“S and M? Like hitting people and stuff?”

“Pain and bondage and sex parties. Kink. Kingsley’s our king, of course. He wouldn’t have it any other way. But he has a court all around him. I was part of the court. Life is pretty luxurious inside Kingsley’s inner circle.”

They stopped talking when they reached the back door. They entered the abbey in silence and tiptoed up three flights of stairs. Elle’s cell was near the end of the hall. The abbey had once boasted nearly one hundred sisters. Now their numbers were halved and dozens of cells on the third floor sat empty.

Elle opened her cell door for Kyrie but didn’t turn on the light.

“Sister Luke walks the halls at night,” Elle explained in a low whisper. “If she sees the light, she might listen at the door.”

Kyrie sat on the bed. Elle pulled up her desk chair and sat close but not too close to her.

“I don’t want you to get into trouble,” Elle said.

“You, either. They wouldn’t kick me out. They might kick you out, though.”

“That’s the last thing I need,” Elle said. “I have no idea where I’d go if they kicked me out.”

“Why can’t you go back to your friends?”

“I could,” Elle said as she took her shoes off and shoved her cold toes under the blanket on the bed. “I could go back tonight if I wanted. I was living at Kingsley’s house.”

“You lived with someone? That sounds serious.”

“Not really. I had a room there. My own room. My own bathroom. I wasn’t living with Kingsley. I was living at Kingsley’s. Subtle difference.”

“So you two are friends?”

“More than friends.”

“But what about your priest?”

“Søren’s a Jesuit but he’s also a parish priest. He lives alone in his rectory, but it’s not safe for me to be there all the time. I’d go over after dark and hide my car. I’d almost always leave before morning. I had to live somewhere, and I couldn’t afford my own place. I moved in with King. King and Søren are best friends. And brothers-in-law. But that is a long story. And trust me, you don’t want to get into that long story.”

“If you say so. So what happened? You got pregnant and your priest, Søren, made you have an abortion?”

“No. It was nothing like that. Søren was out of the country for ten weeks, in Rome finishing his dissertation on Canon Law. I wasn’t pregnant when he left. I know that because I was having my period. And then I got sick. Fever, stomach and back pain.”

“What was wrong?”

“A kidney infection. Two weeks of antibiotics. My regular doctor couldn’t get me in so I went to Søren’s. When she asked me if I was sexually active I lied and said no. I didn’t want her asking me any more about my sex life. So she didn’t tell me that antibiotics can mess with your birth control. As soon as I felt better, Kingsley and I had sex.”

“Wait. You cheated on your priest with Kingsley?”

“It wasn’t cheating. Søren and Kingsley...” Elle stopped and took a breath. If Kyrie hadn’t looked so confused and so beautiful, she would have laughed. “This is really hard to explain. No. Wait. It’s very easy to explain. I was sleeping with both of them. There. I explained it.”

“But how is that not cheating if you’re having sex with two different men?”

“We’re in an open relationship. Sort of. I’m...I was Søren’s submissive, and he—”

“What’s a submissive?”

“It’s like being someone’s property. But not exactly.”

“But how can you be someone’s property? Isn’t that illegal?”

Elle raised her hand.

“This isn’t working.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t sit here and try to explain my life to you with you saying ‘but’ every five seconds after I’ve said something weird like, ‘My priest is a sadist, but that’s one of his most endearing qualities.’ And you’ll say?”

“What’s a sadist?”

Elle laughed. “We’re going to be here all year if we keep this up. You and I, we speak different languages.”

“Please try, Elle. I want to know.”

“Why?”

“Because...” Kyrie took a ragged breath. “I’ve wanted to be a nun for so long that I don’t remember what it feels like to want anything else. And then you...I met you and now I know what it’s like to want something else. But I don’t know you. You don’t tell me anything so I don’t even know what it is I want, and it’s driving me crazy. Please, Elle...who are you?”

“Who am I?” Elle repeated. “I wish I knew who I was. I wish I knew how to tell you.”

“Can you show me?” Kyrie asked.

Kyrie looked at her in silence and then pulled the veil off her head. She ran her fingers through her long blond hair and let it fall down her back where it belonged.

Elle reached out and touched a lock of Kyrie’s hair. It was soft, so soft, like a baby’s hair. But Kyrie was no child. In the moonlight streaming through the window and with her hair down, Kyrie looked like a nymph, beautiful and ethereal. She didn’t seem real. More like a shadow or a shade from a dream. Elle had been dreaming her memories for months. Was she now living in her own dreams?