Chapter 5: Tuesday Routine and A Delicious Noon

Tuesdays had quickly become their secret ritual.

Every week at noon, while most of the church staff was out for lunch or handling errands, Mary Ann would slip down to the basement of Grace Evangelical Church.

Dale would be waiting in the large maintenance room they now simply called “The Closet.” The new outer door he had built gave them an extra layer of safety, and the futon in the corner had seen more action in the past few weeks than it probably had in its entire previous life.

Mary Ann told herself each time that this would be the last one. She was a doctor, a speaker, a pastor’s wife. Yet every Tuesday her body betrayed her. The moment she locked the inner door behind her, the respectable facade melted away and the hungry, eager woman from her past took over.

This Tuesday was no different—at least at first.

She arrived a few minutes early, heart already racing with anticipation. She wore a fitted blouse and a knee-length skirt that was easy to hike up. Her panties were already damp by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs. She stepped through the new outer door, then pushed open the inner one with a small, secret smile on her lips.

“Dale, I—”

She froze mid-step.

Dale was there, leaning against the work table with his usual confident grin. But he wasn’t alone.

Pam stood beside him.

Pastor Malcolm’s wife—Grace Evangelical’s polished, soft-spoken administrative assistant—looked up with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. She was dressed in her usual modest Sunday-best style: a cream-colored blouse and a pencil skirt that hugged her hips. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, but the way she bit her lower lip betrayed her nervousness ... and her excitement.