Chapter 8

Suzie poured the tea down the sink, squirted soap into the pot and filled it with hot water. Wendy watched her from her runway outside the kitchen.

"The tea was a bad idea?" she asked.

"She doesn't want to drink tea ever again."

She put the untouched cup back into the cabinet and the untouched spoon into the drawer.

"What about the muffin?"

"I left it for her."

Suzie came over and worked herself onto Wendy's lap. Her healthy bare legs hung over one wheel of the chair. Wendy reached for her face, but Suzie, anticipating the move, was already ducking her head. Their lips met, their tongues flashed into one another's mouths.

"Mmm. Can you stay?"

"Yeah. Mom said it's OK."

"All night?"

"We're off till Thursday."

She traced her tongue along the ridge of Wendy's ear.

"Want me to eat your pussy?"

"Oh God!" Thrilling at the thought, Wendy closed her arms about Suzie's waist and rested her head on the girl's shoulder. "I feel so selfish."

"She said it's OK. She likes it that you can feel good."

"You're like a little missionary," Wendy said. She wiggled Suzie's tit through her top.

"Oh Christ!"

"What's the matter?"

"It's fucking Sister Patrice."

Suzie bolted from her lap. Wendy scootered behind and peered through the front-door window as the girl held the curtain open. A plump-breasted woman with short red hair, much younger than Wendy had imagined, was pacing on the sidewalk in front of the house. She glanced back at the street, then up at the roof, as though looking for something, somewhere, that could make up her mind for her.

She didn't look like a nun. Wearing only a sweatshirt, tight jeans, and battered red tennies, she looked like what she was — a runaway. A black canvas bag, like a duffel, hung from her shoulder. She was obviously on her way somewhere.

"Call her in, love," Wendy said.

Suzie opened the inner door.

"Sister!" she shouted through the screen, in none too welcoming a tone.

Patrice looked back, startled, but in time she gathered her courage and came up the walk. Once inside, she stood in the doorway, not daring to put down her bag. The scene before her unsettled her more than she already was: She hadn't expected to meet a disabled woman, or encounter Miss Nguyen in just a tank top and panties. What kind of mother let her daughter's friends run around her house practically naked? It almost made her forget the beam in her own eye.

Kristen's mother broke the silence.

"You're the famous Sister Patrice?"

"Not a sister anymore, Mum."

"You look surprised to see me."

"Yes, frankly. She never mentioned..."

"That her mother's in a wheelchair? It seems she has a lot in her life she needs to forget."

"Zing," Miss Nguyen said.

"How is she?"

"You've got fucking balls—" Miss Nguyen said, but the mother cut her off.

"She hasn't come out of her room in three days," she said. "And she won't tell me what you did to her. I can only guess."

"I'm ready to give myself over —"

"But you wanted to tell her you're sorry first."

"Yes, Mum."

"All right. I shouldn't let you, but maybe you can get through to her. Her room is that closed door on the right. You can leave your bag here."

Patrice walked through the living room. She knocked on the closed door. No answer. She looked back at the mother and the brown girl.

"Go on in," the mother said. "She won't bite."

Miss Nguyen looked at her with implacable rage.

Kristen lay facing the far wall in a fetal position, swaddled in a long white gown. All that was visible of the girl herself was her tousled hair and the dots of her toes. The medallions of an English muffin, spread evenly with apricot jam, occupied a plate on the nightstand. A single bite had been taken out of one of them.

"Kristen?"

The shrouded body stiffened, a movement almost imperceptible but as sharp as a slap in the face. Patrice stepped inside and closed the door.

"Darling?"

This time there was no movement. Patrice sat on the empty side of the bed. She laid a hand on Kristen's shoulder, expecting an explosion, but nothing happened. It was like touching a corpse.

"I came to tell you I'm leaving. The school, the convent, everything. I'm going away, I don't know where. I just came to tell you I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you, and it was ... it was only my fear and my sorry guilt that brought you into that ... that perversion."

She heard a whine. Kristen was trying to say something, but the catch in her throat blocked it.

"I'm sorry, I don't—"

"We could have been happy."

"No. I don't think so. Not really. But I will never deny you again. I love you, and I will admit that to everyone, no matter what happens."

What did happen, Patrice would remember always as a gift of grace. There was a white flash, a flutter of linen, and Kristen's face was in her lap.

"Forgive me, please—" Patrice said.

"Always, always, always."

Kristen kissed her thighs, her crotch. Dark damp splotches grew in the denim. The force of the emotion was irresistible, and so was Kristen's grip as she hauled Patrice onto her back, pinning her down and dripping tears as she kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her nose, her lips.

Her hand went up beneath the sweatshirt.

"No, baby, your mother—"

"Fuck her."

Their tongues, meshing, cut off conversation for the moment — the fullest and yet most delicate feeling, wet bundles of nerve ends brushing one another, vulnerable but eager, igniting a flame within that melted Patrice's pussy and turned her nipples to steel. She had feared she would burn ever since she was a little girl, but now that it was happening, she welcomed it.

She tugged at the gown, but the hem snagged on Kristen's heels. Kristen sat up, straddling Patrice's thighs, and Patrice saw it was a beautiful garment, a Russian peasant's blouse with puffed sleeves and embroidered vines at the wrists and the thin V below the neck. But it was in the way. Kristen, fixing Patrice's gaze with a smirk, crossed her arms and gripped her shoulders. Then she uncrossed her arms, and the shroud floated away. Her young body took the full light of the afternoon.

Patrice reached for her little tits, but Kristen backed off, teasing her.

"You first," she said.

Patrice took off her sweatshirt in an earthly parody of Kristen's own divine, crisscross motion. Kristen dug her hands under her and undid her bra.