“That feels good,” Kyrie said of Elle’s hands in her hair. “I miss having my hair touched.”
“You’ll miss it even more when you don’t have any hair at all.”
Kyrie didn’t say anything to that. Elle wondered how much their one night together had changed Kyrie’s thoughts about taking her final vows. Did she still plan to become a nun? Would she stay? Go? Had she thought about it? Elle didn’t ask her. She didn’t want to know.
When she finished the two braids, Elle gathered them in the back of Kyrie’s head and used the band to tie them together. Now her two braids formed a crown, like a Daphne wreath.
“Perfect,” she said, pleased with her work.
“Is it?” Kyrie asked, smiling shyly.
“You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe you’re mine.”
“I am yours,” Kyrie said, and leaned in for a kiss, a kiss Elle was only too happy to give her. As they kissed, Elle pulled Kyrie’s nightgown down to her stomach. She pushed Kyrie onto her back, not breaking the kiss once. She licked and kissed a path from Kyrie’s lips to her quivering flat stomach and lower as Elle dragged the gown all the way off her and tossed it aside.
“Are you warm enough?” Elle asked as she surveyed Kyrie’s naked body, her small pert breasts and long lithe limbs.
“I am,” Kyrie said, a nervous hitch in her breath.
“I want to hurt you tonight. Can I?”
“You can do anything you want to me.”
“Do you want to be hurt?”
“I want to do anything you want to do,” Kyrie said, and Elle could have laughed at her eagerness. Those could have been Elle’s own words to Søren seven years ago on their first night together. Anything...anything at all... His pleasure and happiness had meant so much more to her than her own.
Elle kissed Kyrie on the forehead.
“I want you to touch yourself,” Elle said. “Like you do when you’re alone.”
“You’re going to watch?”
“I am. And while you’re doing that, I’ll hurt you. And I’ll keep hurting you until you come. And once you come, I’ll stop hurting you.”
Kyrie swallowed and took a ragged breath. She spread her legs and slipped her right hand down her stomach.
“Nervous?”
“No one’s ever watched me do this before,” Kyrie said. “You?”
“I have lost count of how many times I’ve done this for an audience,” Elle said as she ran her hand up and down Kyrie’s soft inner thigh.
“It’s a little embarrassing,” Kyrie admitted.
“That’s why Søren would make me do it for him.”
“Is that why you’re making me do it? To embarrass me?”
“No,” Elle said. “I think it’s sexy. There’s nothing embarrassing about a girl touching her own body.”
She gave Kyrie one more kiss on the lips, then a kiss on each of her nipples. She watched for a moment as Kyrie’s middle and index fingers found her clitoris and stroked it.
Elle picked up her makeshift cane and flicked Kyrie on the smooth skin above her knee. Kyrie flinched.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Elle asked, smiling.
“I can’t believe a little thing like that can cause so much pain.”
“Canes are vicious bitches,” Elle said.
“I was talking about you.”
Elle laughed. “I’m a vicious little bitch, too.”
Kyrie closed her eyes and Elle silently counted to ten. Every ten seconds she would strike Kyrie somewhere on her thighs. She worked her way up the leg and back down again. Kyrie continued stroking herself, kneading her own clitoris until she panted.
As Elle hurt her, she felt herself falling into a place of deep tranquility and calm. Everything outside the chapel ceased to exist. And all that mattered in the world was the world in front of her, this beautiful naked girl who’d given Elle her body.
Along with the tranquility, Elle felt something else. Power. Another human being had given up control of her body to Elle, had put her life into Elle’s hands. Elle cherished that trust. It honored her and aroused her. Was this what Søren felt with her? Did he miss feeling it now that she was gone?
Eight...nine...ten.
Elle hit Kyrie again. She could see angry red welts on Kyrie’s pale flesh. Elle smiled at them, loving the sight of them, knowing she’d given them to Kyrie and they wouldn’t fade for at least a day or more.
Kyrie’s breathing grew more labored. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly. She let out a soft cry, music to Elle’s ears. Her pain and her pleasure sounded the same to Elle’s ears—like music.
Her narrow hips rose an inch off the blanket and pulsed upward. Elle waited and watched. At the moment Kyrie inhaled hard, Elle struck her repeatedly while her orgasm washed over her. She collapsed back on the blanket with a sigh and a laugh.
“That’s my good little girl,” Elle said, stretching out at Kyrie’s side and stroking her face.
“That was really strong,” Kyrie said.
“Pain will do that,” Elle said. “I don’t know how or why, but it’s like putting nitrous oxide in a car engine. It’s a performance booster. Zero to sixty in five seconds flat.”
Kyrie laughed again and wrapped an arm around Elle’s neck.
“You’re explaining orgasms using car metaphors. You are the weirdest woman in the world,” Kyrie said. “No wonder I’m so crazy about you.”
“I might be crazy about you, too.” Elle slid her hand down Kyrie’s chest and stomach. “Especially this part of you.” She pushed two fingers into Kyrie and found her slick with her own wetness.
“That part of me is inordinately fond of you, as well.”
Kyrie opened her legs wide, and Elle massaged her inner muscles with two and then three fingers. She didn’t try to bring her to another climax again. She only wanted to touch, to explore, to feel. But it didn’t take long before Kyrie panted again and dug her fingers into Elle’s thigh. Elle lowered her head and sucked hard on Kyrie’s nipple. Soon she felt Kyrie’s vagina tighten and convulse around her hand with her second orgasm.
Elle pulled her fingers out and wiped the wetness off on the blanket.
“How was that?” she asked Kyrie, who slowly blinked her way back to awareness.
“I love orgasms. I say a prayer of thanks to God for them every day.”
“You say a prayer of thanks for orgasms?” Elle asked.
“Of course. I mean, they’re a gift from God, right? A woman doesn’t need to have an orgasm to get pregnant, right?”
“Right.”
“So if they have nothing to do with reproduction, then why do women have them?” Kyrie asked. She raised her hand and pointed a finger up at the ceiling, at the sky, where God lived. “Orgasms are God’s way of saying He’s sorry about periods and cramps.”
“Apology accepted,” Elle said.
Kyrie said, “Amen.”
Still laughing, Elle sat up and looked around the chapel. “This might be the weirdest prayer meeting ever held in here. Lord, we thank You for orgasms...”
“I don’t know. This place has been around for over a hundred years,” Kyrie said. “I’m sure we’re not the first people to use it for less than entirely angelic reasons.”
“You think other nuns have come out here for their liaisons?”
“Maybe,” Kyrie said. “And locals, maybe.”
“Can outsiders get in here?” Elle asked.
“Definitely. There’s a door. A secret door.”
“Where does it go?”
Kyrie sat up now and pulled her gown back on. “I’ll show you.”
She stood up and Elle followed her to what she’d thought was a storage room behind the prayer altar. But the door didn’t lead to a room. It led outside to a path in the woods. A long tall wooden fence stretched as far as the eye could see all the way from the chapel to the abbey in one direction and from the chapel to the edge of the convent’s acreage in the other.
Elle didn’t cross
the threshold to the outside world. But she stared at it almost hungrily.
“The door locks from the inside,” Kyrie said. “Nobody from out there can come in unless someone in here unlocks the door for them. But maybe that’s happened. Maybe someone from inside the abbey had someone outside the abbey they wanted to see.”
“Why do they have a door back here? We’re not allowed to leave the abbey without permission.”
“It was for the workers who built the oratory. They cordoned off this area while they built it. They didn’t want big burly construction workers tromping through the abbey so they had them come in through the back door of the chapel. They never sealed off the door, though.”
“Lock it,” Elle said.
“But—”
“Do it.”
Kyrie shut the door immediately and locked it up.
“What’s wrong?” She looked at Elle in confusion.
“I don’t want anyone coming in here,” Elle said, her heart racing for no reason she could or would name.
“Who would come in?”
“Nobody.”
“Then why—”
“We should get back to the abbey,” Elle said, taking a step away from the door.
“Elle, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re a bad liar,” Kyrie said, taking Elle’s hand. “You don’t really think he’d break in here, do you?”
“No,” Elle said. “But I might break out.”
Kyrie looked up at her sharply, hurt in her eyes.
“You want to leave?” Kyrie asked.
“No. Yes.”
“Which is it?”
Elle shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
When Elle looked Kyrie in the eyes, she saw fear there. Her gut instinct was to take it away. This girl was hers to protect and to cherish. Dominants were supposed to take care of their submissives. Being a Dominant was harder than she’d anticipated.
“Elle, please. You’re kind of freaking me out.”
“I want to leave,” Elle said, choosing honesty. “But I don’t want to leave you.”
“I see.” Kyrie let go of Elle’s hand and returned to the blanket on the floor. She pulled her legs in tight to her chest.
It wasn’t until she’d seen the open door that she’d realized how much she wanted to walk through it. Not walk—run. She wanted to run through and keep running until she’d put a thousand miles between her and this convent.
“Are you leaving?” Kyrie asked, looking up at Elle.
“No. I can’t leave. I don’t know where I’d go, what I’d do.”
“I do,” Kyrie said.
“What?”
“I said I know what you can do. I told you I’d figure out what you could do with your life. So I figured it out.”
Elle laughed coldly. “You figured out what I can do with my life?”
Kyrie stood up and walked to the back room where she’d hidden blankets.
“I told you I had a present for you.” Kyrie came back out holding an envelope. She gave it to Elle. “So here.”
The envelope had already been opened. It was addressed to Kyrie, not her. One single sheet of paper was inside. Elle unfolded it and held it near the candle.
Dear Kyrie, the letter began.
It was wonderful to hear from you. I think of Bethany every single day. Her books are on my shelves and her memory lives in my heart.
“Who is this?” Elle asked, looking up from the letter.
“My sister’s literary agent,” Kyrie said. “Keep reading.”
I’ll admit I was surprised to receive fifty handwritten pages of an erotic novel from a convent in New York, but Bethany did tell me her baby sister was the odd duck in the family. We have submission guidelines here, but I certainly couldn’t tell any sister of Bethany’s no. I’m glad I didn’t say no. Your friend Elle is an extremely talented writer. I couldn’t put the pages you sent me down and was most unhappy when I reached the end and found there was no more to read.
“You sent my book to your sister’s agent?”
Kyrie grinned in the dark. “I made photocopies of the first fifty pages and sent it to her. But keep reading.”
The letter now shook in her hands.
Please tell me when your friend has finished her novel. And ask her to send it to me as soon as she can. If the rest of the book is as strong as the pages you sent, we can absolutely sell this. I have a list of editors already who would be interested. My contact information is below. When your friend is finished with the book, tell her to email me the completed manuscript and call me as soon as she can.
Elle read the letter again. Then again. She had trouble believing it was real.
“You’re shitting me,” Elle said. “When did you do this?”
“You gave me the book to read so I read it all,” Kyrie said. “I snuck into the offices and used the copy machine to copy the pages. I sent them to my sister’s agent. She and Bethany were close. I knew she’d do me a favor and read it for Bethany’s sake. But she’s tough and honest. If she says she can sell it, she means it.”
“Oh fuck. I have to finish the book.”
“How long will that take you?”
“I don’t know. A month. Six weeks. It takes a long time to write it out by hand.”
“You can do it. I know you can finish it.”
“I can.”
“Are you losing your mind?”
“I kind of am.” Elle’s brain reeled. She had a thousand thoughts all at once. She knew how to finish the book. She’d had the ending in mind for weeks. But everything she’d written was a mess, all handwritten notebook pages. She needed to type the entire book up now. Not on a typewriter. She needed a computer. And a telephone. She had access to neither of them here. It might be 2004 out there in the real world, but the entire convent was stuck in 1904. Mother Prioress had a computer but there was no way Elle could use it to type her novel.
“My kingdom for a laptop,” Elle said.
“What are you going to do, Elle?” Kyrie asked.
“If I pursue this...”
“I know,” Kyrie said. If Elle pursued this, she couldn’t do it from the abbey. She would have to leave.
“You could have gotten into a lot of trouble doing this,” Elle said. “Breaking into Mother Prioress’s office—”
“She doesn’t keep it locked. I snuck in.”
“You snuck in to make photocopies of an erotic story written by the woman you’re sleeping with.”
“We weren’t sleeping together at the time,” Kyrie reminded her.
“Why did you do this for me?”
“I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
“Would you leave with me?” Elle asked.
“Leave the abbey with you?”
“I won’t go unless you go with me,” Elle said, meaning it.