Sisters in Sin by Primula Bond

Author:Primula Bond [Primula Bond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

There were some intense glances from the Sisters when I came in from the garden for lunch the next day. Eyes lit up even more when they saw I was carrying several bottles of wine. Amazing how silence can ripple, how you can almost touch it. Eyes followed me up and down the refectory as I poured out glasses of wine, Sisters raising chunky tumblers brimming with that ruby liquid with only one question on their lips.

Had I done it again with Zippo the gardener?

They were trying to sense it, smell it off me as I lined the bottles up on the sideboard, new labels prominent, then collected my bowl of soup and sat down on the hard wooden bench to eat. I enjoyed it. Yes, of course I enjoyed it. The attention. The quiet shuffling in chapel, in the kitchen shelling peas, in the scullery scrubbing pans, to get closer to me, the unspoken desire of the Sisters to speak to me if they could find a way. Find out more about me and my world. And what I’d done with Zippo the gardener.

I winced as the soup burnt my mouth. The same mouth that had, as instructed, wrapped itself round his erect cock not an hour since. Even so, it was they who had so much to teach me, I reckoned, looking round at those pale, solemn faces shrouded in their veils. How they existed inside these walls, contemplating poverty, chastity and obedience, and silence, for ever, all the while retaining their wide-eyed, enthusiastic innocence.

I caught Sister Antonia’s eye from the far side of the room. She seemed to be trying to tell me something. Warn me? And beside her Sister Frances, too, was making the sign of the cross and tilting her head towards the chapel.

I started to smile at them both, warm in my new popularity, when the bubble abruptly burst. The double doors opened to reveal Mother Superior. I stifled a smile. Honestly. She should be on the stage. It was like something out of The X Factor. All it needed was the shiny floor, the smoke, hysterical applause.

She glared around the refectory then crooked her forefinger at me. ‘Sister Benedicta. Confession. Now.’

I walked slowly towards her, ramrod-straight, picking up my feet, ignoring that ripple of interest from the Sisters as I arranged my face into the requisite pious expression. Only as I reached her did I realise that Mother had called me Benedicta, not Perpetua. So the swap secret was still safe.

Or was it? This was the first time I’d been up close to her since donning Natalia’s habit, and her eyes narrowed. I bowed my head quickly so she couldn’t detect the obvious differences. Like the fact that I was a good ten years older than Natalia and probably half a stone heavier …

She swivelled like a robot and processed stiffly up the chilly cloister. The wind was slicing in horizontally today, even though we were surrounded by high walls. Boy, had I been glad to shelter in the warm greenhouse at dawn this morning.

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