Sister Anna was a Franciscan nun from a monastery located in one of the less than ideal place of an obscure town in Central Europe. One day she was directed by her Mother Superior to go to the market place to buy some provisions for the weekend.

It was late autumn and the evening was drawing close to dusk. She set a brisk pace as she made her way downtown well aware that the walk to the market would take a good twenty minutes each way. At the busy market, Sister Anna discovered that locating and gathering all that she was required to purchase took longer than expected. By the time she was ready to start her walk back, the sun was already fairly low and long dark shadows creeping down from the mountains had already claimed most of the scenic country landscape. With the mist marching down to the whistling tune of the cold winds, visibility was becoming increasingly limited. She feared the walk back to the convent was going to be a long, lonely one.

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Within the warm comfort of the convent, dinner was all laid out and ready, but one of the chairs stood unseated so no one was eating. From the ancient wall hung an old wooden clock and its face showed that the time was twenty-five minutes past the eighteenth hour.

Mother Superior stared at the swinging pendulum, looking but not noticing the hypnotic cradle-like motion of the silver disc. From one of the seated chairs, a Sister was heard to cry softly as she struggled to hold back the urge to weep uncontrollably, a feeling felt by almost everyone in the room. Mother Superior then led everyone into a prayer for the protection and safe return of the one of them who was long overdue, bringing somewhat of a calm to the troubled nerves of all within.

Suddenly, without warning, the unlocked door to the outside flew open and thick mist poured into the room, an invasion seemingly urged by the banshee-like screams of the winds outside. Then slowly the diminutive figure of a girl stepped into the warmly lit interior of the room. The incandescent rays of the single bulb overhead reached down to caress her as she moved closer towards the group of startled nuns.

The girl was barefooted and her head exposed, her hair clinging to her scalp, damp both from her sweat and the wet mist outside. She was holding tightly to the hem of her disheveled skirt exposing her legs and a trickle of fresh blood ran down the inside of her right thigh.

“Sister Anna?” Mother Superior was heard to say quietly almost in a whisper, but the pain in her voice was obvious. Without the dark blue veil covering her head and the skirt of her crumpled habit bunched up to her thighs, Sister Anna was unrecognizable, but the wide-eyed girl nodded nervously. She was still breathing in gulps and was therefore not able to give a coherent response. Her cheeks were blushing red, but the rest of her beautiful round face was deathly pale.

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Half an hour later, with a blanket over her back and shoulders and a hot broth held tightly with both hands, Sister Anna was ready to relate everything to an eager gathering of nuns all seated around her in various degrees of concern beside the crackling fireplace of the convent lounge.

Then she began to tell her story…

“When I reached the market place, it was already quite late. Then the shopping itself was unusually slow due to the crowd gathered there. It must have been because of the coming October festival, and everyone wanted to do their shopping early. Anyway, it took quite a while, but I did manage to get everything on the list.”

“As I started back, the failing light made me decide to take the longer but more direct route to avoid the many turns and side roads of the usual short cut.”

“At the lonely stretch about half a mile from here, I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned around to see who it was, there was no one there. However as I turned to resume my journey, there he was, a big burly man whom I have never seen before and he was standing right there in front of me blocking my path home.”

“He obviously had one too many and was in a serious need of a bath for his body odor could have knocked a bird dead in full flight. He also had this curious pungent smell which I am not familiar with.”

“He swiped my veil off my head and grabbed my right arm with his other hand making me drop my shopping onto the graveled path. He then pulled me close to him and in his toilet breath, he growled as he told me exactly what he was going to do to my yet untouched body.” Somewhere at the back of the group, a fellow nun was heard to gasp and Sister Anna took another sip from the mug of hot soup.

“He was going to rape me!!” She continued, amidst the sounds of more gasps from the muted but attentive crowd.

“Then what did you do?” Another nun was heard to say in a trembling voice, denying the obvious, considering the state that Sister Anna was in.

“I once attended a seminar on ‘Abuses against Women’ a few years ago. We were told that when faced with impending rape, the wisest thing to do in order to not provoke your attacker and thereby avoid further injuries or worse in the process, was to just give in to him and comply with what he wanted.” This time the gasps were more audible, and more startled.

“So bearing that advice in mind, I quickly told the gorilla that I did not want him to hurt me any more than necessary. ‘Let’s do it properly’ I said to him and I promised not to struggle.” This time there was only silence, while Sister Anna took a few moments to recompose herself before she continued.

“I kicked off both my shoes and then lifted my skirt as high up as I could and I told him to unbuckle his belt and to pull his pants down. Which he eagerly did, as fast as he could too, all the way down to his ankles, exposing himself to me. It was clearly obvious to me that he was quite prominently all up and ready to deflower and defile me in the most horrible manner imaginable.”

“O God Almighty” sobbed the elderly nun who was seated right next to her all this while, and she wiped her tears with the blanket from Sister Anna’s back.

With compassion in her eyes, Mother Superior held both her hands and spoke to the traumatized nun in as steady a voice as she could muster “My sweet child, I hope he did not hurt you too much, but clearly there was nothing else you could have done under such circumstances!”

“Well, what do you expect?” Cried Sister Anna excitedly, “Who would anyone think could run faster, a nun with her skirt up or a man with his pants down?” Then she rubbed gingerly on the bleeding cut over her upper thigh, the one she received when she blindly ran into a thorny bush while fleeing her pursuer!


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This story is dedicated to all you wonderful ladies out there! Keep the smiles coming.