Carol (Carol Schmidt Series) (8 page)

Ten years ago. Mexico City.

Carol Schmidt, the
orphaned daughter of Chilean and American diplomats, was in her eleventh year
at the
Slaves of Our Lord
convent school. The school was on the
outskirts of Mexico City. She had been placed there by the Mexican authorities,
who, on the death of her parents in a traffic accident, could trace no living
relatives.

From the age of six, then, her home had been a moderately
comfortable convent school, and her family a collection of nuns who, though
strict, were not cruel. Even as a young girl, she had realized that it wasn’t
such a bad deal, all things considered.

As she grew up, the mystery of her surname Schmidt fascinated her.
Had her father been of German ancestry? If so, why had he moved to South
America? Was there a whole family out there somewhere, armies of long-lost
cousins just waiting to take her in and show her what she’d been missing? Or
perhaps there was a fortune sitting in a bank over in Europe, if only she knew
where to look?

Over the years these questions had arisen in her mind, only to be
dispelled and finally lost as she slowly came to understand that there was in
fact nobody, no family in distant places, no one to embrace her tearfully and
take her in. She had no family, other than those who lived alongside her in the
convent.

And, as children in such situations will, she had accepted this as
if it were normal. She faced it head-on, developing a determination to get
through life, and to enjoy it, whatever it might bring. Indeed, such was the
unwavering optimism with which she lived her life that she was the object of
admiration and great love among the nuns, who watched with pride and
satisfaction as she grew into an enchanting young woman.

Her unadorned beauty and a developing physical attractiveness also
piqued the latent desires of several of the nuns, delighted not only by her
bodily charms but by the easy manner of her intelligence, her playful honesty,
and the absence of rebellion in her character. She was, all things considered,
a perfect pupil, and had never spoken to the Mother Superior other than to
receive congratulations on her academic achievements.

In addition, almost every fellow student at
Slaves of Our Lord
had at some time or other lusted after her, as each girl passed inevitably
through her own sexual awakening, there within the convent, starved of any
prolonged contact with boys. They saw in Carol Schmidt something not just
admirable but deeply alluring: a proud, confident, and physically perfect
example of developing womanhood.

For her part, Carol had also gone through that phase, and discovered
that she rather enjoyed the sensuousness of the female form. But it didn’t
excite her to distraction, nor did she become a regular sinner in the dorms, as
some girls did, fondling and groping each other with eagerly, panting and
kissing as they searched for new ways to invade each other’s soft, willing
bodies. Occasionally a girl would be taken away, her sexual misdeeds uncovered.
She’d be transferred to a halfway-house run by the church, or returned to
whichever relatives could be found, who would scratch their heads and wonder
how a convent school could have done this to her.

No, Carol was not outlandish in her explorations of her own
sexuality. On the contrary, she was unusually self-contained. For the most
part, her sexual and emotional awakening was done alone. Her physical
confidence was absolute, and she had never felt the slightest shame at her own body.
She would strip herself naked, standing in the middle of the room, legs apart, or
lying on her back. Finding a quiet spot where she knew she wouldn’t be
disturbed (eleven years in the convent had taught her all the secret places),
she would slowly explore herself, blocking out the rest of the world,
fascinated by her own yearning for pleasure, and the number of ways she could
achieve it.

From the moment puberty had sparked in her the first tentative desire
for gratification, it had been the most natural thing in the world, and she had
been entirely content to do things on her own.

Eventually, though, she discovered something even better.

The
Slaves of the Lord
was one of the more liberal convent
schools, not a closed order, and though the girls could not leave the premises
unaccompanied before their sixteenth birthday, they did not feel trapped inside
the grounds. Stretching out below the convent building was a long, winding
garden spotted with old, gnarled fruit trees. At the very bottom was the chapel
itself, a large, stone-built structure that always smelled of candle wax and
dry wood inside.

Adjoining the chapel was a handful of small, decrepit stone
buildings, their roofs low and sagging, their walls bulging and uneven; without
the support of the chapel, it seemed, they would tumble down in a cloud of
dust. The buildings were used by two gardeners who worked in the convent
grounds, plus an odd job man who looked after all the buildings single-handed.
Although the girls were prohibited from talking to these male workers, they did
occasionally see them. The old buildings down by the chapel, though, were out
of bounds.

By the time Carol was seventeen, her body was sleek and beautifully
sculpted, and her secret sessions of naked masturbation had become her
principal pleasure, almost a daily routine, now that she was counting down the
weeks and months until her eighteenth birthday and the legal freedom she knew it
would bring. Because, although girls could leave the convent at sixteen if she
had somewhere to go, those with nothing were kept two more years. Carol had long
since decided that, as soon as was practical, on the very day of her eighteenth
birthday, she would walk out of the door forever, and into a new life.

It was a hot spring afternoon, already past five, and she was
reading under a tree at the bottom of the gardens. On a whim she decided to
sneak into the gardeners’ sheds, the rickety buildings that the girls had been
warned not to enter in case they collapsed. The gardeners used them, though.
They wouldn’t collapse. What was the worst that could happen?

Making sure there was nobody looking, she walked cautiously up to
the wall that separated the buildings from the convent gardens. It was perhaps
five feet high, but made of large, irregular stone and easy to climb. She was
over in a second, quickly out of sight on the other side.

There was small courtyard, four wooden doors giving onto it. She
tried the nearest one. Inside there was only darkness, and a stifling, dusty
heat that made her nose itch. She went farther in, and as her eyes became accustomed
to the murky light she saw that it was a potting shed, stacks of terracotta
plant pots on all sides, hundreds of them, and the smell of dry earth heavy in
the air.

In the middle of the room was an old table, the varnish completely
gone, its bare wood ringed with stains. Then, in the far corner, she noticed
another door. It was small, and seemed to lead into what must have been the far
corner of the building, right up against the wall of the chapel.

Moving over to it, her heart beating fast with the thrill of being alone
in here, she pushed open the door. It was another room, a little smaller, but
big enough to walk around in. Against the far wall was a long table, a kind of
workbench, and on the walls to both sides were shelves. It was the bulb room,
and trays of flower bulbs filled the shelves, lending the air a delicate,
oniony scent.

She crept silently into the room. The only light came from a square
hole in the wall up under the sloping ceiling, enough to lend the place a
diluted, sleepy luminescence, but not enough for it to seem real. The air was
dry and hot, and the smell of the bulbs was strangely sensual.

When she carefully pushed the door closed behind her, she
immediately felt her heart race and her skin flush with excitement. From now
on, she told herself, running both hands down over her hips and then slowly up
the front of her thighs, this is where she would come to be alone. Her new
secret place, her refuge. She looked around, at the shelves full of bulbs, and
up at the weak light that entered from above, and she felt a shiver of pleasure
run through her, right down to the base of her spine.

A minute later she was in her drab, unappealing underpants and a
white bra straight out of the 1950s. The dull underclothes were standard convent
issue, and the source of continual complaints from the other girls, who all
desperately wanted the skimpy panties and half-cut bras they occasionally saw
in the women’s magazines that were smuggled into the dorms and passed around
like wicked, sinful treasure.

She placed her gray skirt and plain white blouse neatly on the large
workbench against the far wall, then returned to the middle of the room,
stretching out her arms, legs apart, as if she were about to do some
gymnastics.

What if someone discovered her? she asked herself. It wouldn’t
matter. In a few months she would be leaving the convent to embark on a whole
new life, the entire world at her feet. What possible punishment could be given
to a girl, almost a woman, in the final few weeks of her life in the convent?

In any case, who would find her? The gardeners? Raúl, the odd job
man? They were all old men, it seemed to her, hunched and wizened, permanently
smoking those nasty dark cigarettes. If one of them were to appear now at the
door, she could easily overpower him and escape. Who would believe that Carol
Schmidt had been here, naked and alone, in the potting shed?

Quite calmly, then, she removed her underclothes, placing then with
the others on the workbench. Her young body was now completely naked, and she
walked around the room, letting her fingertips brush the dried outer skins of
the flower bulbs. Then she stopped and touched her toes, feeling the warm air between
her legs. For a moment she remained there, running her hands up and down the
backs of her calves, feeling the taught muscles, the sinewy skin behind the
knees. Her back was toward the closed door, and she let her feet slide apart,
her hands moving up her legs until she was squeezing the backs of her thighs.

Then she stood up again and kicked off her sandals. The bare stone
floor was gritty against the soles of her feet, the ground cooler than the air,
but not much. She let her toes play with the dust on the floor, until they were
dirty, the cracks between her toes full of fine grit. It was perfect. The place,
the timing, the seclusion, everything was perfect.

She let her hands fall gently on her breasts, which were firm, not
too large. Then, smiling as if someone had just given her exactly what she
wanted, she took one of her breasts gently in both hands and lowered her head
until she could taste the nipple.

For the next few weeks the bulb room became a daily ritual. There
was plenty of free time for the older girls, and she soon got to know when the
gardeners finished their shift for the day. Within minutes of them leaving,
she’d be over the wall and in her sanctum, stripping naked and feeling the hot,
stagnant air against her skin.

Sometimes she would do nothing more than feel the wonderful
liberation of being undressed, simply moving about the room and admiring
herself. Or she might squat down on all fours, her ass raised in the air, and
imagine that she was being watched as she slid a finger delicately in and out
of herself, knowing that her thin pink slit was a beautiful sight, that it
really deserved to be seen.

There would be time for that! she’d tell herself, knowing that her birthday,
and with it her release from the convent, was fast approaching. The thought of
what she would do once she was out sent her crazy with desire. Once or twice
she borrowed a trowel from the potting shed, using its smooth, varnished handle
on herself. She’d lean over the workbench and run it up and down between her
buttocks, letting her juices coat its surface, imagining a cock doing that to
her, a guy right behind her taking his time as he felt himself grow and throb
against her sex.

A couple of the older girls had a dildo. God knows where they’d got
it from. But they’d let her borrow it one night, and she’d done her best to be
discreet in bed, trying not to make a sound in the dark as she eased it inside
herself, dreaming of when she would have someone to do it for her and she could
lie back and gasp openly with pleasure.

There in the shed, then, she would use the trowel handle to stoke
her imagination. But it was not as a substitute for a penis. When she was ready
she would put the trowel down and let her fingers find their way slowly inside
her until she shivered, her body pressing hard against the wooden bench.

Then, one evening, as she was bringing herself to her first tingling
little climax, she heard a noise behind her. Instinctively she glanced over her
shoulder. The door was slightly ajar. Had she left it like that? A mistake? She
couldn’t remember. There had definitely been a sound. But as she remained
there, petrified and hardly able to breath, the little flutter of her first
orgasm was impossible to stifle; despite her fear, then, she found herself
continuing.

Had she really heard anything? The thought faded quickly, her body
taken by a sudden urge, as if the mere thought of being discovered turned her
on. She let her fingers move more freely, reaching down with her other hand and
tickling her clitoris. Her small patch of pubic hair was wet, its dampness had soaked
into the edge of the workbench, leaving a dark stain there on the bare wood.