Free Scandalous by Torrian Ferguson

spewed from my mouth as I spoke. “You lying muthafucka! You don’t have a damn tape of anything. Your ass is too ashamed to show your little ass dick. So, I know you didn’t film shit!”
“Okay, if I’m lying, walk out that door and see if I don’t send your family and your boyfriend’s family a copy!”
In my heart I felt as if he didn’t have a tape and I was willing to try and call his bluff. I grabbed up my things and walked towards the door. My mind raced, trying to figure out if there was a night that I was drunk and he could have filmed me. I was coming up with nothing. So, I knew he was full of shit. I reached for the door handle and Byron called my name.
“Tracy, remember that night we went to The Red Light.”
I stopped just short of the door. I do remember going to that club. It’s a very trendy nightspot in Miami. If you want to go party in Miami, that’s the place to go. We did have a great time that night.
“That was the night you told me that you loved me and I was proud to say that I loved you.”
I turned to him. “Byron, why do you want to hurt me like this?”
I had to play the sincere hurt woman to try to get him to back off me a little bit.
“I didn’t want it to come to me bringing that tape up but I’m tired of you trippin’ every time we see each other. I just want things to go back to the way they were between us.”
“But things have changed. I’m engaged now.”
“So, I don’t want to marry you. I just want to hit it, from time to time. I could care less about you getting married to Brandon. As a matter of fact, where are you registered, so I can go ahead and get ya’ll a little something.”
The thought of him all over me again depressed me. I don’t know what I was thinking when we got together. But now I’m between a rock and a hard place. “What time should I be ready for dinner, and where are we going?”
He looked at me with a nasty grin on his face. “Now was that so hard?” He asked me as he walked over to me and rubbed my hair. “Be ready at seven o’clock. Where I’m taking you is a surprise.”
I gave him a fake smile and walked out the classroom. The last thing I wanted to do was get right back into the same bad situation I tried to leave behind. But I had no other choice.
If Byron really has a tape of me, I can’t let my family or Brandon’s family find out in such a way. Brandon’s family would be crushed. He and I have been together for such a long time. His father is a Minister at a Baptist Church back home and he said God told him Brandon and I was meant for each other. And, to be honest, to this day I believe him. But I guess all it took was one fight between Brandon and I and I was off in another man’s arms.
I don’t really remember what the fight was about, but I do remember being very upset during one of Byron’s classes last year. He asked me what was wrong and I just started talking. Before I realized it, he and I had talked for almost three hours. I had never been able to just sit down and talk to Brandon. He’s the type that doesn’t want to hear your problem, he wants to fix it. This was new to me. An older man that listened to me. I was used to guys my age that thought they knew everything but really had no clue what was going on around them. At the time I was 20 and Byron was 36. I always thought I was too mature for guys my age. But my age is actually what got me into this mess. He knew exactly what to say to a twenty-year-old woman, but I had no clue what a 36-year-old man really wanted from me. It just made me feel good to be able to have this older guy chase me. We went to the finest restaurants in town. He showered me with gifts and constantly told me how beautiful I am. My head was as big as a fifteen-passenger van. I knew I was the shit on campus. If he thought I was upset with him about something, he went to the limit to find out what the problem was and try to fix it. I was in heaven, or so I thought.
The first time we had