Father Ben paced nervously in his quarters late on a Thursday evening, a glass of brandy beside his favorite chair, and a half smoked cigar emitting a last futile plumelet of smoke in his ashtray. He was in his pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers; his mind lost in thought. Sister Holly sat nearby in a plain white dressing gown, her bare legs crossed and her toes twitching, sipping from a snifter. "I told you, Ben. Mother General Stacy has overrated her knowledge of feminist theology for decades now. Even though she got a doctorate in Rome, her grasp of this topic still revolves around of a VW van parked at Woodstock."
He nodded. "I know now, that's sure as shit. The other guys are pissed as hell, and unless I find something to make them happy, my credibility as an Abbot is in the toilet." He stopped relight his stogie before taking another shot of liquor. "They've hardly spoken to her between the sessions, and today they hardly spoke to me." He resumed pacing again, sending upgrade to gray clouds.
Holly uncrossed and recrossed her legs and took another sip. "You need a stroke of inspiration, and you need it quickly. If this were my penance day, I know what would take your mind off this. But we must keep things in order in our relationship."
"Is there anything we can say to Stacy that will improve things tomorrow?"
"There might be something she can do tonight," Holly said with a distant look in her eye. "At times when Stacy and I have been drinking she remembered her party animal days quite fondly. She once believed in 'Free Love' with a passion, and told me it was a miracle she didn't catch VD or get pregnant before she came to the convent."
"If she could do something nice for the guys tonight, then tomorrow would be a different story. What would you have in mind?"
Holly stood up and walked over next to Ben. "There was that one night," she whispered, "when there was a particularly wild party, and she took on seven guys in a row. Her younger sister was there and told me about it one time when she visited us. How long has it been since you visited her at her Motherhouse?"
"Five months at least. My calendar's been pretty full and she's been bugging me to pay her a visit. Are you proposing we re-create the 60s?"
"Let's see, what time it is?" Looking up at an antique clock on the wall, she noticed the time was 9:30. "A little late for monastic types, but I imagine Stacy is watching something on television."
Ben blew a smoke ring. "Would you mind sauntering down to her quarters to see how interested she would be in reliving her youth?" She winked at him, put down her glass, and slipped out the door without a sound.
It was 10 minutes before Holly returned, and Ben had finished his cigar, taking the last gulp of his brandy as she entered. She sat next to him and said, "Stacy is a little incredulous the boys aren't fascinated by her lectures, however the idea of some late-night recreation appeals to her. Of course, the situation would be that she would have no say in the matter, and be totally under the control of someone else."
"Ah yes, that means anything that happens won't be her fault. I think there's something in the storeroom that may be of help."
"What about your fellow Abbots? How will they justify all this?"
"How do guys generally justify things like this?" he replied, arching his eyebrow. Holly smiled and nodded. "In our storeroom is a set of stocks. I don't know exactly how they got there, the history of this place goes back a long way, and there was an early Abbott that had some strange ideas of how the Chapter of Faults should be held. Brother Iggy restored it and made it look pretty good 40 years ago; what he had in mind is best not discussed. I think you and I could set it up in the chapter room."
Holly rolled her eyes and started tapping her barefoot on the carpeted floor. "So there is some truth to the rumors of monastic decadence? This is too good to be true. We'll get Stacy to help us, this sounds like her kind of crazy shit."
They went down the hallway to the guest quarters, and Holly knocked on Stacy's door. It opened almost instantly: Mother General Stacy was a tall woman in her early 70s, built like a linebacker with short grizzled hair, huge bushy eyebrows, high cheekbones, flashing blue eyes, and wore nothing but a blue bathrobe that barely covered her crotch area and pink fuzzy open toed slippers. A smile lit up her face when she saw Ben. "At last you're going to take care of me, big boy. How many do you think you can line up for me?"
"I think everyone will be there except Johnny. His tastes run a different direction, as you know. Would you help us lug a piece of equipment from one of our storage areas?"