Grabbing my hands, she spun me in several tight, fast circles — a ploy to mix our identities more completely — and let go with a giddy laugh. ‘Brother Christy! Brother Christy! Has someone become ill?’ she called to the retreating monk.
His crumpled expression belied a plan gone awry but, with everyone watching, he had to stop in the aisle.
‘Why, Sybil — it’s you!’ Sybil cried to her likeness.
‘By God, you’re right!’ I replied in a matching voice, following her across the floor. ‘But how can that be? I feel fine — and I’m certainly better dressed than my lookalike! What do we have here, Brother Christy?’
As the people in the pews craned their necks, the friar blushed furiously. We’d caught him in a difficult position that might lead to trouble, so I quickly continued. ‘If you fashioned this figure yourself, you’ve done a fine job! I never knew you created waxworks, dear man.’
‘They say imitation’s the highest form of flattery, and if I were Sybil, I’d be greatly flattered!’ Sybil chimed in. ‘Of course, the true test of the sculptor’s skill would be to remove the clothing.’
‘Oh, Mary Grace, you’re always ripping off my clothes!’ I crowed. ‘We might as well strip her, in case these fellows can’t wait for their turn with us, don’t you think?’
As we spoke in matching stage voices, Sybil was relieving Brother Christy of the female form he carried. She started towards the table, cradling the mannequin in its sitting position, while I paused beside the front pew. ‘What about Elvira here? She’s looking left out. And rather stiff-necked about it.’
As the congregation laughed, Sybil turned towards me. ‘I’ve never seen Elvira naked,’ she replied, her cocoa-coated face flashing me a warning. ‘Perhaps public exhibition isn’t her style.’
Since I’d peered under the mannequin’s tunic during my tour of the crypts, I decided we might be doing the real Elvira a favour — and creating another illusion to keep our audience off-balance. I looked up towards the organ loft, grinning boldly.
‘What do you think, Elvira? Ever since I reached under your robe, that day we covered cherries, I’ve wanted a better show. I know you’re every inch a lady — and Brother Christy has rendered your womanly charms in startling detail.’
Something in my tone earned her trust, because while the others clamoured for the baring of the waxwork, Elvira replied with a brassy organ fanfare. I carried the tall, black-haired waxwork to the table and joined Sybil.
‘I think we’ve distracted Father Luc,’ she whispered as she pulled the black shirt from her counterpart. ‘Let’s play this as long as we can, to buy some time for Hyde.’
‘Fine idea,’ I replied. ‘Might be good to stage our own little show, too. It’ll keep Father Luc guessing as to which of us is whom. And, well…since this will be our last time together, I’d like to go out with a bang. If you know what I mean.’
‘Listen to you,’ she teased with a wicked grin. ‘I’d love nothing better. But if these people swarm down to join us — and this happens at the rites — promise me you’ll slip away at the first chance. I’ve gone to all this trouble for that very reason, you know.’
I nodded, sadly aware of how much I’d miss the vixen beside me. Meanwhile, we’d stripped away black trousers and the matching shirt, as well as Elvira’s brown tunic. The audience sat enthralled as we revealed the lifelike features created by Brother Christy — who stood to one side, gauging reactions to his work. Enthusiastic applause filled the sanctuary when Sybil and I gestured theatrically towards the figures we’d bared. My cohort carried her likeness to the chancel steps, positioning it so it bowed to the abbot — which left its enticing arse sticking up in invitation, from the audience’s viewpoint.
More laughter and wild applause covered our conversation as I placed Elvira’s waxen twin on the opposite side of the stairs.
‘My God, Christy even copied the two little moles on the edge of my sex,’ Sybil muttered. Her amazement proved she knew nothing about his gallery in the crypts, which confirmed her fidelity. The rites were going in my favour so far, but it was good to know I had one true friend — an ally with influence over Father Luc.
‘He’s obviously never seen Elvira in the altogether,’ I replied with a wink. ‘It’s nice we can preserve some essence of mystery around here, even if it’s not our own.’
My friend nodded, a gleam coming into her eye as she raised her arm for silence. ‘We digress from your confession, Miss Michaels,’ she announced in a challenging voice. ‘We can’t forget your first night at my cottage. As I recall, you and Hyde had been splashing in the stream, naked. You were kissing passionately, and he lifted you on to his huge, hard cock —’
‘And you had the nerve to spy on us!’ I interjected, giving her rump a resounding smack.
Sybil pivoted, poised only inches away. ‘And who came to my bedside, rubbed raw — in all the wrong places — from Mrs Goodin’s cleansing? And what thanks did I get for smoothing on that ointment?’
‘You stuck your finger up my cunt!’
‘Like this?’ Sybil backed me against the centre table. To our audience, it appeared she rammed her finger inside me, yet she was careful not to sever the garland of cherries and grapes nestled between my pussy lips.
‘You don’t fool me, Mary Grace Goody-Goody!’ she taunted. ‘Poor little preacher’s girl, with nowhere else to go. But you came after me in a flash, didn’t you?’
‘You were naked. Shaking your tits in my face.’
‘And you loved it! Get yourself on this table and spread those legs, celebrant!’ she cried, boosting me backwards. ‘Show these people how your soul is soiled as dark as your skin!’
My moan was only partly exaggerated, for Sybil was deftly stroking my hole while her thumb pressed a cherry into my clitoris. The crowd sat forward on their pews as my tormentor stepped between my splayed legs.
‘You’re the one who ruined me!’ I protested. ‘Teaching me all your dirty little tricks —’
‘Like this?’ Sybil attacked my mid-section with her mouth, seeking out the sensitive spots to make me howl beneath her. Playing to our audience, she worked her way down to my clean-shaven mound. Then, sticking her tongue out hard, she drove it into my aching slit while holding my thighs apart.
My excitement rose with the low moans around us. I saw tunics inching up, and hands pumping in laps. Had I thought consciously about giving such a brazen exhibition — in a sanctuary, before a large crowd — all passion would’ve vanished. Indeed, the Mary Grace Michaels who first came to Heaven’s Gate could not have conceived of such a performance.
But Ahmad, the mystical prophet, had been correct: I had learned the ways of Heaven’s Gate, and would be forever changed by them. So as Sybil lavished her attention on me, I allowed my body to respond to every nuance, every flicker of her practised tongue. A surge of raw heat made pretence unnecessary: right there in front of Father Luc, Hortense and the others, I let the waves of my impending climax climb until I was ready to scream.
Sybil pulled away, snickering.
My eyes flew open and I sat up. ‘Damn you, bitch! That’s what you did to me the first time! I ought to just —’
The come-on in her feline eyes told me to play it out. So I rolled forward to grab her shoulders. The audience went wild when we hit the floor, rolling with outbursts of lust and hatred. The unknowing observer would’ve thought us the worst of enemies, yet Sybil’s cocoa-coated face told me she was every bit as aroused by this horseplay as I. I threw my weight against her, and then rammed three fingers inside her. Everyone heard the wet, squelching sound as I drove my hand in and out of her slit.
‘I’m going to leave you hanging, too!’ I vowed loudly. ‘That night, you called me a loser because I came first — and shot it all over you. This time will be different!’
Sybil’s body curled towards mine, to preserve the chocolate shell encasing her breasts, but out of sheer pleasure, as well. ‘God, you’re good!’ she murmured. ‘G
ive it to me, Mary Grace. Pop the cherries strung across my cunt. But be careful of your face, love. Once the chocolate comes off, Father Luc will know who’s who.’
The audience cheered when I swung my leg over her. As I faced her firm, flexing thighs, I saw her juice mingling with the honey and chocolate that coated her pink pussy lips. The sight of her shaven mound gave me an unexpected thrill, so I licked it. Sybil responded in kind: she’d pulled the boa tight against my clitoris and was sucking my inflamed slit. Our guttural moans incited a riot of passion. A few others joined us on the floor.
I concentrated on Sybil, however. She returned thrust for thrust, knowing just how and where to apply that exquisite tongue pressure. My cries were muffled by her honey-slicked skin, and when I felt her quivering towards release, I bared my teeth against her. Carefully I bit into the string of cherries and grapes, close to her clit. She screamed between my legs, rocking against the floorboards as she reached a monumental peak. Then she went after my cherry in return, pushing me beyond my limits with her teeth and relentless tongue.
Hot honey rushed from my hole and I cried out in climax. We didn’t have the luxury of lying entwined, however: Sybil nudged my leg, signalling that we should see what was happening around us. Sure enough, Brother Paul’s blond head bobbed above Quentin’s lap, while others had stripped Vee and Zee of their tunics. A delicate hand drew my attention back to the nymph beside me.
‘You’re smudged,’ she whispered. Placing light kisses all over my face for the benefit of an onlooking abbot, she also stroked my chocolate coating over bare spots. I did the same for her, knowing our facades would be my salvation.
‘Thank you,’ I replied softly. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve —’
‘Too early to declare victory, Mary Grace. Here comes Ahmad, and you know damn well what he wants. I’ll handle this one, if you like.’
My sphincter tightened painfully as I watched the tall figure float towards us with an ethereal smile — and the anticipation of a tight, hot spot for that perennial pecker. A quick jerk sent his wrapped pants fluttering to the floor. His obsidian eyes focused upon Sybil and then on me. The ruby in his nose winked as he folded himself down to our level.
‘Ahmad, most persuasive participant in my perdition,’ I crooned low in my throat.
If he detected a difference from Sybil’s smoky speech, he didn’t let on. ‘Imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery, oh peerless parrot of my speech pattern. I have come to provide our Mary Grace with her final lesson in the higher spiritual aspirations. Perhaps this shall replace the rest of her confession, before others attack her out of need for her sweetness.’
‘She is a sweet little piece, isn’t she?’ I quipped. ‘Your wisdom has ushered her up the path to higher understanding and inner truth. And her arsehole quivers at the first sight of you.’
Ahmad was squatting alongside us, his hands entwined prayerfully atop his bended knees. At the mention of his favourite orifice, his erection came to life, producing an awesome bubble of fluid in its hole. Like a yellow-eyed cobra it swayed between his calves, hypnotic in its movement as it appeared to study Sybil and then me.
‘Oh, Ahmad,’ Sybil pleaded in an admirable parody of my voice. ‘Could you? Would you? When you enter me, caressing my most secret place — probing the depths of my being — just the thought of these other heathens having me renders the experience pale, by comparison.’
His white teeth flashed and that cobra swayed faster. ‘Let us anoint you, my precious pearl,’ he intoned, delving two dark fingers into her cleft. ‘Your nectar flows, pungent and plentiful, and Ahmad understands your need for a pleasure only he can provide. Kneel, my child. Allow the abbot full view as we explore a bliss he — and these other poor fools — can’t attain.’
With an obedient smile, Sybil turned. Father Luc was watching closely as my friend prostrated herself before him, giving him full view of her chocolate cleavage as the monastery’s beekeeper positioned himself behind her. When her forehead met the backs of her hands, Ahmad massaged her lovely nates as a mother would caress a favoured child’s face.
Ahmad slipped his finger up her slit and then moistened her puckery back entry. They rocked in a seductive rhythm, with her backside pointed at his lap and his long cock sliding in her liquid silk. The sanctuary grew hushed. None of the other revellers stopped their lovemaking: they moved in the same cadence Ahmad established, until the entire room pulsed and throbbed as one under the mystical man’s control.
The beekeeper teased Sybil’s anus with a honeyed finger, which he inserted to the second knuckle. She sighed, still moving in time with him. He smiled sweetly, positioned his erection, and then entered her with an ecstatic grimace. The whole congregation moaned along with them.
Sybil raised her head, thrusting out her magnificent breasts while her chocolate body — just a shade lighter than her lover’s — undulated with his, accepting every deep thrust with guttural grunts of desire. Her broken boa of grapes and cherries dragged on the floor in front of her, which attracted Father Luc’s attention like a magnet. He began rubbing the front of his cassock.
Brother Christy stood in awe of this spectacle. He gaped at Sybil, who writhed like a wild mustang, her auburn hair swinging with those gold earrings. Ahmad quickened their pace. Her eyes clenched shut and she bared her teeth in a feral grimace, while Ahmad behind her began to shudder. They climaxed so violently, the tiara flew from Sybil’s head, shattering on the floor. Her headpiece of green grapes followed, and when she peaked, the strain on her upper boa made cherries and grapes pop away from her chocolate bust.
Our onlookers descended like a flock of ravenous sparrows, scrambling for the loose fruit. I stood still, hoping they wouldn’t attack my adornments next — or lick the nougat that was seeping from beneath Sybil’s chocolate bust shell, after her exertion.
Brother Christy’s face flushed with desire, and he couldn’t stand still. ‘I want my turn now — with Sybil,’ he told the abbot. ‘And by the time she’s spent, I’ll be warmed up enough to give Mary Grace a ride.’
He adjusted his spectacles to focus on me. While I was pleased our charade still held, the idea of this chubby monk pumping me gave me pause. I couldn’t expect my lookalike to satisfy the entire monastery’s lust, however. Glancing back at Sybil and Ahmad, who were separating, I racked my brain for a way to avoid Christy’s affections.
Father Luc’s laugh caught everyone’s attention. ‘People in Hell beg for ice water, too, Brother Christy. You’ll content yourself with your imitation of Sybil — since that’s why you make these models, anyway.’
‘But I’ve never asked a favour, until now!’
‘Perhaps that’s why you’ve never got any,’ the abbot quipped. He stroked his short, black beard, sneering. ‘Might as well get on with it, as long as it takes you to work up your wad.’
The little blond bristled, looking anything but cherubic. ‘I’ve wanted Sybil for years, and I’m going to have her, dammit!’
‘Then you should’ve asked her! God knows she never refuses anyone!’
‘You can’t expect me to —’
‘Someone has to make the decisions here, and it’s going to be me!’
Father Luc stood up, lording over the pitiful man before him. ‘Hike up your tunic and get humping, Christy. And the rest of you —’ he commanded with a sweep of his hand, ‘the rest of you vultures return to your seats! Things have gone too far awry, and by God I’ll tell you when it’s your turn!’
While I felt relieved Brother Christy wouldn’t be heaving his bulk at me, the abbot’s anger didn’t bode well. An anxious hush fell over the crowd. Father Luc surveyed the scene with a stern silence that was interrupted only by the rhythmic bumping of his assistant against the waxwork. I recognised the proprietary smile on his thin lips, and I didn’t like it.
‘Mrs Goodin, you look absolutely divine today,’ he crooned. ‘Would you grace me with your presence, please?’
From behind her
white satin mask, Hortense beamed. She stepped lightly across the floor, her layers of silk floating around her like airy clouds.
‘I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing you in that gown before,’ Father Luc went on, clasping his hands to camouflage his erection. ‘Did you make it for today’s occasion?’
‘Oh, yes. It took me hours to sew all these petals, with their beaded trim,’ she gushed. She glanced at Brother Christy, who laboured over his waxen woman’s backside, and stood taller in triumph. ‘I knew you’d appreciate my efforts, because these rites are even more auspicious than usual, aren’t they?’
Father Luc smiled, yet I doubted Hortense saw the look of a fox who’s coaxed a chicken into a corner. She appeared ten years younger, giddy with her own expectations, after seeing her husband humiliated. ‘What an astute observation, Hortense. And why do we find the ceremony especially tantalising this spring?’
‘When have we ever had a celebrant like Mary Grace?’ she twittered. ‘Why, Father Luc, I haven’t seen you so aroused since — well, since Sybil came to Heaven’s Gate! And if you’re excited, then I’m excited for you! Such a fresh young face is hard to come by.’
I felt ill. I stood absolutely still, hoping not to attract attention; not daring to look at my friend, who sat beside Ahmad on the floor. The only sound in the sanctuary came from the monk seeking his satisfaction on the stairs.
‘A fresh face…yes,’ the abbot mused. He rocked on his heels, as though he couldn’t contain his mirth. ‘And on the subject of faces, Mrs Goodin, would you bless me with the sunshine of yours? Your mask would make me a lovely souvenir.’
The housekeeper swept off the satin mask and extended it towards Father Luc, who held her fingertips a moment too long. This wasn’t the Hortense Goodin I knew, and I sensed the other shoe was about to drop. Those around me shifted in suspense, wondering if the abbot would romance his housekeeper while we watched.
‘I want your gown, too, Mrs Goodin,’ he continued without batting an eye. ‘Mary Grace and Sybil will assist you.’
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