The Secret the Abbess Hid from Her Confessor

All the nuns in the convent trusted that, once appointed abbess, Sister Clemencia would be so occupied with the duties of her office that she would abandon that direct dealings with angels and demons. They were mistaken. Her trances did not abate; on the contrary, they became more vivid and momentous. The abbess continued to serve as chronicler of God’s will, for she always received precise and timely instructions for every predicament that arose.

The vision that ended the brief period of calm following her election was the clearest of them all. In it, Sister Clemencia appeared dressed as Saint Catherine, and for once there was neither mist nor confusion: it was the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. As she approached, she saw a tired man there who spoke to her in a broken voice.

“Please, good woman, give me a little water.”

“How can you ask me for a drink, when I am of despised earth?” she replied, bewildered.

“If you knew the love of God and knew who is asking you, you would be the one begging for water, and I would be the one giving it to you. For…”

“‘Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst again,’” Sister Clemencia finished, quoting Scripture from memory.

“That is so, woman.”

In her early thirties, the abbess was beginning to understand the power and danger of what she saw. As a fervent believer, she never doubted that the visions were real. Her doubt was subtler: determining whether they came from God or from Hell. Saint Paul had already warned of it: Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light to blind men, and pious nuns in particular. Even so, the fear she had felt at first gradually gave way to a new serenity, almost to courage, and little by little she discovered that she was in love with the slender angel who visited her so often.

When she reported her apparitions, neither Father Rodrigo nor the bishop’s delegate questioned their authenticity. Some had taken place before witnesses who, though they did not see the images, did witness the trance: they had seen her gesticulating and emitting incomprehensible sounds in a tone unsuited to a woman, completely deaf to her sisters’ calls. Their reasons for accepting her were, however, quite different. To the bishop’s representative, those visions were an opportunity for a modest convent to gain fame and prestige. To the mature confessor, they were the perfect excuse to enjoy the abbess’s company.

***

One Saturday afternoon, after the services had ended, Father Rodrigo sent for Sister Clemencia to come to his study so that he could inquire further into her raptures. The shrewd priest advised her not to try to suppress those apparitions, since suffering them was God’s design. Indeed, he hinted that such torment would make her more humble, an indispensable virtue in a nun.

Then he asked her what she thought God had meant to convey through the vision of the Samaritan woman. The abbess, who was nobody’s fool, pretended that her scant knowledge of Scripture prevented her from answering. She wanted to discover the confessor’s true intentions, and discover them she did.

Though she had always felt attracted to other women, Sister Clemencia knew that allowing Don Rodrigo to fuck her was part of the price of her plans. She dreamed that the house she headed, Our Lady of Consolation, would grow along with the prosperous city of Astorga until it matched the prestige of the most illustrious orders. She knew herself favored by the Holy Spirit and yearned for her name to be engraved in the memory of the people and in the stones of the future cathedral. She was determined to walk the road to sainthood and overcome every obstacle that appeared, including winning that man’s complicity by opening her legs to him as many times as necessary.

The young visionary became so famous that whenever the nuns processed during Holy Week, a multitude from all the surrounding area came to see her and beg her for everything from the recovery of their sight to becoming pregnant. To spread word of her work, the abbess had sheets printed detailing her visions, which were then distributed at Mass among the wealthy, the only people who knew how to read. Donations in exchange for sharing a meal or an infusion with her became so frequent that a nun had to be appointed as secretary.

But if she expected her sisters to support her and acknowledge her gifts, she soon suffered a cruel disappointment. Apart from a handful of faithful followers, they left her alone with her fears and treated her with subtle rejection, an apprehension she sensed in every corridor.

***

As the months passed, things took an unsettling turn. Instead of encounters with heavenly angels, Sister Clemencia was attacked at night by handsome young men who tried to fuck her and, when she resisted, beat her with sticks, spat on her, and threw stones at her. The attacks recurred several times a week, followed by pains that lasted for hours. The abbess barely slept, her body deteriorated, and, most disturbing of all, she often woke covered in bruises.

Those vile youths were not content merely to beat her: they also wanted to corrupt her soul. They urged her to flee the convent and meet them by the riverbank. They warned her that her beauty would wither in the shadow of the high walls, that she would lose the best years of her life there without even knowing whether salvation would ultimately be granted to her. They described in lavish detail what they would do to her: how they would rip off her habit in one tug, how they would open her cunt with their tongues until she moaned, how they would take turns fucking her front and back while she begged for more.

The one who seemed to be their leader insisted that she renounce her vows. At first he courted her with sweet words, verses, and gifts; that radiant angel even asked her to marry him and showed her the ring he longed to place on her finger. She always gave the same answer.

“I want to be Christ’s wife, not yours,” she said firmly.

Her refusal enraged him, and then he revealed his true nature by striking her in the face with boundless cruelty, as though he hoped to break her that way. And the worst part, the abbess knew deep within her trance, was not resisting: it was giving in. Because if she accepted him, if she left the wall for that man, the angel became a master. The prohibitions came, the jealousy, the control of every step, the threats whispered into her ear. Contempt became the rule; shoves, a habit. One night he appeared drunk and slurring, and when she rejected him, the first punch jolted her awake with an absurd thought spinning through her head: “He hit me like a man.” The more she defended herself, the more ferocious the kicks became, until she ended up curled at the foot of the bed. And when she then saw her bloodied face in the reflection, her first thought was not to run but to clean herself quickly, because he would be angry if he saw her like that.

The next morning, to the bewilderment of the entire convent, marks of having been beaten appeared on Sister Clemencia’s back and arms. She swore that she did not even look at those men, that she crossed herself to protect herself, but that this only enraged them and made them attack her more viciously. When she could no longer bear it, terror overcame her reluctance to disturb the others’ sleep, and she cried out for help.

***

Those disturbances finally alerted Father Rodrigo to the abbess’s deterioration, which he resolved by assigning her a companion for her battles against the devil. She was Lucía, a twenty-five-year-old novice from the Indies, with whom Sister Clemencia shared a close friendship. Concern for the nun who had brought about the convent’s miraculous growth, and the authorities’ bulls, led the priest to consent to the two of them sharing a cell even at night. Later he would have reason to regret it: unknowingly, he had placed the instrument of his fantasies in her hands. At the time, he naively believed that Lucía offered her nothing more than companionship and shelter from nightmares.

He was completely mistaken. The first night they shared a pallet, Lucía waited for the matins bells to fade into the distance before sliding her hand beneath the abbess’s habit. Sister Clemencia did not stop her; on the contrary, she guided those brown fingers to her already-soaked cunt and thrust them inside with a jerk. The novice, who was anything but a novice in such arts, bit her neck while penetrating her with two fingers and seeking out her clitoris with her thumb, drawing slow, precise circles until she arched her back against the pallet. The abbess bit her fist to keep from screaming, and when she could no longer hold back, Lucía covered her mouth with her other hand and whispered in her ear to come slowly, to come for her. Sister Clemencia obeyed with a long spasm that soaked her thighs and the Indian woman’s fingers.

Then it was Lucía’s turn. The abbess undressed her with trembling hands, licked her dark nipples until they were hard as olive pits, and moved down her belly until she buried her face between her thighs. She opened her cunt with her fingers and ran her whole tongue over it, from bottom to top, stopping to suck her clitoris with a hunger delayed for years. Lucía seized the back of her neck and pushed her head against her sex, fucking her mouth with her hips until she came with a muffled moan that Christ, from the crucifix on the wall, was obliged to hear in silence. From that night on, there was not a single one in which the two nuns did not seek each other beneath the sheets, and Sister Clemencia’s visions became, for a few hours, as worldly as the taste of her lover’s cunt.

The construction of the new convent was completed five years later. It was a spacious building, which made it easier for Pope Gregory XV to grant the request for total enclosure; the nuns would no longer have to leave to attend Mass among the lay population. Far from being a minor detail, enclosure conferred enormous prestige and attracted young women from the nobility with substantial dowries. The abbess’s fame continued to grow, and almost no one was absent from the procession on the day of the move. Who knows whether it was the crowd’s cheers that made Sister Clemencia see the Virgin Mary on one of the balconies, announcing—radiant—that she was offering them two guardian angels to escort them to the door of their new home.

Although she was the only one to see the apparition, that balcony became a pilgrimage site, and the influx grew so great that it congested one of the city’s busiest streets.

***

Three months after the move, Sister Clemencia received the stigmata. It must have been two or three in the morning when an angel asked her whether she was willing to suffer as Jesus Christ had on the cross. Before assenting, she expressed her doubts as to whether that was God’s will; then the angel made the sign of the cross, confirming that it was not the demon who wished to imprint the sacred wounds upon her. She felt a sharp pain in her temple, her palms, the tops of her feet, and finally her side. Once the ordeal was over, a joy such as her heart had never known came upon her.

Lucía was the only witness. The novice, who as always kept watch beside her, heard her murmur, “My Lord, there are others better than I; I do not deserve this, for I am a sinner.” And when she approached, she saw the marks already opened in her hands and feet, blood slowly welling forth, just as Christ’s had on the wood.

Hours later, while removing the sheets to wash away the blood before it dried, Lucía found a shard of porcelain hidden behind one of the bed’s legs. She needed no more to understand how the abbess had used it, especially when she saw the remains along its edge. Without a second thought, she slipped it into her pocket. No one would slander her benefactress and lover while she could prevent it.

Unlike visions, the stigmata required no act of faith: they could be seen and touched. The sisters soon gave her a very earthly recognition by reelecting her abbess on May 9, 1627.

***

To celebrate the appointment that strengthened the project they shared, Father Rodrigo had dinner with her that night.

“Good evening. I’m glad to see you again, Father.”

“Likewise. In every sense, the priest thought, though he kept that to himself.

“Would you like me to get dressed?” the nun asked, having exchanged her white habit for a simple tunic of coarse cloth.

“If necessary…”

She smiled.

“With you, it isn’t.”

“This afternoon I sent word, and the portress couldn’t find you. Were you perhaps in pleasant company?”

“Only with a few parishioners,” Don Rodrigo lied, with a touch of guilt. “I wasn’t looking for you.”

“But you came straight here.”

“I’ll be honest: I wasn’t sure whether to come. I thought perhaps you had someone with you. You’ve had many visitors today.”

“After yesterday… what do you take me for?”

Sister Clemencia burst out laughing and shook her head. The previous afternoon he had behaved impetuously, demanding her body and soul until he was satisfied. He had made her kneel on top of the desk, torn her habit up to her waist, and fucked her from behind with one hand buried in her hair, pulling it back like a mare’s reins, until he came inside her with a muffled roar that he had to stifle by biting the nape of her neck. Without another word, the abbess rolled up her tunic, knelt before him, and unbuttoned his breeches while wetting her lips.

Don Rodrigo no longer had any doubt what she took him for. With no escape, he lowered his gaze and watched the nun’s fingers struggle first with his belt and then with the button. She challenged him with her eyes, and he let out a snort when, in three tugs, she left him naked from the waist down. The priest’s cock hung heavy, still soft, and Sister Clemencia took it in both hands as though lifting the chalice, weighing it with devotion that was very un-Christian.

When those fingers brushed his skin, the priest knew that this was no dream, however much it resembled one. The abbess’s hand took him gently and began to stroke him slowly, very slowly, awakening him from his lethargy. She caressed his glans with her thumb, in circles, then lowered her closed fist to the root, squeezing just enough to make his cock swell in pulses against her palm. Her brown, almost blond hair hung loose over her shoulders and covered her face, so he could scarcely see her. He felt only the increasingly determined hand, the heat rising from somewhere hidden, and then, suddenly, the wetness of her tongue running over him whole, from his balls to the tip, with a calculated slowness designed to make him curse inwardly.

She licked his testicles one by one, took them carefully into her mouth, and released them after sucking them until he felt his legs turn to rags. Then she climbed up his shaft with her flat tongue, tracing the underside of the swollen vein, and when she reached the top she spat on his glans and spread the saliva over it with her hand, never breaking eye contact. Don Rodrigo stifled a moan. The nun smiled with her mouth half open and, without warning, swallowed him whole to the base, burying her nose in the priest’s pubic hair.

Then her lips arrived, generous and efficient, setting a rhythm that she accompanied with the rocking of her head. She sucked with her cheeks hollowed, withdrawing to the tip to lick it with a fluttering tongue, then engulfing him whole again with an obscene gurgle that echoed through the study like a prayer turned inside out. When she released him to breathe, a string of saliva hung from her lip to his glans, and she returned to using her hand, masturbating him with her fist while licking his soaked balls. At once she returned him to the expertise of her mouth. Overcome, Don Rodrigo threw back his head, not knowing what to do with his hands. She, by contrast, encircled his naked thighs and seized his buttocks, tensing his legs like two columns and digging in her nails to make him fuck her mouth at her pace.

“I’m going to finish, Mother,” he stammered.

The confession only made the abbess’s movements more determined, more obscene. She pulled his cock from her mouth, slapped her cheek with it twice, then rubbed it over her lips, chin, and neck, marking her face with the priest’s saliva and pre-cum. “Come in my mouth, Father,” she whispered. “Come inside me—I’ve earned it today.” The priest no longer knew whether he was inside or outside, whether she was licking or sucking him, whether she smiled with pride or was simply a little mad. Experienced in such matters, he held out as long as he could, and she redoubled her tricks: she swallowed him slowly while looking him in the eyes, wanting him to watch her eat him alive, then released him just in time to make the struggle last a little longer. She squeezed the base between thumb and forefinger, cutting off his release, and smiled wickedly when he growled in frustration.

In the end, four or five brushes of the tip of her tongue, barely a few seconds, were enough to trigger the inevitable. The first spurt of semen fell onto her tongue, and she held it open so he could watch it gather there, white and thick; the second landed on her lips, and the third and fourth spattered her chin and the crucifix hanging from her neck. He rocked back and forth with every spasm like an automaton, and she waited until the final twitch before milking him with the pad of her thumb, collecting the last drop with the tip of her tongue. Then, without taking her eyes from his, she swallowed in one loud gulp everything that remained in her mouth, licked her lips, and kissed the softened tip of his cock as though kissing a relic.

“Congratulations, Abbess.”

“On my reelection?”

“That too,” the priest muttered. “But you have no rival in this convent. And perhaps not outside it, either.”

Sister Clemencia smiled again, impishly, while her fingers bestowed their final caresses on the priest’s exhausted, defeated body, toying with his empty balls. Tomorrow there would be sheets to print, donations to count, and a sainthood to keep pretending to. Tonight, however, there were only the surrendered confessor, the semen still warm as it dried on his crucifix, and the secret neither of them intended ever to confess.