 The brawny shirtless scientist found the beauty in white shorts and a dark back open blouse inside the cave, laid-back on a rock where the creature from the black lagoon left her. Upon emerging from the subterranean waters, witnessing a toxic masculinity display suffocating its object of desire makes the creature infuriated, as any passionate lover would be in those circumstances. Being a monster empowered by Mother Nature, was about to dispose of the scientist, but underestimated his employees’ human cleverness. They shot the creature in the back multiple times. That being, so powerful a few moments ago, left the cave mortally wounded, plunged, sank bleeding into the black lagoon bottom and faded in the movie’s closing credits. Red velvet curtains with gold fringe covered the silver screen. I took a look at my antique Longines Diamond wristwatch: almost half past one in the morning. How could I get a late-night bite at this time so far away from downtown? Pale sconces lit my way out of the ancient Sunrise Theater red golden screening room. “Hey, next Friday, our Creature Feature Festival will be screening Attack of the Giant Leeches, a cult Roger Corman production.” The lobby attendant got in my way. “Yvette Vickers is in the flick.” Curling the thin lips into an oblique smile, he pointed out the movie lobby card which framed a sultry blonde threatened with a rifle. “If you care to attend this coming showing could easily realize that she looks just like you.”  “I see.” Having been again the target of a weird pass from him, I looked away at the huge crystal chandelier hanging from the intricate plasterwork ceiling until put that skinny guy behind me. Some patrons who joined me in watching the creature from the black lagoon be shot in the back by brave humans left the theater walking down the sidewalk and engaging in a noisy trivia battle about Jack Arnold movies. My car was parked around the opposite corner. Being an environmentally friendly person, I was a proud owner of a beautiful little red Smart. As I got close, something became clear: the car had a flat tire. A challenge to my late-bite plans and, damn it, I was hungry. Suddenly there was light. Down the street where a post office and a dozen small business shops had closed their doors many hours before, slowly came a pair of headlights. Those worn tires stopped rolling on the opposite lane, the rusty exhaust pipe smoked a last cloud. I had trouble reading the peeling scarlet letters on the white van side: Congregation of the Sacrament of Penance. The doors were open with progressively loud squeaking noises. A tall, bald man wearing a white monk robe and a woman the same size as myself, hiding the hands inside her nun’s white habit long sleeves, left the vehicle. “Good evening. I am Brother Jeremiah. Could Sister Agatha and I be of any assistance?”, he brought that saddle-shaped nose and broad chest really close, making me feel like an agnostic forced against the ropes by a heavyweight prize-fighter from heaven. “The Lord be with you.”, the sweetness reflected in her round, light brown eyes approached me in heavy steps of military boots. “Hi.” I closed my burgundy blouse button. “My car has a flat. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about calling my service, but this late, it would take forever for them to show around here.”  “Why bother yourself with this? There is a gas station a few blocks down the street right on the avenue corner, we can take you there and ask for their service.” Sister Agatha flashed me the mother of all bright smiles. “You guys must have better things to do on a Friday night.” I wrapped the finger in a lock of my hair. “We drive through the night searching for anyone who needs the benefit of our help.” Brother Jeremiah’s dark eyes reached for the clouded sky. “By serving a brother or sister, we lighten our Spirit.” Sister Agatha gently bowed her head. “I am far from a believer as you would ever find.” I kicked the flat. “It’s just another reason to show you how unselfish is the Lord, who, in his infinite wisdom, put us in this way, accepting you as you are.”, he grabbed my shoulder. “Mysterious are the ways of the Lord.”, she was almost singing the words. “A few blocks, you said?” I frowned. “No more than that.” Brother Jeremiah raised his thick eyebrow. “Please, my blue-eyed angel.” Sister Agatha held my hand. “Let us honor the Lord helping you.” “OK.” I walked to their second-hand van. “There are all kinds of stuff behind, the front seat can accommodate us all together.”, he opened the passenger door. “Would you be a lamb?” I got into that musty-smelling vehicle. She followed right after me. Constantly staring at me, Brother Jeremiah made his way back to the other side and settled down behind the wheel, “We are ready to go.” They slammed the doors so hard that the van shook. “Let me give you a piece of the good word, our newsletter. The current edition is about how dangerous it is to become blind to our own sins.” She reached for the glove compartment. “You forgot to mention this religious conversion clause included in the ride.” I was following a Saint Peter medallion hanging from the rearview mirror that swayed hypnotically from side to side, up to Brother Jeremiah shoulder push that cheap plastic thing against the dirty windshield. He was all over me, grabbing my both hands and twisting the wrists backwards. “It was a joke…” I slipped down the bench. “C’mon!” Sister Agatha pulled me back by the hair. She covered and rubbed my face with a white handkerchief, the fabric soaked in a dense, strong-smelling liquid. I felt a strange euphoria feeling taking me over and my ear lobe swimming in Brother Jeremiah’s dripping tongue as my eyes closed and my head leaned over Sister Agatha’s shoulder.  It was a murky, cold, upside-down little world. I made an effort to correct the picture in my mind. At the end of the low-ceiling room, which had a suspicious resemblance to a basement, red pillar candles filled a hole shaped like an inverted cross on the wall. Right below, a faded copy of Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of Saint Peter was fixed over a torture rack, darkened bloodstains drawing a surreal map in the device’s wood frame. In front of this peculiar altar, reclining against a pair of wooden high-back chairs were Brother Jeremiah and Sister Agatha. They had changed clothes. Trying to figure out his cheap costume, it seemed to me that he has self-ordained himself a bishop, as told by the Alb, a garment dressing the whole body in white latex, displaying a scarlet inverted pectoral cross and the Mitre, a white pointed headdress showing a small version of that same cross. She wore a white latex habit, a scarlet inverted cross stamped in the thick headband of her shoulder-length veil and another gracing the chest of that outfit so deliciously tight in those curvaceous forms. Lit by the candles glow, pincers, whips, thumbscrews, and a collection of punishment instruments hanging from the walls lengthened its shadows across the cement floor. And, of course, it wasn’t the room, but myself who had been placed upside down. They had stripped me naked. Seems that I made the right decision when waxed me last night. Rough ropes around my ankles, waist, elbows and wrists firmly bound me in an inverted cross made of dark wood planks, arms stretched over the arms of the cross, one foot on top of the other like a reversed redeemer. Brother Jeremiah and Sister Agatha got up from their chairs and came close to me in solemn, practically choreographed steps. They both looked really tall from my point of view. “Her skin seems so smooth and milky...”, she sighed. “It’s better if I start.”, he took a deep breath. “The Congregation of the Sacrament of Penance follows Peter, the apostle, who, even in his martyrdom glory, requested that his cross be placed upside down when sentenced to death, feeling himself unworthy of being crucified in the same way as our Lord Jesus.”, his tongue clicked, “The Congregation tribunal is now in session. I advise you to forsake the sin of vanity, learn the way of humility.”, his eyes pierced mine, “We, The Sacrament of Penance Ministers, humble beg of thee, Peter, the apostle, bless us, enlighten us, made us worthy of this sacred mission, guide us during this heretic trial.”, his hands joined in a prayer. “Amen.” Sister Agatha’s hands assumed the same posture. “Let her soul finds pardon through sincere admission of all the sins she has committed, which will be taken to light by this trial.” He brought his right hand from the cross on his chest to the one in his headdress, then touched the left shoulder and moved it to the opposite one, concluding the inverted cross sign. Sister Agatha, again, mimics his gestures. “Liturgy of the Sin, first reading. Brothers and Sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Galatians 6:1.” Brother Jeremiah bent his head over my foot, sucking the big toe for a while. “Our little lamb is cold.”, he stepped back. Sister Agatha turned to the wall and grabbed a flogger. “We tracked your life for some time to identify you as a heretic beyond a shadow of a doubt.”, she turned the whip’s short handle, those many tails undulated as serpents in front of my eyes. “You never are around family, friends or even acquaintances, living in an oldmansion out-of-town all by yourself. You visit downtown only to enjoy your little indulgences, and avoid engaging in any sort of relationship, an obvious preference for loneliness. Is this a narcissistic way of claiming yourself better than the rest of us?” Brother Jeremiah rubbed his nose on my instep. “What do you have to say in your defense, proud little bitch?” Sister Agatha whipped the flogger giving my abdomen a few light strokes. I breathed like a belly dancer. “You don’t seem to have any kind of productive role in society. Have you ever tried to perform the work of God?” Brother Jeremiah gazed at the ceiling. "Answer me now!" His breath expanded that already wide chest. “The hand of the diligent will rule, But the slack hand will be put to forced labor. Proverbs 12:24.” Sister Agatha barely twisted the wrist and down the flogger, hitting my right upper shoulder. “Discipline will teach you not to be lazy and give the answers that His Eminence requires.”, this time the tails landed on the left one. “Your financial portfolio reports are sent from countries like Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania.” Brother Jeremiah held the chin. “What assets do you own in these foreign lands?” “His eminence would go that far to collect late tithes?” I widened my eyes at him. Sister Agatha raised the flogger, her left hand gently tugging the tails for a while, then dropped it at a crescent speed, “Just answer the question, you greedy sinner!” The whipping landed on my breasts. He shook from head to toe propelling a wave through the Alb. “Be strong, brother.” She brought his headdress back into place. “Only suffering can free her flesh from iniquity, as was done with that brunette cheerleader who also yelled heresies and suddenly became so eager to please.”  “Indeed.” His lips corners hinted at a smile. “Behaving as this you won’t find forgiveness, my lamb. The tongue should be used as a spiritual purification instrument, to serve a candid confession of the sins.” My closed lips prompted him to tap his fingers on her shoulder. “This inquisition process demands the deepest truth from the heretic. Since you’d rather feel pain than talk…”, her wrist rotated the handle swiftly, the tails whistling in hardly visible circles, its points lashing my neck once… twice… many times. Brother Jeremiah crouched down next to me. “I see no punishment evidence, sister. The skin still seems immaculate, almost as if this sacred scourge couldn’t hurt her.” He got up and touched the pectoral cross. “For a long time, I haven’t found two people so invested in their roles.” I made him raise those bushy eyebrows. “This cheesy drama of yours became surprisingly interesting.” “Let me interest you in something else!” Sister Agatha pressed my chin with the boot heel and my hair swept the floor. “How surprising is this?”, her stretched smile reminded me of Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs. “Well, your trap sure didn’t surprise me at all.” I breathed her boot leather. “A flat tire? Really? Didn’t I deserve anything smarter?” “But this is our modus operandi.” A sweat drop slipped down to his nose tip. “Don’t explain yourself to her!” Sister Agatha pushed the handle against his lips. “What else do you think you know? Talk, bitch!”, her spit hit my nose, the boot sole smeared it all over my face. “It’s a little too late to conceal things from me.” I couldn't hold back the sneeze. “Should I say how many times I’ve spotted your van around my house? Try to hide a white vehicle behind lush trees is not an ingenious way to go unnoticed.” I shook my head. “Of course, no care would matter much on a property with a state-of-the-art surveillance system like mine.” “She has been upside-down for a while; maybe the blood has rushed to the head, causing dizziness, making her insensitive to pain and babbling all this stuff.” Brother Jeremiah wiped his nose with the Alb sleeve. “You forget about all of this in the morning, you’ll see…” I blinked at him. “Shut up!” Sister Agatha swiveled the waist raising the flogger, the latex sticking to her sweaty back, and turned to me arching the arm down, lashing my face. “Enough of heresies! You are in our hands and will be properly punished for the sacrilege of being arrogant. Maybe a torture device change is in order.” She marched to the opposite wall. “Here is what such a blasphemous bitch deserves!” Sister Agatha picked up a wrench-sized metal implement, a bar connecting two forks set against each other. “The heretic’s fork!” “Put in her flesh! Hurry!”, he clenched those big fists. She bent over me, supported one fork under my upper chest and forced the other against my throat. “A very crafty blacksmith honed these extremities especially for you. Feel like tasting your blood? Just raise the head, let the fork do the work… or lower the voice to humble whispers and repent every sin.” Sister Agatha stood up and rested her hands on those provocative hips. “You may proceed, brother.” “Liturgy of the Punishment, second reading. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41”, his calloused hand squeezed my thigh. “Lust for horror movies is a manifestation of those unnatural, illicit sexual urges imprisoned in the bottomless pit of your soul. Confess us each one of these perversions in its details!” “Will consider an extra sin if I drop a couple of spoilers in my review, his eminence?” I frowned. “This white meat would favor a spicy seasoning, brother.”, her right hand took from the wall a cane made of rattan. “The bastinado will drag out the horror imagery with which she pleasures herself in the darkness. Remember, bitch, keep the head real still while you are talking.” The cane hissed in harmony with her breath at each strike on my toe tips. “Punish her!”, he punched his palm, “Break her, sister!” “Oh, yes! I will enforce discipline until this lustful sinner disowns all her Rated “R” debaucheries!” The bastinado furiously cut the air multiplying hits over my knees, hips and shoulders as I peered through the transparency of Sister Agatha's habit. “This spanking is not working, she keeps unwilling to talk, the skin still looks like a glass of milk and the eyes are free from distress.” Brother Jeremiah squeezed her shoulder. “Far before this point, we have done a stubborn redhead bodybuilder cry in fear.”, he bit her earlobe. “I dare say this whole trial is amusing our little lamb.” “I’ll find out how much more amusement the bitch can take!”, she shrugged her shoulder free of his hand, “Be sorry for your sins with all your heart, and ask forgiveness for choosing to do wrong and failing to do good!”, another cane blows volley spread through my body. “Hmm… This sadistic religious fetish has been staged in a way too tasty for your own good.” My speech forced the metallic bar. “Her chin is bending the heretic’s fork!” Sister Agatha walked back. Their toy broke in half, the forks bounced off the floor and got lost in the room’s dark corner. “What a hungry!”, my neck swung between them, “It’s far beyond my control.” “My God!”, he leaned over me, “Do you hear the bones cracking? The forehead is waving, cheekbones projecting, her whole face is grotesquely reshaping itself!” “His eminence no longer feels attracted to me?” I blew him a kiss. “Darkness erased the blue in her eyes.” Brother Jeremiah got up and joined his hands in a prayer. “Fingernails expanding as it were razors!”, his face became whiter than the Alb. “The blood seems to be glowing in the bitch veins!”, her shaking hand dropped the cane. “Please, don’t talk about blood, you two are already smelling...” I moistened my lips. “For Christ’s sake!” Brother Jeremiah crumpled his pectoral cross. “Her canines are stretching into fangs!” “Let me thank you both, not just for your holy scriptures refreshing interpretation, but mainly for choosing an inverted cross as this kinky congregation symbol.”, my laughter reverberated on those cold walls. “I will kill her!” Sister Agatha hurried her martial steps to the back of the room. “But we are still one reading and three sins short!” Brother Jeremiah spread his arms wide. “Get out of my way, brother!” Sister Agatha ran to me holding a silver Smith & Wesson with both hands. “Die, bitch, die!” She pulled the trigger until emptied the gun barrel. A couple of her shots drilled holes in the wall, four bullets passed through my chest and pierced the cross.  “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. Revelations 13.11.” Tearing the rope, splitting the wood, I crossed my arms. Breaking what was left of the cross, the remaining ropes flying around, I threw myself forward, flipping, hitting Brother Jeremiah’s groin with both feet. Sending me a satisfaction shiver, a lament escaped from his gaping mouth while the burly body collapsed, sinking into unconsciousness by hitting the floor. Sister Agatha threw the revolver at my chest, crouched down and pulled a knife from a boot pocket. She lunged forward aiming the two-inch blade at my heart and flashing all those dazzling white teeth in an equally sharp smile. I dodged the blade, grabbed and twisted her wrist. The knife fell and the smile turned into a growl. “Where is your God now?” I grabbed her by the neck and threw the no longer smiling sister against the wall. “O Holy Apostle…” Muttering a prayer, she dropped back into my arms. I raised her and, feeling like Christopher Lee himself, carried Sister Agatha, gently laying her down on the table-like surface. I secured the ankles and wrists widespread in the rack axles ropes. “I request to see if you were made in God’s image.” I pulled her habit collar, the latex whistled as it split in half. “The All-Mighty has indeed a celestial taste.” I threw the scraps on the floor and groped that voluptuous, well-rounded body as her murmurs turned to grumbles. “Don’t touch me, bitch!” Sister Agatha fought the ropes. “Way to go! Fear makes the flavor better.” My tongue caught a blood drop that slipped down her trapped wrist. “Hmm... 1999, fruity, supple and of moderate aging, a late twenty-century fine vintage. Time to drink you, sister.” “Jeremy, help me!”, her wild movements ripped cracks from the wood. “His eminence will take a while to wake up.” I lifted the mouth corners drawing a smile on her face. “Be happy, Peter, the apostle, is waiting for you.” “Wait! Listen to me!”, the dread dilated her pupils, “Let me help you! I have the names and addresses of all our congregation members.” “What a busy Friday night they must be having ambushing unwary people to torture them in filthy basements like this!” I rotated my index finger inside her navel. "Think about it." She sounded raucous as a crow. “I can deliver to you healthy men and women to be your livestock for a long time!” “Would you include that skilled blacksmith in the deal?” I scratched her round nose. “Of course, he lives nearby, I can call him right now if you wish!”, the deep breath lifted her sweaty breasts. “This is not a very Christian behavior on your part.” I pinched her nipple. “Give me a chance, I will surrender myself unconditionally and take care of all your needs like no one has ever done before.”, she nodded the head in frantic agreement with her own words, “I swear in God’s name!” “So, the bible also taught you how to vacuum a room? Sorry, I am away ahead of you in this matter. Jeremy, or rather Brother Jeremiah is already selected to serve me.” “You won’t like having Jeremy, his own home is a mess. Get rid of him and choose me!” “It seems his eminence deserves little regard from you! The thing is, I’ve always thought that those duties are better served by men. Using the right incentive, they become highly dedicated butlers. Anyway, thank you very much for your application, but I see you more as a blood bag kind.” I kissed her trembling lips. “Please, Sister Agatha, find a way to absolve me of the deadly sin of gluttony because, in our present situation, it will be more deadly for you than for me.” I leaned over to her. “No!”, as she tried to avoid me lowering the chin, I twisted it, laid her face on the rack. “Stay away from me…”, was her last whisper. My fangs punctured the neck, penetrating the common carotid artery. I enjoyed her life essence slowly, keeping the heart beating as long as possible while feeding… tastes exquisitely better in this way. After draining Sister Agatha, I licked my lips, gathered a sharp piece of the broken cross and staked her heart. And, just for insurance, also severed her head. “Aggie…” Brother Jeremiah rolled over the floor crushing that silly headdress. “I have bad news for you. Sadly, Aggie, or Sister Agatha, as I was introduced to her, is gone.” Holding by the veil, I lifted her. “My sincere condolences for your loss.” His eyes darted back and forth from Sister Agatha’s head in my hand to her decapitated body on the rack, “You are an abomination in the sight of God!” “She shouldn’t have called me a bitch that many times.” I threw my hunting trophy right into his lap. “Isn’t polite, you know?” He gently lowered the lids, hid the horror frozen in those eyes, rearranged the nun’s habit scraps, and rested Sister Agatha’s head in this sort of latex holy mantle. Brother Jeremiah jumped off the floor and swiftly swung his right arm toward my face.  “If you had heard the bride of Christ begging me to get rid of you.”, I blocked his clenched fist halfway to my face, squeezed his arm and forced him to his knees. “Learn to worship me.” I released that big hand, dove into those dark eyes, found his conscience hiding behind a religious depravities mind wall, overpowered Brother Jeremiah’s will. It wasn’t that difficult, the desire to submit had been burning in his soul for a long, long time. I opened a wound between my breasts with the index fingernail. “Drink my essence distilled from countless useless lives…”, he licked the thread of blood like a puppy. “Our alliance is sealed, you’ll be my sleep’s sentinel, my house servant, my will’s slave. Rejoice! You have finally found a purpose in life.” What can I say? After decades of taking care of my own affairs, I took a servant again. Contrary to Sister Agatha’s beliefs, his twenty-four-seven devotion keeps the mansion clean, bright and pristine. In my now organized closet, anything is ready to wear, no matter what I choose. Always wanting to please me, he set up fun situations to deliver his congregation’s acolytes to my mercy. Right now, by the way, having gotten rid of dinner leftovers (what a juicy blacksmith), he just made our private screening room ready to show my Stag film collection. Such valuable souvenirs to keep alive my memories from the Roaring Twenties. Guess what? In one of these reels, the only remaining image of me as a beautiful naked human being, just before the Frenchman turns me into an everlasting performer. Of course, the Kinetograph wasn’t able to capture his slender figure on film. I will enjoy these black & white silent gems while taking full advantage of Brother Jeremiah’s oral skills. THE END
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