ride herd on the four wide-eyed acolytes protectively surrounding him like bodyguards?
She saw the truth in his eyes, just for a flicker-second, his expression hot and needy. He had to get her back. His carefully constructed world was on the verge of collapse. If he could bring Shelley back into the fold, he would regain the upper hand with his flock.
“We’ve come to bring you home.” He tightened his grip on her elbow, his tone firm.
Shelley’s knees weakened. Once upon a time she’d been slavishly dedicated to this man. Had thought she’d loved him in a cosmic way.
“We’ve missed you so much.”
“Come home!” exclaimed the youngest disciple with short, curly hair so red she reminded Shelley of Little Orphan Annie. She’d run away from her upper-crust New England family to eat gruel in a Costa Rican hut. Guru Meyer had bestowed the name Japji upon her. Japji’s real name was Frieda and she was just seventeen.
“It’s not the same without you, Sanpreet,” said a sleek, blond, empty-eyed yogi named Sumran. She’d once appeared on the cover of Yoga Journal in some impossibly complicated pose, back when her name was Diane, before she’d left her husband and children to join Guru Meyer at Cobalt Soul. “Please come home with us.”
Guru Meyer wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close in a tight embrace. As he held her, she closed her eyes, searching for that feeling of acceptance and forgiveness she’d once felt in his hugs.
Nope. Nothing. It all felt false and forced. The magic spell broken. Stiffly, her hands fisted, and arms locked to her sides, she did not hug him back.
“You smell of meat.” He sniffed.
She stepped away, tilted her chin up, met his gaze fortified with steel. “Bacon does make the world go ’round.”
“The illusionary world,” he said. “I can see they’ve lured you back into the false dimension.”
“The real world,” she insisted through gritted teeth.
“You are deeply troubled, my child.” His voice was soft, kind. “But there is nothing to fear. We are here. We have your back. You are loved. Always.”
Such seductive promises. Everything she wanted to hear. You are loved. Who wouldn’t want to hear that?
Maybe she’d been wrong about Guru Meyer and his group.
It wasn’t as if she’d been harmed or sexually pressured, which she knew happened in other such groups. He’d offered her sanctuary when she’d had none. She had felt loved and accepted when she was there.
It was how she’d given them five years of her life. Working for a grass roof over her head and mung bean soup.
At Cobalt Soul, she never ate dinner alone and when disagreements did pop up, they were handled swiftly by a council. No punishment was ever meted out, unless you considered additional chanting and meditation assignments punishment, which she had not.
The only major drawback was that she conformed to the groupthink. If she stepped out of line, she was gently encouraged to readjust her thinking. Any attempts to stand out and individuate were tenderly quashed, until she believed it was her own idea to eat the foods they ate, dress like they dressed, spend her free time doing community service, and give Guru Meyer all her money and earthly possessions.
Was that really so bad? Her basic needs had been met and her rebellious ways curbed.
No, no it had not been that bad. Which is why it had been so easy to deny what had happened to her.
She’d lost her identity.
Which Guru Meyer told her was the point. To erase “Shelley” and become “Sanpreet,” an enlightened spirit and part of the collective whole whose mission it was to save the planet with love and devotion to their cause.
Erase your ego. Dissolve the self. Eradicate your identity.
Once upon a time, it sounded so good. She’d been desperate to expunge the old Shelley and become someone else. Which, in retrospect, she’d done to great effect.
But suddenly, like a lightning bolt, she saw the flip side. No ego meant no self. Which she’d thought was a good thing. Then again, how many times had Guru Meyer pounded into her head that things were neither good nor bad, they just were?
Here was the head-scratcher that even cognitive dissonance couldn’t quite sweep under the rug. If you eradicated your identity, just who in the jackfruit were you?
Reality was a kick in the teeth, truth the red neon signs she’d ignored. For five freaking years she’d been mumbling malarkey. Sacrificing two hours and forty minutes every morning at 4:30 A.M. and her soul