Chapter 24
24
I’d thought the night would wind down after the ceremony. I was wrong.
After Ramit threw the last piece of wood into the fire, Moon led us in a processional back towards the castle, still banging her drum. We marched down the path, past the yurts and yoga tent, across the veranda, beyond the pool. Finally, we arrived at the wooden hot tub. Someone had turned on twinkling fairy lights that illuminated the space.
“Time to submerge!” Moon relished the words, beaming. “Get in!” Her drumbeat quickened, taking on an ominous tone.
“What?” Ramit said quietly.
“Submersion time, folks!” Sol pulled off his sweatshirt, revealing a taut, bare chest. He pulled the cover off the top of the tub, releasing billows of steam into the chilly night.
Moon stopped banging with a final thump and for a moment, everyone stood there in shock. We could hear Grace and Steven as they crossed the veranda, chatting softly while hauling Moon and Sol’s bags. The sounds faded as they went inside.
“Well, okay,” Dawne murmured as Sol shucked his pants and skipped up the steps, his white ass shining in the fairy lights. He gave an appreciative sigh as he slipped in the water.
“Guys, it feels fucking amazing.” He rubbed his face.
Moon set down the drum and drew up her white dress, showcasing the downy tufts in her armpits. Yep, there were those nipples, now attached to full breasts. More tattoos dotted her chest and ribs. She wore black hipster-style underwear that she tugged down. I glimpsed a triangle of dark pubic hair before realizing I was staring and looked away.
Dawne gave a small “Whoo!” and bent to unzip her platform boots. As if a button had been pushed, everyone started to tear off jackets and clothes. Even Karen, who was cackling and muttering, “Nothing we haven’t seen before!” Even Ramit, who looked alarmed.
Mikki rolled her eyes at me, suddenly in just her black bra.
Wait. Was this happening? Was I expected to get naked in front of people I’d met hours before? It felt suddenly hard to breathe.
I thought of Jonah’s words: This is a cult. Was this part of it, forcing people to be naked together, to increase their vulnerability or something?
In a flurry of skin, people were slipping into the hot tub, under the cover of the water. I suddenly realized that if I waited too long, everyone would be sitting there staring at me, watching my own personal strip show. Dawne and Jonah were already in the tub, which was larger than it looked from the outside.
Ramit—more muscular than I would’ve guessed—tried to casually cover his penis as he got into the tub. A nude Karen swung her shirt around her head.
“Party time!” she cried, then thundered up the steps and plopped in with a splash.
I still hadn’t made a move, stunned. It struck me that I could refuse, that I could say I wasn’t feeling well and go back to my yurt. But as Moon stood there, waiting patiently, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy.
She came closer, her breasts jiggling with every step. “You okay, Thea?” The diamond necklace gleamed at her collarbone.
There. The symbol tattooed on her chest, in the same position as Catherine’s.
“Um.” I tore my eyes away. Jonah had proof that Catherine had been here, but this was the first evidence I’d seen with my own eyes. It couldn’t be a coincidence, them having the same tattoo in the same place.
“It’s all right.” Moon put a ringed hand on my shoulder. This close, her spiced rose scent entered my nostrils. I glanced around. Mikki, the last to go in, had abandoned me, leaving her clothes in a neat pile.
“These are just our meat suits.” Moon grabbed a handful of flesh at her hip. “They don’t really mean anything.”
Well, I wouldn’t go that far. It wasn’t that I was particularly precious about my body; in college, I’d actually signed up to model nude for other art classes. While I had physical insecurities like many women, that wasn’t necessarily what was holding me back.
What bothered me was the lack of sensitivity. What if I had an eating disorder, or body dysmorphia? There was seemingly no regard for how triggering this could be for people.
And even if I didn’t have those particular issues, it wasn’t like I was magically cool with people—especially strange men— especially Sol and Jonah and Ramit—seeing every part of me.
“I’ll go with you.” Moon gestured to the hot tub. “Ready?”
“I’m sorry.” It was hard to protest—almost impossible—but I forced the words. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.”
“Thea, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.” Moon’s golden lioness eyes were hypnotic. She held both my arms in a parental way, her naked flesh filling my vision.
“Okay, great.” I kept my eyes on hers.
“ But ,” she went on, “we really encourage radical vulnerability here. Exposure in all possible ways. You understand?”
“Yeah, I just…” To my horror, frustrated tears filled my eyes. I ordered them not to fall. Everyone was quiet in the hot tub, surreptitiously watching.
“Just a sec.” Moon let go of me and walked off, her bare feet slapping against the mosaic floor. Suddenly, the fairy lights around the pool area turned off. There was still the moonlight, but it was much darker than it had been a second ago.
“Everyone, close your eyes,” Moon directed as she came back.
“Closed!” Sol cried.
“Better?” Moon put a palm over her eyes. “I won’t look either. Promise!”
“It feels so good,” Karen called. “You’ll love it once you get in.”
What else could I do? Moon wasn’t going to give up, and this was just going to get more and more awkward by the second. And I wasn’t a prude, or anything like that—that was the aggravating part, that everyone now probably thought so.
“Fine.” I unzipped my coat. Numbly, I pulled off my sweater and bra, then pushed down my jeans, almost tripping as I kicked off my shoes. The brisk breeze raised goose bumps on my arms. I swept past Moon, up the steps, and down into the water.
“Yay, Thea!” Moon cried, clapping. Everyone broke out into cheers. It was like a dam had burst, all the tension I’d caused—well, Moon had caused, really—suddenly defused.
And it did in fact feel amazing to be in the hot, steaming water, breathing in the bracing air.
“Good job, honey!” Dawne slipped an arm on my shoulders. “None of us should be afraid to be natural.”
I hid a smile at the “natural”; Dawne’s breasts seemed clearly fake. “Thanks.” The frustration was now shifting quickly into embarrassment. Maybe I had made too big a deal over it. After all, no one else seemed to mind.
“I like it better like this anyway, without the lights.” Mikki floated over and tipped her head back. “You can see the stars.”
Moon gathered into a little group with Sol, Ramit, and Jonah across the tub. I couldn’t see the tattoo in the steam, but knowledge of it put me on high alert. Remember why you’re here.
“Hey, hon.” Next to me, Karen spoke in a low voice. “You okay? I wanted to tell Moon to lay off, but I didn’t want to overstep. You’re a grown woman from New York; you of all people can take care of yourself.”
Was that how she saw me? “Yeah, no, thanks. It’s fine.”
“You know, when I was your age, I wouldn’t have been so happy with this either.” Karen shrugged. “I actually lived in a nunnery from my twenties into my thirties.”
“Really?”
She laughed at my surprise. “Yep. Right after college. I started grad school and was doing this project with nuns living in an abbey outside of Tucson. And something about their lives—they just seemed to have this sense of peace. I’d never seen anything like it. So I dropped out and moved in. I’d grown up Catholic, but it hadn’t ever meant that much to me.”
“How long were you there?” I asked.
She sighed. “Oh, about ten years. Towards the end I was at a conference and feeling less thrilled with the whole thing. Disillusioned. With any group there’s going to be discord and power struggles, but I felt like we weren’t able to sort it out, and it just festered. So I ditched the conference to go to a bar, and that’s where I met my husband. Art was a nice man. A little wild too. He’s the one who started signing us up for these nude cruises.”
“Did I hear the phrase ‘nude cruises’?” Mikki sidled up, grinning.
It relieved me that we’d moved on from my dramatic moment. Dawne joined and told us about a nude beach party at a Costa Rica retreat the year before.
“You’d be surprised which guys had the biggest hmm -hmms.” She bobbed her head back and forth. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
Sol let out a huge guffaw and we all giggled. Maybe this naked-hot-tub thing was meant to loosen us all up? The air felt celebratory, especially when Moon appeared with a huge unmarked bottle and passed it around. Could it be? My kingdom for a swig of tequila. But when it came my way—Moon was watching; I had to sip, saliva and sickness be damned—I found it was ice-cold pineapple juice. I handed it to Mikki, who was talking quietly to Moon. She chuckled and nodded as Moon grabbed her arm. Fast friends, huh?
Sometime later—a half hour? More?—Moon raised her hands. “Everyone, a few announcements before bed. First, a breakfast buffet will be in the dining room starting at seven. Sessions will start at eight in the yoga pavilion. Okay?”
“Also!” Sol spoke between cupped hands, which was really not necessary. “If you have any dreams tonight, please let us know.”
“The veils between the worlds are very thin out here,” Moon added. “People often get messages from the other side.” She climbed out of the hot tub, her body shining like a seal’s, with Sol close behind. I noticed Jonah and Ramit watching them—her, most likely. The couple picked up their clothes and started walking back to the castle, still naked. He said something and she pushed him, flirting. Whatever tension had been between them earlier was gone.
Dawne got out next. “Night, everyone!” Mikki and Karen quickly followed suit. Jonah climbed out, and I couldn’t help but glance at his streamlined, muscular body. Who would’ve thought that we’d end up getting naked together, after all?
I wanted to leave, but something was holding me in place. The rest of the group drifted off to the yurts or showers. The stars winked above, blurring when I looked at them directly. There was still that eerie silence underneath the rush of the wind.
“You want to go first?” Ramit asked. His expression was unreadable in the darkness. “I’ll close my eyes. Or I can go.”
“Oh, thank you.” It was thoughtful to offer. I realized I hadn’t spoken to him much yet. “What brought you here, Ramit?”
He shrugged. “Well, first I got hooked on the podcasts. Then I went to this luncheon, where I met Sol, and we really hit it off. He let me know about this retreat. So… here I am. What about you?”
“Oh, similar story. The podcasts.” I wondered how big their listenership was. It seemed like a pretty genius (and low-cost) way for a cult to spread the word.
“All right, you go.” He held a hand over his eyes. “I’ll get out last and put the cover on.”
“Deal.” I slipped out of the tub and pulled my clothes on over my wet, shivering skin.
“Well, good night,” I called. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You will.” His voice was low, trepidatious, and maybe even tinged with doom.
I knew the feeling.