Tales from St Hilda's - part 2

By Diana the Valkyrie

The Sisters recruit a techie

As the new Precentor for st-hilda.com, it was obviously down to me to work out how to make things actually happen. But the trouble is, nun training doesn't prepare you for setting up dotcom companies or making web sites. Nun training is completely deficient in internet stuff, and not too hot on general computer stuff, either. I walked thoughtfully back to my cell, where I found Mandy and Nora arguing about how we could earn #8000 per month for the convent. They looked up when I entered, and Mandy said "Where've you been, about blessed time, my stomach thinks my blessed throat's been cut", so we all rushed off to refectory.

And this being the evening meal, the rule was silence, which was enormously frustrating, especially for Mandy and Nora, who were absolutely dying to know what was going on. But after we'd eaten, we had to get back into chapel habits and off to compline.

Compline is my favourite worship time. My belly's feeling happy from refectory, the long day is nearly over, and we can sing the evening chants while working up a good sweat on the free weights. Sister Nora picked up her usual three hundred pound dumbbells, you can see how she got those massive 26 inch arms, Mandy went for squats, she has thing thing about developing the biggest quads in the convent, and I got onto the rowing machine. And to the tune of "Laudate pueri Dominum" away we went, more or less in tune. Then we did "Magnificat" which always made me giggle, because I got a mental picture of, well, never mind, but not as badly as "Gladly, my cross-eyed bear". The chapel was filled with the voices of twenty seven joyous Sisters of St Hilda (even the Mother Superior joined us for this one) and the clanking and pounding of the weight machines as we praised God and built our muscles for the powerful bodies that could convince men to follow the Path of Righteousness. Might makes Right, and if you can crush a man into submission, his heart and mind soon follows.

So, after the last hour workout of the day, we all went and showered again. Icy water and home-made soap, and we've run out of pumice stones so we're using bricks, but you know the motto of the convent, "Nil bonum nisi passus", no pain no gain. As we towelled dry (and I wondered again how Sister Amanda got her quads quite so enormous) I told them about my plan. We were going to have a web site, st-hilda.com, and we'd become a dotcom company, and the convent would be rolling in money before you could say "blessed".

"How do we do all this, Di?" asked Sister Amanda. Always the practical one. "How the Blessed Virgin do I know?" I replied. "They don't teach you this stuff in blessed nun school, you know." "And where does the money come from?" asked Sister Nora. I spread my hands. "Nor, do I look like someone who knows where the blessed money comes from?" "But Di" they said, in chorus, then stopped and looked at each other. "Listen", I said, "it's simple. All we have to do is find a man who knows how to do this stuff, then tell him that he's going to do it. Maybe we need to persuade him a bit, that's not exactly difficult, is it?"

And then it was 6:30, time for bed. Well, if you have to be up at 3am for Matins, you can't stay up much past 7pm, can you? And that was one of the things I intended to change; as part of setting up this dotcom, I'd need more contact with the Mundane world, and I planned to laze in bed till 4am, maybe even 5am on weekends!

The next day came soon enough. I say "day", it's actually the middle of the night when the blessed Matins bell wakes us up, you don't see the sun rise until Prime at least, maybe even Terce. The sun knows what's good for it. I sleep-walked down to the chapel for the Matins exercises, I'm really not a 3am sort of a person. And then somehow I got through Lauds well enough to get to refectory for breakfast, and half an hour of fairly solid eating later I was feeling sufficiently together to be able to slow down a bit and ask Nora if she was free to mosey into town this afternoon. One look at her face gave me the answer I needed, and when I looked at Mandy, I saw that eager "gimme gimme" look that said she'd love to come too. And since the Mother Superior had told me I could enlist whatever help I needed, and they'd be excused prayer (except Compline), because how can you actually get anything done if you're down in the chapel heaving weights around all day long? "OK, best habits on", I said. "Wimples?" asked Mandy. "Yes, wimples." "Capuche?" asked Nora? "Full rig", I said. "Total penguin, top to toe".

So we got through Terce, wolfed down lunch like Satan was on our tails, changed into the total penguin and marched down into town, which is eight miles away, but I'm used to that walk, seeing as how my regular duty is in the Ferret and Firkin, the local boozer, which is by far the finest place to find sinners you could hope to find. And, since I knew it so well, that was my first port of call.

It was 3pm when the three of us burst into the F&F. I say "burst in", when a St Hilda's Sister walks into a place like that, you just walk straight at the door without opening it, you get a very dramatic effect. Mike, the landlord at the F&F knows me by now, and he's installed a sort of push latch that means the door doesn't break down when I do that. So, as I said, we burst in and fanned out, looking for aggro.

It didn't take long. Some poor fool with more beer in him than sense stood up and said "Who let these penguins in here, haw haw haw". Now it's one thing when we use the p-word, but when a civvy uses it, well, that's not nice. Nora walked over to face him. "Say what?" she said, menacingly. His friends were pulling him down, "George, that's a St Hilda's Sister, don't be stupid", but Nora wasn't going to let him off that easily, and one huge hand reached out and gripped his shoulder. And squeezed.

Nora's got a grip like a ten ton vice, I've *never* seen her use a nutcracker, and as her fingers dug into his shoulder, you could see his face change from boisterous to pained, from pained to scared, and then as his shoulder separated under the pressure, to agony. His legs buckled under him, and he sank to his knees in front of her. "You're going to be a good little boy, aren't you?" He nodded. "Yes, yes, please". "You'll be in church on Sunday, won't you?" "Yes, sure, yes" "Make sure you are, or you and I will be having another little chat." And she let go his shoulder. Meanwhile, I was leaning on the bar, waiting for this to finish so I could chat with Mike.

"Er, Di, um..." "Yes, Mike?" "Could you tell, no, ask your friend, er Sister, um ..." Mike always worried about this. He thought that if we intimidated his customers, they'd go to another pub. I kept telling him, half of them only come here because they know the St Hilda's Sisters visit sometimes. I looked round at Nora, and beckoned her over. Mandy was smoothing her habit over her thighs, and half the room was watching open-mouthed, you'd think they'd never seen a pair of 38 inch thighs before. "Want to arm-wrestle, Mike?" "Er, er, no thanks." "How about a round of Mercy?" "Di, just tell me what you want, it's yours". "Mike, where will you be on Sunday?" "At church, Di, you know that, I wouldn't dare ..." I smiled. "Good boy, Mike. Good boy." I patted his cheek. "Mike, if I wanted some computer stuff done, who would I talk to?"

Mike glanced across the room at a kid sitting at a table by himself, looking very alone. "Thanks, Mike" "Di, for God's sake, be gentle with him, he's only a kid ..." but by that time, the three of us had converged on the little geek.

He looked up to see us standing over him. I reckon that Nora alone would make three of him. Nora sat down next to him; Mandy plonked herself down on the other side. Then they moved closer together, so he was like a rather squashed slice of ham between two large chunks of bread. I sat down facing him. "What's your name, kid?" "What's it to you?" he said, defiantly. "Ooh, spunky" I said. "I like a bit of spunk in a man. Give him a cuddle, Nora." Nora pushed her sleeve up her arm, so the kid could get a good look at what she had inside. I guessed that Nora's bicep was a bit bigger than his waist. She put her arm round the kid's shoulder and pulled him toward her, crushing him into her massive bosom. Between the crushing effect of her arm, and the smothering effect of her bosom, the poor kid was having trouble breathing. She held him like that for a couple of minutes, and just as he was on the point of passing out, she let him go.

"What's your name, kid?" "Bert", he coughed. "Albert?" He shook his head. "Bertram?" He shook his head again. "Kid, don't get cute with me. Nora?" Nora pushed her sleeve a bit further up her arm, and the kid stared at her muscles like a rabbit stares at a stoat. "Egbert". I suppressed a giggle. No wonder the kid didn't want to admit to it. "Kid, you know anything about computers?" He tore his eyes away from Nora's bicep, and looked at me, and nodded. "Internet?" He nodded. "Kid, you got a job right now?" He shook his head. "Wrong, kid." He looked puzzled. "You work for the Sisters of St Hilda now, we're making a dotcom."

He opened his mouth, then closed it. "What's the pay?" he asked. Then he opened it again to take a swallow of beer. But Nora got her hand on his glass about half a second after he did. "The demon drink", she said. "You don't want this, it isn't good for you." "But I ..." Nora squeezed, and the glass broke; the beer went all over his trousers. "Oh look, he's wet his trousers" I said. "Could catch his death of cold in wet clothes", said Mandy. "Wouldn't want that", said Nora. "Now you're working for us" said Mandy. "I'd feel responsible", said Nora. "You're an employee", said Mandy. "We have to look after you." And she slipped her hands into his jeans, ripped, and tore them off him.

The kid sat there in his underpants. "That's better", said Mandy. "Pay?" I said. "You want pay? You should do this for the Glory of God and for the good of St Hilda's convent. We're a registered charity, you know." His teeth chattered a bit. It might have been cold, but I think it was Nora on one side of him and Mandy on the other. "So, you'll take the job?" He looked doubtful. Mandy slid her chair back, and smoothed her habit over those 38 inch thighs. He swallowed and looked away, at Nora. Nora pushed her sleeve up a bit more. "Let me reword that, kid. So, you'll take the job." He nodded. "Good! Great! Wonderful" I said. "Nora, give him another cuddle". He shrank away from her in fear, but she already had her arm round his shoulders, and she pulled him towards her again. but this time, instead of crushing him with her powerful arm and stifling him with her bosom, she just pulled him gently against her and let his head rest on her capacious bust, with her arm protectively around him. "Kid, you're part of the team now, you have nothing to worry about." He moaned, very quietly, in relief.