Kristina Jones - Escaping the Cult - One cult, two stories of survival

And on and on we repeated it. Again. And again. And again.

Aunty Joy had sent me to an upstairs storeroom to fetch some books. Thrilled to be out of the stifling classroom for a few brief moments, I walked as slowly as I possibly could.

At the top of the stairs I paused, wondering how I could drag the errand out even longer. I hit upon the ruse of pretending to be a princess inspecting my castle. Haughtily I practised an exaggerated princess walk, imagining that my brother’s old hand-me-down jeans, which were two sizes too big and held up with a nylon belt, were in fact a beautiful ball gown with a big petticoat skirt. I pranced along, swishing my imaginary dress from side to side as I went.

The sight of a bedroom door, left ajar, stopped me hard in my make-believe tracks – one prancing leg still raised up above the floor. Why oh why hadn’t I noticed it sooner? Being seen or heard by the occupants was something I really didn’t want to happen.

Gingerly I put my foot down, trying to be an ever-so-quiet tiny-little mouse.

I heard the people in the room giggling.

‘Who’s there? Come on, nothing to be scared of. Come and say hi,’ said a male voice.

I winced. Saying hi was the very last thing I wanted to do.

‘Heeeelllooooo?’ came a female voice I recognised as Aunty Salome. She was from Minnesota in the United States and was married with one son, a few years older than me. I got the impression she didn’t like children very much, so I usually tried to avoid her.

The male voice spoke again: ‘Is that a demon? Or is it a little person? Is it an embarrassed little person?’

At that the pair started to giggle again, followed by a few seconds of silence before the woman let out a low little moan.

The man spoke again: ‘Hey, you kids shouldn’t be wandering about. Aren’t you supposed to be in Word Time? I’m in no mood to come out there and chastise you so pop yourself right in here and tell me what your business is.’

The tone of his voice made it clear I didn’t have much choice. Reluctantly I hovered by the entrance, trying very hard not to look inside.

‘It’s Natacha. Aunty Joy sent me up here to get some books from the cupboard. I have to get them and go back to my class. Sorry if I disturbed you, Aunty Salome.’

At that I turned to make my escape. But the man, amused now, was having none of it.

‘Why so shy, little one? We aren’t demons either. Come and say hi.’

‘I really need to get back to my class. Aunty Joy said …’ I trailed off nervously.

‘Joy won’t tell you off for being a polite little girl. One minute to say hello, that’s all we are asking. You wouldn’t deny your uncle and aunty that, would you?’ he countered.

The woman’s voice spoke back to him, slightly impatiently. ‘Stop teasing her, Peter. It’s putting me off.’ Then she snapped to me: ‘Natacha, stop being a silly girl. Show yourself like your uncle has asked you.’

I took a step into the room, still trying to avert my gaze from the bed where the two were lying. That made them laugh even harder.

‘Oh my, look at her. What a little prude. Natacha, LOOK. AT. US. We don’t bite.’

I lifted my head up. On the little side table next to the bed was a bottle of Dettol disinfectant spray, a big box of tissues and a candle. That’s what all adults kept by their bed. I knew the Dettol and tissues were for hygiene because we kids used the same. Joy had explained to me that the candle was to help them make the room look pretty and give it a nice mood during love-ups. Lying in the bed next to Salome was a man I didn’t recognise. The crumpled sheets barely covered their naked bodies.

‘I am Uncle Peter,’ he explained. ‘I live in Bangkok. I’m just visiting. Natacha? Natacha, Natacha … I know your name. I know your daddy, don’t I? You are Shepherd Moonlight’s little girl?’

I nodded.

‘Ah, you are as cute as a button, just as he said you were. Well, lovely to meet you, Natacha. You had better get those books then, hadn’t you?’

At that he stuck out his hand, offering it for me to shake. I didn’t move.

‘Come on, silly girl. I already said I don’t bite. SHAKE. MY. HAND.’

I reached forward and with the merest hint of my fingertips gave him a tiny shake. He lunged towards me, making a growling noise: ‘Grrrr. I fibbed. I do bite. Grrrrrrrrrr. Come here little girl. Let me eat you!’

I yelped, stumbling into the table.

‘Peter, quit it now. You’re scaring the poor kid!’ snapped Salome. ‘Natacha, please don’t be scared. Peter was just joking with you. He’s a big silly billy, aren’t you, Peter?’ At that she raised herself onto her elbow and leaned over him, her breasts dangling in his face. The sight of that made him forget all about me.

‘Oh, am I now, my lady? Well, maybe I am going to bite your titties. Grrrrr. Come here and let me eat YOU.’

At that the pair of them collapsed into a heap, her squealing with excited giggles, him still making the stupid roaring noise. I seized my chance and ran out.

This kind of thing was par for the course. Everywhere I looked grown-ups were having sex. They left the doors open, they had orgies in the living room, they stood kissing and groping each other in the hallways. They never made any attempt to hide it from us because they thought sexual openness was not only healthy, it was divine. Grandpa preached that love – sex – was something Jesus wanted his believers to do lots of. By being so open about it the adults weren’t trying to harm us, they genuinely thought it would make us healthier adults and better Christians too. But I hated seeing it. For me, the sight of adults making out was just gross.

Grandpa was completely open about his attitude to sex and children. We were read to from a book he wrote called The Devil Hates Sex but God Loves It . The cover of it had a naked couple making love as God smiles over them. In it Grandpa talked about children and sex: ‘How beautiful it is and how true and how Godly and how Biblical and so on, and yet how dangerous for us to even put out such a truth! I mean if you want to infuriate the system, just talk about teaching sex to children, or allowing children any sexual activities or to explore sex or anything. Whew! They’ve passed so many laws against sex it’s almost unbelievable!’

In another letter Mama Maria wrote: ‘It’s pure to us, there’s nothing wrong with it, so we let our kids be in on it, we let them get in on it if they want, we even play it with them because it’s nice, it makes them feel good and they enjoy it.’

Masses of similar letters were sent out with the instruction BAR, burn after reading. Not all of these letters were taught to us in the classroom; others were read out during group prayer sessions where the whole house, children and adults, gathered together in the dining hall for worship. I hated these occasions, not least because I always struggled to sit still. I couldn’t help but fidget, which more often than not got me a spanking.

I had a little friend called Simon who was my age. We used to hide under the stairs and have pretend sex. He would mimic exactly what he’d seen the adult men do and hump at me, pretending to penetrate me. Instead of finding it shocking the adults laughed at us. ‘Ah, they are sharing already. How cute.’

Times were financially tough in the commune and our food rations were smaller than usual due to a lack of donors willing to provide us food. We ate a lot of boiled rice or mangoes, which often had maggots inside them. One of the aunties was heavily pregnant around this time. She clearly wasn’t getting enough nutrients and didn’t look well. She was sent on a fundraising trip in the middle of the monsoon season when it was so hot and sticky that being outdoors for even a few minutes was uncomfortable. In a crowded side street she began to miscarry. She was rushed to a filthy local clinic where she delivered a stillborn baby. When she got back, white-faced and shaking, the other adults urged her to ‘get the victory’, the term they used for overcoming any and all adversity.