Chapter 3

Sister Gabrielle finished dinner with the other nuns and retired to her bedroom. The convent bedrooms were not grandiose, but they weren’t the unimposing cells typical of other convents. Each had a bed with a single end table and lamp, dresser with a chair and mirror, closet, and toilet with small shower. A large cross hung over the bed and the single window was even adorned with a window shade and drape. Sister Gabrielle took her thick cotton nightgown out of the dresser and laid it on the bed, then she removed her habit and undergarments, hanging the habit in the closet and putting her undergarments into the hamper. She slipped on the collar-to-ankle nightgown.

Sister Gabrielle sat at the dresser and picked up the hairbrush. She stared at herself in the mirror thinking back to watching Cara’s long ponytail bounce on her back. The nun ran her fingers through her short crop of brown hair and solemnly remembered how long and wavy it had been before becoming a nun. Her ponytail had nearly reached her waist. If she had any vanity back then, it had been her hair. At the convent, every month the nuns lined up outside Sister Agatha’s bedroom and one by one had their hair butchered. There was no style. Why would there be? Their hair was always covered with a coif and veil. And there was a reason for their hair to be kept short. Gazing into the mirror, Sister Gabrielle once again ran her fingers through her hair, letting it slip free and fall back down. She sighed before brushing her hair like she did every night. Her routine brought order to her life.

The book she had been reading lay on the end table where she had left it the previous night. The sides lined up with the edges of the table. Everything in its proper place. That was how she lived. She propped up the two pillows against the wall and climbed into bed. Fetching the novel, she opened it to the page where the bookmark held the place, the beginning of Chapter Twelve, and laid the bookmark on the table within easy reach.

She read two or three paragraphs before her mind wandered. Snapping the novel closed around her thumb to hold the place, she squeezed her eyes shut trying to get the image of Cara rubbing herself out of her mind. It didn’t work. Instead, thoughts of the discomfort she had suffered when she touched herself down there filled her mind. Was there something wrong with her? Cara had said that God made her body and if He didn’t want her to have pleasure why would he have given her that special place. Why didn’t she have that special place? Why did it hurt? Maybe she had done it wrong.

Sister Gabrielle put the bookmark back in the novel, still on the first page of Chapter Twelve, and placed the book on the end table. She lay staring into space trying to make sense out of the day. Sister Gabrielle laid her hand on her crotch. She kept it there. Her heart pounded. She was touching herself where she shouldn’t. Over the nightgown, but still touching herself. Other than shame and guilt, she didn’t feel anything. Surely nothing Cara had felt. She pressed down and rubbed, feeling her prickly pubic hair through the nightgown and her labia squishing. Nothing else. Other than shame. And inquisitiveness. Sister Gabrielle taught English, and loved it, but she had always enjoyed math. She loved solving problems. Saw them as a challenge.