Chapter 2

The only sex you may have

Father White paused. He tapped the cursor back, added a word, and went on.

The only sex you may lawfully have is vaginal intercourse, with your husbands, that is open to the transmission of life.

He thought that over. Satisfied, he continued:

That means none of you should experience sex until far in the future, after high school, after college. Some of you will experience really good sex only three or four times in your life, when you are most receptive to conception. A few of you will never experience sex at all.

Tough shit.

Crude, but he could clean it up on delivery. Or he might go with it, just to keep the sluts’ attention.

I know for most of you that will not be good enough. You will sin with boys you do not love, and who do not love you, who want only one thing. You will sin with your hands. You will sin with an abominable toy that some greedy devil has manufactured just for the purpose.

He had seen those toys with his own eyes, at the shop inside the strip club. What kind of society tolerated things like that?

The current generation of young women is too sexualized, and it is up to you to stop the trend, to learn chastity, to submit to your husbands. You think your sexuality is power, but it is a trap.

Your music is obscene, the pop stars you idolize are no better than prostitutes, and too many of you emulate them in your dress.

He moved the cursor back again.

immodest dress. Even in the uniform of Saint Agnes, you wear your skirts too short, flaunting your legs at unsuspecting men.

Once more, the cursor went back:

weak, unsuspecting men.

He had watched them moments ago, as school was letting out, through the doorway to his office. The halls were full of fresh young skin — white, most of it, white and privileged, seasoned with black and yellow and brown, an interracial stew of burgeoning sexuality. The girls chattered like sparrows, ignoring him — not even a “Happy Easter, Father” as they passed his door — but what enraged him was that they had no idea of the effect they had on him. Or they knew and didn’t care. They were probably sitting on their buses right now, laughing at him: “Hey, did you see creepy old Father White staring at us? We are so fucking hot!”

You little sluts. Amen.

He leaned back in his red-leather chair, but it didn’t go far before it hit the windowsill: the office was tiny. It wasn’t even an office. It had been used to store books before Mother Claire, Saint Agnes’ principal and president, insisted he have his own space in which to counsel the girls, as if they’d ever honestly confess their filthy secrets to him.

He had objected. He was only here two days a week, he said, spying for the diocese, but Mother Claire’s ostentatious humility would not be denied. She called on student volunteers to clear the place out, and she tacked a crucifix to the scuffed bare walls. She had even insisted he take her antique maple desk, which wouldn’t fit through the doorway. It had to be dismantled and carried in piece by piece. It was absurdly large, blocking off the end of the narrow ex-closet, a vast desert of a desk that held nothing all week but Father’s laptop. The drawers were empty, except for his bottle and a stack of plastic cups.

He saved his sermon as “Retreat,” with the date, and, clicking on “My Photos,” began scrolling through the pictures he had downloaded of young girls marching around a pool somewhere on the Riviera. They were contestants in some kind of junior beauty pageant. Each girl carried a placard with a large number on it. Father White was especially fond of No. 2.

They were naked, but they knew no shame.

He rubbed himself through his pants. He couldn’t take out his dick with the door open, but he preferred not to wank, anyway. He liked the rough feel of his hand through the fabric, the deliberate buildup of pressure, like a looming judgment.

The knock was so tentative he dismissed it. No one ever came to see him, and he didn’t want to be interrupted. But it came again, louder, and he glanced up, suppressing his annoyance.

The Irish pixie was standing in the doorway.

“Sister Patrice.”

“I’m not interrupting, am I, Father?”

“Not at all. I was just finishing my sermon for your retreat tomorrow. What may I do for you?”

“This is Miss Susan Nguyen.”

She stood to one side and pushed a tiny student toward him — a bronze-colored Asian girl, with black hair down to her ass, who made him want to finish his business right then. He closed his computer top.

“And what is Miss Nguyen’s issue?”

“Miss Nguyen has a sinful sense of humor,” Sister said, “and she has been passing notes in class.”

She handed him the offending paper over the desk. He reached for it, anxiously aware of his erection. The slightest move made it throb.

“This is outrageous,” he said. “More than outrageous. It is sacrilege. To speak about a nun — a nun — as a sexual object this way. It’s a disgrace. Do you think this is funny? ... Well?”

“I don’t know,” the dumb thing said.

“You bad ones never know anything when you are caught. What shall we do with her, Sister?”

“I was hoping you could work this end,” Sister said. “I have her compatriot waiting for me back in the classroom.”

“You take care of her,” Father said. “Leave this one to me.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Close the door on your way out.”

Father White knew how this would go. A few pointed questions, and the child would weep in a touching display of remorse. He would be understanding, but firm, rebuilding her chastened ego in the image of the Church. She would accept, gratefully, every penance he imposed. He would end the session with a gentle joke, and she would smile at him through her tears, redeemed.

“You may place your books on my desk.”

But he did not invite her to sit. She stood reflected in the polished maple plane, her arms at her sides.

“Now, Miss—”

“Nguyen.”

“What is that?”

“My name,” she said.

“Don’t be smart. I meant what nationality.”

“Vietnamese.”

“Interesting. Your family were refugees, then.”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you like it here in our country?”

“I was born here,” she said.

“Yes, yes, of course. Now, then, Miss, uh —”

“Nuh-win.“

“Nguyen. How do you spell that? Never mind — you seem unaware of the seriousness of what you’ve done. I will have to call your parents.”

“It’s just my mom.”

“All right, your mother. How do you think she’ll react when she sees this? How embarrassed will she be?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know much, do you? A single mother, she must work very hard. Do you think she has saved and sacrificed to send you here, to this excellent school, just so you can disrespect your teachers in such a prurient fashion?”

“Uh uh.”

“Speak properly when a priest addresses you. The correct response is, ‘No, Father.’”

“No, Father.”

How had he lost control of this situation? The girl’s defenses were impenetrable. She was either stupid, or hopelessly corrupt. And she didn’t look stupid. A foretaste of tomorrow’s sermon would be just the thing.

“You young women today, your whole generation, are too highly sexualized,” he began. “The music you listen to is obscene, and the singers are no better than prostitutes. You emulate them in your dress, flaunting your bodies at weak, unsuspecting men. You — you, right now, wearing the uniform of this great school, your skirt is too short, flaunting your legs — Wipe that smirk off your face.”

The girl sighed impatiently, and the smirk flattened into a bored pout as she lifted up her skirt. He had guessed right about one thing, at least: her underwear was indecent. It was nothing but an eye-patch, of Easter purple, skin-tight and cloven like the devil’s hoof at the point where it vanished between her legs.

“Lower your skirt immediately.”

But she kept it up, and he kept looking.

“You are a brazen whore,” he said without much conviction.

“What’s it gonna take to get me out of here?”

“What are you offering?”

She gave him a full-on smile and crawled across his desk like a kitten.

“Hey, what have you been doing?” she said, looking over the beaded edge at the unmistakable roll in his pants, which was slightly out of alignment with fly, pointed at one o’clock. She turned about, and, sweeping the computer aside, sat facing him on the desk, her skirt in a broad bow across her hips. Pads of goose skin bulged around the vertical purple strap. Hairless. She shaved. One of her shoes hit the floor. She brought up a white-stockinged foot and pressed it to the end of his dick. Her tongue glimmered against her lower lip — an expression of minute concentration — as she flexed her toes.

“Like that?” she said.

“Huh—”

“Speak properly when a brazen whore addresses you,” she said. “The proper response is, ‘Yes, Ma’am.’”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“I love it when men get stupid.”

She ground in, as though stepping on a worm, but he found the strength not to come — not yet, not before he had touched and tasted her. With an effort he pried her foot away and reached for her with both arms. The strings that held the eye-patch in place were tight and snapped at her hips as he tried to grip them. She raised her butt, and the back strap rolled out of the crack of her ass. The thong came off one foot and hung from the toes of the other, which she brought to his face.

Worshipfully, he gripped the heel and instep and kissed the high arch. His hand went up her raised leg. He lingered at border of her stocking and thigh, charmed by the contrast of white and dusky amber, but soon moved on to the bald patch over her cunt. There was something there — a bright blemish. He pushed her skirt back. It was a yellow butterfly, meticulous in detail, with veins and spots, but so small that when she grew her hair back, it would disappear. The wings were spread symmetrically over the end of her slit.