“If I could draw his blood without having to feel a twisted sickness at the pit of my heaving stomach, I would choose to do it with a sword, the good old-fashioned way. To draw blood with words is easier, but not half as beautiful. The thought that even the hardest human heart is made of soft pulsing muscle, easily torn with the rough kiss of metal, makes me smile at the amount of control I have – the one brave enough to kiss death without cringing.
If I could draw his blood, I would. To feel the silky, smooth, warmth throbbing under my palms, to smell the life escaping that lucky man, to see the thick, dark red fluid running over the stone beneath us, to taste the metal in my mouth. Something about blood is inherently sensual – it wasn’t just chance that led the people of old to believe that the ultimate union between a man and a woman is a mixing of blood. It was insight, it was true.
If I could draw his blood, by the gods, I wouldn’t miss the opportunity for the world. I’d soak in the rare beauty of all that glorious wine-reminiscent liquid and then sit down to write. I would write songs of celebration and victory, of love and dark passion, and of forbidden things, dedicating them all, as always, to him. I will pour my heart of darkness onto the paper without fearing what I will find, because for once, the blood on the pages isn’t mine.”
As Sister Maria finishes the last sentence in her diary, she smiles. The convent bell for evening prayers screams her name and she crosses herself in due response. She fingers her wooden rosary, the one with a silver pendant attached where a cross once was. Thoughtfully, she gets up from the stone bench in the garden and slinks into the chapel unnoticed.
It was time to repent, the good old-fashioned way.
