Heaven's Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult Read Online Free PDF Page B

finished his talk. An extra collection was made, but I had no money to drop in the basket. The young people got up to sing some songs led by a young man playing guitar. The service would soon be over. I felt my heart beating excitedly. After all the wonderful songs about helping others and loving the world, surely someone would come over and talk to me. I had so much to ask, so much to convey, and so much I wanted to learn.
    People started leaving. The girls next to me got up and went out the other way so they would not have to pass by me. The boys in the front row walked by without looking my way. Still, I remained in the pew. I would not leave until the church shut down. I wanted someone to talk to me. I wanted to feel like I belonged.
    Finally, an older man came over to me. He handed me a paper that seemed to be the program for the evening.
    “Young lady, you can go downstairs if you want to, but I am going to close up here, so you will have to leave the pew.” Tears had come to my eyes without my noticing it and I could hardly read the program.
    Did it say that there were refreshments being served downstairs? Is that where everyone went?
    “No, thank you,” I said, now visibly crying. “I want only food for the soul. Do you happen to know where to get that?” He looked at me curiously, and I suddenly felt sorry for him. He did not have a clue what I meant.
    I continued my quixotic quest after that church experience, but with less hope. Definitely, there was something different about me. I did not seem to fit in anywhere. I was an outcast like my poor brother, only I had not chosen the crime track. Fortunately, all my younger sisters were “normal.” They were content with the typical little-town life that Lancaster offered. Maybe being in one place had helped them, or being raised without an alcoholic father always around. I didn’t ask why then, only what—what do I do now?
    Meanwhile, back at the hippie scene, Jan had a steady boyfriend, and we took different paths. She wanted to live a love-and-peace lifestyle with her “old man,” and I was headed for college. Since I would have to get some scholarship money, I started staying home in the evenings to study.
    “Miriam, we got a new history teacher at school today,” my younger sister, Karen, told me one afternoon. “You would really like him. He talks like you, and he has long hair.”
    “What do you mean he talks like me?” I asked Karen, who was in junior high.
    “oh, he talks about ideas, and tells us to think about things and discuss the subject with each other. You know, like you tell us to do about the Vietnam War and all that stuff. I think he is against the war too.”
    “Surely he did not say anything against the war in school?”
    “No, but he brought in some newspaper articles that said things about America that were not too good. In fact, some of the kids said they were going to tell their parents.”
    “No way!”
    “Well, he lives right down the street from us—about three houses down. I thought you might like him.”
    When I finished my homework, I walked outside our town house and looked down the street. All the houses were exactly the same in the group of ten. The only difference was what the residents put on their porch.
    Three houses down, the porch was empty, but what gave him away was the VW bug parked in front. I knew that it would appear odd for me to introduce myself uninvited, but if this man was anything like me, as my sister said, he would not mind. I walked up to the door and knocked.
    “Yeah?” said a young man of about twenty who answered the door.
    “Hi, I live a couple houses down.”
    “Yeah?” he said again.
    “Well, my sister said that her teacher lived here and…”
    “Come on in,” he said to me as he called up the stairs. “Sonny, some hippie chick’s here to see you.” I walked into a living room similar to ours.
    There were two other older boys sitting on the couch watching television. One