The taxi pulled up outside our town house and the driver took the luggage out of the boot. My father paid the driver, gave the nun a welcoming hug, and grabbed her two suitcases.

We had been waiting for what seemed like ages for her to arrive; the whole family had been lined up in the yard, excited to meet her. Sister Maura had been Dad’s schoolfriend when they were young. She had spent the last twenty-five years on the missions, teaching music in a convent in Kenya! None of us had ever met her before, not even our mother and she was every bit as excited as the rest of us.

A year ago, Sister Maura had asked the Mission if she could return to Ireland; they had agreed and arranged a new position for her as music teacher in our town convent.

She had none of her own family left, except a brother who lived in England, so she had written to Dad requesting if she could stay with us for a couple of days until they were ready for her at the convent.

Everyone talked over each other at dinner, trying to get a word in. The Sister was very patient and answered all the children’s questions calmly, in a clear brogue which she hadn’t lost.

I studied the nun. She had such a kind face and it was barely tanned despite living the last quarter century in Africa.

She reminded me of the nuns at my school - her demeanour, that is; she seemed so secure in herself. And she looked really fit and healthy. I felt my cheeks redden as she caught me looking at her firm breasts inside her black habit.

When all the fuss had died down and everything had been cleared away after the later-than-usual, noisier-than-usual supper, everyone drifted off to their rooms to sleep, my younger siblings perhaps examining the books that she had brought for them. I went to sit beside her on the couch in the living room. I felt I should talk more with her because it had been decided that she would be sharing my room until her new room at the convent was ready; I had the only double bed in the house apart from Mum and Dad.

“Sister, I’m delighted to meet you, actually,” I said honestly. “I have so many things I want to ask you, about Africa and about the missions. After you have rested, of course – tomorrow, maybe?”

“Ah, Erin,” she leaned into me, taking my hands in hers. “Believe it or not, I don’t feel tired at all; I’m in a bit of a tizz, actually, just being here with all of you.” She continued in a whisper, “As a matter of fact, you are the one I am most looking forward to getting to know.”

She held my hands in hers. Her fingernails were long and well-manicured but without nail polish. Clean. Pretty.

“Really?” I whispered back.

“Yes, dear. I think we have very much in common, you and I.” She put a finger to her lips. “Tell you later.”

Her hand went from her lips to the hem of my short skirt, feeling the fabric between her index finger and thumb. I felt the heat of her fingers as they played between my hem and my bare thigh.

“Ooh, you young girls have such nice things to wear nowadays. That’s very sweet, that.”

“You like my clothes, Sister? Really?”

The nuns at school were used to me, but this lady had spent the last quarter of a century in Africa. I thought I must look like a vampire or some weirdo to her. I was wearing my usual goth stuff: choker – that’s a band that is worn around the neck – leather corset, long-sleeved top, ruffle skirt, and knee-high boots. Black, black, black, black, and black again. What else?

“Why wouldn’t I like them?” she said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently? Come here.”

She took me by the hand, led me out to the hall, and stood me front-centre of the hall mirror. “Oh my, you are so beautiful, Erin,” she said, admiring me from head to toe. Then she placed one hand on the small of my back while the other one stroked my stomach, moving up and down, stopping occasionally to examine the stitching on the corset and on the waistband of my skirt.

I loved the genuine attention she was giving me and my clothes. And I loved the firm feel of her hands wandering over me like that. I didn’t care if she was forty-five-ish or whatever; it was magical.

“And sure, you’re basically a nun yourself in all of that black.” She laughed quietly and the image made me laugh too.

“You’re right!” I said, studying my reflection in the mirror. “Even my black hair gathering at the shoulders resembles your veil. And the bangs cut straight like that, just above my eyebrows, it’s like your bandeau. Oh my God! The choker even – that’s basically your coif. Except yours is white.”

“Quite so.”

She took my hand again and I closed my eyes to better feel how it warmed my own as we walked back to the couch. I noticed the silence; the talking in the bedrooms had stopped and the house was quiet for the night.

“Mother Superior might have something to say about that hemline, though,” she joked. “Now, tell me, young lady, how on earth do you know what a coif and a bandeau are? They’re not the kind of words that everyone would know.”

“I attend school at the convent in town, Sister, and I get on very well with the nuns; we talk a lot. I’m very fond of them. Sometimes I go to visit them in their rooms when I have something on my mind or just to talk. Girl talk. They like that; they always make time for me. And I like the way they look without the veil on, so different! They’re like real women!”

She smiled at that but didn’t interrupt.

“I think that they’re very interesting to talk to; they tell me all about what it’s like being a nun, stuff like that, so I hear words like coif or whatever, all the time.” And then as an afterthought, “Oh, that’s where you will be living, so I’ll be able to see you there,” I said brightly.

“Well, I’ll certainly look forward to that, Erin. And do you like school itself, or is it just talking to the nuns that you enjoy?”

“I’m actually very good in school, Sister,” I said, trying not to sound boastful. I took the crucifix that hung on the centre of her chest in my hands. She watched me touching it, tracing Jesus on the cross with my finger. “I’m even thinking about becoming a nun myself,” I confided.

She squeezed my hand that was touching the cross and then softly ran her thumb along the length of Jesus’ body. “I see that He has a special place in your heart too? That’s a wonderful thing, Erin.” She paused a moment, then, “You can ask me anything you want to, too; I want you to know that. You know what, I think we should get ourselves ready for bed; we’re probably a bit too noisy out here.”

I let Sister Maura use the bathroom first. When I came back to my bedroom, she was already under the bedclothes. I undressed completely and was about to put on a baggy tee-shirt to sleep in when she whispered: “Don’t worry about that, come here!” She lifted up the bedclothes for me to get in and I saw she was completely naked.

“Come on, hop in! Nakedness is next to godliness. I always sleep like this.”

“Isn’t it ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’?” I whispered, climbing in beside her.

“Yeah, that too,” she said. And then, “You really are the little bookworm!” She poked the tip of my nose with her finger.

The second I was on the bed beside her under the blankets, she gathered me up in her arms and whisked me up on top of her. Taking my face in her hands, she said, “Now then. Let’s have a good look at this beautiful young lady.”

I was totally taken aback but not afraid—I felt surprisingly comfortable on top of her nakedness. I mean, yeah, I had made out a few times: kissing, touching, petting. But this was not expected, she being a nun and everything. And old, too. Well, not ancient-old, but old to me, I guess. Her body felt very firm under me; I liked it up there on top of her. My skin was very hot where it met with hers.

I lifted myself up onto my elbows and touched her big ginger hair. It was long, too. You’d never in a million years have guessed that she kept so much hair hidden away inside that veil.

“Wow, your hair is lovely,” I told her, stroking it, pulling it away from her head, spreading it out along the pillow. Her face told me she liked me doing that.

I thought back to what she had said on the couch: We have very much in common, you and I. Tell you later.

My mind was flooded - there were so many thoughts and all at once! Did she somehow pick up that I liked girls? Was she lesbian? Can nuns be lesbians? Can lesbians sense that about other lesbians? I obviously had a lot to learn.

“Your hair is beautiful too, Ragdoll.” She ran her fingers through my hair and down my back, her fingertips made me tingle all over. “You know, I think that will be my nickname for you. Yes, I never had a ragdoll as a child. Can I call you Ragdoll, Erin? When we’re alone?”

Those green eyes smiled kindly up at me as her hands slid over my hips and squeezed my buttocks. Before I could say anything her fingers had wandered on down and she grabbed my thighs and pulled them up the bed so that I was straddling her like a giant toad. Our mounds lined up and were heating each other.

She wriggled her hips slowly from side to side beneath me, getting comfortable again, and I could hear her pubes mixing with mine. She, like me, preferred to be au naturel, as God intended. I loved the sound we were making but it felt so loud in the quiet house.

Her squirming from side to side, coupled with my weight on top of her, had pushed me open. That made me so lustful. Our stomachs were getting sweaty, crushed against each other under the blankets.

“I’ll be your ragdoll,” I answered, meeting her gaze.

She brushed her lips against mine. I didn’t pull away so she pushed her head against me some more so that my bottom lip was in her mouth. Our toothpasty breaths mixed and then our hot wet tongues made contact, barely touching at first, testing the waters before plunging into the whirlpool of passion. I love girl-kisses.

Our mouths were wet and our muffs were getting wetter with the passing of every second. We stroked each other’s bodies, no part was missed. Our hips ground out the love juice from each others fruits as we desperately tried not to make noise. Content at last, we lay on our sides, scissored together, and we slept.

The blinding sunlight through the window woke me and made me grumble.

“Good morning, Ragdoll,” a voice behind me whispered.

“Morning,” I whispered automatically, turning over to see who it was.

And there she was, sitting on her calves at the bottom end of my double-bed, knees apart, a messy pile of sheets and blankets between us. It was like seeing the Holy Virgin herself, bathed in the morning sunlight, naked as the day she was born.

She was stunning. When we had mauled each other the night before I had been too horny to realise just how stunning.

Now, in the light of day, my eyes swept over her from top to toe, taking in all of her being: the shock of ginger hair (she had been up and brushed it out); the freckles on her forehead and nose; the beautiful lines made by her ginger eyebrows; the piercing emerald-green eyes and high cheeks like some Celtic warrior princess; the full un-lipsticked lips that had caused my nubile body to tremble in the night; the supple throat; the miniature sombreros on her full breasts – surely, these were not the breasts of a nun, these were the breasts of a whore or at least of a mother that had suckled a litter of babies; the flat muscular stomach that had never been stretched; the round of her hips; the ginger furze-bush between her snowy-white thighs; the thick pink lines of the lips beneath the furze, open, revealing the beauty of her folds; the curvy ass-cheeks atop her silky-smooth calf-muscles; the black toenails.

I took the time to lick my lips and smiled over at the Madonna. “Really? Black toenails?”

“I borrowed your nail varnish. I thought it would be nice for us to have that as another little secret, Ragdoll, yeah?"

Like a lioness on the African savannah stealthily approaching her prey, she crept up the bed, veering over to one side, keeping her head low, the huge ginger mane impossible to camouflage in the current terrain, her eyes never leaving the prize. With an impressive burst of speed she came at me and delivered a lethal bite to my throat. I didn’t have a chance.

Thank God I have my choker to cover that up!

The wild cat laid me flat on my back, and we kissed. She was over me pressing me down into the mattress with her hips. She took her tongue out of my mouth just long enough to caress the sleep out of my eyes, then she stuck it back inside. Satisfied that she had her prey where she wanted it, she began moving down my body.

But she was no longer a feline, she had shape-shifted into a full-grown adder. The serpent spat at my throat, spat on my chest. Then its long lethal tongue painted me with her spittle, wetting me all over. The adder slithered on down, slowly, purposefully, until it reached its goal, my holiest of holies, no longer safe behind the black thicket between my thighs. I looked down just as the serpent's tongue disappeared inside my groove. It was on the hunt!

With her hands on my knees, she firmly held my thighs wide apart, as the snake wandered at will in and out of my sacred grove. I surrendered myself to it, just as Eve had surrendered to the original serpent in the Garden of Eden. It wriggled between my folds, and with her thumbs in assistance, darted in and out, stabbing me.

The lady servant of God must have sensed the rising surge inside me because the serpent abruptly left the dark tunnel and foraged its way back up through the wet marshlands of my vulva. Sister Maura found my helpless hardened clitoris and sucked it out into the open. It was pure murder not being able to scream out as this wonderful woman devoured me. My body rocked - just like Eve’s body had rocked in the Garden when the serpent tempted her and took her.

When my body finally became still, the nun came back up to me and I licked myself off of her mouth.

“Oh God!” I whispered in a low breath – it was all I could manage.

“I’m sure He has something to do with it,” she whispered back, stroking my face and hair, her eyes happy.

After a long while, dizzy, drunken and delighted, I thought of her black toenails again. I asked her what she really thought about the whole goth thing.

“I love it. You know, Ragdoll, I was very much like you once.”

“You? You were like me? In what way, like me?”

“Well, when I was your age I was a right tearaway. Ask your dad. In fact, I was a punk back then.”

“You. Were. A. Punk,” I whispered incredulously. “So, what happened?”

“I met a nun," she said.