Heaven's Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult (27 page)

If she hadn’t been sleeping with strangers while here in the Family, she would be doing it out in the world and might end up with a terrible disease. Or a broken heart. At least here, she was protected by God’s Spirit.

Breeze began a long and prosperous relationship with Adnan that lasted for years. Every time she met with him for a few hours, she returned with wonderful testimonies of his spiritual growth, and an envelope stuffed with thousands of dollars. With both Adnan and Salim as regular fish, we would never have had financial worries again, had it not been for Timothy’s economic plan.

Timothy suggested that we give everything left over at the end of the month, after paying bills, to World Services, whether it be a hundred dollars or a couple of thousand. I agreed. My motives were several.

I thought that if I proved to be indispensable in providing large amounts of money to headquarters from my privileged position in Monte Carlo, I would not be asked to go to another mission. I liked being away from top leaders, isolated from homes where numerous brothers passed through wanting sex constantly. I had more liberty of movement and time than anyone else in the Family, and I was close to my son. I was in a perfect situation, and anything I could do to keep that situation just like it was would be fine with me.

Sharon, as usual, was in agreement with her husband. Breeze also consented, provided her own physical needs would be met first. Breeze looked after herself. Within a short period of time, Breeze had acquired an extravagant wardrobe, as well as the most expensive acoustic guitar that could be found. She convinced Timothy to give us each a “flee fund” of a couple of thousand dollars in case we had to escape from France quickly. Considering the illegality and volatility of our situation, this was a wise idea, and one condoned even by our leaders. So for the first time in my life, I had a personal stash of money kept hidden in my “flee bag” in case I needed to split abruptly.

I asked for, and received, an extra allotment of flee funds for Thor.

Even with Breeze’s constant requests for extras, and the high cost of living in Monte Carlo, we supplied World Services monthly with thousands of dollars. I never kept the books, therefore I cannot state with accuracy how much money flowed through our home to headquarters.

I do know that Breeze became known among the Arab billionaires as a sexual stimulant, and she was constantly booked, hooking new fish along the way. Since we were not required to go by two on dates anymore, I never knew how much she actually witnessed about the Lord.

I knew, from testimonies I had heard in Paris, that Breeze was extremely sexually stimulated. But now that I was living with her, I became acutely aware of her unusual passions. Sharing a bedroom with an adjoining bath, I could hear Breeze unabashedly masturbating in the shower, and although at first I was embarrassed when I heard her moaning, I eventually rationalized that this was normal. It must be I who was abnormal. After all, Mo had written volumes on the virtues of masturbation, and how he had started it at an early age, despite his mother’s fanatic disapproval. In his letter “My Childhood Sex,” he wrote,”[My mother] brought in a washbasin, a little bowl and a knife and she told me she was going to cut it off! I was terrified…I almost never forgave my mother for that, threatening to cut it off and embarrassing me in front of the family. But that didn’t stop me. It felt too good to quit!” He encouraged all of us to share sexually when we needed to, and to masturbate when it was not possible to have sex. Since I considered my sexual relations as work for the Lord rather than as filling a personal need, I could not fully understand his perspective.

Listening to Breeze enjoying herself in the shower and bed, on the few nights we were home, I thought that perhaps she had a secret insight on sexuality. Obviously, the Arabs liked her. Although I was open to sexual experimentation, the stimulation came from my head, instead of my heart or body. I relied on fantasy and theory while in bed with the fish, and the enormous literature on sex and orgasms that I read in the letters was processed through my reasoning. I rarely felt what I would call pleasure, and I always avoided kissing the men. Sometimes one man would cause me to become more excited than usual, but when I tried to understand why, I could find no answer. There was not a special way or a look I liked, and I finally decided it was just extra love from God.

However, I felt that Breeze was privy to something I wanted to know.

It was a curiosity aroused by intellectual rather than passionate desire.

I approached Breeze on the subject one night under the influence of a considerable amount of alcohol. We had been talking with two American tourists who wanted to take us to bed, but whom we had decided were not the type of men we needed to give our bodies to. Instead, we spent the evening dancing, drinking, and dining with them, while they enjoyed our company, and we witnessed sparingly about the Lord.

Our friends finally left us in a popular all-night restaurant around three o’clock in the morning. They had an early plane to catch and had realized we were not going to accompany them to the hotel. Both Breeze and I were wide awake with coffee, but the alcohol and witnessing had left me psychologically vulnerable. I looked at Breeze’s big brown eyes that seemed to hold a merry-go-round of joy and happiness. They sparkled brighter than the diamond studs she wore on her ears. In contrast, I thought, my pensive blue eyes portrayed a look that many of my more discerning fish called melancholy.

“What’s your secret to enjoying sex?” I blurted out.

“You are a constant amazement to me, Jeshanah,” said Breeze, her eyes jumping with gladness at my new interest in her. “I think that’s why I love you so much.”

“Of course, you love me,” I responded,“whether I amaze you or not.”

I was always ready to take a statement to its most honest point, even if it meant I would lose it over the side of a cliff.

“I mean I love you more than a sister,” murmured Breeze, her eyes still sparkling but her smile now gone.

I felt uncomfortable when Breeze stopped smiling abruptly. It usually meant she wanted something.

“Well, are you going to talk to me about sex or not?” I asked casually, taking a sip of my vodka and orange juice to support my pretense of aloofness.

“What do you want to know?” asked Breeze, sensing that I was becoming uncomfortable.

“You obviously do something to the fish that excites them more than most of the beautiful girls at their disposal. But, what I am really curious about, is why, with all the sex you get from men, why do you still masturbate?”

“Do you want the truth? Or maybe you want to keep us in this safe and careful arrangement you have created.” I felt nervous, as if a strong tentacle had wrapped itself around my heart, ready to squeeze the life out of me if I tried to unravel it.

“Tell me the truth, Breeze,” I said boldly. “You know I always want truth.”

“Except when it touches you personally,” responded Breeze in what I knew was an insight of love.

“You want to love me as a sexual partner?” I asked, pretending to be objective.

“That and more,” she said, for the first time showing a vulnerability I did not know she possessed.

“I just want to know how you get so turned on all the time,” I said, changing the subject, since I did not want to go any further down that road. Breeze respected my decision.

“It’s easier to show you than tell you,” she said, the twinkle again returning to her eye.

“I don’t know, Breeze. I’ve never been interested in lesbianism. “

“Why not? Mo says it’s wonderful for two women to satisfy each other sexually. Tell me the truth. Have you ever been satisfied by a man?”

“I don’t know. I like being with certain men. What do you call satisfied?”

“I mean an orgasm. How many orgasms do you have when you make love?”

“You mean in all my life?” I answered with my voice cracking. Not only was this conversation becoming embarrassingly honest, but I felt the tentacle squeezing my heart.

“oh, no!” cried Breeze, throwing her head back in a deep laugh. “I really meant every time you make love. But you answered that now. So, you hardly ever have an orgasm, do you?”

“I think I do,” I said, feeling that the only way to find out was to discover what an orgasm meant to Breeze.

“I think you need a woman to touch you,” she responded affectionately. “I want to touch you, Jeshanah, but you never let me.” Breeze had touched me very deeply without realizing. She had penetrated into a place I never even allowed myself—my deepest human emotions. Why was I so outwardly hot and inwardly cold? Why could I love my son with the depth of the universe, while I despised the one who made him possible?

Why could I write poems of deep-felt love to my special fish, while knowing that every moan and move I made in the intimacy of the bedroom was an act, carefully rehearsed and so fully integrated that I forgot I was playing? Maybe Breeze held some kind of key.

“Are you asking me to make love with you?” I demanded.

“I am asking if I can make love to you, Jeshanah. I don’t think you can make love to me, but maybe, I am hoping, you can learn.” What she said made me feel dirty. I had also felt dirty when I had lost my virginity to a boy who didn’t even care about me. I felt dirty when I first made love to my husband. The only way I didn’t feel dirty was if I detached my emotions from the act of lovemaking. I didn’t know why.

At first I thought that all women did it this way, and later I convinced myself that I was like this so I could be used by the Lord to love many men and not just one. Now Breeze was asking me to become emotionally engaged in each and every act, whereas disengagement was my most reliable survival mechanism. Those tentacles were so tight now I could feel my blood pumping uncontrollably.

“Okay, I’ll sleep with you,” I said, downing the rest of my drink.

A conflicting array of emotions seemed to cross Breeze’s face. She seemed pleased at the prospect, but sad at my response.

“You don’t have to,” she said defensively.

I felt guilty for my lack of compassion and respect for her honesty.

Mo had written that sex between women was God ordained, and although I no longer took Mo’s opinions as the Divine Insight, I would consider the possibility that I was made to like women instead of men. But no, I didn’t feel any emotion for Breeze, or any other woman, but sisterly love.

“Let’s go home and see what happens,” I suggested, hoping to gain wisdom with time and experience.

We arrived back at the home with everyone asleep. The last half glass of vodka that I had gulped down was now taking effect, and I let Breeze lead me to her bed like I let most of my fish take me without protest.

But it wasn’t the same. I didn’t feel a reason to make love to her. I made love to men because I was either told to or believed I was “helping” them. No one told me to do this. There was also a social stigma attached to lesbianism, just as there was shame to prostitution.

Lesbianism seemed to be propelled by human sexual desire on the part of both lovers, whereas prostitution usually involved one-sided desire.

I fit much better into the prostitution model, where sexual desire on my part was not a necessary requirement. Sexual craving, even emotional desire for a partner in life, had been lost or forgotten by now, and my only desire was an abstract wish to serve others in love.

My fish were in need of God’s Love. Our reasoning, which is not unlike some contemporary radical theory, is that women in the world give sex to men in exchange for something else, such as prestige, security, and support in a marriage situation, or money in prostitution. We supposedly gave sex to prove to these men that we loved them with God’s Love, and although I eventually took money, the diversity of my experiences shows that money was not the primary motivation. Neither was desire! I could not find a reason to love Breeze sexually, after all, she had a huge reservoir of God’s Love at her disposal. In addition, I felt no overwhelming emotional need, no sexual longing, and certainly no desire that could launch me into this new behavior.

“It’s not going to work,” I finally said. “I don’t feel it, and this might ruin our relationship. I’m sorry, Breeze.” I went back to my bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Had I the energy and mental development to analyze this incident at that time, I would have eventually wondered why I could have participated in sacred prostitution and not in lesbianism. Clearly, I did have some concept of my sexuality, however weak, even though I consider my years in Monte Carlo as the most spiritually lost time of my life. Years later, a young female member was rebuked publicly in a Mo letter for not providing sex to a sister who “needed” it, but by then I was beginning to consider my own wants and desires and less influenced by Mo. In Monte Carlo, I don’t remember ever desiring anybody, and perhaps that is why I did so much for the Family at that time, however, had I been influenced by the previously mentioned Mo letter,“The Girl Who Wouldn’t,” when Breeze expressed desire for me, the story might have been different.

Breeze never mentioned the incident or tried to entice me in any way afterward. She continued to care for me like a concerned older sister.

And even when the opportunity arose for us to be in bed together, it was Breeze who declined.

Salim invited me to dinner on my birthday—June 27, 1979. I was twenty-six years old. I met him at the suite, where he gave me a lovely Cartier necklace of flat gold links. Then we went to a Monagasque restaurant, the Bec Rouge, where Breeze, Sharon, Timothy, and Adnan had been invited to celebrate my birthday at a surprise party given by Salim.

Adnan gave me his present, a gold-chain Cartier necklace, bigger and much more expensive than Salim’s. I put it on with Salim’s already around my neck, but Salim told me they looked bad together, so I took Adnan’s off. We had a lovely evening, my first and only birthday party in the Family. Salim asked Sharon to sing “Forbidden Games” for me, and then he had to leave to attend a social engagement with his wife.

Adnan and Breeze sat next to each other, and he whispered something in her ear before he too had to go.