Reflections||Tarasia

14.

TARAJI

As Kennedy's wife physically attacked me, I restrained myself from fighting her back. She's hurting, rightfully so, and she needs an outlet for her pain. I knew what I was capable of when I got my hands on somebody, and I didn't want to add insult to injury by beating her ass after she had already caught me fucking her wife, so I took every punch and stomp to the chin. However, I didn't know how long I could just sit there and let her beat up on me. Kennedy wasn't doing anything to intervene. She was just standing back and watching, almost as if she was enjoying it. She wanted her wife to fight for her. However, it seemed like her wife was fighting for something more than their marriage. She was fighting for her respect. I genuinely didn't want to put my hands on her because I felt like I deserved everything she was giving me, but I had to at least push her off of me when I felt blood running from my nose. When I pushed her, she fell and she tried to get at me again after getting up off of the floor, but Kennedy held her back this time. She thrashed around in her arms, turning around and backhanding her across her face so hard that her earring went flying across the room. I cringed as it sounded like a gunshot was going off.

Fantasia: Let me the fuck go! How could you fucking do this to me?! What did I ever do wrong to make you cheat on me?! Why, Kennedy?! Why did you do this to me?! To our family?! What the fuck am I supposed to tell Sarai?!

I must have given myself whiplash from how fast I turned around when she said that name. My eyebrows pushed together in confusion as I paused the action of wiping my bloody nose with a tissue, having to stop what I was doing so I could really let her words sink in. There are not many people in the world named Sarai. Lesbian couples adopt children all the time. Could these women have adopted my Sarai?

Taraji: Did you say Sarai?

Kennedy: Taraji, you need to get out of here. This is a family matter.

Fantasia: No, don't send her home. She needs to hear this. You weren't concerned about family matters when you were scissoring the bitch on top of your desk.

Taraji: What is it that I need to hear? What's going on?

Kennedy: Fantasia, don't do this. Think about how this could hurt our daughter.

Fantasia: You should have thought about that before you hired this woman, knowing who she is.

So that's her name? Fantasia. It's pretty. It suits her. Fantasia went and picked up a picture that I had knocked off of Kennedy's desk. She walked right up to me, and I didn't know if I would be able to hold back like I did before if she decided to put her hands on me again. She put the picture in my face, and I realized that it was the picture of her and the pretty teenage girl that I admired from the moment I first walked into Kennedy's office. I focused on the girl, noticing that she had sharp siren eyes like mine and basically my entire face shape. I was starting to figure out what was going on, but Fantasia wanted to beat me to the punch and hurt me with the truth. The girl in the picture is Sarai. MY Sarai. Kennedy knew who I was when she hired me. If none of this would have happened, I would have never known that these women have my daughter.

Fantasia: Your daughter is our daughter. Sarai is our daughter. Her 16th birthday is coming up, and she's really turning into an amazing young woman. She's been so adamant lately about finding you and meeting you. She's going to be so disappointed when she finds out that her birth mother is a low-life whore. It's bad enough that you're an ex-convict. Did you have to be a slut, too?

I snatched the picture out of her hands to get a closer look at Sarai, ignoring the wetness pooling between my thighs from Fantasia's raspy, sexy voice degrading me. My sexual experiences with women in prison were always rough, so it's easier for me to get turned on by aggression than affection. However, I had more important things to worry about. Tears came to my eyes as I studied Sarai's face in the frame, and I furiously tried to blink them back, but it was too late. They already knew my weakness was my daughter. How could I have ended up in such a fucked up situation? My married boss who I had sex with is my daughter's adoptive mother, and I got into a fight with her wife who is also Sarai's mom. This is my second time sleeping with someone who's married. I can't stop doing wrong to save my life.

Kennedy: What the fuck is wrong with you, Fantasia?! She wasn't supposed to know about Sarai!

Taraji: What?

I couldn't find any words to describe how I was feeling in this moment. They were going to keep my daughter away from me forever. I would have never known that my daughter was right underneath my nose if Fantasia didn't catch me fucking her wife. Now my daughter is going to end up in a broken home because of my lack of self-control. There's no way that a marriage can come back from something like this. I haven't even met Sarai yet and I'm already hurting her. I slowly walked out of Kennedy's office, absentmindedly taking the picture with me, leaving them to fight while my mind and body staggered to the bathroom. I stood at a sink, looking into the mirror, but not for too long as I didn't want to see how pathetic I must have looked with the blood and tears running down my face. My daughter is alive and well, and she wants to meet me. Will she still want me to be apart of her life after I ruined Kennedy and Fantasia's marriage this way? I tried to wipe my tears away as if I was never crying when I heard the door click. I looked to see Fantasia in the threshold. I don't understand why Kennedy would cheat on her wife when she looks like this. I bet that when women go to get bbl's, they show the doctor Fantasia's picture. Her lips look like they were just made to be kissed. Her eyes are big and brown, and the innocence they hold within them is shared with darkness and desire.

When she closed the door behind her, she locked it.