"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last confession."
"Yes, my child."
"Father, may I depart from the usual ritual? It's me. Sister Helga."
"Of course. Would you prefer to confess face-to-face?"
"No! I mean, what I have to tell you is . . . Well, it's quite unusual. I'm not sure I could look you in the eye while doing it."
"Just relax and tell me about it, Helga. I'm here to bring absolution, not judgment. Just tell me how you have sinned."
"That's just it, Father. I'm not sure what I've done wrong."
"I don't understand. Tell me what's troubling you."
There was an awkward silence as Sister Helga sought the right words to say.
"Father, am I a good person?"
"Of course you are."
"Do I not live by the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule?"
"Yes, of course."
"Am I not obedient? I try very hard to be obedient."
"I've never known anyone of such unquestioning obedience. You are an example to all the other members of the convent."
"Then why am I being punished?"
Father Murphy hesitated.
"Why do you think you're being punished?"
Sister Helga breathed a sigh of despair. "Ever since I reached puberty, people have behaved strangely around me. Like I was different from other girls."
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is, most boys would get anxious around me, and those who actually had the courage to talk to me would suggest the most shameful things! And most of the other girls wouldn't talk to me. They would behave like I was a threat to them—even though I just wanted to be their friend."
"Why do you think people acted this way?"
"I think it was because . . . Well . . . ," Helga fell silent. She had never talked about this before.
"My breasts are very large," she said at last.
"Yes. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"And my waist is very small."
"Yes."
"And I have always had very athletic thighs and buttocks."
"Ohhh, yes."
"And I think . . . I know this is foolish. But sometimes I think God made me this way because of something I've done. That it's his way of telling me I'm a bad person."
"Nonsense!"
"But being this way makes it harder to be good. If you only knew the temptations that have been put to me! If you only knew how I've been tested!"
"Many women would consider such gifts a blessing."
"Bad women! Women who sin!"
"Certainly you can find ways to use your gifts for good. People listen to you. They trust you. Your natural beauty makes you a valuable messenger for God's word."
"Then why am I being punished?"
"I still don't understand why you feel that way."
Helga sighed again. "As you know, the convent—that is, the building itself—shares its east wall with St. Augustine's School for Wayward Girls."
"Yes."
"And it shares its west wall with the School for Troubled Boys."
"Yes."
"Yesterday, when I was in the convent—showering . . ."
"Yes?"
". . . I discovered . . ."
"Yes?"
". . . a hole—in the shower wall. When I look through it, I can see the janitor's closet in the boy's school."
"Really? A hole?"
"Yesterday, someone in that closet looked through that hole, and
saw me showering
! I didn't notice at first because of the design in the tile. But when I discovered it, I looked through, and I saw someone run away. He had been
looking
at me!"
"Oh, my poor child! I'll tell the custodian to have it repaired immediately."
"I feel so ashamed!"
"Now, Helga, you mustn't blame yourself. You know what teenage boys are like."
"Oh, it wasn't a student! That closet is always kept locked." Helga wiped away a tear. "I try so hard to be good. I thought this sort of thing would end when I joined the convent."
"My dear Helga, joining the convent doesn't change the nature of the world. I'll find out who's responsible."
"It couldn't have been a student. After it happened, I asked the janitor to show me the room, and he said he couldn't because he didn't have the key. That room isn't used anymore. It hasn't been for years."
"I promise I will handle this situation myself."
"The janitor said he'd worked here for twenty years, and he'd only ever been in the room once—and that time,
you
had to unlock the door for him."
The silence that followed was terribly, terribly awkward.
Helga didn't want to continue, but did.
"Only you have that key."
Father Murphy still said nothing.
"WHY WERE YOU SPYING ON ME?
" she cried. "I know what a good person you are, so I know you wouldn't do that sort of thing unless you thought I deserved it." Helga did her best to control her emotions. "Please, just tell me! Why am I being punished?"
She waited for a reply.
"Father?" she asked when the silence had become unbearable. "Aren't you going to say anything?"
"Two rosaries," blurted Father Murphy. "Pray two rosaries for forgiveness."
"Aren't you going to tell me what I . . ." Sister Helga fell silent. She heard Father Murphy's breath catch in his throat. Was he crying? Or was he . . .
"Father,
are you masturbating?"
"Just keep talking!"
gasped Father Murphy.
Sister Helga ran from the confessional in tears.
Alone, Father Murphy continued his prayer. "Oh god oh god oh god oh god . . .
ohhhhhhhhh, lordy!"
Saying goodbye to her friends at the convent was difficult, but she could not stay. Her faith had been shattered beyond repair, so she chose instead to return to school to pursue her
other
dream—that of getting her master's degree.
She soon found a new direction for her life within the chemistry department of a prestigious university where she quickly drew the attention of one of her professors.
"Do you know why I chose you to be on the research team?" asked Dr. Watts.
"Because I'm one of your best students?" said Helga, beaming with confidence.
"You are. You have an intuitive grasp of our work that my other students lack." This was the truth. Helga was extraordinary—a model student for the chemistry department.
"You're very kind, Doctor," she said, blushing.
"Not at all." Dr. Watts chuckled good-naturedly. "I didn't bring you on the team just for your good looks."
This was a lie. As an expert in the emerging field of commercial aphrodesiacs, Dr. Watts knew it could only help to have someone of Helga's obvious appeal helping to draw attention to his work.
"What exactly is this research about?" she wanted to know.
"A colleague of mine donated to me a unique plant," he said, picking up the potted flower on his desk. "This was grown from a seed taken from the original. He told me that its scent had the ability to arouse the libido of anyone who smelled it, and he hoped that I could learn the secrets behind its chemistry.
"As you may know, most so-called aphrodesiacs are no more than placebos, so I was naturally skeptical. To my surprise, the plant had an astounding effect on the lab mice it was tested on. I asked my colleague where he found this plant, hoping he could help me find more. But he claims it's only found on a remote and inaccessible island in the Pacific—where its scent has a profound effect on the local population. He told me a tall tale about an island of dominant women who operate a kind of sex school there. Obvious nonsense, of course, but the plant's attributes are real."
He offered Helga the plant hoping she would take it—and perhaps even inhale deeply—but she merely looked and nodded with polite interest.
In the days that followed, Helga got to know the other two members of the research team. Artie and Jay seemed like nice fellows, but she was sometimes apprehensive about the way they would stop talking when she entered the room, or would abruptly look away when she made eye contact with them, as if she wasn't supposed to know they saw her at all.
The truth was, they did see her. And seeing her made it impossible to think about anything else. Maybe the scent of the flowers was to blame.
One night she worked late, using the amphitheatre of the empty lecture hall to enter some test results into her laptop. It was a warm evening, so she had slipped off her lab coat and was working in her tank top and shorts. She sat in the front row typing while sipping an energy drink. She was listening to her iPod through tiny earphones, so she didn't hear Artie and Jay whispering about her. She believed they were in the lab down the hall, but they were actually in the back of the room staring at her.
"I love hot weather," whispered Jay. "I wish I lived where it was always hot and women always look like her."
"Yeah," agreed Artie who was more guarded about sharing his private thoughts. He was carrying a tray of test tubes, not because he needed them, but because they made him look like he had a reason to be there.
Helga sipped her energy drink and seemed to grow restless. She wiped some perspiration from her neck and absent-mindedly tugged at her tank top as though it were suddenly a little too small.
Distracted by her activity, Artie rattled his tray indiscreetly.
She didn't look up or notice they were there.
"We shouldn't be staring at her like this," said Jay. "What if Dr. Watts saw us?"
Artie finally decided to risk speaking his private thought out loud. "Jay, you know how we're always joking about the flower serum and what effect it might have if we used it on a human girl?"
Jay knew he was talking about the active chemical which they had extracted from the flowers. Finding a way to refine and mass produce the substance had been the subject of all their research.
"Sure," said Jay. "We even figured out how much we would need for a human dose. Of course, human trials haven't been approved yet, and until they are, testing it on a human would be
wrong
."
