Good Sex, Great Prayers

by Brandon Tietz

  The pastor could counter, of course. He could throw out numbers regarding the Holocaust and World War II and all those desert skirmishes in the Middle East for the sake of pride and oil, but it wouldn’t matter. Religion maintains the number one spot for why one man kills another. With so much blood soaking the ground on both sides, the word ‘victory’ becomes open to interpretation.

  “Treat faith like a competition and there’s going to be casualties,” Madeline says. “All of us seemed to comprehend this. In our little community outside of Bend, we knew bad things happened if you drew outside the lines. It’s why learning to hide in plain sight was so important.”

  “I take it he didn’t feel that way,” the pastor ventures. “Pollux.”

  “We followed the rules for a good while,” she says. “I was seven; he was nine. He and I would learn the Craft together…and then a bit more.” Madeline pauses, but only briefly. “It was easy with him. He was motivated. Ambitious, and that sort of generalized over to me,” she says, a smile emerging. “Cute too. Very good-looking. For me it was like going to summer camp and having the most handsome guy in the place take you under their wing. He practically walked me through my first cast. Nothing big, mind you.” Madeline downplays it, but there’s obviously a sentiment of meaning there. The pastor can tell. “I wasn’t a natural at it like he was, but being with him felt right. So we spent much of our time together: learning about ingredients—both the tangible and intangible, how to communicate with the earth, with each other. We studied and read about the deity of the Feri. In our community, this was more or less the standard for children until they came of age: learning the basics.”

  Like Madeline, Father Johnstone was shown the ways of higher powers: the creation of the earth, miracles, stories of sacrifice. The difference, he realizes, is that the concept was always predicated on faith. Always faith, never proof.

  “My education went on like that for a few years: absorbing all that I could about the Feri and its traditions and rituals,” Madeline says. “Our faith was different in that it was more integrated into daily life. We didn’t learn math and English to become accountants or teachers; we learned it to be able to practice Craft. There was no school or day jobs or anything like that,” she explains. “Just our little unit secluded out in the woods, learning and sharing. Thirty-six people in all, each with a task that they did for the community.”

  A living situation that was more prevalent in older cultures, the pastor recalls. One person to chop wood, one person to hunt, another to strip and prepare game. Each individual had exactly one task they did at a high level of proficiency, and thusly, shared that gift with the rest of their village or tribe.

  “That’s how I learned to bake,” Madeline says. “My mother and I would spend hours cooking loaves of oat bread or dinner rolls. Sometimes we’d make a couple of pies. Pollux would usually stop by on those days wanting a piece,” she recalls, smiling. “His specialty was field dressing. He tagged along with the hunters, and if they killed a deer or an elk, he was the guy that harvested the meat, hide, and everything else. And anything we weren’t eating or using to keep warm, we were using for Craft.”

  Antlers were ground to a fine powder. Intestines were used for spell casings. Hearts always got planted in the earth, an homage to the goddess for blessing their people. These standards and practices of the Feri could all be found in the repository maintained by Josephine Paige.

  “Growing up in the forest was nice. Everyone knew everyone. It was a family-friendly environment,” she says. “I guess you could say it was a little bit like Pratt, but without all the gossip and smalltown bullshit.”

  “No pillars?” the pastor asks.

  “Well, that’s kind of where the problem began. No one was in charge. There was no established leader,” Madeline says. “The Feri tradition was transcribed and taught to a core group of followers in the 1940s, but there was nothing to the effect of a priest or pope or anything like that.”

  Father Johnstone can see the problem already. A flock without a shepherd, regardless of their beliefs, will eventually self- destruct. They’ll lose their way as a group or begin to turn on each other.

  “That system worked fine for a while,” Madeline says. “But when we came of age, things got complicated.”

  “What do you mean by that? ‘Came of age’?” he asks.

  “Each denomination of Craft has different beliefs and practices. Different gods. Different specialties and different ways of casting,” she says. “Voodoo, which was created in 18th -century France, employed the usage of dolls as a method of cursing. Asian witches had a penchant for animal kinship, utilizing foxes and snakes as familiars. Our coven, the Feri, concentrated on the sensual experience.”

  ‘The sensual experience’ meaning: eroticism. It means experi- menting with the body for the sake of itself, usually under the guise of some spiritual connection. A pagan granola-nut pansexual orgy where fidelity means nothing, nor the bonds of marriage. Empty, meaningless fornication.

  “So sex, then?” the pastor confirms, already dismissing the idea. A large part of him doesn’t even want to listen to her response.

  Madeline senses this, but presses on, saying, “The human orgasm is subjective, but often equated with nirvana, a state of zen or pure bliss. It is a non-thinking euphoric clarity, the absolute, and to be able to achieve it indicated a transition into adulthood, according to our scriptures.”

  “All due respect, it’s a bit radical for my tastes,” the pastor says.

  Madeline smiles, though, giving Mary a little scratch behind the ear. She’s patient with him, almost as if she knew the conversation would take this turn. “Is it really any more ridiculous than deeming a thirteen-year-old boy a man at a Bar Mitzvah?” she asks. “Or a Quinceañera? Or an Aboriginal walkabout?”

  “It’s celebrating lust, Mad.”

  “Difference of customs, Johnstone. People may think eating a Jesus cracker with some Christ juice is totally normal, but I find it rather silly.” She throws a look at the pastor in the vein of a warning, telling him: ‘we could argue about this all day.’

  “Then I guess we disagree here,” he concedes.

  “And it probably won’t be the last time that happens,” Madeline says, although not in a combative way. “Look, I don’t need you to endorse it, but if you want to understand, I need you to at least see my perspective on things.”

  Part of the problem is what Madeline’s saying, of course. ‘The sensual experience,’ as he puts it. He doesn’t agree with it. Refuses to. Over three decades of preaching against that sort of behavior has made him a steely advocate for fidelity and chaste behavior, and it appears that Madeline understands this much. At the very least, she can empathize with the difficulty that he’s having with this particular subject matter. It’s too crude, too obscene. It explains much of what he saw in his dreams when Pollux was inside his head. What Father Johnstone is having an issue with is deciding: were those thoughts put there? Or were they cultivated from an already existing impurity? Both avenues frighten him in their own right.

  “Much in the way he showed me the basics of Craft and walked me through the various histories, Pollux escorted me through the coming-of-age process,” Madeline says. She pauses a moment, considering her phrasing for what she’s about to say. “You have to understand that this is what we grew up in. It was normal for us,” she explains. “Sensuality wasn’t about frivolity. It was a blessing, an homage to the higher powers.”

  There’s no argument from Father Johnstone’s side of the living room this time, only a slight shake of the head. He remains quiet, despite himself.

  “The human orgasm, like cane sugar or bee nectar or tree bark, is also an ingredient,” Madeline says. “And Pollux was especially keen on experimenting with it. Your curse, for instance…” she trails off.

  She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. In fact, the pastor takes it as a sign of respect that Madeline spared him ‘the gory details,’ as it were.
The science behind the formula eludes him still, but he assumes it functions the way that prayer does. Specific wording with specific intent. Sometimes a regular element is ordained with higher properties, such as the water used at a baptism or the cinder crosses bestowed to the flock on Ash Wednesday.

  The priest will say: “Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return,” at which point, the clergyman bestows the symbol of the Lord upon the faithful.

  It is within the power of any man of the cloth to ordain normal materials with Divine purpose. Wine and water, although commonplace, become the blood of the Savior when blessed. Perhaps, the pastor thinks, that ability exists within other branches of faith.

  “In our teenage years, our education expanded well beyond most of the individuals in our community,” Madeline says. “We could do things they couldn’t, and Pollux resented them for that…as if they were holding him back. ‘Weak and unskilled,’ he called them. He changed when his ability began to catch up with his potential. His thoughts on the matter were that the most powerful should lead, and because I loved and adored him, I didn’t disagree with the idea.”

  Madeline admits this to the pastor, her tone noticeably dropping. He’s seen this before, usually with members of the flock who are confessing their mistakes, their crimes. It’s guilt, not necessarily from something Madeline did, but her failure to act.

  “So one day Pollux tells the hunters that he won’t be going with them…says it’s a waste of his time, and he’s not exactly polite about it,” she explains. “You can probably guess that this didn’t go over well. There were a lot of whispers about respect and one’s obligation to the community. He and I both knew what everybody was saying, but he didn’t seem to mind. He spent the day harvesting ingredients and poring over some books. We made love that afternoon…several times, actually, and he collected the sweat from my neck afterwards. ‘Part of a surprise’ he hinted, and I was too damn smitten to think anything bad would happen.

  “The hunters came back that evening empty-handed,” Madeline says. “They had been coming back empty-handed a lot, only now Pollux was calling them on it. He sort of rubbed it in their faces with his little ‘I told you so’ moment…gave them shit. That was the first time in a while people witnessed anything remotely resembling an argument. It just never happened,” she says. “Our whole ‘us against the world’ mentality kept us civil towards each other, right up until that point. That’s when he stated that the group needed a leader…that it had needed one for some years because the system was flawed. In front of everyone, Pollux said he would prove that he was the person to fill that role.

  “The next morning, there were eighteen deer in our camp. All dead,” Madeline says. “No wounds. Not a scratch on them. You would have thought they were sleeping if it weren’t for their bodies being cold.” She shakes her head remembering this, frowning. “Eighteen deer, all of them keeled over at the most central spot of our little village. Nobody heard or saw a thing, but they didn’t really need to. They knew,” she says. “They knew who did it and what it meant.”

  “Pollux,” the pastor says.

  “He came out that morning and took credit for what he had done, saying that this was merely one way in which he could provide. All he needed was their allegiance,” Madeline explains. “He would make sure the Feri were protected and accommodated, but they had to accept him as Consort to the Goddess.”

  Father Johnstone stops Madeline at this point, asking, “Consort to the Goddess?”

  “To put it in your terms, it’d be like you announcing to Pratt that you’re the Second Coming,” she says. “So as you can imagine, his decree wasn’t exactly well-received.”

  From the Book of Matthew, the pastor would recite during his sermons: ‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.’

  He’d warn the flock of those who claim to have been touched by the Divine or perform miracles. Odd, the pastor thinks, that he himself is guilty of this. To share that similarity with Pollux unnerves him.

  “We have a rule when it comes to killing animals: you don’t use Craft,” Madeline says. “And you definitely don’t do it out of malice or to prove a point like Pollux did. It is intangibly negative.”

  “Intangibly negative, meaning: doing something with the wrong intentions, yes?” the pastor confirms.

  “Correct. When you kill or cut down a tree or cast, you’re entering into an unwritten contract of sorts,” Madeline explains. “The intent ultimately defines the relationship, like when a woman marries for money over love.”

  Vows are said, rings are exchanged, but when marital bond is made under the premise of greed, it is a tarnished matrimony. This too, is a method of living in sin. It is no better than adultery or having a child out of wedlock. Motive defines action.

  “The Feri would not follow,” Madeline says. “Pollux had broken a cardinal rule, and he had done so out of rancor. ‘A grudge-killing,’ people were calling it. He introduced violence into their sheltered lifestyle of sensual experience, and they were upset about it. He was asked to leave, and I was forced to go with him.”

  “Forced how?” the pastor asks.

  “What nobody recognized right away was that all eighteen of the deer were male,” Madeline says. “So whatever he buried in the ground was both highly toxic but also extremely alluring. So alluring that they could smell it over great distances.”

  “Pheromones,” the pastor puts it together.

  Madeline nods gravely. “He told me he cut some of mine into the mix to lure them to the camp, and that made me partly responsible.”

  “But you didn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she shakes her head. “When you grow up in a culture where you’re taught that everything is an ingredient, you’re accountable for the ones you give away.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” the pastor says.

  “If you come to me with a gun and I supply you with a bullet—according to our beliefs—that makes me partly to blame for whomever you shoot,” she says. “Those eighteen deer…some of that blood was on my hands. So I said goodbye to my parents and everyone else. I was sad, of course. It killed me to see my mom cry, but I think it would have been worse if I had stayed behind,” Madeline says. “Despite how everything played out with the community, I still loved him very much.”

  “How?” the pastor asks.

  “I wrote it off to his ambition getting the best of him, and he kept reassuring me that the community had been holding us back,” she says. “I was seventeen and impressionable, so I ate every line he fed me. I played right into his ‘let’s see what’s out there’ bullshit, and what we found was temptation and excess and this newfound liberty of escaping a sheltered life,” she says. “We weren’t stepping out totally blind, but years of scare tactics had made us wary of people. Our ‘hiding in plain sight’ training kicked in, so we stayed low for a while and refrained from openly using Craft. During the day we’d walk around the city and observe. At night, we’d sleep in the park. He and I would huddle together under a blanket, dirty and cold and famished from moving around all day on little food. Our outward appearance got to be so bad that most people thought we were homeless. It got to the point where we couldn’t go into the library and grocery stores without getting shooed away. Everyone we passed in the streets just sneered at us. This is when Pollux said to me, ‘We need to do a better job at blending in,’ and I knew he wasn’t talking about getting jobs and joining society. His ambitions were far too great for that. It’s what led him to betray the Feri in the first place.

  “Escorting me through the city the next morning, Pollux told me that we needed money,” Madeline says. “He pointed at a coffee shop, a bank, the dry cleaners. He pointed at all these different businesses and explained to me that every person that worked there had a specific skill or product they exchanged for monetary compensation. They would then take that compensation and apply it back to the system.
‘Currently, we’re outside of the cycle,’ he said. This is when Pollux decided it was time to apply my skills. Now what do you think he meant by that, Johnstone?”

  There are two by the pastor’s count: baking and Craft, but only the former would be deemed by modern society as useful. Madeline has never made a cookie, cake, or pie that was anything short of pure bliss. Any grocery store or bakery would be lucky to have her. His gut, however, is telling him this isn’t how the story plays out.

  “Sex,” Madeline answers her own question. “Pollux took me to a strange building with blacked-out windows and told me what happened inside. ‘The men go in and buy sex,’ he said. ‘Never women, always men.’ It was your run-of-the-mill pornography store. So take one guess at what he was thinking.”

  “He turned you into a prostitute?” the pastor asks.

  “I didn’t think of it that way. Not really,” Madeline says. “Like he said, I had a skill, and men would pay for that skill to be used upon them.”

  “What about breach of commitment? Infidelity?”

  “The Feri don’t subscribe to that. Monogamy conflicts with the sensual experience, and disagrees with human nature,” Madeline says. “Marriage is an archaic system. As I’m sure you know, not every member of your flock is what you’d call ‘faithful.’”

  She’s correct, of course. The pastor has often dealt with couples who’ve struggled with their marital commitments. That doesn’t make it right, though. A vow, regardless of the degree of difficulty it poses, is still a vow. They’re not meant to be taken lightly.

  “So Pollux and I stood outside the shop for a while, observing,” Madeline continues her story. “All men, like he said. Some married; some not. They’d go in, and then a short time later they’d emerge with a purple plastic bag…sometimes with magazines, sometimes with a video or two,” she says. “We only had a vague idea of what a sex movie really was due to our upbringing, but it was easy enough to piece together. We could feel the consistency in them…that certain want.”