she lay back on a sleeping bag feeling full and warm and content, looking around at her new friends, feeling a warmth and acceptance she had never felt before. And she knew she would be happy here. It was a lifetime away from the house in Beverly Hills, her father's angry edicts about Lionel … the perfidies of the people she knew … the stupidity of Gregory … the selfishness of the twins … the woman who called herself her mother that she had never understood … this was where she belonged now. Here on Waller Street, with her new friends.
And when they initiated her three days after she arrived, it seemed suitable and right and loving. It was a supreme act of love in a room filled with incense, as a fire blazed warmly in the hearth, and the hallucination carried her from heaven to hell and back again. She knew she would be a different person when she woke up again. They told her that before she ate the mushrooms, followed by the tiny tab of LSD absorbed into a sugar cube. It took a little while for it to take hold on her mind, but when it did, there were friendly spirits there, and a room full of people she knew. Later, there were spiders and bats and terrifying things, but they held her hands while she howled and screamed, and when she felt her body racked with pain, they sang her songs, and cradled her as her mother never had … even Lionel had done nothing like this for her … she crossed a desert on her hands and knees, and then at last she came to an enchanted forest, filled with elves, and she felt their hands on her, and felt the spirits singing to her again. And now the faces that had hovered over her all night, and waited for her to be free of the evil of her past life, came forward toward her. Already, she felt purified, and knew that she was one of them. The evil spirits had been killed, they had left her, and now she was pure … now they could complete the ritual with her. Gently, they peeled away her clothes, and washed her with oils, each one gently massaging her tender flesh … she had come far that night, and parts of her were sore, but the'women gently massaged her, getting her ready now, reaching slowly into her, and stretching her as she screamed. She fought them at first, but they whispered so gently to her, and she could hear the music now. They had her drink something warm, and poured more oil on her, as her two guardians tenderly massaged her most secret place and she writhed beneath their hands, howling with agony and joy, and then her new brothers came, the spirits who would belong to her now, to replace the others she had left behind, and each of them knelt beside her as the sisters crooned, and one by one the brothers entered her, as the music grew louder, and birds flew high overhead … there were sharp arrows of pain at times, and waves of ecstasy, and again and again they came into her, and held her there, and left again, until the sisters returned, kissing her now and reaching far far into her until she could feel no more, and heard no sound. The music had stopped. The room was dark. Her past life was gone. She stirred, wondering if it had all been a dream but when she sat up and looked around, she saw them there, waiting for her. She had been gone for a long, long time, and she was so surprised at how many there were. But she recognized each one of them, and crying, she held out her arms and they came to her, embracing her. Her womanhood was complete, her sisterhood was sure. They gave her another acid tab as a reward, and this time she soared with them as one of the flock, dressed in a gown of white, and when the brothers and sisters came to her again, she was one of them this time, kissing them too … touching the sisters as they had touched her. This was her privilege now, they explained, and this was an expression of her love for them and theirs for her. She was to participate often in the ritual in the next few weeks, and when a