When Natasha Cox woke up on June 25, she found some unexpected news. After getting on Facebook — or as she called it, her "morning newspaper” — she found out that Indiana had lifted the ban on same-sex marriage. She immediately woke up her partner, Ryder, and said, “Honey, we can get married.”
The couple started that day by calling the Delaware County Building and asking around, but realized they would have to wait a day while the County Building received the proper documents. So they went about their day as usual and worked at the Mark III Taproom, the gay bar they own with Keith Martz, Natasha’s father. After work, they went home, stayed up all night and arrived at the County Building the following morning.
On June 26, Ryder and Natasha became the first same-sex couple to be married in Delaware County.
“When we got there, it was just the two of us,” Natasha said. “But the numbers kept growing, and it was 10 of us, and then 20, and it was so overwhelming and so beautiful.”
Ryder and Natasha Cox tend bar at the Mark III Taproom. Photo by Jordan Huffer
The couple got the paperwork, ran down to Cornerstone Center for the Arts on Main Street, and said their vows in front of a few friends and Martz. The couple then went to a celebratory lunch at Red Lobster, and later headed to the Mark III, where a few other couples came to celebrate their marriage and milestone in LGBTQ rights in Indiana.
“It was overwhelming to see all the love at the bar that night,” Ryder said as tears filled her eyes. “...being married finally, and having people come here, to the bar we call home, and celebrate was overwhelming.”
The Mark III Taproom, sitting on Main Street in downtown Muncie, is one of Indiana’s oldest gay bars. Surrounded by businesses already closed for the day, the orange and red neon sign reading “The Mark III Taproom” illuminated the block and the people spilling out of the front door of the narrow building on Saturday. Clouds of smoke and breath rose into the air as small groups of costumed patrons gathered outside smoking cigarettes as they waited for the next performer to take the stage.
When the music stopped, and a man’s voice boomed over the speakers, the smokers doused and flicked their cigarettes aside and shuffled into the bar. Inside, the long and narrow Mark III was crowded. Conversations could be heard just before the host introduced drag queen Amaya Sexton. As the mash up of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang” and Jessie J’s “Bang Bang” comes busting through the speakers and the queen emerges from the curtain, eyes turn to the stage.
It wasn’t an average drag show, but a celebration to honor the two-year anniversary since Ryder, Natasha and Martz claimed ownership of the bar.
“This is more than just a bar,” Natasha said. “It’s a place to go and be accepted, and it’s a place that Ryder and I hold very dear to our hearts. I mean it’s where we met.”
More than eight years ago, Ryder was sitting at the Mark III with her mom, when Natasha and Martz walked in. Ryder immediately noticed Natasha and thought “Holy cow,” but never imagined that the encounter at that drag show would change her life.
For starters, Natasha was in a heterosexual marriage at the time.
“I thought she was beautiful, but I knew that she was married, and I thought she was straight so I kept my distance,” Ryder said. “Our relationship really just started as friends, and it stayed that way for a few years.”
The couple exchanged numbers and Myspace profiles that first night, and started hanging out at the bar, attending drag shows together as friends. This lasted for a few years, and most of the time spent together was at the Mark III.
After Natasha’s divorce, her relationship with Ryder started to grow. One summer night at the bar, Natasha sat down beside Ryder and told her that she had feelings for her.
“The first thing to pop into my head came spewing out of my mouth, and it was ‘Holy cow, are you serious?’” Ryder said.
The two women went outside of the bar, where a summer thunderstorm was raging outside, and opened up to each other about their feelings for one another. It was then that their platonic relationship took a romantic turn.
Their first date followed a few days later. The two went to dinner, and then went to Prairie Creek Reservoir for a late night walk. The dates continued, and they became exclusive. They attended their first pride together and came out as a couple, which shocked some people.
“I’m blessed because my dad is gay, and I was raised around very open-minded people,” Natasha said. “It’s not that I fell in love with her parts, which I do love, but I fell in love with her.”
The couple soon moved in together and started combining their lives. Their first apartment was cluttered with both of their possessions, and they had to sort through what they had double of, and what they could get rid of. To them, it was easy; they agreed on virtually everything, and the excitement of combining their lives kept them happy.
The couple became inseparable, only spending time apart when they went to work, but even that has changed. Two years ago when they took over the bar with Martz, the couple began whipping it back into good condition. They bartended together and put all of the profit the bar made back into the bar, living off of the tips they made each night.
Today, they still work together every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday behind the bar, and when they aren’t at work, they are still together running errands, hanging out with friends, or more recently, moving into their first home together here in Muncie.
“What they have is completely amazing,” Martz said. “They do everything together, and I can’t say that about very many couples.”
Martz has been one of the couple's biggest supporters since its inception. He was at the bar when the two met, he was sitting at a table across from them when Natasha told Ryder about her feelings, he went into business with them and he was at their wedding in June. He even used to watch the girls play together in elementary school, which is something neither woman can remember.
“You can see it when you are around them that they are so in love with one another,” Martz said. “There is such genuine love and compassion in their eyes when they look at each other.”
For now, the couple is settling into their new home, and taking things one day at a time. But they know they will stay together.
“I knew it from the moment I saw her that she was it, she was the one,” Ryder said standing behind the bar at the Mark III. “It was really love at first sight, and I still get that same feeling I had in my gut eight years ago.”
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