The girl stood in the rain, not ten feet from me. Her face and arms were raised to heaven. Her eyes were closed, her wide mouth drawn back in a self-satisfied grin.

Watching from behind the latticed classroom window, I envied her joy but was appalled at her recklessness. Sure, it was fun to walk through a downpour on school grounds. It was madness to do it naked.

She was beautiful, though, even if she was crazy. Her body was compact and athletic, with short, muscular legs and round tits that would have fit neatly in the palm of my hand. The spattering raindrops raised the nipples to sharp brown points, then rolled down her stomach to be soaked up by the sponge-like spot of hair below.

Her china-doll skin had just one disturbing blemish – a chain of green and purple bruises across her throat. The sisters never tired of telling us that every baby, pure as it might seem, is born with the stain of original sin on its soul. This girl could have been the avatar of that cruel doctrine.

I didn’t recognize her. I was new to Calvary Academy, and I didn’t know the girls in the upper classes. She had the same round face as me, the same short, dark hair and thick brows. (I’d always hated mine, but on her, they seemed proud and expressive.) We could have been sisters, which made it all the more puzzling I didn’t know her. You’d think somebody would have pointed out the resemblance.

But why was she nude? I could guess, certainly. Tearing off her uniform was an act of defiance in the oppressive atmosphere at Calvary, a sprawling, faux-Tudor monastery in the mountains of central Pennsylvania where, every morning, we prayed to the plaster Jesus crucified over the blackboard. The classrooms were dark with oak beams and mahogany desks and smelled perpetually of oil soap. The only bright colors I remember belonged to the Savior on the cross, whose wounds were dabbed with scarlet, and the little flags mounted in the corners to either side of Him – on the left, the red, white, and blue of the greatest country in the world; on the right, the yellow and white of the one true faith.

So, to stand outside in the nude, exposed to the elements on a warm November day – I could only imagine how liberating that felt. But why? Why take the risk? If the nuns saw her, they’d kick her out of school. If the girls did, they’d never let her live it down.

I pounded on the glass. “Hey!” I called. “Stop that! Hey! Get inside!” She must have heard me, but it made no difference. If anything, she sank further into herself, hugging her shoulders, then massaging the rainwater into her boobs, and finally, reaching down to touch herself there.

I tried to open the window. The latch came up, but the casement wouldn’t budge. It was swollen shut. I pounded one last time. “Hey! Hey!”

“Who are you yelling at?”

“Nobody!” I spun around, and the word was out of my mouth before I realized how ridiculous it sounded.

“It doesn’t sound like nobody to me,” said Sister Margaret Paul. She stepped calmly through the doorway and across the room.

Sister Margaret was the youngest member of the faculty, and the most sweet-tempered. She overlooked a lot of silliness and misbehavior, but even she would have to report an act of public nudity. The girl outside was dead.

Sister brushed past me and looked out the window, first to one side, then to the other. Her expression didn’t change.

“Well, you weren’t lying,” she said. “There’s no one out there.”

I turned to the window again. The quad was empty. Somehow, the naked girl had managed to duck into the cloisters that enclosed it on three sides. But it was a long run in any direction. To disappear so fast, she must’ve run like the wind.

“She was standing right there,” I said.

“Who was?”

“A girl. She didn’t have any ... raincoat on. I was worried she’d catch cold.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I insisted, more to prove I wasn’t hallucinating than to get the girl in trouble. “Right there –”

“That’s the Blessed Mother,” Sister said.

I felt like a fool. In the spot where the girl had been standing was the old porcelain statue of Mary, blessing a birdbath with outstretched arms. She hardly looked human anymore. Years of exposure had worn her face to a ghostly blur.

“Are you all right?” Sister Margaret asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking,” she said. “Come here.”

She took my hand, gently, and drew me into her arms. It was a soft, comforting gesture, but it only dredged up the sense of isolation I’d been trying to keep buried. I was so lonely I could have cried. I would have, too, if Sister hadn’t spoken first.

“I know it’s hard at a new school,” she said. “Especially being away from home. It’s my first year here, too.”

“Didn’t you go here?” I asked.

“I meant my first year as a teacher. It’s strange. I was taught by most of the other sisters here, and I still can’t think of myself as their equal. I always get the feeling they’re judging me.”

I raised my head and looked at her closely. She had a thin face, light blue eyes and clear, pale skin that seemed to glow in the dull light from the windows. In those days, the church reforms were just getting into gear, and sisters’ habits were no longer the mobile prisons they’d been when I was small. The midi-skirt revealed a bit of leg, the pleated front accented the swell of her bosom, and the veil provided a glimpse of hair above the ears.

Sister Margaret was a straw-blonde. I’d always thought she was pretty, but now she seemed beautiful. Maybe it was the way the light fell, or maybe her open, sympathetic gaze.

She smiled when she caught me staring.

“So we’re in the same boat,” she said. She kissed me, chastely, on the forehead. “Feel better?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“You can call me Margaret when we’re alone.”

“I like Sister better,” I said. “It makes me feel ... I don’t know...”

“Safe?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Beloved?”

“Yes, Sister.”

She kissed me again, unchastely, on the mouth. I gave myself over to it, pressing against her. Her tongue slipped through my open lips. Her hand went up the back of my thigh and through the leg-hole of my panties. She took a firm hold of my ass.

I tipped my head back, offering myself. Sister feasted on my neck, licking and gnawing from the collar to the jawbone. The shock of pleasure took my breath away, and soon another unfamiliar sensation, warm and liquid, began to well up in the one place it was a sin even to think about.

I was a kid. I had only the vaguest notions about kissing and touching, and none at all about the love that was possible between a woman and a girl. Sister’s mouth and fingers sparked the first glimmer of understanding. I wanted to know more. To know everything.

“Yes, there, oh!” I said, trying to sound grown up.

She circled my ear with her tongue, raising gooseflesh down to my waist, but after a few delirious moments, she got hold of herself. She let go of my ass, stepped back, straightened my blazer.

“We should get to the hall before we’re missed,” she said.

“Not yet.” I jammed my lips on hers and rolled my tongue into her mouth.

Other girls talked about kissing boys like this, but I couldn’t imagine it would ever be so good with a boy. Sister was stunned, I think, at my eagerness, but my feelings were suddenly fuller and more urgent than the little schoolgirl crush I’d been dragging around like a toy duck on a string.

I was thinking about the girl on the quad, how free and fearless she was, and how much I wanted to be like her for Sister Margaret, when the wind kicked up outside. Three violent gusts battered the windows, and suddenly, a cold spray stung my face. Sister and I sprang apart.

The casement I’d been pulling on had blown open on its own. The rain was pouring in.

“Well!” Sister said lightly. “Someone evidently disapproves.”

She handed me a tissue from her sleeve and, while I wiped off, went to shut the window.

“Oh no,” she said.

“What?”

“Look.”

I came and stood behind her. Outside, on the grass, the Blessed Virgin lay broken into pieces.

♰

After fifty years, I remember every moment of joy and terror that followed those first kisses.

It began with a dream. I was standing in a church, wearing nothing but my blue blazer and knee socks. I clutched at the lapels, pulled the hem down, trying to cover my nakedness and thinking, they can’t see me like this, but the vent in the back wouldn’t close, and I could feel a cold draft on my butt.

Then I was standing at the altar. Sister was next to me in a silver wedding gown. The naked girl was in front of us, except she wasn’t naked. She was wearing a golden chasuble and a glittery silver stole. I thought she looked pregnant under the vestments, and the bruises on her neck were black and knotted.

I asked, “Can a girl be a priest?” She only made the sign of the cross, blessing Sister and me.

Sister kissed my neck, the way she had in the classroom. The girl-priest took my jacket off and held it up in front of a crowd that suddenly filled the pews. “Holy family,” she said. I remembered the verse, For my garments they cast lots, and I thought, I’m the sacrifice.

Sister began to massage my breasts while somebody, somewhere, repeated I will never betray you. My heart was racing, and it went on racing when I opened my eyes and felt the presence on top of me.

Before I could make a sound, a hand was clamped over my mouth.

“Shh,” a voice said. “It’s only me. Shh.”

I could hear my heartbeat now, and it nearly drowned out the inner voice telling me I was in the dorm, in my bed, and the shadow above me belonged to Sister Margaret. When I was sufficiently calm, Sister took her hand away and kissed me for real. I didn’t object. I didn’t question. I merely returned the kiss, willingly, as she rubbed my body through my nightgown.

“Darling, I couldn’t stay away,” she whispered after a while. “I wanted you so badly. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not,” I said.

“I want to suck your tits and lick your asshole and eat your baby pussy. God, I want to make you come so fucking hard...”

She murmured her obscenities directly into my ear. I’d never heard anyone talk such filth, let alone a quiet young nun charged with my Christian upbringing.

“You’re so bad!” I said.

“And I’ll never betray you.”

Those words froze my blood, but Sister went on kissing and touching me until I’d half-forgotten them. In the dim light from the window, I saw a kerchief on her head – a sleep substitute for her veil, I guessed – and her shoulders felt smooth and solid through a thin cotton robe. The kerchief stayed in place, but the robe quickly disappeared. I ran my hands greedily down her bare back and over the smooth, full globes of her ass. My heart was racing again, but no longer with fear.

Sister reached under my gown. What she found amused her no end.

“Wearing panties to bed?” she teased me. “You’re such a baby.” With a chuckle she pulled them down and off. A moment later, she’d hiked up my gown. A sudden, clammy wind blew across my bare breasts, even though the window was closed. I crossed my arms over them.

“No, don’t be shy,” Sister said, pulling at my wrists. She worked my gown out from under my back and over my face, cast it away, then pulled the covers over us and took me in her arms.

“God has given us no greater gift than our own bodies,” she said. “One flesh. Can you feel it?”

“Yes...”

“Touch my breasts.”

We kissed, long and deeply, as our hands roved. The warm, liquid feeling returned. I threw a leg over hers, clamping myself on her thigh.

“Oh, is that what you want?” Sister said. She rolled me away and plunged two fingers into my cunt.

“Little whore,” she said. “Your pussy’s so wet. You want me to fuck your little pussy? Hm? Is that what you want?”

I grunted in response.

“What was that? Tell me. Beg me to fuck your little pussy.”

But with her fingers pumping my cunt, and her foul words pouring into my ear, all I could manage was a spluttering eff sound.

“You like it when I fuck your pussy? Does it feel good?” Sister said. “Come for me. Let me hear you come.”

She stretched my nipple between her lips, then drew my breast fully into her mouth, and that sent me over. It was a true baptism – my initiation into the love of women and the power of orgasm. A flood of grace burst from heaven, filling my heart and leaving an indelible imprint on my soul.

The image of the naked girl in the rain flashed through my mind. At that moment, Sister stilled her hand.

“What was that?” she said.

“Aw, don’t stop!”

“Listen...”

I heard it then – a girl’s tittering laugh, followed by an explosion of footsteps that raced past my bedroom door.

“Who’s running around at this hour?” Sister said.

I expected a commotion. The sisters slept downstairs. I was sure Mother Adalbert would hear the noise and launch a raid, dragging us all into the corridor and demanding we give up the culprit.