Sweet Salvation

by Lily Miles

  I gaze proudly down at my handiwork, which I’d been working on for the better part of the morning. I’d sawed all the wood myself from scraps we already had left over, then nailed them together to form the edges of the raised bed. It was a small plot of soil and it needed a bit more work, but it would do the job for now; if they wanted more space, all they had to do was ask and I would gladly build them another, grander garden bed.

  Maggie and Catherine would surely be pleased … this isn’t really about Catherine, though. It’s about Maggie.

  It may be foolish, but I’d do anything she wanted. Anything. Even though I know we can never be together. But until the day I leave this convent, she’s going to be the one thing I won’t get out of my head.

  Chances are, even after I leave I’ll take her with me—in imagination, only.

  With a sigh, I bend down over the wooden ridges of the garden bed and start to work in the soil, sifting fertilizer carefully into the earth so that anything the nuns plant will bloom with ardor.

  It’s easy to lose myself in the work here, and behind me the sun slowly begins to drift lower in the sky, as gray clouds creep in with the approaching dusk.

  By the time the moon should be just starting to peer curiously out onto the world, the sky has gone from robin’s egg blue to a dark, stormy gray. I’ve still seen neither hide nor hair of a young nun.

  Worry again begins to circulate through my mind—I’ve even been contemplating knocking on the closed double doors of the convent to make sure those girls are still alive in there. But all of a sudden, I see those very doors slip open and a woman in a flash of black fabric darts out like a rabbit from its den.

  I can tell the figure hastily approaching is Margaret, even before she gets close enough for me to see the features of her face.

  Her head is tucked low, her skirt gathered in one of her hands, but her gait is familiar. She isn’t exactly elegant with the way she moves, but she isn’t clumsy either; it’s like every movement is wary. I settle down on the edge of the wood and wait for her to approach. When she finally reaches me, she’s panting a bit and collapses at my side.

  “Winded from that short run?” I tease, but she looks at me with a flushed face and I can see that the cause of her winded state is more fueled by alarm than exertion. I scoot instantly closer, one hand smoothing over hers and covering her elegant, pale fingers with my own dirty, weathered ones.

  “What happened, Maggie?” I ask gently. “Where’s Catherine?”

  At my touch, she stiffens with a faint gasp, her eyes locked on our hands. I freeze, expecting her to pull away, but she doesn’t. She just continues staring at the place where my palm meets the back of her smooth hand. Slowly, her face tips back to look at mine. There’s an amazement in her eyes, a foreign sense of wonder. Her body trembles slightly under my touch but she doesn’t pull away; she doesn’t even look like she wants to. Instead, she looks as though she’s reveling in the sensation. For my part, I know even just this small touch is making my entire body go hot, my heart rocketing against my ribs. The alarm in her face melts into yearning.

  In the quiet evening, miles away from any city lights and with only the glow of the rising moon to light us, it feels as though we’re alone in the middle of nowhere. The last two people on earth.

  With my other hand, I reach slowly over, giving her time to shrink away from the movement, and brush a curl that’s sprung loose from her veil, away from her cheek.

  It’s only then that she sucks in a huge breath, as though surfacing from the bottom of a deep lake. She pulls her hand away from mine, her body shifting slightly away from me.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, scooting closer.

  When I inhale, I can smell the fragrance of her shampoo even through the thick veil, and I watch her shoulders lift and fall.

  “I’m fine,” she answers. “Cat said she was right behind me, but I guess she may have stayed inside.”

  I bite my lip, tentatively resting one hand on her shoulder. She trembles again and then slowly leans back against my touch, my fingers dipping down over the ridge of her collarbone beneath her habit. I choke back a groan, delighted to even be touching her. Is this really happening?

  “I got worried when I didn’t see you today, Maggie,” I whisper.

  “You should call me Sister Margaret, Trevor,” she answers, but her hand lifts and her fingers brush over the top of my hand, making sparks fly through my arm. Then she slowly pulls away and gestures at the garden bed. “Is this where we’re going to be doing our work for the convent?”

  I nod, my fingers still twitching to touch her, to take her hand and pull her to my chest so I can feel the comforting weight of her body, her breasts crushing against me. Instead, I just nod.

  Her eyes search mine. She opens her mouth to say something, but then changes her mind and looks away. “Then we should get to work, don’t you think?”

  I want to beg her to tell me what the words she nearly spoke were, but I decide to show an ounce of restraint. I can still feel her soft body on my fingertips and all I know is, I'm absolutely dying to feel more.

  Does she know how much she tortures me?

  15

  Sister Catherine slowly slumps down onto the window sill as she gazes out from within the fortress-like walls of the convent, one palm pressed to the glass. The night is growing cooler and gray storm clouds grow thick in the sky.

  She shouldn’t even be on this top floor of the nunnery, which was typically kept locked but that Catherine could easily find her way into. But this was the only spot where she could see the figures of Maggie and Trevor clearly. Trevor had chosen a good place for their rendezvous, even if he was unaware of it when he began building his garden box: the pair were hidden except from Catherine’s vantage point up here.

  This morning, Catherine had woken to the sound of Maggie dressing in her habit, her dark eyes deliberately focused on the cross on the wall. Catherine had known immediately that Maggie had made the right decision, and was proud of her for willingly disobeying the mother superior—she honestly hadn’t been sure that Maggie would be able to do such a thing. While she wasn’t as pious as Sister Grace or as intrigued by faith as Sister Monica, Maggie was a “good girl” and a rule follower, so it was rather impressive that she was willing to risk everything for Trevor. Catherine had the feeling Maggie didn't even realize the significance of such a sacrifice, but she was sure Maggie would understand in time.

  Of course, Catherine knew Maggie was not doing this out of the goodness of her holy heart. Maybe Maggie was still trying to foolishly convince herself that she was just trying to help Trevor get closer to the holy teachings, but Catherine knew the truth.

  Catherine had been awake the other night, listening to the rustle of the sheets in the bedroom as Maggie writhed about and failed to bite back soft, kitten-like moans during her first exploration of her body. Catherine had fondled herself as she listened to the noises, her own body shaking with electric sensations of her own.

  Catherine didn't understand why the female body was so condemned by the Catholic church. There was nothing sacrilegious about the hills and valleys of their breasts, nor was there anything sinful or unholy between their legs, no matter what the priest claimed.

  That being said, she understood enough to know that it would be hard for Maggie to come to grips with the fact that she was a creature of desire, just like everyone else in the world. Catherine didn't often agree with Mother Antonia, but in this the old lady was right: temptation did live in this place and would continue, no matter how hard the mother superior attempted to keep it at bay within locked doors and stone walls. Catherine knew even pious, innocent Grace could be swayed given the right lure. No sister was exempt from this.

  All day long, Catherine and Maggie had worked on their plan.

  Naturally, Catherine told Maggie she would come out with her to the garden when Maggie went to meet Trevor, even though Catherine had no intention of going through with it. The two deserved
to be alone, and she was eager to see what might happen out there if they were given the chance at privacy.

  She and Maggie had just finished a nice dinner of clam linguini when Catherine told Maggie that now was her chance to rush out into the gardens. After dinner, Mother Antonia was known to retreat to her office for an hour or so of seclusion, and this would be Maggie’s only chance to get out the doors without the mother superior seeing her. Catherine had herded Maggie through the halls, urging her to be as silent as possible, and then Catherine had flung open the door so Maggie could escape.

  Once Maggie was outside, Catherine had whirled around, her back against the door to muffle the sound of it creaking closed, carefully looking up and down the hall to make sure there were no spies creeping about. She listened hard for Eva’s quiet footsteps but had heard no such telling noise, so Catherine had rushed up the nearby stairs to the locked door that she knew how to force open, walking through the dusty room to the tall window to gaze down at Maggie and Trevor.

  She’d told Maggie exactly where to go to find the young man, because Catherine had been up here earlier in the day and noticed him building the raised garden beds. He’d been toiling away under the sun, his shirt abandoned on the ground nearby, and his bronzed, Greek god body had shimmered in the sun.

  Catherine was almost jealous of Maggie: of course her sweet face and beautiful eyes had captured the man’s heart.

  Though Maggie had the saintly demureness that Grace wished she had, she never failed to turn every head in the room. But actually, Catherine knew Maggie had no idea how beautiful she was. Catherine could tell that as she grew older, she’d been beaten down by her strict missionary parents, told her curves were temptations and sinful and anything but desirable. But Catherine hoped Trevor could make Maggie feel how truly gorgeous she was. It gave her hope that someday someone might find her beautiful, too.

  With a sigh, Catherine leaned against the window and pressed her forehead against it.

  Had anyone looked up, they would’ve thought a ghost was staring down over the grounds, but no one looked at the top floor of the convent anymore. It’d been closed off for decades—only God knows why—so the rooms were covered with dust.

  When she would finish watching Trevor and Maggie’s secret rendezvous, Catherine would leave the room and before heading downstairs, shake her habit off and knock dust from her shoes so no one would know where she’d been. She would leave behind a trail of footprints through the dust on the room’s floor, but no one would know it was her. After all, she’d been coming up here for a long time, and even Mother Antonia had never questioned whether or not Catherine had been to the top floor of the nunnery. So Catherine felt rather safe up there. The dust didn't bother her and neither did the darkness. She liked having a spare moment to be alone where no one else would think to seek her out.

  While Catherine was terrified of loneliness, she didn't mind the occasional bout of seclusion, as long as she could willingly leave it and rejoin her sisters. That was part of why she’d even agreed to coming here in the first place, when her parents told her they were shipping her to a nunnery so she could learn to control herself. She thought it would be nice to be surrounded by other women. She’d had no idea then she’d have to put up with “sisters” like Mother Antonia and Sister Eva—women more reptilian than human.

  Below the window now, Maggie and Trevor were seated on one edge of the wooden box. Catherine could recognize the looks on both their faces even from where she was, so high above them. They both struggled with restraint. She wanted to grab them and push them together just so they would stop trying to pretend they didn't want to collapse into one another’s arms.

  Maggie was doing her best not to feel. She clearly wanted to pretend that the desire she felt surging through her was nothing more than the pure wish to help the godless young man, even though her fingers were digging into one of the sleeves of her habit so hard she would have marks on her flesh later.

  Trevor was similarly marked by self-control.

  His chest was close to Maggie and he breathed slowly, staring down at her the same way a powerful lion would gaze at his mate. Because there was something animalistic in the way he looked at Maggie, as though he would’ve laid his life down to protect her from anything, or anyone.

  And, underneath it all, was that current of charged passion that they were so clearly trying to suppress.

  But they wouldn’t be able to ignore it for long—that’s why Catherine had brought them together. She so wanted Maggie to experience the bliss of seduction, surrender, passion fulfilled. There was a whole other world that Maggie would never know if she kept herself locked away in this convent.

  Even if Maggie couldn’t see the truth, Catherine could: Maggie wasn’t meant for this nun’s life. That wasn’t to say she would have to give up her religion, but she just wasn’t made for the convent, no matter how much she thought she was. Though she would miss her, Catherine desperately wanted to set Maggie free, like a songbird flying free from its cage.

  Catherine pauses, contemplating the thought. She was a bird in a cage too, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever find her own freedom. She rests her cheek on the glass, listening to the distant roll of thunder as a storm slowly crept closer and closer to the convent.

  Catherine loved the rain, especially in early spring when the flowers were all in such fresh and fervent bloom. It would take all her might not to race right down to those doors and rush outside to dance from puddle to puddle, and let the cool spring raindrops soak her through. She would only hold back now because she didn't want to give away Maggie’s clandestine meeting. Besides, Mother Antonia would probably know the second Catherine stepped outside.

  Mother Antonia seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to Sister Catherine, and Catherine hated that.

  Last time Catherine had danced in the rain, Mother Antonia had forced her to stand out there for over half an hour and Catherine was left shivering so hard, her teeth rattled in her skull and she bit her tongue. She’d almost come down with pneumonia. The mother superior had made her wait a week before seeing the doctor, telling the rest of the nuns to pray her illness away, even as Maggie had begged Mother Antonia to bring Doctor Cliff to Catherine’s bedside.

  Catherine almost wondered if the reverend mother wasn’t trying to get rid of her somehow. Had she gotten ill enough, she would’ve been sent away from the convent. But there was part of Mother Antonia that liked keeping Catherine in a cage, Catherine could sense that, too. The mother superior liked to look at the younger nuns as her mice, while she was the cat batting at them and toying with them, and using their faith as the cheese to keep them close.

  In general, Catherine was able to get a good read on people. She’d been through enough that she could tell when someone was good, and someone was bad, and when someone was just confused.

  Catherine slowly lifts her hands and pushes back the veil of her habit, tugging it free and letting it fall behind her onto the dusty floor. How could something so light feel so heavy, she’d always wondered.

  The second that veil was placed on her head, she’d felt like she was suffocating. Maybe that’s why she likes to sleep completely naked, and there was something thrilling about being naked in a convent—she’d almost been hoping Mother Antonia would come to wake her one day, rip away the blankets and see her bare body exposed. It would be such a shock for the uptight lady that she would probably have a heart attack right then and there! She’d also give Catherine a hundred lashings the second she was well enough, but each one would be worth it and Catherine would grin through the pain.

  Catherine’s finger slowly toys with the neck of her habit, fiddling with the small straps there that keep it closed over her chest, as she watches Trevor and Maggie slowly move apart.

  They stand on opposite sides of the wooden garden box now, gazing at each other. Occasionally, their mouths move as though they’re talking, but it’s their eyes that say the most. They keep looking one another over
, skimming each other’s bodies as though they’re going to rip each other’s clothes off using nothing more than their eyes.

  Heat pulses through Catherine, thick and throbbing.

  It’s been so long since she felt those beginnings of lust, those beautiful first seconds where everything feels like the beginning of something, and you can’t stop fantasizing about what their naked body would look like or feel like under your hands.

  She gives up on the strings at her neck and instead leans hastily forward, the languid sense of desire suddenly replaced with urgent need. Biting down hard on her lip, she gathers her skirt roughly in her hand and drags it up over her hips so that her ass is exposed to the shadows of the darkened room, her fishnet stockings digging into her thighs. Her hand plunges between her legs; besides her scandalous stockings, there are no undergarments to get in the way of her eager fingers. Catherine rarely wore panties, her own naughty little secret just like this upper floor that no one else ever came to, where she escaped to when she needed release.

  She strokes a finger over the drenched lips of her pussy, seeking the pearl of her clit with fervent determination.

  There would be no light playing tonight, no stroking over her thighs or fondling of her nipples. She needs to feel the echoes of sweet release through her entire core, and right now. Harder and harder she strokes her clit, her finger circling and sweeping as carnal hunger rages through her.

  She presses against the window, willing anyone to watch her, as her head tilts back and a shriek of a moan rises up in her throat. She clamps her other hand over her mouth as her eyes roll back and she screams with delight against her palm, sagging against the window until she falls to her knees. Her hand is still pressed to the quivering lips of her pussy as it throbs with ecstasy.