by Lia Matera
I waited. “Go on.”
“A lot of us had … problems involving sexuality.”
I hoped I wasn’t going to hear tales of orgies and forced sex. I hoped I wasn’t going to hear about yet another guru with Rolls Royces and love slaves.
“Brother is very scientifically advanced. He believes technology is our window to the psychophysical universe.” She blinked at me, biting her lower lip. “So everything we did in terms of exploring our sexual problems we, um, did on videotape. He reimages the film on his computer.”
“Reimages? As in, ‘to image again’?”
“That’s right. He changes it using graphics and animation programs. It’s very powerful. He changes it in ways that are absolutely knockout in terms of showing us things about ourselves. It’s astounding, really.”
“What does he do? Put different heads on your bodies or something?”
“Nothing that overt. It’s more changing our expressions, imaging-in our auras—they’re like magnetic fields—showing their actions and interactions.”
I looked at the well-dressed bank lawyer sitting across from me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Sex videos with reimaged auras. And this was her idea of “real.”
“I gather some sort of problem developed?”
She shrank back into the chair. “He’s released them.”
“The videos?”
“Yes. For distribution. Someone I know saw them at a video rental place. In the adult room. I guess they had a shelf labeled ‘Amateur,’ and there they were. I went and looked. There’s a dozen of them. I rented one. I’m on it.”
“Recognizably? Or did the reimaging change you?”
“I think I’m recognizable. I think my facial expressions”—her cheeks looked scalded—“might have been changed, but I can’t be sure.”
“Has he changed other people’s expressions?”
“I think so. But it’s such an intense experience. My memories of it are subjective. And the tapes he showed us”—her hands clutched the wool on her lap—“they had a point. The reimaging revealed things about us. Whereas the tape I rented was just sex. Even the auras are gone.”
“Does he narrate the tapes? Is there a plot?”
She shook her head. “The one I saw was just our session.”
“Did you sign any kind of release?”
“Yes. But I never thought Brother was going to distribute the tapes. I thought the release was a formality. There are quite a few lawyers in the group—I assumed they’d advised him to be cautious, that they were protecting him. I didn’t think twice about it.”
People assume lawyers are more careful than others about signing contracts. I’ve never found that to be the case.
“Do you have a copy?”
“Not with me. I don’t even know …”
“If you want to enjoin distribution of the tapes? Seek money damages?”
“I guess I want to know what my options are. I guess I’m afraid to talk to Brother. He always makes sense to me, really speaks to me. You know, on a deeper level. And I guess I’m afraid of that. I’d like someone who doesn’t feel that way about him to find out why he’s doing this. Because I know he’ll make me think it was a good thing for him to do.”
“And you don’t feel that way now. You feel betrayed.”
She sat very still. “Brother wouldn’t betray me.”
But he would distribute pornographic videos of you. “Tell me the name of the video rental store, and fax me a copy of the release later today. I’ll get back to you tomorrow with a report on what I saw on the videos and an opinion of the release. Then we’ll decide what you want me to say to this Brother. How would that be?”
Her face crumpled. “This is very difficult for me.”
“If you’ll authorize the expense, I’d like to associate-in a private detective so we can get a little background information on the guru and on the extent of the video distribution. It could make a difference in terms of how you want to approach this. Information is strength.”
“I don’t want a battle, Laura.”
“You’ve been a bank lawyer long enough to know the stronger your position, the less likely you are to have to fight.”
“Unless it turns into an ego thing.”
“True. But you don’t want that to happen. And I want what you want.”
She looked at me. She knew my track record. She also knew my weakness. There were times I could have settled things more quickly by being less aggressive.
“I’ll try to be careful not to screw up your spiritual relationship. But my main objective will be to get what you decide you want. If that’s an injunction against distribution, I’ll make that my priority. That’s why you need a lawyer. You’ve got a master-devotee relationship with this person. You start out from a position of supplication, so you know you’re not going to put your best interests first. Not without objective advice.”
“The videos are at that place on Twenty-fourth near Army. I’ll fax the release to you. And if you really think a private detective is a good idea, I guess go ahead.”
“I’m sure it’s a good idea.” I knew which PI I’d contact. I hoped he’d return my call, this time.
“The other thing I wanted to tell you …” It was closer to a question than a statement. “One of the main people that—I don’t know how to put this— sexualized, I guess, is the best word … The main person who sort of got us all into this, who got Brother into the sexual aspects. You know, who stirred us up sexually so that Brother ended up having to help us get through some of our stuff …” She clasped and unclasped her hands, speaking to the wall behind me. “I’ve had a relationship with her.”
“A relationship? Of what nature?”
She told the spot behind me. “Romantic.”
“Okay. Is she also in the tapes?”
“Yes.”
“Have you talked to her? Do you know how she feels about the distribution?”
“I think … I’m afraid …” Margaret finally met my eye. “I think distributing the tapes might have been Arabella’s idea.”
“Does that complicate things for you? Are you still having a relationship? Are you afraid this is going to jeopardize it?”
“Arabella is, um, a sex worker. So she … she has a lot of relationships.”
“A sex worker? Is she a prostitute?”
“She’s an exotic dancer. At The Back Door.”
I nodded. A sex club with a reputation for being hipper than the blinking-nipples-on-billboards places on Broadway.
“You say your relationship was romantic. Does that mean more than sexual?”
“Yes.” Her voice was husky.
“When you say she has a lot of relationships, do you mean romantic or just sexual?”
“Both. She’s very attractive on many levels. And not monogamous. And I don’t—” She was getting upset, short of breath. “I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want to lose Brother, either.”
“But you don’t want to be recognizably featured on videos made available to the public. I’ll do my best.” I wondered if I should offer her a tissue or some wine. I wondered if I should pat her shoulder.
Corporate practice had been easy in that regard. My two criminal cases had presented more emotional complications than all my corporate cases combined.
I’d never been good at dealing with emotion, mine or anyone else’s.
I was relieved when Margaret stood to leave. She fumbled in her briefcase for a moment, pulling out a flyer.
It was triple-folded blue paper. One side read fight censorship. The words jostled a collage of faces and bodies, some famous, many nude.
“Arabella’s probably going to perform at this benefit. She starts work right afterward.” Margaret handed me the flyer without looking at me. “The Back Door’s giving up
its main room for a couple of hours. If you need to speak to her or just want to see her. Maybe Brother’s going to be there, I don’t know. It’s tomorrow night. I probably won’t go.”
“Thank you.” I took the flyer. “I’ll speak to you again before then. I may want to go. It’ll depend on what’s on the tapes, and what you decide you’d like me to do.”
She seemed broken, without will. I hoped it was a result of stress and confusion. I hoped it didn’t go deeper. I hoped this guru hadn’t shaken her confidence.
She was in-house counsel for a bank, after all. She couldn’t afford to get too docile.
She looked me in the eye. “It’s tearing the lesbian community apart, did you know that?”
“Your guru?”
She pointed to the pamphlet. “That. You’ll see, if you go.”
She hurried out of my office.
I unfolded the sheet of paper. “Reclaim sexuality! Reclaim erotica! Reclaim America!” it read. “Join us in speaking out against censorship. Join us for a very special show at The Back Door Theater.”
Tearing the lesbian community apart? I wondered what she meant.
I noticed my hand was shaking. But that had nothing to do with Margaret’s problem. It had to do with the call I was about to make.
3
“Sandy?” I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice.
The last time we talked, we quarreled. Sander Arkelett, private detective for White, Sayres, among others, had been my lover for a while. I’d left him for Hal. He’d been a good sport, considering. But three months ago, attraction to another man showed me my feelings for Hal had reverted to familial. And Sandy hadn’t liked Ted McGuin, hadn’t liked it that Ted was younger, less educated, part of a different world; he’d been downright insulting about it, in fact. He’d acted like my father, with his disapproval and dire warnings.
I hadn’t spoken to Sandy since I’d returned to San Francisco. I’d called him. I’d left messages. But he hadn’t phoned back. Until now, my reaction had been, well then, the hell with you.
“It’s Laura.” This was the first time I’d called his work number. I guess I’d known I could reach him there.
I tried to put the resentment away.
“Sandy, God damn it. Say something.”
A slow exhalation. “Howdy.”
Still coming on like a laid-back cowboy, a just-folks Gary Cooper.
“You knew I was back.” I left you enough messages.
“Yuh. Office down in SoMa, I hear.”
“Only a little south of Market.”
“Least you’re back in business. I was glad to learn.”
Then why didn’t you return my calls, you sanctimonious, paternalistic son of a bitch? “That’s why I’m calling. I’d like to hire you.”
“Go on.”
“There’s a guru here in town—I don’t even have his full name yet. His followers call him Brother.”
A brief silence. “I know about him.”
“How?”
“Previous investigation.”
He couldn’t tell me about the investigation, but maybe he could tell me what he’d learned about Brother. That would save my client money; keep my fee low and make me look good.
“I have a client who’s involved with him. I need background on him. Unless you have a conflict.”
“Depends who your client is. What the problem is.”
“Her name is Margaret Lenin. She did some kind of sex-therapy sessions with him. She let him videotape them. Now the tapes are available in at least one video rental place.”
“Smooth move. She suing?”
“She doesn’t know what she wants to do. I haven’t seen the release she signed, and I don’t know what his plans are in terms of distribution of the videos.”
“Well.” I could hear him breathe into the mouthpiece. “I don’t see a conflict on my end. I don’t know.”
I waited awhile, and then I said, “I’m not with McGuin, but I don’t think that should matter. I think you were out of line.” I waited a little longer. “I think you were a real shithead.”
“That your idea of an olive branch?”
“You could have returned my calls.”
“You could have come home with me and taken care of business instead of scratching your itch.”
I hung up. Conservative ex-cop, disapproving bastard, treating me like a kid. Worse, like his ex-wife.
When the phone rang a minute later, I knew it was him. I waited for one of the secretaries across the hall to put the call through.
“All right,” he said, a little extra Louisiana in his voice. “You want me, you got me.”
4
I sat with my back to a wall of unpacked boxes, a tumbler of iced vodka in my hand. My new apartment didn’t feel right, didn’t feel like me. There was too much architecture in my viewshed, not enough greenery. I missed my old place, stately and fragrant with eucalyptus from the Presidio across the street.
Even my furniture looked shabby now. Hal hadn’t bothered to keep the fat white sofas clean, to keep the antique wood unringed. I’d watched it happen, worrying about my yuppie fixation on externals, trying not to care about mere things.
For my sake more than Hal’s, I’d allowed my furniture to grow nicked and soiled. I’d walked away from my career and drained my savings. And it hadn’t changed either of us, not enough.
I wondered if he was happy in Alaska. He was working on a fishing boat—rigorous enough work to test the right-arm, right-leg weakness that was the legacy of his Vietnam tour. For almost twenty years he’d yoked himself to his denial. Maybe I’d done the same.
After four years of complicated interaction with him—I couldn’t call it romance, really—I supposed he’d remain my silent partner for a long time. He was still the one I talked to in my head, the one I showed things to and justified things to. It was, on the whole, unpleasant to support so harsh an inner companion. But maybe that’s why I did it.
I poured another glass of vodka and popped a tape into my video-cassette player.
It opened with a light show, a startling montage of spectra fading and blending into one another. It was very sixties, making me expect the usual corny bullshit.
But then, I knew nothing about this guru’s philosophy. Maybe it was preferable to most people’s, maybe even to mine. I just couldn’t imagine substituting someone else’s observations for my own. On the other hand, Margaret Lenin was a smart woman. If she was impressed, maybe there was something to be impressed by.
The opening scene was a group of eight adults ranging in age from mid-twenties to mid-forties, by the look of them. They were undressing, quickly and without sidelong glances.
A bored-sounding voice captured everyone’s attention. I assumed it belonged to Brother.
“Now let’s begin,” the voice said, as if for the thousandth time guiding children through The Charge of the Light Brigade. “Let’s begin with why we’re here. We know that reality, as defined by our civilization, is an inadequate guess. It doesn’t even explain its own principles of physics. Quantum physics tells us the rules are different for subatomic particles. An electron is a wave when it’s not observed, and a particle when it is observed. Our perceptions actually, literally change matter—make it real, if you will. So it’s no overstatement, no silly tenet of pseudoscience or mystical religion to say that this is a psycho-physical universe. Our perceptions create not only our reality, but on the quantum level—which is the basis of all matter— reality itself.” A slight pause. “Please make yourselves comfortable.”
The devotees dropped to big cushions arranged in a circle on the floor. A number of them kept arms folded across their breasts or hands strategically over their genitals. The camera executed a slow sweep, as if the speaker were pacing, addressing each individual. The effect was cinéma vérité made folksy
by amateurish handling of the video recorder.
“Sexuality is a perfect example,” the voice continued. “Our bodies respond to our perceptions and interpretations. We turn ourselves on by selecting stimuli, sometimes of a personal and highly individual nature. But that’s not the end of it. We proceed to put our sexuality—our heat, our wanting, our energy—out into the world. We do it so others will respond. Often we do it inadvertently, chagrined to see it push people away like a negative magnetic wave. Just as we see the effects of subatomic waves—magnetism, for example, or gravity—and not the waves themselves, we know our sexuality by its effects in the world. We create sexual fields, and they in turn create and are changed by interference patterns with other fields, sexual and nonsexual.”
I wondered if people renting the video would fast-forward through the capsule philosophy, or if the nakedness of the devotees would hold their interest. The bodies were less perfect than late-night cable images. But they were all reasonably trim and fit—perhaps the out-of-shape had declined to be part of the group.
“You wouldn’t be in this room if you weren’t powerfully aware of your sexual energy, and powerfully pulled into the energy of the people around you. The interference patterns created by your energies can be transduced into a new understanding, an intuition about the nature of reality and consciousness. You’re here to open yourself to it. Change the patterns of habit that inhibit your progress. Make a gesture toward the future. Begin by touching yourself.”
I found myself sitting forward, equally rapt and disgusted. Group members exhibited signs of shyness now that action was required of them. Some fidgeted, some sat stone-still. They gave the impression of baby boomers at a seminar suddenly discovering they were naked. How far were they going to go to please this laconic voice?
They had apparently been coached. After the first tense moment, they lay back on their cushions. They began tentatively stroking themselves.
