Heaven's Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult (32 page)

Hopie, who seemed to have a special liking for me, was her usual, happy self.

“Praise the Lord, honey. It’s great to see you again,” she told me cheerfully. “When I heard you were in Puerto Rico, I thought, well, Jeshanah has to come up here. She’s an old Paris Show Group performer. So what have you been doing? I heard you lured a fish into the Family.”

“Yes, I did. When Monte Carlo closed down, I went to live with a fish in Italy.”

“Well, praise the Lord. Good for you. That was Dad’s main objective, to get souls into the Kingdom.

“I want you to stay up here in the music camp,” continued Hopie. “Is your fish with you still?”

“Yes, we had a baby and got married. “

“Praise God! Two souls for his Kingdom. Well, can he sing or play music?”

“No, not really. He started to learn in Italy.”

“I never knew an Italian who didn’t love music. I know what he can do. I bet he’s a great cook. Italians love good food. Why don’t you and, what’s his name, honey?”

“Paolo.”

“Why don’t you and Paolo stay here and take over the kitchen? We could use some better cooks here. And I’m sure they could use you in some of the dance numbers, if they start doing shows like we did in Paris. That was great, wasn’t it. The Lord’s Spirit sure moved in Paris.”

Paolo and I moved up to the camp within days. He recognized a good situation when he saw it, and the camp was a true haven. He was also given a little special attention, being the youngest disciple there, by years. We bought a little pop-up trailer to place alongside the RVs.

Although Hopie said we were to be in charge of the kitchen, the practical leaders felt that Paolo was too young in the Family to be in charge of anything. He was relieved just to be there in the camp, where our daily needs were met by the community and we did not have to go singing to raise funds.

Soon after arriving, I found out that Sharon and Timothy had come over from Greece and were living on the island. When I finally talked to Sharon on the phone, I realized she had changed drastically, however, it wasn’t until I would meet her, weeks later, that I understood what a complete transformation she had made. But for the time being, both Paolo and I focused on adjusting to our new communal life.

Like in all Family homes, sharing was taken for granted in the camp.

The concept of “one wife” was now widespread in the Family. Mo’s words “God’s in the business of breaking up little selfish private worldly families to make of their yielded broken pieces a larger unit— one family—one wife” (“One Wife” 249, 9) were taken literally now. Some homes even set up regular, weekly “sharing schedules” to ensure that everyone got equal opportunity. The ideal was to become one with every member in the home, not just with your own mate. Paolo, like most men, had not joined the Family to share sexually with many women, but he participated in the schedule until he was asked to go with a sister he found unattractive. After a brother explained to him that God’s Love does not discriminate by outside beauty, Paolo reluctantly agreed to go with a sister he had refused repeatedly. However, he talked badly of the girl afterward, so the leaders wisely considered Paolo a special case, and he was no longer encouraged to share. Since I had become saturated with sex, I was more than willing to pass up any opportunities to share, using the excuse that Paolo was alone. Sex was a chore for me by now, and since we did not use birth control, I was always afraid of becoming pregnant.

My old rebellious and dear dance instructor, Salome, was also at the camp. She now had three small children, and from what I understood, one was from a fish. Salome, as a nursery worker, had always expressed to me her feeling that there were enough children in the Family, and she did not want to add to the number. She kept to herself in her own trailer, rarely coming out for fellowship. Rumor had it that she not only refused to share with brothers, she would not have sex with her own husband unless she could use birth control. Since birth control was absolutely not allowed in the Family, as far as I knew, I imagined that they had a sexless marriage.

I envied her.

During our stay in the camp, Mo asked the Family to video women dancing in various forms of the striptease, which he called the “heavenly harlot’s” dances. In new letters written at this time, such as “Glorify God in the Dance,” Mo described how we should dance in these videos as if we were making love to him or the Lord. Like most of his new ideas, they had been tested previously at selected homes. Since ours was a special, underground home, we were allowed to see some of the original tapes that had been sent to Mo from the Greece home. I was interested in seeing Sharon’s dance. Hopie gave us a little prep speech before showing the video.

“Now this is the second video we sent to Dad. He was not pleased with the first one, and especially with a few of the girls whom he felt were not dancing in God’s Spirit of freedom. Thank the Lord for Dad’s insight, and that he is never too proud to let us know when we are doing wrong. Amen?” It seems that Sharon, among others, had danced with such sexual inhibition that Mo had rebuked her and said that it was time for that girl to receive the Holy Spirit, since evidently she had not yet. He also suggested that she drink a little more wine before performing her dance for him, and he gave specific instructions on what he wanted to see—more sex!

I was shocked when I saw Sharon’s second dance. She was a different person from the kind, sweetly shy girl I had known and loved. Her eyes seemed spooky as she penetrated the camera with a flirtatious, come-hither look that was not the Sharon I knew. Other girls on the video had danced and undressed in a sexy, but awkward, manner, however, Sharon, whom I remembered as one of the most modest women I have ever known, masturbated openly before the camera as if she were a professional porno star. She was brazen, brassy, saucy, and bold—the ultimate sexual plaything for a man with unbridled sexual fantasies. I thought that she must have become one of Mo’s own women, and it took my breath away as I realized how close I had come to being one too. Perhaps it was my mother’s prayers, or my own innate defiant nature, but somehow I had missed being chosen by him. In a rather warped way, I entertained the thought that perhaps he did have spiritual insight, and he knew I could never give up my soul to the point that Sharon had. I didn’t want to believe it was the same woman I knew, and as I went to bed that night, with a heavy heart, I pondered why Mo had picked poor Sharon. Sweet, sweet Sharon—the lily of the field, I used to call her!

She was no longer lily-white, she was now the red, red rose of Sharon, covered, smothered with the blood pouring from her wounded soul. These were my thoughts after seeing the person whom I had loved most in the Family dancing before her king!

I was asked to perform a harlot dance the next day before a video camera, and I wondered what I could do that would not be criticized by Mo. Intuitively, I now knew that I was safe, since Mo went after the women who had a malleable inner core. Knowing that I would never be among Mo’s inner circle strangely gave me more faith to stay in the Family. I had been a socialist before I joined, and I never liked this hierarchical system that had developed in the Family anyway. As long as I was not part of the leadership, I should not take blame for any of their mistakes. The bottom line was that we were still preaching God’s love and salvation. These naked dances were only for the elite, and the upper echelon historically degenerate and are replaced. I decided to do my dance like the person I was—a woman who loved to dance for the dance’s sake, not for Mo, or sex, or pornography. My warped mind was bent on excusing Family perversions, and I had become quite good at it.

Declaring that leadership would evolve to eventual perfection was one of my best ploys of selfdeception.

Choreographing my own dance and designing the stage scene between two trees, I began by dancing in the nude behind a sheer muslin curtain with a stage light shining from the back. Nothing could be seen but my silhouette as I danced. I let my body flow, spin, and spiral to the music. Of course, there was always the possibility that Mo would send a message saying that I was not in the Spirit, but I had already survived that experience years before. After a few weeks, Mo did have a message for me,“Tell the Uneager Beaver that I liked her dance.” I heard this compliment from Hopie while I was at a dinner party at the residence of one of the leaders, where Sharon lived, and my anxiety of finally meeting with Sharon and Timothy overshadowed any reaction I might have had to it. Sharon had lost about twenty pounds and was thinner than I. As she looked at me, she said,“I love you,” but her eyes looked past my heart or soul to some faraway place only she could see. I thought that she must have achieved either sainthood or zombiehood, and I wasn’t curious enough to want to find out which, which was very unlike me. I was a little scared. Sharon reminded me of a happy victim—the ultimate evil paradox. Instead, I talked at length with Timothy, who was watching the children so that Sharon could entertain at the dinner table. His boyish face still looked naively hopeful as he explained to me that Sharon had a “special calling.”

“I heard Hopie say that Mo liked your dance,” Tim told me gleefully. “He doesn’t say that to everyone, you know, especially not on their first dance.”

“Yeah, he also called me the Uneager Beaver again,” I replied, but I could see that the meaning of this comment went over his head.

“oh, don’t worry about that, I’m sure he loves you.” Actually, I wanted to say that I was thankful that Mo still called me the Uneager Beaver, which suggested he would always hold the story I had written against me. Now that I had witnessed the change in his wife after becoming an “insider,” I liked the freedom and safety of being an outsider more than ever before. I had never been very close to Timothy, so I did not say anything, and Sharon was now much too far away to ever talk to again. She was like one of those monks who achieve enlightenment after years of social isolation. If that was enlightenment—I didn’t want it.

The camp was full of outsiders like myself. We seemed to be a bunch of freethinkers who had been temporarily handicapped by ideals, opportunity, love, or other psychological/emotional anesthetics.

Almost everyone living in the camp eventually left the Family, and at least one of them committed suicide after leaving. But I never heard of a suicide while in the Family, and certainly those days on the mountaintop kept all of us preoccupied. We were too busy to think about what we were really doing then, and it was only after we left, if we were able to spend time alone with ourselves, that the wastefulness of our lives could be understood. During these mock “days of heaven on earth” in Puerto Rico, I was oblivious to the approaching storm.

Most of my concern was over my son, Thor, who was now eight years old.

He was at an awkward stage of childhood development, made more confusing by recent Mo letters on how to raise children.

Because of our freesex lifestyle, sooner or later the subject would have to be discussed with our children. Eight-year-olds want to know why Mommy and Daddy are sleeping in someone else’s trailer.

More distressing than the sexual aspects of raising my son was the discipline that was being taught to all parents. Paolo took the disciplinary rules very seriously, and on a few occasions, he took Thor into the woods and whipped him with a stick. Each time Thor received a spanking, I wondered if his own father would have done the same. Thor asked about his father sometimes, and I said we would probably see him soon. But after these spankings, Thor especially wanted to see his daddy, and my heart would break. If God truly does punish us for our sins, I know that the worst way He can punish me is through my children, for this reason, I have often lived in fear. Nothing ever made me as anxious as the thought of what effect my actions would have on my children. On the other hand, there are never easy problems or easy solutions, as I was soon to learn.

Near the end of the year 1981, I received a letter from Cal telling me that he was out of the Family for good and that he wanted Thor back.

With the letter was a one-way ticket to France, where Cal now lived with Mara. I was sent into a complete panic. My plan was utterly destroyed.

I had not counted on Cal becoming a heretic when I had signed those divorce papers. The only reason I had given him custody of Thor was that I believed we could all be together eventually, or at least live close to each other. To complicate matters, I now had two children, with two different fathers. The ideal was to all live together. That was not going to happen now, and I could not figure out what to do. I wrote Cal that I would not send Thor until some agreement could be reached on visitation. I was willing to return to Europe, if necessary, but for now, I was relieved that Thor was in my possession.

One day Cal called the San Juan home, and asked if I would come to the phone that evening with Thor so that he could talk to him, which I felt was certainly good for both of them. I was hoping that we could come to some sort of agreement during the call. When Cal phoned as planned, I explained to him that I did not use the ticket he sent because I wanted to be sure that he would send Thor back to me sometime. He said he was upset at first, but now understood and that maybe we could work something out for the future.

It was already dark outside, but we had to return to the camp, so we said good-bye to our hosts. Paolo was driving and I was in the front seat, holding Athena, who was almost a year old and still nursing, while Thor sat in the back. As we turned a corner and headed down a deserted street towards the highway leading out of town and to the camp, a car suddenly headed toward us. Before Paolo could swerve out of its way, it backed into us and rammed our car.

“The doors,” I screamed. “Lock all the doors.” A dark-haired man came running out of the car toward US. I thought we were being robbed and I frantically locked my door and the door behind me. Thor was on the seat behind Paolo and I could not reach him.

Everything happened so quickly, and I was in such an emotional panic afterward, that I can’t recall the exact details of this incident, and those involved have contradictory reports. I know that Thor was taken away from me at that time, I remember I was relieved to see my ex-husband, Cal, come toward me in the dark of the night, so I knew Thor had not been kidnapped by a stranger, I came to the dreadful realization that Cal was taking Thor away and I might not see him again.