Karen sighed and stared out the window, tugging on a lock of her hair, unconsciously frowning as she caught sight of it out of the corner of her eye. As if the drab black uniform dresses weren't enough with their stark and scratchy tights beneath, they had to add insult to injury by making her dye her hair brown to be more "modest".
A sudden rap on her desk made her jump and she guiltily looked up at the nun standing over her desk glaring down at her as though she had just caught a rodent in her pantry.
"Ms. Kasumi." The nun enunciated the name carefully, as though still unaccustomed to the eastern flavor of it. "I know that you are new here but that is all the more reason for you to pay attention to your lessons." She informed her sharply.
Karen sighed and anger flashed in the nun's eyes. "Insolence will not be tolerated young lady. See me after class."
The other students stared straight ahead, too nervous to even turn and relish in the sight of someone else's misery. Karen rolled her eyes at the nun's back as she made her way back to the front of the classroom. Two days in and already she was getting detention at her new school.
.
.
"Are you sure it's this window?"
"Yeah, I'm positive."
"You better be, 'cause can you imagine if we got in there and just found some gross old nun's knickers?"
The boys snickered.
"Eugene, give me a leg up." Jean assumed the role of bossy leader, as always.
Eugene gave a careless shrug and complied. Jean frowned to himself slightly as he did so, wishing he could master the nonchalance that he knew drew all the other boys (not to mention the girls) to Eugene. This was swiftly forgotten though as he broached the windowsill and found himself facing a room full of beds lined up in symmetrical rows like soldiers at a roll call.
"Okay. See the dressers beside each bed?" Jean pointed out, for the benefit of the younger students he had chosen to drag along in this little escapade. "You're gonna go to each one and find a pair of panties, the frillier, the better."
"And then we put them on our heads and run around in circles." Eugene added jokingly, ignoring Jean's scowl. "What, I thought we could see if the new kids would really do it."
"Ignore him." Jean commanded, resentful of the hushed laughter that had fallen over the little gang. "Just grab the panties and bring them outside. Is everybody clear?"
The boys nodded in unison before proceeding to raid each dresser, catcalling and triumphantly waving around undergarments.
"How do some of them get away with this stuff?" One kid asked incredulously, holding up a neon pink lace bikini. "Don't the nuns notice when they do their laundry?"
"I hear they wash it themselves, like in the sinks." Another boy answered sagely.
"Nah." Eugene contradicted. "They just don't wash them.
Both boys stared at the panties in their hands, letting that notion sink in for a moment.
"Whose drawer is this?" One boy asked in awe. The rest of the gang looked over to see him holding up a black lace thong and a collective gasp swept the room.
"I think we've got what we needed." Eugene remarked.
.
.
"Oh my…" One girl fainted as she took a look outside the window.
"What's going on?" Karen asked one girl near her as everyone crowded around the window.
Until now, everyone had been ignoring her, shunning her as the obvious new girl who clearly didn't seem to quite fit in with the rest of them.
"Someone pulled a dirty prank." One girl whispered hurriedly.
"Huh?" Karen followed her classmates' gazes up to the church steeple where she realized there were some kind of small flags draped over it. She was for a second confused until it at last dawned on her that they were not in fact flags flapping in the wind over the House of God.
"Who…"
"Probably the boys." Another girl hissed.
"Boys?" Karen turned, confused. They were at a strictly all-girls' school, what on earth could they mean by that?
The girl gave Karen the same look she might have given something unpleasant she had just stepped in. "Oh yes, you would be interested in that now wouldn't you?"
"No, I mean-"
"Leave her alone." A quieter girl with long chestnut locks snapped. Karen was shocked to hear the girl speak. Of all of her classmates, she had noticed that this one seemed to be the shyest. So much so in fact, that Karen could not recall her name even after having been here for almost two months.
The other girl smirked, and the girl with the chestnut hair blushed a deep crimson and turned away, leaving Karen to wonder what had just passed, feeling more left out than ever.
As soon as the snide one moved away to gossip with her friends, Karen sidled closer to the quiet girl.
"Marianna is a bitch." She noted softly.
The quiet girl snorted. "You noticed?"
"But what did she mean by the boys?"
"There's another school that was founded around the same time this one was nearby that is for just boys." The girl wrinkled her nose. "Just as well that they're kept separate. They're usually filthy, mean little things, don't you find?"
Karen shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think I've been around enough of them to say fairly to be honest."
The girl studied her carefully before whispering "So… the rumors aren't true are they?"
"Rumors?"
The girl flushed. "You know… about you being… a fille de joie?"*
Karen felt as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.
"No." She replied simply, and immediately felt bad for the chill in her voice as the girl gave her a look as though she had been slapped. "No." She repeated more softly. "The only joy in my life is that of the Lord."
"That's what I thought." The girl announced firmly. "I told Marianna that it wasn't true but you know." She shrugged. "I thought I would check."
"Well thank you for standing up for me." Karen sighed.
"Back to the dormitory now." A nun snapped, her voice ringing through the corridor.
The girls filed morosely back into their room, expecting to be lectured on modesty and humility as usual, but instead the nun faced them all with silent rage.
"Who" she demanded through gritted teeth, "Who thought that it was appropriate to bring such… provocative… undergarments to a place of holy study?"
The girls glanced at one another as another nun entered the room and with a blush crimson against her habit, held up a pair of lacy, nearly non-existent panties.
Giggles broke out among the ranks, cut short by the stern look Mother Margaret gave them all, reaching for a ruler. "Either someone will confess or no one will have dinner tonight. Time enough for all of you to pray and repent for such outrageous sins of the flesh."
"They're Karen's!"
Karen jerked at the sound of her name and looked up to see all heads whip around to face her. All but Katherine, who was glaring at Marianna.
"Why am I not surprised?" Mother Margaret gave her the icy glare of one who had never known sunshine or summer. "Miss Kasumi."
"Yes, Mother?"
"Are they yours?"
Karen opened her mouth to protest but then thought better of it. If she denied it, they would all go hungry tonight, including Katherine, and anyway the nuns clearly believed they were hers anyway and would only think she was lying. "They are."
A soft gasp swept the room and Mother Margaret's eyes narrowed as though she had detected the lie and resented Karen even more for it.
"You should know, Miss Kasumi, that your insolence has already offended the Lord on numerous occasions."
"Yes, Mother."
"You, come with me."
There was a threat in that voice that Karen knew would be carried out in full the moment that they were alone together and yet she knew she had to follow. She was no sacrificial lamb, this much she knew, but rather a sense of duty compelled her.
"Yes mother." The words nearly caught in her throat.
An iron crucifix on the altar glared down at her in reproach.
She knew what was coming before the first blow and had made herself limp. She would make no resistance this time. She withdrew into herself as another strike knocked her off balance, sending her crashing into a candelabrum. The flames of the candles rallied around her but she mentally shooed them away before they could dance in her defense.
In her mind, she was somewhere far away. Even if her body was lying on a cold stone floor, in her thoughts, she lay on a thick, soft rug. There was no chill winter draft coming through broken glass, but warmth emanating from a glowing hearth. There were no blows raining down on her arms and sides, but someone gently rubbing her back. No one pulling her hair, just someone caressing it, accepting the color as it was.
At some point she must have lost consciousness because she awoke on the stone floor alone in the dark. She knew there was an easy way to remedy the darkness but she resisted the temptation to call a flame. Instead she sat in the moonlight, so cold and foreign to her and once again, she prayed.
.
.
A/N: "fille de joie" literally translates as "girl of joy" in French but it is used to refer to prostitutes