THREADS OF DESTINY

CHAPTER 73: INESCAPABLE DESTINY

The poor boys were famished for their mother, Lanecea supposed, as she spent the night cuddling with the boys who soaked up her attention during their impromptu sleepover, only leaving her side long enough to get ready for bed.  Lani didn't mind if Moses sought comfort from her beasts, but wouldn't allow him to suck her nipples and as for James, he needed to keep his perpetually erect cock away from her pussy, but it was okay if he pressed it against her when he cuddled as he couldn't control his erections. Those were Lanecea's only rules and neither of the boys protested as they clamoured over each other to share everything about their lives from school to their culture until she fell asleep holding the boys in her arms.

Yolande didn't return with her husband by morning, Stephen stepping quietly into the dimly lit room alone. 

"Are you alright, Angel?" Stephen looked down at the pull-out couch where Lani lay beneath his sons, Moses' hand tucked inside her top.

"I hope you don't mind, but he really seemed to need comfort. I didn't let him suck me, so I didn't sin."

"It isn't a sin to be a mother to my sons," Stephen assured her before stepping into the washroom. 

The man had given her the creeps since she'd first met him the day she entered the church. The few times she'd seen him since, he often pulled her aside before peppering Lani with personal, inappropriate questions, but Lani had shrugged it off as a cultural difference. Africans wouldn't know what was inappropriate. Lani was just as shocked when he emerged from the washroom freshly showered and stark naked before re-entering the living room, pausing only long enough to put on a worship CD before climbing into bed beside Lanecea and his sons.

"Please, Sir, your wife is going to freak out when she returns."

"No, she isn't. I do this often - soak in God's presence with nothing standing between me and God. She'll be at church until noon and even if she returns early, Yolande knows you're my wife."

Lanecea raised an eyebrow as she attempted to avoid the sight of Stephan's nudity, gazing at the ceiling instead. 

"I don't understand... Richard...uh...Pastor, calls me his wife too. Is it African culture?"

"You aren't ready to understand yet, but I will explain it to you when the time comes. In Africa, polygamy is common and a man will claim his wife in the spiritual realm before he marries her physically. You might consider it like marking your territory."

"But then I'm Pastor's wife because he claimed me first," Lanecea whispered as the room grew lighter, taking care not to wake the boys while still trying to understand Stephan's logic.

"Yes, he beat me to it, but he told Yolande to take care of you, placing you in my care. You won't be returning to the church and he knows it. He's relinquished his rights...as I said, it's complicated but I promise I will explain better. Come rest with me. It's been a long night."

Lanecea's brain hurt, the woman seriously confused as Stephan pulled her against him, the warmth of his body seeping through her thin dress. 

****

Yolande wasn't convinced when Stephan announced that God told him Lanecea was to be his second wife. The man was from Ghana and his wife was from Giana, so he didn't expect Yolande to accept polygamy as readily as an African wife would have. 

"Pastor wouldn't have given you that woman - he's in love with her."

"He did when he told me to take care of her. A man doesn't ask another man to take care of his wife - not when she is that precious to him. Pastor knows he is unable to have her - not unless he wants a church split. Why can't you see it, Yolande? God has opened the door for me to open my own church where polygamy won't need to be a secret. Great men of God had more than one wife." Stephan turned to Lanecea, sweeping her onto his lap before focusing on his sons, "Do you love your new mother?"