Lady Elect Read Free Page A

and thanked them both, then walked out of Lance’s office and closed the door behind her.
    Arykah looked at Lance. “You need to deal with Mother Pansie.”
    Â 
    Â 
    That meeting was still fresh in Arykah’s mind as she and Lance stood in the middle of their master bath. “Lance, you know what happened the last time Mother Pansie counseled a young lady, but if you want her to sit in on the session with Darlita and me, then so be it.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œYou don’t have to thank me, we’re a team.”
    Lance kissed Arykah passionately and guided her back to the bed.
    â€œDo we have time for this before church, Bishop? Don’t you have to preach in a couple of hours?” she asked, wanting Lance just as much as he wanted her.
    Lance removed Arykah’s bathrobe. He let his towel slip from his waist. “This will help me preach real good.” He enjoyed his wife in between the Egyptian cotton sheets.
    Later that morning, on the South side of Chicago, the sanctuary at Freedom Temple Church Of God was filled to capacity. Every seat, approximately five hundred of them, was spoken for. The congregation was in high praise when Lance and Arykah appeared in the doorway entrance to the center aisle.
    The praise and worship leader signaled to Adonis Cortland, the head musician, to lower the organ’s pitch while she announced their pastor and first lady. “Please stand and receive Bishop Lance and Lady Elect Arykah Miles-Howell.”
    With Arykah standing on his right, Lance passionately placed his open palm on the small of her back. Arykah wrapped her left arm around Lance’s waist, and they walked confidently as husband and wife down the center aisle. As he did Sunday after Sunday with a smile on his face, Lance escorted Arykah to the first pew and greeted Monique, Arykah’s personal assistant, with a peck on the cheek.
    Four months ago when Lance walked into the sanctuary for the first time as a married man, he moved his ten deacons from the front left pew to the front right pew. He reserved the front left pew for Arykah, her guests, and Monique. Arykah was now in Lance’s full view.
    Mother Pansie hadn’t taken that rearrangement too kindly. It had been tradition that the mothers sat behind the deacons on the left side of the church. But with the deacons sitting across the aisle, Mother Pansie had to constantly look at Arykah’s back side.
    Lance sat in the pulpit among his assistant pastor, Minister Carlton Weeks, to his left. The associates sat on the right side of Lance. Minister Darryl Polk, Minister Tyrone Williams, and nineteen-year-old Minister Alfonzo (Fonzie) Kyles, whom Lance was leaning toward promoting to youth pastor, each shook Lance’s hand and gave him a hearty, “God bless you, Bishop.”
    Lance looked at Arykah, then winked his eye and smiled. She returned the gesture.
    Monique nudged Arykah with her elbow and whispered, “I saw that, First Lady. You and the bishop should know better than to partake in foreplay in the sanctuary.”
    Arykah chuckled and leaned into Monique for privacy. “If you would’ve been in our bedroom two hours ago, you would’ve seen some real foreplay.”
    Monique gasped, and it caused a few heads to turn their way. She met Arykah’s lean and kept her whisper, “On a Sunday morning?”
    On the pew behind them, Mother Pansie tried desperately to hear Arykah and Monique’s conversation. She saw the wink Lance had given his wife. And because Arykah and Monique were leaning into each other whispering and gasping, Mother Pansie concluded that their conversation may not have been appropriate for the sanctuary. She tapped Mother Gussie Hughes, who sat on the right of her, on the knee and nodded her head in Arykah and Monique’s direction.
    Mother Gussie, affectionately known as “Momma G,” hadn’t liked Arykah since the day she had first called