Now don’t move.”
Kyrie closed her eyes and braced herself dramatically. Elle shook her head, sighed and scraped the candle wax off her sleeve.
“Is it over?” Kyrie asked, popping one eye open. “Am I dead? Is this Heaven?”
“This is Purgatory.”
“I’m in Purgatory? Well, crap.” Kyrie sighed. “Mom told me this would happen if I didn’t stop touching myself.”
Elle stared at her.
“Go on,” Kyrie said. “You know you want to laugh. And I know I want to hear you laugh.”
“I’m not going to laugh. I’m going to iron your sleeve. Come here.”
“Iron my sleeve? But I’m wearing my sleeve.”
“Don’t panic. I’ve done this before.” Elle heated up the iron and pulled out a few sheets of white blotting paper. She pointed to the ironing board and Kyrie rested her arm on it.
“This doesn’t seem safe,” Kyrie said. “Maybe I should take the habit off.”
“There’s enough fabric in your sleeve to make a mini-dress. I won’t get near your skin, I promise.”
Elle placed the blotting paper on the red stain the candle wax had left behind. She pressed the tip of her iron over the stain, replaced the blotting paper and did it again. While she ironed she studied Kyrie out of the corner of her eye. Her novice’s white habit covered every inch of her but her face and her hands. But she was still undeniably beautiful with her wide eyes and long lashes, her delicate lips and suntanned skin. Elle forced herself to focus on her task.
“Voilà,” Elle said, lifting the iron. “Though your sleeves are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”
Kyrie held up her sleeve, now devoid of any sign of a stain.
“Rad. How did you do that?”
“The blotting paper sucks up the dye,” Elle said.
“Do they teach you tricks like this in laundry school?”
“I didn’t go to laundry school.”
“Where did you learn how to get candle wax stains off fabric?” Kyrie asked, touching the now-pristine sleeve.
“Little skill I picked up a few years ago,” she said. “I’ve had more than my fair share of candle wax accidents.”
“Did you work at a church? I’m guessing candle wax accidents are an occupational hazard there.”
“No.” Elle shook her head. “I suppose you could say my candle wax stains were a recreational hazard.”
“What sort of recreation uses candles?”
“Nothing,” Elle said. “I was joking. You’re done. Boo-boo is healed.”
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” Kyrie said.
“Don’t take it personally. I’m not allowed to distract you sisters from your prayer and your work.”
“You aren’t bothering me by talking to me,” Kyrie said with a smile. “I promise. I don’t need to be anywhere for a while. We can talk. I’d like to talk.”
Elle looked up at the ceiling and sighed.
“Someone told you about me, didn’t they?” she asked.
Kyrie blushed—guilty as charged. “Well...sort of.”
“Sort of,” Elle repeated. “May I ask what they told you about me?”
“Oh...” Kyrie shrugged. In her voluminous pure white habit, Kyrie’s shrug looked like a bird adjusting its wings. “This and that.”
“What specifically, might I ask?”
“If you must know, no one was gossiping. I asked someone about you. You know, since I thought you were a ghost. I didn’t think anyone but sisters were allowed in the abbey. They said an exception was made for you because of extraordinary circumstances nonrelated to noncorporealness.”
“Extraordinary circumstances. That’s one way to put it,” Elle said.
“Have you ever thought about how weird the word ‘extraordinary’ is? It means not ordinary but if something is extra ordinary wouldn’t you assume it was very ordinary? Super ordinary?”
“Extra is a Latin prefix meaning ‘outside.’ If something is extra—it means it’s outside. Extra ordinary means outside the ordinary.”
“Wow.” Kyrie’s blue eyes widened. “You are really smart.”
“Genius IQ, and I’m working in a laundry at a convent.”
“How extra ordinary of you.”
“Are you done talking to me yet?” Elle asked, hoping the answer was yes.
“Oh no. We’ve just gotten started here. I want to know what your extraordinary circumstances are.”
“You really don’t,” Elle said as she started the washer. She pulled a wrinkled tablecloth from a basket and lined it up on her ironing board.
“Why don’t I?”
Elle looked up from her ironing.
“You’re a nun.”
“I am?” Kyrie repeated. She looked down at herself as if noticing the habit for the first time. “Oh, you’re right. I am. You were saying?”
“You’re trying to make me laugh again.”
“You have a really awesome laugh, Elle.”
“It’s not going to work. I checked my sense of humor at the door when I came here,” Elle said, picking up her iron again.
“Do I at least get points for trying to make you laugh?” Kyrie asked, looking wide-eyed and hopeful.
“Two.”
“Two what?”
“I’m giving you two points for trying to make me laugh.”
“How many points do I need to win?”
“What game are we playing?” Elle asked, turning the steam up on her iron. She had a wrinkle that would not give.
“The ‘Let’s Be Friends’ game.”
“I don’t need any friends.”
“We all need friends,” Kyrie said. “We’d go crazy without friends.”
“You’re already crazy,” Elle reminded her. “And so am I.”
“Is it true you’re hiding from your abusive boyfriend?” Kyrie asked, and Elle stood up straight and stared Kyrie down. Daniel might have had The Ouch, but long ago Elle had perfected her own scary stare she used on the other submissives in Kingsley’s circle. The second one of them crossed a line, stepped out of bounds, or even worse, in Elle’s opinion, whined, she gave that Sub a stare so intense it had inspired tears. She gave Kyrie that same stare now.
“Are you a virgin?” Elle asked.
“What?” Kyrie blinked at her in confusion.
“If we’re having a personal conversation, it’s going to be two-sided. Are you a virgin?”
“Yes,” Kyrie said.
“I thought so.”
“What does that mean?” Kyrie demanded.
“It means that you are innocent. You have never let yourself be sexually vulnerable to someone. Since you are a virgin you cannot begin to imagine what my life was like before I came here. We will be speaking entirely different languages. I could tell you the truth about who I am and what brought me here and none of it will make any sense to you.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do you think I knew how to get candle wax off your habit?” Elle asked.
“I don’t know. You said it was, what? A recreational hazard. Recreation means play. You used to play with candle wax.”
“I did. Any guesses how or why?”
“Not really. Candle wax doesn’t seem all that fun.”
“You don’t run with the same crowd that I do then. Used to run with,” she corrected.
“Sounds like an interesting crowd. The candle wax gang.”
“We were. I guess.” Elle sighed and folded her now-perfectly flat tablecloth.
“Do you miss it? Your old life?” Kyrie walked around her ironing board and pulled herself up onto the counter. Her feet, shod in black old lady shoes, kicked against the doors. Without the habit, Kyrie would look like a bored teenage girl sitting on a kitchen counter.
“Yes and no,” Elle said. “I miss parts of it.”
“What do you miss?” Kyrie asked.
Elle looked her straight in the eyes.
“Sex.”
She hoped that would finally shut Kyrie up.
“Is it as much fun as it sounds?” Kyrie asked.
“Oh my God, I can’t get rid of you, can I?” Elle asked, ready to break a window and run for it if necessary.
“You can’t.” Kyrie grinned ear to ear. “I haven’t had this much fun since I came here. You are really grumpy, and I like it. Say something grumpy to me again.”
“You must be a masochist.”
“A what?”
“A masochist. Someone who takes pleasure from pain and humiliation.”
“Well...I did join a convent.”
“Good point,” Elle conceded. “Look, you seem very nice.”
“I am very nice. I am the nicest person I know.”
“You’re a real Polly-fucking-Anna, aren’t you?”
“I am. Also, Polly Fucking Anna would make a great name for a lesbian porno.”
Elle glared at her.
“Oh, scary face,” Kyrie said.
“Stop,” Elle said. “Please, just stop what you’re doing here.”
“What am I doing?” Kyrie asked, still smiling.
“You are clearly a girl on a mission to make friends with the poor abused little laundress who ran away from her big bad boyfriend. I don’t know if your priest told you to do it or Mother Prioress or my own mother even, but I don’t care. I don’t need a buddy. I don’t need a friend. I don’t need your pity. I don’t need anything you have to give me. I’m fine.”
Kyrie’s smile faded and it was as if the sun had set five hours early.
“My oldest sister’s husband beat her to death,” Kyrie said. “Two years ago. They had a three-year-old little girl who watched the whole thing happen.”
Elle felt the bottom of her stomach drop out of her like a trap door had opened under her and everything but her body fell through.
“Kyrie...I’m sorry.”
“Someone told me you’d run away from your boyfriend who used to beat you,” Kyrie said. “If that’s true then I wanted to say I’m happy you got away from him before he killed you. I really miss my sister.”
Elle reached down and pulled a fistful of white linen napkins from the basket.
“I’m very sorry about your sister. If it makes you feel any better at all, my situation is nothing like hers was. I’m not here because I had an abusive boyfriend. I left him for other reasons. It’s...it’s complicated.”
“So, he never hit you?”
“I told you...it’s complicated.”
“So he did hit you.”
“Complicated.”
“He was married? When women are with married guys and they don’t want to admit he’s married, they say it’s complicated. I saw that on TV.”
“My life is not a TV show,” Elle said. “My life is—”
“Complicated. Got it.”
“I’m not trying to be mean or grumpy or bitchy,” Elle said. “I don’t want to talk about why I’m here, and I shouldn’t have to.”
“Okay, you’re right. I get it.”
“You don’t, but that’s okay. Trust me. I’m doing you a favor. You seem like you really enjoy being a nun. I don’t want to say or do anything to make you have second thoughts about the Catholic Church.”
“Oh, I have lots of second thoughts about the Catholic Church. Third and fourth thoughts even. My sister’s priest told her to stay with her husband because divorce is a sin. He suggested counseling. If she left him, she’d probably still be alive. Why do we ask marriage advice from men not allowed to get married? That’s my second thought about the Catholic Church.”
“A good second thought.”
“Third thought,” Kyrie said, holding up three fingers. “Why can’t women be priests? Doesn’t it say there is no man nor woman in Christ Jesus?”
“Yes. The book of Galatians 3:28,” Elle said.
“If that’s true, then there’s no reason women can’t be priests.”
“There is a reason. The Catholic Church hates women.”
“Hate is a strong word, Elle.”
“Did you know that if a Catholic priest is caught molesting a child, he’s put into therapy and moved to another parish. Meanwhile, if a woman has an abortion she’s—”
“Excommunicated.”
“Not just excommunicated. Latea sententiae—automatically excommunicated,” Elle said. “The act itself causes the excommunication. Your brother-in-law who beat your sister to death wouldn’t even get excommunicated for what he did to her. There’s a nice fourth and fifth thought about the Catholic Church for you.”
“I know you said something really profound and worth thinking about, but all I heard was you speaking Latin there for a second and it was really awesome.”
“Oh my God, you’re certifiable.”
“I’m sorry. Sort of. But you’re right, lots of thoughts,” Kyrie agreed. She folded her arms over her stomach.
“And here you are, one of them. A nun. Despite all your second, third and fourth thoughts, you still joined the ranks.”
“You know, American nuns drive the pope crazy. We’re all liberal and revolutionary, and we hold property in common and that makes everyone think we’re communists. Which most of us are. At least socialists. God forbid everybody gets enough food and water and nobody gets to be a billionaire until everyone gets dinner every single day, right?”
“Pissing off the pope is a good reason to be a nun. Maybe the only good reason.”
“There are other good reasons.”
“There are?” Elle asked. “What are they?”
“Free fancy outfits,” Kyrie said. “Three square meals a day. A girl who knows Latin to do your laundry for you.”
“I only know a tiny bit of Latin. And don’t get used to the laundry servicing,” Elle said. “Once I leave here, one of you lovely ladies will take over laundry duty again. Maybe even you.”
“Leave? Why would you leave?” Kyrie sounded horrified by the very idea.
“I can’t stay here forever.”
“You could if you joined.”
“I’m not joining a religious order. Especially not this one.”
“Why not?”
“No men allowed.”
“You like men?”