[STORY] SPOILT AT CHURCH (Episode 20)

SPOILT AT CHURCH by Bosede Fagbemi

Episode 20.

There were two weddings at Beulah between the months of October and December, in the year the weddings took place. The first was a societal wedding of the children of two big wigs in the Church. It attracted people from all walks of life. The Johnsons and the Williams outdid themselves in ensuring that, their children had the kind of wedding which would be the ‘talk of the town’ for years to come. Where money was spent with no thought for tomorrow.

The couple, Kike and Jide stepped into marriage like two sleep walkers. They were already bored of each other and were only fulfilling the desires of their parents, and the need to ‘just get married’ like the others were getting married.

There was no new thing to look forward to, except that both would legitimately bear the title of Mr. & Mrs. Although, they will now have sex with no restriction, that had become stale with years of secret copulation.

Kike felt danger looming over her soon to be home, like a sky that is pregnant with heavy rain. She felt like running away and never returning. She actually tried running away when it remained a week to the set date, but she had nowhere to run to.

To make matters worse, she became privy to the information that Martha would be wedding Pastor Kayode in December. How and when they met she couldn’t say. She learnt that they had already done the family introduction. Revd. Alhassan had briefly mentioned in one of his sermons that the most eligible bachelor in the Church- Pastor Kayode, will soon be getting married’. Jokingly he said hence forth, no sister should disturb him again.

Kike felt a heavy pang of envy and a gnawing emptiness within her. Her feelings became ambivalent. And though she was jealous, she at times wished she could be happy for Martha. She had the desire to go seek for forgiveness for the lies of years ago. She wished they could be friends again.
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“How soon people forget things,” Mrs. Johnson said on a Sunday afternoon after getting back from Church. “That stupid girl has suddenly become a celebrity because she’s getting married to a Pastor. Parents are now taking their children to her to be counseled. I even heard she’s running a program for ‘after ones’ like herself. Imagine! Revd. Bamiro even instructed me to incorporate her as a resource person into the program of the virgins’ club.”

Kike raptly listened to her mother. Her words made Kike more vexed against Martha, and she prayed something would stop the wedding. Something like Martha dying, or the Pastor changing his mind and leaving Martha stranded at the altar.

“And the senior Pastor is insisting on wedding them at the altar,” Kike heard her mother say. “They will do a normal wedding with all the paraphernalia, despite the fact that the girl already has a child. Have you ever heard of such sacrilege? They want to defile the altar of God. Who does that?

“Madam!” her husband called. “Which is better? To join a repented and spirit filled single mother with her groom on the altar, or to join an unrepentant fornicator and a hypocrite, to an equally hypocritical groom like herself, at the altar?”

Kike looked sharply at her father and rushed into her room.

Those words kept ringing in her ears even at the altar where she would be joined to Jide. They exchanged vows. The Pastor asked the groom to kiss his wife. A guest minister preached on the sanctity of marriage. The choir sang. The virgins club presented an award of chastity to Kike.

After wards, they went through the reception ceremony; smiling for the camera, giving fake testimonies of chastity, and dancing like there was no tomorrow.

The couple had their first fight the morning after the wedding, on the day of their thanksgiving.
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Mrs. Johnson had called Jide on phone to remind him to call the Pastor, to tell him that he met his wife at home.

Jide responded by cutting the phone on her.

Surprised, Kike intervened, reminding him of their agreement.

Jide replied that he was tired of her mother’s manipulations and henceforth refused to be her puppet. He said Mrs. Johnson must be a witch for all her evil antics.

Kike retaliated and called her husband a fool for insulting her mother, who had all along covered his misdeeds. She said if her mother was a witch, Jides’s Mum must also be a witch, since both were friends.

The statement earned Kike a star-producing slap and a red eye.
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They were late for the thanksgiving service and received tongue-lashing from Revd. Alhassan. He said, marriage shouldn’t make them draw back from being fervent in the Church. The new couple sat in the front row, flanked on both sides by their parents.

In the course of the same service, the banns of marriage for a wedding that would take place in the next two months was read for the first time. Martha and Pastor Kayode stood facing the Church, as the senior Pastor proclaimed their intention to become man and wife. He said that anyone that had a reason why they shouldn’t be, to contact the Church authority.

Both would eventually get married in December, in a beautiful and Spirit-filled ceremony. The Pastor would prophesy into their lives, that their coming together would be a terror to the kingdom of darkness, and produce Godly seeds. They would end up becoming renowned ministers, with their ministry spanning across several countries in the world. They would later move to Australia with their children: Testimony, Timothy and Titus, from where the tentacles of their ministry would extend to the entire globe.

But before then, on the day of the Williams’ thanksgiving, as the Pastor announced their intention to become man and wife, Pastor Kayode stood confidently beside his intended.

Jide looked lost. He was scared to look up. At the same time, he sought for an eye contact with Martha, as she stood facing the Church. She looked beautiful, with a kind of glow he couldn’t explain. He wished she was his bride, and not the young but old cargo seated beside him. Since the incident of years back, there had been no much as one word between them.

Martha looked at a point above his head into the congregation. The look said many things; that she had moved on, and he had no hold on her.

When Jide managed to look up, he caught Pastor Kayode looking straight at him. The look was so intent that Jide knew; that he knew. His wife to be had told him of Jide’s complicity in her predicament of years back.

Jide felt a nauseating sensation rise from within him. An internal heat that resulted in sweat breaking out all over him. Noticing his discomfiture, Kike fixed her palm into his for calm, but he pushed her away.

And then, he started hearing the Voice, which would not allow him to rest or take a breadth. In his head, in his ears, from within; the voice would always command him on what to do. At times it would be lone, while in some instances there would be multiple voices. All they do is, remind him of his guilt and past.

Jide left the Church, hating his wife and his new marriage.
To Be Continued… . . .

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