Mary, Mother of X

It was the kind of day where Mary just knew the nuns were off in their respective corners of the convent, having silent orgasms. There was never a better day then, to indulge in secret pleasures. On the Lord’s Sundays, she could almost see Him kick off His leather oxfords and swap them out for a pair of scuffy sandals. He’d order a round of His finest wine for Peter, Paul, and the rest of the fellas and the carrier angels would flit about and keep the glasses full all day. And since God made merry on His rest day, He forgave you for your trespasses even before you knew you were going to commit them.

Every time Mary sinned in the convent though, she felt a tiny prick of guilt. Even though she was only a postulant, doing and thinking bad things in a convent felt like peeing in a reservoir. Mary’s sin of choice, though relatively harmless, touched on all of the following: lust, theft, and gluttony. Sister Nina’s mother sent her a box of two-dozen chocolate covered salted caramels each month from Atlantic City, which drew Mary into Sister Nina’s room every Sunday afternoon while the nuns were all at their weekly meditation. She would tiptoe in and slide the right drawer of the desk out, freeing the box from its hiding place beneath a book of novenas. Sister Nina had an exacting method of devouring her sweets, an order which once discovered, Mary vigilantly observed. She worked her way around the diameter, counter-clockwise, moving to the center only after emptying all the outer slots. Mary helped herself to one a week, popping the whole thing in her mouth and relishing the way the sharp bite of sea salt drew out the sweet and bitter notes of chocolate, which melted into a firm buttery smoothness that coated her tongue.

Losing herself in a moment of indulgent reverie, Mary failed to hear Sister Nina open the door. Confusion crossed the woman’s face for a brief second, and Mary, startled, looked up to catch Sister Nina’s thick brow furrowing, before she registered the box of open chocolates on the desk. She hardened her jaw and scowled deeply. Several exaggerated strides closed the gap between them in a time that seemed impossibly quick for her heavy frame. Inches from Mary’s face, Sister Nina halted and Mary could feel her warm, shallow breath on her forehead. Her scent was both pungent and soft, cloves and baby powder. Mary, deeply resigned, willed herself to meet the Sister’s eyes. In the instance she did, she felt herself in the shadow of something – something concupiscent and base.

“I’m so sorry. Really. Deeply sorry.” Mary stammered. Ignoring her, Sister Nina reached for the box of chocolates and Mary, unable to move, watched as she fumbled with the lid, extracting another piece from the collection. Moistening the chocolate with deliberate, sensual flicks of her tongue, Sister Nina seized Mary’s hip with her free hand and pulled her even closer. Mary felt their hips kiss forcefully, and in vain, attempted to step back. With her other hand, Sister Nina drew the wet edge of the chocolate up and down the smooth, exposed skin directly under Mary’s collarbone, marking a shallow ‘v.’ Pushing down more forcefully as she retraced the ‘v,’ Sister Nina’s eyes locked onto Mary’s breasts. With revulsion, Mary observed as Sister Nina’s nostrils flared into a playful sneer and her brows arched slightly to betray a reckless lust. Mary felt a deep flush penetrating the surface of her skin, heat prickling from her cheeks to outer earlobes. Speech was suddenly inaccessible, corralled into submission by a tumorous bulge that Mary tried desperately to swallow. Mary pictured tiny tendrils extending from the soles of her feet, twisting and transforming, growing their sinuous network into broad, unwieldy roots that lock her down in a stoic paralysis. In that moment, the ‘v’ that Sister Nina had drawn, sunk heavy into her chest, ripping its way through her abdomen, displacing a flurry of ill-formed feelings – humiliation, guilt, and embarrassment – before settling itself around her pelvis as an anchor lodges into the sandy bed of an ocean floor. One singular and heavy truth remained: that this had been her fault.  

“Want another one, Mary?” Sister Nina taunted in a hoarse whisper. Mary’s shame, knotted deep in her gut started to unravel, clawing its way up blindly, stabbing her hard, as it travelled to her throat. In that protracted minute, the cascading white folds of the Sister’s habit and the rosary around her neck came into stark relief. Mary felt an inexplicable, growing desire to finger the hard beads, like she did each night, offering up fervent Hail Marys as ammunition for the angel on her right, so that he might triumph over the devil on her left. Her gaze fixed on the roughly hewn Jesus at the bottom of the necklace. Guided by some feral, protective instinct, Mary’s hand shot up. She yanked hard on the string of beads, deftly freeing the faceless Christ.