Bad to the Bones(65)

Knoxie became almost serene as he continued unimpeded into the compound with Ziggy flanking him. He became more confident the more space he put between himself and that disgusting guard shack. He passed by an outdoor shooting range where a dozen daimyos lined up like good little zombies, shooting at paper targets that looked suspiciously like the swami. He and Ziggy grinned at each other, like they were just on a poker run.

It might make sense to go get Ginny first, since he knew where she was. If he busted in on the middle of surgery or they’d already put her under anesthesia—or not, if they didn’t have any—either way he couldn’t deal with dead weight on his * pad. It made more sense to go directly to the source of everyone’s current troubles.

Shakti.

Swami Shakti and his Wang Cho House of Therapy.





CHAPTER TWENTY




BELLAMY


He had a kielbasa tied to his thigh with surgical tubing.

The whole time Shakti held me captive, handcuffed to his headboard, he had a f*cking sausage, I’m not kidding, tied to his thigh.

I guess I never thought of him as being truly insane before. Not having much insight into my own mental state hardly qualified me to see into the psychoses of others. But man, was this some whacked-out, bizarre shit in the middle of a vast mental institution to see some guy I used to worship pacing back and forth in front of a picture window waving a crystal wand wearing swami diapers. When he took them off triumphantly to display his manhood, he must’ve forgotten that he had this thing strapped to his thigh. He coughed and sputtered—not something you see often in someone so supremely self-assured—but he continued ranting as though nothing had occurred. The nearly foot-long kielbasa was tied so tightly the skin around it seemed purplish. Maybe he just wants it to match his ensemble, I thought bitterly.

Shakti had a white gauze patch over half his remaining eye, and I wondered if Knoxie had had anything to do with it. Had they run into each other? Had my two lovers actually fought over me? I felt defiant as I pointlessly squirmed against the headboard, naked except for the purple top I’d borrowed from Maddy. Two weeks ago? I would’ve felt defeated, weak, like it was pointless to struggle.

Now, having met Knoxie, having known the backing of The Bare Bones club, with the powerful friendship of Maddy, June, and Emma, now I felt stronger. I knew much more about myself than I had two weeks before.

I did not blame my father for my shitty childhood. We had had a good conversation a couple days before, and he made a date to fly out from Los Angeles to see me. I felt good about it, and no one could tell me any different!

“We celebrate life and laughter, not scorn and judgment!” Shakti cried, waving his wand as though he were skywriting with it. He was trying to ingrain in me the damage my father had done to me, damage that could only be reversed by communing with him, Shakti, my master, the Outlaw Prophet, the Enlightened One. “Your father scorned you. By moving to another state, he was in essence saying you weren’t worth sticking around for. He ingrained a deep sense of shame in you, a sense of worthlessness, that you were a piece of shit, and so you acted accordingly.”

I rattled my handcuffs. “Yes, Shakti. I used to think I was a piece of shit. Only by being away from you do I now see that I’m worth a damn! It wasn’t through any damned help from you that I had my consciousness raised. It took a bunch of bikers to help me see that I’m worth something!”

He pointed the wand straight at my brain as though zapping me. “That is how the bikers are brainwashing you, Asanga! You are looking for someone to replace your father, so you look to the big rough, tough father figure to guide you.”

I smirked. “Rather I should look to a baby for guidance?”

I meant the fact that until recently he’d been wearing diapers. But he had no sense of humor, so he ranted on.

I mean, I could see where I had fallen for his shtick. Even with a kielbasa taped to his thigh, he was a brilliant, hypnotic speaker. I always used to have the feeling that more than words had passed between us, that his spirit had moved inside mine, or some such new age garbage. Still, I had recently felt a similar thing with Knoxie, only that time, it had been way more physical. It had been when he was f*cking me. I had definitely felt his spirit move in me then. And I’m not just talking his long, fat cock.

Swami Shakti was a charismatic figure, a genius at manipulating his followers. He promised us total freedom within the confines of an orderly society, and that appealed to a lot of people. He was brilliant at mashing together a lot of rhetoric from other religions. Some of it wound up not making any sense, and our brains filled in the rest. We interpreted it in a way that comforted us.

But where it seemed that Shakti used to focus on love, freedom, and fun, suddenly he was becoming very fixated on sex. It was as though he’d lost his far-seeing ability to rise above everything, and now was being anchored on earth, lusting like an ordinary human. I wasn’t disheartened because I was already through with him. But I was beginning to get scared. I had changed. But he had changed too.

I guess he thought I meant Knoxie when I said “baby.” He jumped on the bed, bouncing on his knees, crying, “Do you know what that emotional baby of yours needs in order to redeem the childhood damage done by those priests? He needs a good f*cking. Yes, a good f*cking!”

Horrified, I stopped struggling against my bonds and just stared at my old master, wide-eyed. I mean, I had heard loony talk about how rape victims needed f*cking, and let’s not even get started on what Shakti thought of Catholic priests. I had just started to look into embracing Judaism again, now I was realizing it hadn’t harmed me.