The Mortification of the Flesh

By Jacqueline Jillinghoff

It was my fault. I admit that. It was my own wickedness that brought God’s wrath down on my head. Sister Lucretia was only his holy instrument, his avenging angel. I deserved every painful lash she inflicted on my naked behind.

I was in seventh-grade when I started playing with myself. Once I discovered how good it felt to touch the slimy gash between my legs, rubbing, tickling, and sticking my fingers in my hole, I couldn’t stop. I knew it was a sin, and every time I did it, I promised myself it was the last time. But I had no self-control. A day would go by, sometimes not even a day, and that good, good itch would always come back. I couldn’t help it. I had to scratch.

It got worse over the summer, and when I started eighth grade I was doing it every day, some days two or three times — in the morning, for sure, before I got out of bed, then again after school, before my parents got home from work. As soon as I got in the door, I would run upstairs and take off my uniform and lie down naked on my cool, crumpled, unmade bed and run my fingers over my juicy wet flesh. My tits were growing, too, and it felt good to brush my nipples with my fingertips, or pinch them, or squash them on the ribs underneath.

Oh, my God — was I the only girl in the whole world who was so bad? I was sure I was. I pictured the other kids in school finding out and laughing and laughing. When I heard the boys in the schoolyard rag each other about jerking off, or the girls gossiping that some girl was “slutty” or “queer,” I knew they were talking about me, even though I knew they couldn’t be.

I kept my secret all year, but my luck ran out in April. I blame my own carelessness. I took such a big chance that afternoon that I think maybe underneath it all, I wanted to get caught.

It was the first really nice spring day we had, and the air did something to me. It made me jittery. After lunch I went into the girls’ room to pee and finger myself, but when I was done, I decided my panties were too confining. So I took them all the way off — pulling them over my big, clunky saddle shoes — and stuffed them in the pocket of my uniform. There was a warm breeze in the schoolyard, and it was thrilling, creeping up my skirt and slithering over my bare ass and in between my legs. I had a real secret now, I thought, and none of the other kids had a clue.

But once we got back inside, it was hard to concentrate, which I guess I should have expected. I couldn’t wait to get home and get out of my clothes. It was going to be fun walking home, too, with nothing on under my skirt. I opened my knees a little, trying to cool myself down, but it didn’t help. I was itchy and distracted all afternoon. I was lucky Sister Lucretia never called on me for anything, because I wouldn’t have known the answer. I probably wouldn’t even have heard her. I hardly knew where I was.

Finally, the three o’clock buzzer went off. I thought I was home free, but just before the kid came on the intercom to announce the dismissal lines, Sister Lucretia looked at me from her desk and said, “Miss Beaver, would you stay after class for a moment? I’d like to speak with you.”

“Yes, Sister,” I said. It’s what you always said when a nun asked you anything. I didn’t know what she wanted, but it didn’t cross my mind that it had anything to do with my being out of uniform, so to speak. She didn’t sound mad, though with the nuns, you could never tell.

I sat there with my hands folded on the edge of my desk while the kid on the intercom called out the buses and street names.

“Large Street,” he said, and some the other kids in my class lined up and went out.

“Bleigh Street,” he said, and another group left.

“Shelmire” — that was my line, and I missed it.

Sister never moved from her desk. It took almost a half hour before we were alone. She waited for another five minutes, marking some papers, and then she said, “Miss Beaver, come over here, please,” without looking up.

My legs suddenly felt weak. I got up and went around behind her desk. She turned in her seat and faced me with her whole body.

“Lift your skirt up, Miss,” she said.

“Excuse me, Sister?”

“Do you not understand English? Take a hold of your skirt and lift it up.”

I pulled my skirt an inch or two above my knees.

“All the way up.”

“Why, Sister?”

“Because I’m telling you to. And it will be worse for you if you don’t.”

I knew what she was up to, and there was nothing I could do. She could have sat there and stared at me all night. I pulled my skirt higher, slowly, just until I felt her eyes on my brown puff of hair. Then I dropped it, fast.

“I thought so,” Sister said. “You girls don’t know it, but I am always checking to make sure your undergarments are appropriate. I’ve seen a lot of whorish things, but you, Miss, win the prize. Where are your panties?”

“Im muh puh,” I mumbled.

“Where?”

“In my pocket,” I said.

“In my pocket, what?”

“In my pocket, Sister.”

“Let me see them.”

I took them out I held them low at my side, balled up in my fist. Sister yanked them out of my hand.

“I’ll keep these, since you have no interest in them,” she said. “And if you cannot dress decently, you might as well not dress at all. Take off every stitch of your clothing.”

I didn’t move. It didn’t sink in, what she said. A nun wouldn’t say something like that, so, obviously, Sister Lucretia could not have said what I thought I just heard.

But then she said, “Miss Beaver, we can do this one of two ways. Either I can call your parents and tell them what a wicked daughter they have raised, or you can accept your punishment now, and we can keep this just between us. The choice is yours.”

My fingers went numb as I reached behind my neck and fumbled with the zipper on the back of my jumper. I couldn’t get a grip on the pull tab, and Sister was in no mood to wait. She gave a big, impatient sigh, grabbed my shoulders and spun me around roughly. I heard the zipper go down and felt the jumper come apart. Something ripped.

Sister yanked the jumper down to my feet, and I stepped out of it.

“Turn around again,” she said. “Do you think you can do the rest, or are you such a baby that you need an adult to undress you?”

She kept her eyes on my chest while I unbuttoned my blouse and unhooked my bra. I began to toe off my shoes, but she said, “Unlace them,” and I got down on one knee, then the other. Finally, I thumped back on my butt and skinned off my knee socks. When I stood up again, I didn’t have anything on but the gold cross I wore on a chain around my neck.

I tried covering up — one hand over my bush, one in front of my titties, with the thumb and middle finger spread over the nipples —but Sister slapped at my arms, and I let them hang down. Now that I had nothing more to hide, I squared my shoulders, lifting my breasts a hair more.

“Not quite ripe, are you?” she said. “But you have a beautiful body.”

“Thank you, Sister,” was all I could think to say.

“That was not a compliment. A body like yours is an occasion for sin. The boys are already looking at you with lust in their hearts. Some of the girls, too, I imagine. They are marching straight into hell, and you are at the head of the line. Do you understand the kind of perversion a girl like you is responsible for?”

“Yes S’ster.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “But you’re about to learn. Are you ready to accept your punishment?”

“Yes S’ster.”

“Enunciate!”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Fine. Do you know the big door at the end of the hall on the third floor?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Wait here for ten minutes, then go up there and knock. I shall be waiting for you.”

“Yes, Sister. May I put my clothes back on now?”

“No, you may not. You will walk upstairs naked. And if anyone sees you, you are to explain to them exactly why you are naked. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Sister.”

She got up and left the room, taking all my clothes with her.

I peeked around the corner with my arms crossed over my bare breasts. The corridor was empty and dark, though one classroom door was open, and the light from inside spilled out on the floor in a milky pool. I took a deep breath and started down. The door Sister told me to go to was far away at the other end. It looked smaller than it did when I was in first grade and I had my classes up here, but it was just as mysterious. It was thick, and made of dark oak, with deep panels, a round black knob, and an old-fashioned keyhole in a black plate. We kids never knew what was behind it. The nuns never told us, and we were afraid to ask, but we all imagined it was something terrible. One boy — this was back in first or second grade — said the room was haunted. Another said it was where they kept dead bodies before funeral Masses at the church.

I always thought they just stored boxes of old books in there, but now, as I padded down the corridor naked, I was thinking that a third boy came closest with his theory: he said they took the real bad kids in there and chained them up.

The corridor smelled of chalk dust and that stuff they sprinkle on the floor whenever a kid throws up. I was so scared it was hard to breathe, and a struggle to walk, and I went slowly when I should have been racing to get out of sight. The floor tiles were cool on my bare feet, which was a small relief. Every other inch of my naked skin was hot and prickly.

I passed the open classroom door. I didn’t see anyone inside, but I hadn’t taken another five steps when a deep voice behind me boomed, “YOU!”

My skin stood up all over. I stopped dead, facing the far away door until a smaller voice commanded me in a crazy accent: “Turn ar-rount, younk voo-man.”

So I did. A little nun I had never seen before was standing outside the open classroom. I wouldn’t have believed anybody so tiny could yell the way she did, but her hard, square face and tight lips made it plain she was holding back a volcano. She wore round glasses that were too big for her face. The light from the classroom glanced off the lenses, hiding her eyes. She glared at me like an owl with glaucoma.

“Vot chu doink, trepp-sink aroun’ de school vit no close on?” she said. “Leetle children study here. Mebbe dey still here. Mebbe dey see you.”

“Sister Lucretia told me to do it,” I said.

“Vy?” the little nun demanded. “Vy good Seester Lu-kreetz make you do some-sink so eef-il? Tell me dot.”

“She found out I wasn’t wearing panties in class,” I said. “She said I might as well not wear anything, and she told me to come up and knock on the big door.”

“Ah!” the little nun said. “I see! You go to de pen-antz room! Seester Lu-Kreetz, she teach you lesson, ja? You know, venn you come out, you not be de same dirty gull dot go in.”

She marched up to me, and without asking me or warning me, she clapped her hand between my legs.

“Vet!” she said. “You like your leetle poosy-cat, ja? It feel good?”

“Yes, Sister,” I confessed. “It feels amazing.”

“Den you are dis-krace!” she hissed at me. “You go! You go to de pen-antz room! You safe your soul, you vicked tink! I vant hear you scream!”

I went on. When I got to the oak door, I looked back over my shoulder. The little nun was still there, her owl eyes boring into my naked butt. She hadn’t moved, except that she was sniffing the fingers she had shoved in my pussy, and she had her other hand deep in the pocket of her habit.

I knocked. Nothing happened, so I knocked again, harder.

“Come in,” Sister Lucretia called.

The little room was ablaze. The windows were taped over with heavy black paper, and there were candles everywhere — in sparkling brass candlesticks, on metal racks, in cups of blue and red glass. They were on the floor, in wall-sconces, hanging by chains from the ceiling, and lined up on a rough wooden table over to the right. There were other things on the table, too — things I couldn’t identify, laid out neatly in rows — and, hanging on the wall above it, a crucifix that must have been five feet high.

“Close and lock the door,” Sister Lucretia said.

She was standing next to a prie-dieu in the middle of the room. She had her wimple on, and a string of rosary beads around her neck, but other than that, she was completely naked.

“Tell me. Do you think I’m beautiful?” she said.

“Yes, Sister.”

She really was. The thing about nuns at my grade school is that they were all either midgets or Amazons. Sister Lucretia was one of the Amazons —tall, with broad shoulders and high, firm breasts. Her skin was flawless and so white she looked like a statue, except for her ruby nipples and the black triangle at her crotch.

“The good Lord blessed me with beauty,” she said. “Or cursed me. When I was in school, like you, I incited my share of lust. I became a bride of Christ to hide my body from the world. But here, in this room, we may stand naked before Almighty God. We cannot hide from him. He sees us as we are, and he loves us anyway. Kneel down before him.”

The prie-dieu faced the crucifix and the rough wooden altar. The cushion had been torn off the kneeler, and my knees came down on a hard wooden slat. The longer I stayed there, the more it was going to hurt. Nice touch.

Sister made a show of fingering the objects on the altar, searching for exactly the right one. She took longer than she needed to. She knew what she was looking for. It was just a ritual, or maybe she wanted me to admire her ass. When she turned to me again, she was holding two short, brown-leather belts with big silver buckles.

“Put your arms up like this,” she said, pressing her hands and forearms together. I copied her, placing my elbows on the prayer desk, and she bound my wrists together tight with one of the belts. It was so was so thick and so tough I couldn’t move my elbows apart. It was like my arms were locked together.

“Fold your hands in prayer,” Sister said.

I pointed my fingers to the ceiling and hooked my thumbs together.

“Now stay like that,” Sister said.

She went around behind me and tied me at the ankles with the other belt. This one was wider and tougher, even, than the one around my wrists. I couldn’t flex my ankles at all, and when you can’t flex your ankles, I learned, you can hardly open your knees.

It was more comfortable — well, not comfortable, but less painful — to keep them closed.

Sister went back to the table and picked up a leather strap. This one didn’t have a buckle. It was flat, and black, and cut into thin strips at one end. She twisted it in her hands lovingly, admiring the way the candlelight gleamed along the shiny side. Then she swung it over her head and smacked it brutally on the altar. It sounded like a tree cracking in half.

“Kiss this,” she said, holding it out to me. “It is the instrument of your salvation.”

The thin strips dangled in front of my face. I touched them with my dry lips. Sister went behind me again.

“Scootch your bottom out some more,” she said.

I bent my knees, but it was hard to balance. My shoulders slumped, and my face fell over the prayer desk. My nose flattened against my thumbs. I saw a double image of my upraised fingers, with the crucifix in the middle. A dead plaster Jesus was nailed up there, painted in flesh-tones, with plenty of red on his hands and feet, and a long red gash under his heart.

There came a soft, high whistling, but before I even had time to know I was hearing it, it ended in a whap! and a wicked sting exploded on my bare ass. I yelped, as much in shock as in pain.

“Now, did that hurt?” Sister asked calmly.

“You know it did!”

“Well, it was not one one-hundredth of the pain your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ suffered on the cross for you,” she said. “And it is not one one-millionth of the pain you will suffer in hell if I fail to save your soul. Count yourself lucky that you are getting off with just a whipping.”

She hit me again — this time across my back. I yelped louder. Now that I knew what was coming, and that it would keep coming, the fear was greater, and so was the pain.

“Now, how much did that hurt?”

“It hurt a lot, Sister. Please don’t do it anymore.”

“I have hardly begun,” she said. “Two lashes are never enough to exorcise the demon of sex. Pray while I cleanse you. Say a Hail Mary. Go on. Start.”

And I recited the words we all learned as babies while Sister slashed at my shoulders, and my back, and the soles of my feet, and, more than anything, my poor exposed bottom.

“Hail, Mary — ach! — full of grace — ugh! — the Lord is with thee — ee-uh! Blessed art thou — oh! — among women — arggh! — and blessed is the fruit — aah! — of thy womb — Jesus! Holy Mary — uff! — of — God! — pray for us — unnh! — sinners — ugh! — now — shi-ah! — and at the hour of — ouf! — of our death — oh! — ow! A — ow! —men! Ow! Amen-ow! Ow-amen! Amen! Amen! Aah!”

“Twenty!” Sister cried triumphantly.

My ass was on fire. I wept out loud. The tears poured down my cheeks. They stood in my eyes like a wall of water, blurring the candle flames into one throbbing white light. Beyond the light the room was spinning, and Plaster Jesus flew through the air on his cross.

“Please, please!” I sobbed. “Please, Jesus, save me!”

“Jesus is saving you,” Sister said. “He is saving you through me. You should see your bottom right now — such clear, even stripes. And so red, without a drop of blood! I do excellent work. But your lesson isn’t over.”

“No, Sister, please. Don’t do it anymore. I’ll be good. I won’t ever do it again, I promise! Please!”

“How many times have I heard that before?” she said sadly.

She draped the black strap over my shoulder and went back to the table. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and I could see her clearly as she picked up a crinkled tube and a stubby white candle that had been lying there unlit. She held the tube above the candle, like she was putting toothpaste on a brush, and a cord of clear jelly flowed from the narrow mouth, glittering in the candlelight. Sister smirked at me over the tube.

“It’s always fun to go the pharmacy and buy this,” she said. “They can never figure out what a nun would need it for.”

She put the tube down and smeared the jelly all around the candle, and then she pointed the candle at my lips.

“Kiss this,” she said. “It is the bond of a new covenant.”

Up close, it didn’t look like a candle. It looked like plastic, not wax, and there was no wick, not even a hole for one. But I kissed the tip, just the same, and licked the jelly from my lips.

“Now—,” Sister said, and she went out of sight behind me one more time.

Her warm hand pushed into my butt crack, and down, over my asshole and under my legs, and lengthwise across my pussy. Her fingers were oily from the stuff in the tube, and her touch was soothing on my swollen cunt.

My ass was still sticking out, so even though my legs were clamped together, my pussy was exposed. Sister worked two slippery fingers into my hole and pried my tunnel open. I never knew she was so strong. My cunt began filling up, stretching around something round and hard and slick. Sister was stuffing the lubricated candle into me.

But I was right: it wasn’t a candle. Something clicked, and it vibrated like an electric razor. Waves of pleasure crackled from my asshole to my clit and back again. I never felt anything like it.

“You like that, don’t you?” Sister said.

“Yes, Sister.”

“Tell me how much.”

“A lot.”

“A lot,” she repeated. “You think it’s fucking incredible.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Say it!”

“It’s fucking incredible!”

She took the strap off my shoulder. Then she grabbed a fistful of my hair and threw me to the floor. My hip scraped the bare wood, and I rolled over on my back with my legs stretched out, squeezing the vibrating candle between them.

“Raise your arms,” Sister said.

That was hard to do, the way my wrists were bound, but I managed to lay my fists on the floor above my head. Sister sat on me, straddling my legs. I looked up at her through the triangle formed by my upper arms, my elbows at the top, and my forearms sloping back across my forehead. Rough flaps of skin poked down through her pubic hair. The undersides of her breasts were like perfect globes.

She raised the strap.

“Pray again,” she said. “Begin: Hail Mary —”

The lash swooped across my tits. And I screamed. I screamed loud and long.

“Say it!” she yelled. “Say it! Hail Mary! Hail Mary, full of fucking grace!”

“Hail Mary — full of fucking grace!”

“The Lord is fucking with thee!”

“The Lord is fucking — agh! – agh! – agh!”

Her arm swung back and forth across her body. The leather cut my tits from the left, from the right, from the left again. It hurt so much, like she was slicing off my nipples, but they were rock-hard, and that only magnified the pain.

“Blessed art thou amongst women!”

“Blessed art thou— Oh god oh god please stop!”

But I came. God forgive me, I never came so hard. It started with a flickering spark in my clitoris, and then it spread like fire through the red stripes that marred my body. The pain was ecstasy. The pleasure was excruciating.

“And blessed is the fruit,” Sister said. “Say it ... and blessed is ... Blessed! Oh my ... oh, my sweet loving Jesus.”

She raised the strap one last time, but her strength was gone. Her arm fell, and the leather only tapped the floor. Her other hand was deep in her pussy.

“You ... are a very wicked child,” she said weakly. “Did you learn your lesson?”

“Yes, Sister. I learned,” I said. My cunt was still twitching from the blessed candle.

“Tha’s good,” she said. “I’d hate to think this was all for nothing.”

She slumped over onto the floor. I brought my arms down so I could turn my head and look at her. She let the strap fall, and, rolling toward me, she rested her hand lightly on my sore breast.

“You’re not hopeless, after all,” she said.

She kissed me tenderly on the mouth. Then suddenly she dug her nails into my nipple and twisted it viciously halfway around.

“But if I ever catch you dressing indecently again,” she said, “I will drag your filthy ass back up here and thrash you within an inch of your life.”

“Excuse me, Sister Lucretia?”

“Yes, who’s there? Come in.”

“Do you remember me?”

“Miss Beaver! Of course I remember you.”

It was late on a Friday. The kids had all gone home, and I found Sister Lucretia at her desk. Alone, as always.

“To what do we owe this pleasure?” she said.

“I was passing by on my way home —”

“It’s obvious you’re at St. Sebastian’s now,” she said. “You traded our uniform for theirs.”

“Everything but the shoes,” I said.

“What year are you in?”

“I’m a junior.”

“Time goes by so quickly. You’ve become quite a beautiful young woman.”

“You told me once that wasn’t a compliment.”

“Beauty is more trouble than it’s worth,” she said. “The important thing is, are you being a good girl?”

“I am,” I said. “I’ve never let a boy touch me — and I have you to thank for that.”

“Then we have done some good.”

“That wasn’t a compliment, either.”

“Nobody likes a smart-mouth,” she said.

“And nobody likes a cruel bitch.”

“Is that what you came back here for — to insult a nun?”

“I came back here to ask you a question,” I said.

“Then ask.”

“Do you remember what you said to me that day in the penance room?”

“I said a lot of things to you.”

“When it was over.”

“Remind me.”

“That if you ever caught me again, you know...”

“Yes. If I ever caught you again dressing indecently, I would take you back upstairs, and this time it would be much worse for you. What about it?”

“Did you mean it?”

“I never say anything I don’t mean. Why?”

I held my skirt up across my chest.

“I might have known,” Sister said.

“I’ve been traipsing around like this all day.”

“You require another lesson.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Then take off your clothes. Every stitch.”

“Yes, Sister.”

The End