SISTERS IN SIN
Primula Bond

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

More from Mischief

About Mischief

Copyright

About the Publisher

In my rush to get away from him I’d become totally lost. My brand-new boots pinched horribly as I slipped and scurried across the wet worn flagstones, under green flaking arches, along narrow alleyways, beside stagnant canals, and finally into a little square where I stopped to catch my breath.

I glanced round. The rain had found its way into the square after me, but not the strange man. There was no one to be seen. Ridiculously, I almost wished that I’d stopped being so paranoid and just asked him what he wanted. That’s what happens when you spend too much time on your own. Maybe this trip wasn’t such a good idea after all. Not right. Not healthy. And just then I would have preferred to be with anyone, even a weirdo, rather than, like now, totally alone.

I took out my mobile. A call to Hazel, my mate and business partner who was holding the fort back in London, should sort me out. She was the one who’d told me to fuck off and get out of her face. In the most caring kind of way.

‘How’s it going?’ I could tell Hazel was busy, and distracted. Probably a client was standing by the counter as she talked, waiting to pay. In the background, red buses rumbling by. The pedestrian crossing beeping just outside our shop. ‘Found any good outlets yet?’

‘Some. Most of the glass shops are very quiet this time of year. And their stuff is so – quaint. Not sure our super-contemporary clients want fussy little seashells and conches scattered all over their minimalist interiors.’

‘Well, think outside the box and find something cutting-edge, then. Been out to the workshops on Murano yet?’

‘Give me a chance! I’ve only been here two days!’

‘Two more to go, then. So you’d better get your skates on, girl. And there’s no need to be petulant with me. We’ve got to justify sending you over there on expenses. So. What about your leisure time? Any nice men to take your mind off things? It’s the most romantic city on earth, after all.’

‘Yeah. Rub it in, why don’t you. Especially with Valentine’s Day just around the corner and everyone getting ready for Carnivale with their masks and costumes and all. I must be the only person here without a lover.’ I thumped my backside down on the rim of an old well in the middle of the square. A pigeon came up, tilted its head and pecked experimentally at my toe. ‘And to top it all I’ve got a stalker.’

Hazel cackled. ‘You wish!’

‘Seriously. Everywhere I go, every shop, every corner, he’s there.’ The well was damp, and so now was my bottom. ‘Watching me.’

‘If you say so, doll. What does he look like?’

‘Like a stalker! You know, tall, long dark coat, some kind of brimmed hat, a fedora thing – I haven’t seen his face, but it’s like he’s this shadow, sliding over the walls behind me, following me everywhere.’

‘Sounds like the kinky fantasy of a frustrated old mare to me.’

‘It’s true. He exists!’ I protested, laughing nevertheless. ‘I first saw him passing down the Grand Canal on a vaporetto not long after I got here. Then coming out of Harry’s Bar last night. He was even outside my hotel this morning. But it’s funny you should use the word “kinky” …’

As always she’d hit the nail on the head. Inside the head, even. She knew the way my mind worked, how it basically revolves around sex or the lack of it. We were bosom mates – no, not that kind of bosom. Neither of us are – were – that way inclined. But she just knew me so well after hours, nights, weekends, years of talking long into the night about our life and loves. She knew how splitting up with my latest married man was inevitable. They always went back to their wives. But to top it all I was pushing forty, my faithful stock of fuck buddies had also run out and she certainly wasn’t prepared to lend me her precious Tony.

So, yes, I had fantasised about the scary stalker.

More than that, I’d actually slowed down deliberately coming out of Harry’s Bar last night, wondering if he might turn and follow me back to the Danieli Hotel. I picked my way over the bridge and along the wide promenade that ran from the bar along the outer edge of Piazza San Marco, trying not to get my feet wet in the remaining puddles from the rain and the acqua alta that had flooded over the piazza at high tide. I let my long red cashmere scarf trail behind me like bait as the cold breeze blew off the black lagoon and whipped my hair across my eyes. But when I looked back he wasn’t there.

At the hotel I wandered across the large tiled hallway and into the warm piano bar humming with people, the sweet smell of cocktails and the saccharine melodies being picked out by an ancient pianist. I took the cocktail that the mustachioed barman flourished at me. I’d never travelled on my own before, and on my first night I’d automatically scanned the place for talent as if I was still cruising the bars in London, painted on my best smile, hitched up my tits in my best push-up bra, crossed my legs provocatively, Sharon Stone-style. Realised there was nothing doing. I was being comprehensively ignored. And when I realised that the manager was observing me from the doorway, wondering if I was a hooker, I shrugged at him, jangled my room key ostentatiously and went up to bed.

But something had definitely come over me since then. In the two days I’d been in Venice a kind of charmed fatigue was creeping into my bones along with the damp air of the city. I couldn’t be bothered to toy with what was in front of me, the jostling crowds, proposing couples, even random barmen or winking Italians. I wanted the imaginary, the impossible, something ephemeral that I was sure was waiting just out of sight.

That second night I hung around in the bar for at least another hour. Something about the very fact that I was ignoring them seemed to invite smiles from various guys, all trying to catch my eye over the narrow, tailored shoulders of their haughty dates. But I just sat up high on a bar stool so that the stalker could see me clearly above the potted palms if he came in.

And when he didn’t come in I realised how pathetic I was being. Of course he wasn’t coming in. He probably didn’t exist! But still I ascended the grand curving staircase instead of taking the lift, in case he came gliding in through the front door. Then I kicked shut the door and fell backwards across the big ornate bed, my dress up round my fanny, listening as the traffic, both human and watery, ebbed and flowed in the cold night outside my window.

I couldn’t get him out of my head. I imagined him opening the door without ceremony and without a word, walking soundlessly over to where I’m lying, leaning over me, still wearing that long dark coat, the hat still shadowing his face.

I sit up on my elbows and try to see what he looks like. Various faces flit across my imagination. My ex-boyfriend. My university tutor. Hazel’s Tony. The barman. But all I can see is white skin and a pointed chin, and a mouth set in a grim line. He reaches out a gloved hand and lifts my dress right up, over my waxed snatch, and of course he sees I’m not wearing any knickers. He holds the dress up for a long moment while his other hand moves deliberately and thoroughly over his crotch, rubbing it almost thoughtfully as he stares at my body. Then he lets the dress flutter down again high up over my stomach, leaving my pussy bare.

Now he leans over me and pushes my thighs open. His gloves are of some kind of expensive leather but still they snag slightly on my skin. One long finger strokes towards where the pussy lips swell on either side of the neat line of topiary, but stops short of touching them, which only makes them pulse all the more. He pushes my legs wider still, and still I can’t see his face, but I can see a seam of moisture between his lips and the serrated tips of his white teeth.

My face is on a level with his crotch, and through his open coat I see the bulge in his black trousers, the big outline of his cock, thick and hard and incongruous against the thin, mean body. I stretch my hand out tentatively towards it, wondering if he’ll slap it back, but he is almost like a statue now, holding my legs open, staring down at me, his eyes invisible, his cheeks and chin incredibly white and smooth, no sign of any bristles. I touch that hard outline, and all he does is tip his head very slightly back and swallow. So I start to unzip his trousers, no reaction, get my hand inside his flies, still as stone, I pause again to see if he’ll stop me, then as soon as I touch the smooth surface of his cock I’m horny as hell, never mind what he’s feeling.

At last there’s the faintest crackle in his throat, and that flicks the switch for me. I love a man at my mercy. I grip him harder, but suddenly he lifts his hands from my legs and grabs either side of my head, covering my ears so that all I can hear is the thump of my heart and the rush of my breath and the slight creak of his leather gloves.

He shoves my head into his groin. I expect to smell sweat and the salty hint of spunk but there is only the tang of strong soap. He grinds my face harder against him so that my nose squashes up against his thick curly hair and his jutting cock. As I pull slightly away his penis jumps at my face, banging against my nose. There is nothing but the soapy darkness, the rub of the thick fabric of his trousers and coat, and the almost rigid cock poking me. The stalker’s hands are really tight over my head, smothering my face inside his trousers so I can hardly breathe. I open my mouth to get air, and my tongue slicks across the tip of his cock. It swells bigger and harder in response, and yes now there’s a droplet of moisture there on the tip as I take a tentative lick, smearing it across my chin as his cock slips away from me. I lick again, think of it as my lollipop. It jumps again, he pulls back but only for a second, he jerks urgently at my mouth, losing control, aiming it like a weapon. So his knob slips stickily into my mouth.

My pussy twitches with the thrill, the menace and the sheer excitement of causing an erection in such a cold, stony figure. I can’t relish it properly because I’m sprawled awkwardly on my front now, towards the edge of the high bed. I can’t move because I’m holding on to the stalker’s coat and then his skinny hips to balance, so all I can do is rub myself against the duvet. He thrusts himself hard against me, almost breaking my teeth as he forces his cock further inside my mouth. I think I can hear a muttered curse, but it’s only a whisper. I follow the motion of his body with my mouth, trying hard not to bite him.

I grip the top of his legs and keep the rounded knob of his enormous cock firmly in my mouth. The whole shaft presses against my tongue, rubs against my teeth. I open my jaw wider. He’s huge now. I push the rigid length away from my throat with my tongue. Every move makes him stiffer. I start to suck and I can taste him, clean skin mixed with the sweet salt trickling through the slit. Funny how even an automaton like him won’t be able to control his own spunk. His hands grip harder on my head, but he is moving more now. I can hear a low moan as he thrusts his cock against the roof of my mouth, filling it. My tongue traces the veins on its surface. My mouth moves up and down and I nip the taut flesh. He pushes in hard, pushing it right down my throat, spreading his thighs a little wider and tipping his pelvis to get a better angle, and now there’s another faint scent which seems released from his clothes, a smoky musky aroma that seems to curl up through my nostrils right into my head. It’s pleasant, clean, sensual even, but I can’t place it.

I move to keep a grip on him and my pussy opens against the old-fashioned brocade of the bed cover and it scrapes the tender clit hiding inside and it’s my turn to flinch with pleasure and groan. But that seems to displease him. His hands imprison my cheeks and force my head to rock back and forth some more, my teeth and lips sliding right away from his long cock before he slams my face forwards again. His cock is deep down my throat, but I’m good at this. I’m known for it. And the reason I’m always up for it, enjoy it so much, feeling that shaft of excited male muscle in my mouth, gagging me to choking point, is that I can imagine it doing the same inside me. Soon it will be fucking me.

Somehow I know that’s not going to happen tonight. This man has come to me for his pleasure, not mine, so as I suck harder and faster and move my mouth up and down I move my body in time, rubbing my pussy up, down, on the brocade, rough embroidery scraping on my clit, making it burn, making my pussy twitch and clench furiously, furious I suppose with him, too, but as my stalker starts to buck against me, I feel the little rush of orgasm just on the edge of me, not really far enough inside, and as it blooms out of me I feel the thick gush of his spunk gathering in my mouth, spurting down my tongue, and I swallow it, determined to show him that he’s picked the right girl for a blow job, how the hell did he know, is it my luscious lips, always painted a dark red and fashioned exactly for sucking on something sweet? I swallow it all, the familiar slight reflux in my throat making me nip at him so that he jerks backwards but it’s still spurting out and he stays rammed inside my mouth, my face jammed between his hands, until he’s done.

I let the cock slide out of my mouth, and turn quickly on to my knees like a doggy, offering my backside up to him for another go, and panting eagerly as I smile back at him over my shoulder, running my tongue over my lips in invitation.

But he shakes his head, dipping the hat over his eyes, then pushes me roughly so that I fall forwards on to the bed. He sneers, but he hasn’t said a word. I haven’t noticed him zipping himself up, but he flicks his coat closed and as he swishes away from me again there’s that scent released into the air, catching in my throat. I can only describe it as spiritual. Candles. Incense. A church smell. Then he strides across the carpet and leaves through the still open door.

‘Say what?’ Far away in Long Acre, Hazel sighed.

‘What you said about the fantasy – oh, never mind.’ I could hear the other line ringing in the shop.

‘Whatever. You’ve been watching too many movies, Jen. Now get a grip, buy some Venetian glass at wholesale to keep us from going bust, and get your arse back here.’

I wasn’t ready to let her go, but before I could keep her talking, maybe share the details of that particular fantasy, the phone went dead.

And then I heard it. Above my head. A moan, elongated as if someone was in pain, a sigh, then another moan. Impossible to ignore. The sound was brazen as it insinuated itself out of yet another Gothic window and ricocheted off the high surrounding walls. Sounds here always turn to echos: footsteps, church bells, the flapping of wings, the snap of a bed sheet. Atmospheric and intriguing, especially for a visiting stranger. But this was different. This was the private, human, sweaty whisper of sex. A creaking bed, headboard knocking on the wall. Oh God. Now I could see it. Them. In my mind. Strong male buttocks rearing up and thrusting in between eager, slender, gripping thighs.

I glanced round to see if anyone else was listening or coming out to shut them up, but the doors and windows in the little campo stared blankly back. They looked rusty and dusty, as if they hadn’t been opened for years. Well, it was February, and foggy, and freezing cold. Only one was open, with a red curtain billowing out like a tongue over a box of geraniums.

I was imagining it. I started to stand up, but then a woman’s voice murmured something, and her lover answered, his voice harsh with lust. Individual hairs started to rise on my neck, on the crown of my head, along my arms. The noises were excruciatingly intimate, making me blush, but they were also turning me on.

Now there was a creaking of bed springs and they started to sing slowly, in an unmistakable rhythm. I started to rub my hands up and down my thighs. It was time to go. But I was pinned to the spot by the noises. Also I had no idea where I was, or where I was going. The ragged moans rose, became closer together, stretched into wordless gasping, sounding so close to fear or pain but we all know it’s perfect pleasure, panting in time to the creaking bed. My nipples, already cold, stiffened instinctively, my silk camisole clinging to the hard points. I covered my ears, but moisture seeped into my knickers. How desperate did that make me, getting aroused by someone else’s fucking? After my empty stalker fantasy, this was torture.

But the square was so silent. These were the only sounds. It was like I was in the room with them, seeing them through all the stages of whispering, kissing, touching, arousing each other in their bed right through to the fucking. I knew the man was inside her now, because every few seconds he gave a groan just like a tennis pro serving an ace, and that was what turned me on. The square reverberated with the rhythmic sounds, their animal groaning as the man’s cock thrust again and again into the woman with those glorious two-tone moans. Why did nobody else hear? The bed was banging against the wall and they were almost shouting now, the moans rising to that uninhibited pitch where pleasure meets pain.

I realised I was rocking, too, on my damp seat, cold hands rubbing at myself under my coat, fingers creeping under my skirt to find my crotch, sliding inside my knickers, one finger matching the heady rhythm echoing from the window, running up, running down my crack, making it wet, making me jealous, I could picture the sex-soaked scene through that shuttered window, the rumpled sheets, the bed thumping against the wall, their mouths open, his cock pulling out, big and hard and glistening with her juice, her pussy pink and open and wet, then him slamming her back against the pillows as he thrust inside.

Like a wildlife film when you see lions humping. They were hard at it up there. My fingers rubbed faster across my crotch and then the woman was straining for breath, hissing, ‘Yes, yes.’ I vaguely thought, surely it should be ‘si, si’? Maybe she was riding him, breasts bouncing, hard nipples catching between his teeth, his fingers digging into her haunches to keep her rammed on to his big cock. Everything was rising to a crescendo. A ball of excitement rolled and tightened in my stomach as the creaking of the bed grew more violent. I moaned out loud as my own pussy sucked at my fingers and then I came, quickly and quietly, my knees weak as I shivered there on the stone well, cold and exhausted and even more frustrated than before.

Upstairs the groaning and panting stopped, regained a second momentum with a kind of desperate shriek, then died.

It was as if everyone was holding their breath, daring each other to be the first to move. Why does masturbating make you feel so alone? No one to hold or touch after, that’s why. I got my own breath back and fumbled for my guidebook as if someone was watching me accusingly. Suddenly the door beneath the window opened. I pretended to study my map but glanced over the top of it to see what voluptuous, sated creature was emerging from the house.

But instead of a dishevelled Monica Bellucci lookalike in a fur coat and stilettos, with messed-up tendrils of black hair and scarlet lips, a slim, plain-looking figure with short fair hair in a long grey dress, thick tights and flat black lace-ups hurried out into the wintry light, fastening a billowing cape in a bow at her neck. Then, as she stepped backwards to call something up at the window she pulled a white cap and then a grey veil over her hair and fastened it with kirby grips. That woman in flagrante I’d been eavesdropping on, the afternoon adulteress, or whore, or honeymooning wife was actually – a nun!

I stifled a snort of laughter. Maybe she was in disguise. In fancy dress?

She put her hand up beside her mouth and called again. ‘Carlo! Answer me!’

The man refused to come to the window. Some kind of row going on?

‘For God’s sake!’

Finally a man’s hand pushed through the geraniums in the box and flung some cash down to the ground. Maybe she was a tom, after all?

‘Bastardo! I don’t want money!’ the nun half hissed, half screamed, waving her arms out of the cape. ‘I’m not one of your tourist groupies!’

Her accent was almost perfectly English, the smoker’s sexy rasp totally at odds with the prim exterior.

‘No?’ He shouted down. ‘Well, then you should start acting like a proper girlfriend and stay the night with me for once, instead of sneaking off after I’ve given you one. Oh, just fuck off back to your little prison before they notice you’re missing.’

‘Don’t you dare! You know my situation there! You know I can’t –’

I still couldn’t see her face, but I could see that she was shaking. Her hands, raised in the air as if to try and reach up to him, smacked back down to her sides, the fingers furiously twisting and bunching up the thick material of the cloak.

‘Well, I’m fed up with waiting. Plenty more where you came from.’ He was at the window now. All I could see was a head of dark, curly hair and a navy sweater rolled up over big strong arms. His hands were curled into fists on the edge of the windowsill. A livid red scar ran round one wrist like a bracelet. ‘Use the money to buy yourself a new prayer mat, or a Bible, or a nice fat candle, or whatever you use in there for kicks.’

‘Vaffanculo!’ she screeched, making the pigeon flap up in alarm. ‘Go fuck yourself!’

She turned on her heel, threw the hood over her head, and rushed out through an archway on the far side of the square from where I’d entered. As I levered myself stiffly up from my damp seat, Carlo caught sight of me. His black eyes glittered furiously as if I’d done something wrong. Then he stopped, and looked right at where my coat was unbuttoned, my skirt still hoicked up round my thighs.

‘You’re all tarts!’ At least I think that’s what he said. Maybe it was ‘Your last chance!’ Either way I felt a rush of shame, followed by a rush of fury that he’d made me feel that way. He slammed closed the shutters and suddenly his window became as blind and deaf as all the others in this ethereal city.

I could hear her footsteps tapping away into the distance. Silence and darkness were gathering round me again, along with lanky tendrils of fog. I started to run after her. She was the only human being I’d seen in the last hour, after all. Not counting the stalker, who I reckoned wasn’t human at all. Worse than that, I had no idea where I was and it wasn’t funny any more. At least she’d be able to tell me the way back to my plush hotel on the Riva degli Schiavoni.

‘Scusi! Signorina!’ I called out, careering out from under the archway and on to a narrow, slippery pavement beside a sliver of green canal. There were no railings, and I nearly splashed straight into the water. As I fell back against the wall, heart juddering, I caught sight of a tall dark figure standing on the other side of the canal, framed by another archway. The hat shaded the face. All I could see was the high collar of his coat and the sharp chin turned sideways. In the dusk he was a whole lot spookier than in last night’s fantasy. Downright scary. And he was, like me, intently watching the nun as she lifted one sturdy shoe to climb a little stone bridge.

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.

‘So the sinner returns.’

A door beside the statue opened and in walked my stalker.

I screamed in fright and grabbed Natalia. But she simply stroked my arm, calming me. The tall figure was motionless, one gloved hand still holding the door open. Then Natalia stepped away from me and dropped to her knees.

‘Oh, Mother Superior. Please forgive me!’

I knelt to shake her and hissed, ‘Natalia! What are you doing? Christ, we have to get out of here! This guy – he’s been stalking me –’

But she flung herself forwards, spreading her arms out on the floor. Her cloak and skirt rode up the back of her legs and above her white thighs I saw what knickers nuns wear. What looked like puffy cotton bloomers, the kind of thing a long-legged model might wear on the catwalk with teetering platforms and a military waistcoat. Her little white hands touched the man’s shiny black shoes poking out of his long black coat.

‘Natalia! Get up!’

The stalker turned in my direction and put one hand up to silence me. No need. I was already frozen to the spot. Then he started slowly undoing the buttons from the collar in a kind of creepy striptease, over the chest, down the front. And as it fell open I caught a whiff of that smoky scent, and with a sick lurch in my stomach I remembered my fantasy. It was incense, and it was coming off the burning candles and silver incense burners positioned all round the room.

‘So, Sister Benedicta.’

Natalia raised her head from the floor. ‘Yes, Mother?’

I stared, aghast, as the hat and coat came off and the stalker was not a man at all. At least, the figure was dressed as a nun, so presumably it was female. But she was still very masculine. Tall, thin, with an almost translucent white face, slightly hooked nose and large, glittering black eyes. She kept these eyes on me as she directed the inevitable question at Natalia.

‘Where have you been?’

Natalia’s eyes filled with tears. She said nothing.

‘She’s been with me!’ My voice clanged in the dank room. ‘I was lost in one of the back streets, and she helped me.’

The Mother Superior handed her disguise to a second nun with freckles and a dimple whose comely figure had glided silently into the room. She folded the clothes and held them in front of her, waiting. There was a long silence punctuated only by a bell tolling somewhere in what sounded like Morse code. It was as if they had all the time in the world. The angelic singing, which was louder now, trailed through the still open door beside the statue.

‘You’re lying. I don’t know who you are, signora, but you are evidently a woeful influence. I know exactly where, and with whom, Sister Benedicta has been. Not just today, but several times before.’

I clamped my lips shut. So, not stalking me at all. Stalking my little Natalia.

Mother Marta picked up a thin little switch from the table. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was black leather, like a riding crop, and had a bunch of fine leather tassels dangling off the end. Nine tails?

‘You have been out of the convent, which is forbidden, Sister. I think seven times. The seven deadly sins. That amounts to once a month since you arrived here and took your initial vows.’

I saw something shift behind Natalia’s eyes as she maintained her awkward prone position on the floor. She had visited Carlo much more than once a month, I was sure of it. Clever girl.

‘And you have been going into a house belonging to Carlo Martelli, and you have been alone with him there, naked with him there, and fornicating with him there.’

Natalia’s face was draining of all colour. I took a worried step towards her but the whip came down smartly in the air between us.

‘You have broken every vow, committed every sin it is possible to commit whilst a member of this house. Lying to us, hiding from us, scuttling through the city like a dung beetle, speaking to others and fornicating with a man. Do you wish to stay here, or do you wish to be expelled? Either way you will be punished. You know the rules. You vowed to keep to them when you entered.’

Expelled. I wish to be expelled! I was willing Natalia to say it. This horrible woman made normal activities, normal pleasures, sound so evil and dirty. Natalia was best out of it. I was even prepared to take whatever the punishment was alongside her if she would only come away with me.

‘I know the rules, Mother, and I vow to keep them. I want to stay here, Mother. And I wish to be punished in front of my Sisters.’

‘No! Natalia, no!’

The whip flicked down in the air again, so close to me that my hair lifted from my forehead in its breeze. I couldn’t believe it. Natalia was speaking in a low, warm voice, not a high, frightened one. She meant what she was saying!

‘What a mere novice like you wishes is of no consequence but yes, you will go now into the chapel and prostrate yourself. And your friend’s punishment can be to watch.’

Natalia nodded and stood up. She was still very white. She avoided my eye, as if I was the one who had done wrong, and walked calmly through the door. The freckled nun took my arm and led me into a long thin chapel. My eyes started streaming with the heavy scent of incense pouring out of a large silver basket swinging back and forth on a silver chain. There was a Gothic vaulted ceiling, plaster walls painted with faint, peeling frescoes, and a meshed grille running down the whole of one side. On the other side were pews, and in these pews were several more nuns and, I noticed with surprise, a priest standing behind the altar at the far end. They must have been waiting for hours. In their utter stillness they all looked like figurines.

‘Prostrate yourself, Sister.’

Natalia lay down in front of the altar and spread her arms and legs in a star shape. My heart started pounding with fear. The singing was still radiating from behind the grille, but it was no longer angelic. It had descended to a low, grim humming sound. Sweat started trickling down my back, gathering in my armpits, prickling in my hair.

The freckled nun planted her feet on either side of Natalia and folded her cape and skirt right up over her bottom so that I could see those awful bloomers again. Then freckle-face wrenched those down in one swift movement, right down to Natalia’s knees, so that there was nothing covering her but the black stockings.

I glanced round. ‘Someone stop this! It’s torture!’ I said, but it came out as a kind of dry squeak. The humming got louder, and no one was listening to me. They had all turned to look at Natalia, lying on the floor, her round white bottom and lovely thighs glowing in the dead, dim light of the chapel.

Mother Marta stepped forward, raised her arm, and with a swish like a wasp’s wing brought the whip down on Natalia’s buttocks. The sound was extraordinary. The sharp stroke on Natalia’s soft flesh rang out like a cruel gunshot. The tender flesh rippled under the blow. I gasped in horror, and lunged forward, but someone else pinned my arms behind me to stop me moving. Natalia jerked involuntarily off the floor, showing a quick flash of her unwaxed pussy between her open thighs, and I saw her fingers clawing at the polished wooden floor. But she made no sound.

‘Don’t you move, Sister, or you get double.’

But even as she spoke so harshly, Mother Marta leaned down and stroked Natalia’s butt cheek, where a livid red stripe had come up. And yet Natalia lay there as if she was asleep. A new respect for her bubbled up inside me, alongside the revulsion and hatred for the nun meting out such a caning to my powerless girl. We all watched as the nun stroked the other cheek, almost as if she was preparing it like prime steak. Then she quickly stepped back and swiped the whip down a second time, squarely on the second cheek.

Natalia turned her head slightly as her little rump jerked up again involuntarily. Again the plump flesh quivered under the blow, and again there was a tantalising glimpse of her bush as she bounced off the floor.

A kind of low sighing gasp echoed round the stone chapel. The watching nuns and priest were very still in their places, but bright-eyed, almost crazed as they gloated over the awful spectacle before them. Some nodded, and I realised that of course they recognised what was going on because it had happened to them. Who knew how often?

As a third stroke came down and the thwack resounded round the chapel, I could swear that this time Natalia’s bottom stayed up even longer, as if inviting the stroke instead of recoiling from it. She moved it slightly from side to side, almost kneeling up to lift her bottom higher into the air. As I glimpsed the plump lips of her pussy tucked between her legs, the quick slash of pink cunt as she wiggled her bottom, a spike of desire shocked me, flashing through my own cunt and crouching there, so that it started to throb with wanting.

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