Seductive Poison by Deborah Layton Page A

life, I imagine, while she marveled at my transformation. She surmised that this church, which appeared to espouse socialistic beliefs (she read about them in the newspaper), might be a safe place to make her own flight away from a life of frustration and sorrow. I was proof that people could change and that there was a better life. She later told me that she felt her life had been built upon sand. She believed she had taken more from America than she had given back. She wanted to be a part of something meaningful at last.
    Unknown to her, however, as my weeks inside the Temple turned into months, I began to feel a twinge of homesickness and with it a deep feeling of guilt. I missed my parents, I missed the occasional drag on a cigarette, but worst of all I secretly hated the all-day and all-weekend revival meetings. I knew these meetings were important. Jim had explained to me how he and I needed to help the poor, how those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought into enlightenment—socialism. But being a humanitarian was a full-time job and I was not used to such altruism.
    But I felt even more guilt on the fleeting occasions when I wished I hadn’t joined. Father kept my treasonous thoughts in check by warning us that leaving the church would bring bad karma. He reminded us in his sermons that those who had chosen to join were here because we were on the verge of crossing over to the next plane. Without his help, we would not make it. Those who left or betrayed the Cause in any way would be reincarnated as the lowest life form on earth and it would take us another hundred thousand years to get to this point again. I didn’t want to start over as an amoeba.
    I began writing myself up and reporting on my negative thoughts. I felt it kept me in check. Nuns and priests went to confession, I told myself. I was in control when I reported on my treasonous thoughts, playing the snitch in order to better myself. Over time, I became the perfect vessel for my leader’s dogma.
    The process of controlling new members began immediately and intensely and I’m not sure I’ll ever know what prevented us from seeing through his deceit,. his lies, and his manipulations. Only a few days after joining, I learned that “All men are homosexuals, except for Jim.” I was stunned, but when the information was not disputedby anyone, I obediently believed it. When I heard Larry and Karen’s bed rhythmically creaking at night, I figured Larry and Karen didn’t yet know that he was a “homo.” It even made me doubtful of Mark. I became terribly embarrassed for the men I knew, wondering why they had all pretended otherwise.
    I was even more ashamed for the men I knew when the Reverend taught us that men who grew hair around their mouths really wanted to be “pussies.” When I noticed the painted sideburns on Jim’s cheeks, it didn’t occur to me that he might have felt threatened by the virility of men who had voluminous amounts of facial and chest hair and that was why he forbade his male followers to expose their hair.
    This kind of warped logic was just one of the many devices Jim used to control the congregation. He intended to discourage any bonds with the opposite sex that might compromise our allegiance to him. It never seemed odd to me back then that only men were homosexuals. I could not see the sickening duplicity, the clever deception, that made Jim out to be the “only real man” and his male cravings the only valid ones.
    Soon thereafter I understood that church policy prohibited sexual relations between members. We were taught that sex was selfish and harmful because it took our thoughts away from helping others. Jim said that in every important organization before ours, sex had always lured the weak away from the path of truth. Lust and desire were character flaws. If one were to be truly devoted, one had to abstain. Those caught not abiding by the rules would be publicly confronted. If they