Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing(35)

People hear “sex cult” and think it sounds fun. They don’t consider that cult members are who they’ll be fucking. They don’t consider that there’s a schedule right on the dining room wall—laundry, dishes, toddlers, all those babies, bathrooms, the herpes bathroom, and “sharing night.” It’s okay. Gabe didn’t think it through either. For a few months when I was pissed at him, I used to switch the schedule around when no one was looking. Assign him to women he loathed. Hope you enjoyed your free love, asshole.

   Part of the problem was my stepdad and the shepherds were full of shit. Probably why I backslid into my old ways in Switzerland—the boys liked me just fine. The girls could go either way. I wasn’t interested in being pretty or talking about which boys were cute. The boys were my friends, except for Samuel, who didn’t brush his teeth and was always trying to kiss me or crawl into my bunk and hump my leg. (He’s not the boy I managed to shove off the bunk. I considered it. But he might’ve told, and I’d have been in for a world of hurt.) But that first home in Switzerland, we were barely supervised. I was free to punch Samuel in the stomach when he got too pushy. But I took the continued leg-humping from boys and the constant casual groping from men as proof that Gabe and the Family were wrong about me.

Besides, I wasn’t a lesbian. If I were, wouldn’t I be compelled to hump girls’ legs? I tried to picture it sometimes. The prettiest girl in the house was my sister’s friend Theresa. I had a massive crush on her, but I didn’t recognize it as a crush. I recognized it as wanting her to like me. She taught me how to play bar chords on the guitar. I tried to make her laugh.

My sister Valerie shared a room on the top floor of that Swiss commune, up in the mountains near the French border. As older teens, they had a little more privacy. They even had a razor. I found out about the razor while hanging out in their room one Sunday. I was telling a story, waving my arms around, and Valerie said, “Wait. Put your hand up?” I didn’t know what she was looking for, but I heard that tone, like she was about to tease me for something. I did not want her to tease me in front of Theresa. But I was little scared of Valerie. (I still am.) So I raised my arm and my shirt sleeve slid down to reveal just enough, I guess. Because the next thing I knew, Valerie had grabbed my hand and was dragging me to the bathroom. “Take off your shirt.”

   “No. Why?”

“Lauren.”

Listen. She used to pinch us if we didn’t obey when we were little. I took my shirt off. And I swear to Christ, I can still see the look she gave me, covering her mouth like my armpit was covered with ants. “When did you get hair? Why didn’t you tell me? Lauren. Oh my god, you’re hairy. Stay here. Lock the door.” And then she was gone.

She came back with a little pink razor and told me to get in the shower.

I said, “I can’t. I’ll get in trouble.” Which was likely true. Shaving wasn’t strictly outlawed but didn’t fit with Berg’s image of a godly woman, a position happily accepted by the hippies who were now our elders. Either way, it’s not like we could run to town to buy a razor. Unlike my sister, I was still sleeping and changing and showering with twenty other kids, any of whom might’ve reported me. And my shepherds were assholes.

Valerie said if she hadn’t noticed my hair, no one would notice I’d shaved it. It’s not like anyone looks at anyone else while they’re changing (a fact that took another twenty years to sink in).

   So I undressed and Valerie stood there and told me to soap up. I don’t know how long she and Theresa had been sharing that razor, but it was a fucking butter knife. The single blade kept getting jammed up and I sliced my thumb trying to pull hair from it. Do another stroke. Bleed a little more. My sister, her hair growing frizzier by the moment, making her look even scarier, critiquing my technique. “Just short strokes. Stop being foolish. You have to go fast. No. Fast. Push down harder.”

“It’s pulling my hair out.”

“Don’t be a baby.”

Next armpit. She told me not to shave my legs yet. That would’ve been too obvious. Or my arms. I don’t know why she thought arms should be shaved, but she did. It’s not like we had access to Seventeen magazine or normal adults to teach us these things. I still shave my arms for no other reason than my sister told me to. I liked that we had a secret between us. Like she’d let me into her cool secret life.

Once we were done and I was dressed, most of the bleeding stanched, the razor burn just beginning to flare, we returned to her room. “Show Theresa,” she said, proud of her work. I kept my arms pinned to my sides. “Show her.” So I did. Theresa winced and I dropped my arms.

“You should give me that shirt,” Theresa said. “I can get the blood out.” And she offered me one of her own, a pink strappy thing.

I shook my head and said, “It’s okay.” Getting blood out of things was an earlier sister lesson. Valerie was having fun by then, the grade-A high of bossing your siblings around. She said, “Oh, Lauren would never wear that, my little lesbian seester,” in that silly baby voice she used to make fun of me. I told her to shut up and I know she heard it in my voice, that I was about to cry. So she stopped. The line we’ve never crossed, that unspoken oath of sisters: you don’t make each other cry in front of others. Still, I was worried Theresa would think I was some sort of pervert.