I retraced my steps in the direction of the dormitorium, wondering if I was still expected to fulfill my duties that day, much troubled in heart and soul, turning over in my mind the tenets of the strange philosophy expounded to me by Sister Gwendolyn. Even more than the tableaux of the previous night these diabolical views shocked me to the core. She couldn’t have been serious. I had no idea what time it was or how many of my chores were neglected. I was tired and incapable of thinking clearly, a lingering result of the drugged wine combined with so many strong feelings and new sensations.

I was not afraid of the Abbess though. I had a feeling she wanted my true work to lie in the rituals enacted in the Misericord. I thought of her, strong and imperious, bending the lesser sisters to her will. She would submit me to the same domination. It was to be my fate to be her toy, her thing, forever.

I decided to go back to sleep. I twisted the neck of the Beautoix effigy continuously, taking out on it my frustration and confusion as I walked the grounds, absorbed in thought. Approaching the entrance to my dormitory I saw Sister Mary sitting on the stoop with an enormous black cat in her lap which she massaged with both hands, rolling its furred skin up and talking in a low sweet voice the way one talks with children. The animal blinked its alabaster eyes with pleasure.

She smiled brightly, locking her tiny eyes on mine. She lowered the cat to the ground and rose to meet me.

“Her name is Hecuba. She’s a good kitty. I’d like to come into your cell if you don’t mind. We should talk.”

“Can we talk another time Sister Mary? I am feeling a little out of sorts today. I would take a nap and refresh myself.” Her smile faded and she frowned with reproach.

“Gwendolyn is not the only one bearing gifts.” She took my ugly doll, made a face at it, giggled and made it dance in the air before giving it back. “I also have my contribution but it is not such as I would wish the common sisters to see. Come now.” She took my hand and we walked into the dormitory, she leading me.

We entered my cell. Mary sat in my lone wooden chair. I sat on the edge of my cot. She produced from the folds of her habit a heavy piece of rolled hempen fabric and placed it on my table. She smiled again, her teeth like miniature pearls. Everything about her was small. I spoke first.

“I just talked with Sister Gwendolyn as you know. I could scarcely believe my ears. Is this really a coven of...pagans? And I am expected to join you? To participate in your lascivious rites?”

She didn’t answer me right away. She listened intently but regarded me as one might regard some strange specimen of Nature. Was she listening to the meaning of my words or to the unspoken spirit they hid from view?

“You silly witch. What are you saying? Your hypocrisy defies belief. I hear the insincerity in your voice even as you ask these questions. You don’t realize what a gift you’ve been given. We are free here. Now. Free to love and worship the way WE want to. Samhain will liberate you. Gaia will liberate you. You will never look back. You will never wish to. Gwendolyn is silly and irreverent but she told you the truth.” Her tone was gently remonstrating, her voice puissant and rich; her eyes glowed mournfully like last nights embers.

“What is Samhain? Will the dead really come back to life?”

“Yes! Don’t be frightened. They merely ask for their due, a share of our living energy, once a year, so that they can sleep peacably in their graves and not be compelled to torment the living.”

“Must we give them Beautoix? As much as I loathe the man, I do not wish to murder him!”

“Whatever happens to Monsieur will be Gaia’s doing, not yours. And we will not know Her will until we are in Her presence and under Her inspiration.”

“So what am I to do?”

“The Abbess has instructed me to convey you to the Misericord at the appropriate hour. She seems to think that that hour will be marked by some sign from the dead. At any rate we will undergo certain preliminaries there and will then depart to our sacred grove of ancient oaks, to summon the nether spirits and worship our Goddess. More I cannot tell you.”

“How will the Abbess ensnare Beautoix? He is rich, powerful and crafty. He rides with a bodyguard of ruffians at all times.” Thinking of this I remembered with a flash of anger that these men had murdered and likely violated my Cordelia.

“Some men’s weakness is beauty, which the Abbess has in plenty but your husband seems the type to be motivated more by…”

“Cupidity. Greed. Avarice.” I stated.

“Yes, Monsieur’s ‘business’ in these parts is a carefully contrived ruse. And she means to deliver unto Gaia not only Monsieur but his entire entourage. Does this please you or do you pity these men?”

I felt hatred in my heart, cold and pure, but I did not wish to confess this. My eyes went to the cloth bundle.

Seeing my interest she picked it up. As she unravelled, its coarse pale gray darkened with moisture. Out of this she produced a lacquered and polished piece of wood covered in an oil that smelled of lavender and pine. It struck a chord in my memory. I saw clearly now in my minds eye those arcane objects mounted between pegs to the ancient stone wall, given a numinous mystique by concentric haloes of crimson light emitted by dozens of candles, and the thick smell of incense. I had been entirely puzzled, wondering in what their utility could possibly lay. I assumed this one had been taken from that dark room below.

“This is for fun, during your long nights of dreaming of ... sweet, sweet Cordelia… “ she mocked in a high-pitched imitation of a lovestruck girl. I then grasped the meaning and use of the object proffered. I thought I would faint. Did these sisters know no modesty at all? I put my hands on its slick surface and caressed it, letting my hands glide. It was smooth and of an exotic species of wood I could not identify. A deep brown with lighter veins running along it, around 8 inches long, from a bulbous base it tapered into a sort of stem capping with a mushroom-like knob, a fine piece of craftsmanship. Mary watched me. Though my attention was absorbed I could sense her interest. She looked as if she would love to touch the fetish but restrained herself out of courtesy. She sidled next to me.

I knew she was going to touch me. I listened to her breath become shorter and shorter. We were alone in my cell. All was quiet and still. I could hear my heart pound.

“You watched me last night. Did you like what you saw?” Mary’s voice had changed; it came from the back of her throat and caught in it, the word “saw” miscarrying as it reached her lips. Her hand grasped mine convulsively. It was eager, her hand, it twined itself into mine with a desperate movement, coating itself in oil. I let it happen. I looked at her. There could be no doubt what plea radiated from those small blue eyes. Both sets of hands grasping, coated and slick, we rubbed each others forearms, unsure of where we were going with this play but submitting to the inner need and allowing it.

She brought her small body close to me, I gazed at her thin lips, regarding the rosy flush that suffused her pale skin. It had been weeks now since I lost my lover. I did not want to be untrue to her wandering spirit yet Mary’s presence, the influence of the wooden fetish and my own pressing physical needs all served to move me closer to her. That and the ache of her own desire which struck the perfect corresponding note in my soul.

I threw my coif down, unleashing my dark hair. I removed my habit slowly, letting Mary watch as I revealed myself to her, her eyes drinking in my nudity. She removed her own coif but I stayed her hand when she went to take off her habit. I stepped boldly to her in my nakedness, confident and unashamed. I turned her about roughly and ripped the habit from her. I recognized the pale, petite, almost boyish body that hung from the ceiling of the Misericord only hours before. I pawed her very small tits. Knowing she liked rough nipple-play, I pinched and squeezed them mercilessly. Her hands to the wall I kissed her neck, rubbing my pussy on her tight little bottom.

Our oiled hands pawed at each other. As we groped the scented oil began to cover our bodies. Her small breasts glistened with it. I smacked her butt with the palm of my hand. She cried out in a tone reeking of sensuality and submissive approval.

“Yes I saw you last night, you bitch, you dirty blasphemer.” I whispered.

I smacked her again, harder. I moved her legs farther apart with my foot, sliding my hand between her thighs. She whimpered. I wet my fingers with her moist pussy, sniffing her heady scent before offering them to her nose. She inhaled deeply before taking them in her mouth and sucking with the ravening passion of one dying of thirst drinking. I was soaked and rubbed my cunt against her thigh and ass. She appreciatively rubbed my butt and pressed herself to me.

I pushed her onto my humble cot and regarded her nakedness for a moment. I picked up the wooden phallus. Her eyes widened as she looked into mine,spreading her legs. I approached, attracted to the mysteries of her beauteous quim. Her hair down there was darker than the fair hair of her head. It glistened with love’s gentle dewdrops and emitted an overpowering musk that made my head swim. I approached, in playful experimentation I let the fetish rub her. She spread wider and cooed. Every signal she sent urging me to proceed, to take advantage, to make her body my own. Unable to resist any longer I lapped at her pussy, slowly parting her with my tongue as her body tensed, jerking away from me slightly as if the pleasure was so intense as to border on pain but I gripped her by the thigh and licked, determined to bring her to climax and so pacify my own overpowering need to serve a woman. I let the head tease between her labia, rolling it over her rim while lapping and tugging at her clitoris.

Was this betrayal of the memory of my Cordelia? I never thought I would experience these pleasures with another. I was certain I had damned myself to eternal torment for the woman I loved but this? Was I so unregenerate as to repeat my sins without the justification of love, urged forward solely by animal passions, by lust?

In the heat of desire these questions are academic. We were virtuous nuns solely in order to be unvirtuous. We were abstemious in order to be self-indulgent. We were parsimonious in order to be prodigal. We were chaste in order to be prostitutes. We were pious in order to blaspheme and sin. We were good in order to revel in evil. We walked the straight path only so that, finding ourselves in the deep dark wood, we might depart from it and become lost.

I began to push the instrument inside of Sister Mary. She was very tight. I twisted the oiled tool, licking her clit all the while. She began to be very loud but certain of the protection of our Abbess, I disdained the opinions of the more traditional sisters. I enjoyed the idea of their listening as we indulged our passions to the full. I wanted her to scream my name so that the entire Convent might hear and know that I was responsible. Her walls relented under the tender besiegement of Eros. I felt them give way and noted the way her juices richly flowed as I did my best to clean her, my face and hair wet with her.

“Are you coming slutty Mary? Come for your lover. Shout my name when you come.”

I moved the phallus in circles, worrying her inner walls. Her back arched fully, her little breasts and rib cage prominent now. She clenched my coverlet in her tiny fists. I was rubbing myself now, ready to come with her at any moment, still hoping that I might fit it inside of her to the hilt. She seemed to feel the same way. She begged me to keep fucking her. I did.

Thus passed the afternoon.

Eventually the light of the sun dimmed in my little cell, fading to crepuscular greyness. The wind picked up. We dozed off.

Some time later Mary started and gasped in my arms, awakening me. She screamed. A corpse stood in the corner of my cell, a soft white nimbus haloing her matted hair. Her eyes were gone from their sockets. The air in the room was frigid. I groaned aloud.

“Cordelia! Consider our love and what we meant to each other! Why do you torment me? Why show yourself in this guise when you must know how it hurts me! If I could share your agony, if I could take your place in that awful limbo, you must know that I would!” I shouted this through my tears. Mary cowered behind me, my blanket of homespun over her head.

“Save me...my love.” she croaked weakly, then faded from sight. The wind forced my small window ajar. Lightning streaked the sky without as thunder cracked and boomed. I dried Mary’s tears as we dressed. We stepped into the hallway and began our descent to the Misericord.