Sisters in Sin

As my voice echoed off the water she flinched and turned round sharply. Her ankle scooted out sideways, veering her towards the water. I gasped apologetically, but luckily instead of going into the canal she fell heavily against the stone balustrade of a little bridge.

‘Ach, cazzo!’

‘Oh, shit!’

We swore in unison, our voices amplified by the silent, slimy walls. I teetered carefully along the slippery stones, glancing again in the direction of the stalker. But by the time I had reached her and saw how awkwardly her ankle was twisted, the dark figure had vanished.

‘Hey, I’m sorry to startle you,’ I stammered, kneeling down beside her as she groaned and rubbed her limp ankle. I checked again. Yes. He’d gone. ‘I was only after some directions.’

Just as I wondered impatiently if she wasn’t making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill with all this groaning and writhing, she looked up at me from under the cape, opened her mouth to reply, and there was a kind of punch inside my chest. She was like something out of a Botticelli painting. An angelic face staring out from a soft-focus tangle of other angelic faces in an advert for some perfume. There was no distant, starved, prematurely aged expression such as I would expect from a nun. Her pale heart-shaped face seemed to glow out of the shadow of the heavy material she was wearing, with high cheeks flushed so pink – from her recent secret fuck-fest, obviously – that they looked as if she was wearing blusher.

The tight grey frame of her veil accentuated that very absence of any make-up or artistry and in any case those huge blue eyes, long eyelashes and plump pink O of a mouth needed no mascara or lipstick, let alone the kind of invasive procedures involving needles that I’d been contemplating recently. She was ridiculously pretty; like a doll with life breathed into it.

‘Help me!’ she stuttered, glancing round anxiously. ‘I’m already late for prayer, and if I don’t get back they’ll kill me!’

I took hold of her arms and pulled her upright. The colour drained from her face as she leaned against the bridge.

‘Seriously? Get back where? Who will kill you?’

‘OK, not literally.’ She closed her eyes briefly and tested her weight on the foot. ‘But I am petrified, because they will punish me for sure if I’m not in chapel on the dot. They’ll know I’ve been outside without permission. Well, that’s because they never give permission! So, let’s go. Andiamo!’

I still had hold of her arm as she started to hobble over the bridge. This close to her I could make out several old piercings for studs in both ear lobes and a couple of fine strands of blonde hair trying to escape the white cap under her veil.

‘You’re English?’ I asked. ‘I thought I heard you speaking Italian just now?’

‘Half English. Born here, brought up in London. Came back here to try to see my family and take up my vocation.’ An even stronger flush rose from her throat right over her cheekbones as she stopped dead. ‘You heard me talking? You were spying on me just now in the campo? Oh God! She sent you! I’m done for!’

‘Don’t be so silly! A spy? Moi?’ I dropped my hands in exasperation. ‘Being a spy would be much more fun than the dull reality, I promise you. I’m just a tourist. I’ve never seen you in my life before. So how could I spy on you?’

She shrugged, still eyeing me suspiciously. Her shoulders were so slight.

‘Mother Superior, Mother Marta – she’s capable of anything.’

‘In fact if you must know I’m on business buying glass for my shop in London. So it’s all perfectly bona fide. Nothing cloak-and-dagger about me.’

Her pout turned into a weak smile. We paused a little longer for her to get her breath, then picked up speed descending the bridge. She turned right along another narrow pavement, then through another archway similar to the one where I’d seen my stalker. By now I was even more lost than before.

‘But in answer to your accusation, yes.’ I couldn’t resist it. ‘I saw you there, scuttling out of that house, swearing at someone called Carlos, was it? The guy in the window?’

‘Carlo.’

‘The guy you were shagging just now like there’s no tomorrow?’

‘Shagging?’ There was a catch in her voice. She bent her head and tried to quicken her pace. ‘I don’t know what you mean!’

‘Oh, you understand me perfectly, Sister. I’m just putting two and two together. You are forbidden to leave the convent, but you absconded to be with your lover. He was fucking your brains out and you were loving it! I heard everything. The groaning, the bed creaking and banging against the wall, his voice, your voice – I have to admit it was a bit of a turn-on, all that je t’aime stuff in the middle of a dull afternoon when you haven’t had some for a while. Really X-rated! I’m amazed you didn’t have the whole city listening in! You have well and truly jumped the wall, haven’t you?’

‘Stop it! Stop it! You’re mistaken!’ She stopped abruptly again and pulled me round to face her. No longer the cute dolly. Her blue eyes sparked with a strange wild fire. ‘And keep your voice down, please, signora. So, thank you for helping me, but I have to go now!’

‘Hang on! I came over because I need you to help me!’

‘I don’t have time. I can’t help you. Can’t even help myself.’ She shrugged me off and started to walk away, but soon she stumbled, whimpering with pain. When I caught up with her she slumped against me, helpless again. ‘Please! If you come back with me you can’t tell them where I was or what I was doing or they’ll thrash me to kingdom come!’

I bit my lip in disbelief.

‘I’ll keep my mouth shut on one condition. That you spill it all out to me.’

She shook her head, tucking imaginary strands of hair behind her ears and tugging the hood over her veil. A blast of cold air whistled round the corner, and we shrank back into a doorway.

I tried again. ‘Sister, tell me what’s wrong. Something is bothering you, I can tell, and I’m extremely good at keeping secrets.’ I lowered my voice. ‘You can use me as your confessor, if you like.’

A tear sparkled in the corner of her eye. I swear if I didn’t know better I’d have had her down as some kind of actress. Because it got me right where it was supposed to. I was already putty in her hands.

‘They’re tugging me every which way. Him, and them. They’re all ripping me in half!’

Now I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Calm down with the melodramatics, honey. It can’t be that bad.’

She hesitated, then clasped her hands together. ‘Carlo, he’s my old boyfriend, you see, from when I was young. We bumped into each other last summer, just before I was going in to the convent, literally when I was on my way there. I had just left my family. Well, my cousins. The others won’t speak to me. I was saying goodbye.’

‘Goodbye?’

I decided to be patient, almost unheard of for me. After all, it hadn’t taken much persuasion for her to pour her heart out. It would be worth it just to hear what else had been going on up there in that bedroom.

She was quiet for a moment so we restarted our snail’s pace, past tourists studying maps, workers carrying briefcases, a crocodile of children coming home from school. On a wider stretch of canal a barge chugged past us, a grand piano lashed to its deck. Nobody looked at us. Two women, deep in conversation, a nun and a sharp-looking businesswoman – what was to notice?

‘It’s a closed order. We are not allowed to speak to outsiders except through a grille. It’s silent, and it’s bliss. We’re not even allowed to speak to our Sisters unless we’re working, and then we chatter like starlings though we’re not supposed to. We’re not even supposed to have favourite friends, though of course we do. I work in the winery. I have just produced my own label. La Religieuse. I trained as a wine taster in London, you see. It’s very potent, and pre-order sales have already meant they can afford to restore the frescoes in the chapel.’

‘Yes, yes, enough already about all that. What I want to know is, if it’s all such bliss in there why do you keep running away to see Carlo?’

That flush as she considered the question. Those parted lips. Having heard what sounds she could make I could easily imagine that lovely face melting as she flung herself in ecstasy under the muscular body of her lucky boyfriend. It must be like Christmas every day for him when he heard the secret knock, saw his hooded visitor at the door, when he pulled her into his grotty little house and unpeeled her cumbersome clothes to get to the white nakedness beneath. Her pale thighs opening for him on that creaking bed, him falling on top of her, pushing himself inside her, the shadows falling upon their writhing, bucking bodies …

I sat her down gently on the steps of a church. Hell, I was the one who needed to sit down. We watched some old men in a workshop hammering and moulding various slim pieces of wood to form the curved ribs of a gondola.

‘I told you! I’m torn between the two! I love him, but I love my Sisters and my other life, too. It’s what I have chosen. One day soon I’ll either be locked in for good. Or locked right out.’

‘So how did this thing with Carlo start over?’

She swallowed and stared back the way we’d come. ‘I’d said my farewells and I was walking along the beach on the Lido, trying to calm myself down before I took the vaporetto back to the city, and there was Carlo coming out of the sea like some kind of god. When I last saw him he was a skinny teenager and now he’s, oh God, he’s all man, he was in these tight swimming shorts, really tanned and muscled, big shoulders.’

‘Big everything?’

A little snuffle of laughter escaped her. She clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Yes! You couldn’t miss it! And there was me trudging along, no make-up, hair already chopped off, eyes red from crying.’

‘He saw you in this get-up?’ I plucked at her skirt, expecting her to slap my hand away. I lifted it a little. Her ankles were dainty in the hideous shoes. I lifted the skirt a little higher. I couldn’t stop myself. And she didn’t stop me. Higher, and I saw that she was wearing thick black stockings, which should have been ugly but were enticing in a St Trinian’s kind of way, and even more so when I saw that they were fastened at the top by black suspenders. My stomach gave a surprised clench of desire at the sight of her smooth white flesh above the industrial-strength wool. I had a mad urge to see what kind of knickers a nun would wear, but belatedly she slapped my hand away.

‘Oh, this isn’t a proper habit. This is just for novices, and they make it as scratchy and hot as hell. But I always wore very plain clothes, no jewellery, no heels. No adornment at all.’ She sighed. I smelt sweet, chocolatey breath. ‘I hadn’t looked at a guy for years. Not been interested. I guess it made the call from God all the easier to answer.’

The way she said it made it believable. If I had to listen to someone banging on about a call from God while sitting in a pub in Clapham or on a rooftop bar in Manhattan I’d have snorted with derision. But sitting here on the steps of this church in a corner of this magical maze of a city? Listening to this very real, almost petulant girl? Being called by God somehow made perfect sense, however inconvenient it must have been. I felt a physical tug to get closer.

‘So how old are you? You look too young to have been struggling with this, this call, for years.’

‘I’m twenty-three. Nearly twenty-four.’ She pulled herself up like a little soldier and something in my heart gave way a little more. ‘And I was – I am – more than ready.’

‘Go on, Sister. I want all the details of this wicked assignation.’ I nudged her. ‘It’ll make you feel so much better.’

‘He’d changed so much, but he recognised me instantly.’

‘Your face is the same.’

‘Oh, signora! That’s exactly what he said!’ She clasped my arm with her little fingers. ‘Oh God, those old feelings came rushing back, even though he was the one who hurt me! He was my first – my last – and I was trembling, churning stomach, weak knees, breathlessness, and he was right in front of me, and he knew, he told me later, he knew exactly what I was planning to do, he could tell from my horrible clothes and hair and also the grave expression on my face, and that’s why he barely said a word, he just dragged me off the beach into this little hut where he’d been painting tourist portraits all summer, just a few blankets, cooking stove, glasses, beer, and we just kissed and kissed, and his mouth and his tongue pushing in and he practically had a beard, oh, I had such a scratched sore chin when I finally got to Santa Maria!’

I presumed that was the convent and the name was like a cold shower over both of us.

‘Tell me, Sister,’ I urged her, pressing my hand on her thigh. ‘Offload all this angst. Indulge an embittered old bag and tell me!’

‘You’re not an old bag, signora! You’re so beautiful!’

Now it was my turn to blush.

She absently put her hand over mine. Her breath was coming quickly. ‘It had been so long, we didn’t talk at all, then I was down on the floor, and my skirt was right up over my, you know, and he undid my shirt, oh, he used to love my, my breasts, the first time he touched them he was like a boy with candy, he used to suck my nipples for hours like they were sweets, we had so much time when we were younger, and I love that feeling, it makes me want him so badly, and he’s changed, you see, he really is a man now, he’s been working out, he’s had other girls, he’s much tougher, much stronger, not so, what, tentative, quite the reverse, he was determined and in a hurry and anyway his swim shorts, well, they came off easily, and there it was, his beautiful cock standing up so stiff and ready, even bigger than I remembered, and, oh, God forgive me, I should have stopped him then, everything was telling me I should stop it, I was late, the Sisters were expecting me, like I’m late now, I had to stop it, but I was so wet and he was rock hard and then he –’

‘Go on!’ I was holding her hand tightly, almost pleading with her to continue. ‘How did it feel when he fucked you?’

‘He just thrust inside me once, that’s all it took, and then we both came like an explosion. I screamed. It was almost the last sound I was allowed to make for weeks after.’ She closed her eyes and tipped her face up towards the grey sky and stuck the tips of her fingers into her mouth as if to silence herself. ‘It made me feel like a virgin all over again.’

She opened her eyes and we stared at each other. Her words fell round us like petals. Madonna sang a song once about being touched for the very first time, but this was sexier than anything I’d ever heard. And I knew exactly what this young woman meant. It made me want to be a virgin all over again, too.

Not really thinking, I took her fingers away from her mouth and kissed them, one by one. She watched me, watched my mouth, watched her hands as I laid them down in her lap.

‘You’ve told me all this,’ I said hoarsely. ‘But I still don’t know your name.’

‘Natalia. Sister Benedicta. When I was outside I was Natalia.’ She snatched my wrist and looked at my watch. ‘Enough talking. Enough questions! I must hurry. I’m going to lose him, I’m going to lose the convent. It’s all going to be a disaster!’

‘Let’s go, then.’ I cursed myself for breaking the spell. I helped her along an even narrower alley. It was dark now, and my feet were killing me, too. Lights and sounds were booming from what sounded like a big open space not far away.

‘They’re preparing for the Carnivale in the piazza,’ she murmured, waving her free hand vaguely.

‘Perhaps I can think up some excuse for why you’re late. Say it was my fault in some way.’

She looked at me and her eyes were huge like a Manga cartoon.

‘You’d do that? But you said you needed my help?’

I laughed. ‘I only need you to tell me the way back to my hotel. I was totally lost back there, you see. And then I found you.’

Another silence surrounded us, this time like a shroud, tucking us into our private corner. Even the distant music thumped like a heartbeat. Totally lost, that was it. And I was still lost, looking into those amazing big eyes, childish and helpless, asking for my help, still backlit with that strange sexy fire that told me she was harder than she looked and knew more than I did. I wondered how long it would take before she pulled away from me. But she didn’t move. She was staring, too. What did she see? An older, more knackered version of herself, perhaps, with green eyes instead of blue, more laughter lines, but blonde like her, slim like her, sex-mad like her …

She started to speak, but bit into that luscious pink lower lip again and instead leaned against me. I let my arm steal round her waist. The warmth of the thick fabric outlined her hidden curves and it had now gone from strangely comforting to slowly arousing, holding her close to me as we made slow progress round another corner and I recognised the glass showroom I had visited earlier that day. I caught the eye of the proprietor as we hurried past it, wondering what Signora Martelli would think seeing the hard-nosed buyer from London tottering along the street arm in arm with a beautiful nun.

‘Hey, another thing you haven’t told me, Natalia. If everything’s so rosy between you, why were you arguing with Carlo just now?’

She shook her head. Her ankle must have been feeling better, because she diverted us briskly round the back of the shops.

‘Go on. We’re friends now, aren’t we?’

She glanced at me. Her eyelashes were so long. ‘He’s been getting rough with me. Rougher than usual.’

She stopped beneath an old, crumbling wall. Dry ivy spilled over it and a large looming building cast its shadow from the garden inside.

‘Natalia? I can help you, remember?’

‘We’re here,’ she muttered, pointing at a tiny wooden door in the wall. ‘This is Santa Maria Convent.’

I lifted her chin.

‘Tell me what he did to you.’

‘Oh, bella signora! Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that.’ She shook her head. ‘He didn’t hurt me. I liked it. But some of the things he makes me do – I know it’s because he wants me to love what we do, get addicted, so much that I won’t be able to stop. So much that I’ll have to leave the convent.’

‘So why the argument?’

‘The usual. Trying to persuade me to stay with him. The stupid thing is our life together is just like being in the convent, now. We have to stay indoors. We can never go out, in case someone sees us … He went too far, that’s all. Over the top. And I got angry. As you saw.’

We both jerked up our heads like a pair of reindeer at a quiet rustling sound inside the garden behind us: leaves, or footsteps – we couldn’t tell. No one was passing along the alleyway.

‘You can tell me anything, Sister.’

I liked the way that sounded. She paused. I could swear I heard someone clear their throat behind the door, but I kept my eyes on her.

‘OK. But only because I’ll never see you again. He went on so long today, made me drink wine and water all afternoon, wouldn’t let me go to the toilet, and then he made me lie on my stomach so that I was pressing down on my bladder and there was this swelling, stinging sensation, actually it felt good, but then he took me from behind, all the time pressing his hands on my stomach, and he fucked me until the piss started to come, it was trickling hot down my legs, on to the bed, and I was getting embarrassed trying to stop it, but he was laughing and then I was starting to come as well, and I couldn’t tell the difference because it was this hot building sensation and then as I came I totally pissed myself and it was such a relief and an amazing climax and he was shouting with pleasure, he loved it, but it was all a big messy gush but then it felt wet and dirty and when it stopped I was totally humiliated. I was furious with him!’

I gave a low whistle. ‘You got me there, girl. Even I’m a little – OK, I’m shocked by that!’

‘You see? I have to decide. I have to leave him.’

She pushed her face close to me, daring me to stop her I think. She was so close that I moved a little and our lips brushed tantalisingly. Again we paused, our lips warm and damp against each other. I wanted to go further and kiss her. I had never kissed a woman on the mouth, but it was like the Katy Perry song. I wanted to kiss a girl I’d met less than an hour ago because I knew I would like it.

But the girl said, ‘And now I have to leave you.’

Something like panic gripped me. ‘You don’t have to go in there, Natalia. Come with me to my hotel. Leave them, leave him, come with me back to London!’

A smile tugged at her lips, and I felt a crazy urge to giggle. It sounded mad, but marvellous! This beautiful girl, by my side, coming home with me from Venice like a glittering, glorious souvenir. ‘It’s more complicated than that – oh, I don’t know your name!’

‘I’m Jennifer. And it doesn’t have to be complicated. What’s the point of going in there and saying your prayers when you just want to be free?’

‘But I need to be in there, too!’ She put her hand on the door, resting it there as if it had a heartbeat. ‘I love being in here. It’s tugging at me now, physically tugging me to come back. Already Carlo, the memory of his kiss, his touch, his body, it’s all gone –’ she flicked her fingers dismissively ‘– and now I’m home.’

‘You’re not dismissing me as well!’ I took her by the arms, forcefully this time. Her head fell back and her veil slipped very slightly so that now I could see silky strands of hair falling into her eyes. ‘Come with me, now, Natalia! Just do it!’

She opened that luscious mouth and I’m certain she was going to say something amazing like ‘Great idea! I’m there!’ but instead she squealed and suddenly stumbled awkwardly backwards through the little door, which had swung wide open. I tripped over her and fell into the garden too, still holding on to her, and then just as suddenly the door slammed shut behind us.

We were in a small dark garden with starved-looking lemon trees standing around like statues but giving off an unusually strong scent for winter. Illuminated at the far end was a marble statue of the Virgin Mary, hands together and eyes cast to heaven.

‘I haven’t got time for this.’ I let go of her irritably. ‘What is it, Natalia? Why are you making silly faces at me?’

But her eyes just went wide as if she was scared.

‘They used to call these convents the pleasant prison, didn’t they? Girls who didn’t have the call, but were just plonked here by their fathers because they had no prospects.’

Natalia was mouthing something at me, but I reckoned she was just teasing. ‘Well, you’re welcome to it. If you want to stay here, that’s your funeral, or wedding, or whatever. Just tell me the way back to the Danieli Hotel, and I’m outta here.’

I turned towards the gate. An enormous, rough-looking man was barring the way. I couldn’t see his features in the darkness, but he was tall and broad, arms crossed and legs planted far apart, and he was holding some kind of rake or hoe. He jabbed his finger towards Natalia.

‘What’s his problem? Why doesn’t he say something?’

‘He’s deaf. He’s saying we have to go inside right now.’

‘Not me, sugar. I’ve got a business meeting to get to.’

But he shoved us both violently across the dusty garden and into the looming building, through another tiny door and up some stairs and before I could say another word we were in a kind of stark waiting room which smelt of tea and wet newspapers. There was no light, nothing but a table, a fire grate where one weak finger of flame flickered, and another enormous statue of the Virgin Mary. In the silence that followed I thought I could hear the distant sound of angelic singing.