Sacred Heart Academy for Girls is a beautiful campus, nothing but hills and green fields and trees. It houses two hundred girls total, grades ten through twelve. It's a great school that looks excellent on any transcript. It has its own shops, its own restaurant, and the most beautiful little chapel with stained glass windows.
Pilar Duarte fucking hates it.
She's legal, but barely. She developed early and has very large breasts. Cuts her hair off too short, wears her jewelry and attractive little thongs and ruffled boyshorts with the otherwise unflattering uniform for no other reason than to annoy the nuns. The black wool skirt is gross-feeling, but it's bearable when she rolls it up to show her knees, which are covered by the stupid standard white socks anyway. She's bold and kind of brash, with a little taste. Her bag is Italian leather, this nice cream colour, and there's always a book in it along with the verboten makeup and sugar and usual trappings of a late teenage girl. She likes esoteric movies and reads stuff like Hunter S. Thompson and H.P. Lovecraft and James Joyce in her spare time.
Hell, when he knocked, she was lounging on her dorm bed in her rolled-up wool skirt and oxford top, listening to One Direction on her little pink Ipod while reading Portrait of the Author As A Young Man. She was laying very unladylike, as Mother Superior would call it, but it's comfortable and nobody will see up her skirt anyway. She has an Orange Crush open and balanced on a book beside her and a little yellow wrapper next to it, nearly devoured. She eats Ibarra right out of the plastic, cuts it up into little sandy pieces, and sucks on them until they're spicy chocolate residue.
"Who's there?" She called through the closed door. "I don't feel much like dealing with your pedantic bullshit, Melesinda." She swears a lot, but it paces naturally with the rest of her speech. You can tell just by listening to her talk comfortably that she started from the bottom but is educated and cultured now. The penguins (her term for the brides of Christ) don't know what to do with her, and frankly, neither does he, but she's his problem now.
Enter Cazador Moreno.
The rest of the lot call him "Father." She calls him Abbe' in that inflammatory, flippant way. She's either seen Quills or knows decent French, he thinks, potentially both.
He's startled her. It's around five o'clock. Classes ended at three, extracurricular stuff just got out. She was half-expecting a visit from Mother Superior Head Penguin Herself Benigna Bautista. Very likely for her interrogation of Sister Ester about how exactly the tides prove that God exists. She popped out an earbud and sat up a little, careful to not lose her place. But it wasn't a sky blue habit in the doorway. No, she'd heard about him but never seen him before. Abbe'. Father Moreno.
"May I come in?" he says, voice even and surprisingly pleasant. He can't be over thirty, she thinks.
"I don't know why you ask, it's your room. Your building, you know." She removes her headphones and pauses the pink postage stamp.
"You pay for it. I just run the circus," he says. He's tall, but not imposing. In one hand, he has the worn brown leather bag of legend. The girls said that in extreme cases of bad behavior, he'd take a Bible and beat the offending girl until she cried and gave no more trouble. Pilar didn't believe it. He just looked too...nice. He had kind eyes, wide like her own, but a much darker blue. He's slim and his clothes fit him well, she noted. Her eyes drifted to his belt and she wondered what was hiding behind his pants. He had big hands with thick veins. Surely it wasn't just his hands.
"Please sit, Abbe'. Can I get you an Orange Crush? I think there may be a Sprite in there somewhere." She gestures idly to the tiny fridge set up near him. He takes a seat at her hutch desk, which is cluttered with both books for enjoyment and finished homework she hasn't gotten around to organizing yet. She's unsure what to do. It's been months since she's even seen a man. She looks to the floor, thinking of her shoes tucked under the lip of the bed. Maybe put those on? What does he want? The room is untidy and her cheeks go pink.
"I just wondered if we might have a chat," he starts, depositing his bag on the floor with a dull thud. "I've heard you've been having a lot of trouble adjusting."
Great. This whole thing again.
She's silent, watching him. Unlike Her Royal Penguinship, he doesn't even seem ruffled. It's weird.
"To be honest, Abbe', this wasn't my choice. None of it was."
"Such is life. We do what we can with what we have, though. Is there anything I can do to perhaps make this less difficult?" He stood again, paced around the room, looking at things.
"It seems you have everything you need to be quite comfortable here. Your parents send money to your account and everything."
He stopped by her TV and nightstand, a mess of cases and DVDs. It wasn't big, but it was nice enough. He picked up a few and looked through them.
"Cartoons. Not a big deal. I quite enjoy Family Guy myself. Haa, that part about the SuperDevil gets me every time." He put it down and continued idly searching.
She didn't know what to make of it. A priest who watches Family Guy? Didn't they all take a vow to surrender any sense of humor?
"I don't suppose Mother Superior has gotten into that jar of marmalade," she says, a maddening half-smile covering her face. Despite himself, he smiles. Bautista grates on his last nerve weekly. If it's not girls supposedly worshipping Satan (Benigna, it's a pop music star. No, that's not a real meat dress.), it's a busted light bulb in the gym's ceiling or a request for "more modest" uniforms. For the love of God himself, they already had near-ankle-length skirts and oxfords, knee socks, and church-issued underpants that looked more like tea towels than anything. So yes, he tittered a little.
"Pilar, you're an intelligent girl. Your entrance exam scores left nothing to be desired. You study and you turn in your work and ace your exams. But you bedevil the nuns in the worst kind of way. You ask these uncomfortable questions, you refuse to bow your head in prayer, and at confession..." he was on a roll but had to stop himself. Then he decided better of it. "...I must say, that's some of the most creative penance I've ever had to figure." Perhaps he could get through to her if he illustrated that neither was he perfect?
"Tell me, what's going on with you?"
"Abbe', I'm bored." She said, simply and honestly. Well, it was true. She had no challenge to her mind here. The more zealous girls were mostly simple anyway, and the studious ones were too prim and closed-minded. She did have but one friend, but that was more a marriage of convenience.
"Bored?"
"Bored. Yes. Simple as that. I had no choice to come here. My parents dropped me here like I was unwanted luggage, and I have to fit in with these..." Her brows knitted and she struggled for a good word. "...people, and I have nothing in common with anyone, I am above the coursework, and most of it is tainted rubbish anyway." It felt good to finally be able to say what she'd wanted to. The nuns never listened. They pulled her aside, dealt punishment, sent her away, and never even cared about anything. It was infuriating. But this wasn't so with Moreno. He listened. Though at the moment, he had a few books and DVD cases in his hands.
He took a seat at the desk again.
"Why do you have my things?" She said. He sighed, and held them up, one by one.
"Story of O. Exit To Eden. Lolita. I've heard of these."
