Sucked Into the Cult
Harry Doss was in a foul mood when he got off the flight from Houston. Fat passengers had crowded him from both sides. Infants shrieked in the rows ahead and behind. A stewardess spilled coffee in his lap. Aside from the pain and the un-businesslike stain, his cell-phone was ruined in the accident. The plane landed nearly two hours late.
He fumbled his pockets outside a phone booth in the Arrivals zone. He didn’t have enough change to make an urgent call. Harry was about to miss the most important meeting of his career.
A hooded figure swathed in sunset hues chose this moment to approach.
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry Doss saw someone shove a book in his face. He wanted to lash out, or at least be verbally abusive. But when he saw her, he was paralyzed and struck dumb. He forgot his business appointment. He forgot his struggling electronics corporation. He wanted to kneel, surrender his soul and devote himself to the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Have you accessed the godhead today, sir? For a small donation, the Ultimate Truth can be yours. If you would only give me a few minutes of your valuable time, I can explain…”
Oh Hell yes. Harry Doss put down the germ-laden receiver he’d intended to use as a bludgeon. Instead of telephone change, he pulled business expense cash from his pocket. Twenty, forty, sixty bucks was a small price to pay for Ultimate Truth. Each additional banknote made the woman who was proof of God’s existence to shake and jiggle in surprised delight.
Harry Doss went from harried businessman to horny Everyman, eager to cheat on his wife.
Betty-Sue Doss was a good homemaker. He’d kept his promise to forsake all others, but the godhead had given a sign that his fast must end.
Harry and the cult woman went to sit in a quiet spot. She opened the book Harry had so expensively bought to a picture of a bald-headed, prune-faced gentleman with flowing gray nose-hair.
“This is Swami Vishnaswoti.” She sighed at the name, and pulled back the hood of her orange sweatshirt.
Harry looked to see whether she was blonde or brunette, and was shocked to discover she was as bald as the dude in the picture. He pictured her nude, being shaven by other saffron-robed figures in some initiation ritual, with muted drums and a droning chant.
If there was a God, Harry wondered, why should some codger with excess nose-hair get to stare at, and probably fondle, his most glorious creation.
Harry’s previous attempts at infidelity were a history of failure. Women he met on business trips and at conventions always declined his invitations to come back to a hotel room for meaningless, wonderfully mechanical adultery. One of them, when he asked her why not, said, “Oh, come on, darling. You’re the kind who always says, ‘I can’t do this. I love my wife.'”
What followed was a kiss that made Harry Doss wonder what might’ve been for months.
‘This time,’ he thought, ‘it’s not going to go that way.’
He dropped his voice to interrupt the flow of Swami-blab.
“What’s your name, young lady?”
“Kryst…I mean, Davadip.”
“I’m Harry. Listen, what you’re telling me is just what I wanted—needed—to hear. Our meeting is no coincidence, it’s synchronicity. I’m in a spiritual crisis. I’m lonely, Davadip. Lonely and scared of what lies ahead. Perhaps you and Swami…”
“Vishnaswoti.”
“…can relieve a troubled soul.”
Sales meetings be damned. Hello, bankruptcy court. Goodbye, wife and kids. Harry Doss, minor-league business manager, was gonna grab him some cult cunt.
They exited the airport and got into a cab.
“Kranepool Hotel,” Harry told the turbanned, bearded taxi driver. “Step on it.”
Harry’s head buzzed with visions of nude Davadip in a hotel shower stall.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Oh my God mister, I didn’t say I was going to a hotel with you.” Davadip sounded like she was about to cry.
Harry Doss felt his spirit drain. “Oh I’m sorry. Of course not. But I swear I only want to talk to you. Tell me where we could go instead.”
“Driver, take us to the Ashkanoma Ashram. It’s at the end of Crapper Boulevard.”
But the driver refused to go to that outlandish address unless he got extra cash up front. Harry took out his wallet and was bled further. He’d have a tough time explaining these additional expenses, on top of the missed conference.
They entered a bad neighborhood. Texas Prisons looked more inviting than the Ashram. Davadip, however, sighed happily when she saw her home.
“Hurry up and get out,” the cab driver said. He threw the car into reverse and was gone.
On the dirt driveway, Harry was surrounded by hulking men in orange hooded sweatshirts. Their faces boded ill.
“Rama-lama, brothers,” Davadip said. “I’ve passed out all my tracts, gathered my donation quota, and I’ve brought a new truth-seeker to visit. Uhm, mister? I forgot your name.”
“Harry. Pleased to meet you guys, but I think I gotta go…”
He stuck out his hand for shakes that never came. Gruff voices muttered words of friendship and welcome. Strong arms embraced him, and dragged him towards the tumbledown shack made to look like some hillbilly’s idea of the Taj Mahal.
In a candle-lit darkness that reeked of incense and sweat, Harry Doss was relieved of his briefcase, then his clothes. “Hey! Knock it off!”
He stopped struggling when he saw he was being lightened and stripped by Davadip and several of her cult Sisters. Davadip looked into his eyes. “Relax,” she said. “Let go. Let it happen.”
She unzipped her sweatshirt. Harry’s mouth hung open at the sight. There was even a trickle of drool. Here body was a milky white expanse, like a glimpse of the distant Himalayas.
“Oooh look, sisters. He’s in need,” one of the cult women whispered.
“Wouldn’t he like to join with us,” said another, pushing her bosom together.
“But he’s not ready yet.”
“Aw, poor guy. Let’s give him a taste.”
Eyes can only open so wide, but Harry’s tried to break the World Record. Davadip’s squeaky voice split the air.
“Wait, sisters! I found him. That means I get to minister to him first…”
Her eyes glowed with spiritual love and bliss.
Harry Doss thought he’d died and gone to Heaven, or Nirvana, whichever was heavenlier. His brain turned itself off. He reverted to a primitive state.
“Glaah…Baaah….Phlurgle…”
Davadip eventually moved aside and let her sisters join in. What was left of Harry’s brain exploded. He saw pink visions of the Holy Ecstasy Beyond.
“That’s enough, for now,” said the senior shaven-headed Den Mother, zipping up her sweatshirt. Harry nearly broke down at the assertion.
“Bluh! Duh! Noooo!” He felt a hooded sweatshirt being pulled over his head.
“Time for you to grovel before Swami Vishnaswoti, o luckiest brother.”
“Oh it’ll blow your mind.” Davadip planted a chaste kiss on Harry’s cheek.
The men of the cult dragged him away with his orange drawstring pants around his ankles.
They dumped him on the rough floor in a dungeon rank with body odor. He heard a low hum, felt himself observed through the blackness. Someone struck a match and lit a candle, then several others. Harry saw the face of Swami Vishnaswoti.
He was even more wizened than in the photo Davadip had shown him. The Swami had grown a white mustache, Harry thought. Then he saw it wasn’t a mustache at all, but the most luxuriant nose-hair in the history of the world. The Swami’s eyes were hypnotic.
“Uh, hello,” Harry said, and instantly felt a sharp smack to the back of his head.
“Silence before the Heavenly Master.”
The Swami regarded Harry placidly. “You seem like a no-nonsense kinda guy,” he said, with a heavy New York accent.
“Uh, sure. I guess.”
“OK, I’m gonna level with you. We’re on a holy mission here, but it’s a business deal too. You start at the bottom and work your way up, through prayer and devotion to the cause. You hip?”
“Yeah. But…”
“Here’s the deal: for every hundred bucks you bring in, you get five minutes with one of the girls–your choice. I mean, it’s up to her, of course. You gotta get a sister’s consent and approval first, but you’ll find most of your new sisters to be quite receptive.”
Harry was about to say, “But I’ve got a wife and kids and a job and…”
Another thought occurred. “Business, huh? What’s in it for the girls? If this is some kind of brainwashing scam, I’m gonna call the cops.”
“Relax, hero. They’re in on the deal. For each C-note a sister brings home, she gets a personal worship-session. And for every dupe… that is, for every new devotee a girl converts, she gets to enjoy Holy Communion with the Master. And that’s me, baby.”
Harry snorted.
The Swami chuckled, his nose hair twitched.
“How ’bout a little demonstration? Been a slow day. Brother Hasham, go fetch Sister Davadip. This dude’s not official yet, but let’s say he counts.”
“Yeah, o master.”
The Swami slowly unwound himself from his lotus position. “Feel free to join in,” he said. “With the chant, I mean.”
The drone grew louder. Harry’s eyes adapted to the eerie candlelight.
A sitar twanged. Muffled drums beat. Harry Doss thought of the business conference going on without him, of his wife Betty-Sue living out her daily routine. Then Davadip entered the basement and Harry thought no more.
“O Divine Teacher, thank you for this most sublime opportunity.”
The Swami gave a curt wave. “Shake it, baby.”
Davadip began to dance. Her sweatshirt fluttered in the air as she leapt and flew all around. By the time she finally bared it all, there wasn’t much left of Harry Doss besides a pile of volcanic ash.
Dewy with sweat, Davadip approached the Swami.
Vishnaswoti leaned back against a brocade cushion and let his devotee have her way.
The chant grew louder.
“Rama-lama! Looba-gabba!”
Harry Doss joined in like a zombie.
“Rammalamma! Loobagooba!”
The show was disappointing. If Harry Doss had been in his ordinary state of mind, he would’ve thought, ‘Big deal.’ But Harry Doss wasn’t in his ordinary state of mind. He was chanting at the top of his lungs.
You might see Harry Doss—he goes by Hare Das these days—at an airport or a street corner near you. His eyes shine with missionary zeal. He is a forceful proselytizer. The first time he brought a hundred dollars back to the Ashram, Davadip told him she knew he could do better. So he’s working on bringing in a cool thousand. He knows he’ll get to Heaven one of these days. The Master told him so.
Horror Sleaze Trash 