“The Bible?”
“And the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita and Kant. She’s gone through almost all your collection of religious and philosophical books. She’s read the I Ching and the Kama Sutra. She’s looked into Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Thoreau.”
Une had a very large library of books which she’d collected on her journeys around the world. At one time or another she’d been to almost every country and acquired things from each. Carpets, ornaments, paintings, flowers, compact discs, videos and, of course, books. It wouldn’t be true that Une had read all of them. It wasn’t too easy to read books written in those languages she hadn’t yet learnt. A large part of her collection was of erotic books from different cultures and different times. It was these books, she knew, that Chastity and Twelve used to read. Innocence didn’t read those particular books.
One of Une’s most prized books was a copy of the Bible reinterpreted by a sect which seemed to see sex in everything. The italicised annotations on the margin made constant allusions to sexual activities and proclivities sometimes blatantly referred to, but more often only hinted at. The most interesting part was an Apocrypha of obscene stories concerning Jesus’ fucking of a hundred whores, Moses’ incest in the desert, Eve being fucked by Cain and Abel, and missing chapters from Revelations which featured the sexual humiliations of hell. There was a particular chapter on the sexual tortures of early Christians by the Romans. This, however, was not the copy of the Bible that Innocence was reading.
Une also had a collection of Jacobean and Elizabethan sex plays which were performed surreptitiously and invariably climaxed in on-stage sex in the fifth act. This however was as nothing compared to some decadent Roman reworkings of Euripides, Sophocles and other Greek playwrights. There came a phase in the Roman Empire where authenticity became very important. Although it was possible to persuade slaves to enact the classic plays in authentic blood and gore, a good actor would have a short life. Oedipus could only be blinded once. So an attempt had been made to reinterpret violent action by sexual action, which stretched the physical resources of slaves, allowed sufficient humiliation to satisfy the appetite of the Roman crowd and for those in the audience who liked authenticity. Une’s knowledge of Greek and Latin words for the anatomy and sex had improved remarkably.
It was not a total surprise when Chastity and Innocence announced that they would be moving on. Chastity would look for her black lover and she hoped that the two of them would be reconciled. Innocence, however, had decided to work for Christ and was going to live in a Convent. She was assured that as she had no vagina and had therefore never been penetrated there, she was technically a virgin and could take such orders without any hypocrisy or deceit.
Chastity didn’t seem too pleased by her sister’s decision and had even tried to persuade Une to intercede.
“I can’t bear the thought of having a nun for a sister,” she complained.
Une, however, had a longer view on this. The point is to keep looking. Not to find. To join a holy order is not the last step of a journey of discovery, but possibly just the first step of a new journey towards a particular destination.
“Fuck that!” Chastity snorted uncharitably. “The sooner my sister returns to her senses the better!”
VI
In Which Innocence is embraced by Religious Faith and found in a Convent; the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity are also revealed and Charity finds her natural place; Purity is found in the spiritual home of Faith but lives outside its confines.
The Convent of St Mary Magdalene the Prostitute was situated a long way from any town or city and was surrounded by fields and woods. An ideal place Innocence believed for peaceful meditation and religious contemplation. The order of Magdalenites was fairly ascetic which suited her present mood. She gladly had her hair shaved off although she felt a pang of prideful regret as she viewed her long tresses lying discarded on the floor of the Convent’s Induction room. She gladly accepted the rule that all nuns of the order would have no possessions and were allowed the use of only one item of clothing, which was the long black cotton dress and wimple that all nuns were obliged to wear. Innocence entered into the spirit of worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ with all her heart - gladly viewing her as one of His harem.
The order took the prostitutes whom Christ favoured as an example of how a woman should worship Him. They were to be His holy concubines, His mistresses, who would dedicate themselves to Him and to no other. But in addition they were to set a good example to others and to work in the community where they gave succour to the poor, the lame, the halt and anyone else who felt the need of their comfort.
This was not, of course, necessarily succour of a sexual kind. Although the order used many images of physical love, these were meant only figuratively. It had been stressed that the order did not practise the code of conduct of the Blessed Whores who believed that one should fuck for Christ. That order had the belief that the best way in which to express the love embodied in Christ’s preachings was by physical passion in which one surrendered oneself to all the demands made by supplicants. Innocence’s Mother Superior didn’t completely condemn these nuns: she merely contended that it was a style of worship not practised by the Order of Magdalenites. Indeed she stressed that the virginity the order held in such veneration demonstrated a fundamental difference. It showed that they were saving themselves only for the love of Christ, which would come to them when they met Him in the Hereafter.
Innocence shared her Convent dormitory with three other girls with whom she also prayed and ate meals. Two of the girls, Sisters Hope and Faith, always shared the same bed and frequently made love with each other. After prayers, they would enter the dormitory, take off their robes and then retreat under the bedsheets. Innocence, however, was pleased that their passion seemed curiously innocent and restrained in comparison with that with the women she’d made love with. The two girls clearly loved each other and found no contradiction between saving themselves for Christ - who they claimed to love above all else - and making love to each other. They were, after all, still virgins.
The other girl in the dormitory, Sister Charity, wore her robe as little as possible. She took great pleasure in carrying out most of her tasks without clothes on. This did not, of course, extend to those activities that would be visible to the public, but to those such as prayer, reading, gardening or eating which were spent only with other nuns. She wasn’t the only nun in the Convent who believed that asceticism should spread to an abandonment of clothes and who took pride in displaying the sacrifice of her hair to Christ. Such nuns were, however, in the minority, and were still very strict about adorning robes and covering their heads when entering a Church. The Church, it was felt, is a place divorced of flesh or temptation, although, as the Mother Superior mentioned, this was not the attitude of the Blessed Whores. Their congregations were always held in the nude and masturbation was an integral part of the service.
Innocence wondered if perhaps Sister Charity would not have been better suited to this more promiscuous order as she was always masturbating. She made love to herself rather more frequently than Sisters Hope and Faith did with each other and, it seemed to Innocence, made rather more noise in doing so. She had no embarrassment about discussing this though.
“I make love to Jesus in my mind,” she claimed. “It is He who I imagine I’m making love with. I’m preparing myself for the Rapture when He will enter me and fill me with His Semen.” She also claimed that she had no interest in making love with anyone else but Christ. “I am faithful to Him,” she said openly stroking her clitoris with her finger while licking off some of the fluid with which she’d coated her other finger from her bout of frantic masturbation.
Sister Charity masturbated in front of Innocence and the other two nuns with a promiscuity that seemed bizarre to Innocence, but seemingly didn’t bother Sisters Hope and Faith.
“It’s just her Passion for Christ,” explained Sister Faith with a beatific smile from underneat
h the sheets.
She also tried to encourage the others to join her, but this didn’t appeal to the other nuns so much.
“We have our own way of showing our Love,” explained Sister Hope, squeezing Sister Faith’s hand.
Innocence for quite different reasons didn’t want to either, but this was more difficult to explain to Sister Charity. In fact, Innocence felt she was still living a bit of a lie. On the advice of the Mother Superior, who’d examined her penis with the clinical eye of one who had earlier worked as a masturbator for married couples with potency problems, Sister Innocence had decided to keep her peculiar endowment secret from the other nuns. This sometimes caused Innocence great embarrassment, as she washed apart from the others and took her clothes off so coyly. The other nuns, however, made no comment and probably had no suspicion. After all, many nuns had peculiar habits and a strange fastidiousness. This presumably was not unconnected for many of them with their decision to join an order that renounced pride in the flesh. This did mean, however, that when Innocence was aroused by the masturbatory groans of Sister Charity or the lovemaking of the other two, she had to face down on her bed to hide her rather prominent erection.
The good works that the nuns did was usually of the nature of giving food and clothes to the poor, giving advice and comfort to those who needed it and making honey, wine and pretty mugs at attractive prices which could be sold at the Convent’s shop for a reasonable profit. However, the order also practised marriage counselling for which they were famous. Very few nuns actually took on that role and it was one that only more senior nuns practised. This role was basically to masturbate the men and women in their lovemaking so that they would be able to consummate their love - a task requiring great patience, a deep throat and a flexible tongue. This rôle continued beyond conception to helping the couple make love during pregnancy and both pre-and post-natal counselling. As the Mother Superior said, it was a unique rôle of the order to be able to provide this kind of assistance in bringing comfort coupled with the strictness with which the nuns would abstain from further interference. A rôle not open to the Blessed Whores who would probably cause resentment in those with sexual inhibitions.
The order had several convents spread about the country and the world. As a policy, it did its best to adapt to the environment in which it was based. In the Arctic Convent, this meant that the nuns had to wear rather thicker, fur-lined robes, and gardening duties had to be replaced with work in the fisheries. In the city, the nuns were forbidden to leave the Convent singly because some people, mistaking the nuns for Blessed Whores or even Sodomites for Christ, would approach them in a way that might be appropriate for these other orders but could severely compromise their position within the precepts of the order. Innocence was pleased, however, that her Convent was based in the idyllic countryside where none of these restrictions applied.
She would often go for walks in the woods with an unusually clothed Sister Charity or with other nuns whom she would meet at prayer. She liked to go to the hostels where poor people stayed in tiny rooms with barely a rag between them and dole out the clothes that the nuns made with such love and dedication (knowing full well that many of these clothes were then sold on for a profit for food and these same wretches would be naked again). To a certain extent, she felt quite satisfied with her lot, although she still felt very much an outsider. Just denying her sexuality and her physical attributes did not resolve them.
One of the more prominent Convents of the Order of St Mary Magdalene the Prostitute was based in the district of Brook, famous for its very relaxed attitude towards nudity. In keeping with the order’s general policy of integrating with the community, the nuns in the Convent would themselves be naked if it so suited their disposition - an attitude not at all at odds with the abandonment of worldly goods. It was not at all surprising to Innocence to discover that Sister Charity had applied to transfer to this Convent, and she was delighted for her when her transfer had been accepted. On the evening of the day that the Mother Superior had given her the written confirmation of the transfer and the date on which her appointment would commence, she indulged in a marathon masturbation session which frightened even Innocence.
She flung herself bodily against the wall, thrusting her fingers deep inside her anus and vagina while massaging her breasts and nipples with her other hand and sinuously pushing herself up and down. The noise of her passion made meditation impossible for Innocence, but she didn’t wish to show her gladness for Sister Charity’s happiness in a more demonstrative way.
The following day, the Mother Superior called Innocence to her study and surrounded by her books and the enticing image of the saintly St Mary Magdalene, she explained to Innocence that Sister Charity was to be escorted to the new Convent as it was the policy of the Order that none of the nuns should travel singly. And as Sister Innocence was Sister Charity’s closest friend and companion at the Convent it was only meet and proper that she would be the one who would do so. While at the Convent at Brook, Sister Innocence would of course be expected to continue with her duties of prayer and service to the community although her stay would be necessarily brief. Innocence expressed gratitude that she was honoured with the trust given her, and went away looking forward to her travel afield.
The two nuns travelled to Brook by coach on a journey that took them over hills, through woods and along roads lined by fields of fruit and vegetables where farmworkers tended their crops. There was no border post marking the coach’s entry into the district - or none that Innocence could see - but Sister Charity immediately brought it to her attention that they’d entered.
“Look!” she said, excitedly pointing at a group of people standing idly by the road, one of them with a small motor scooter and the others apparently admiring it.
There was nothing peculiar about the scene at all, Innocence thought at first, until she noticed that none of these characters were wearing any clothes. In fact when she’d noticed that, she soon became aware that more than half the people the coach passed by - even the ones driving cars or bicycles - were totally naked.
“We must be in Brook!” Innocence exclaimed.
The two nuns were not the only ones on the coach to realise this, as many of them divested themselves of their clothes. Perfectly ordinary people who really did not warrant a second glance when they boarded the coach were now sitting absolutely naked and chatting animatedly amongst themselves. Sister Charity herself was dying to unclothe herself but she decided that it was probably best to have disembarked at the Convent before integrating herself more fully into her new community.
The coach eventually drew into a bus station in the middle of the small town of Divin, and the two nuns disembarked into a seething mass of naked bodies. Even Innocence felt very much overdressed in her robes and wimple in this environment, but she was determined to retain her secret for as long as she could. The two nuns asked for directions to the Convent and soon set off by foot along the winding road which led eventually to the imposing but nonetheless welcoming majesty of the Convent which was in what had once been a dilapidated castle. They were soon through the door of the building and taken to Sister Charity’s room which she shared with three other nuns. Sister Innocence was to stay in the same room for the duration of her stay, and a bed was brought in for her benefit.
Innocence soon found that the policy of casual nudity was followed within the walls of the Convent as much as it was outside. Indeed the only way in which the nuns could be recognised as such was by their shaved heads and the wooden crosses that dangled on their chests. Even the Mother Superior, a woman nearly seventy years old, was totally unclothed but nevertheless wore as much dignity as Sister Innocence’s own Mother Superior. Sister Charity was soon as naked as most of the rest of new convent and looked as naturally suited to her new conditions as any of the others. Innocence, however, despite Sister Charity’s entreaties and the Mother Superior’s example, didn’t adopt the custom of the other nuns.
This
made her feel rather more of an outsider than she felt before. She was trapped between appearing eccentric by her insistence on remaining clothed, even at such times where even the most modest of nuns were nude such as meal times or prayer, and her reluctance to parade her unusual attributes. She sought refuge from her confusion by going to the Chapel and sitting on the pews to pray for guidance from the Lord. However even here, where in her normal convent even those such as Sister Charity were strict in their observance of decorum, there was no escape from an environment of relaxed or absent dress code. As she sat with her hands in front of her face she could watch other nuns nakedly performing their duties.
She then heard a choir rehearse a performance of a choral tune and saw that they too were all naked, including some very young girls who could not be old enough even to be novices. Presumably they were children from the community - perhaps those taught at the Convent school. The surroundings of such nudity in what were still to her incongruous settings inevitably caused Innocence’s penis to stir and push uncomfortably against her robe. Innocence was unable to stand while her secret assets stood out so prominently and she felt restrained by her faith from relieving her embarrassment by masturbating in the pews. So she had to wait nearly half an hour until the swelling subsided and she was able to stand up.
She and Sister Charity were still able to go for walks together where they studiously avoided discussion on the very visible aspects of the community as they passed naked couples, other naked nuns and others in the streets of Divin and along the country lanes around the Convent. It was while walking together that Innocence for the first time saw two members of the Order of the Blessed Whores indulging in their peculiar form of worship. The two women were clearly nuns, and were in fact less naked than Sister Charity. They had shaved heads and a cross over their chest just like Sister Charity, but in addition they wore black stockings with suspenders and very high stiletto heels. This didn’t appear very appropriate to Innocence. In addition, they were being fucked quite openly by a group of four men and begging for more to join.
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