Sex in the Sanctuary Read Online Free

thing that meant nothing to him. Tai didn’t believe him. Nor did she care. At least that was the lie she told herself. He had taken the very thing that her life with him had been built on, trust. He’d destroyed her self-esteem, already eroded after four children and fifty extra pounds.
    This time it was King’s mother, Sister Maxine Brook, who saved the marriage and Tai’s sanity. She and King had again separated following his adultery. This time King moved out, or rather got kicked out, by his very pissed off wife. Hoping other people’s problems would lessen her own, Tai immersed herself in Oprah, The Young and the Restless and white wine. King returned, but the children became her primary focus, and if not for them, she’d have had to look strenuously for a reason to go on living. Mama Max had phoned one day when Tai was feeling particularly low. Two hours later, she knocked on the door with a meatloaf, a pot of spaghetti, a huge apple cobbler and a dose of age-old attitude that only a mother of the church could possess.
    “Baby,” Sister Maxine began as she warmed the food on the stove, pushed up her sleeves and started cleaning a kitchen that hadn’t seen soap for days. “I know you’re hurting. I understand. And I also know you can let this do one of two things. Break ya or build ya.”
    Tai reached for her glass of wine and countered, “But, Mama, you don’t understand, you’ve never been down this road.”
    “Oh, yeah? You think you’re the first one who’s had to deal with one of them bitches!”
    Tai almost choked on her chardonnay. In all this time of knowing Sister Maxine, she’d never heard her say so much as “darn.” Yet here was this matronly diva, still the epitome of style with straight-legged black pants, an extra-large jungle print top that reached midthigh and coiffed hairdo swept up and secured into a fashionable French bun, rolling “bitch” off her tongue as if it wasn’t the first time. Tai stared at her wide-eyed.
    “Mama Max!”
    Mama Max just gave her a look and then swiveled around to stir the spaghetti. “You got any more of that?” she asked without looking back.
    “What?” Tai asked, still amazed Mom had “gone there.”
    “That what you’re drinking.” She replaced the lid on the spaghetti and reached for the loaf of French bread and butter. “Pour me a glass and I’ll tell you a story. And shut your mouth before a fly gets in.”
    Mama Max went on to tell her about the time almost twenty years earlier when “the Rev acted like a plum fool.” It had been while they were out of town, at a convention in the big city of Dallas, Texas. Sistah Max had been born and raised in a small town and moved to an even smaller town when her husband got his first church. Their marriage experienced its share of ups and downs, but she’d been happy. She’d gone back to the hotel right after service and was in a sound sleep when the phone rang. “Sistah Brook,” an unfamiliar voice had whispered into the receiver. “I don’t mean to be nosy or rude, but I just saw your husband come into the lobby, and I don’t think he’s headed to your room.”
    “Who’s this?” Mama Max demanded, now wide awake and sitting up.
    “You can just say…I’m my sister’s keeper.” Then the line went dead.
    Mama Max jumped out of that bed as if lightning hit and started praying in tongues. “Give me the spirit of discernment, Holy Ghost,” she intoned as she paced back and forth and around the room. After about fifteen minutes a number came to her clear as day—915. Without hesitation, Mama Max slipped on her caftan, pulled on her slippers and checked her always perfectly coiffed hair in the mirror before leaving the room and heading for the elevator. When she reached room 915, she knocked on the door. After a moment, a quiet voice asked tentatively, “Who is it?”
    “It’s your worst nightmare!” Sistah Max explosively responded. “Wife of Bishop Stanley Obadiah Meshach