She rubbed her eyes and took stock of where she was. She was kneeling alone, near to the altar. Looking down, she saw that she was still dressed in a nun’s habit, but of a finer, smoother fabric that said much about the Abbey’s new-found wealth. She looked up and saw the great east window restored to its full glory: a riot of exquisite stained glass. The morning sunlight was flooding through the glass, casting pools of green and blue and red on the cool tiled floor. The faint scent of incense hung on the air.
‘I am a penitent,’ Mara told herself. ‘I am here to do penance for my offences against decency and morality.’
But what crime had she committed? What had she done to offend against the honour of her religious house? She continued to kneel there in silence, afraid to get up and leave, and somehow sure that very shortly something would happen to show her what to do.
The door at the west end of the church swung open, creaking slightly on its heavy iron hinges. The sound echoed through the church, joining the staccato tap-tap of sandalled feet on the tiled floor.
The footsteps came nearer, but Mara dared not look behind her She wondered who this could be. Was it some other nun, come to give her a message perhaps, or to tell her that her penance was at an end? She hardly dared hope, and the breath caught in her throat as the footsteps came to a halt, just feet behind her.
She could hear breathing, rather quicker and noisier than normal, as though the person were out of breath. Or excited by something.
The voice was as cold as ice, cutting through the chill air like a blade through hard-packed snow. Cold, yet something in its timbre spoke to Mara of a dark and forbidden sensuality, of some horrible perversion marrying pleasure and pain.
‘Do you know why you are here?’
Mara was astonished to hear herself reply, in a hushed voice that trembled with terror:
‘I have sinned.’
‘And what sin have you committed?’
‘I . . . I dare not tell.’ She craned her head sideways in an attempt to see her persecutor, but he admonished her:
‘Look before you and do not attempt to look at me. Now speak, I command you.’
‘I . . . I have committed the sin of self-pleasure.’
‘Describe to me what you did.’
‘In my cell, last night . . . I . . . touched myself to give myself pleasure.’
The voice had become quieter now, but far more menacing:
‘I told you to describe what you did. Exactly what you did. Now relate all the events to me, in detail, or it will be the worse for you, child.’
The tide of words poured out of her, seemingly without any intervention on her part:
‘It was late at night, after Compline, and I was very tired, but I could not sleep. I was troubled by . . . unclean thoughts. Thoughts of the handsome young merchant who stayed overnight in the Abbey guest house a few nights ago.’ She hesitated, afraid to go on.
‘Proceed.’
‘I lay down on my bed and tried to sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes I saw this same young man. I was troubled with what I had seen that night when I had taken up the hot water for his bath. He was . . . unclothed . . . and I had never before seen such beauty, such perfection of form.
‘At first, he did not realise that I was standing there, in the doorway, and I was able to admire the roundness of his buttocks, his firm young thighs, his muscular back and shoulders; the downy golden hairs on the back of his slender neck. I felt such strange stirrings in my belly, at the tips of my breasts.
‘Then he turned round and saw me. I was afraid that he would be angry with me for looking at him, but he smiled and beckoned me towards him.
‘He was so beautiful, so manly. I had never seen a naked man before. The fragrance of sweat upon him made me feel strangely intoxicated, put a new kind of hunger into my belly. And his manhood was so perfect and so responsive. He bid me take it into my hand and stroke it, like a wounded bird cradled in my palm. And lo! The wounded bird began to revive, and then to grow!
‘I could hardly believe what I was seeing, feeling. I felt an unbearable desire to take it into my mouth and taste it. The young man saw my desire and bade me kneel before him and reverently take the tribute between my lips and suck at it like a babe at a breast. Oh, how exquisite the flavour, the texture. Little salty tears wept from it on to my tongue. With what wonderment I touched the velvet bag that carried his twin treasures. And at last, a great torrent poured forth into my mouth, almost choking me as I struggled to swallow it.
‘I was in utter confusion – convinced that I had done wrong and yet aflame with a desire I had never experienced before. The tips of my breasts had grown hard and were pressing insistently against the rough material of my shift, and my loins felt as though they were on fire – begging some touch or caress which my own inexpert fingers were too innocent to provide.
‘With another sweet smile, the youth hoisted the hem of my robe and – despite my blushes and protestations – silenced me with a kiss in my most intimate place. He then began to caress me there, probing my maiden intimacy with incautious and insistent fingers. I bit my hand to stifle my cries of pleasure as his caresses grew bolder still, and I felt a rush of warm liquid trickling down my thighs as he massaged a curious little button which seemed to have sprung up from nowhere.
‘I felt sure that something wonderful was about to happen to me – a great tide of pleasure was building up within me – when there was a noise on the stairs and I heard the Almoner’s voice calling to me. I pulled abruptly away from the young man, though every fibre of my being cried out for me to stay and discover the secrets of womanhood which he wished to reveal to me. And I ran away from him, back down the stairs to the refectory, where the Almoner was waiting to scold me for my tardiness, the taste of the young merchant’s seed reminding me of the secret pleasures I had been forced to abandon: a second novitiate which, perhaps, I was never to undergo.
‘I lay there on my bed last night, and I simply could not forget the young man and his wonderful caresses, his beautiful, perfect body with its smooth skin; and the marvellous flower-stalk, blossoming miraculously out of a thicket of curly brown hair.
‘My excitement began to return: that same excitement which he had evoked in me, only two nights before. I unfastened the tapes which held my shift modestly together at the neck, and my fingers strayed, unbidden, to my hardening nipples. I touched them tremblingly, cautiously, half-afraid of what would happen to me, what it would feel like. For never before had I ever stroked myself in such a lewd and shameless way. Why, I half believed I would be struck down where I lay for such wanton behaviour.
‘The touch of my unpractised fingers on my hardened buds electrified me, awoke in me the sudden understanding of what I had been denied in entering the Abbey. For I was dedicated as an oblate to this house when I was no more than a tiny child, and it is many years since I have seen the world beyond its walls. And I know that I am a well-formed young woman, with a young woman’s desires, though they have long been buried deep within me. The searing pleasure of caressing my own nipples maddened me, banished all self-restraint, corrupted me utterly and damned me to self-pleasure.
‘I abandoned myself to my own inexpert caresses, learning little by little how to procure the most intense sensations. My nipples were as hard as little stones now, and I began to imagine the mouth of that young, smiling merchant, sucking and nibbling away at my breasts. I was breathing heavily and I could feel wetness from between my thighs, beginning to soak into my shift.
‘Trembling and full of guilt, I reached down and pulled my shift up above my waist, so that my loins and thighs were bare to the cold night air. I did not feel or even notice the chill of the night, so transported with guilty delight was I. I scarcely knew what I should do, for all I had to guide me was the memory of that young man’s fingers – probing me, exploring me, working away at me and sapping my will.
‘I ran my fingers through my curls and parted my nether lips. Inside, all was fra
grant moisture and warmth. I searched with my fingertips until at last I found the impudent button, pulsating like the very heart of me beneath my touch. I sighed and began to rub it – at first gently, and then, as I grew bolder, with a ferocious intensity. And all the time I imagined that the young man himself was stroking me, bringing me to undreamed-of pleasures.
‘And I climbed once more towards that elusive summit of joy, desperately stretching out for the pleasure which I had never before tasted. But, just as I began to understand that I was standing on the threshold beyond which there was no going back, the door of my cell opened and there stood our Mother Abbess. Her wrath was terrible. She ordered me to be bathed in freezing water, and then locked me overnight in the punishment cell. And now she has ordained that I must come here, to the chapel, to do due penance.’
The silence seemed unending, unbearable, but she dared not break it with a question or a plea for mercy. Then the voice spoke again, velvet-smooth yet merciless:
‘And penance you must do, my child. Prepare yourself to receive your punishment.’
But nothing had prepared her for what happened next. For the hand which reached out and held her by the shoulder, whilst the cold steel blade ran like lightning from nape to hem of her habit, slashing the fabric and leaving her bare-backed and trembling.
Hot, strong hands pulled roughly at the cut edges of the fabric, tugging them apart, baring more and more of her flesh. Terrified though she was, Mara found it strangely pleasurable. Startled and afraid, she cried out:
‘Please, no! Please stop . . .’
But her entire being screamed silently for the punishment to go on, and on, and never end. Already she was naked, yet she wished with all her heart that she could peel off even more and deeper layers of herself, so that she could be more naked still. Her rebel body would not accept that punishment must not bring pleasure, and she realised that her insolent nipples were even now stiffening – and not merely with the cold.
The girl whom Mara had become knelt timorously yet with a growing excitement at the foot of the altar steps – terrified lest she was committing some terrible profanity, yet all the time telling herself: ‘How can this be wrong? I cannot see this man’s face, but he must surely be the Father Confessor . . .’
‘Prepare to feel the weight of your sins, child,’ hissed the voice she was beginning to desire as much as she dreaded it.
The first stroke caught her unawares and sent her reeling forwards against the chill stone of the altar steps, breathless and tearful with the shock and the pain. The flesh of her back and buttocks seemed to sting and burn in a thousand different places, and she guessed that this unseen tormentor was punishing her waywardness with strokes of the discipline: that wicked cat-o’-nine-tails, whose pitiless thongs were each tipped with a tiny ball of lead shot. A device made to deliver the maximum suffering with the minimum of effort. But this particular exponent seemed determined to give it his all.
She clambered back on to her knees but the lash fell again, and Mara cried out with the sudden agony of it: it felt as though a thousand red-hot needles were sinking into her flesh at precisely the same moment. A third stroke threw her forward again, and this time she did not have the strength to haul herself up on to her knees. She lay sprawled on the steps, flesh mortified both by the lash at her back and by the cold, sharp edges of the stone steps, biting into the soft and delicate flesh of her belly and breasts.
The unseen hand continued to flog her for a long time, raining stroke upon stroke on her poor back, and Mara sobbed uncontrollably on to the unresponsive stones, her fists clenching and unclenching with each agonising stroke.
Then her tormentor began to direct his efforts more specifically, concentrating on her luscious ripe backside. The first strokes raised red weals on the soft flesh, and a rain of blows followed, breaking the skin and causing a hot trickle of blood to run into the furrow between her buttocks, and down the inside of her thighs.
Strange to tell, the excruciating pain began to be transformed into a very different feeling. A curious warmth began to mingle with the searing agony of each stroke of the discipline: a warmth which began in her backside, but which rapidly spread to other parts of her nubile young body. This girl was a virgin, but a virgin ripe for defilement: trapped within her body, Mara sensed the girl’s amazed excitement as, little by little, the pain of the punishment began to transmute into the pleasure of anticipation.
The warmth was in the girl’s belly now, moving deliciously downwards into her cunt; and the girl was twisting and turning under the lash, writhing like a lascivious serpent in the dust of its own baseness. Another warm fluid was trickling down her thighs now: a clear, fragrant fluid from the depths of her womanhood, honey from the honeypot, milk for the cat to lap up as it explored her with its many sharp-barbed tongues.
‘Repent!’ cried her torturer. ‘Repent your wickedness and surrender yourself utterly to the punishment!’
‘I repent, I repent!’ sobbed this girl whom Mara had become, desperately seeking both to escape the wicked pain of the lash and to offer herself up to it more completely. She realised with a horrified start that she was actually thrusting her backside out towards the lash, as though begging for more of its unremitting punishment, welcoming each and every stroke as it bit into her flesh. She was groaning and sighing now, and her breathing was harsh and quickening.
Suddenly, the pain stopped. He had finished beating her. Perhaps he was exhausted . . . or maybe he had other plans for her, other punishments to inflict upon her? Mara’s mind was full of a heady mixture of terror and excitement, now re-experiencing – through the body of this wayward novice – the unbearable suspense of the virgin longing for the first intimate touch, the first excursion into her womanhood.
‘Now, now is the time of your atonement,’ hissed the tormentor’s voice, very close to her ear. Mara could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck, and realised that he was very close behind her indeed – so close that he was virtually on top of her.
He began to caress her buttocks with the flat of his hand. The ungentle pressure of his hot palm on her lacerated flesh made her wince with pain, but the heat radiating into her added to the warmth already in her belly, and she twisted and turned even more under the sway of an emotion she did not yet recognise as lust.
His hand worked its way into the crease between her buttocks, and almost instinctively Mara began to part her thighs to allow the intruder to pass. It slipped between her bum-cheeks, lingering for a while on the puckered rosebud of her arsehole. She groaned as he worked the tip of one finger inside her forbidden palace, brutally destroying all her resistance. So this was atonement: the complete surrender of even her most secret places to an unseen stranger; the utter humiliation of her pride through the power of lust . . .
Now his fingers were between her thighs, and she was straining to thrust them wider apart, to urge him further in. He massaged her inner thighs, mingling the blood from her wounded backside with the sticky love-juice from her throbbing, yearning cunt, and she began to murmur ‘Please, please, please . . .’ without really knowing what it was she was begging him to do to her.
Then, still behind her, he grabbed hold of her thighs and knelt down between them. The girl in whose body she was trapped was afraid and confused, but Mara knew what was going to happen next, and wanted it. She heard a rustling as the confessor pulled up his robes, and pulled out his prick; then felt its tip as it nudged eagerly at the girl’s virgin cunt.
He pushed a little. His erect penis was massive, and the girl’s cunt was tiny and the way barred. He pushed harder, and she cried out with pain and distress. A third thrust, and he was inside her at last. Mara felt the stabbing pain as he tore through the girl’s thick hymen and a torrent of virgin blood cascaded down her thighs. She was sobbing now, but her sobs were mingled with the urgent breathing and moaning of a girl who is being initiated into the rites of love.
He fucked her roughly but expertly, and before long th
e girl realised that she was once more climbing the hill that leads to exquisite pleasure. This time, this time she must not be thwarted.
As though reading her thoughts, her tormentor reached around underneath her and began to pinch her nipples hard. The pain was sufficient to bring the girl to the threshold and beyond, and with a great sob of ecstasy she reached her very first orgasm.
A second later, he gave a final thrust and felt his twitching prick discharge its load of sticky semen into the cunt he had just violated. He withdrew immediately, and stood up. At that moment, the girl whom Mara had become took her courage into her hands and turned to see his face.
It was the face of evil: elegant, smiling evil in a monk’s cowl. The face was half shadowed by the full hood, but Mara knew she would never forget those eyes, for as long as she lived. Eyes like burning, fiery coals that reminded her irresistibly of the fires of Hell.
When she came to her senses, she was still clutching the walls of the old Abbey church, but she realised with horror that she was totally naked, and in some pain. Her clothes lay tattered on the grass beside her. They looked as though they had been torn off – maybe even cut off with a knife. Luckily, it was still very early and there was no-one in sight.
There was blood on her back and buttocks, and she winced as she sank to the grass and tried to cover her nakedness, shivering both with the early-morning chill and with the shock of her experience. And what had truly been the nature of that experience? Not a dream, not an hallucination, surely – for she bore the physical marks of her ordeal. Self-inflicted injuries? Surely not. In her heart she knew that it had been no dream, that it had been the most powerful psychic experience she had ever had. A psychic experience which she doubted had been triggered solely by the memories contained in the ancient stones she had touched. A dark suspicion chilled her heart and made her fearful. Fearful of whatever – or whoever – had had sufficient power to manipulate her mind and misuse her body, so adeptly, so cruelly.
If she had ever believed that she had escaped the dark shadow which had been pursuing her for so many weeks, if she had ever managed to convince herself that she had reached a safe haven where evil could not touch her, all her feelings of security now deserted her, and a slow tear trickled down Mara’s cheek.
Kiss of Death (Modern Erotic Classics) Page 12