Helen Zuman - Mating in Captivity - A Memoir

“Get it?” he said. “The mother and child reunion?”

“Yeah.” I returned his smirk. “It’s a motion away.”

Below us, the station wagon descended the drive. I gazed out over the fields and woods sloping toward the road, my view stretching far beyond Eile’s. It would stretch farther still as my ascent continued.

Yet I couldn’t relax and enjoy the panorama. With each step up, I breathed thinner air, risked more if I slipped.

My only safety was Arol’s grip.

On September 27, 2003—while I was still trying to make “little mulatto babies” with Kro—I told Arol at her kitchen table that I wished to hit on Zar.

And Prophet.

My cheeks burned as I said the second name. No one— no one —hit on Prophet. Merely flashing on the option, the previous fall at Voodoo Fest, after imagining Arol might die, had gravely aggravated my original thought crime.

But I’d come to trust, over months in her favor, that nothing I said could rock her. That her vast view compassed much that would have shocked the less evolved.

Arol sipped her tea. “Why do you want to hit on them?”

Why indeed? I saw them as ascended beings, rendered reachable—maybe—by my recent rise. Tasting their sexual superpowers would speed my climb. And—who knew?—a surprise eruption of dormant attraction might yet rocket me to the top tier of the Zendik pyramid.

I had to make this bid—despite my story assuring me I’d grow old with Kro.

“I’m curious about what it’s like to get together with them.”

“That’s odd,” she said, chin level, gaze steady. “If you’re curious about how they are sexually, wouldn’t it be easier just to ask someone who’s fucked them?”

“I guess it’s more than curiosity. I want the experience .”

She glanced into her teacup, then back at me. “I can tell you about Zar—of course it’s been a long time—and I can definitely tell you about Prophet.”

She seemed not to have heard that I sought more than an oral report. But I wasn’t about to refuse juicy gossip. I leaned in to listen.

Arol said that Zar loved messing around, pushing boundaries. This jibed with another woman’s rave review of how he’d fucked her while probing her ass with his finger. Prophet, Arol said, wasn’t much for foreplay—he skipped straight to sex. “He’s an artist, you know?” She laughed. “Artists are like that. They know what they want and go for it. You’ve probably had the same experience with Kro.”

I nodded, despite a blip of dissonance. Kro reveled in foreplay.

She studied me for a long moment. Her speech had not cooled my cheeks. “You still want to hit on them, don’t you? Getting the rundown isn’t enough.”

I nodded again.

She shrugged. “You can go ahead and hit on Prophet. I doubt he’ll say yes—he’s a one-woman kind of guy—but I don’t mind if you try.”

Prophet painted and sculpted in a spacious studio built to suit him. He drummed in the band. He assembled collections of Wulf’s writings and collaborated with Lysis to design the magazine. He did not sell. He did not cook or help clean the main kitchen. He did not receive group input. I would never see him crumple in shame as the rest of us struck him with pebbles of blame.

These perks did not come cheap. He knew the terms of his trade.

She sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “The sooner the better, I guess. As long as you’re in fantasy about these other guys, you don’t have a relationship with Kro.”

She half-smiled at me, a hint of conspiracy in her up-twisted lip. “Sounds like you have some hitting up to do.”

I found Zar in his recording studio in the Mobile, enthroned before his massive console, mixing Arol’s latest album, Into the Oracle . Hovering just inside the doorway, I stuttered out my hit-up. After a short pause, he swiveled toward me.

“I guess I’d be into it. But not tonight.”

Prophet, at his desk in the Treehouse, stroked his goatee. A power surge through his hard drive flickered its lime light. Excitement and dread— what if he says yes? —warred in my chest.

“I’m flattered you asked me—but no,” he said.

The next day, when Zar switched his yes to no, I was more relieved than disappointed. I’d tried climbing higher by taking other lovers. Now I could fall back to Kro.

Any other year, I would have been thrilled to sell the KROQ Weenie Roast at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Power” sellers had been known to make five to eight hundred dollars each at the all-day Ozzfest knock-off; being chosen to go was a vote of confidence. But on Sunday, October 5, 2003, I—like most of my seven-woman crew—was fighting fatigue and a hangover. We would have been glad to stay home.

Saturday night we’d gotten drunk and lost sleep at a rare Farm-wide alcohol party. I’d made the mistake of staying up till three, after pulling Kro away from the dining hall for an impromptu date. Worse, I’d spent part of the date having Kro play oracle. Raising questions about the fates of various Zendiks—Would this one leave the Farm? Would this one?—I’d insisted that he answer yes or no, without thinking. Worst of all, I couldn’t shake a hunch that Rayel—a crewmate who Kro had said would leave—was about to betray us.

Was this a thought crime I ought to confess?

Was I wrongfully condemning Rayel to soul death?

Or was it a psychic nudge?

If it was and I let her wreck our trip, I’d be liable. If it was and I spoke up, I’d climb a little higher.

By midday, I was low on cash and craving a breakthrough. Dazed and sunburned, I scanned the food court for tie-dye, dreadlocks, dime-size lobe holes, thick zippers slashing black leather. I replaced the sweat-stained magazine in my hand with a fresh one from my pants pocket. I flashed a STOP BITCHING START A REVOLUTION sticker at a man in a West Coast Choppers jacket. He smirked through his shades and kept walking. I didn’t chase after him.

Tarrow strolled over, then Leah, the sole power seller on our trip. Even she was dragging. Her eyelids drooped under blotched eye shadow. The double-XL T-shirt hooked to her belt loop brushed the ground.

One by one, three more sellers drifted toward us. A huddle formed. No one—except maybe Toba, who was roaming the lawn—felt like selling. No one was doing well.

Was it Rayel’s fault? Was it her vibe? Or was I dulling us with my thought crime? She was right there in the huddle. If I spoke now, I’d at least close the question of whether to speak.

“Hey, guys? I wanna say something. I bet it’s bullshit, but I feel like if I don’t say it I won’t be able to sell.”

Five pairs of eyes widened. Five heads nodded. Five necks stretched my way.

“I was up super late with Kro last night, and we were playing this game where I asked him questions and he gave the first answer that came to him. One thing I asked was if Rayel was gonna leave. He said yes.” I glanced at Rayel, then glanced away. “Now I can’t get it out of my head that Rayel’s on her way out.”

Five heads swiveled toward Rayel. Her face fell. My heart sank. I knew how it felt to be singled out for doubt.

She took a quick step back, shrinking from attack. “Maybe you’re sensing some kind of weakness in me. I know I’m not as strong as I could be. But I’m definitely not planning to leave .”

I apologized, assuring her I hadn’t bought my story; I’d just had to tell it so I could sell. Everyone seemed to accept this. Yet I didn’t sell any better the rest of the day, and neither did anyone else. Each of us totaled two to three hundred—far less than we’d hoped.