21. Res
21
Res
L andon isn’t particularly avoiding me. To avoid me, we’d have to frequently be in the same spaces together. But the only time we’re generally in the same place is when we have brunch with his mother. Otherwise, Landon is living in his own home where he lives with Caleb as his “roommate.”
Roommates is the perfect cover in a cult like the Sovereignty, with more or less strict gender rules that they assume everyone conforms to, and if they don’t, it is only an aberration because of some outside enemy’s influence. They would never even begin to think that Landon and Caleb are a lot more than just roommates, let alone suspect it. Even if they did, they’d never accuse the Oracle’s youngest son of it. Accusing him of being gay would be worse than accusing him of being a rapist. They’d likely even forgive him for the latter.
Either way, I don’t go out of my way to seek him out or try to talk to him about what I saw. When we have brunch with Lilah or see each other at dinner, I act like nothing is afoot and nothing has changed. Because it is nothing. I get that it is something because the Sovereignty has made a big deal of hating people like Landon for hundreds of years. But also, it’s nothing because there’s nothing wrong with him being gay. So there’s nothing for me to tell anyone anyway.
Even if I were concerned, I’d be too busy with High Demand to think about it.
After Abigail finally read through and listened to everything I told her to, she’s decided that she wants to help. I don’t like the idea. Not because I don’t trust her, but because for the longest time, High Demand has solely been my baby. Started on a whim because I needed a cathartic way to process my own story, and telling other people’s stories helped with that. I pick the interviewees. I interview them. I edit the interviews. I post them. I reply to comments. I do everything.
But realistically, I can’t do it all anymore. I can’t just log into my admin side to delete hateful comments, answer clarifying comments, and, in a few rare cases, make statements that the views of those interviewed aren’t my own because there is no perfect cult survivor, and the harm it causes a person and the harm it causes a person to do to others is something that takes a lifetime to unpack.
Thus, I accept Abigail’s help.
Interviews drop on Saturday morning as they always have, and that’s luckily a time that I’m busy with processing classes for my rites. But also, it means that I can’t be there to watch live and monitor and respond to comments.
That’s where Abigail comes in. She spends an absorbent amount of time, more than I imagine she ever would have, reading my responses and comments and listening to my interviews so that she can capture my voice and intentions. Then, while I’m in processing on Saturday mornings, she takes it upon herself to log in and answer or delete comments. This way, no one will ever be any the wiser that I’m the snake in the proverbial garden.
I go back and read them when Ruth takes me to the store. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the person behind the comments was me.
The first interview drops, and though it does higher numbers than usual in the circles my podcast circulates in, it doesn’t break outside its audience. The second interview, Jaxson drops twenty thousand grand into ads for both episodes, and High Demand explodes both artificially through the ads and organically because there’s nothing that people love more than a potential scandal, even if it’s one about a group they have nothing to do with or wouldn’t care about otherwise.
I’m careful with the framing of the interviews. I always am. My goal isn’t to condemn these organizations as a whole as much as it is to condemn the harm that they do and perpetuate. That said, my podcast probably leans more towards “let’s just throw the baby away with the bathwater” rather than reform. That’s not how I want the Sovereignty to be framed, though. Not if I want people in the Sovereignty to let their guard down, listen to it, and be open to considering the accusations being thrown at their leader.
Then, as the internet does, it begins to do my work for me. Finding clips of Abdiel supposedly giving context to his conflict with Raphael over the years. Context that he put in the open as a way to get ahead in an attempt to absolve him, but that in hindsight starts to look more like a self-condemnation.
People processing in the Sovereignty are kept isolated from the broader group, much like in all cults. So that by the time the curtain is lifted and the Wizard of Oz is exposed as a scam, they’re in too deep to turn back and convince themselves that the scam of it all is part of its absolute truth. We’re also encouraged not to look at the things people say about the Sovereignty online. Of course, none of that stops me from checking.
When I log into my social media app, the Sovereignty, along with Abdiel Devine, is trending. Even with all the ad money being thrown at the podcast, it probably wouldn’t be if not for Jaxson’s father encouraging people to get online and be his fearless army. Particularly the children and youth of the Sovereignty, calling them his Joshua generation, who will usher the Sovereignty into the world promised by the Supreme Force. I try not to laugh the first time I hear about it because for all that the Sovereignty hems and haws about it, nothing is unique about them. Most Christian and Christian-adjacent cults throw their youth a bone by calling them that. Loving Eden certainly did.
All that said, this all would have blown over in just a few days if the Sovereignty’s members had just not responded to it. But people in cults have a persecution kink and are always itching for a fight to defend themselves. So the conversation starts to spiral to a point that it can’t be ignored by the Oracle or his inner circle for long.
After the fourth episode airs, I go to have “afternoon coffee” with Lilah and Landon like I always do once or twice a week, only for Landon not to be there .
“Where’s Landon?” I ask as I sit down and help myself to crackers and barbecue chicken salad from a chicken salad food chain that I used to visit back home and complained about not having access to.
“Meeting with the Oracle, and the rest of the inner circle going long. He probably won’t make it,” Lilah says with a sigh.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, knowing very well that it’s not.
“Just some slander and libel online,” Lilah says dismissively.
“Oh,” I answer. Then I make a judgment call. “Is it about that podcast? High Demand?”
Lilah looks up at me and asks in alarm, “Where did you hear about that?”
“I’m on social media. I saw it online,” I answer.
“Don’t you pay any of it any mind,” Lilah snaps. “They’re taking a situation and making it out to be something that it never at all was.”
I can’t help but be sympathetic to Lilah. When you’re trapped in a situation like she is, even if it’s of her own making in a way, I suppose you have to convince yourself that it’s not what people are making it out to be even though that’s not what it is. Like she had to convince herself that she was always meant to be Jaxson’s father’s conduit and not his oldest son’s wife. That the Oracle didn’t steal her from his son because he could to exercise his apparent control.
But then Lilah surprises me.
“Even if it was,” she says with a shrug, “the Supreme Force allowed it all for a bigger purpose.”
I nibble on my cracker silently for a while, considering how far I should push. How far I can push without it being suspicious? At the end of the day, I decide it would be more suspicious if I stay quiet about it. Lilah clocked long ago that I’m curious and inquisitive.
“In that case, do you think any of it is true?” I ask.
I expect a passionate defense of her husband like she’s expected to give when faced with any sordid accusations of the man they call their anointed leader. To my surprise, she just says nothing. She’s so silent, I wonder if she heard me. She looks like she’s not here. Not mentally.
“Lilah,” I call again.
“I’m sorry,” she says standing. “I’m not feeling well today. I’m going to go lie down. But please. Stay and enjoy. I had one of my Sentry track this restaurant chain down just for you.”
She steps down from the gazebo and leaves the garden to go to her suite while I simply do as she asked and somehow manage to enjoy my crackers and chicken salad despite how guilty I feel. I know this is all necessary in the end. But also, I understand what it’s like to have everything you ever thought you knew be questioned and your world turned upside down afterward.
Not even five minutes after Lilah leaves, Landon walks in with Caleb at his side as always, saying, “Sorry I’m late, Mom. The meeting with the Oracle ran late and…”
He trails off upon seeing me alone.
“Res,” Landon says.
I smile, appreciating that lately Landon has taken to calling me by my preferred name when there’s no one around to care.
“Where’s my mother?” he asks, looking like he’s itching to run off but also not because I’m the obvious person to ask about his mom .
“She wasn’t feeling well. Went to take a nap,” I say. Before Landon can try to dart off, I say, “But she wanted us to enjoy the rest of lunch together, and I feel awkward sitting out here alone.”
Landon starts to open his mouth to likely give me some excuse, but I interrupt.
“Caleb can join us,” I say, looking at the man who’s never far behind Landon.
Landon and Caleb exchange a look, having a silent conversation just like a couple who's been together a long time. Finally, Caleb shrugs before they both approach and have a seat.
“How was your meeting?” I ask.
“Long,” Landon answers, clearly uncomfortable.
“Oh. Must have been important,” I say.
“It was,” Landon answers curtly once again.
I could keep going like this, getting one-word answers out of an otherwise silent Landon. But that’s not what I want. I don’t want Landon to be apprehensive around me, waiting for the day I decide to use what I know against him as leverage.
So I say with a smile, “You know, I’d think after seeing you both ass naked, there’s no way we could be uncomfortable around each other in any other context.”
That certainly gets Landon’s attention as he sits up, leans over the table, and says, “Quiet down, Res! You can’t tell anyone!”
“I’m not,” I assure him.
“I’m serious. If this gets out… If my father finds out… the Sovereignty,” Landon finishes lamely, exchanging a look with Caleb .
I could brush off and dismiss his concerns like it’s nothing. But just because Landon being gay should be nothing doesn’t mean it’s not. He’s scared. And he’s right to be.
So I say in a more solemn tone, “I know. I promise. I’m not going to tell.”
Landon is silent for a long time before finally saying, “You’re not?”
“No.”
“What’s the catch?” he asks.
“Catch?”
“What do you want me to do for you to not tell? Or are you just going to hold this information until you need it to blackmail me for your own selfishness?”
I frown and say, “I’d never do that to you, Landon.”
“So you’re saying you’re okay with this? With me…”
“Why would I have a problem with it?” I ask.
“You know why.”
I do know why. If I didn’t know it before, I learned it in the processing class that touched on “male-female relationships” and the natural order of things.
“Maybe I don’t agree,” I state bluntly.
“You can’t just… not agree,” Landon settles on.
“I can’t not agree, but you’re shacking up with your boyfriend?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.
“Not so fucking loud,” Landon whispers. “And that’s different. Look. It’s just… it’s my—our—struggle, okay? I know it’s wrong, and I know it ’s—”
“You’re never going to get me to agree that love is wrong when it’s not hurting anybody.”
“But it is hurting people. It’s… If everyone was gay, humanity would cease to exist.”
“Gay people have existed for a long time, and look at us. Eight billion of us,” I say with a shrug. “I don’t think it’s wrong.”
“So you’re saying the Oracle is wrong? That they’ve been wrong for hundreds of years?” Landon snaps defensively.
Saying that yes, I think the Oracle is wrong and that all of them have been wrong and they’ve been causing a lot more harm than good, is the quickest way to get Landon and Caleb to refuse to hear a word I say. So I can’t say that.
Instead, I say, “Well, it’s like the past Oracles and your father have said. They’re only human. And humans are often products of their time and prejudices. They can’t be perfect even if the Oracle has deemed one of them perfect enough to guide humanity. I’m sure that one day there will be an Oracle without those imperfections who will hear what the Supreme Force really wants us to feel about love without the prejudices of a hateful world so opposed to the original intent of its creator.”
Landon chuckles, the defensiveness seeping right out of him as he says, “Yeah. You’re right. Oracles have said that. Even my dad.”
I figured.
The truth is that in my investigations and studies of the Sovereignty, I haven’t come across any Oracle in a lecture or writing saying what I said. But when a cult or religious leader wants to change a rule that’s not convenient for them or to get with the times, they almost always fall back on humans not being perfect. That the humanity of even God’s messengers or prophets or whatever can sometimes get in the way of revelation and corrupt divinity. I figured that the Sovereignty probably had a book or lecture or something that said something to the effect I needed that Landon wouldn’t be able to call me out on it.
“That said,” I say, “if you don’t mind me asking… if you know the Sovereignty doesn’t allow you to be together right now, why not just leave?”
“The same reason you and Jaxson haven’t left to go settle on the other side of the world together, I suppose,” Landon says wryly.
I laugh, not at all upset that Landon has reversed this back onto me. It’s like they say about rocks and glass houses.
Landon continues with a shrug, “Where would we go? I grew up with the Sovereignty. These people… even though they hate my lifestyle, they care about me. They’re our family. I want them to be my children’s family one day. And besides, I believe in the Sovereignty’s mission. The perfection of humanity. What’s one little sacrifice in exchange for all that?”
It’s times like these that I remember that most people aren’t like me.
As far as I was concerned, becoming a sacrificial lamb and scapegoat, being forced to conform to something I wasn’t, wasn’t worth any of the perks, privileges, and community that may have come with it.
But most people aren’t brave enough to abandon everything and everyone they know to start over and build their life from scratch. I was lucky the first time that I was seventeen with my whole life ahead of me. I’m lucky this time after Jaxson forced me to abandon everything I’d built from the ashes the first time. He had a place for me to go to, something for me to fall back onto: This bunch of misguided, misfit people trying to live their lives in the best way they know how, given a mission that gives them a common purpose and ground that many of them otherwise wouldn’t have without it.
A few years ago, starting the healing process of my own trauma, I would have advocated for this all to be torn down. Now, I couldn’t imagine taking this away from them. Not the community aspect of it. There are worse things than believing that there’s some abstract force that wants its people to be good and righteous. The issue is changing their minds about what good and righteous is. What perfection is.
“Maybe,” I finally say in response.
We finish lunch together, the tone of the conversation becoming much less sober and solemn as I ask them how they met, when they started dating, and how Landon has managed to keep it from his mother. I can tell Landon and Caleb being able to be open about their relationship with someone is a relief. Even Caleb, who I’ve never heard say more than two words at a time and usually lets Landon do all the talking, chimes in, grinning brighter than I’ve seen him.
“I think,” I begin as we’re about to go our separate ways for the day, “I think that you should tell Jaxson.”
I don’t need to clarify what about .
“Jaxson? Seriously?” Landon says with a roll of his eyes. “The guy who doesn’t break rules and never contradicts the Oracle.”
“Not in the open. The same way you don’t,” I remind pointedly. Then I add, “The same way no one does.”
“Still… My brother’s about two steps from being a complete sociopath.”
I resist the urge to correct Landon that Jaxson definitely is far from a sociopath. He has way too much impulse control to be a sociopath. He definitely is a psychopath, though.
Landon continues, “He doesn’t care about anything further than it can benefit him.”
That’s not untrue. Not completely. Jaxson claims all he cares about are things that can further his ambition and power. But he actually does care… in his own pragmatic, logical, psychopathic way, of course. If he didn’t, he would have done far worse than the things he’s done to maintain his image to his father.
He didn’t force Shelly to marry him. He cared about his older sister, enough that he doesn’t mourn his mother’s death because she killed her. He claims to have only picked up J to get close to me, but that doesn’t explain why he keeps the boy around and mentioned something about psychiatrists and eventually signing off on hormones and medication for him. He despises Magdalene, yet they argue like siblings, and he lets her get away with saying far more than he’d let anyone else get away with. Useful pawn or not. He cares about me. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be willing to fight his father this way .
Then I remember something Jaxson told me a couple of months ago. That he’d petitioned his father multiple times to overturn the rule against queerness in the Sovereignty. He’d been fairly pragmatic and logical in his reasoning, but now I wonder if he already knows about his brother. Now I wonder if his petitioning his father about it was more personal than he’d admitted.
“He might surprise you,” I finally respond.
Landon laughs and says, “I see why my brother likes you. If I were straight and a little suicidal, I might give him a run for his money over you.”
He doesn’t add anything about the Oracle claiming me as the other caveat, and neither do I as I say, “Please don’t tell him that. He’ll try to kill you, and I’ll have to talk him down.”
“I still might just to see him try,” Landon says with a laugh as he leaves with Caleb.
I go out to where my Sentry is waiting on me to take me to the store for the day.
There’s not much else for me to do with High Demand. The interviews are scheduled, and Abigail is taking care of the admin side for me. I’d planned to actually work on balancing the books for the store. But my conversation with Landon has changed my plans.
One of the risks we run into when starting a smear campaign against Jaxson’s father is that rather than turning people on the man and the man alone, we turn people off and away from the Sovereignty completely. It’s the last thing we’re trying to do, but the unfortunate truth is that it’s out of our hands how the broader public and Sovereigns in the Sovereignty take it .
But I can steer them in the right direction. When I started going through and compiling and organizing the intel Jaxson and Magdalene gave me (because the Sovereignty records just about everything, even if the broader public, Sovereigns included, don’t have access to it), I created files for all the Oracle’s priests and priestesses. In those files are every lecture, every interview, every panel that they might have been part of as religious and community leaders. That includes Jaxson.
I pull his file. It’s not nearly as full as others, considering Jaxson hates public speaking and does his best to avoid it. Not because he has any stage fright, but the facade he’s forced to wear while doing it is exhausting. He can’t afford to slip once like he can when it’s in relaxed social interactions. Despite that, he does have quite a few lectures of his own. Most of them from his late teen years and twenties. There are a couple of recent ones from his early thirties, but by then he’d mostly retreated from speaking in public. Even so, there’s still more than enough for my purposes.
In addition to my psychology major, I minored in communication. Because people’s psychology is directly influenced by how they’re communicated with. It’s time to put that communication minor to work and subtly introduce the world and the Sovereignty to their future Oracle.