The Devoted (10 page)

“I want to marry you,” I say.

Now she’s not a cat. She’s gone whole. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” she says, and that effectively makes two of us.

I stand up. Pace. I sit back down. Change positions. My dick’s hard (then soft).

“We can marry one another. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

“Why are we ‘supposed to’?”

“‘Cause I’ve only made love to you. That’s when you get married.”

Would you fucking believe it? I was a virgin before her. Heather in high school went down on me a lot, but that was it. Those two chicks in college came close, but with one I had no condom, and with the other she seemed too drunk and I didn’t want to be charged with rape. In the house, there was lots of playfulness, but the fucking only started with Jolie. There was also my cousin Brian in the basement, handful of times, but those were just handjobs, and I was like eleven (twelve, stopped when I was fourteen).

“You do sound different. What’s happening, Matthew?”

And now I want to cry again. Thing is, though, my want is all I have. My ducts are shot from before. All I can do is press my heels against my forehead, as though I’m trying to squeeze out a droplet.

“Will you just marry me, okay?” My voice sounds like I’m crying. Eyes still don’t look it, though, I’m sure.

“You mean, when? Before tonight?”

Duh. Does she think I’m making high-precision afterlife bets?

“We can ask him to do it. Come on. Right now.”

‘Cause if I’m moving, I’m good. Walking down the hall, then talking to Him, then doing the ceremony, then lunch, or maybe both at the same time. Hours, hours, hours, minutes, minutes--

She’s gone part animal again. She likes it: a look in her eye. Overwhelmed about wedding the one she almost loves.

“How do you think he’ll react?” she asks.

Last Day –
12:16PM

He, too, is naked. That’s how Downtime goes. We tend to pair or group up at that point. For Him it was Beth and Cathleen at the same time. Both are coiled up on His bed. I look at the nightstand: my old-new friend.

Beth seems far away, somehow. Like she’s smoking a cigarette and looking out the window, even though she has no cigarette.

Edgar Pike’s Journal

August, 2009

Orgiastic behavior can make you feel crazy. Enormous adrenaline expended every day. You work yourself up then crash yourself low. Lots of vaginas. All of them disturbing, but I can’t get enough. I’m like the man who’s eating three sandwiches. On the second one, he gets depressed because soon the third will be gone and he’ll be done. The trick is to enjoy the second one!

Last Day –
12:17PM

The Leader is on His feet, and He’s LOUD:

“If you opened my body, there would be flowers inside of me!”

This: His reaction to being asked to officiate.

Jolie and I make eyes and laugh.

“I’m serious!” He roars. “They are going to find flowers pouring out of me!”

“Oh my God,” says Jolie, earnestness wired through her tight. “You’re such a poet.”

And briefly – half-a-second – I’d like to yell at her.

He turns away from us to pace and think for a moment, and I hope that it’s not odd of me to admire His ass’s bread-loaf lift.

“What will I say?” He asks, turning back toward us. “I’m afraid I’ll mess it up.”

Far be it from us to lend Him any advice.

“My talks,” He explains, “usually require days of preparation,” which is funny since I’ve seen Him throw more than a dozen together on the spot.

I float Him a smile and, knowing it unwise to counsel Him, decide to band-aid the matter over with: “Well, given the present circumstances, perhaps you’ll make an exception.”

Everybody in the room, Beth included, ignites with laughter.

From THE CULT LEADER’S MIND by Dr. Barry Blumenfeld (pg. 74):

Common to the personalities of most cult leaders is the outward appearance of magnanimity. Stated differently, this is behavior through which the leader can consistently demonstrate his or her generosity. The generosity is typically two-pronged: material and immaterial. Via the material prong, food, housing, and perhaps even monetary allowances are provided, which give the cult members the comfort of childhood yet the absence of authentic freedom. Via the immaterial prong, synthetic generosity of the personality is exhibited. The leader may hold him or herself up to a high standard in terms of being “open” about his or her true nature, creating something of a confessional environment, in which all the members, the leader included, are encouraged to share intimate details about their pasts, their thoughts, their dreams, and even their deepest secrets. While the leader gathers this information to use against the members, he or she pretends to also share deep information, while in fact submitting to nothing of the sort.

As an example, a leader may “confess” to often feeling guilty about not being able to help all the sick and starving people of the world, but this show of vulnerability is in fact false, leading as it does to a picture of the leader as a being of exceptional generosity and magnanimity.

Last Day –
1PM: LUNCH & THE WEDDING

From the looks of all that food, I kind of hope we can hurry through the “wedding” part. This time, He’s gone beyond the fruit. There’s bread and ham and sauces overflowing. Five hours to go, I suppose we can risk some metabolic sluggishness.

Jolie has donned a homemade headdress, its white cloth embedded with pink rose petals. Cathleen helped her make it while Beth smiled a certain way.

The Leader’s flesh is red as He stands before us. We’re all around the table, occupying our assigned seats. My heart’s all rat-a-tat-tat, ‘cause I know I’ll be called up there with Jolie in just a second.

“This is more than a lunch,” He says, “because we’re going to do something extraordinary.”

Jolie and I not only trade smiles, we trade electrical currents.

He says: “You know, when we all came here, I was filled with anger. I know that I don’t have a talent for sharing that side of myself, but I had a fire in my mind. Every institution that we all left behind made me angry. From the workforce to the military to the churches to the temples to the schools to the stores to the bars. All of it filled my blood with something harsh. But one institution escaped my wrath.”

The creak to my left is Jolie rocking subtly back and forth.

“It escaped my wrath because although it was never something that appealed to me personally, I truly never thought it to be so awful. In fact, if handled with consciousness, it can be quite whole. And on this day, I am delighted beyond belief to share that it appeals to two of our beloved. I am speaking, of course...”

We are putty; He is hands.

“Of marriage.”

All our hands, now: raising and slapping together repeatedly.

“And though I never saw a place for myself in marriage, our two young friends have informed me that there is indeed a place for me. Jolie and Matthew, can you please step up here and join me?”

When we do so, we walk not only across the room, but across a silence that could shame the bottom of the ocean.

Instinctively, when before Him, we join hands.

“Well what do we have here?” The Leader yelps. “You two are naturals! I was just going to ask you to do that!”

Beaming. Faces. Each. And. Every. One. Of. Us.

“Now please look deep into each other’s eyes, and thus into each other’s souls.”

His wish = our command.

“Let it be known, in this life and the next, that Matthew and Jolie have found true love with one another. That in their bravery, they have discarded all things truthless.”

“Truthless?” It’s me talking. Can’t help myself.

“Yes,” He says.

“Is that a word?” I ask. (More importantly, is that a smirk I’m wearing?)

Laughter, fearful, from the audience. His hand drops on my shoulder like it’s His body part instead of mine.

He whispers yet He’s loud and clear: “I didn’t have time to get my dictionary!”

The whole group chuckles, myself and Him included.

“They have abandoned,” He resumes, “all
things without truth
. They have abandoned all material trappings. They have released the poison of money, of calendars, of corruptible institutions from their lives. And in abandoning these things, they have come to find one another. And so we are gathered here today to unite these two lovers -- these two beautiful, bright souls -- Jolie and Matthew, in the holy, blessed, rapturous union of marriage--”

Last Day –
1:51PM

I didn’t go on a honeymoon. I went to the shed.

Surely He’s about to kill me. Maybe drop my head in Jolie’s lap after, then stand there stoic as the whole group screams.

“This Is What You Get When You Defy Me!” would be His words.

Fuck, I know He hated Jed afterwards. He and I stayed up on more than one night discussing how satisfying it would be – primitive or otherwise – to punch Jed until his skull imploded.

All these tools hanging from the wall. The crowded darkness by way of the lone bulb hanging. Perfect place to die. And I think I’m ready. Moreover, in fact, I’m ready to fight. Come on, let’s have it: right here/right now.

Would they all still kill themselves if we never came back inside?

“Okay,” He says, “I figured it out.”

Deflated: me. He’s gone back to the topic of the order. And here I stand all itchy-blooded and panther-like.

“I don’t know what my problem was,” He says. “I must be distracted. Always remember this: If you’re thinking real hard about something, it’s not necessarily a good substitute for just letting it come to you.”

“When am I supposed to remember that?” I ask.

“What’s that?”

“‘Always,’ you said.” And here He goes all looking into me again.

“If you think your consciousness will end tonight, you’re mistaken.”

“Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve ever been conscious,” I feel like muttering, but that wasn’t muttering; it was the real thing.

“As do I,” He grants me, a way of setting us equal.

He steps over to me, puts that Hand-the-size-of-God upon my shoulder.

“We’ve always related in that regard. A pair of curious cats.”

“What’s your idea for the order?” I ask (curious panther).

He steps away a bit before He resumes speaking.

“Not only is it simple, but it’s consistent with Theodore going third to last. We go in reverse order of our arrival to the group.”

I cross my arms. Arms, meet beating heart.

“You see what I’m saying?” He asks me.

“Let me think for a second.”

“No thinking.” (Naturally.) “It’s perfect. Just, think about it: I was first, so I go last. You came second, Theodore third. Then Michael, then the women started: Beth, Cathleen, and Susan. Later was Paul--”

My finger’s wagging. “Paul came before Susan.”

He goes pensive for a moment, then returns to the outside world. “No, he didn’t. He did not. I remember it clearly: three women in a row.”

“There wasn’t three women, there was four. Allison left.”

(Nearly slammed that door off its hinges.)

“Please don’t say that name in front of me.”

From a C-ABC interview with Allison Roth (11/6/11):

AR: This is a very powerful individual. If most of us hadn’t left, he could have taken it to new heights. He could have convinced us that we were on Jupiter instead of Earth, and we would have believed him.

C-ABC: How was he able to be so persuasive?

AR: He controlled us. He controlled every aspect of our lives. Where we slept. What time we woke up and went to bed. Most of the information we consumed. And meditation was very important. We meditated all day long.

C-ABC: Would you say to our viewers that meditation is dangerous?

(Pause.)

AR: If used in the...context of a normal life, then no. Probably no. But within our context it was a tool to silence the mind. Keep the mind very silent. Like a cloud. So you can’t pay attention to detail. And the more you do it, it’s like a muscle...it keeps on building in that direction.

C-ABC: And regarding the sexual aspects of your relationship with Mr. Pike...was it ever voluntary?

AR: Oh, yes. Of course. Very much so. I initially thought him to be extremely special in that regard. I was very comfortable. We all were.

C-ABC: “We all” meaning all the members?

AR: The women. Most of us. He was not bisexual, as far as I know.

C-ABC: And the charges you’ve pressed paint the picture of a man who crossed the line...