Ladies Listen Up Read Online Free

against her will.
    I looked over at Gina. Her stomach was indeed poking out. My head began to spin. I instantly went back to the night that the condom had busted, and my mouth dropped open.
    After that, things happened so quickly. Alicia began to scream as she asked me if the things being said were true, over and over again. I felt dizzy and my stomach knotted. I had had several affairs, or fuckbuddies, while we were together, but in an effort to do right going into my marriage, I had cut them all off a month before the wedding. All except for Kristen, who swore she would be there for me forever, and never breathe a word of our affair to anyone. I guess that was until Gina told her about us.
    I never imagined that these skeletons would come falling out of the closet on top of my head in a million years. “I don’t believe this shit,” I said under my breath. I looked back at Alicia and the look in her eyes told me that I was busted. The next thing I knew, Kristen swung at Alicia and landed an open-handed slap across her face that sounded off through the hall. I saw red and lunged at Kristen. I wrapped my hands around her neck and tried my best to choke the life out of her. The second girl, who was with her, pulled something from her bag and swung it at the back of my head. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground trying to get my vision back in focus. It turned out that the girl was a D.C. officer and she’d hit me with herfoldout billy club. I’d probably suffered a mild concussion from the way I hit the floor, but the pain in my head was nothing compared to all of the destruction I’d caused.
    By the time Jacob helped me to my feet, the place was in a complete uproar. A lone police officer came running, talking on his walkie-talkie, coupled with two rent-a-cops. People had obviously decided to leave the cursed affair and I saw Alicia’s mother trying to comfort her a few feet away, all the while she was chanting, “I told you about him. I told you this nigga wasn’t no good. It’ll be okay, baby.” She kept saying this to her daughter, who was near hysterical and nearly hyperventilating. “Someone call an ambulance.”
    “Come on. We got to get out of here,” Jacob said, pulling me from the floor.
    “I can’t leave her like this,” I shot back. I tried to move toward her. As soon as Alicia saw my face she began to scream at the top of her lungs and lost her breath.
    Her mother charged me and I flinched, thinking she was about to hit me, too. I was wrong about her, but I didn’t see her uncle as he threw a straight right to my cheek. “You son of a bitch” was all I heard as I stumbled to the ground. People were moving about, rushing out of the hall.
    “I told you we got to bounce.”
    This time I listened as Jacob whisked me out the side to the limo. We climbed in, and once we had the doors closed safely behind us, he looked into my face. I could see he pitied me, but at the same time he was disgusted. “Yo, man, don’t say shit,” I said.
    He shook his head and burst out laughing. He told the driver to take us to his place. “No, better yet, do you have another gig tonight?” he asked the driver.
    “No, sir.”
    “How much to take us to Atlantic City?”
    “How’s two-fifty?”
    “Make it three hundred, but take us to the liquor store first.”
    I said nothing. I gazed out the window thinking about the mess that was my life. Forty-five minutes later we were on I-95 headed to gamble, sipping on Hennessy.
    “You know, Diego. Maybe you should look at what happened today as a clue that you need to make some changes in your life. You could write a book.”
    I laughed. Finally I was beginning to get a buzz from the liquor. “Yeah, right, on what? How to fuck up your life and everyone you come in contact with?”
    He laughed. “Nah, you should make it on something for women on how to avoid men like you.”
    “Thanks, man.”
    “Hell, if the book is good enough, Alicia might even come back to