Nolan Trilogy (51 page)

She turned at the sound of her name—her fake name—seeing Marty, flanked by two masked men.  They were half dragging, half carrying her.

“My water broke!”  Marty laughed, she actually laughed, as she was being escorted out.  Leah ran after her, ignoring her new red masked friend’s call to come back, following them down the hall, outside of the inner sanctum.  Leah dropped her red mask, tossing it to the floor, having a hard time keeping up with the burly guys dragging Marty down the hallway.  Finally they stopped and two nuns took over.  She didn’t recognize either of them, thank goodness, because she wasn’t wearing a mask anymore.

The nuns took them back to the room where they had undressed.  Leah put her clothes on with trembling hands.  Marty belted a pad into her underwear pinning it in place to keep her dress dry.  The nuns waited for them to get dressed, and then escorted them outside to the street.  Leah had asked several times if Marty was okay, but the girl was in good spirits, laughing, talking about this finally being it.  She was having no pains.

The nuns put them in a taxi, telling the driver to take the girls to Magdalene House.

“Marty?” 

“Yeah?”  The redhead had stretched out in back, putting her head in Leah’s lap.  Leah stroked her hair.

“One of those girls said the Magdalenes get ten thousand dollars after they give up their baby.  Is that true?” 

“Yeah.” 

“So if you give up this baby, they’ll give you ten thousand dollars?” 

“…Yeah.  But it’s even better to be a Mary.  They get taken care of for the rest of their lives.” 

“They do?” 

“Yep.  But it’s a big price to pay.  Heck, I won’t even give up my baby for ten thousand...”  Marty was drifting off. 

They didn’t speak again on the ride home.  Marty slept.  Leah wondered if maybe they drugged the Magdalenes to make them more compliant, unbeknownst to them.  Sister Benedict met the taxi at the back door, ushering Leah toward the house, but keeping Marty in the back of the cab.

“Take her to the hospital next door,” Sister Benedict instructed.  “You can stop here after you’ve dropped her off and I’ll pay your fare.” 

“Yes Sister.”  The taxi driver tipped his hat.

Marty waved from the window and Leah watched her go, seeing her smile, so excited, and wondered if she’d ever see her again.

Erica waited, tucked away, hidden from view, attended by nuns and other women, girls really, in white masks like her own.  She wore the veil of a bride, sheer fabric attached to her white mask, flowing down over her back, settling around her shoulders.  Otherwise she was nude.  She felt funny, a little groggy.  When she’d arrived at the church, taking the back entrance, going down the back stairs as usual, she had been met by two nuns she had never seen before.  They had whisked her away, deep into the bowels of the church.

There had always been rumors secret tunnels existed underneath the church, and she knew now it was true.  The block-long four-corner complex that included the church in one corner, the college and high school opposite, and the elementary and middle schools parallel to those made four points on the corners, and in the middle was the rectory, where the priests lived, and beside it, the convent for the nuns.  This is where the ritual took place.  At the center of the star.

Erica submitted to their ministrations, allowing them to bathe her, wash her hair, paint her fingernails and toenails, but that isn’t all they painted.  Her body was painted as well, symbols and runes in black paint, a sharp contrast to her creamy, pale skin.  They gave her something to drink from a jeweled, golden cup, similar to the one Father Patrick had asked her to drink from.

“What is it?”  she asked, but the nuns didn’t answer.  They just tipped up the chalice, forcing her to swallow.  There were other Marys, their masks not as elaborate, not as sequined and feathered as her own.  They attended as well, holding her veil, sitting at her feet when she was placed in what could only be considered a throne, high backed wood, with white velvet cushions for her bottom and back.

When Father Patrick appeared, the Marys knelt the way she had been taught, submissive, hands behind their backs, head down, eyes down.  They formed a line on either side of Erica’s throne, creating a walkway for Father Patrick.  He approached her slowly and she watched him, a man in white robes, collar and cassock, he carried a bottle in his hand, a small thing, like for perfume.  He stopped in front of her and knelt.  On one knee, Father Patrick lifted her newly manicured foot, and kissed the top of it.  His lips were dry and Erica suppressed a shiver.

He looked up, his gaze moving slowly up her body, to meet her eyes.  She knew what was coming, she had been taught and told.  Still, his words seemed foreign.  His touch too.  He sprinkled the water—holy water—over her feet and knees, her breasts and belly.  With each pass, he spoke the words in Latin, blessing her before the ritual.  All night, she had heard her sister Marys whispering when the nuns were occupied:
why her?  she’s too new… it should be a sister with more seniority.  Shhh, Father Patrick requested her.  Why? 

No one knew the answer.

But Erica knew.  Her mother had assumed this role, had submitted to this man in front of a secret congregation of worshipers.  Her father had been right.  Father Patrick didn’t need her, there were many, many more Marys here in white masks who would have been humbled and grateful to serve in the capacity Erica was assuming that night, but Father Patrick wanted her.

She had met with him just two hours ago, fully clothed then and sitting in a chair across from him in this very room.  He had taken her hands in his, patting them gently, soft strokes, and he had told her why she had been chosen as the Virgin tonight.  Yes, her mother had assumed the role before her.  Yes, he and her mother had consummated their love.  They had done so in front of witnesses, in the only way it was possible in the church.  As a ritual.  As a priest, he could assume no manly role in her life, but as the Virgin, Susan could have him, and he her, in ritual form.

Father Patrick had also told her something she still couldn’t quite comprehend.  She had been in a daze since, going through the motions, letting the machine that was the Mary Magdalenes work, so they were moving her limbs, they were in control of her body, her life.  Perhaps that was the reason he had told her then.

“The Marys will never conceive.  You are special, chosen among women.  You were born to be worshiped.  Your seed will never sprout, your bloodline will never be passed on.  You are a virgin onto yourself.” 

Father Patrick met her eyes and Erica felt what he had to say deep in her belly, womb deep, somehow knowing, even though she’d never been told.  She knew.  Somehow she knew.

“You have been prepared for this ritual.  Your body is a temple.  When you were a young girl, your mother knew you were special, she wanted this for you.  Take heart, child.  She gave you in service, offering you to the Marys.  You were sterilized, an operation performed so you’ll never bear fruit.  You are pristine, unsullied, a virgin.  Forever.  Your mother did for you what was done for her.” 

Erica couldn’t respond.  She couldn’t move, or breathe, or think.  The ritual she had seen her mother submit to, the ritual she had watched in black and white on film, her mother raised up as the Virgin, with her sister, the tainted Magdala.  Leah’s mother had been heavily pregnant during the ritual.  And tonight, when Erica assumed the role of the Virgin on her cross, there would be a Magdala beside her, heavily pregnant with a man’s seed, a representation of man’s whore, while Erica represented God’s whore.

When Father Patrick had finished blessing her, the nuns brought her forth, the white masked Marys filing along behind, raising Erica’s veil.  White rose petals had been strewn along her path to the cross.  They stuck to her feet as she walked, barefoot, toward her destiny.  The cross was enormous, as wide as a doctors examining table, and she felt just as exposed, letting the nuns and the Marys situate her on the cross, her arms splayed out to the sides, and strapped in place with leather and buckles.  Her legs were opened, more leather straps and buckles, a bar between them to keep her from closing her thighs.

It wasn’t uncomfortable.  The cross was padded.  But she was completely exposed to the gaze of the crowd.  She saw the ceiling above her, knowing the rectory and the nunnery were just above her head.  They were at the heart of the star, the center of the square, the core of the church.  Beside her, the Magdala, her darker sister, adorned with red mask and veil, red paint like blood on her skin, her belly enormous, swollen with the proof of her sin.

The room was spinning.  Whatever they had given her to drink made her weak, unable to fight or protest.  Not that she would.  She was ready for this.  Hadn’t her mother prepared her, hadn’t she intended for her daughter to take her place at this post?  The proof of this wasn’t just in her mother’s past, her diaries, photographic evidence projected on the screen—it was marked on her daughter’s body, a faded white scar that had rendered her sterile. 

Father Patrick spoke the words in Latin, unintelligible to her.  When she looked down, she saw him standing by her side, holding the round wafer in his hand.  She had been completely shaved, even there, and he placed the Eucharist on her sex, speaking the words of communion in Latin, and then, he used a silver pitcher to pour the wine, the blood of Christ, between her thighs.  The cross she was resting on began to move, rising up.  Erica held her breath, feeling her arms go taut in their straps, her legs parted, immovable.  They didn’t raise the cross fully, just enough for the crowd to see.  Beside her the Magdala had taken her communion, and was ready for consummation.

“Blessed is she among women… Blessed is she who believed.” 

It was Erica’s cue, her only memorized line in the ritual, and her voice shook, “From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” 

The crowd roared with approval.

The room was still spinning, each person below wearing a mask, an ocean of black and red and white.  From this vantage point she could see the round, each room containing a Mary or a Magdalene, white on one side, red on the other. 

On the white side were the virgin brides, virgins forever, perpetual virgins, and they gave themselves to those masked men who asked for entrance, a blessed gift.  The one difference between the Magdalenes and the Marys, besides color, was that many of the Magdalenes were also pregnant.  Heavily pregnant.  The Marys had flat, concave bellies.  Perfect lines, breasts that had never been nursed from, the Marys were like the goddess Venus rising from the ocean, perfection in feminine form.  And they were being worshiped.

It was the Magdalenes who were being punished for the sins of Eve on the other side of the room.  They were the temptresses.  They had sinned, and their sin was evident in the heavy sway of their breasts, full and filling with milk, in the pendulum swing of their bellies, the fruit of seed sewn in lust.  The Magdalenes were the daughters of Eve, they represented the sins of the flesh, and they were perpetually punished with the pain and agony of childbirth.  They were man’s whores.

It was only the Marys, their virginal white skin, their sweet demeanor, their inner glow, that redeemed them all.  They were the daughters of the Virgin, an immaculate conception, seed planted through worship, not lust.  They gave themselves, sacrificed themselves at the altar, their flesh untouched, always untouched, forever untouched.  They were God’s whores.

Erica absorbed all of this in a glance, gaze skipped from red to white and back again.  Then something else caught her eye.  Beside the crosses, the two huge mechanized crosses the Virgin and the Magdala were strapped to, was a platform.  On that platform was a cameraman, filming the proceedings, preserving the ritual.  She knew she would be seen, not only by those participating in this great rite in the inner sanctum, but those waiting, eating refreshments and drinking wine, in the outer realm.  This film would be shown on two huge screens for their viewing pleasure.

A noise below distracted Erica and she glanced down to see two men, two big men in black masks, half carrying, half dragging a Magdalene, her red mask slightly askew.  Another Magdalene ran to her side, her red mask completely removed, dangling from her fist.  Erica opened her mouth to call out, to cry out, but nothing happened.  The word, her name, was stuck in Erica’s throat. 

Leah! Leah!

They were gone, as quickly as they had appeared, and she wondered if it had been a dream.  The crosses were being lowered, and as her body began to relax, she glanced again at the platform.  The cameraman had stood, seeing the commotion, lifting his mask for a better view.  She recognized him immediately, her shame and humiliation complete.  It was her father behind the camera.

After that, everything was a blur.  The sounds and musky scent of sex filled the room—the snap of a whip from the Magdalene side, the endless cries of orgasm on the Mary side.  Erica glanced across to see the Magdala, arms still strapped, like Erica’s, but legs free.  They were opened, feet dangling over the side of the cross, and a priest was rutting between her legs.  Erica felt Father Patrick on her, his robes heavy, the weight of him suffocating.  He was inside her, pumping himself deep and hard.  His breath panted against her cheek, but she didn’t look up, she didn’t look at him.

The Magdala turned her head toward Erica, their eyes locked, and they recognized each other.  Not as friends or enemies, but as women, as sisters.  They were one and the same.  Father Patrick grunted and thrust and exploded inside of her.  Erica simply surrendered.  She let it happen, knowing full well her own father was filming this ritualized rape as priest after priest violated his daughter.  And he didn’t even know.

When it was over, when every last priest had emptied himself, buried his seed in her barren womb, Erica was taken down from the cross.  She was carried, veil trailing behind her, the nuns dragging her, back down the trail of white rose petals, as Erica felt the semen of a hundred men sliding down her thighs in rivers to fall in milky white droplets amidst the flowers.

She was bathed, she was scrubbed and cleaned and petted and pampered.  The Marys in their masks did everything for her that she could do herself.  They put her to bed in a room alone, just one bed on a raised dais, a place she could float away in the darkness and forget.