Sex In The Sanctuary. Lutishia Lovely

notes that heretofore had not been hit. The song never really ended. It just faded away. The lead singer started her own personal praise as she walked back to the choir loft, the musicians were in their own player praise and the audience added their adorations to the Lord.

      Vivian had sat there quiet and still, a small smile playing on her face as she felt the power of God. She stayed that way a long time, through the shouting and the clapping and the praise pause and the player praise. She opened her eyes when she heard the voice of a man that reminded her of her father’s soothing tremor, but the voice was raspier, lighter. She cocked her head as she opened her eyes and stared into those of Snakeskin Boots himself, Derrick Anthony Montgomery.

      “Are you ready to go?”

      Vivian jumped, shaken from her walk down memory lane. She was sitting in the living room, waiting for her husband to come down. And here he was in front of her, still melting her just like he did fifteen years ago when she watched him deliver his eloquent tribute to King Brook at the Kewana Valley District’s Baptist Convention.

      “Yes, I’m ready,” she responded as she grabbed her purse, and, rising from the couch, kissed him lightly on the mouth. They headed to the garage and the iridescent, pearl white Jaguar waiting there. They all settled in as Derrick hit the garage door opener, started the car and drove down the long, winding driveway.

      “King called,” Derrick began after a brief silence.

      “When?”

      “Just now.”

      “Must have been important,” Vivian pondered aloud. “He knows how busy Sunday mornings are. What did he want?”

      Derrick’s brow creased slightly as he tried to figure that out himself. “I don’t know. I told him I’d call him later today, between services maybe.”

      Vivian leaned back and looked out the window. It was a beautiful Sunday in Los Angeles with clear blue skies, fluffy white cumulus clouds and picture-perfect palm trees lining the streets. Her mind drifted to the conversation she and Tai had a couple days ago. Tai had seemed unusually quiet and reserved, and when Vivian asked her if everything was okay, Tai had said she was just tired. Since they had four, Vivian had assumed it was the children. Now she was wondering if it was the kids, or something else?

      I think you got something that belongs to me

      Tai feigned illness to get out of morning services. Well, she didn’t really lie. She was sick—sick of perpetrating a fraud, acting as though everything was hunky-dory when it wasn’t. She just didn’t think she could go through the motions of blessed-first-lady-without-a-care-in-the-world today. She went downstairs and crossed the lovely yet cluttered atmosphere of the living and formal dining room and entered the large, ranch-style kitchen. At one time this had been her favorite place.

      She poured a cup of coffee and even though it was only ten in the morning added just a touch of Bailey’s Irish Cream. Tai didn’t drink often. In fact, she’d never drunk alcohol before until a friend’s baby shower, when she was twenty-six. Not that she thought it was a sin. It was just something she’d never been exposed to, or interested in trying. But this morning she felt that she had some serious soul-searching to do, some decisions to make. And she didn’t think God would mind too much if she asked Mr. Bailey to join her in the process.

      Tai leaned back on the island counter and stared out the window into their spacious backyard. She didn’t really see the large oak tree or her children’s brightly colored swing set and battered jungle gym. She didn’t hear the sounds of the robin and crow vying for attention in God’s feathered friends’ choir. Tai didn’t notice that the tulips she and her daughters had planted were budding open with bright color swatches of pink, purple, yellow and red, and had formed a nature necklace around the oak tree’s huge trunk. When Tai looked out into this Sunday morning all she could see was Hope Jones. Petite and powerful, funny and fiery, spiritual and seductive, she was in many ways the exact opposite of Tai’s subdued, almost shylike personality. Hope reminded her a bit of Vivian, except Vivian had more class in her toenail than this woman did in her whole body.

      It was, in fact, her similarity to Vivian and her zeal for God that Tai had initially appreciated when Hope had come to the church as a transplant from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She even had the same hourglass figure as Vivian, much to Tai’s weight-gaining chagrin. Hope had landed a job in Kansas City and said the second thing on her agenda after finding a place to live was finding a church home. She’d fit in immediately with the members of Mount Zion Progressive Baptist Church, a place where the membership, two thousand strong and growing, was more like family than anything else. Hope had attended the same type of close-knit church in Tulsa, though that congregation was much smaller, and she was always searching for the things of God. She had been active in her home church from the time she was baptized at the age of seven, until she left Tulsa. She’d been first a student and later a teacher in their Sunday School, a member of the drama department and lead singer and codirector of the church choir. Her father was head of the Deacon Board, a group of men who carried out the business of running the church under the pastor’s direction. Her mother had been the pianist for years, until she and Hope’s father divorced and her mother had moved her membership to the Methodist church on the other side of town. Hope had stayed at the Baptist church with her father and her friends and by the time she left had become a leader who was now sorely missed. At least those were the facts as told by Mrs. McCormick, and Juanita normally got her facts pretty straight.

      Hope had literally exploded onto Mount Zion’s small scene, a kaleidoscope of energy and enthusiasm, just what the church’s youth department needed. She’d immediately become invaluable to its director, Sister Juanita McCormick, and—although Tai didn’t notice it at first—to her husband as well.

      It wasn’t his first affair. That had happened years ago, right before Princess, their second child, was born. That one she had seen coming a mile away. Tootie “the Floozie” Smith had been her nemesis since high school, a woman who always wanted what she couldn’t have. She’d had an on-again, off-again relationship with King until Tai and King got married. And she was a sore loser. Not only that, but Tai thought Tootie had as much use for God as a blind man for reading glasses. So when Tootie Smith walked into a Wednesday night prayer meeting wearing a loud, multicolored jacket over what basically amounted to a cat suit, Tai knew that one of the devil’s helpers had just entered the building.

      She didn’t blame Tootie entirely. It took two to tango, and like Tai always told King, “She didn’t make a vow to me, you did.” Things had been a little rough during the first part of their marriage. After much soul-searching she’d finally admitted that one, maybe she had been too young to get married, and two, they’d had no time to really adjust to being a married couple before their son Michael was born. At that time King was working sixteen-hour days trying to get the church established, and Tai, along with being a new mother, was supplementing the income with a full-time secretarial job at Sprint. They barely saw each other those first three years, and when they did they were either too tired or too frustrated or both to share quality time.

      Like Michael, Princess wasn’t planned. She came along on one of those rare Friday evenings when King came home early and Tai wasn’t tired. They’d shared a nice dinner and then moved to the den to watch a movie. King popped popcorn while Tai put Michael to bed, and it wasn’t long before their own passion surpassed that of the lead character in Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. That movie had stirred up controversy in the Baptist circles, and some clergy had urged their members not to see it. Well, King and Tai had rented it to see what the fuss was about. But they never saw the ending. Nine months later, the King had his Princess. But not before Tootie had him.

      Tai, seven months pregnant, had taken Michael and headed to Chicago to attend her brother’s graduation from Northwest University. King had planned to go, too, but a last minute crisis at the church had prevented him from leaving. Tootie could barely wait until Tai got back to give her the news. She and King had slept together, at their home, in their bed. Tai never slept in that bed again. In fact, she and King moved to a new house and bought all new furniture shortly after Princess was born.

      Tai