Are those sounds of pain or pleasure? she wonders. Or are they voices at all? Maybe someone’s playing some kind of instrument, one of those weird things that they play in India, and it just sounds like voices.
Now that she’s reached the base of the stairs, Jillian can see that one of the double doors has been left open about an inch. A thin stream of smoky light spills out of the meeting room, illuminating the foyer with indistinct, flickering shadows.
She shivers. Am I in a draft? she wonders. Or am I starting to get freaked out? Those shadows do seem to be kind of threatening, in a vague kind of way. And the chanting does sound kind of sinister now that I’m getting closer. Especially those little noises.
A dream image leaps into her mind, and she remembers the devil worshipers dancing around the fire, preparing for a blood sacrifice, their faces painted grotesquely, their bodies misshapen, their intentions darkly malevolent…
What the hell, she thinks, why don’t I just forget about it, slink back up the stairs, try to go back to sleep? They can’t keep this up much longer, can they?
And she turns around, and she walks over to the stairs, and she actually has a foot on the first step…
Wait a minute, she thinks, what the hell am I afraid of? Am I really going to let this – what did Sunshine’s dad call him – this “dime-store guru” spook me?
She spins on her heel and walks right back across the foyer. Ever so quietly, she tiptoes over to the double doors that lead to the meeting room. She carefully positions herself so that the light that emanates from the room is not shining on her. She’ll be able to see into the room, but to anyone looking out she’ll be shrouded in darkness, invisible.
And she looks in.
Flesh. Naked bodies. Intertwined and interlocked. An undulating mass, like a single living organism, slowly writhing in time with the cadence of the all-pervasive chant, now horribly loud, it fills her head with suffocating pressure just as the grotesque display fills her widening eyes…
With an enormous effort of will, she wrenches herself away and staggers back into the darkness.
Oh my God, oh my God, I don’t believe it, this isn’t happening, this can’t be happening, please don’t let this be happening, oh my God, I can’t believe what I just saw, I must still be dreaming, I couldn’t have seen what I thought I saw, this can’t be happening, it just can’t be…
Whoa, calm down, girl, take a deep breath, let it out slow. That’s it. Another one. Good. One more.
“Uhhh,” she groans, exhaling sharply, as if she’s been hit punched in the stomach. “Holy shit,” she whispers, then she clamps a hand over her mouth, as if to prevent an unintentional exclamation from revealing her presence.
Her legs feel weak. She sits shakily down on the floor, right where she’s standing. She leans forward, her face in her hands. Then she sits up straight and shakes her head sharply.
Ceremony, my ass.
I need to get the fuck out of here, she thinks, surprised by how calm she suddenly feels. I’ll just turn my ass around and go back up the stairs, and I’ll pull the fucking covers over my head, and in the morning everything will be alright. It’ll be like a bad dream, like it never really happened, never happened at all…
And she really means to do that, to stand up and turn around and walk back up the stairs. She really does.
But somehow she finds herself leaning forward onto her hands, and then she’s up on her hands and knees, and then she’s crawling, softly, slowly, but she’s not crawling back toward the staircase that winds up the stairs to safety, she’s crawling forward, toward the double doors, toward the thin stream of light that oozes out of the crack between them.
I shouldn’t be doing this, she thinks.
But I have to be sure.
Of what? I’ve seen enough.
But I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I have to be sure.
Why should I want to ever see anything like this? I should turn around right now.
But what am I afraid of?
Fear has nothing to do with it. Common sense says to turn back, now.
But I have to see, just for a minute.
I’ll be sorry if I don’t turn around right now, right now, right this very instant, before it’s too late…
But then she’s there, peering into the room, hidden in the darkness.
And now it’s too late to turn back.
Perhaps her earlier glimpse had prepared her. Or perhaps, lower to the ground, she’s at a better viewing angle. But for whatever reason, the shapes, which had appeared to her as a blurred tangle of humanity just moments earlier, now take on forms that are only too distinct.
Off to the left, her back to the door, a slender, long-haired woman crouches on her knees, rhythmically raising and lowering herself, languidly impaling herself on her supine partner’s tumescent shaft, then gracefully withdrawing. Beyond them, a large man sits, cross-legged, his hands resting on a woman’s head that lies buried in his lap, moving slowly up and down…
Oh my God, she thinks, that’s Sunshine’s father. And that’s definitely not Sunshine’s mother. And he’s chanting, even while that woman is… doing that to him, he’s still chanting that horrible noise. And she’s moving her head in time with the sound. And that other couple, they’re moving the same way, too. Everybody’s moving along with the chant, like it’s some kind of obscene dance…
She feels like she’s in a fog, a thick haze that allows her to see everything but somehow prevents her from reacting. I shouldn’t be watching this, a voice says in the back of her head, but it’s a very small voice, and it’s easily ignored. This is disgusting, the voice says, you should be outraged, you should turn away. But a stronger voice says: You can’t turn away, you are watching, you must watch, you can’t help yourself, your curiosity is much too strong…
Such a jumble of bodies, she thinks, I can’t even tell who’s doing what to whom. Over there, across the room, isn’t that, like, four, maybe five people? I can’t even see what they’re doing, it’s like the whole pile is breathing, rhythmically, like it’s some kind of monster with four heads, and dozens of arms, and hundreds of legs, and… and over there, kneeling, her crotch rubbing into that guy’s face, oh God, that’s Sunshine’s mother, she’s so big she must be crushing the poor guy, how can he… oh, Jesus, that’s not even a guy she’s sitting on, that’s a girl that’s doing that to her, oh, that’s so disgusting, that’s so incredibly sick… and over there, that’s a guy sucking on that other guy’s dick… oh, shit, I think I’m gonna puke…
She puts her hand to her mouth and gags, silently. But still, some perverse fascination holds her riveted to the spot.
And then, Jillian sees her. Up on the raised platform that had earlier supported Nathan’s “throne,” Sunshine kneels on her hands and knees, her face toward Jillian, her eyes glazed, her mouth forming the words of the chant – always the chant, everywhere the chant – her breasts swaying with the force of the thrusts of the man kneeling behind her…
Oh my God, Jillian realizes, it’s Nathan. Holy shit, he’s looking right at me, but he can’t see me, can he? His eyes don’t seem to be focused on me – or on anything else for that matter, he’s so intent on sticking it to her, that son of a bitch…
And Nathan is chanting too, his mouth languidly forming the regular syllables in time with the motions of his hips. But then for just one moment, he stops chanting, he stops moving, he closes his eyes, and an unmistakable ripple of pleasure crosses his face.
Oh my God, Jillian thinks with a shudder. He just came. I just watched him come.
I am going to be sick.
And then Nathan opens his eyes, and he’s looking right at her, and his eyes are no longer foggy, they’re bright and they’re piercing and they’re penetrating…
Oh no, he does see me. He’s staring right at me, and he’s grinning, and… and he saw me all along, he was perfectly positioned with Sunshine just so I could see them, like it was all staged for me, e
verything, the chanting to wake me up and draw me downstairs, the door carefully cracked so I could see in… oh, God, it’s so cold all of a sudden, and I’m so clammy, and I am going to sick, this time I really am, I have to get out of here…
With an incredible effort, she wrenches her gaze away from Nathan’s, stands up, turns and runs for the front door. It’s locked, she knows, with dread certainty, as she reaches for the knob. They’ve got it locked and bolted, all the doors, all the windows, I can’t escape, I’m trapped, and now they’re going to come after me, they want me to participate in their sick games, or maybe they do need a blood sacrifice after all…
But the knob turns easily in her hand. She yanks the door open, steps out onto the porch, and leans over the railing. She gags noisily once or twice, and then the cool, clean night air bathes her, and the queasiness begins to subside. The heavy front door swings slowly closed, finally blocking out the sound of the dreadful chant.
No wonder I felt sick, she thought. That incense in there was thick enough to choke a horse. And that goddamn chant… I gotta sit down for a minute, my legs are so shaky…
Walking gingerly over to the front of the porch, she steps down the wooden stairs and looks out into the night. A brilliant array of stars covers the New England sky like a twinkling canopy. Save for the chirping of an occasional cricket, the night is blissfully silent.
Halfway down the stairs, she sinks wearily down on a step and covers her face with her hands. “Jesus Christ,” she mutters. I don’t believe what I just saw. A fucking orgy, that’s what it was. I was watching a fucking orgy. What a fucking nightmare – only worse than a nightmare, because it really happened. And holy shit, it really freaked me out for a minute there, I really thought that they had locked me in, that they were out to get me. She shudders, rubs her upper arms to dispel the chill.
And why shouldn’t I have been freaked out? Her fright subsides as her anger and indignation rise. Why did they invite me to spend the night here? I sure as hell hope that they didn’t expect me to join in their disgusting little games. The fucking perverts. Claiming to be some kind of “religion” when they’re nothing more than a bunch of sex maniacs. And Nathan – he’s probably the biggest deviant of them all, the scumbag.
Spiritual leader, my ass.
Suddenly energized, she jumps to her feet with new resolve. “Well,” she announces to the night, “I sure as shit ain’t gonna stay in this fucking place. I’m getting the hell out of here.” And she strides purposefully down the gravel path that leads through the expansive front lawn to the road, through the gate in the white picket fence, past the row of tall bushes, not pausing until she reaches the two-lane blacktop…
Where she stops and throws her arms in the air in frustration.
“Aw, shit,” she says, loudly. “Where the fuck do I think I’m going? I don’t have any place to go!” What the hell am I going to do? I can’t go wandering off down these goddamn country roads in the middle of the night. I could be miles from anywhere, for all I know. There’s not even any cell service out here, so I can’t even call an Uber, I’d have to walk. Or run.
And Sunshine was raped running down one of these roads, wasn’t she?
And so she turns and walks back to the house, not nearly as purposefully as she had fled it. I’m not going back in there, she thinks, as she sinks back down onto the stairs. Not with those goddamn perverts in there, I’m not. I’ll think of something, she tells herself, as she leans against the banister. I’ll think of something.
And an hour later, she’s still sitting on the wooden step, leaning against the railing, sound asleep, and that’s where Sunshine finds her.
4.2.3: Sturdivant
“Jill! Jill, wake up!”
“I’m awake,” Jillian lies, as her head jerks up. “I’m… oh, Jesus, it’s you.”
“I didn’t know where you were,” Sunshine says. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Oh, really? I suppose I should be honored that you could tear yourself away from your ‘ceremony’ long enough to even think about me.”
Sunshine is clearly confused. “I went to your room to look in on you after the ceremony, and you weren’t there. I didn’t know…”
“Looking in on me? Why?” Jillian demands.
“I… I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.” Sunshine looks pained. “Jill, is something wrong?”
“Is something wrong?” Jillian mimics. “No, why the fuck should something be wrong? Everything’s just great isn’t it? I don’t see how anything could possibly be any fucking better.”
“Jill,” Sunshine pleads, distraught. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”
“You know goddamn well what’s wrong, you… you fucking whore. You’re what’s wrong. Nathan’s what’s wrong. This whole goddamn place is what’s wrong. And if you lay a goddamn hand on me,” she adds, as Sunshine reaches out to touch her shoulder, “I’ll rip it off, so help me God I will.”
“Jill, please.” Sunshine’s hand flies to her mouth in horror. Her eyes, already large in the dim light, grow wider. “Oh, Jill, please tell me what’s wrong. I can’t bear to see you so upset. Was it something I did? Please tell me.”
“I saw your goddamn ‘ceremony’ Sunshine,” Jillian snaps.
“You saw…”
“Next time you have one of your little orgies, maybe you ought to close the goddamn door so nobody can see what you perverts are up to.”
“We’re not ashamed of what we do, Jill,” Sunshine says quietly, after a pause. “I’m sorry you’re upset, but there’s a lot that you don’t understand. You shouldn’t…”
“I know what I saw.”
“If you’ll just give me a chance to explain…”
“I’m not interested in your explanations, Sunshine. I’m not stupid. I know what I saw.”
“But you don’t…”
“There were, like, fifty people in that room,” Jillian says, almost shouting. “And they were all… all doing all kinds of disgusting things to each other. How do you explain that? What was the religious significance of that event?”
“Jill, you’re upset.”
“No shit.”
“You don’t really think that making love is disgusting, do you?”
Jillian snorts. “I don’t have any problem with it one-on-one. In private. Not spread out all over the goddamn floor, chanting like a bunch of… of cannibals or something. And where do you get off calling it a ‘ceremony’? Why don’t you at least admit that it’s an orgy? Who do you think you’re fooling?”
“But it is a ceremony, Jill.” Sunshine takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly. “I don’t expect you to understand, but won’t you at least let me try to explain?”
Jesus, Jillian thinks, why am I listening to this idiot?
The whine of an approaching car intrudes into the stillness of the night. The road is perhaps a quarter mile from the porch; the gravel path that winds through the fence and the protective row of bushes allows only a narrow glimpse of the road. It’s so loud, Jillian thinks, watching through the bushes for the vehicle to pass, it must be a truck. But it actually turns out to be two vehicles, approaching in opposite directions. They pass each other directly in front of the house, twin blurs of light whizzing past the end of the path.
“I’m listening,” Jillian says. “Although I can’t imagine why.”
“Nathan teaches…”
“Nathan,” Jillian sneers.
Sunshine pauses, then continues. “Nathan teaches that many people use sex as a tool to dominate other people. They use their sexuality to manipulate other people, to get what they want from them. Or they treat other people as sex objects, as if other people existed only to satisfy their own desires, like their sexual partners aren’t really people at all, just… just toys, or something. Playthings. But Nathan also teaches us that it doesn’t have to be that way. He has taught us many forms of meditation, and…”
“Wait a minute, let me guess,” Jillian int
errupts, sarcastically. “Nathan says that group sex is a form of meditation, right?”
Sunshine hesitates. “It sounds so… so bad the way you’re saying it, Jill. You have so much anger. But, basically, yes, Nathan teaches that if you know the proper techniques of controlling your breath, and your thoughts, and your energies, then yes, sexual experiences can be a powerful form of meditation. But you must have the proper teacher, someone who can show you how to eliminate the negative vibrations and lead your sexual energy into harmonious channels. If you don’t…”
“And I’ll bet that Nathan, conveniently enough, is that person.”
“Nathan has taught us many things, Jill.”
“So I’ve seen.”
“No, Jill.” Sunshine shakes her head. “You’re so angry that you can’t see anything at all.”
“Jesus, if anything, I think I’ve seen too much.” Jillian snorts derisively. “I saw you and Nathan getting it on.”
“Then you should have seen a beautiful experience. If you didn’t, it was only because you’re using your own experiences and prejudices to evaluate what you saw. If you didn’t see the universal forces…”
“Oh, Sunshine, spare me the cosmic bullshit, will you? Did you know that I saw some chick eating your mother? Your mother, for God’s sake. And I even saw one guy sucking off another guy. I suppose that was a ‘beautiful experience’ too?”
“Nathan teaches that you should share your sexuality with all other enlightened human beings, Jill. There’s no reason that gender should make any difference.”
“Is that why you were looking for me after the ceremony?”
Sunshine looks confused. “What do you mean?”
“You know damn well what I mean. You said that you came to my room after the ceremony. What for? So you could hop into bed with me? What’s the matter, wasn’t Nathan enough for you? Or are you just such a slut that you can’t stop until you’ve had sex with everybody in the house?”
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