My Sweetest Sin in the Silence of the Convent

The first time I saw him was at Pentecost Mass. I had been in the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Name, on the outskirts of Segovia, for three years, and I had convinced myself that that life of silence and prayer was exactly what I needed. The discipline. The order. The lack of complications.

Rodrigo Vidal entered through the chapel doors accompanied by two aides and sat in the first pew without asking permission. He was six-foot-three. The olive-green uniform fit his broad shoulders and bulky chest, covered in decorations I couldn’t decipher. His hair was cropped close. His jaw square. A dark mustache with a few gray hairs. A man in his fifties who wore his weight like armor.

I should not have looked at him so much.

But I did.

That night I prayed twice as long as usual and imposed an extra hour of silence on myself. It did no good. His image stayed stuck behind my eyes: the straight back, the large hands resting on his knees, that way he occupied any space as though it belonged to him.

***

Over the following months, Vidal visited the convent on three occasions. Always for protocol matters: donations, meetings with the mother superior, ceremonial events. I watched him from a distance, my black habit carefully in place and my hands folded over my stomach, pretending to pray.

He never looked at me directly. That made everything harder.

Once I had to serve him tea in the receiving room. I went up with the tray, and when I set it on the table, our fingers almost brushed. Only almost. He raised his eyes to mine for just a second and said in a low voice:

—Thank you, sister.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I knelt before the altar in my cell and prayed for hours. I asked for strength. I asked for clarity. I asked for that desire that had been growing inside me for months like a weed to die out once and for all. I am not this person, I thought. I do not want to be this person. And yet, in the dark, my hand slipped beneath my nightgown, between my legs, and found my cunt soaking wet, the flesh swollen, the clit throbbing as though it had a life of its own. I touched myself thinking of him, with shame and fury, until I came biting my arm so I wouldn’t cry out. Then I cried. Then I prayed again.

But I was. And I wanted him.

I started looking for information about him in the newspapers that arrived at the convent once a week. A military man turned public figure, known for his firmness, accustomed to leading without apologizing. They described him as authoritarian. Some admired him, others feared him. To me those labels seemed completely irrelevant. What I felt had nothing to do with his rank or his reputation, but with something much simpler and much harder to name.

I tried exercise. I tried the cilice. I tried physical labor in the garden until I was exhausted. Nothing worked. Every time I closed my eyes in the darkness of my cell, the image of his large hands, of his deep, restrained voice, settled in with a naturalness that both shamed and fascinated me in equal measure. I imagined those hands spreading my thighs open, those thick fingers sinking into my cunt, that mustache scraping the inner part of my thigh before his mouth closed over my clit. I imagined his cock too, and I had no reference, but in my head I made it huge, hard, waiting for me.

***

The night everything changed was in late November. It had snowed over Segovia and the cold inside the convent was so intense the stone walls seemed to sweat ice. I wore my habit even to sleep and had blown out the candle before nine, hoping uselessly that sleep would come quickly.

I heard footsteps when it was two in the morning.

Not the light footsteps of the sisters. Heavy, deliberate steps, the sound of boots on the cold stone floor. I sat up in bed with my heart in my throat and my breathing cut short.

Someone knocked twice on my door. Slowly.

Don’t open it, I told myself. It can’t be him. It’s impossible.

I opened the door.

It was him.

Rodrigo Vidal was in full uniform, though he held his cap in his right hand. The faint light in the corridor lit him from behind, turning his silhouette into something huge and dark. He looked down at me without speaking at first. I studied his face: serious, tense, with something like doubt I had not expected to find in a man like him.

—Sister Esperanza —he said at last, with that voice that rose from his chest like contained thunder.

—General —I replied. I didn’t know what else to say.

—May I come in?

I should have told him no. I should have closed the door and run to wake the mother superior. Instead, I stepped aside and let him in.

He closed the door slowly, silently.

***

He stood in the middle of the cell, looking at the small altar, the narrow bed, the single wooden chair. He was too large for that space and somehow, for that reason, I found it tender.

—I’ve spent weeks trying not to come —he said without turning around.

—I also tried not to... —I began, and couldn’t finish the sentence.

Then he turned to me. There was something on his face I had not seen on the other occasions: vulnerability. A man with all that authority on him, looking at me as though I had the power to send him away or keep him. The height difference was obvious: me, small and thin beneath the habit, him, imposing in a uniform full of insignia.

I went to him first.

I put my hands on his chest, over the cold metal decorations, and felt the warmth of his body seeping into my fingers. He didn’t move. He was breathing slowly, controlling himself.

—If this is a mistake —he said very softly—, tell me now.

—Shut up —I said.

And I kissed him.

***

His lips were soft, but the mustache scratched my cheeks, and that contrast lit me up in a way I hadn’t expected. He answered the kiss with a calculated slowness that drove me crazy. His large, warm hands wrapped around my waist, holding me tight without roughness, with a precision that said he knew exactly what he was doing. I felt his tongue part my lips, thick and hot, and I sucked on it as if I’d been thirsty for years. My nipples hardened under the rough fabric of my habit, and pressed against my stomach I felt the hard bulge inside his uniform pants. Large. Very large. A short moan slipped out of me and he drank it in.

He kissed my neck. My collarbone. The edge of my veil.

—You’re so small —he murmured against my skin.

—Don’t treat me like I’m going to break —I asked him.

Something changed in him then. The control loosened. He took my face in both hands and kissed me with an urgency that stole my breath. His hand slid down my back, grabbed my ass over the habit, and pulled me against his cock, moving me slowly against it so I could feel the full shape, the length, the thickness. I gasped with my mouth open against his. I had never touched a man like that. I had never felt anything so hard and so alive pressed against my body.

—Do you feel what you do to me? —he said, voice broken—. I’ve had a hard cock every time I think of you for months, Esperanza. Every fucking night.

Hearing him talk like that, with that restrained general’s mouth saying those words, tore another moan out of me. I grabbed his hand and brought it up my body until he laid it over one of my breasts, over the habit.

—Me too —I told him—. Me too, every night.

We moved toward the stone bench along the wall. He sat down, legs open, and I knelt in front of him. Veil still on, habit intact. I unbuttoned his shirt slowly, button by button. Beneath it was a broad chest covered in dark, gray-streaked hair, nipples hardened by the cold. I ran my fingers over his ribs, over his firm, prominent stomach, over the line of hair disappearing under his belt. I kissed his chest. Licked one nipple, and he let out a low growl that made me squeeze my thighs together.

He was breathing hard.

I unfastened his belt. The buttons on his trousers. I lowered his pants and underpants just enough. What emerged was big, dark, completely hard. A thick cock, veins standing out, the head glossy and already wet, jutting from a nest of dense gray hair. Heavy balls resting beneath, taut, drawn up against his body. I took it in my hand and still couldn’t close my fingers all the way. I felt it pulse against my fingers, felt it throb with his pulse, and a thick bead of clear fluid appeared at the tip.

—Esperanza... —he said my name as though it were both a warning and a plea.

I looked him in the eyes for a moment. Then I lowered my head and stuck out my tongue. I caught that drop first, slowly, savoring it. Salty, dense, with a hot undertone. I heard the air catch in his throat. I ran my tongue flat all along the length, from base to tip, learning its shape, and then I took him into my mouth slowly.

The sound he made was deep and long, almost a moan he tried to hold back. I placed one hand on his stomach and the other at the base while my lips moved calmly, learning his weight, his heat, the salty taste of his skin. I couldn’t take all of him. I pushed him to the back of my mouth, until the head touched my palate, and even then a thick section remained that I held in my fist. He placed one hand on my veil, not removing it, just holding my head with a firm gentleness that made me close my eyes.

—Like that —he murmured—. Suck me like that, don’t stop.

I began moving with more rhythm. Up and down, pressing my lips against the taut skin, swirling my tongue under the glans, letting my mouth fill with saliva so it would slide better. Every time I reached the bottom I squeezed my fist, every time I went up I sucked hard, hollow. The wet sounds of my mouth on his cock were obscene and filled the cell like an obscene liturgy. He dropped his head back against the stone wall.

—Fuck, fuck, sister... what a mouth you have... —he moaned through clenched teeth—. Suck me harder, look at me while you suck me.

I lifted my eyes without taking him out of my mouth. Seeing him like that —the uniform open, the decorations gleaming, his mustache trembling, looking at me with parted lips and darkened eyes while I, veiled and kneeling, had his cock buried to the back of my throat— was an image I would carry with me until the day I died.

I pulled his cock out of my mouth and licked his balls one by one, sucking them gently while I jerked him with my hand. He let out a low curse that sounded like a plea. I went back up his length with broad strokes of my tongue, and took him in again completely, deeper than before, until gagging rose in my throat and tears filled my eyes. He gripped the back of my neck harder.

—Like that, all the way in. Very good. Very good, fuck.

I kept going. I could hear him breathing harder and harder, his thighs tightening under my hands, his stomach contracting. I was soaked beneath the habit, thighs pressed together, feeling that heat gather with nowhere to go. I slid one hand between my legs over the fabric and pressed my cunt with my palm, rocking my hips against my own hand while I kept sucking him. There is something about that position —kneeling while he remains seated with all his authority above me— that I couldn’t explain then and don’t want to explain now. I only know I had never felt like that. Submissive and powerful at the same time. With a Republican general falling apart between my lips.

—I’m going to come —he growled, trying to pull my head away—. Esperanza, I’m going to...

I didn’t let him. I pressed his hands against his thighs, sank deeper, sucked harder, worked my tongue under the glans with desperation.

When he came, he did it with a deep sound he tried to smother, one hand closing over my veil, his body jerking once. The first wave of semen hit the back of my throat, hot and thick, and then came two more, three more, filling my mouth with a dense, salty taste. I swallowed everything he gave me. I swallowed with my eyes closed, feeling the liquid go down my throat, and when he was done I licked the tip clean to gather the last drop. And at that moment I came too, without anyone touching me, only from the pressure of my own hand against the habit and the intensity of what I was living. I came with his cock still between my lips, trembling all over, my knees bent against the cold stone, and a muffled moan vibrating around his glans. My hands were shaking.

Silence.

Only the sound of both of us catching our breath and the wind hitting the small window.

***

He lifted me off the floor with care that surprised me. He took my face in both hands, ran his thumb over my swollen lips, wiped away a drop left at the corner of my mouth, and brought it to his own without once taking his eyes off me. Then he looked at me for a long time without saying anything.

—Come —he said at last.

He led me to the sink in the cell. With slow, almost ceremonial hands he removed my veil, then my habit, leaving me naked under the dim light. I let him do it without moving, without covering myself. He looked at me with an expression that was no longer desire alone. His eyes moved over me: the small breasts with stiff nipples, the flat stomach, the dark triangle of hair between my legs, the thighs shining with moisture.

—You’re soaked —he murmured, and ran two fingers through my pussy lips, very slowly. He lifted them, gleaming, to my face and put them in my mouth. I sucked them, tasting myself, looking him in the eyes.

He turned on the shower and put me under the hot water. He stood to the side, still half-dressed, and washed me with his large, careful hands: my shoulders, my neck, my small breasts which he squeezed gently between his fingers, my waist, my thighs. When his hand slid between my legs, his palm gliding over my soapy cunt, a gasp escaped me and I clutched his arm. He lingered there, moving his fingers calmly, one of them just slipping in, playing at the entrance while his thumb brushed my clit.

—Shhh —he said—. Again for me.

I came again, water running down my face and biting my lip so as not to wake the sisters, pressed against his half-dressed body. There was nothing hurried in his movements. It was as if he wanted to memorize every part.

—So calm —he murmured.

—I am absolutely not calm —I told him.

He smiled. For the first time that night I saw him smile for real, deep lines around his eyes and his mustache curling upward.

When he lifted me out of the shower he wrapped me in the towel and held me without saying anything. I was crying a little, though I couldn’t explain exactly why. He let me cry without asking.

—Do you regret it? —he asked after a while.

It took me a moment to answer.

—No —I said—. I should regret it, but I can’t.

—Good —he said—. Neither can I.

***

I put on the white nightgown. He stripped out of his uniform until he was left in his dark underpants and got into the narrow bed with me. We were ridiculous, the two of us in that tiny space, his huge body taking up more than half of it. I settled against him with my face on his chest and my legs tangled with his, feeling the heat radiating from his body and the slow, regular beat of his heart. I also felt, against my hip, his cock hardening again slowly beneath the fabric. We both ignored it, or pretended to ignore it. There would be more nights.

—Can you sleep like this? —I asked.

—Better than I have in years —he answered.

I don’t know when I fell asleep.

***

I woke to the gray light of dawn coming through the window. He was awake, staring at the ceiling, one hand behind his neck and the other around my shoulders. The hairy chest rose and fell with a calm breathing that contrasted with the unease I still felt in my stomach.

—Good morning —I said.

—Good morning, Sister Esperanza —he replied, in a tone halfway between serious and amused.

—Don’t call me that now.

—What do I call you then?

—My name —I told him.

—Esperanza —he repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. As if it were the first time he had said it aloud.

I moved closer and kissed his chest, the warm rough skin, the scent of man mixed with the cold of stone. He stroked my hair in silence for a long while. Under the sheet, his hand slipped beneath my nightgown and caressed one breast slowly, without urgency, just for the pleasure of touching me. I closed my eyes.

—I have to leave before dawn breaks completely —he said.

—I know.

—May I come back?

I thought about my vows. About the mother superior. About everything I had promised and everything I had chosen that night to break with my eyes wide open.

—Yes —I said—. You can come back. And next time I want you to fuck me until I can’t pray standing up.

He went still for a second, looking at me as though he had not expected those words to come from my mouth. Then he let out a low, hoarse laugh against my hair.

—I promise, Esperanza. A general’s word.

He dressed slowly, in silence. When he had buttoned his shirt and the cap was back in his hand, he stopped at the door and turned to me one last time.

—Take care of yourself, Esperanza.

—You too, Rodrigo.

The door closed. His footsteps faded down the cold stone corridor. I stayed in bed, looking at the small altar where the candle was still not lit, still tasting him in my mouth, thinking that I should regret it and knowing with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t.

Outside, Segovia was waking under the snow.