BROTHER MATERNITAS
AFTER I WAS TAKEN, It did something to my body. I don’t know why, but It did something.
I ignored the movement in my belly at first. For weeks, I assured myself it was hunger, or general uneasiness, or the natural result of eating spoiled fish. What else could cause a man to vomit so much? It didn’t matter the abbey overlooked the North Sea and spoiled fish was as rare as a nonviolent Northman.
As the months passed, the truth became harder to deny. My abdomen swelled. The movement grew stronger, especially during the Divine Hours.
Now all I can focus on is the near-constant movement. It grows more and more violent with each passing day, each psalm I sing, each communion wafer I eat. There’s only so many times I can swallow down my vomit when the holy Eucharist touches my tongue. When I wash in the privacy of my cell, the undeniability of my missing member swims in my head as I learn how to clean the new opening between my legs. The new opening I cannot pretend isn’t there anymore; nor can I pretend my tender chest does not leak milk.
A man controls the entirety of his body. He controls his mind, his emotions, his bodily fluids. Women leak. I leak.
In the early weeks, after I could no longer deny the thing existed but before I needed a new habit, I thought I constantly polluted myself, despite lacking all lust. It was only when the abbot told me to clean the church’s shrine to Papula of Gaul, did I learn it was not pollution by overhearing two expecting pilgrims whispering about their own repugnant bodies. Their conversation disgusted me.
I eavesdropped until they noticed me listening.
They glared as if I were the perverted one—not them—the ones casually conversing about feminine foulness! The taller one shouted accusations at my body. By the grace of God, she stopped her shrieking when Brother Columba entered the church carrying flowers for the shrine. He approached the pilgrims with smiles and the innocent charisma only a fool had.
“Is everything alright?”
“I was telling her about what to expect for birth and this—this letch eavesdropped!”
“For birth? Oh, a babe! Two babes! How lovely!” Brother Columba clapped his hands. “I know it is a sin, but I envy you both.”
“You do?” the smaller pilgrim asked. “It’s not much to be envious about.”
“He’s simpleminded,” I sneered.
The pilgrims glared at me like the demon did when I begged for relief.
“I do enjoy feeling my child move,” the taller pilgrim said.
I hate it.
“My hair has never been thicker,” the smaller pilgrim said.
It’s harder to comb.
“My husband spoils me rotten with sweets.”
I’m fat from the nonstop eating.
“Sometimes I grab my babe’s little feet when they push them out. They’ll put them elsewhere and I’ll grab them again. It’s a fun little game.”
Disgusting.
“Please stop!” Brother Columba gasped. “I’ll be forced to do penance for weeks, my envy grows so great!”
I rolled my eyes. The pilgrims moved closer to Brother Columba.
“The Virgin Mary blessed your wombs.” Smiling, he pressed his fingers to his chest. “If I were not a man . . . ”
“You are a man,” I said.
“I know, Brother. You forget. Man, Woman, in between, we are all God’s children and He sent His only son to labor on the cross as a mother labors in childbed. He spiritually nurses us pitiful humans with divine milk from His fertile bosom. Christ’s glorious side wound birthed the Church we all worship!”
His fanatic speech made the thing dig into my ribs. I crossed my arms over my stomach. Neither Christ nor Brother Columba will birth an abomination.
“Oh Brother, that is beautiful.” The taller pilgrim wiped her feminine tears as the smaller one nodded.
Brother Columba beamed. “I will make you both birthing girdles with the side wound so Christ Himself will protect you in the hour of your need,” he said.
The pilgrims squealed like happy pigs. I returned to cleaning the shrine. Brother Columba and the pilgrims clucked like hens as he drew Christ’s side wound—which looked much like my secret area that should not be there—on long pieces of parchment. The pilgrims gushed their many, many, many thanks.
“Did you receive your badges?” Brother Columba asked.
The pilgrims shook their heads.
“I carry some in my pouch.” Brother Columba held out his delicate hand.
From my place near Papula of Gaul’s shrine I saw the pewter badges. They were the ones he insisted were not bawdy, but were the side wound. The prior and abbot disagreed. The pilgrims giggled and begged a blessing. Brother Columba blessed the pilgrims and their babes. I left to vomit outside.
If I were a secular man, it would be much harder to hide.
For months I hid the changes. It was easy. Monastic life values modesty—thus privacy—in washing, dressing and sleeping. The loose black monk’s habit conceals every man’s figure up until the point of no return. I passed that point three months ago when the chamberlain, Brother Alstan, privately asked if perhaps I wanted a new habit.
Brother Alstan had always been suspicious of me. Chamberlain or not, his constant overseeing of our laundry and linens made me think he did not just want to collect the washing as he claimed. He wanted to find polluted braies, long feminine hairs clung to black wool, dirty knees, and who knew what else. Before the change, I accused Brother Alstan of perversions and suspicion in Chapter. The abbot found him innocent. I found a flogging.
“Why would I want that?”
“Brother, er, I mean this kindly. You’ve grown rather . . . stout.”
If I were still a layman, I’d have stabbed him. Glaring, I kept my peace.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of! Our life is comfortable. One year I grew out of three habits.”
“Do not lie to me.” I gestured to his waif-like body.
“I am not. When I lived on the continent, I grew sick. I almost needed surgery for my goiter. My health improved only when I returned to the seaside.” A pause. “Burnt seaweed does wonders for a man’s health.” Brother Alstan held out the new habit.
After several moments where I let him hold it out to no hand, I snatched it with a violence that sent demonic flashes before my eyes. Inhaling sharply, I brought my hands to my lips.
“Are you alright?” He almost touched my shoulder.
I flinched, grew ashamed, and growled. “Yes.”
“Are you sure? You have not been the same since the Northman—”
Turning on my heel in my leather shoes, I tried to leave. My balance, growing worse by the day, failed. He steadied me.
“Perhaps you should see the infirmarer?”
“NO!”
Brother Alstan recoiled.
“No,” I straightened my posture, inadvertently revealing myself more. He glanced. I crossed my arms in a pathetic attempt to hide my burden.
“Brother,” he whispered, “There’s no shame in melancholy. You went through something unimaginable. Men go mad after Northmen raids—”
I left him without another word.
New habits may not be uncommon. It is uncommon to go missing for three days and come back bruised, bleeding, and bitter. I told the alarmed brethren a devil of a Northman had great fun torturing me. Technically, not a lie, so not a sin, so confession was unneeded. The demon took the form of a Northman before eventually revealing Itself. Upon my celebrated return—no one was actually pleased I returned—the abbot permitted me to recuperate in the infirmary. For three days, I ate meat and slept and was bled upon the infirmarer’s pestering insistence. The bloodletting wound healed fast. Too fast. Yet no one suspected my body was no longer my body alone.
I considered . . . an herb. However, every time I . . . pondered it, dizziness overcame me until I was bedridden. I stopped considering it. Besides, who would I go to? Certainly not the infirmarer. The local wise woman may have . . . been a possibility . . . I would . . . never, but if even the thought brought on such extreme dizziness, who knew what would happen if I . . . attempted . . . to go to her? I would never. Besides, what could I . . . say? Wise women did not give such things to men. Theodore of Tarsus’s penitential . . . penitential . . . penance; one year if before forty days in womb . . . three years if after forty days . . . I would never take the herb. Never!
My body was not mine.
Today, during Chapter, another movement startled me. Months-long pressure in my torso shifted entirely to my pelvis, causing great discomfort. To my horror, my demonic burden shifted, too. I raised my hand, accidentally striking my neighbor’s head.
“Yes, Brother?” the abbot sighed.
“I am not feeling well. May I rest in my cell today?”
“Go.”
After two sad attempts to stand on my own, I accepted Brother Alstan’s assistance. Humility was a monastic virtue. That was humiliation. My overwhelming humiliation grew greater as I waddled out of the Chapter House. Before whatever that transition was, I controlled the waddling. My heart thudded. Sweat dripped down my back.
The moment I shut my cell door, I threw off my habit. I groped and groaned and gawked at my lowered swell. The room spun, and I sat down hard on my bed. Was this what the pilgrim meant by “lightening”?
A creak in the hall. Footsteps.
I scrambled to stand. I could not. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to display myself in such a manner before I locked the door. And now I trapped myself in only my linen braies, displaying the wrong, unrecognizable body to any brethren who wished to force themselves inside. Such immodesty went against all Christian teaching. I couldn’t even reach my blanket.
The footsteps passed by.
I sighed. My skin stretched as a limb of some sort tried to escape my abdomen. Brother Columba might have found joy in playing with the unborn. I did not find joy in this perversion. I pushed down on the limb. It punched my ribs and bladder in demonic defiance. Several months ago, I learned a harsh lesson about praying when it misbehaved. The only thing to do was wait.
If I were a true man again, I’d take control. I didn’t’t care how much Brother Columba argued that religious masculinity is masculine. Secular men mocked monks for a reason. I never should have allowed my lust to impede my reason. I should have accepted her rejection with dignity and grace. Several women expressed interest in me. But no, my devastation spurred me to flee all womanly love. It was a mistake to submit to the monastic embrace. I submitted like a woman and now I’ve become one.
God allows all evil to happen. He allows demons to torment good men and women to test them. I am righteous and holy enough. Why didn’t It corrupt Brother Columba? Why did God allow It to choose me?
The thing moved again.
I punched my abdomen.
Dizzy and nauseous, I punched again and again and again until my skin grew painful blue patches. It stopped moving. Satisfaction filled my body in a way it hadn’t in years.
Crimson stained my drawers. Blood poured out of the opening that should not have been there. I watched, relieved I finally killed it. Then, an intense pain, followed by dread, shot through me, as I realized my body not only held the thing’s soul—if it even had one—but mine as well. I could either sit here and bleed out with the thing or I could go to the infirmary, beg for help and mercy, and maybe live. All would know the truth, then. Perhaps a dignified death was preferable.
Blood soaked my straw pallet.
My trembling, blood-wet legs did not support my unbalanced body. Stuck, trapped, imprisoned in a disaster of my own making, I shook. Blood poured. Pain intensified. I screamed.
Footsteps.
Brother Alstan opened the door. His eyes widened.
“Help.”
He caught me as I collapsed into him. His arms—muscular and hard—wrapped around my soft swollen bleeding womanly body. He carried me like a disgraced bride to the infirmary, shouting for help all the way. The Horrified eyes that came to witness my spectacle hurt worse than the pain.
All went black.
***
Darkness consumed.
Fear.
Christ wrong?
Fear.
Nothingness after death?
No.
Candlelight.
Pain.
Whispers.
Warm blanket.
Fear.
Shame.
Bitter herbal tongue.
Stink.
Fear.
Pain.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
I was not dead.
I lay in the dark infirmary, covered with woolen blankets. My belly and slit ached. Futility in lifting my head. I found success in moving my eyes. The infirmarer organized herbs on my bedside table. Brother Alstan sat next to my bed, reading. In the flickering candlelight, I recognized the manuscript as the monastery’s only medical text. I ached. How could I not recognize it? The library contained only five books. God, the organ that should not have been there ached. The remaining brethren stood several beds away, whispering, whispering, whispering. Brother Columba cradled a bundle of stinking cloth. Why so much pain? The foul misama permeated the infirmary.
I choked on my vomit instead of swallowing it.
Brother Alstan turned me. The violent force, not unlike the demon’s, made me vomit all the more. The floor caught my sickness most gracefully. The infirmarer kept me on my side even after I emptied my stomach. Brother Alstan wiped my mouth with a warm cloth.
“Brother,” the abbot approached, “Sub rosa, sub rosa, sub rosa.”
“Ave Abba, morituri te salutant,” the infirmarer muttered.
The abbot left.
“Am I dying?”
“Not currently.” The infirmarer lifted a bowl. “If Alstan had not gone to deliver you a blanket, you most certainly would have.”
“He should have left me alone. I’d rather die than have a body like this.”
Brother Alstan turned away.
“You have not confessed yet, Brother. If you do not tread carefully, your immortal soul—the most important thing you own—will be damned like the child you birthed.”
“The most important thing I had was my body.”
“And you still have it.”
“What I have is an abomination.”
“What part of you is an abomination?”
“My aching sheath for one.”
“Brother. Do not forget you came from woman like Christ. The only man to be born not from woman was Adam. And, I suppose, your child, too.”
“I am no longer a man.”
“Ah well, forgive me then, Sister.”
If I had not been in such intense stabbing pain, I would have strangled him. He consulted the book. Brother Columba approached, still cradling the damned stinking thing. He smiled. If he were not simple, I’d say he mocked me.
“Brother, would you like to see your daughter?”
“No.”
“We are going to bury her soon.”
“I said what I said.”
Brother Columba gazed lovingly at the disgusting thing. “She looks like you.”
My body betrayed me before I could wrap my broad hands around his slender neck. Brother Alstan saved me from the stone floor.
“Brother!” the infirmarer shouted, “If you don’t rest, you might very well get your blasphemous wish. And you, Columba! Do not antagonize him.”
“I apologize. I did not mean to. If I were him, I would want to see my babe.”
“You are not me.”
“And thank God for that,” Brother Alstan muttered.
The infirmarer pulled back my modesty. I did not have the energy to save it.
“The medicine I gave you is working. Your hemorrhage slowed satisfactorily.”
“How long will I bleed?”
“Pray you bleed for long,” Brother Alstan said. “Once you stop, the abbot will imprison you. You’re lucky the Church does not hang monks.”
I swallowed bile. The infirmarer spread my legs, hand on my thigh, and ripped me open again. His rough hands slathered muck on my foul sex. His hands, his hands, his hands.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
God help me.
God help me.
God help me.
***
Pain and wretched stink. Brother Columba replaced the traitor and spy. He slept, slept, slept by my bedside. Idiot man. At least my sex ached slightly less. I didn’t dare touch to see how much changed. I dared touch my chest. Milk swelled and leaked.
A cough.
Glowing yellow eyes on my left. It did not grin like the first time. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Eyes lowered slowly.
A hand—claws—talons—pressed on my aching abdomen. I groaned. Agony! Wet metallic warmth flowed onto my sides and the demon lifted up what was my belly and offal and dropped it on my face. Screamed. Screamed. Scream . . . whimpered. Whimpered . . . whimper . . .
Columba? He . . . up . . . demon grin . . . grabbed . . . Columba habit . . . yellow eyes on . . . grin. Cold talon on forehead . . . clarity. God help me.
God help Columba!
As my life blood poured out of me, I watched the demon do to naked Brother Columba what It had done to me. His sex disappeared and transformed into disgusting flatness. I closed my eyes as It did the abomination. Drip, drip, drip. I dared to touch the agonizing hole my innards spilt out of. Finally, my roundness was gone, and a gap replaced it. Harder to concentrate. How long? How clarity . . . ?
Another forehead touch.
It opened a shutter. The rising dawn sun illuminated the blood-soaked infirmary. Columba basked in the light, naked as a babe newly born. He stared at his feminine form. His hand slowly touched the newly made entrance that should not be there. Shuddering breaths shook his slender frame as his hands traced up to his abdomen. They rested there. He stroked his new tiny breasts tenderly. Columba raised his head to the demon.
He grinned in religious ecstasy.