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There is no such thing as the absence of bondage, the priest had taught once, a chapel sermon well remembered from long ago. There is only a variety of captor.
What an odd saying, what a warped way of viewing the world, the sister thought. Was Satan not concerned with freedom? Did their religion not center on liberty through pride and daring? Why would the pope himself, the agent of Lucifer on this earth, teach that all is bondage? When she was young, she had simply written it off as the mistaken ramblings of an old fool. Now, she fancied she knew the truth.
For the sister lay in the arms of the man she had once scorned so flippantly. Papa Emeritus the First, now called her dearest Primo, slumbered peacefully beside her in his great bed. The pale moonlight reflected on the shimmering silk of the bedsheets, casting his wizened face in a warm, hellish glow. His thin lips were pursed, his wrinkled brow knit tight in the concentration of sleep. She would have loved to run a cool finger along those beautiful lines, trace the wisdom of his age across his face, but she could not. You see, she was locked in the bondage of his embrace.
He held her tight, firm in the resilience of the aged. His pale arms, never used to any sun at all, were muscled and strong. His wide hands, his long fingers, caged her in completely. She could not escape her captor if she tried, not even for the purposes of a carress. One arm was pinned underneath her, the other was draped across his stomach and covered by his own arm. His fingers wrapped around her forearm twitched in his sleep, reminding her at every movement of his total control over her.
But one does not escape bondage just because one is bound. It is not the act of being held that stifles. It was true, the sister could not move from her position in the old man's bed. But why should she want to? The warm breath of her beloved tickled against her skin. His hands rested on her bare flesh, his arms pulled her tight against his safe and solid body. She was trapped, yes, but there was nowhere she would rather be.
She moved as much as she possibly could, straining under her entrapment to press a kiss against Primo's warm flesh. A sleepy groan emenated from that warm chest in response, and his mismatched eyes fluttered open. He smiled sweetly at his little love.
"You are still awake, bambola," he murmured in his wonted staccato pattern.
She giggled softly, more at the tone than the words, and kissed him again. "Not for long, my Papa. Go back to sleep and dream of me, I'll join you soon."
Luckily for her arm and her circulation, Primo shifted then, groaning with the effort it took to roll onto his back and bring her with him. He kissed her hair once she was laid on his chest. "I shall wait for you eagerly, my little one."
He shut his eyes, and in moments he was deep asleep once more.
The little nun was captured by her priest as surely as if he turned a key in the lock himself, she knew it. The string of fate, the chains of entrapment, what were they compared to the voluntary bondage of love? He couldn't know, and neither could she, how that one sermon, that one morning voluntary from her childhood schooling, would link them together so many years later. Perhaps that was a form of bondage too.
The nun cast her eyes down to hell, and whispered a prayer of thanks to Satan. Pride and daring, bondage and captivity. Only one who had both ruled in Hell and served in Heaven could have known they were all the same thing.