Kneeling in the silence of the cathedral, the nun was praying in her pew. 

“E Nomine Patri, et fili---”

“Yawwwwwn,”  crooned a loud dramatic, silence-disturbing voice. 

The nun clenched her teeth and prayed louder. 

“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy …”

“Penis, the holy staff I honor, for all my days and long wet nights, I  swear to always swallow--”

The nun whipped her rosary around toward the voice. 

“Shut. Up,” she hissed.

“Why should I? We both know the unholy things you were doing with those prayer beads last night. This prayer nonsense is just a sham. Go to confession, let the father take whiff. I bet your holy juices are soaked in the wood by now. No matter how much oil and holy water you try to wash the evidence away.”

“Be quiet!”

“Hail Abagail, full of lust,  the lord is with you, blessed art thou among nuns. And blessed is the wetness of your cunt, when you think of your lord Jesus. Hail Abagail succubus of lust, feed on the sinners, for now and always, amen.”

“Shut up!”

“Feed on the sinners, for now and always, amen.”

“Be quiet!”

“Feed on the sinners, for now and always amen.”

Abagail rose and pinned the other woman to the wall so hard that the candles flickered in fear. A few of them went out completely,  as her hand coiled around her neck. “I said. Be quiet.”

There was an insidious smile from the pinned woman. “Make me. if you even remember how.”

Fangs slipped free, and eyes that flashed red looked at the painted lips of the other woman, in her clown garb like a harlequin or a Pierrot clown doll.

“I can’t, you know I can’t, Tawny.”

“Oh c’mon, Abagail, let’s desecrate this holy ground like the good old days, you know you want to. I can feel that much in you. Can’t fool an old fool.  You’re fucking starving even God knows that.”

“Shut up.”

“You want my mouth to stop talking, then you put it to work. Otherwise ….I’m gonna keep doing my job and taunting you like the good Satan I am. You’ve become a filthy sell out, trying to be a good girl like all the others. How dull! I remember when you used to fuck good girls for breakfast and lunch just to watch the corruption settle in their bones by dinner. The shame would flower in their eyes so deeply that it would drive them mad and give you a second cumming from the witnessing of it.”

 “You’re not real. You are a phantom of the devil, sent to test my faith,” she muttered trying to convince herself, almost as if it were a prayer itself or a petition,  a supplication to the Spirit of Sanity.

“Am I?”

The giant grin of the floating clown was suddenly in her face. “When are you going to put this facade of faith aside and have some fun? Remember fun? You used to be a slut for it. have fun every night and day, every hour in every way. I miss that girl, what happened to her?”

“I’m ignoring you, Tawny.”

“No, no, you are not. You could never ignore me or else why would I still be here?”

With an exasperated huff of annoyance, she got up from the pew and walked quickly back through the labyrinthine convent halls to her cell and shut and locked the door, putting her rosary beads around her wrist and kneeling next to her modest bed and interlaced her fingers. 

“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy …”

“Penis, the holy staff I honor, for all my days and long hard nights, I swear to always swallow--”

“Tawny! Enough! I’m not that person anymore, okay? I can’t be. I have to do what is right and moral. I don’t have time to clown around with you anymore! You are a hallucination, it's time you go back to where hallucinations go when no one wants to see them anymore. Just go!”

The clown stared at her with a solemn expression now. “One more fuck and then I promise I will leave and never comeback.” 

“I took a vow of chastity, I can’t do that.”

“Of course you can. I’m not real. right? it doesn't count if you fuck an hallucination, you can just confess having impure thoughts to your holy father tomorrow. If you are gonna banish me or worse, ignore me, then give me something sweet for the long road I have ahead of me. Just once, give me my wedding night… you promised you’d marry me one day, all those years ago. You never made an honest harlequin out of me.”

The thin clown knelt down next to the nun and leaned close to press her apparitional lips against hers. Gentle and chaste, before the nun kissed back and it was no longer chaste or gentle anymore. It was fierce, hungry and demanding. 

Lifting her habit robes up, she guided the clown named Tawny to the floor, ran her hands over her hose-clad legs and ripped them free til greedy hands were probing the depths of Tawny’s cunt. The nun was aching for Tawny to touch her back, but was too afraid to ask to be touched, so she made this about her. This was sin enough - she had to make the clown cum and then get back to praying for penance for the sinful thoughts she had of the Reverend Mother earlier today. 

The squeak of Tawny’s red nose startled a laugh from the nun.  

“I miss your laugh, Abagail.” 

“It never went anywhere.”

“Of course it did. But I was talking about the laugh you laugh just for me. My laugh. When I do something funny, you have a laugh … that’s mine.”

Sister Abagail looked down at Tawny the clown - a hallucination she had for most of her life.  A constant peanut gallery of intrusive thoughts and visual distortions. Having the schizophrenia diagnosis only made her harder to ignore. 

The medicine didn’t work. 

She’d tried for twenty years.

No medicine cocktail worked. 

She was down to trying religion and hoping that would help her. And it did at first, but then … any time she was alone to pray, Tawny would show up again. 

“Hey! We were kissing. Remember? Lips on lips, let’s do that again. I don't like the sad shadows forming in your eyes. I firmly believe my lips are definitely terrifying enough to scare them away. I didn't wear this lime green shade just because it matched my spandex thong.”

Abagail laughed. Then kissed Tawny again. Moaned at the way her legs wrapped around her habit clad hips.  But something … didn’t feel right. 

“I can’t do this.”

“Well, we are on the floor, maybe we can try the bed, you know missionary position works better with a mattress that squeaks its protests against your pleasure.”

The carpet in the convent was threadbare and grungy from foot traffic. It hadn't been cleaned in months, maybe years. Probably because if it was cleaned properly it would be revealed there was barely any carpet left. And they’d have to do a charity function to fundraise for new carpet for the entire convent. The Reverend Mother thought there were more important things than new carpet to focus the funds on.

“Abagail?”

Tears were forming in the nun’s eyes as she was lost in her thoughts. She looked back at Tawny. She pulled her toward her chest in a hug.  

“I don’t want you to go away,” her voice was small and vulnerable. 

As she spoke those words, she felt Tawny become more solid in her arms as she exhaled a sigh of relief.  “Thank you.”  

“Please stay with me.”

“Always. At least with you locked away in this cell I get you all to myself whenever I want.”

Abagail weakly chuckled. She ran her hands down Tawny’s back,  slipping down to snap the strap of the lime green thong

“Oooh,  Is that how you want to play?”

Pulling the hug apart, Abagail was smirking devilishly.  “Do you remember our catechism ?”

“By heart.”

“Good, let’s pray…”