Sometimes the nights weren't the darkest at all. Depending or not by its genuine notion of the darkness, besides its whether palish or vibrant nuances, tinting the nocturnal mirage. The hive of shimmering palish gilt stars swarmed the dark nocturnal sky, outnumbering the sole pale moon that hung over as a disco ball.

The patients were already gathered in their own wards for extra good night sleep, whilst Jude had a rather special occasion or engagement tonight. Her temporal out of charge episode was the sole episode of the day when she isn't ultimately Sister Jude or rather the administrator of Briarcliff by canning patients, ordering the security guards and orderlies to jail the rebellious inmates even being doped with heavy medicaments. Even when she was resting until the next morning as her motionless, leanly curvy body was collecting its nutrients physically and mentally on the compact bed which was the only furniture that gave a break to the pious sister of the church with its lurking shadows, haunting her in the lonely, cold nights which were merely mustering with the time for her. Her eyelids' muscles relaxing by being utterly shut as blinds. Reverie transmitting her in much different realm, fogging her train of thoughts with tantalizing dreams. Dreams, which were rather bizarre or licentious short movies that her mouth salivated, watering the pillow as her petite-frame was donned in her bloody red, paradoxally silken negligee.

As the retrospection's roller coaster keeps on, the special occasion when she could be herself was the weekly coq-au-vin Friday night with her favorite priest.

"Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." The middle-aged woman recited in a murmur the prayer, whilst her elvish, milky as sheer snow grasped the knife, slicing the onions as its pungent onion reek waffled across her sensitive nose." Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen!" Meanwhile, her tongue crafted the prayer in velvety, low voice that her naturally rosy-coloured, soft as satin lips produced, shutting her eyelids by tilting her head. Her adroit, versatile hand, grasping the knife yet was chopping on small pieces the sliced onion on the wooden chopping board. Jumpcutting to moment when she had a limited time until the dinner was ready and before the aspiring Monsignor's arrival to prepare herself by primping with clothing her figure with her ravishing red satin slip, hugging exquisitely her curves and holding her cologne with its fiendishly alluring fragrance, slowly lifting it up to her nostrils with tightly shut eyes as if she held the pearliest gem. The cologne's tap was off as her sensitive, vulnerable nostrils inhaled inwardly its succumbing fragrance, subsequently besprinkling it on her fingers and daubing its cologne all over her bosom delicately, featherly with her fingers. Picturing impurely promiscuous, explicit images of Timothy caressing and teasing her cleavage with his pristinely long, strong fingers every inch of her exposed pale as ghost, creamy as cashmere flesh. Or rather his nose nuzzling featherly the besprinkled perfume's area, muffling a smug, steamy moan from his pale-pinkish lips and then using his teeth to nibble on the silken skin of her neck, besides peppering it with light kisses until they escalate to awfully ferocious as a wild beast.

Afterwards the blonde approached her compact, convenient bed to snatch her neatly prostrated by dusting it and putting her lean, brittle arms in its itchily wool, rigid sleeves, contacting her skin and then her fingers buttoned its rigid, shapeless ecclesiastical attire up to under her chin.

Once she titivated her own make-up faintly along with the perfume and her dress code, the blonde fled her office by strolling up to the kitchen as her midnight black, classy chunks clicked against the cement, dull floor, producing incessant, aggressive click, amalgamating with its monotonous, lifeless silence that consumed the lobby with exception of handful of passing security guards or orderlies, who're in charge each passing second.

When the former licentious jazz nightclub singer stepped in the kitchen to check the oven with the scrumptious dish, consequently she turned it off by serving the zapped, recently baked coq-au-vin in 2 plates and thereafter serving them on the kitchen table that was adorned with empty glasses, silverware eating tools and a tall candle in the middle as its scintillating, vermilion flame, sheening vibrantly. Additionally, a bottle of communion mouth-watering wine was sitting motionlessly on the table, in case, if either of them wanted to drink something else than water and to cosset one another extravagantly.

All of a sudden, masculine, sufficiently heavy steps emanated from the dim light with its twinkling light asylum's lobby, keeping Jude's wits about the ambitious holy man's presence in the wee hours of the night.

Her heart raced abruptly, flushing her constricted chest as its heart beats unrealistically swelled up in its pulse, sedating her blood with vague flinch, contouring her enchanting facial features.

"Jude? May I come in?" The man of the cloth rapped on the door politely a few times, enquiring until the middle-aged woman ambled up to the door to open it for her special guest, who just arrived.

"Good evening, Timothy!" The older woman stepped aside, holding the wooden door as her caramel brown orbs, fueled with warmness, welcoming affection and amicability tinted the warmest, the most glowing caramel pigment in her irises. A glowing, friendly smile carved upon her rosy-coloured, luscious lips as it blossomed significantly, subsequently a beaming, kindheartedly innocent smile kissed Timothy's baby pinkish lips.

"Good evening, Jude!" In the meanwhile, he set a foot in the kitchen as Jude shut the door behind him, whilst he was seating gentlemanly on the dining table. "It smells so delicious here."

"Yeah! I cooked yar favorite." The Bostonian seated alongside him. "Coq-au-vin! And that's why yar wondering from where the delicious aroma comes from." Even when she didn't pay any kind of attention to her utterance, her cheeks rubicundly tinted as torrid heat crawled underneath her facial skin of her chubby, well-defined cheeks.

"No wonder it's amazing and your cooking skills aren't for underestimating!" In the interval, the British compatriot grabbed the silver fork by pronging a handful of veggies, subsequently munching his first bite from the mouth-watering meal. "You're a rara avis, Sister Jude!" Immense content and heartmelting encouragement were vomited in his compliment to the woman of the cloth, whilst she grasped the fork with a couple of fingers, glancing self-conscious, plainly at him by biting her lip with her front ivory, still firm teeth. The younger man dabbed his damp, clammy, coq-au-vin stained lips with a cotton, plain cloth.

"What does that mean?" Her inquisitive inquiry earned Timothy's look, tattooed on his youthful, yet fresh handsome complexion. It flabbergasted the middle-aged lady, when the man of the cloth called her a rara avis as she scarcely knew anything in Latin, despite somewhat comprehending its meaning that was positive.

"It means rare bird," His honeyed, soft as satin reply lingered on his tongue, whilst her hazelish-brown orbs were transfixed on him, widened momentarily as its eyelids swelled up. "In Latin!" Meantime, his head bobbed as her eyes followed his current actions.

"I-Is that a compliment or a criticism?" He was cutting his meal with the dinner knife, whilst pronging it as the administrator of the mental hospital posed the question gravely without averting her gawk.

"It's a compliment." In the meantime, his mammoth, milky as vanilla hand reached for the communion wine's bottle, staring at his favorite nun, opting to not admire her ethereal, ageless beauty, oozing of her and secretly wondering how she looked out of her habit and wimple. "Most women of the cloth feel they have to deny all sensory life when they take their vows." In the corner of her lowered honey brown irises, she observed attentively how he removed the tap and the photogenic motion of his hand was refilling his glass of communion wine as the devotional member of the church's smile froze after replenishing his glass until he drifted the bottle up to her empty glass until her whole hand clawed the top of the unused glass, cutting him off.

"No!" What it dumbfounded the priest who docilely withdrew the bottle of the claret liquor, squinting up peculiarly his chocolate brown orbs at her how she didn't want to drink or even sip a handful of guiltless gulps from the communion wine. "I've renounced my spirits."

"Are you sure? Your cooking reveals an almost decadent palate." The sister of the church lowered her gaze in girlish, sheepish embarrassment due to his elating, emotive words, whereas a couple of seconds later a smug, demure grin cradled her lips after coyly nibbling on the glossily rosy-coloured bottom, plumpish lip.

"Decadent." Is that a subtle reprimand, Father?"

"Oh, you know me better than that. I always say what I mean. I'd appreciate the same from you." Meanwhile, the aspiring, strong-willed holy man sipped his glass of claret, throughout lacing his tongue as the blonde bashfully chuckled as a schoolgirl, ducking her head.

"As usual, you've seen right through me, Father. When you put me in charge here," Her caramel brown pools shifted up to him as her lips harmonized her exclaimation. "I thought your faith in me was based on our mutually shared vision of madness as a spiritual crisis, an absence of God." Timothy's face promptly softened as if a stray puppy was gaping at his rare bird, swallowing a lump in his throat without peeling a single word, in order to cut her off crudely.

"That remains true."

"I want to know where you found... Dr. Arden. He's not a man of God." The blonde insisted incredulously to find out the genuine motive how and why Arthur Arden, known as the doctor of science was hired, although it was amidst her least favorite topics she'd like to discuss during a Friday coq-au-vin night especially with Timothy. Her seriousness and half-heartedness was vomited in her spirit of inquiry, enveloping her heart.

"The Church approved him."His both hands were recently occupied with the dinner knife and fork, pronging and cutting with ease the dish as his eyes were darted to his plate, in case, to focus on the conversation and the dinner process in the same time."He was sent here by people better equipped to judge his godliness than you."

"Say what you will, your rare bird has a nose for rodents." Meantime, her berry-coloured tongue twirled outside as its tip licked lightly her upper lip diffidently, girlishly.

"You mustn't be so fearful."Shortly before replying her directly, he yanked from his lap the cloth, consequently dabbing his coq-au-vin stained, damp lips. "It was God, after all, who created both science and Heaven. God put the idea in a doctor's head to create the antibiotic that cured tuberculosis. These are amazing times, if you just look at it in another light." His thick, dark eyebrows faintly arched its swan curve, whilst assuring her soothingly.

"There's no other light."

"We're literally almost on the moon. Our dear departed John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, was elected President. This is a time when anything can happen, if someone wants it enough."

"But what on earth do we want, if not to save souls?" The religious woman of the cloth's honey brown irises were squinted up incessantly at his as honey and chocolate met, linking up together.

"Here's," All of a sudden, the Bostonian was caught off guard when he took her petite, creamy as baby skin hand into his larger, amusingly warm as she gaped nonplussed at the grip of their hands as the thumb kneaded delicately the back of her hand. "What I want. I want this institution to become a place of such promise, " In the interim, their eyes were transfixed on their hands as the British aristocrat's eyelids blinked frequently as shimmering pale stars in the somber nocturnal sky. "And renown that we are asked to be Cardinal of New York."

"We?" An optimistically enthralled, slight grin brushed her lips, whilst her tongue timidly, self-consciously crafted the pronoun, emphasizing it.

"Wherever I go, you go. You're my right hand." At the moment, the former promiscuous nightclub singer placed a hand on her collar, her slim, long fingers gingerly, sensually the wool, conservatively rigid fabric of her clerical robe. "You'll become Mother Superior, overseeing thousands of nuns who will address you as "Reverend Mother." And then, with God and you on my side." The middle-aged woman was undoing the buttons of her habit along with her sheerly white as an angel, cotton, convenient nightgown which was oblivious for Timothy as his honeyed words were sending shivers down her body and spine of sweetness, pleasure and lust, picturing the explicitly graphic, lubricious pictures, fogging her blizzard of thoughts and tinting her eyelids with unbelievable mirage as if they were protagonists in their own erotica. "I see no reason why I couldn't ascend to the office of first Anglo-American Pope. You'd enjoy Rome." Silence arched between the both adults for a split second. "Wouldn't you, Sister?" His velvety, British accent accentuated on his seducing whisper, zinging his lips.

"Et postqquam ego colcavi me in tee," At the moment of the devotional woman of the cloth's inescapable tantalizing reverie's realm, plaguing her whirlpool of thoughts her elvish, milky as snow hand reached for her conservative, ecclesiastical austere wimple by snatching it from her head, thus tossing it carelessly on the ground, unpinning the low bun as her lion mane of sleek old Hollywood gilt tresses piled up instantly on her upper back after shaking them off, framing ideally her still appealing, young-looking with mild wrinkles complexion.

"Modo colca te tu in me," Her unbuttoned habit peeled off like a snake skin of her frail skeleton by being discarded on the ground recklessly, whilst the blonde got from the dining table, ogling at one another's faces with humongous lust, desire, love and pleasure, glinting vehemently their eyes. His mouth was agape at the sigh, incapable of resisting her endless grace. His rara avis was indisputably, insatiably beautiful without her hallowed, shapeless attires of the church as an armor. In the meanwhile, he swallowed a solid lump, scratching his throat. It was difficult for him to avert his gaze from the diabolical succumbing sight of his right hand being half-naked and mostly wearing a scarlet, velvet nightie beneath her holy robe.

"Ista est mea creatura," His chocolate brown orbs widened when she vaguely lifted her negligee's hem, exposing her eye-catching, elegant thin stockings, layering up to her mid-thigh with its garters by straddling his lap. His heart momentarily skipped a beat once his irises were met with the sultry, unspeakably obfuscating of the hallowed succubus, that once was dressed up in a habit and a wimple by concealing the deepest, the most somber paradoxal secrets of hers not only behind her impure thoughts, moreover of her gloomy past. The ravishing red slip. The bloody red lips with its tempting pout, carved upon them, brightly contrasting with her palish as ghost, porcelain complexion with its softness, sheening each inch of it. Her hazelish-brown eyes, submerging its toxic, brass liquid of ginormous lust, hankered desire and unconditional love were as piercing as cupid arrows, hexing its prey. Her alabaster as snow flesh breathing its own freedom when its itchy attires didn't welt her skin with its fabric, itself. Her lean, drop-dead gorgeous, tall as towers legs with its capitulating curves, carving her hips and pelvis. Her halo ringlet of silky auric wavy tresses framing her round, well-defined face.

"Ista est mea creatura," In the interval, the Bostonian pawed his muscular, broad shoulder with her petite, smooth hand as the British compatriot placed on top of hers his larger, surprisingly warm by seating on his lap, throwing her satin, slender arms around his neck as his big hands were brushing beneath her biceps, relishing its delicateness of her flesh by arching her neck, cocking back her head whilst clutching tightly shut her eyelids, muffling a soft, sensual moan from the top of her lungs until her both hands clawed the nape of his pale neck, being clung to one another as he held her shoulders. Meanwhile, her both legs were wrapped around his waist as his colossal, creamy as baby skin hand played with her long wavy golden hair, admiring her timeless, agonizing beauty as her elvish hand managed up to brush his jaw.

"I need you to be a team player. The doctor needs full oversight of his domain. You... look after yours." All of a sudden, Timothy snapped her out of her reverie by dwelling out of its heavenly realm by inhabiting its realistic realm, averting her gaze in embarrassment as they resumed finishing with their scrumptious meals.

--- *** ---

--- The Next Morning ---

--- 24th of October, 1964 ---

After the mouth-watering and satisfying coq-au-vin Friday dinner night the both devotional members of the church shared as a piece of moment, the Saturday morning was embraced by its drastic jumpcut. The late October autumn breeze was assaulting the Boston's infamous, old mental institution's façade, encircling with its palish, dim dispersing sun rays that gleamed certain windows and outskirts of its exterior and brick walls.

Jude has determined herself to flee the mental hospital and resign from the church by having a fresh start in Pennsylvania, in fact, she doesn't want the Monsignor to find out about her grim past and her sinful, most profound secrets she has stored up inside her Pandora's box for ages. Howsoever, shortly before the blonde left Briarcliff's walls in the wee hours of the morning, she spent a handful of minutes writing a letter for Timothy by leaving it directly on her dusty, cherry wood bureau, in order to take his time to read it and assimilate everything she has poured as blizzard of thoughts in the brief message.

What the former promiscuous jazz nightclub singer hankered more than anything after being complimented was that the British aristocrat to not behold her ever again, because she doesn't want him to be hurt and she thought he deserves somebody better than her. Somebody younger, more beautiful and who genuinely deserves his virtue.

As soon as the lunatic inmates were released from their wards by having breakfast and then overcrowding the common room, the ambitious holy man paced in the hallway as he was readily sure he'd find Jude, his rara avis and discuss their recent mission or task they'd be given. His oxford, formal midnight-black shoes clicked against the cemented flooring in its frequent choir until he stepped beside the mosaic glass door of her austere office, tapping with a balled fist on the door, emitting sufficiently audible sounds to keep her wits about his presence in the early Saturday morning.

His baby pinkish, dry lips etched in a pensive, sheepish purse as his heart was still throbbing violently into his ribs cage, hoping to receive a response as soon as possible.

"Jude? Jude?"

No answer. No response. Nobody responded to his address of his right hand as his head faintly ducked, rapping on the door mildly louder than before as if her recent schedule was hectic and she could scarcely hear any sound, due to the fact of the numbing tasks as its inner voices, convincing her to finish them pronto.

"Rare bird? Are you busy?"

A quarter a minute later his mammoth, milky as vanilla hand met the doorknob, thereafter turning it as through the ajar gap he could peer as desolation was consuming her former office. Every remarkable paraphernalia of hers was no longer adorning. It was just like before she was in charge of the notorious asylum. The only thing that was sitting motionlessly untouched on the dusty, hardwood desk was a letter.

"W-Where are you?" Inquisitive, terrified whisper in low voice was vomited in his rhetorical question by stepping inside her old office by shutting promptly the door, ambling up to the bureau so that to read the letter she has only left after her sudden disappearance. "Why you are gone? What I've done to you?" At first, one of his inner voices was gnawing him as if it was his fault for her unpredictable disappearance.

When the man of the cloth took the message as his chocolate brown orbs scanned its text, recognizing ideally the older woman's cursive manuscript, scribbling what was encumbering her soul.

Dear Timothy,

If you're reading this, I hope you understand the circumstances and it's the last time you're reading this!

The coq-au-vin dinner we had the last night was not only elating and bringing me a smile on my face for the rest of the night, but also it was the last time to see each other in our lives. Don't get me wrong!

I've always appreciated your support, your goodwill and your benevolent nature, nevertheless, you deserve somebody better! Somebody better who's not only younger, furthermore, more beautiful and truly deserves you with each ounce of its identity! You don't deserve an old whore, who's disguising herself as a nun, hiding her own darkness in a cloth of the church.

I hope you're pursuing your divine Rome dream without me. I'm honored for being part of your life and helping you to reach up to here.

Farewell!

From Jude

"R-Rare bird?" Dew of bittersweet, desperate moistness immersed his fragile eyelids as tears verged to spring up like toy-out-of-the-box into his eyes, tinting ruddily its lily-white eyeballs. "P-Please don't leave me!" His heart ached over her absence by being relentlessly cracked on thousands of pieces with the hammer of justice, scattered on the vacuum floor as he felt his knees weak, kneeling on the ground. In the meanwhile, a crystal, salty tear dripped as a bleeding scar from his eye, sniffling quietly to himself. "Without you, I'm nothing even if I'm the Pope in Rome or the Cardinal in New York!" Tearful, balefully rueful mutter jingled into his ears, shutting his eyes without blinking for a single second, allowing the heavy rain of tears to gush down, staining his face with dampness.

Whether if she's yet alive or dead, his crucial quest was to find her at any cost before it was too late by devoting his time, in order to search for her in every corner of Boston, regardless if its urban or otherwise countryside. Grotesque, shamefaced melancholy contoured his facial features, unable to cleanse his ocean of thoughts for a single second once he realized he's all alone to pursue his celestial Rome dream to become the Pope. Even if he opts to question anybody even Mother Claudia about his rara avis's absence, they wouldn't give him the real answer he's looking for. The priest was determined more than anything to resign from the church in a jiff by negotiating with Father Malachi, throughout opening a new chapter in his life. To search the entire the small city of Massachusetts even go in the other states and small cities if she's nowhere in Boston. His only and one of a kind Jude.