Page 11 of Bad Habit
“Faith, what you’re feeling… it’s just arousal.” Sister Henry patted my arm. “Sexual arousal. Perfectly normal. It’s nothing to be worried about.”
“But my calling!” Nuns were not supposed to feel that way.
“It’s also normal for you to question your calling. It’s okay.”
But itwasn’tokay. I swallowed to wet my throat. “When will these feelings stop? When I take my vows? Sooner?”
Smiling, she shook her head. “They probably won’t ever stop.”
I gasped. “Do you have them?”
“Sometimes.”
“But you’ve taken a vow of celibacy!” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Faith…” She laughed softly. “Every day I become more amazed by how sheltered you were growing up. Sometimes you seem more like twelve than twenty-two.”
Tears sparked at the back of my eyes, and I looked away.
Her hand on my chin, she drew my gaze back to hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just surprising.You’resurprising. In a good way. And to answer your question, when you become a nun, you won’t stop being a woman.
“Experiencing emotions and physiological reactions,” she continued, “it’s part of what makes you human. What matters is how you respond to those feelings. A vow of celibacy is a vow not toacton those feelings. You can’t promise not tofeelthem again.”
“But I committed a sin.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Did you have sexual intercourse with this man? Did he do anything that you didn’t—”
I drew back. “Of course not!”
“Then why are you so upset?”
“Lustful thoughts. Isn’t that a sin?”
Chewing her bottom lip, Sister Henry drew a long breath, clearly thinking, as she often did when I asked her hard questions. “Yes. As good Christians, we do our best to push such thoughts from our minds. But Faith… It worries me that you’ve had so little experience. I don’t think you should join the order without understanding the life you’re giving up.”
“That’s why I’m taking this year.” I straightened my back. “Working here at the mission.” The admissions staff at the convent had insisted I take some time, in spite of my arguments.
Sister Henry nodded, but I saw doubt in her eyes, so I went back to peeling potatoes, and she went back to chopping them into pieces for the stew. I didn’t recognize the tune she was humming, but if it was a hymn it was one I hadn’t heard.
She was right. I did lack life experience. Life experience that I’d never have—ever—given my chosen path. But that was what it meant to promise yourself to God.
“What does it feel like?” I asked softly.
“What, honey?”
“Acting on those feelings.”
“You mean sex?”
I forced through my mortification and shame. “Any of it.”
“You haven’t…” Sister Henry pointed her knife toward me then, as if realizing her mistake, dropped it onto the chopping block. “Have you ever evenkisseda boy?”
I shook my head. My cheeks flared so hot I feared they might blister. Mother had made me proud of my lack of experience—she claimed my purity made me better able to serve God—but now, the way Sister Henry was looking at me, my lack of experience made me feel foolish, like a child.
She halved a potato. “Faith, never having been kissed… there’snothingwrong with that, but…”
“But what?”
