Chapter 19
Genesis was a movie star first, cult leader second, at least based on his screening room.
It wasn’t just a theater; it was a small planetarium.
The seats reclined to almost horizontal, and the screen extended onto the ceiling.
The walls were draped in velvet, and the air clouded with incense.
It might have been a floral incense, but a cloud of smoke never reads as floral. It reads as opium den.
“Are we going to watch a movie?” Gabby whispered to Markus.
He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
Something was off about the vibes, like they were sliding fast into real cult territory. Gabby imagined a sacrifice, ritual sex, partner swapping—every yoga cult on HBO did that stuff. Gabby glanced at Markus for reassurance.
After everyone had settled into their chairs, G stood in the front of the theater and said, “It’s time for the purge.”
Gabby’s eyes went wide, and she mouthed “The purge?” to Markus. Did they need to run? She gripped her purse with her taser tightly. She’d seen The Purge with Ethan Hawke. As she recalled, he was cute, but there was a lot of murder.
“He doesn’t realize how other people use that word.”
“Recline your chairs and open your eyes,” Genesis said, like he was about to take them on a magical journey.
Gabby began to relax. Markus wouldn’t let them get murdered.
Like an actual planetarium, the screen displayed the stars.
The Milky Way and the Big Dipper twinkled overhead.
When Gabby was in college, she’d gone to a “The Dark Side of the Moon” Full-Dome show, Pink Floyd’s songs and futuristic images on the planetarium’s screen.
She’d forgotten about that until this very moment.
Instead of Pink Floyd, meditation music filled the room, and a yawn replaced Gabby’s nerves. She was going to have trouble staying awake. If Genesis kept this up, she would probably sleep through the ritual sex.
Before she drifted off for real, recorded voices played over the shimmery sounds of reflection and gentle rainwater. A woman confessed, “I don’t love myself. I try, but I don’t think I’m lovable. Did my mother love me?”
She reached for Markus’s hand and glanced into his eyes. What was going on? “Who was that?”
A man’s voice said, “I hate my job.”
They kept coming. Different voices, but many similar complaints.
“I hate my wife.”
“I cheated on my taxes.”
“I cheated on my husband.”
“I cheated—”
“I cheated—”
They were listening to confessions. Were they from the conches?
It was confirmed when Gabby’s own voice filled the room. “I’m so stressed all the time. I want to have it all, whatever that means, but I feel like I’m killing myself to get it. What’s the point?”
Okay, that hadn’t been too bad. It was her conch confession from the first day. Sheridan’s podcast had been running through her mind. Concerns that she was just “doing it all” instead of “having it all.” Like most women.
Genesis called out over the recording. “Sister Gia, you can have it all. Tap into your G and set sail.”
She couldn’t. Beneath the whole universe, or at least a picture of it, Gabby knew she was just a conglomeration of dust that had once been a star, but now owned a van and could barely handle her daily life.
The rat race she was engaged in seemed not only impossible but inconsequential, at least in the moment.
The recording sped up, a frenzy of confessions: broken trusts, infidelity, insecurity.
More voices were layered on top of each other, so many people echoing the same inadequacies and insecurities.
All the people in this room self-flagellating together.
Had they known this would happen? Probably. They’d all been here before.
Markus’s voice cut through the din of voices. “I’m not happy.”
She could barely see his eyes, but she looked in his direction and squeezed his hand.
Gabby’s voice filled the room again, hers isolated. “I have cold feet.”
Someone snickered, and she gathered they were going to have to talk about that one.
Genesis yelled out, “That’s normal. Everyone has cold feet.”
Markus’s voice came through again. “I’m scared I’m not enough.”
Something about the weird experience had her turning toward Markus and him to her.
It was strangely intimate. They were inflicting this embarrassment and shame on themselves and this weird moment of forced vulnerability with a group of supposedly important people, some of whom she’d only read about in magazines until today.
After the secrets were done, a gong sounded. They all lay completely still until the sound shimmered and trailed into nothingness.
Genesis had been right. It had been a purge. A toxic purge of everything they were holding inside. Weirdly, Gabby felt lighter.
And they’d learned something. Genesis wasn’t necessarily selling secrets.
Tricking people into telling secrets and playing them for group consumption was kind of creepy, but it wasn’t the same as selling them to the media.
Theoretically, he could still sell the really juicy ones and save most for ceremonies, but it seemed like he was collecting them for this.
Like after a yoga class, Genesis said, “Wiggle your fingers, wiggle your toes. Open your eyes.” It didn’t sound right coming from his booming voice.
“Your secrets are no longer yours. You’ve released the burden. That is the first step to intimacy. You cannot be a power couple if you aren’t honest with one another.”
He had a point, but also, you probably had to confide in your partner more than once a year when you whispered secrets into a conch shell in the Azores. But she agreed with the honesty thing. She and Phil hadn’t been, and look where they’d ended up.
“Now it is time for me to share the deepest part of myself with you. To share my truth and secrets.”
Gabby waited with bated breath for Genesis to share a truth, maybe something that would matter to the investigation, but no. Power Couple came up on the screen.
For fuck’s sake.
Big G shut his eyes and bowed his head. “Before this movie, I thought I could do it alone. I thought I was enough. I didn’t realize that I needed my better half to accomplish big things. That’s really what this movie is about.
“When you are doing big things, making big moves, your partner has your back, and you have theirs. It’s not just you against the world, it’s you and your other half against the world.”
Why was the world against them?
“When you become a power couple, you can do anything.”
It was 9:00 p.m. and Gabby was trying to fight sleep. This job might have provided her an opportunity for a satisfying love life for the first time in forever, but it was really just a big tease.
Markus pushed up the armrest on the chair between them, put his arm around her, and pulled her in tight.
Maybe they were undercover being indoctrinated by a megalomaniac cult leader, but they were also out for their first movie.
She snuggled into the crook of his arm and rested her head on his chest. The position was a little awkward, but she wasn’t going to move.
The heat they were generating between them was enough to power a small appliance, a toaster maybe.
They were a power couple, at least for tonight.