The Novice

by Ava Lohan

  “You should, though. You should be trying to please me.”

  His touch was like a feather. It was pleasure. It was pain. It was wrong. It was deadly.

  I closed my eyes. I wanted to be numb to his fingertips exploring my body, to his presence, to the fact that I was trapped. Yet, at the same time, I wanted him to pry open my legs and sink his fingers into me. I knew he was watching me. I could feel the intensity of his gaze that I didn’t have the strength to reciprocate.

  “Do you want me to touch you?”

  This whispered question only increased my excitement. I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip to keep myself from nodding or asking him something that I shouldn’t ask. Kegan was the incarnation of the Devil himself. His hand ran back down my thigh to stop again on my knee. I shivered. I squeezed my eyes shut and instinctively tried to reach for my crucifix, forgetting for a moment that my wrists were trapped. Prayer wasn’t going to help anyway.

  My cells felt only him. Kegan was in the air that I breathed, filling my lungs with the smell of his skin and driving me mad. He was in every single one of my nerve endings, in my brain that was drunk on thoughts of him and his bastardly face. In just a week, he had become my everything. My alcohol, my nicotine, my one-way ticket to Hell.

  “Rose, open your eyes.”

  His velvety voice was as tangible as the fingers slowly making their way up my leg. I never could've imagined that the sound of my name on someone’s lips could be so hypnotic, so sensual. Rose. Paul had never said it like that. Nobody had. I wasn’t crazy about my name, but it sounded like the most beautiful name in the world when he said it. It was like a magic word, like the one Jesus used to bring Lazarus back to life. His touch killed me, but the words that came out of his mouth gave me an all new energy. Kegan’s voice cast a spell over me.

  “I want you to look at me,” he said, his warm breath caressing my cheek.

  In the exact same moment that I responded to this new command, he interrupted the contact between us. As he drew back his hand, it felt like he had unplugged a machine that was keeping me alive. I had to learn to breathe on my own again. My hands were still trapped—my only hope was that Kegan would have mercy on me and start kissing me, touching me, or anything else that wasn’t staring at me from a distance like he was doing now.

  How long could I resist him before resorting to begging him to come back?

  “I need an answer.”

  I frowned. “What are you—”

  His next move brought me so close to the edge of insanity that I couldn’t get the last word out. His fingers sunk deep into my flesh, unexpectedly, forcing me to let out a whimper. Kegan didn’t take his eyes off mine as he teased me, and it was those amazing eyes that caught me off guard. Slowly losing control, I hadn’t noticed that his hand was nearing my panties again. Moans echoed around the room, and they weren’t coming from him. I was ashamed of my reactions but I couldn’t help it. I had lost all control of my voice and of the sounds coming from my mouth, one by one, echoing in the red room. I threw my head back. My hands remained trapped in their prison.

  He kept touching me as if he wanted me to die right then and there. It was working. Lost in his touch, I was on the edge of the most beautiful death I could have ever hoped for.

  “You’re soaking wet,” he said.

  Then, he saved me—or maybe he delivered his final blow. Just when I was seconds away from an orgasm, he stepped away from me. I couldn’t believe it. The passing seconds felt like hours. I tried desperately to meet his eyes, but all of Kegan’s attention was devoted to the two fingers that had just been inside my body, which now quivered with dissatisfaction. He brought them to his lips and licked them.

  “God, you taste good.”

  Jesus. The sight of his tongue on his fingers was a divine sight. But he couldn’t leave me like this. No, he had to keep touching me, had to start again where he’d left off. He just had to. I bit the inside of my cheek, still suffering from the pleasure he was denying me.

  “Kegan, please,” I begged, bringing his attention back to my face. “Please,” I repeated, feeling like a beggar.

  But I wasn’t asking for money, I was only asking him to give me what I rightfully deserved. He stared at me as if I were speaking Tereza’s language. He bit down on his bottom lip, driving me crazy.

  “Please what?” he replied in an innocent tone, as if he truly didn’t understand the frustration he was causing me, while his smile told me the exact opposite. “Do you want me to touch you or fuck you?”

  If my hands had been free I would have slapped him. I closed my eyes for a moment to avoid insulting him. I couldn’t afford to make him mad. I needed him. In that moment, I needed him as much as I needed air. I wanted him to do both and that ass knew it.

  “I’m begging you,” I uttered, my eyes just as desperate as my voice.

  Kegan nodded and I thanked the heavens. But he didn’t start where he left off—no. Well, he did, but only for a brief second, disappointing me even more.

  “A novice shouldn’t get so wet.”

  I felt like I was committing a crime. I was a novice. I'd sworn on my parents’ graves that I would make them proud, that I wouldn’t only go to Mass, but that I would dedicate my life to helping others. And not simply as a believer—as a nun. But all those words and promises had vanished in just a week. And now, here I was, begging a guy that I only knew sexually to keep fucking me with his fingers.

  I was reflecting on my upcoming trip to Hell when Kegan came closer to me and leaned his head toward mine. I could feel his warm breath on my chin, making me feel even worse. I remembered all too well the softness of his mouth. It was ingrained in my memory like a life-changing event. It was something that I would remember the rest of my life, like my own birthday. No one could forget their own birthday.

  “A novice shouldn’t want to be kissed. Or fucked.”

  Kegan shoved his tongue between my lips. I thought I was dreaming. I closed my eyes; it couldn’t be true. He didn’t kiss. He didn’t like to. He'd told me himself. He’d practically yelled it—but now he was doing it. Kegan Anderson was contradicting himself. The kiss was delicate. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better feeling. My eyes shot open and there they were—the most beautiful eyes in the world. The kiss grew more intense as if Kegan were trying to prove to me it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. Fireworks went off inside my stomach and every other vital organ. I had to remind my lungs to breathe. I urged my heart to slow down because Kegan’s kiss meant nothing, but it paid me no attention and kept pumping away at full speed.

  My body was nothing more than a pyrotechnics show and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. The fireworks just kept going. Green eyes observed it all from the outside. As he kissed me—as we kissed—I repeated over and over again in my mind that it was only a kiss. Just like the ones I’d experienced before I ended up in the convent, nothing more than contact between two tongues, no feelings, no meaning. Just the pleasure of kissing in and of itself. But no part of my body was buying it.

  Kegan took his time exploring my mouth, and my body was more convinced than ever that this was nothing like the kisses that 15-year-old Rose had experienced. This was different, this was the kiss. The magic kiss that everyone should get to experience in their lifetime. If I were Sleeping Beauty, this would be the kiss that woke me up.

  If Kegan and I were the protagonists of a book or a TV show, he would've fallen in love with me and would’ve stopped being the beast that he was. He would have forbidden me from returning to the convent because he wanted me in his life. But reality was different—it was cruel. In the real world, his kiss was no miracle—it merely crushed me. Underlining my thoughts, Kegan suddenly broke away from me. The lack of contact struck me back to Earth. His absence was a weight on my chest that I would have to get used to.

  Without his kisses, without him—my everything—it would soon be just me and my prayers.

  Kegan took my face in his hands and lower
ed his forehead to mine. Our breathing synchronized as if we were one. His eyes—still glued to mine—glistened with an emotion that I couldn’t make out. It was mostly desire. Untamed desire and nothing more.

  “You have no idea how much I want you,” he said, confirming my interpretation of his expression. “Can you feel it?” he asked, pressing his erection into my inner thigh.

  My core burst into flames which quickly spread to my face. Could I feel it? Damn right I could. But I didn’t respond. He placed his hands on my chest. My heart, beating like a madwoman’s, told him everything he needed to know.

  Kegan then reached for my face and I silently wondered if it was as hot to his fingers as it felt to me. “I don’t know what divinity is helping me resist you right now, but let me tell you one thing, Rose: I’m addicted to you. Ever since we met in the confessional, you have been my obsession. While we walked back to the convent together, all I could imagine was what it would be like to have you. I thought about it at work. I thought about it when I went back to the church in hopes of finding you and seducing you. And now that I’ve had you, all I want is to feel you underneath me again. Even when I shouldn’t. I dream about it at night, you and your moans. Hearing you scream or say my name makes me lose my mind. It’s too much… fuck… it’s too much. And that’s not even the worst part.”

  He shook his head and took his hands from my face. He ran his fingers through his hair, right where I would have liked to touch.

  “Because you make me imagine things that I can never have.” He seemed distressed, lost in his thoughts. Maybe he was regretting what he had just said.

  I tried to digest every word, to make some sense of it all, or even to find some hidden meaning. It was like what Mother Superior had told me: Kegan hadn’t given up after our initial meeting in the church. He’d come looking for me several times without any luck. Would I have given in had he found me? What would have happened if he had reappeared in my life before he’d inherited the convent? I didn’t know, just as I didn’t know what would have happened had we met again before his contract. I had invaded his mind just as he had taken over mine. He’d thought of me while fucking his clients, he’d even thought about me while he slept. He wanted me. And not just for some silly game. Could it really be? Could it really, actually, be?

  My heart danced in my chest to an unhealthily happy beat. I might not make it back to the convent intact, but at least I wouldn’t be the only one who would bear withdrawal symptoms after our sexual adventure. I would suffer the loss of Kegan; I could feel it already. But his confession filled my eyes with satisfaction. I wouldn’t be the only one paying the consequences of his narcissism and my weakness. I would suffer in silence as I prayed to the Lord, and Kegan would still want me. Maybe for a day or two, a month, or even a year. It wasn’t the amount of time that mattered. All that mattered to me is that I wasn’t just another one of his conquests, but the pebble in his shoe that he would always feel, long after he had shaken it out.

  To be perfectly honest, I didn’t love the idea of both of us suffering. I wanted to see him happy. I wanted to be the one to make him happy and to put an end to the turmoil I could read on his face.

  He grabbed my dress, pulling me toward him. The personification of arrogance was back. “I know you want to come, and I’d like to rip this dress off you. But first…” He stepped back to get a better look at me. The sight of his glistening, slightly-parted lips took my breath away. “First, you have to tell me why you want to take your vows, and how you ended up at Saint Clare.”

  My vows. Again. He just couldn’t let it go. Kegan glared at me with determination. His questions were as normal to him as they were absurd to me. Why was he so interested?

  “It’s my calling,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “No.”

  The confidence in his voice activated my self-control. I watched him as he walked away from me, still cuffed to the bed. Now on the other side of the room, my wet dream observed me, waiting to know what had motivated me to give myself to God. Kegan was challenging me.

  I didn’t give in. “A calling is something that you don’t choose. It chooses you. You just have to accept it.”

  This is surely what happened to Sara—at least, that is how she explained it to me. But for me it wasn’t exactly a vision or dream, like it was for most novices. Mine was no real vocation. I suppose the closest term would be punishment. Punishment for my wild adolescence, for causing my parents’ death, for not having prayed to God enough to make him hear my pleas to give me back my family.

  “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, you’ll stay chained to the bed until tomorrow.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket as if he had all the time in the world and put it back just as slowly.

  “It’s almost noon. Do you think you can survive twenty-four hours of Hell? Tell me the truth, Rose, and I will fuck you until you forget your own name. Lie to me again, and I’ll go fuck someone else outside this room and leave you here until noon tomorrow, giving you plenty of time to reflect on the meaning of the words ‘please’ and ‘obey,’” he said, whispering the last two words into my ear.

  My mouth dropped open and my eyes narrowed as he walked away. So is this why he’d handcuffed me? To threaten me if I didn’t give him what he wanted? I was furious. I wanted to hurt him. Bad. My hands were useless, but my feet weren’t. I started kicking my legs as hard as I could, trying to hit him.

  “I hate you,” I repeated over and over until he grabbed my ankles and held them tight to the sides of his legs.

  “You hate your god?”

  I responded to this new provocation with fiery eyes. Kegan became serious.

  “Answer my question and tell me how you ended up in my grandfather’s convent.”

  “You’re an arrogant bastard,” I shouted, trying to break loose from his grip.

  “Wrong answer,” he said, letting my legs fall to the bed. He stood up and placed a key between two of my toes. “Let’s see if you know how to use your feet for something other than kicking. If you can get yourself out of the handcuffs, you can go back to your room. If not, I’ll be back at noon tomorrow to let you out.”

  Was he crazy? I gripped the cold metal key between my toes until it hurt. I couldn’t afford to let it fall at any cost; it was my only way out of this room. Kegan turned his back on me and started for the door.

  “Where are you going? You can’t seriously leave me here like this!”

  He didn’t respond.

  The door closed.

  I screamed.

  I swore, screamed, tugged on the cuffs, and begged. But he didn’t come back. Asking for help was useless. I called his name so many times, but the door didn’t open. I apologized for insulting him, even though he had deserved it. My throat burned from all my yelling. Two, three, then five minutes passed. I alternated insults and apologies. I pulled my knee toward my chest and concentrated my attention on the key between my toes. Free myself with my feet. I had never been particularly flexible, but Kegan’s challenge would have been impossible for even the most talented contortionist. Or maybe not—maybe a contortionist could do it, but I wasn’t one. For the first time in my life, I dreamed of what it would be like to be freakishly flexible. I’d have simply freed myself from the handcuffs and walked out of the room, like some sort of magic act. Kegan would never have expected it, nor should he have.

  I waved my foot in the air. Everything else in the room disappeared; all I saw was the key. My ears heard only my breathing. I prayed to hear anything else, like the door suddenly opening. Minutes passed mercilessly. My nerves were increasingly tense. I tried to sit up without jerking my wrists or losing the key. I took a deep breath and brought my knee back toward my chest. The key was close. What the hell was I doing? There was no way out. I was just wearing myself out by trying to find a miraculous position that didn’t even exist. If I had a fairy godmother like Cinderella, it was time that she showed herself.

  I wasn’t so lucky. No fa
iry godmother came to my rescue. Just me and the key.

  “Fuck.”

  I started swearing again. Father Abel would’ve been shocked at how many bad words I could say in less than a minute when I was mad.

  “That fucking son of a…”

  I stopped just in time. Suddenly, the door swung open, causing me to jerk and drop the key on the mattress. Kegan broke into roaring laughter, inspiring homicidal thoughts.

  “I can’t believe it. You were really trying to get out?”

  “I was just admiring the key from up close,” I quipped back, every word dripping with sarcasm.

  He just laughed harder. The sound was music to my ears and I hated him even more. Then he stopped. The amusement disappeared from his face, his eyes hardening as he approached me. Neither he nor I said a word. I had no idea what I could possibly say to break the silence between us. But it was more than simple silence, it was a conversation without words. Our bodies were speaking to each other.

  He touched my legs, a quick touch that made my muscles quiver in his hands. Kegan’s fingers slipped up my hip, stopping just above my panties. He didn’t need to make eye contact or open his mouth. His movements spoke for themselves. My hips rose off the bed under his fingers’ command, allowing him to free me from my panties, now practically glued to my body. My heart beating in my throat told me that we would soon begin. His hands darted for the key.

  It was about to happen. Kegan leaned over me to release me from the handcuffs and to put an end to my imprisonment.

  “You killed my self-control and my plans,” he whispered into my neck, ending our wordless conversation.

  Free at last. My first move wasn’t to massage my wrists, but to kneel in front of him and remove his shirt—his body was too covered, in my opinion. He didn’t stop me. His muscles twitched under my fingers and filled up my entire field of vision. I touched him as if he could suddenly disappear without notice. I needed reassurance that he was really there, not just in my imagination. My finger ran over his piercing, startling him.