by John Everson
“Eye of the beholder,” Regina said. “It’s not my thing, but here, they can do their thing. Who am I to say no?”
“I thought you said this was one of your favorite places,” he said.
Regina shook her head. “No, we’re just taking a shortcut through here. Follow me and be careful not to slip. You can pick up some nasty stains in this room. Trust me.”
Regina wound carefully around the smorgasbord, stepping over people who had collapsed in an overindulged stupor to the floor amid piles of discarded bones and spilled slop. Austin threaded his way behind her, around two long banquet tables covered in black tablecloths and silver meat serving and carving trays. She nodded at what was apparently one of the room’s servers – he was wearing black pants and a black buttoned shirt, with a burgundy vest. In his hand, he held a long carving knife. A huge platter with a pig’s head and a pile of thin sliced pork sat on the table before him.
“Hungry?” he asked, and Regina laughed.
“I’m on a diet.”
The server shook his head and shooshed her. “Never say that,” he said. “Not in here.”
Regina’s lips creased; she knew very well that what she’d said was off limits in a glutton’s paradise. “Oops,” she said, “I wasn’t thinking.” She passed the man with a wink and a secret chuckle that said she’d known exactly what she was doing.
And then they were out of the room, and into a dark corridor beyond. Austin realized how rich the air of the dining room had been. Suddenly all of the thick smells evaporated, and instead of roasting meat and curry and other heady mouthwatering scents, he smelled…mothballs.
There were small silver wall sconces lit with flickering candles. The flames wavered as they stepped past, throwing an eerie undulating light against the avocado-green of the corridor walls. The floor was of some kind of thin tile; Regina’s shoes clacked against it with short staccato beats.
“Where are we going?” Austin asked.
They reached a staircase that wound down to a room below. She put one hand on the black wrought-iron rail and turned to smile at him. “I’m taking you to kind of a club within the club. It’s called the Cloister.”
He followed her down the narrow winding steps until they stepped off onto a beautiful, well-polished oaken floor.
Austin looked around the room and stifled the urge to whistle. They stood in a long ballroom with an arched ceiling. Pillars of marble supported buttresses that held up the tall ceiling. Each pillar was carved with an ornate figurehead; the faces of monks and nuns and other figures peered down upon the room from the bottom of the ceiling arch. They looked down upon the room as if sneering or smirking at the inhabitants.
And there were quite a few people in the room. One dark wood wall hosted the richly polished wood of a bar, and a man dressed in black moved back and forth behind it, juggling martini shakers and pint glasses and a bottle opener with the fluid ease of a longtime professional. Several people sat nodding and gesticulating around the bar, though the room itself seemed strangely quiet outside of the clinks of glasses and ice. There were also low tables with cushioned lounge chairs set at intervals between the pillars. Regina spotted one that was open and beelined toward a small loveseat with a round wagon-wheel table in front of it. Two empty leather chairs faced the small couch on the other side of the low table.
“Do you mind sitting here?” she asked softly. “These are almost never open.”
“Sure,” he agreed, and a moment later he eased his back into some of the most luxuriously soft leather he had ever felt.
“Oh my God, that’s amazing,” he breathed, shifting his back and shoulders against the supple leather.
As if on cue, a nun in a long black habit and white guimpe across her shoulders and chest approached them from a nearby pillar.
“Uh-oh,” Regina said softly. There was humor in her tone. “You took the name of God in vain. You shouldn’t do that in here.”
The sister stepped up to the table in front of them with her hands pressed together in front of her chest in the universal sign of prayer. She didn’t say a word, but shook her head slowly, and bowed slightly. Then she raised her arms to the air, as if reaching out to God himself.
That was when Austin realized that the black of her habit was actually not the appropriate material of a habit at all. It wasn’t the stern cloth of any nun he had ever seen. It was sheer silk that completely showed off the fact that this ‘sister’ was not wearing any other clothing underneath. When she raised her arms, the white drape of the guimpe shifted up and Austin could see the globes of the woman’s breasts pushing through the almost transparent black beneath. Her nipples were obvious against the sheer fabric, as was the dark cleft of her sex.
A moment later she brought her hands back down in a symbol of prayer that once again hid her chest, and she walked away.
“What was that?” Austin asked, turning to Regina.
She put a finger to his lips and pulled it down until his lower lip curled over to expose the tender pink skin normally inside his mouth. “Shhh,” she said. “In the Cloister the golden rule is silence.”
“She was not a nun,” he whispered.
“Who are you to say?” Regina said softly. “A sister is simply a member of a religious community who has taken vows. Some of chastity, some of obedience. What do you know of her vows?”
“Nuns don’t walk around half-naked,” he insisted.
“Maybe not Catholic ones, but I can assure you that Catholicism is not her sect.”
“So then what kind of nun is she?” he asked.
Regina put her fingers on his lips once more. “Just watch,” she suggested. “Listen. Enjoy.”
Austin was perplexed but held his tongue. After the shock of seeing a half-naked nun had worn off, the oddity of being shown this bizarre place by his ‘girlfriend’ set in. He’d realized from the start that Regina was different to any girl he’d ever known. She was earthy in a hippy-esque way; she wore clothes that reminded him of old sixties movies and always seemed to take things in stride. But she wasn’t lackadaisical and slow, like a throwback flower child who smoked pot all the time. She was sharp, keen-witted and he often had a time keeping up with her. She referred to esoteric things in everyday conversation as if they were normal, and sometimes he needed to ask what she was even talking about. Sometimes he was too embarrassed to ask. Regina could run rings around him, and that was not something he was used to at all. She was an exotic mystery that he was enjoying unraveling more with every day.
She’d proven a highly erotic and sensual partner in bed over the past week, which was a welcome surprise. But he hadn’t expected her to bring him to a club where people were being whipped, hung from the ceiling in cages and walked around in outfits that would get them arrested on the street. It was a lot to take in.
A moment later the ‘nun’ came back with two menus that had been hand-drawn on parchment and fastened with corner holders to a darkly stained piece of polished wood. Regina nodded when the menu was presented to her but said nothing. Austin followed her lead and found himself strangely embarrassed to meet the nun’s eyes. But if he looked lower, he was staring at her chest. He could feel his face flushing slightly, and quickly bent to stare at the menu.
The drink names read like a list of witch’s potions:
Selene’s Spell
Lavender-infused Three Women Vodka with seven drops of aged blood orange aired for power beneath the light of the last full moon. Sensual and serene.
Arcane Wisdom
Fifteen-year Four Roses Bourbon buried beneath a crypt in Resurrection Cemetery for thirty-one days with a stalk of rare vermillion sage and poured over grave mint leaves and ice. Sip the promise of transcendence.
Red Tide
Three Women Vodka aged with Samsara rose petals and shaken with crushed raspberries and three drops of Sister Evangeline Lu
st Oil and one splash Coitus Burgundy wine. Prepare to be naked.
Spirit Unbridled
Three Women Gin poured over midnight-picked rosemary and Mediterranean olives anointed by the flower of a virgin and aged beneath a whore’s pillow for three nights. Open your mind to all.
Austin read the menu with increasing disbelief. Coitus wine? Bourbon aged in a crypt? Olives slept on by a whore? What the hell was this shit? He had to admit they did keep with the theme, but he didn’t buy the exotic ingredients one bit.
He leaned over to Regina and whispered, “No Miller Lite here, huh?”
She snorted and shook her head. But then she pointed to a listing on the right side of the menu that held the beer-related offerings.
Seminal Milk
Cask-conditioned Irish stout brewed with vanilla beans used in the Dark Night Festival and semen spilled on the Venus Altar. Drink the milk of life.
Passion Mead
Ancient mead imbued with the harvest of the Secret Procession and blessed by the Bishop and Irreverent Mother. Your vision may steam.
Bitter Love
Mosaic Hops steeped in the gold of the Cloister Servants during the Maypole Celebration. Steam brewed for clarity. Earthy, bitter and bright at the same time. See with the focus of lust.
Blood Wine
Grapes imported from the secret vineyard of the original Cloister. Crushed by the bodies of the Sisterhood. Sweetened by the innocence of the November Girl. Soured by the sins of the Head Master. Your heart will pound.
Austin grimaced as he read the descriptions. “They don’t really put cum in the stout, do they?” he whispered. “Or real blood in the wine?”
Regina nodded. “Just a small amount, to bring the magic of the ceremonies into the brewing. The alcohol kills the flavor. The Seminal Milk is really sweet.”
“You’ve tried these?”
She grinned. “I’ve helped make some of them.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but then the nun was back. She said nothing but raised her eyebrows. Regina smiled and pointed at something on the menu and then the nun turned her gaze to him. He was torn between sticking with hard liquor to kill any of the funkiness that they supposedly added to the drinks here and trying a beer. But there was no way he was drinking anything with ‘man’s milk’ in it, so instead of the stout, he pointed to the Bitter Love. He was a hops guy anyway, and bitter was always good.
When the nun walked away, Regina turned toward him and put one hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s a lot to take in the first time,” she whispered. “But just relax. It’s meant to take your mind off the outside. This is a secret place, with secret rituals. When you are here…release yourself and enjoy the freedom of being here. There is no other place right now.”
She leaned in to kiss him, and her lips were warm. Wet. Her hand pressed down on the zipper of his jeans and he realized that he had the start of an erection…which she was only making worse.
“Drink and let go,” she whispered in his ear before biting at the lobe. “That’s all I ask you to do tonight. Don’t judge and don’t hold back. Just do what you feel.”
Their drinks arrived; the nun carried them on a small silver carrier in the shape of an X. Its four short arms each had a round indentation for a glass. Austin couldn’t help but think that it would be too easy to overbalance the thing and end up with glass on the floor, but he tried to follow Regina’s advice and put his brain on hold.
The beer was cool and cloudy – in the dark shadows of the bar it still seemed bright gold in color, but like many small-batch beers, it was clouded with sediment.
Regina’s drink came in a large snifter. It was almost electric pink, but with a tinge of orange too. She lifted a silver spear out of the glass and opened her mouth to insert the maraschino cherry that was speared at the end of it. She held it between her teeth for a moment, before biting down to chew it with a smile.
When she put the spear back in the glass, he noticed that the top part was shaped like a cross, with the faint outline of a figure on it. The head of the tiny figure faced down, toward the glass.
“What are you drinking?” he asked.
“Globes of Hell,” she said. “It’s got melon and a special kind of citrus liqueur in it. Want to try it?”
“No bodily fluids?” he asked.
“Actually, it has the milk of a mother and the spunk of a father to represent the circle of life. The fruit of human globes, you know!”
Austin wrinkled his face and shook his head. “I’ll stick with beer,” he said, and swallowed a mouthful. It was surprisingly good, with the tropical notes of the Mosaic hops layered just right over the malty back base. There was a heaviness about it, and a spike of bitter that sat perfectly in the back of the throat. His mouth buzzed with the tang of the ale as it emptied. He could drink a few of these.
“You like it?” she whispered.
He nodded. “And no blood or semen or anything.”
She shook her head. “Just a sprinkle of virgin golden showers.”
His eyes shot wide.
“Don’t think, just drink,” she said. “It will make you horny. Everything in this room is about letting yourself…release.”
Austin nodded as if he understood. But then he carefully set the glass down on a black coaster on the low table in front of them.
* * *
The low chime of a bell made him look up. All of the heads at the bar had turned to stare down the long corridor of arches toward the end of the room. Austin followed their gaze to see a line of nuns gathering to the left of the pinnacle of the arches. To the right, facing the line of nuns, a group of men wearing priest garb gathered. After what he’d seen of the ‘nuns’, he was sure that they were not ordained in the ministry. The low chime echoed through the room again, but this time, he could see the source.
A small man in a black cowl stood at the center of the corridor holding a metal tube out before him. He tapped it with a mallet, and again the sound rang out. But this time, the first two members of the lines of nuns and priests answered the call. It looked like a holy wedding procession, Austin thought, as a nun and priest walked slowly to meet in the middle of the aisle. They stood face to face, and then the nun knelt, to press and hold her face to the priest’s crotch. When she stood, her partner knelt and returned the votive. Then he rose, they locked arms and walked to the front of an altar.
The chime rang again, and the next two members of the nun and priest line repeated the slightly obscene ritual, before taking their place, arm in arm, at the altar. The ritual repeated five more times, until the lines were empty. Then the bell clanged loud and long, and the heads in the room suddenly all looked backward, away from the altar toward Austin. He followed their lead and looked. A new couple stood waiting at the start of the room. A man clearly garbed to mimic a bishop, draped in stunning white silk with a ruby-studded cassock, a tall pointed white hat, and holding a shepherd’s hook that ended in a cross, had begun to walk down the aisle. At his side was a nun in black silk, with a tall, ornate headdress denoting some higher office, perhaps mother superior. She wore hundreds of Rosary beads in loops around her neck, and their crosses dangled before the nearly exposed delta of her sex. The black of her habit was all silk, and all translucent. The shadows of her nipples beneath the beads, and her pubic hair beneath the crosses, were visible as she stepped closer to Austin. He realized, with a shock, that it wasn’t simply the nun’s garb that was almost transparent.
The bishop’s white garb was also made of silk. As the cassock moved, the man’s penis and testicles could be seen dangling and shifting between his legs as he walked and the low candles on the adjoining tables flickered and illuminated the couple in passing.
When the head couple passed, the people at the tables nearby stood, and began to follow the obscene bishop and mother superior down the aisle.
&nbs
p; Regina gripped Austin’s hand and pulled him to his feet. They joined the procession and took up a position standing around the perimeter of the altar with the rest of the patrons of the Cloister.
The bell sounded again, and all of the priests dropped to their knees before their partners. Behind the altar, the bishop lifted the veil and headdress from the mother superior and set it on a table to the side. Then he unbuttoned the back of her habit, and the silk slid to the floor, leaving her naked except for the Rosary beads around her neck.
She undressed him next, setting his bishop’s hat next to her own ceremonial headdress on the side table. The naked bishop put his hands around her waist and lifted her so that she could lie back on the altar. With the cross at the end of his staff, he traced a blessing, or a spell, upon her body. He ceremonially touched her head and breasts and sex with the wooden cross, and then set it in a floor holder nearby and before ascending three stone steps positioned beside the altar to join her on the wooden platform. His sex no longer dangled uselessly; he was clearly ready for consummation.
Austin looked away from the altar and realized that the rest of the nuns and priests had also eschewed their clothes. As the bishop lay down upon the mother superior, all of the nuns suddenly dropped to their knees and took their partners by the hips. Holy shit, he thought. Regina had brought him to a sacrilegious live sex show?
Around the altar, a group of hooded, monk-like figures suddenly appeared. They walked in from either side of the room and bent down to light small black pots that encircled the altar. In moments, the heavy white smoke of incense rose in a cloud around the sexual exhibitionists. The black hooded figures then formed a line and locked arms, blocking the view of the fellating nuns and copulating bishop. For the first time since Austin had entered the room, there was sound; the monks began to raise their voices in a low, moaning melody. The sound grew in volume as the fleshy sounds from the altar also became more noticeable. The mother superior was now making fast squeaking noises as the bishop drove her to public orgasm, and there were other wet sounds emanating from the couples around the altar.