Chapter 1

Kristen Lamb stirred uneasily in her seat. There were ten minutes left in the school day, and every second weighed on her like an armload of books. She couldn't wait to get out of there. At the front of the room, Sister Patrice was going on about the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament. Sister Patrice was a wonderful teacher, and Kristen adored her, but this afternoon she couldn't keep her mind on her lesson, even a lesson about God, delivered in Sister Patrice's musical brogue.

The girls at St. Agnes Academy had switched over to their spring uniforms this week — trading their green-plaid jumpers for khaki skirts, white knit tops with the St. Agnes crest on the left (Kristen's was green, to denote her lowly status as a freshman), white knee-highs and oxblood loafers — but today, even the lighter-weight clothing felt as airless as rubber.

The April sunlight, angling though the windows, was hot on her shoulder. Her socks were damp with perspiration, and her panties chafed the hard tendons between her crotch and her thighs. Her bra felt tight. She could imagine the red grooves it was digging under her arms. All she wanted to do was get home, strip off her uniform and lie down on the cool, crumpled sheets of her unmade bed. She gave her skirt an upward tug and parted her knees, letting in a touch of air.

It wouldn't be a sin, she was sure. If she was alone, and no one could see her, where was the shame in taking off her clothes? Or admiring her legs, or the way her small breasts leaned away from one another, flattening at her breastbone, bulging delicately at the sides, as she lay on her back? Vain, maybe, but not sinful, not really. Kristen took seriously her Church's teachings on sexuality, and she'd promised herself she would remain a virgin until the day she married. Then her husband, whoever he might be, would fill her with his love — a sacramental act that, to be holy, must be open to the transmission of life. She glanced at the pathetic bumps beneath her shirt, and she imagined a child sucking her bare breast. Stretching the stiff nipple, kneading it between its wet gums. Sucking so hard —

"Miss Lamb? Miss Lamb!"

Kristen fell back to the present with a jolt, and there was Sister Patrice, giving her an understanding smile.

"Miss Lamb, I know it's a beautiful day, and we'd all much rather be out-soyde, but if you'd give me your attention for another foyve minutes, you might learn something more about your fay-eth."

A mocking laugh went up among the other girls, but Sister cut it short with a raised hand.

"Be charitable," she said. "If you learn nothing else in this class, learn that."

Dear Sister Patrice! She never raised her voice. She never embarrassed anyone — not like mean old Sister Saint Augustine, Kristen's math teacher. If she had caught Kristen daydreaming, she would have hauled her up to the front of the room and smacked her bottom with a yardstick. She made her victims pull their skirts up and show their panties. Spanking ninth-graders like they were little kids: there was something pervy about that. And a senior told her a story once about a girl who wasn't wearing panties when her turn came. Kristen didn't believe it. It had to be a school legend, something everybody knew but no one had seen, even though the upperclassman swore it was true.

Kristen shook off the image. She straightened up in her chair, resolved to pay attention, only to find one more distraction to deal with. Lying on her open catechism was a piece of notepaper, torn from a spiral pad and folded twice. Suzie must have passed it to her while she was daydreaming. Kristen glanced across the aisle, but Suzie was facing front like nothing was going on. Kristen could see only the edge of her brown profile behind the sheet of her black hair. She opened the note slowly, when Sister wasn't looking, and read, in Suzie's loopy handwriting —

Sister Patrice has big tits!

Oh, of all the stupid things! What was her problem? Suzie knew Kristen was a good girl, and she was always talking dirty to shock her. Kristen liked the naughtiness, the flirting with sin, but to write something that crude about a teacher as nice as Sister Patrice was too much. She folded the note again and hid it inside her skirt, under her leg. She looked back across the aisle. Suzie, eyes still front, was pressing her lips together, like she was holding back a laugh.

The joke really was on Kristen. Now she couldn't help but think about Sister Patrice's breasts. And Suzie was right: they were big. It was a pity no baby would ever suck on them. Sister was young, only a couple years out of college, or the novitiate, or boot camp, or wherever it was a nun became a nun. She wasn't as tall as Kristen, but she was round and womanly everywhere Kristen was straight and boyish, and her black habit, cinched at the waist, only drew the eye to the swells of her hips and boobs. Her veil perched on a half globe of orange hair that swept across her forehead, skirting the high arches of her eyebrows. The eyes themselves were an ever-changing green, their value shifting with the light: spring leaves, then a churning sea; jade, then pine. Her cheeks were full, but her chin was sharp, and when she turned her head just so, Kristen saw, behind the veil, curling points at the tips of her ears. She looked like a voluptuous elf.

What did she look like when the habit came off? This was sinful, imagining someone else's body — and a nun's body, too — but Sister had to undress sometime, if only to take a shower. Her breasts would bounce and jiggle as she massaged them with soap, and she'd lift them in her slippery fingers, daring a proud smile at their fullness and weight. Here, Sister, let me do that for you. Kristen, naked, took the almond-scented bar, rubbed it between her hands, and when they were thick with foam, placed them gently over the pointed hemispheres...

The bell rang.

All at once, everything was chatter and motion, in the classroom and the hall. The other girls packed up and headed for the door. Kristen slumped in relief.

"Tomorrow is Holy Thursday," Sister said over the din. "The front doors will be locked. If you're coming for the retreat, come in through the rear entrance and meet in the chapel. Ten AM. I hope to see you all they-er."

"You're a freak," Kristen said. "You're trying to get us killed."

"It is our duty to bear witness to the truth," Suzie said. That was what Sister Patrice had said about the faith.

"That's not what she meant."

"How to you know what she meant? Truth is truth."

Sister had said that, too.

They were the farthest from the door and the last ones out. Kristen followed Suzie across the room. Sister was erasing the word "accidentals" from the chalkboard.

"Will I see you young ladies tomorrow?" she asked over her shoulder.

"I think so," Kristen said.

"You think so? Let your yes be yes, and your no be no."

"Yes."

"That's excellent." She put down the eraser and turned around, wiping the chalk dust from her hands.

"What about you, Miss Nguyen?"

"We don't have to, do we?" Suzie said.

"No, you don't have to, but I think you can use the pray-yer much more than Kristen." Sister had the most beautiful way of trilling her r's.

"OK," Suzie said, like was being asked to a dance.

"Well don't be tew excited," Sister said.

And Suzie's note, which Kristen was smuggling out of the room stuck to the back of her thigh, peeled off and parachuted to the floor.

"You've dropped something," Sister said.

Always humble, always helpful, Sister bent over to pick it up, but Kristen was quicker.

"It's all right," she said. She stepped on the paper, then got it herself.

But it was a mistake. Her panic had showed, and it only aroused Sister's suspicions.

"Let me see that," she ordered.

Kristen had no choice but to hand it over. Sister examined the note intently, and Kristen went cold all over as she watched her life come to an end.

"How about the both of you stay after class?" Sister said finally. "Miss Lamb, you have just volunteered to clean the room. And when you are finished, you wait here until I re-ter-rn. You — Miss Nguyen — come with me."

"See ya," Suzie said.

She was in a lot of trouble — a shitload of trouble, she would say — and it didn't seem to faze her. Nothing fazed her.

The door shut, leaving Kristen cut off, trembling with rage and fear. Darn Suzie. No — damn her. God damn her. God damn her to fucking hell. How's that for breaking the Second Commandment? She'd been inches away from her Easter break, and now she was being punished for a stupid joke that she didn't even make. Who knows how long she'd have to stay after, or how many days detention she'd get? They'd probably call her mother, too. Maybe even suspend her.

Worse yet, it would be hours before she could get home and strip.

Kristen dropped her catechism on Sister's desk. She went to the back of the room, and, taking hold of the long-handled broom that was leaning against the wall, she proceeded to march through the aisles. Down one, up the next, down the third, never lifting the bristles. It sucked, but work helped her breathe, and every few moments, she forgot the trouble she was in.

The noises in the hall died away. One last locker smacked shut, and the school was silent. The girls of St. Agnes Academy were free, all of them but Kristen. And Suzie, but Suzie didn't give a shit.

Kristen swept the floor soot into a dustpan and dumped it into the wastepaper basket. She put the broom back where she found it. Next to it stood a bucket of snot-green water with a fat sponge floating in it. Kristen wrung out the sponge and wiped down the chalkboards. A drop of the dirty water crawled up her arm and into her sleeve. It was gross, but the cold tickle in her armpit felt nice. It was the only relief she'd have for a while.

Chapter 2 »