Blasphemy

It was Sunday and I was sitting in the very back pew stage left of the elevated altar. I came every Sunday, every week, every year since I was a child but I sat so far apart because something in me ached. Something in me burned, and it was the farthest I could get away from it without not coming at all. I felt as if a Demon might, had it stepped onto such sanctified ground-my skin burning and my eyes wild from the torture of it. But why would I, such a devout Catholic, such a good girl, feel as if my soul had already been thrown into the flames of Purgatory?

Because it was sinful. I knew it was-these thoughts, these feelings. I could not keep them from over-shadowing my mind as I sat squirming on the hard, solid oak pew. I could not keep it from crawling up my spine and piercing the base of my skull with its claws as I knelt before the Priest to receive the Body and the Blood. I could not chase away the Devil leering over my left shoulder each time I loitered after service so that I may light a candle alone and pray to God for forgiveness, or so I told myself. I could not quell the rising shame blooming in a blush across my chest and cheeks as I whispered half-truths and not-the-whole-story in Confession, the latticework wooden screen between myself and my Confessor but it felt as if I was flayed, naked and exposed for all the World to see even as I skirted the truth.

The truth. I shuddered and ran my hands through my hair as I tried to bring my attention back to the service, back to the Sisters all around me, their voices raised in unison as they sang Ave Maria. I looked down at my hands and realized I was gripping the hymnbook much too tight. I breathed and relaxed my hands, the knuckles having gone white.

The truth finally caught up to me after the service, as I stood at the rows of candles glowing golden in the dark recess of the church, my gaze unfocused and my thoughts far away.

"Why so haunted? Is this not a place of peace for you Gabe?" a voice like amber and satin said quietly to my right. I jumped and tried not to gasp, my heart thudding loudly in my ears. It was Sister Lynn. The thudding in my heart grew faster.

"How long have you been there?" I asked breathlessly, trying to slow my heart rate and hide my rising shame. She shrugged, the corner of her mouth quirking up just slightly, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Long enough," she said and stepped forward towards the candles. Her shoulder, clad in her black habit, brushed mine. Breathe, 1, 2, 3... I schooled myself, breathing slowly through my nose as I watched her slender hand reach for a match, strike it along the box, and light a candle. She knelt on the prayer cushion, leaning her forearms on the angled upright piece of wood and clasped her hands together. "Will you not join me? Or was staring into the flames the Oracle you needed," she jested and closed her eyes.

I settled next to her and mirrored her position to pray, but it was not prayers for peace or money or forgiveness that were on my tongue. No, in that moment I prayed for mercy. Sister Lynn was my best friend, my confidant, my closest companion. We were raised here, together, but when we came of age she had taken up the Cloth and I had not. I had hesitated, but still I came to Mass. Was I that devout, but unable to sacrifice everything Lynn had with her vows? Or was I like a dog with a bone, unable to let something go. I mulled this thought over in my mind feigning prayer as I listened to Lynn recite a Hail Mary.

The place where her elbow brushed mine as we knelt there beside each other burned. My demon raked his claws up my spine, my belly filled with warmth. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Lynn crossed herself and stood and it took me a moment to realize she had reached a hand down to me to help me up. I took it, but when I stood she didn't let go. My heart began to race again. I stayed silent as she looked at our hands clasped together, our arms spanning the space between us, joining us in a way I ached for, longed for. With her thumb she began to swirl lightly over the back of my hand. I shuddered, and she noticed. Her azul eyes shot up and peered at me from beneath black lashes. I breathed out and looked into her face. Her habit fell with a shapeless cascade of black and white to the floor, her veil snug to her face hiding her hair and neck. Hair black as raven's wings, skin white as bone. Hair and skin I had seen but no one else would now. Her slender brows black as her eyelashes were raised inquisitively, her lips were full and berry-bruised and I couldn't take my eyes from them.

Her mouth quirked up once more and I caught a flash of teeth this time. My swallow lodged in my throat. "Sister Lynn..." I started and she raised a finger to my lips to shush me. Turning, she pulled me with her. Out through the side door stage right of the altar, through the room where the young boys prepared to assist with Mass, into a hall and down a flight of stairs. My head was spinning. I knew this place like the back of my hand, I knew this hall, I knew... where she was taking me. Down another silent, empty hall, our footsteps brushing on the tile floor, she paused before a heavy wooden door. Casting a quick glance at me, then past me back down the hall, Lynn pushed open the door with a creaking groan of unoiled ancient hinges.

The room inside was dark as night and cool, and smelled stale. She pulled me in behind her and shut the door, locking the slide bolt behind us. It was silent except for the sounds of our labored breathing, then I heard fabric rustling and suddenly a match flared to life in the dark. I squinted against the intrusion and Lynn's grin only grew wider. "Do you trust me?" she whispered. I nodded. I trusted her more than anything, I would follow her into Hell itself. Maybe I already had.

She pushed past me as the match burned low and then snuffed out just as she reached a wooden table on the far side of the room. Another match was struck and before it burned out she had found a beeswax candle and lit it, then another, and another. Soon the room was a-glow with a warm golden light but the three candles could not reach the farthest corners and they remained in shadow.

"What are we doing here Lynn?" I asked, starting towards her hesitantly. As I neared her and my eyes adjusted to the candlelight I saw that the room was not as empty as I had thought. To one side of the table was a wooden post with rings, to the opposite side was another prayer bench placed beneath an image of the Holy Mother and Son hanging on the wall, candles sitting unlit and dusty in the wall alcove below it. Behind the table was a solid wood chair upholstered with blood-red cloth. But it was what was on the table that stilled my heart in my chest.

There was a cane, like what they rapped our knuckles with when we were young. Beside it was a seven-tailed, knotted Discipline. And beside that was a chain-linked cilice with a red satin ribbon to tie it around the thigh. These were tools of Catholic Mortification, a rare and banned practice I thought lost to the ages or relegated to a radical brotherhood of monks in Rome. I looked to Sister Lynn. I don't know what she saw on my face because I don't know what I was feeling. Really, I was feeling everything-curious, appalled, uncertain, excited. But she saw it all, because she brushed the side of my face with her soft palm and whispered again, "Do you trust me Gabe?".

I nodded my head silently and leaned into her palm. Her touch was soothing and yet invigorating. Then her other palm was on my opposite cheek, my face held gently between them, and she brought her lips to mine. The kiss sent off an electric shock that coursed straight down my belly and between my legs. I deepened the kiss and she moaned softly into my mouth. My knees almost buckled and I went to grasp at her veil but her hand flew to my wrist, stilling me. She broke the kiss and looked at me very seriously. "No Gabe, not now," she whispered and relaxed her grip on my wrist before diving back to my mouth.

Suddenly it was all passion, all heat between us. Our teeth clashed in our fervor, my lips swelled as if bruised. Had she wanted this like I had? Had she dreamed of it as long as I? Had it tormented her waking thoughts and haunted her dreams for years like it had me? In the way she kissed me, I had to believe it had. I hoped, I prayed that it had. For once in my life I prayed with every flayed piece and broken part of my tortured soul for it to be true.

When we pulled apart, we were both panting. Her eyes were flashing and her cheeks glowed with heat, but there was something else behind those eyes. Something dangerous like a leopard pacing. "Kneel," she said, her voice no longer soft but confident and commanding. Before I could think, I had fallen to my knees before her. "Remove your shirt," she said and turned towards the table. Confused but curious, I began to unbutton my blouse and slip it from my shoulders, exposing my self-consciously broad chest and back, my small breasts, my thin waist and the curve of my hips disappearing into my pants. I folded it and placed it on the floor beside me and placed my hands on my thighs, the muscles twitching with adrenaline.

Sister Lynn turned to me, the Discipline scourge now held between her hands, palms up. "Now crawl to the post and grip the rings above your head so your back is exposed for me," she ordered. My eyes darted from the scourge to her face-so stern and yet hungry-then to the post. In a split second I made my decision, and I crawled. The cold stone and grit bit into my knees-no one had swept in this room in clearly a long time. But I made it and hung myself from the large, cold steel rings. I spread my knees just far enough to keep myself upright.

"If you beg Mercy, I will stop. This will end, and we will never do this again," she said from behind me. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the cool wooden post. If only she knew that this was the very mercy I had prayed for, wished for, hoped for. Her eyes on me, her touch, her kiss. I would burn worlds for this to never end. This was my deepest longing, but maybe it was also my reckoning. And so I nodded, my eyes still closed. In the split second of silence after my assent the flogger struck across my shoulder blades. I jumped, my eyes flying open, but I tightened my grip on the rings. I would not falter, I could not be the one to end this. Stripes of burning pain lit up across my back as the seconds passed. Just as I began to breathe into its heat, she struck again.

The pain grew as the lashes criss-crossed with the ones left from the first strike. I hissed out my breath between my teeth and worked my shoulders under the burning across my skin. The third strike came faster this time and I arched reflexively against its searing bite. But just as quickly as it had come, it was replaced by the feather-light touch of Lynn's fingertips brushing across the welts I knew must now be raising. A chill radiated up my spine and I shuddered under her gentleness. Then I felt the warmth of her lips pressed against the nape of my neck just below my hairline. The fire that seared me at her kiss burned hotter than any of the lashes prior. I tensed and held perfectly still, not wanting her to ever take her lips from my skin. But she pulled away, and I whimpered at the loss of her touch.

Lynn chuckled behind me and suddenly the kiss of the Discipline lit up my upper back once more. One, two, three strikes in quick succession. I sagged against my own arms but refused to let go of the rings, my grip tightening against the fatigue in my arms, my head hanging down as my breathing started to come in shallow gasps. My head began to swim. This was unlike anything I had experienced before and I strangely began to feel lighter, as if I was floating.

Lynn let me hang there breathing for a moment or two before she leaned forward and gripped my hair in her fist, tilting my head back sharply. Her breath came as a warm brush along my left earlobe as she spoke. "Do you confess, Gabrielle?" Her question startled me and I thought frantically for an answer.

"Confess what Lynn?" I asked. She jerked my head back harder.

"That's Sister Lynn," she hissed into my ear. I swallowed and nodded against her tight grip.

"Confess what, Sister Lynn?" I tried again. Her grip loosened slightly but she didn't let go. My scalp began to burn at the tension on the roots of my hair.

"To your wanting me," she said. Her tone was not necessarily accusatory, almost knowing, matter of fact. I could hear the coy smile dancing at the back of her words. She let go of my hair and my head hung down again, my chin falling nearly to my chest in defeat.

"I confess to wanting you, Sister Lynn. I confess to the sin of unnatural desire, I confess to the sin of lewd thoughts for my dearest, closest friend. I confess to blasphemy-that I sit in church each week and ache only for you, not for God."

Lynn was silent for a moment, and suddenly my heart began to pound as I feared I had played the game wrong, I had said something wrong, I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. As if sensing my panic, Lynn slipped a cool palm around my throat and pressed her robe-clad chest to my still-stinging back. The warmth of her body seeped into the lashings and I melted into her touch. With slight pressure on my throat she tipped my chin up to lean my head back against her shoulder and reached up with her other hand to gently pry my fingers from their death grip on the post rings.

I hadn't realized my arms had grown heavy until they returned to their place at my sides. My hands fell open palm up in my lap as I came down on my heels and I could only imagine what we looked like kneeling there together. My mind swam harder and my whole body had begun to tingle. I felt drunk. I felt like a pilgrim being filled with the Holy Spirit at a sacred site somewhere far, far away. I felt like Moses standing before the burning bush in a cave in the desert.

"I would say that you are forgiven, but there is nothing to forgive. And who am I but a fellow sinner to pass judgment or mete out forgiveness when I myself am guilty of the same supposed sin of desire?" Lynn whispered. Her hand was still gripping my neck, but her other hand began to draw up my arm until her fingertips found my exposed breast. I gasped as the curve of my breast settled into her palm, I hissed as she pinched and rolled my taught nipple between her fingers. I felt her smile against my ear as she pinched and pulled harder, then the hand at my throat traveled down my chest to find my other breast, and she began to work them both squeezing and massaging, lightly tracing across my skin, then pinching and pulling. I could not tell which sensation I liked, which was too much, too little. All of it sent electric shocks through my belly down into my clit.

Shamefully, I could feel myself growing hot and wet, my clit rising to press against my pants. As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Lynn shifted and one deft slender hand began to trace down my belly and disappeared into the top of my pants. I sucked breath between my teeth as her fingers found home. They rolled my clit, pinching and pulling at it and I bucked against her touch. Her grip on my breast tightened and she held me more firmly against her own chest as the hand in my pants dove lower, seeking. I felt her fingertips trace my wet opening, and she chuckled behind me.

"Already so wet for me, but I need more from you before you can be rewarded for your supplications," she jeered in my ear and took her hand from my pants. I gasped at the loss of her touch and she suddenly pulled me upright to standing. I lilted as the room spun and she held me upright.

"Take off your pants, and your underwear now Gabrielle," she commanded when I'd steadied myself. My head still dizzy, I did as I was told. The air of the cellar was cold against my exposed skin and my aching wet cunt. I shivered and looked to her. She looked me over, her deep blue eyes nearly black like the sky at midnight in the dark raked my body from head to toe, assessing me, contemplating. Then she turned without a word to the table to place down the scourge, and picking up the cane. I shuddered again at the memories of such an implement. Fear began to rise like bile in the back of my throat, but I wouldn't call Mercy. I wanted to be here, to feel her touch on my skin through whatever implements she chose, to melt into her tender ministrations afterwards as my reward for such bravery.

Lynn turned back to me and rapped the cane lightly against her own palm as if testing it. "You remember this, don't you Gabrielle?" she asked, a dark eyebrow rising in question. But she knew the answer, and I knew she knew.

"Yes Sister Lynn, I remember," I all but whispered. She nodded curtly once and then sat down on the red-upholstered priest's chair.

"Then come," she said and patted her lap. My eyes grew wide, but I silently acquiesced. Coming to one side of her, I draped my body across her lap with my bare ass up in the air for her. With her left hand she traced along my spine up to the nape of my neck, then as she grasped my hair in her fist once more she brought the cane down with her other hand across my ass with a crack. I jumped nearly out of her lap with a yelp but she held me down.

"Now now, we can't have all that. Someone will hear us, and that would end very poorly for both of us wouldn't it," she said and leaned across me to reach for something on the table. Suddenly a piece of cloth was stuffed into my mouth. Looking down at the end of the ribbon that brushed the floor I realized it was a royal purple silk priest's stole. I groaned against it, the sound muffled and strained. "That's much better," Lynn said and then a white light erupted behind my eyes as she brought the cane down on me once more. I groaned and whimpered against the vestment between my teeth and my eyes rolled in the back of my head.

"Do you call for Mercy, Gabrielle?" Lynn asked from above me, her hand poised to strike again. My head lolled in her grip but I shook it no. "Good," she said and struck, this time slightly lower towards where the buttocks meet the tops of the thighs. My teeth clenched tight around the wet fabric to keep from screaming as I felt my cunt grow full and hotter and my own wetness began to trickle down between my legs. I moaned at the thought of it soaking into her black robes. Then her grip loosened as she let go of my hair and traced her fingertips back down my spine to rub lightly over the raging welts that had risen across my ass. Unable to hold it up any longer my head drooped and I swam in the sea of hormones coursing through my body. I could barely feel my own weight in her lap. Lynn's touch was soothing and gentle and I felt the endorphins begin to come to ease the pain.

Then she tilted my chin up so I could look back at her, my eyelids heavy. "Are you ready now to truly show your repentance?" she asked with a cooing lilt to her voice. It was sultry and mischievous, confident and dominant. I had never seen this side of her, would have never thought she could fill this role, to act in this persona. But it seemed to come so naturally to her, and I wanted more. I was willing to do everything, anything for her. As if seeing the need and total surrender in my eyes, she smiled and helped me up off her lap and half-slid me to the floor. Thankfully she placed me on an old dusty rug instead of directly on the cold tile.

Head lolling to the side and barely able to hold my eyes open, wadded up and now soaked priest's stole still in my mouth, back and ass burning like I'd been branded, I watched her blurry figure rise and return once more to the table. I heard metal clinking like chains and knew she had grabbed the cilice. She knelt in her habit between my knees and looped the chain around my upper thigh like a garter, and I winced as she cinched it tight. The tips of each looped chain dug into my soft flesh leaving a ring of pinpricks around my thigh. I breathed through the sensation for a few moments, and then she cinched it even tighter. The pinpricks became stabbing, pinching points of pain and I writhed against her. Tying the cilice in place Lynn crept over top of me, her veil and robes cascading down around her as if enveloping me in a dark tent.