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I needed dick and I needed it bad! Taking time off from having sex wasn’t working for me, not at all. I tried as hard as I could not to think about it, but the thoughts would still creep into my head.
Week one hadn’t been too bad. I made sure that I stayed busy. I went to the gym after work and managed to stay at work later each day. I’d gone to the church a couple of times looking for Andre, but he somehow never seemed to be around when I was there. The hardest time I really had during the week was at home. An idle mind was the devil’s playground, and my mind took me all types of places when I was there. I hadn’t sworn off masturbation, so I did that.
Week two was hell because it seemed like everything in the world made me horny. I’d get in the elevator and I’d smell some cologne, and my coochie would get wet. I went to the gym one time during the second week. It was a Monday right after work and I stayed for an hour, but I couldn’t do it. All that temptation. Nothing but bulging arms, swinging dicks, muscular thighs; I couldn’t deal. I took my ass right on home and took a cold shower.
I was trying to listen to the Lord and not give in to temptation, but He wasn’t making it easy for me.
It was a Thursday afternoon and I’d just left work about twenty minutes earlier. I was on a mission. I’d been trying to figure out what was happening with Pastor Stewart, and I knew I was on the right track. Andre Mattis had been ducking and dodging me for a while now. I’d cornered him right after church the day that the church’s fast had started. We’d made small talk, but after I mentioned the Pastor and Catherine’s, he made up some excuse and left.
I’d also heard that on top of the other problems the church was having, the people who worked there hadn’t gotten paid yet. Something was up and I had all the pieces, but I needed some glue to hold it together.
“Andre Mattis, you’re a hard man to find,” I said.
“Tanya? What the fuck?” Andre asked. His tall, handsome self looked shocked as hell. I’d pulled a bold move and went the one place where he wouldn’t be able to run from me: his house. “My wife could be on her way home.”
“I’m not stupid. I double checked. She just left for a church conference today,” I said.
I’d been there in the past and could cover my tracks. Andre reached out a hand and snatched me up, grabbing me and pulling me into his house.
I yanked my arm away from him. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. I smoothed out my dress. I was wearing a dark blue zip-up that I’d grabbed from Banana Republic. It was very conservative, but I had a body that I couldn’t hide, so it did little to disclose my curves.
“What’s wrong with me? You just showed up at my house from outta nowhere and you wanna know what’s wrong with me?” he asked.
“You haven’t been in your office at the church.” I folded my arms. “It feels like you’ve been dodging me.”
“Look Tanya, what we did was cool and all, but that was a couple of months ago,” he said. “Shit is good right now between Dominique and I, and I wanna keep it that way.”
The look of sincerity on Andre’s face made me laugh. He had some nerve. “Oh please,” I said to him. Though Andre was of course fine as hell, I wasn’t trying to break my promise. I wanted to prove it to me. “I’m chilling out on guys for the month anyway, so this is on lock. Besides, that ain’t what I came over for.”
Men were all the same. Andre had just been talking all that faithful stuff, but the minute he heard me say I wasn’t having sex with anyone, he changed up.
“That’s what you gave up for the church’s fast?” He smirked at me.
“Don’t get no ideas,” I said. I honestly didn’t know if I’d be able to resist temptation in the form of Andre, and I didn’t want to have to try. I decided to disclose my reason for coming. “We need to talk,” I told him firmly.
“About what?” Andre asked. He hadn’t asked me to go beyond the front entryway of his home, so I could tell he didn’t want me to stay too long.
“Whatever is happening with Pastor Stewart and the church. I know something is going on, and don’t you lie to me,” I said.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Andre defended. “You shouldn’t be asking those types of questions.”
“But you didn’t deny it,” I said. “Andre, I’m trying to help you out.”
“What do you mean?” he wanted to know.
I took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t have much, but I got enough. You know if I go and tell the right people some of what I know, people are gonna ask questions, and then it won’t just be me. Pastor Stewart at Catherine’s...the church not being able to pay people on payday...”
His eyes got wide. “You know about that? We told the employees not to say anything.”
“You know how it is,” I said, “everybody talks and everybody listens.”
“I see,” he said. Andre walked slowly into the living room and invited me to come in behind him. He took a seat on the couch, and I sat in a chair next to it. Andre looked up at me, and for the first time ever, he looked his actual age. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“I’m just a part of this,” he said to me after a long moment of silence.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Why you wanna know so bad?”
“I love the church. And so did my mother. I only want what’s best for it.”
“Me too,” he said. “That’s why this is so hard. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be helping at all.”
My heartbeat sped up a little. I knew it! “So, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know where to start,” Andre said. He took a deep breath and started explaining.