by Primula Bond
‘You wanna know? They got my bra off,’ Olivia blurted out. ‘They said it was to get the dress made. The Princesses were all there, puffing away. Then Regina got out her measuring tape and held it round my tits and accidentally on purpose brushed over my nipples. They went all hard, you know, and then Regina kind of flicked them and it was – oh, God –’
‘Regina was stroking and pinching Olivia’s nipples, she wasn’t fitting the dress at all, and the other girls were joining in. It was just an excuse for a massive lezzie grope!’ Suzanne gurgled naughtily. ‘All stroking Olivia, smearing lipstick on her, spraying her hair, touching her all over, as if she was some kind of pet.’
‘If you’d been listening, instead of gawping, Suzanne,’ Olivia said, lighting up one of Regina’s Marlboros, ‘you’d have heard Regina say that she was going to model her dressmaking dummies on my body when she becomes an haute couture designer.’
‘Whatever. She had the tape tight round Livvie’s tits like a bandage, and they, like, bulged out over the top. They’re huge, did any of you know? And Regina was squeezing, not measuring at all, and Olivia’s nipples popped out like nuts, and Regina looked ready to take a good lick and then you’ll never believe this –’
Everyone held their breath, waiting for what Suzanne would say next. Olivia had no strength to stop her. She sucked smoke into her lungs, wished she had a hairbrush, shampoo bottle, anything to stick into the wetness springing between her legs.
‘I didn’t know where to look. I wanted to get back out, but the door was stuck.’ Suzanne dropped her voice to a husky whisper. ‘Regina said to Livvie, this is what Brazilian boys do, and then she shoved her hand down there, between Livvie’s legs! Christ! Salome was behind Livvie, rubbing the satin material between her legs, all three of them touching and feeling her and fondling each other, and Mimi was over on the window sill just watching, touching herself, and moaning –’
‘All right, all right, yes, who cares, yes, Regina Sanchez was touching my fanny, and then Salome kissed me, too, licked my mouth as if it was pastry, all those sensations, just like this, come on, you can watch me, oh God!’ Olivia moaned, rubbing faster and harder between her legs in the shadows. ‘Go on, Suzanne, tell them more –’
But there was silence. And then a rap on the door.
‘Olivia Preston? Are you smoking in there?’
‘Fuck!’ Everyone squealed in unison and scrambled to their feet. ‘Sister Benedicta!’
‘So, spill, Livvie. Are you a virgin?’ Chloe hissed into her ear as they all froze in chaotic attitudes, unable to escape as the door creaked open.
What did it matter if Sister Benedicta caught them? They were all leaving in a week. Olivia felt weak as a kitten. She licked her aniseed-flavoured lips.
‘Only if fingers count.’
‘I thought better of you, Olivia. Drinking, smoking, lying around half-naked like some sort of tart,’ Sister Benedicta chided, prowling the room after she’d booted the others out. ‘Head girls are supposed to be infallible!’
‘Only the Pope,’ Olivia groaned, and was sick in the basin.
When she’d finished, and brushed her teeth, Sister Benedicta tucked her in to bed.
‘Please just give me a couple of Hail Mary’s, Sister, and keep it between ourselves?’ Olivia shivered. ‘I know I’ve been a naughty girl.’
Sister Benedicta stroked her forehead. Her fingers were like gossamer. She was so close Olivia could smell shortbread on her breath and see the piercing in her ear lobe where once as a lovely carefree woman she’d worn earrings.
‘It’s priests who dole out the penances, Olivia, not nuns,’ she laughed softly, making the candle flame shiver. ‘But you realise I’ll have to come up with some kind of punishment.’
Rumour had it that Sister Benedicta was a dancer in Paris in her previous life. She had the faintest tinge of a French accent. She held herself beautifully and when she walked her hidden hips flicked restlessly at her skirts with a ballerina’s reined-in tautness. But just then she was kneeling by Olivia’s bed as if it was she who was going to confess. In the candlelight her eyes were a fathomless navy blue.
‘Come on, Sister. No need to punish me. I’ll be gone next week. You can forget all about me.’
The nun’s hand paused on Olivia’s forehead. ‘How can I forget you?’ Sister Benedicta bent lower over her face. ‘I’ve watched you in the last two years, Olivia. All your talents, your singing, your painting. Watched you blossom. Those wicked Princesses have made a real woman of you.’
‘You think, Sister?’
Sister Benedicta nodded and looked down, just like the saints that lined the cloisters downstairs. She had the most amazing long eyelashes. ‘I don’t trust them, particularly Regina Sanchez. She’s a beautiful witch. She’s the very devil, put in this convent to try us all. I know she’s touched you, Livvie. Seduced you. Led you down that forbidden path.’
Olivia felt herself go red. She may have been eighteen, but she could still blush scarlet like a kid. The heat prickled right up her legs. Right into her armpits.
‘How do you know, Sister, about Regina? Are you all-seeing, like God?’
‘Not like God. I may wear a veil, cherie, but I’m still a woman with eyes, and ears, and all the other senses – anyway, I know what went on in that room. I know Regina likes sex with girls.’ Sister Benedicta paused, in that infinite, calm way that the truest nuns have, as if there’s all the time in the world, no rush, no embarrassment, while all her shocking words sank in. She’d said sex. And cherie.
‘Sister, will I be punished for that, too?’
‘For liking girls? Maybe. Yes. It’s all temptation.’ The nun pressed a finger on her mouth. ‘But I, too, was very nearly swayed.’
‘She tried it on you? The bitch!’ Olivia sat up. ‘But, Sister, how did you resist her? She’s so gorgeous! She’s so strong, and voluptuous, she has this incredible smell –’
‘Yes. Of knickers. And overblown roses.’ Sister Benedicta coughed, and smoothed Olivia’s hair away from her face, hooked her fingers behind her ears, down her neck. ‘You smell of jam doughnuts, Livvie. Biro ink. And absinthe.’
‘But what stopped you? Your faith, I suppose.’
Sister Benedicta stopped stroking Livvie’s hair as if she’d heard something. The silence in the room was suddenly heavy, as if there was a crowd listening.
‘She just didn’t do it for me, Livvie.’ She leaned forward, and kissed the curve of Olivia’s cheek, just pecking at the corner of her mouth, pressing it slightly open. She left the faintest trace of dampness.
‘Do that again, Sister,’ Olivia breathed, lying very still. Her heart was pounding through the silky dressing gown, banging through the sheet the nun had pulled up over her chest. ‘Kiss me again.’
Sister Benedicta paused, in that endless way, lips still pressed near Livvie’s mouth. There was a flash in her eye. A totally unholy flash of danger.
But then she stood up in one smooth movement. ‘In the old days, young lady, the smoking, the drinking, the messing about with Regina, would have earned you a dozen lashes and some serious prostration.’
‘Christ! You ever been lashed, Sister?’
‘Oh, yes. Once. They used to save severe penances like that for the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Immaculata.’ Sister Benedicta lifted her hands to her mouth as if to hush it, but a smile was playing round her lips. ‘They caught me having impure thoughts. When I was a novice. Doing impure things, actually. Touching myself. Just as you are touching yourself now.’
‘Why are you smiling?’ Olivia sat up straighter, but she kept her hands between her thighs. ‘What did it feel like? The lashing? Did it hurt?’
‘Like the fires of hell, Livvie. Literally. It’s supposed to cleanse us of our sins. They make you lie on your face, on the floor of the chapel, spread your arms out, you’re only in your slip, because you wouldn’t feel the pain so keenly wearing this thick habit, and then they whip you.’
Ol
ivia touched Sister Benedicta’s arm. ‘But why are you smiling? Is it because you felt clean then, and forgiven?’
‘Yes, spiritually, Livvie, but also, oh God forgive me, I shouldn’t be saying this, but–’ Sister Benedicta gave an incredibly throaty laugh and threw her arms out. ‘It’s because it felt fantastic! I never knew euphoria could be so physical! Pain and punishment blowing your mind like that! Like being high on drugs! The first lash, oh, that’s painful, and shocking, and you try not to jump and scream and you are humiliated and stupid in front of all those people and Mother Superior with her whip, but then the heat slices right through your skin, makes you feel alive, and then the next one burns more, because it’s smacking down on the sore patch, but the sensation is just exhilarating! You feel elated, brave, tingling all over, burning, stinging, it’s all so physical when for years you’ve been forbidden – and then you’re going mad because now you can’t wait for the next thrashing, as if you’re begging for the pain, it’s creeping right inside you, you even shout please please please, though you’re not allowed to utter a sound, and they think it’s because you’re so sorry for your wickedness, and while you’re lying there prostrate on the floor and waiting there’s this great ball of pleasure stacking up, like a bonfire, deep inside you, and when at last that whip hits you it’s pure ecstasy, maybe that’s what the saints felt, but the heat shears right up you, into your, you know, up inside your–’
‘Your cunt?’
They both gasped and clapped their hands over their mouths, but shook with the hilarious wickedness of it.
‘Yes. If you must. Up there. My pure little – pocket. It’s like hot fingers, pokers maybe, prodding up inside you, opening you up, and then the pain and heat explode like fireworks, I wonder if that’s the best way to describe it? It was the first time, really the only time, I ever had an orgasm, Olivia. Imagine that. Not with a man. Not with another woman. A whip. A punishment. That’s all the pleasure I’ve ever known.’
There was that thick silence in the room again, except for their frantic, fast breathing. Olivia slid off the bed, shaking. ‘Show me, Sister –’
The big wooden door downstairs banged again, and other footsteps could be heard stepping along the cloister downstairs. The spell was broken.
‘Enough, Olivia. Back to this night’s disgraceful behaviour!’ Sister Benedicta jerked her head up. She swept her arm dramatically round Olivia’s room. The bottles. The ash trays. The discarded slippers. ‘I can’t let this go.’
‘So punish me, Sister.’ Olivia took Sister Benedicta’s hand and kissed the pale skin. ‘Prostration. Flagellation –’
‘They don’t do that any more. But you can stay back after the end of term. Report to me in the rose garden on the first day of the holidays for some hard labour.’ She pulled her hand away, but gently, and glided out of the door. Again, that fresh, sweet smell of shortbread and linen starch.
‘I’ll do anything, Sister. To please you.’
Out in the corridor the nun paused beside a statue of Saint Theresa of Avila, writhing backwards, eyes half closed but cast heavenwards, throat arched as if swallowing something thick, sticky, colourless maybe, like a boy’s spunk, mouth parted in blatant, breathless ecstasy. Sister Benedicta pinched back a smile. ‘Well, you know, Livvie, sucking up will get you everywhere.’
Olivia watched her floating away down the corridor. Her black habit twitched above her invisible dancer’s hips, making the votive candles in their blood-red holders quiver. The veil lifted over her shoulder blades, showing the tiniest glimpse of slender white neck.
But it was Sister Antonia who gave Olivia her orders on the first day. ‘Sister Benedicta is indisposed. She’s praying in her cell. You have one week to clear this and carry all the roses up to make compost at the top of the hill. It’s a crying shame, but they’re building a science block in the holidays.’
It was no fun any more trying to picture Sister Ant being fingered by Mr Soames. Not when everyone else had gone. Not when all she could think about, longed for, was Sister Benedicta. She had to work miserably on her own.
But the third day Sister Benedicta was waiting for her in the rose garden. Olivia’s whole body leapt with a wild, unexpected joy.
‘Sister? Have you been ill?’ She went up to her and touched her arm. The nun flinched. ‘You’re all stiff, and so white – you were so lovely the other night –’
‘Couldn’t let you do this on your own, Livvie. But let’s get to it.’
They toiled with their wheelbarrows in the boiling sun, not speaking. The only sound was the insects fizzing, the buzzing of the blood in their ears, and the occasional tolling of the convent bell far below. And the snapping of the nun’s habit as she disappeared into the cloisters each day without a word.
Finally, at the end of the week, Sister Benedicta dropped her spade and collapsed on the grass at the top of the hill. Here they were way above the bell tower, and could look out over the fields that shielded the convent from prying eyes, and the narrow road that wound through the valley. The only route out of their jail.
‘If I wasn’t going home tomorrow, I’d help you make a new garden up here, Sister!’ Olivia looked at the neat piles of rose bushes, roots still healthy, flowers still blooming. ‘It’s a terrible waste, otherwise.’
Sister Benedicta frantically took off her grey cardigan and rolled up her sleeves. They were both sweating, but at least Olivia only had her netball kit to get dirty. Sister Benedicta was boiling under that horrible habit. There was a flush of sun on her cheeks. She lay back, and closed her eyes, gasping for breath.
‘Speak to me, Sister. All this silence has punished me enough.’ Olivia crawled across the grass. Not a wrinkle on the nun’s lovely face. Her skin was smooth as silk.
‘It’s spooky here in the holidays, isn’t it? So quiet.’ Olivia started to whisper. It was her turn to bend low, stroke the other woman’s face. ‘There’s no shrieking and prancing and bitching. No hockey boots scuffing across the quadrangle. No banging doors, scraps of music. No lessons, no bells, no deadlines.’
Sister Benedicta breathing was easier now. Olivia watched the rise and fall of her shapeless chest.
‘Are you ill, Sister?’
Sister Benedicta’s long eyelashes fluttered and she half opened her eyes. The corner of her mouth lifted. ‘Been fasting, Olivia. To purge myself.’
‘What have you done wrong?’
The sun edged behind the distant row of trees, taking some warmth with it.
‘Impure thoughts, Olivia. Wicked. Evil. And all that flagellation has done no good at all, because here they come again.’
Olivia held her breath. Sister Benedicta’s eyes were wide open now, blue as the night sky, and full of tears. Olivia smoothed her hand over Sister Benedicta’s face, slippery with sweat. Her own body went weak as water. Sister Benedicta didn’t move. They were both panting now. Olivia looked at Sister Benedicta’s mouth, open now. She could see the tip of her tongue resting on her teeth, bubbles of saliva on her pale lips. Feathery strands of hair sticking out of her veil. Chestnut-coloured strands. And Olivia couldn’t stand it.
She took the veil between her fingers, and pulled it off.
‘I want to see your hair, Sister!’
Sister Benedicta flicked away across the grass as if she’d been stung, trying to cover her head. Her auburn-gold hair was hacked about, short, and flattened with sweat. But Olivia grabbed her hands and pulled them away so that everything was exposed to the fresh air.
‘How dare you, Olivia!’
But all Sister Benedicta’s customary calmness was surging in to her. She pushed the nun back down on the grass, trapping her hands up above her head, and crouched over her.
‘No. How dare you, Sister. How dare you hide from the world like this. From me. From God, even! Did you know that your face is heart-shaped? And your eyes are huge? And how without that stupid veil you look young, nearly my age? You’re so beautiful, Sister. You kissed me before. Is that why y
ou’ve been enclosed in your cell?’
The nun’s dark blue eyes flickered, and there was that flash again. The snake bite of temptation. She let out a long, harsh breath, as if it was her last. They stopped wrestling, and Sister Benedicta went very still. Now Olivia could sense the nun’s body underneath her. But she could see nothing. Not the curve of her breasts. Not the swell of her bottom. She could feel nothing under that stiff habit.
Olivia felt tight like a violin string. Bones and skin vibrating like flies’ wings. Everything inside her was loosening. But although she was the younger one, she had to be careful. She rested her mouth on Sister Benedicta’s, softly, and pressed a little, waiting for her to push her off or screech, but still she lay there quietly.
‘Are you a virgin, Sister?’
‘Cecille. That’s my name from my life before.’
Olivia went dizzy, as if she’d been slapped. ‘Oh, my God, Sister! You’ve told me your real name!’
‘My previous name. Because you’re so beautiful, and God help me, but I love you.’
Sister Benedicta pulled Olivia’s head down, crushed her mouth, opened her lips softly, as if she was breathing her in. That day she smelt of mints. Olivia wobbled, unable to lean any longer on her hands, and she rolled onto her side, so that they were face to face, arms tight around each other, Olivia’s bare scratched legs tangled with the nun’s heavy skirt, kicking between her woollen stockings, and now they were kissing each other, Sister Benedicta’s tongue pushing into Olivia’s mouth, exploring and tasting, and the excitement was like being drunk. They couldn’t stop.
Sister Benedicta’s cool white hands were already up under Olivia’s sports shirt, stroking up her hot skin, under her bra strap, pressing her breasts, but Olivia couldn’t feel any part of Sister Benedicta’s body. As they sucked on each other’s tongues she fumbled with her habit but all she found was endless buttons and folds and hooks and swathes of material, and she started to rip at it.
‘Stop, my little cherie, stop. Don’t rip it!’ Sister Benedicta batted her away. ‘I can’t go back into the convent naked!’