Purchase Collier’s luxury Bonemobile sped down the lane, its driver batting sportily with his face-poker at the uvula of a boyhood rival.

Tybalt was paying dearly for his ride to save Mewsy, but, slurping earnestly at the skinnipop, he shrugged and thought only, “Quid pro quo.”

Behind them, Regatta the lecherous matron helped herself to a third of what would be innumerable crises inspired by this masculine display.

The stranger was sitting on his hands next to her and, in response to Collier’s gasped queries, telling his story to the assembled deviants.

 

“I was given to the convent in infancy,” he said. “The Sisters of His Immaculate Ecstasy are the only family I’ve ever known.”

“As a boy I was treated like one of them, prettily attired in tunic, coif and scapular just like my Sisters. Then came my body’s Awakening.”

“The Sisters began placing me nightly under a wide plank and draping a stole over my steven, which stuck through a knothole.”

“In this way insulated from true congress with a man, they would ride the veiled prong towards a more full understanding of Gawd’s glories.”

 

“It was a time of deep, explosive spirituality. Eventually, though, my face betrayed my mannishness and the habit could hide me no longer.”

“I was sent out into the world to share the Good Newz. But first, one of the Sisters, with whom I shared a unique bond, called me to her.”

“Sister Mumcu was my special friend. She had never sat upon my joyseat, choosing instead a more precise analogy to the Mouth of the LORD.”

 

“‘My Child,’ she said to me that day, ‘When I came here, I left a sacred mission undone. Our Maker did not bless me with the tool for it.'”

“‘Now the Spirit sends you in my stead. Go to the place called Triolay, and give unto the woman there as you have given to your Sisters.'”

“‘When you have planted Gawd’s arrow in her, bring her here, that she may, forsaking corruption, find peace among us. For she is anointed.'”

“I rendered her a final service, then quitted the nunnery and made my way to your estate, sir. [Tybalt nodded, gagging] This part you know.”

 

“After the scene at Lady Fung’s, I delivered the Mistress of Triolay to the Immaculate Sisters, as I had been charged. Then I went my way.”

“When next I called at the cloisters, weary from sowing Good Seed, I was stunned by the news that Sisters Mumcu and Stone had disappeared!”

“Searching, griefstricken, among Sister Mumcu’s things for a token bearing traces of her scent, I happened upon a disturbing bound volume.”

“The manuscript, written in the Sister’s own hand, was a vile testament of jealousy, rage, and – worse still – shocking acts of Lesbianism.”

 

“On every page, traced in gold, was your name, madam.” The stranger addressed Regatta. “I won’t mar your pure lady’s mind with the context.”

(It seemed, at any rate, that her pure mind was elsewhere, as her back was arched and her eyes had rolled back into her head… pensively?)

“The book was unfinished, but its last words told of a plot on the life and dignity of Mewsalorca Stone. Her name was spelled out in blood!”

“I came to you as fast as I could (forbidden as I am, on religious grounds, to drive myself or to pay for transport). I fear I am too late.”

 

Tybalt came up for air and began some bubbling speech, but Purchase, pressing on the back of his head, reinstalled him to his servile duty.

“Enough time has been wasted,” said Collier curtly, and then (punctuated by his throat-thrusts) commanded, “Tell – Me – Where – They – Are.”

“The last sentence in the book is a mystery,” stammered the stranger, eyes on Tybalt’s flushed bobbing shoulders, “It speaks in riddles.”

“Out with it!” Purchase barked, authoritatively spanking Stahl’s buffalo buttocks (just as anyone would itch to who beheld these trophies).

 

The stranger, reciting the queer verses, spoke in eerie lilt: “‘O’erlooking th’oasis of Sixteen Ambass / is a perilous rocky rough crag / ‘”

“‘Here, when I have broken her will and her ass / I will snuff Mewsalorca the Nag.'” A near-silence fell (tho’ Tybalt’s bartersuck kept on).

 

“Well that’s plain!” shouted Regatta (who was having her fifth or sixth triumph now), “I know the spot well! I went there often with…”

She stopped mid-exclamation. “WHAT did you say that crazy nun’s name was?” “Mumcu!” “Oh heavens. Not Muriel, certainly?” “The very same.”

The pink of Regatta’s mottled bosoms deepened, and when she said, “Muriel Mumcu…” her voice took on a dreamy, almost feminine quality.

Had her tomcat not been licking at a fireplug just then, his ears clapped over by insistent hands, he may have heard her give the game away.

As it was, Tybalt, being a diligent type, heard nothing. Almost inaudibly, Regatta began, “Oh Muriel! I’ve tried every day to forget you…”

 

It had been a time of hope. Though unacademic, the teen Regatta had had undeniable promise, even if you left her beautiful bongos out of it.

“You didn’t deserve it, my dear, my dear…” said Regatta half-aloud. “Every day I’ve done my penance. Oh Muriel, I was too young to know!”

School, athletics, the Young Freudians… Life made demands on Regatta. Then a night of teen passion pulled the rug out under her chin.

She thought she’d felt the meaning of life that night between a scanty nightie and a ripe pair of sweater puppies. But it was not to be.

 

The very next night she was ambushed at the school’s masquerade by a figure disguised as popular music sensation Milli (or perhaps Vanilli).

“I know what your tongue’s been lapping at,” the meta-faker hissed, “Better cut that out or I might have to tattle. Bye-bye scholarship!”

As they slowed-danced to the theme from The Vicar of Dibley, Regatta could feel his angry male organ, erect beneath drop-crotch trousers.

She never saw that horny hornet again after that night – but he had left his sting in the hindquarters of her ambition. No more Muriel.

 

Regatta had been cowed, and she was a coward. Unable to face her accomplice in gay teen sexploration, she took the crueler tack: avoidance.

Muriel’s boyish greetings were met with an icy turn of Regatta’s smooth shoulder. True love wouldn’t stand between her and a decent college.

She plunged herself desperately into the business of being a sexually mature female human; Regatta Caption never did anything halfway.

She took a lover from among the youths, and copulated. With each insertion, with that Camembert scent, she tried to drive Muriel from mind.

But her longing stained her still. As saltwater worsens thirst, so young Richard’s salted cum fed her regret. And yet she begged for more.

 

Inevitably, she grew heavy with child, and her staunchly unremarkable parents (Rudy and Hilary) hid her away until she was delivered of it.

“Either he goes to the nuns or you do,” Hilary had said when the babe was still wet. (She’d been gripping a fag tween middle-class fingers.)

The choice was no choice – Regatta wasn’t made of nunning stuff. But for a moment, as she held her boy, she almost forgot her Muriel’s eyes.

 

“Turn here!” Regatta suddenly shouted to Purchase, who was understandably distracted. “It’s not much farther now to the Cliffs of Entropy.”

No one spoke as they bumped across the sand; each was lost in thought (except Tyb, who was having thought pushed right out of his head).

Then the stranger suddenly exclaimed, “I think you may be my mother!” But no one responded – for in the headlights arose a nearly naked nun!

 

“Muriel!” Regatta shrieked, and fainted. The wicked Sister herself was now at the driver’s window, dancing savagely in shredded habit.

Purchase had her by the rosary in a jif. “Where is she, you sick B.O.C.?” (Tybalt tried to say something, but found his jaws were occupied.)

“You’re too late, breeding swine!” cackled the unhinged Bride Of Christ. “The vipress got what she deserved for what she did to… REGATTA?”

 

Older, wiser, but unmistakable, Regatta Caption floated into view above the fellating head. “Muriel,” she exhaled, “Can it really be you?”

In an infinite second each woman beheld the other, knew her shortcomings, and forgave. That’s how homosexual love worked between these two.

 

Purchase growled, “If you’ve hurt Mewsy…” The nun fixed her gaze on him. “I didn’t touch Mewsy,” she said, “But she’s dead anyway.”

“You’d better be lying, you chaste assassin,” Purchase spat through his teeth. But Mumcu only smiled: “Wait ’til sunrise and look way down.”

 

NEXT CHAPTER!