he allowed Quincy to get too close.

“I was like, I’m gonna get hurt because that’s what I’d been until him—hurt, constant disappointment in relationships. But my instincts kept telling me to find out,” said Deondray.

The two men ended up working closely together on the same set, with Deondray as an actor and Quincy as his special effects make-up artist. The professional soon turned personal.

“I was being a little bit affectionate with him and he was not tensing up,” said Quincy. “I would hold my hand on his face just a couple of seconds too long to see if I would get a response,” he said.

“I don’t believe that God would want me to not feel what I’m feeling because it felt pure, it felt real, it was something that I hadn’t felt before. I felt like I was receiving the reciprocity that I hadn’t ever received in any relationship.”

— Quincy Gossfield

Deondray didn’t recoil, and he says Quincy sent all the right cues. It wouldn’t be long before their mutual attraction turned physical, with Quincy joking in a 2019 interview with Black Love that their relationship is the “longest one-night stand in history.”

“Quincy was supposed to be a jump-off,” said Deondray. “I’m just being real. I found myself smitten. We hooked up, and I found myself still wanting to call him and wanting him to call me back, which he didn’t always do,” Deondray said with a playful verbal jab toward his husband as he recalled their early days together.

“I’d never dated a dude before,” said Quincy. “I’m treating it the same way I’d treat him if he were just a male friend. I’ll call you when I call you, I’ll get to you when I get to you,” he said.

Quincy says his past relationships and social conditioning presented an early challenge in being open to receiving the love Deondray was offering.

“I’d been in relationships with women, and I knew that I had a propensity for men, but for the two years prior to me moving to L.A…I’d become a minister,” said Quincy. “My world was very different, and I’d also never had a boyfriend. I had these sexual feelings and some emotional feelings, but I couldn’t reconcile it with my programming, with the person I created for myself and the person who people knew and respected,” he said.

Now on a different spiritual path, Quincy says his belief system has shifted tremendously.

“It would be very cruel of God to allow me to fall in love with someone that I’m not supposed to be in love with,” said Quincy. “I don’t believe that God would want me to not feel what I’m feeling because it felt pure, it felt real, it was something that I hadn’t felt before. I felt like I was receiving the reciprocity that I hadn’t ever received in any relationship. This was the first time that this man was doing me like I’d done these women. He was showering me with everything. He was giving me all of this attention. He was there for me when I needed someone to be there for me. I had to let go of my preconceived ideas of what I think things should be and just accept that if there is a God, this God wants me to be happy and in love. And right now this appears to be where it’s coming from.”

Through the fire

It may appear on the outside looking in that the Gossfield’s have achieved the type of marital bliss that has escaped a significant number of Black gay men, but they don’t deny that their relationship has been through the fire, they say their relationship was tested very early in their courtship.

“There were moments in the relationship when I thought we were good, and then we maybe weren’t as good as I thought,” said Deondray. “I’ve made some mistakes. I was trying to insulate myself from hurt because it [his relationship with Quincy] felt so good, and I made some really stupid decisions to try to insulate myself,” he said.

“I’d just started to come to the conclusion that I was willing to make this jump and I was deathly afraid of it, and he was going in the opposite direction thinking that I would not be the one to commit to him,” said Quincy. “And just when I committed was when he went and did his thing with somebody that I found out about. It was devastating for me. I remember being somewhere on the curb in Hollywood just sitting on the street boohooing,” he said.

“When you’re broken and you’re wounded, your wounds won’t let you see that there are band-aids out there. You’re so bloody, you can’t even see that he’s giving you bandages. I started to see that, but it took years.”

— Deondray Gossfield

Quincy tells The Reckoning that after receiving an apology from Deondray, he was still unsure if he’d be able to trust him. But as fate would have it, the work to restore trust would be one of many immediate obstacles the two would have to overcome. They’d now be forced to work through their issues under the same roof.

“My roommates all decided to jump ship and break the lease because everybody was fighting in the house and nobody wanted to live with each other anymore,” said Quincy. “I was the only one in the apartment at the time that didn’t have a steady job. So he offered for me to move in with him. Literally, during what we were going through, I was now forced to move in with him,” he said.

Quincy says he initially refused to sleep in Deondray’s bedroom after moving in.

“I slept on the couch for a long time because every time I’d go in his room, I’d just imagined what happened in that room behind my back,” he said.

Discussing the incident now over 20 years later, Deondray says the moment had the opposite effect of what he intended.

“I didn’t want it,” said Deondray. “As it was happening, all I could think about was what is he [Quincy] doing right now? I wasn’t even in the moment. It wasn’t fulfilling. I realized that I was more lost afterward. As a matter of fact, it took something from me. I wanted it to lift me up. I wanted it to let me know that I was still desirable. See, somebody wants me. The person that I needed to want me didn’t, or so I thought. I had a lot of baggage,” said Deondray.

“When you’re broken and you’re wounded, your wounds won’t let you see that there are band-aids out there. You’re so bloody, you can’t even see that he’s giving you bandages. I started to see that, but it took years,” he said.

Growing up, Growing older, Together

For many couples who run at the first sign of trouble, the Gossfields have always chosen to stay together to do the work to heal individually and as a couple, with Deondray observing how after each mistake they would “come back to each other stronger each time”—learning how to communicate more effectively and maturing as young adults.

“We were growing up together. We didn’t have this sense of self and this comfort level of speaking our truth and negotiating. We had to learn how to communicate well,” he said.

And for a couple that has experienced the ebb and flow of a long-term relationship, solid communication around sex, specifically, non-monogamy has been imperative.

“For me, monogamy is important,” said Quincy. “I’m not against anyone, what does that old man say— having a holiday? You write your own rules in a relationship. We are not in an open relationship, and I am not damning people who are in open relationships. There’s a spectrum: there are people who are in open relationships, there are people who are monogamous, but they may have guests periodically. And I can’t say that we haven’t had holiday visitors in the past. We’ve been together for over 20 years, we’ve tried everything,” he said through laughter.

“We were growing up together. We didn’t have this sense of self and this comfort level of speaking our truth and negotiating. We had to learn how to communicate well.”

— Deondray Gossfield

Now the couple can add Atlanta to the list after purchasing a home and moving to the city full time from Los Angeles in 2020 shortly before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Although they admit they have seen little of the city because of being quarantined, their “let’s see phase” is feeling more permanent each time new furniture is delivered to their East Point home.

When asked about where they saw themselves 40 years from now when they’re well into their 80s—Quincy responded, “foreign.”

“I want to be able to live abroad at some point,” he said.

“I do have a fantasy of getting a place in Italy that overlooks our vineyard,” said Deondray.

And if there was any doubt that the Gossfields would still be together in their rocking chairs, Deondray erased all uncertainty.

“I didn’t do all this work for somebody else to take all of this that I’ve cultivated,” he said.

Look, we’ll be in a rocking chair and I’ll be throwing olives at his ass in Italy,” joked Quincy.

To which Deondray responded matter-of-factly: “I’ll be throwing grapes at him from the vineyard, but he’s gonna be there.”