“He wanted you to give up who you are for him.”

“Yes,” Elle said. “Yes, he did.” She gathered the pieces of wood on the floor in her hand. “That’s why I’m here. He can’t get to me here. If I stayed, he would have called the bishop, told him he was leaving the priesthood and made me marry him. If he can’t get to me, he can’t make me marry him, and he doesn’t have any reason to leave the priesthood.”

“You walked away from him so he could lead the life he was supposed to live.”

“Even when I hate him I still love him,” Elle said.

“I couldn’t have done that,” Kyrie said. “I couldn’t leave someone I was in love with. I don’t think I’m strong enough to do that.”

“I didn’t leave him because I’m strong,” Elle said. “I left him because I had no other choice. I couldn’t let him throw away the most important part of himself for me.”

“He might have done it anyway,” Kyrie said. “Left the priesthood, I mean. You haven’t spoken to him since you left, right?”

“I haven’t,” she admitted. She hadn’t given that possibility much thought, that Søren had left the Jesuits, left the priesthood while she was here hiding at the convent. “I hope not. If he has, then me leaving him was for nothing.”

“Not nothing,” Kyrie said, and Elle gave her a look of deepest apology.

“No, not for nothing. I met you here. I wrote a book here.”

“‘All things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to his purposes,’” Kyrie said. “That’s my favorite Bible verse.”

“You think I was meant to come here?”

“If you’re here, then there’s a good chance you were. Maybe you were supposed to meet me so you’d write that book and have an agent who wants to read it.”

“Maybe I’m here because you’re not supposed to be a nun and this was the only way for you to find out.”

Kyrie smiled. “Maybe so.”

“So when do we leave?” Elle asked. “You and me?”

“When you finish the book. As soon as it’s done, we’ll go.”

“That’ll give me time to figure out where we can go,” Elle said. “Surely I know someone who could put us up for a few weeks while we decide what to do. Maybe I can get my old job at the bookstore back. My boss there loves me.”

“I can get a job too,” Kyrie said. “I have a college degree.”

“In what?”

“Biblical studies.”

“A BA in BS. That’ll pay the bills.”

“Oh, shut up, English major.”

“Did you tell me to shut up?”

“I did,” Kyrie said, crossing her arms in playful defiance. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll find a way to shut us both up,” Elle said, and grabbed Kyrie by the wrist. She dragged the girl to her and pushed her onto her back on the blanket. Elle lay on top of her and kissed her with the deepest passion. Kyrie moved beneath her, pushing her hips into Elle’s, rubbing her back, panting for more. Elle pulled Kyrie’s gown all the way off and tossed it aside.

Elle sat on her knees and took a length of rope out of her bag. Not real rope. She couldn’t find any at the abbey. But she did have old sheets at her disposal and she’d torn them into strips and braided them into her own makeshift rope. She wrapped the white sheet rope around Kyrie’s two wrists and tied them to the ornately carved leg of the nearest chapel pew.

“B is for Bondage,” Elle said as she tied off the knot. “And D is for Dominance. If you want another orgasm, don’t you say a fucking word until I give you permission to speak again. Nod if you understand.”

Kyrie nodded. Vigorously.

“And S is for Sadism and M is for Masochism,” Elle said, pinching Kyrie’s nipples until she recoiled in pain. “Thus ends your alphabet lesson for the day.”

Elle shoved the girl’s thighs apart with her knees, and pushed two fingers into her wet hole.

Kyrie’s back arched and Elle smiled, drunk with the power she had over this girl’s beautiful little body. She lowered her head between Kyrie’s legs and lapped at her swollen clitoris. Kyrie grunted softly from the pleasure but didn’t speak. Elle rolled her tongue over all Kyrie’s most sensitive spots and soon the grunts becomes moans, and when Elle pushed her fingers inside Kyrie and stroked her softest places, the moan became one long groan of ecstasy.

When her climax came and passed, Kyrie lay spent on the blanket, taking short shallow breaths. Elle spent the next hour doing nothing but rubbing and touching every inch of Kyrie. As she massaged Kyrie’s body, she claimed it for herself.

“My hands,” Elle said, caressing Kyrie’s palms and fingers, one by one. “Aren’t they? You can speak.”

“Your hands,” Kyrie said, wiggling her fingers for Elle.

“My arms,” Elle said, rubbing up and down the length of Kyrie’s arms.

“Your arms.”

“My back,” Elle said, massaging Kyrie’s back. She took special pleasure in the small of her back, the small waist and hips.

“Your back.”

Elle claimed every inch, every orifice, every single finger and toe and eye and nose. And the lips. Of course the lips.

“My Kyrie,” Elle said with one last kiss. “My dove.”