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HEAVEN'S HARLOTS:  MY FIFTEEN YEARS AS A SACRED PROSTITUTE IN THE CHILDREN OF GOD CULT

6.  Flirty Fishing in the Kingdom

Sexual favors to strangers was fast becoming our main method of witnessing about the Lord. Even our work on stage took second place to going to the top Parisian nightclubs and picking up men who seemed interested in what we were offering. The showgirls had an easy time meeting the rich and famous, so they began to go out regularly with a fisherman by their side. After Cal grew tired of sitting around in clubs until three in the morning, he started to let me go with a regular fishing team, as long as he could make the final decisions on which men I slept with. If the male leader who was with us thought a man was potentially worthy of our special gift of love, I was instructed to make a date with him, letting him know I would bring my husband along. That sounds odd to Americans, of course, but the French were not as surprised as I had thought they would be. Most of the men I went to bed with while I was married to Cal met my husband first. I truly believe that our motives were generally to be able to reach a stratum of men we would never meet elsewhere. We still went singing to make money, and as far as I know, we did not receive any money from the men we met at the clubs during the early years. Other than the witnessing motivation, we wanted to meet men who were influential and who could help us politically or in our music business.

Sometimes I would pass the fish on to other women in my group, since I had no desire to give sex to all the men drawn to me. That left me free to go on the dance floor. Dancing had become my only personal mode of self-expression, and moving to music had a mantra-like effect on me. I liked dancing alone, and the crowded disco floor offered an absurd opportunity to pretend I was by myself for a few minutes. It was a chance to be free from the Family's constant control and the pressure of perpetual witnessing. To this day, I use dancing as an escape mechanism.

Since we usually went out with groups of four or five girls, and only one fisherman, the brothers had to take turns in the role. Being a fisherman was not necessarily a desirable task. Basically, a fisherman looked like a pimp, coming into a club with a group of girls who immediately went around picking up guys. Cal soon realized that I came to the club because I enjoyed dancing, not to have sex with other men, and I think that made it easier on him. Since we went out at night, while Thor was away at school or in bed watched by a sister, it did not take time away from my son. It was the perfect job for a Family mother. During the day, the women who had gone out the night before were excused from work duties, witnessing, or practice, so I used this free time to take the metro out to the school to see Thor.

During the early days of using sex as a lure, the primary goal was to convince the man to ask Jesus into his heart. That could often be accomplished without going to bed with him, and I knew it well. I only went to bed with those men who were hardened to what we thought of as the Spirit of God working through us. Most of them were ready to accept Jesus after a few close dances. I often talked incessantly about Jesus and God's Love while dancing, especially in the early days. If the man asked for a second dance, he knew what we were preaching, so that would establish him as potentially interested in the Lord. During subsequent dances, I talked less and let the man touch me more, and the French men are not shy about touching; neither are French women embarrassed to be touched. I could not help but notice that our French sisters took a lot more men to bed than I did. During the course of an evening, I invited the men to come and sit at our table so I could introduce them to my friends. Sometimes, another woman would take over, especially if a man spoke only French. I preferred letting a French sister witness to him then. On other occasions, the male in our group would engage in a discussion with the man, and often they became friends in one evening. In fact, Cal started a few lasting friendships with men I had lured to our table. Hopefully, by the end of the evening, the man had heard the full salvation message, which is basically the same simple message taught by the evangelical Christian faith: Believe that you are a sinner, that Jesus died for your sins, and that he can give you salvation so you can again be united with God and go to heaven. The proof of one's belief was to verbally ask Jesus into your heart, which was merely an outward sign that you believed. I would venture to say that more than half of the thousands of men we talked to in clubs asked Jesus into their hearts. Of course, whether they really meant anything by repeating this simple prayer is open to debate; however, we were always optimistic.

If a man argued or showed absolute disinterest in this message, we usually let him go at that point and looked for another dance partner. However, many of these same men would come back to our table on a later occasion and would not argue this time; we assumed that they had thought it over and liked our message now. 

Actually, giving sex to a man often depended on who the fisherman was at the time. Some of the higher leaders, who had been with Mo at clubs, gave the girls to the men very easily, even if the men already had asked Jesus into their hearts. "Give him a treat," they chuckled. "He deserves it." Or they would say the man needed more proof of God's Love, so go to bed with him. The middle leaders, who were afraid of doing something wrong, were more careful about giving the women away. Mo was very interested in the statistical information on this new method, and the Family began keeping detailed FFing statistics, such as number of fish witnessed to, fish loved, and fish saved. Women had regular reports to fill out at the end of each night, and they were collected, tabulated, and sent in to our headquarters in Switzerland, called World Service. Every month, these report forms were filled out by our home leader and sent along with our tithe (10 percent of all the home's income) and our monetary gifts for the worldwide work. Soon "FF" testimonies from around the world started to appear in the Family News magazine. Some told of the "trials and victories" experienced by husbands and wives as they obeyed Mo and started sharing sexually; others told of hardened middle-aged businessmen, a group we had never reached before, who asked Jesus into their hearts and changed their lives, seeming proof that this method worked. Just as any new theory is supported by tangible examples, the idea of recruiting through sex was supported by these testimonies, and within a few years the method had become part of our everyday existence.

Around the time our sexual recruitment practices were evolving in the mid-1970s, Mo wrote a series of letters in which he condemned Israel's position against the Arab nations. Still indignant over the disappointing reception he had received on his visit to Israel in 1971, he told us in a letter titled "Breakdown" that it had been his heart's desire to establish a Christian work there. He wrote us that "after two thousand years of knowledge of Jesus Christ, [Israel] is still in rebellion! If any nation on earth is without excuse -- the Jews are .... 'Ye do always reject the Holy Ghost'" (66:16). I have since come to believe that this was merely a temper tantrum on Mo's part due to his not being recognized by his formerly beloved Jews, since he claimed to be "a Christian Jew." Irritated by his unsuccessful attempt to establish a colony in Israel, Mo later became enthralled by Muammar Q9.ddafi, the terrorist leader of Libya. It was a bizarre relationship, which was not understood by many of the group's members with whom I spoke.

Most of us in the Family were far too busy to keep up with Mo's confusing line of political reasoning. We were the peasants, the proletariat too busy supporting the kingdom to spend time in reading, research, and reflection on the Mo letters such as "Israel Invaded," published in 1973. In it, Mo predicted that Israel would be invaded and conquered by the Soviet Union, Libya, and other Arab nations, and he prophesied (supposedly God speaks in King James language):  "Therefore I will rise up and destroy thee who calleth thyself Israel, o ye children of the devil, and I will return my land unto them whom I have given it, that they may be forgiven from thee, 0 ye enemies of the Almighty and ye crucifiers of the Son of God and ye rejecters of thy King!" ("Israel Invaded" 281:63). Mo insisted the message about Israel be distributed on every street in the world, which instantly caused trouble for our homes, especially in Paris. We tried to soften the anti-Semitic overtones by placing the Israel letters beside testimonies about our missionary work in India in the literature we gave out to the public. However, once Mo started on a radical topic, he stayed with it until the message became redundant. Now his new pro-Arab position had reached the most powerful leaders of the Muslim world.

Qaddafi invited Mo and his family to be his guests in Libya. In June of 1975 Mo published a new letter documenting the visit. That signaled the end for Les Enfants de Dieu Show Group. All of our producers were Jewish, and they immediately withdrew support.

Around this time, most of the Show Group felt it was time to go on to other things anyway. We had been singing, dancing, recording, and performing for four years. We had produced a number of records and albums, performed in every major city in France, and appeared on nationwide TV and radio almost weekly. France had heard our message, and besides, due to the Israel letters, our days in France were numbered, so we all began looking for new mission fields. Even though many successful projects we started were destroyed by Mo's letters, we had become accustomed to deceiving ourselves that this meant it was not God's Will to continue there.

During our quiet periods, the leaders sent out teams from the Show Group to sell leftover albums. We went two by two on what we called "faith trips," which meant we were given no money, just fifty to a hundred records to sell. We usually did quite well, since records brought in more funds than Mo letters.

On one of those trips, I went with my dance partner, Jonathan, to the south of France. Jon was one of my all-time favorite brothers. Admitting to homosexual tendencies before he joined the Family, he was now married and had children. Jon was more fun to be with than anyone else I knew. He was clever, witty, not too serious, and best of all, always ready for adventure. A tall, slim, and very refined looking young man, Jon somehow managed to be dressed in the latest fashion and always looked impeccable, from his well-trimmed hair to manicured hands and pressed shirts. He usually added a long, flowing scarf to his attire for additional flair.

As my dance partner, Jon could invent new steps during a major performance to cover any mistakes I made. Jon always told me to just keep on going, no matter what happens.

When Jon and I took a faith trip to the south of France to sell one hundred records, we planned to go to nightclubs along the Cote d' Azur.  If we sold all our records, Jon wanted to go to Rome. I didn't really think we would sell them all. Besides, Thor was at the school during the week and I wanted to be home before the weekend. However, we sold all our records on our first day on the Cote d'Azur.

Jon and I were standing on a deserted St. Tropez road late at night when he reminded me that I had promised to go to Rome if we sold out. I agreed we'd go if we got a ride there that night. Rome was more than three hundred miles away.

We waited for more than ten minutes for the first vehicle to appear. Finally, a red car came around the corner slowly and stopped for us.

"Dove vai?" asked the man behind the wheel of a flashy sports car.

"Roma," answered Jon.

"Si, si. I too."

The Italian spoke little English, but Jon knew enough Italian to find out that the driver was indeed going straight to Rome, and he would take us.

I squeezed into the tiny backseat and fell asleep before we were out of France. When I woke up, we were in Rome. We stayed at the Family colony, where Jon's old friend lived, for three days, and sold Italian literature on the streets to make money for us to take a train back to Paris, in time for me to see Thor on the weekend.

Back in Paris, I couldn't stop dreaming about the beauty of the Cote d'Azur Although I never visited art museums, I fell in love with the living, natural art of the sea, the coast, and the lovely Provencal scenery. In a few weeks, I convinced Cal to take another faith trip down there with me. 

This time, the trip was not as easy. Cal and I had trouble acquiring a ride out of Paris, and at nightfall we found ourselves in a tiny village near Grenoble with no place to sleep. A large, muscular man with a thick German accent offered to let us stay at his farmhouse in the country.

Cal and I suspected nothing as we rode with the man into an even more deserted area. He pulled up next to a dilapidated and isolated building that looked more like a shed than a farmhouse.

"Let me make you something to eat," he insisted as he led us into a room cluttered with newspapers and articles of clothes. We felt obligated to comply, but both Cal and I were becoming uncertain of the man's motives, especially when he started drinking large quantities of alcohol. We began to suspect he was a madman, and we were no less fearful when he finally told us the story of who he was.

"See all these newspapers around?" he said. "Well, they talk about the terrorist acts that have been happening in Germany. Have you read about it?"

We didn't follow the news very much and responded in the negative.

"Read them," he insisted again. Sure enough, there were articles on terrorism marked in the newspaper.

"That's me they're talking about," he said with pride, fingering the large butcher knife he had been using to cut the sausage and  bread.

I felt a shudder go through my body, and Cal began to talk nervously.

"Well, maybe we'll just go now instead of waiting until the morning."

The burly man was plastered by now, and he demanded that we spend the night. Since there was little room to sleep in the small, disordered shed, we convinced him to let us stay in the car.

Neither Cal nor I slept at all, and as soon as the sun came out, we crept silently away and headed toward the road. There were no cars in sight. About half an hour later, we saw a vehicle coming. It stopped and we saw that it was the German. He seemed sober now, and without mentioning the terrorist story, he drove us to the superhighway, where we caught a ride to St. Tropez. Both of us were more contemplative after this incident, and for some unknown reason, Cal began to offer me to other men with greater ease. Perhaps he felt, as I did, that God had just saved us from a potentially dangerous situation.

As soon as we arrived in the quaint and celebrated village of St. Tropez, we met a lawyer from America who was vacationing there to visit the nudist camps. A soft-spoken, sedately good-looking man of about forty, he talked with us all day, and he let us stay in his rented bungalow that night. After bunking down on the carpet with our sleeping bags, Cal told me to go to the man's bed and give him oral sex. Probably, Cal was worried about me getting pregnant with another man's baby, since it had been over three years that I had not become pregnant with him, even though we made love frequently. The lawyer was, needless to say, surprised, but he did not protest. He had already heard about God's Love that day, and I told him that this was just another part of it. Afterward, I went back to make love with Cal, who of course needed emotional comfort. I don't think I ever got emotional comfort from anyone. I had grown accustomed to living without it.

Right after our return from the south, the Family decided to start a home near Monte Carlo, so Cal began making preparations for our move. It entailed getting approvals from our leaders, who were encouraging us to leave Paris. Taking Thor with us, we met the leaders of the Nice home, and they said we could stay with them while we looked for a home to open in nearby Monte Carlo.

Both Cal and I were excited by the move south. Les Enfants de Dieu was definitely finished, and the whole Show Group was splitting up. Most of the people we had lived and worked with for the last four years we would never see again, but that was part of the revolutionary life.

The new home we arrived at in Nice was very small. In an apartment with two bedrooms and one bathroom, there lived a Swedish couple with their baby and a single French sister named Mara. Cal and I had thought that our marriage problems would diminish in a new environment, but instead, working so closely together every day, they intensified. The Swedish couple seemed to be having troubles of their own, and they never became involved with ours; however, Mara confided in me a few weeks after our arrival that the Lord had shown her in a dream she would marry my husband, Cal. It was not such an unusual statement, since threesome marriages were allowed in the Family.

While in Nice, we continued to support ourselves by selling Mo  letters on the streets, but in the evening, Mara and I went to the clubs while Cal stayed home with Thor, who was now three years old. We always had our drinks paid for by the men we met, and sometimes I met a man to whom I would witness further. This meant that I would introduce the man to Cal, and if he said yes, I would spend the night with him, usually at his hotel room, since most of these men were tourists. Whenever I had to spend a night away from home, Mara shared sexually with Cal. Eventually, I talked with Cal about a threesome.

"Mara already told me that she believes she will marry you, Cal. Since she is spending so much time with you, maybe we should include her in our marriage." Threesomes were becoming one of the better options in marriage relationships, and in many of the homes where FFing was practiced, they were common. In our cult, and in many other cults as I found out later, threesome marriages (they were usually two women and one man, but not always) turned out to be a workable solution, perhaps because it supplied more help with women's work and children and more regular sex for the husband.

"I don't know," said Cal. "That's a big responsibility for me."

I knew Cal well enough to understand that he had something else on his mind.

"Don't you like her?" I asked. Mara was a cute, petite Frenchwoman, who was four years younger than I, and many people said we looked like sisters. We both had long blond hair and blue eyes, wore the same size clothes, although I was taller, and we both loved to dance.

"Yes, I do like her very much."

"Well, is it the sex?"

"No, of course, it is different than it IS with you. But it's still fine. "

"Don't you believe in threesomes?"

"Well, I have been thinking about it too, of course. It would make a lot of sense, especially if we move to Monte Carlo. But ... I'm concerned about you."

"Oh, I don't mind. Not at all. Don't worry about me. I like Mara very much."

I could see Cal's face flush as I said this.

"So you don't mind sharing me with someone permanently? You know, I am serious about marriage. And if! marry her, it will be for good. "

"Oh, I understand. I don't care. I mean, yes, I know you are concerned and will take good care of her."

"I want to take care of you too."

"Don't worry about me. I don't need extra attention. I won't be jealous at all."

"That's what I mean, Jeshanah. I think you don't care at all. Is this a way for you to get further away from me emotionally?"

It was like he had thrown cold water on my face. It woke me up. I had been so excited about the prospect of Cal having another wife, I had not stopped to ponder why I liked the idea so much. I assumed it was because I was a true revolutionary, but in that moment of truth, I knew that I would be relieved to have someone share the burden of being a mate to Cal. I could never tell him that, however. It would hurt him too much. There were other threesome arrangements in the Family, and the testimonies in our Family mag were full of praise for this new idea. I bought into it, thinking it was a logical alternative for loveless marriages. Unfortunately, Cal seemed to love me in a non-revolutionary way, so I tried to reassure him.

"Cal, we will always be connected because of Thor."

"You won't try to leave me if I marry her?"

"You know you can't really marry her. That would be illegal."

I laughed, but Cal was still very serious.

"All right, I will talk to the leaders about it."

Mara, of course, said she already knew this would happen. With her on our team, we had enough help to start a new home, so we started living like a separate "home" even while in Nice. Two of us went out witnessing and making money while one stayed home with Thor. We began praying for a small home in Monte Carlo.

During our first excursions to Monte Carlo, Mara and I had met Jean, a native Monegasque who was close to fifty. Both Mara and I were in our early twenties. Jean seemed to like me, but he enjoyed Mara's company more. As I listened to the two of them converse in French, I became acutely aware of my lack of education and culture. Although I had been to college, and Mara had not even finished high school, she knew so much more about literature, history, music, and art than I did. Jean and she discussed topics I could not even enter into. I felt that I would have to educate myself. But how could I do that? We were not supposed to read anything but Mo letters. And after my previous experience as the Uneager Beaver, I surely should not be reading books. Instead, I began to pay more attention to every piece of culture and knowledge I could glean from the people I met. Not only did this increase my own knowledge; it also made me seem more interested in the other person, which was a wonderful asset to my role as a witness.

Our prayers for a home in Monte Carlo were soon answered. Mara knew a young man who owned a basement apartment in Monte Carlo. It was not in very good condition, but he said that if we fixed it up, we could stay there rent-free. We accepted immediately and moved into the exclusive Monaco principality with little more than our suitcases.

Thor was three years old now, and I spent a few hours each day  teaching him to read and learn math. Sometimes I took him panhandling and distributing literature with us, but usually he stayed home with Cal. We all enjoyed the wonderful Monaco parks and beaches daily. Everything was within walking distance, which was extremely convenient since we never owned a car. Since Mara had already given herself to a Monegasque taxi driver, we obtained free taxi rides whenever we needed to travel a distance.

Among our first "fish" were an Italian businessman, an American lawyer, and the son of a famous actress. All of them were given sexual love in order to reach them with God's message. None of these early fish ever gave us money, although they often took us out to eat as a family or bought us gifts, such as a bed for Thor, shoes, or groceries. Many of the women in the Family were spending a considerable amount of time with their fish, and so we felt it was a sign of the Lord's blessing when we were given these "gifts."

Since there were only three adults among us, we decided that as long as any two of us agreed, we should go to bed with the man. We were careful to keep clean, and since Mo now told us to go to the doctor to be checked for sexually transmitted diseases, whenever someone had any type of health concern, we took care of it immediately. However, due to prayer or luck, we never got anything serious.

My first experience with the jet-set elite took me by complete surprise. In a club, I had met an interesting American who took my phone number. The next evening, I received a call from him. 

"Hello, is this Jeshanah?" asked a voice I remembered from the previous night.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, you remember me, Tony?"

"Yes, it is nice to hear you again."

"I thought you might like to go to a party tonight. A friend of mine is having a delightful party in Cannes. I could send you a chauffeur and car in one hour."

"Yes, I would like that very much," I said, not knowing if Cal would agree or not. "How should I dress?"

"Wear the best outfit you have. This is a chic affair."

We arranged a time and I gave him my address. Then I went to talk to Cal.

"You should have asked if Mara could come," he reprimanded. "You know I don't like you to go alone on the first date." It was an established rule of the Family. Ever since our first days in the group, we were told to always go out two by two, which was the way Jesus sent his disciples to witness. Also, "since the devil walked around as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" (I Peter 5:8), we were told to stay together for spiritual safety and to remind each other about our spiritual mission. Actually, I was never completely alone with anyone outside the Family until I started this new type of ministering with my body. I had my excuses ready.

"Well, Mara met him last night. I thought that would count as a first date."

I did not know why I forgot to ask about Mara. Perhaps I did not want to take her along. Mara made me feel inferior in some way, and she usually pointed out mistakes I made later when we discussed the evening together. Also, I was beginning to enjoy the extra personal freedom I had recently acquired with our move to Monaco.

"What will you wear?" asked Mara, who knew she had better taste in clothes than I did.

"I thought I would wear the dress that Jeanie gave me," I answered. Jeanie was a famous singer in France who had been a friend of ours in Paris. She often gave us her "old" performing clothes, which the leaders usually took. However, a long silk dress with a deep slit up the front was given to me since I was tall and thin enough to wear it. I felt very self-conscious in the sexy dress, and I never wore it out to the clubs. Mara thought it was too gaudy and made a face.

"Well, if it was good enough for her as a singer on stage, I'm sure it will do fine," I said. "There is nothing else anyway."

The real problem would be a coat. We settled on a beige raincoat, the newest thing I owned but still vintage. We had group prayer before I left, but I was a little apprehensive. Both Cal and Mara clearly disapproved of me going alone. We did not even know where I was going in Cannes. For the first time I began to worry about safety, but I tried not to show it. After all, it was my idea to go alone.

I bathed, as we always did before a date. My waist-length hair hung straight down my back as usual, but the recent shampoo had added body. I wore a little makeup now: some lipstick, eye shadow, and mascara, and I sprayed on some cologne. The black going -- out shoes I always wore matched the dress, but they looked frayed. I wore no jewelry at all except a necklace with a gold heart and a circle inside, a symbol often drawn by Mo on his personal letters of love to us. It had been given to me by a kindhearted female leader in Paris. The only other piece of jewelry I owned was another Family symbol, which we called David's Harp. It had been specially made for me by Cal. I looked in the mirror before leaving and saw how tatty the raincoat looked, so I took it off and held it over my arm.

The chauffeur who picked me up did not speak to me the whole way to Cannes, about a one-hour ride on the lower cornice road. when he pulled onto a small road leading through the woods, I felt uneasy and tried to glean information from him on my whereabouts.

"whose house is this we are going to?" I asked.

"You will find out," he retorted curtly.

I wondered if I was being kidnapped. Perhaps the driver was part of a pornography ring. I really did not know this Tony guy well, and now that I thought about it, he seemed a little sinister.

After we traveled down a tree-lined private driveway for a few minutes, a huge white mansion appeared in front of us. The driver pulled up to the well-lit veranda accented by impressive Roman columns, and another man, a valet I guessed, opened the car door  for me.

Following the sound of other people, I walked into a split-level room which opened to a patio with a pool. There were about five sets of couches and sofas around the plush-carpeted room, and a long oak table set with hors d'oeuvres. Outside, on the upper level, I saw a pool and patio. I looked around for Tony. There were mostly black and Arab-looking men there, as well as young, extremely beautiful women. Everyone was dressed so much more elegantly than I, and their sparkling jewelry reminded me that I had not worn so much as earrings.

"Jeshanah, come over here," called a man who appeared to be Tony. I had only met him the night before in a dark club, and now I noticed his gray hair and age-lined tan face.

I walked self-consciously to the couch he was sitting on.

"Jeshanah, I would like you to meet my wife," he said, as he introduced me to her and a few other people sitting there. This was interesting. I had never met a fish's wife before, but I soon found out that Tony was not a fish.

Tony continued to talk with his group, and I sat down wondering what I was doing here. There was a woman with a Barbie doll face sitting next to me, and I was relieved to hear she was American. She was a model, she later told me, but due to her short stature, she usually modeled only face, hands, and feet.

"You would be surprised how many requests there are for feet," she said. "But I really would like more face shots. If! don't get more work in Paris, I might have to come down here permanently. What do you do?"

"I used to be a dancer," I said, which was my normal explanation for living in France. I was surprised she did not ask me what I was doing now.

A waiter came by and offered us drinks. I declined, but she took another and gave him her empty glass.

I noticed that she kept looking at a large black man standing with another blond woman.

"That is the one I want," she said. "He is the special guest, I heard." She smiled at him coyly.

Even my introduction to wealth and luxury in Paris had not prepared me for this. The house was fancier than the famed Hotel George V in Paris, which I had been in a few times. The opulence reminded me of a scene from La Dolce Vita, but more modern. For the first time, I realized how far removed I was from real life. Not only was I "not of the world," as Jesus had told us to be in the Bible, but I felt more alienated from the world now than ever. It was sometime in the late seventies, and for seven years I had been living a life of almost total social isolation, in contact with those on the outside only through witnessing. I was glad that Mara had not come. It was the first time I was alone among so many outside people, and had she been present, I never would have felt this utter alienation. I never would have forced myself to think seriously about what I was doing there. whenever I was with another sister, I felt I had to "fill in the gaps" and make sure that God's Will was being accomplished. By myself, I did not feel this pressure to perform for my Family, and since I hardly cared what these people thought of me spiritually, I had no role to fulfill.

At first, I could not quite understand what was happening. Tony was here with his wife, so it seemed to be a real party. But here was this model flirting with what seemed to be an African elite. All the men wore lots of jewelry, huge rings with diamonds and gold chain necklaces. All the women looked like models. Their faces were impeccably made up, their clothes seemed to come straight from the fashion magazines, and each one had a stunning hairstyle. I felt very inadequate, and compared with them, I looked like a little girl who had tried on her mother's clothes. Tony interrupted my thoughts.

"Jeshanah, you are not as animated as you were last night. Here, let me introduce you to Amir."

He led me to the table and I talked with an Arab man from Kuwait.  I did not even know where Kuwait was on the map. Luckily, dinner was being served, and I was relieved from having to wonder what to do next, since everyone was eating at a formal setting. I tried to gain some information from Amir, but he was obviously not interested in me. He was busy eyeing a gorgeous redheaded woman who seemed to be over six feet tall. My physical attributes paled in comparison to what these women offered.

In addition, I did not get any sense that these men were interested in a Godly message. As I sat at the table, eating food I couldn't even identify, I searched my mind for a memory, a connection, any information that I had stored away in the back rooms of my head before I had joined the Family that would explain what was happening here. How should I act? What was expected of me? I remembered a sociology class in which we learned that all human interaction is socially defined. We play roles we are taught to play; however, sometimes we can also choose roles. Where did that theory lead? I wished I had learned more. I felt so much like Alice in Wonderland sitting at the Queen's table with a bunch of strange characters. My thoughts were interrupted by the person next to me, a short, balding, fleshy man who asked if I was coming downstairs to dance.

He led me downstairs where there was a club-size discotheque, complete with a deejay. I sat down on a chair on a raised platform on one side of the room, and the man joined a group by the bar. One by one, different women stood up and danced in front of all the seated men. I looked around for the American model I had met, but she was not there. I noticed that the African man she had pointed out was missing also.

Someone called that I should get up and dance. Even though dancing came easily for me, and I knew I could dance better than these women who were wiggling their bodies oddly without following the music, I felt that my dancing would not be appreciated by these men unless I danced like Salome before King Herod. I wasn't ready for that yet. Instead, I remained sitting in my chair. I had been tempted to enter their world, and I understood now that these women were very expensive prostitutes, euphemistically known as high-class call girls. This was not what Mo was talking about in the letters. I could choose not to play this role. Feeling very unsettled, I decided to just sit this evening out and hope no one bothered me until the chauffeur took me home, if he was still around.

While I was pondering my eventual departure, a middle-aged, short and stocky Middle Eastern man came and sat down beside me. He had a wonderful, warm smile that spread across his small, round face like a moonbeam. Somehow, I felt I could trust him.

"What is the matter?" he asked. "You look worried."

"Yes, well, I am not sure what I am doing here."

"These are my friends. Do not worry. They will not harm you."

"You see, I have never been to a party like this. I am usually with  some of my own friends."

"Yes, well, maybe someday I will meet your friends also. Now relax. No one will harm you." He patted my knee and got up to go.

Immediately after he left, the tall blonde who had been talking to another man came over to sit next to me.

"I see you know my boyfriend," she said cockily.

"No, I don't know him. Is he your boyfriend? Who is he?" I replied innocently.

"Why, he is the host of this party. He owns this house. Really, don't you know him?"

"No. Tony invited me here, and he didn't tell me whose party this was."

The girl saw that I was obviously not competition.

"Why, that's Adnan Kashoggi," she replied as if I should know him.

"I never heard of him," I said.

She threw back her head and laughed.

"He is just the richest man in the world, that's all. Where are you from anyway? You will surely hear about him if you stay here very long," She left and went over to her "boyfriend," giving him a playful kiss on his bald head.

With relief, I noticed that some people were leaving, I went upstairs and asked for my coat and for the chauffeur, but since I did not know his name, it took a long time to find out who brought me. I was obligated to stand in the hallway in my humble raincoat, while all the other girls were helped into furs.

My chauffeur was finally found, and I was taken back to Monte Carlo in a subdued, but wiser, state of mind.

Cal was excited by my story, since it was the first time we had penetrated elite society, which was our mission in Monte Carlo. I had been pondering the situation all night and concluded that we, the women in the Family, had something much better to offer these men than those beautiful models did, but we had to have better access. We couldn't just go to parties and be picked and paid for like a piece of pretty merchandise. How could we get to meet these people on a more personal level? We discussed this over dinner, like guerrillas plotting a strategy. Cal wanted to write to "World Services," the Family headquarters, and ask for money. Every home sent World Services 10 percent of their income, and that money was used to support top leadership, the publications, and needy mission fields.

"Why would World Services send us any money?" I asked. "We are not a mission field."

"Of course we are, said Cal.  "We have to get into these expensive  clubs, and I should be going with you, if we are going to meet the right people."

Mara agreed with Cal, and they sent a letter to headquarters. As  far as I knew, they never got a reply. I was beginning to worry about how Mara always sided with Cal, however. I was not sure if it was because they actually thought the same way, or if she was trying to get closer to him by standing up for what he said. Since I was basically egalitarian-minded, I didn't like the power imbalance occurring in our little team of three, especially since I was often the odd one out. I talked with her about it, and she told me that I treated Cal disrespectfully. I was not sure what she meant by this, but it started a division between us. I guess I had imagined that we women would stick together, and instead she supported the designated "head of the house." Many years later Mara informed me that when she first joined our marriage, she thought she would like to be part of a threesome. However, when she realized my lack of love for Cal, she began to become more emotionally attached to him.

The apartment we were loaned was completely remodeled after three months of hard work. The young man who had given it to us rent-free liked the new look so much, he decided to move back in. He gave us a month to find someplace else to go. Of course, we could never afford Monte Carlo rents, and even the apartments in the small villages around Monaco were out of our price range. After praying about the situation, we seemed to get an answer from the Lord through a couple who used to work with us in Paris.

Abraham and Breeze were childless, freedom loving, and very talented. They had been friends of ours in Paris, as much as Family members could be friends. Abe never listened to the house rules -- we always had a stash of wine and snacks in his room. He also had worldly music, since as a musician and sound technician, he was allowed this privilege. I was afraid to listen to too much worldly music, since I thought it might have undue influence on me, but I often stopped by Abe's room for a chat.

Breeze had come to Paris from Holland after the band did a show there. She wanted to be in the Show Group, and Abe seemed to be a door to that opportunity. As a singer and violinist, she was integrated into the show, and she eventually married Abe. I thought she might be in love with him, but I knew she was secretly having sex with one of the leaders from Italy. It was secret because she did not get approval from Abe first. When she developed a fallopian tube pregnancy and had to be hospitalized, Abe stayed by her every minute, and his love for her was endearing. I concluded that Breeze had been punished for the deceit of engaging in secret sex, just as I had. It seemed that sexual sharing was moral, as long as it was done in the open and all those involved were in agreement.

Abe and Breeze tried to live in a few homes after Les Enfants de Dieu broke up, but as artists they felt uncomfortable with the strict rules. They heard we had opened a home in Monte Carlo and asked if they could come. We welcomed them gladly. With two musicians on our team, we could make enough money to pay rent. The Lord was blessing us, so we must be doing right.

The five of us, along with my son, moved to a three-bedroom home on the beautiful hillside of Eze-sur-Mer in the winter of 1978. We rented a small house, called a villa, which had a much cheaper rent in the winter months. Summer was still six months away, and we thought by then we would find something else.

My experience in Eze was one of beautiful days with my son flawed only by ugly times in argument with Cal and Mara. I seemed to gain strength from the natural charm of the tiny beach and quaint villages along the coast. Taking my son, who was now four years old, for long walks by the seacoast path along St. Jean Cap Ferrat, I became closer to him than I thought possible for two human beings. Unconsciously, he became my reason for living.

Cal and Mara were made "colony shepherds," mainly because they  were home most of the time and could devote themselves to reading the Mo letters, filing reports, praying, and other time-consuming activities that home leaders needed to do. They decided all practical matters in the home, such as how to spend money. However, they also decided whom I should go to bed with, and although I never minded that Cal had that authority, it bothered me that Mara was advising him about my sexual relations.

As a threesome, we had slept together in the same bed in Monte Carlo, but now Mara was pregnant and needed more rest. I agreed to move and began to sleep in Thor's bedroom in an extra bed. I always got up early in the mornings to play with him and teach school lessons anyway. Cal wanted me to sleep with him sometimes, but since I went out almost every night, and he was asleep by the time I got home, it just never happened. Although I knew from the Mo letters that sharing sexually was established as a general routine between brothers and sisters in most homes, we did not share here with Abe and Breeze, who had their own bedroom. That was not because we had qualms about adultery. Mo had told us that "the Mosaic Law has been done away with. Whatsoever is in Love, against such there is no Law" ("How to Answer Our Enemies -- Preach Sex" 2475:28). I think I was too busy watching Thor, singing and witnessing, "fishing" at the clubs, and sleeping with other men to have time to share.

Abe sometimes went singing with his wife, Breeze, in Nice, but it was apparent that our most lucrative arrangement was for Breeze and me to sing in the elite cafes along the Cote d'Azur between Nice and Italy. Breeze had a wonderful voice and was an accomplished musician. I had natural, spontaneous energy and a childlike "anything is possible" faith. Together we covered the restaurants and cafes with harmony and love and left with enough funds to meet all our humble expenses.

When we went out fishing for lost souls, the men were invited to  the house to meet the family. Even though pregnant women in the Family still went out, and there were many testimonies in our Family News about women sharing sexually while pregnant, as Mara's pregnancy proceeded, she often stayed home due to fatigue.

Men were legitimately allowed to sexually recruit women into the Family, and although this happened sometimes, it seemed to be much more time-consuming, and became a rare event. We began calling the babies who resulted from sex with men who never joined the Family "Jesus babies." Ideally, those children were to be loved and treated like all our children, but in reality, they were not, and many Jesus babies grew up to be psychologically disturbed teenagers. As for myself, even though I never practiced birth control, I did not become pregnant again for seven years.

One day traveling on the train, we met a young British student, whom I witnessed to but thought did not need sex. Cal felt otherwise. Our new friend came to our house, and after receiving Bible classes from Cal, and asking Jesus into his heart, decided to stop his travels and stay with us. I knew that he was a virgin, and he was younger than I. I saw no reason why he needed sex; after all, he had already decided to stay. But both Cal and Mara thought he needed physical love, and they thought I should give it to him. 

Instinctively, I felt I was violating some natural trust this poor young boy had for me as an older and wiser sister. I knew that I would never marry him, or even become a steady sex partner for him, and I felt that, as the innocent virgin he was, sex would mean something a lot deeper than just "supplying his needs." Reluctantly, I did as I was told. The student seemed infatuated with me, and we had to spend hours teaching him that I was only an expression of God's Love, not his "soul mate." Eventually, he accepted the lesson, and he stayed with us, going on to become one of the leaders in Switzerland. From the perspective of one inside the group, this seemed to prove that the "method" worked.

Meanwhile, I began having open and heated disagreements with Cal. He felt I was pulling away from him more, and I felt he was using me. Mara wanted peace, and when I suggested that I go to Paris for a month or two, she convinced Cal it was a good idea. 

I remember well the sad day when I had to leave Thor on the quay of the Nice train station, Cal would absolutely not let me take him, but I was sure that Mara would send him to me after a few weeks. In her frail state, she could never keep up with my energetic boy. So even though I thought I would be separated only for a short time, it was a heart-wrenching good-bye.

"Where are you going with a suitcase, Mommy?" he asked in a tiny, almost fearful voice.

"I'm going to stay in Paris a little while, honey."

"I want to go with you."

"Not this time, sweetheart. Maybe soon," I murmured as my voice cracked, and I kissed him tenderly on his cheeks.

My precarious psychological state left my emotional resources depleted, and I was hoping that in Paris I would have time to think things through. Not only was I painfully aware that I had married a man I did not love, but I also had been giving my body to numerous men whom I did not choose. Living in Eze, as the almost sole provider of the home, yet with the least personal choice, I saw no change in my situation. I had recently received a sweet letter from James, one of the brothers whom I was close to in Paris, and he suggested a little vacation for me. I thought that odd. No one in the Family took vacations, but something about his letter made me feel that he was more liberated from Family rules than anyone else I knew. He now wrote that they had room for me in their small home in Paris. If nothing else, I could have a little reflection time. I had always thought that God would give me Thor -- after all, I had done all this for Him! -- but I needed to figure out a way to have him for myself.

However, as I entered the train and looked back, I had a premonition that I was leaving Thor for a long time. Cal had his hands tightly on his son's shoulder, but Thor's eyes were with me. I brushed the tears and thoughts away and boarded the train.

James was the same sweet and capable brother I remembered from the Show Group days. He knew a few very rich men in Paris who had already been given numerous women from the Family. When I arrived in Paris, these men wanted me too. Unfortunately, I slept with one of them before we found out that there was a venereal disease going around. When one of the women in our home got it, James took me to a private doctor in one of the fanciest areas of Paris. I knew this must cost a fortune, and I imagined that one of our clients was paying. When I worked in the Show Group, the family members who were foreigners were issued the carte de sejour, which entitled us to free medical and social services. But my carte de sejour had not been renewed after the Show Group split up. Many of our foreign members received the carte de sejour by marrying French nationals, and all children born in France were given free medical services. 

James noticed that I was a little apprehensive. I had not been to a doctor since Thor was born and I had needed stitches. He tried to put me at ease.

"Don't worry," he said. "You can witness to the doctor, you know. He might be a sheep."

The doctor interviewed me extensively. He had already seen a number of us, and he was curious as to what was going on. I explained it all to him.

"You see, we believe that God supplies all the needs a man has.  And if we say we love someone, then why should we not give that person sex as an expression of God's Love?"

"But how do you choose to whom to give this sex?"

That was a tricky question for me, since of course, my leaders always chose for me, but I knew I should not reveal this to a stranger.

"Anyone interested in knowing more about God's Love can be shown love through sex," I answered demurely.

"Do you get paid for this?" he asked.

"Oh no, we never take money.

"But some of the men I treated were obviously very rich men," he said, realizing that he could be honest with me. "Surely, your group must target rich men."

"Not really," I replied, recalling my recent experience with the poor young student. "But often, it is the rich men who are most needy for God's real love. Like the Bible says, it is harder for a rich man to go to heaven than for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle. "

For some reason he seemed to accept this as a reasonable answer and nodded in agreement.

"Alors. You are in good health. Continue to take these pills, and see my secretary about getting the last appointment next Friday. I will have the rest of the lab reports in by then."

Friday I came after a full day of witnessing on the street selling literature. The lights were low in the waiting room, and there was no secretary. The doctor came out of his office in the back.

"Hello, Jeshanah. My secretary had to go somewhere tonight, so I let her off early. But this should not take long. Come back here."

I followed him to his formal office in the back.

"Well, you don't seem to have anything. You are lucky."

"Thank the Lord," I said automatically.

"I was thinking, though. I am very interested in God, and would like to know more about His Love, as you explained it."

I looked at him for a second with distrust. He was a doctor. Why would he want to have sex with someone who had been to bed recently with men who had VD?

"Oh, who cares," I thought. I had explained to him why we were doing this, and he didn't seem interested in being witnessed to. He was a nice-looking man, and I wondered if he was married. Well, it didn't hurt me to do this. I had recently been with men twice his age and size, and after those experiences, his trim, healthy body was a welcome sight. However, it was my first experience with a "short version" of sexual witnessing. I thought it would be easier to give him oral sex, since we were in the office, and it was over in a few minutes. I left and never saw him again. If nothing else, my trip to Paris had shown me that I could make some of my own decisions. After eight weeks in Paris, all I could think about was getting back to Thor. I decided to go back to southern France by train. Having become very independent living in James's home, I knew I could make some decisions on my own. I tried calling Cal, but the phone had been disconnected. Thinking they did not have enough money to pay the phone bill, I wrote a letter saying when I would arrive. But when I arrived at the station in Nice, there was no one waiting for me. I tried Cal's number again, but it was still disconnected. I knew he must have received my letter by this time, so I could not imagine why no one would be there to meet me. Finally, I decided to call our leaders in that area, Peter and Sheila.

"Hi, Jeshanah. Praise the Lord! It is good to hear from you. Where are you?" said a sweet voice on the phone.

"Well, I'm at the train station in Nice. I thought Cal would meet me, but no one is here. I guess I'll take a bus to Eze."

"Oh, no, honey," said Peter, who had picked up another phone.  "Haven't you heard that they moved?"

I felt like I had just taken a dagger in my heart.

"What do you mean moved? Where is Thor? Why wasn't I told?"

"You wait right there and we will come get you," said Sheila. She sounded truly concerned.

They arrived within half an hour. I then learned that Cal and the whole home had moved to a house in the mountains "somewhere," and he did not want me to know where he was.

"I don't care about Cal," I cried anxiously. "I want to see my son. I haven't been with him for over two months. I want to see him now!"

"Jeshanah, we are going to talk to Cal about this. You can stay with us for now. And we will try to work this out."

"What do you mean try? You are the leaders here. If you say Thor should see me, than Cal has to obey."

"Well, Mo is telling the leaders to try to persuade the disciples now, and not to command them. We are your servants, after all," he replied, repeating by rote the words we had all read in the letters, but which I knew were lies. No leader had ever served me. Being on my own in Paris, with James never telling me what to do, I had regained some of my former independent nature. This is one reason I never thought I was brainwashed. At some points of my life in the Family, I thought clearly, like the autonomous person I had always been. But I know I was manipulated, and these leaders knew exactly how to manipulate me right now through Thor.

"Jeshanah, honey, the Lord will take care of everything in His time," said Sheila in a voice coated with honey. "Let's pray about this together and find out what God's Will is." 

I didn't need to find out what His Will was. I wanted to see Thor. It was never part of the agreement that Cal disappear with our son. That was unfair. The Family needed to help me. But I soon understood that they had their own agenda. Like so many times in my life, when I saw my walls of idealism crumbling before my eyes, I bent over to pick up the pieces. There were still the ideals to be upheld, and even if Cal and the leaders were playing against me, I knew in my heart that what I did was for God. Surely, He would not let me down. This was a time to be "wise as a serpent, but harmless as a dove" (Matthew 10:16), so I listened passively while my leaders talked to me. Rather than dealing with my heightened state of desperation to see my son, Peter told me I had been destined for a special  mission to head up a home in Monaco.

I was biting my lip not to ask about Thor.

"Peter and I have access to a flat in Monaco for a few days. We thought you could come with us and we can go out together," piped up Sheila excitedly. "Of course, eventually we will try to get visitation privileges for you to see Thor," she said, as if she had read my mind, or maybe she was sensitive enough to see the pain written in my eyes.

"Jeshanah, I want you to realize that God is in control here," added Peter. "This might be a 'hard saying,' but I believe it is the Lord's will that Thor is away from you right now. This will give you more time for God's work, and at least at the very beginning of this effort, we need you free from child-care responsibilities."

Peter had no idea how many times I had heard that same spiel while I was a dancer. How often had every leader who came through the show Group in the three years of our heyday told me that I needed to forsake Thor for the work? I had been accused of loving my son more than God many times, and despite my best efforts to do both God's work and be a mother, it seemed that God was still jealous. Like the Bible said, "I, the Lord your God am a jealous God ... and I will have no other Gods before me." Did He really mean  that my son could be a god?

"Remember how the Lord tested Abraham," said Sheila. "He had to forsake Isaac, but he was given back."

I knew that Old Testament story. It was one of the stories I had the most trouble with. Why would a loving God want to test someone to that extent? Should I believe it? What choices do I have?

"I know, Sheila. I am repeatedly put to this test with my son," I responded sadly.

"Well, maybe you haven't gotten the victory yet," replied Peter in his harsh leader-knows-all voice. "Maybe this will keep coming up until you finally forsake him in your heart."

His comment prompted me to see a vision of myself sitting on top of a spiked fence. Sitting on fences was a recurrent vision, since I had so much difficulty choosing. On one side was the land of milk and honey promised by God and the COG, and on the other was the filth  and despair of the world. Which side would I jump into? It all depended on which side Thor lived, and that was never revealed to me. All I could do was hang on to those pointed slippery spikes until I could see more clearly.

"I know, Peter. Please pray for me," I said, more because I knew that is what they wanted to hear than because I really wanted prayer.

We actually spent the next few days in prayer, which was the usual procedure when a big move or initiative was about to be made. The Children of God, for all their hypocrisy, seriously believed in prayer, and those who made it to the top were often people who publicly spent many hours in prayer. During my hours of silent praying, I would try to hatch a plan to find out where Thor was staying.

I had learned that Cal and the whole colony had moved someplace in the mountains between Nice and Antibes. Breeze and the men had been playing at restaurants along the coast, and Mara was soon due to deliver her baby. Through constant and careful maneuvering, I finally persuaded Sheila to ask Cal to call me. I waited by the phone anxiously the night he was supposed to call. The ring of the phone made my heart pound heavily in my chest.

"Hello," said a distant voice, evidently calling from a badly connected public phone, "is this Jeshanah?"

"Yes, it's me. Cal, is Thor with you? Can I talk to him? Please let me talk to him. Don't do this to me! Please?" I started sobbing uncontrollably, which I had told myself not to do.

I felt that Cal's silence meant he was considering my feelings, but I was wrong.

"No, Jeshanah. Thor is doing very well without you. He doesn't even ask about you anymore. You know it has been over three months now. He calls Mara Mommy."

It was the most hurtful and hateful thing he could have said to me. I could not hold back the sobs, which made me unable to talk any further.

"Well, maybe this wasn't a good idea," said Cal coldly.

"No ... pleeease don't hang up. Pleeeease, Cal, don't hang up."

"I'll call you tomorrow at the same time. I have to talk to Mara,"  he said and hung up the phone.

I knew that Sheila was just outside the door, but I could not help myself. I just fell on the bed and cried and cried.

When I finally got back to reality, I wiped my face and went to see Sheila. Despite her years of following Family rules of leadership, which could harden the most tenderhearted people, Sheila still seemed somewhat sympathetic. In any case, she was all I had for a friend at  this moment.

"I can't live without at least seeing my son," I explained, trying not be become overly emotional. "I just want to see him. That's all."

Sheila had no children, and it was probably hard for her to understand the deep mother instinct I was feeling.

"But if he is doing fine, and he is in God's hands, taken care of by the Family, why would you have to see him too?" she asked.

Fortunately, I had cried all my tears for the day, or so I told myself, and I was able to answer her dry-eyed.

"I must be weak in this area of my life, Sheila. I can sleep with anyone. I can stay up all night and go out every night and witness; you know that. You know how much I sacrifice; that's why you want me here. I will do anything you ask me to do, I promise! But Sheila, I just need to see Thor, that's all. I can't stay here and do this if I don't see him."

"I'll talk to Peter about it," she replied. "But ultimately, it is Cal's choice. We are not allowed to dictate those things anymore."

I knew that was not the full truth. The only way they could not dictate was if Cal left the Family, and I doubted that he had at that point.

Whether they talked to Cal or not, I did not know. I heard later that Abe had heard me crying over the phone and tried to convince Cal to let me see my son. Mara also told me many years later that it was the leaders who had told Cal and her that I was needed for FFing and that they should keep Thor. The next night Cal called and said I could meet him and Thor at a public park in Nice, but only for one hour.

I will hold every minute of that one hour in my heart for the rest of my life, next to where the minutes of Thor's birth are stored. The meeting was to be at a park near Place Massena, in the center of Nice. It was a sunny day, and I wore a light jacket and a long skirt. On my way to the park, I looked anxiously around, mistaking any little red-haired boy for Thor. He was nearly five years old, and I wondered how much he had grown in three months. I thought that he might not recognize me. I was twenty-five years old and had been told I looked much younger, but I felt like a broken, old woman who had lost her child in the Holocaust and now had heard he was alive. It was melodramatic, but it was real to me.

I saw Thor when I was still a block away. Cal held his hand by the fountain.

"Thor!" I cried, running toward him.

He turned around at the sound of my voice, and letting go of his daddy's hand, he ran toward me.

I fell down to one knee and held my arms open wide while he ran full-force into my embrace. A little taller and more robust, he still had a baby face and was smiling brightly. I had tears in my eyes, but for a few minutes, I was happy.

Cal was touched by our display of raw emotion, and he conceded to allow me periodic visits with Thor. It was a promising start, and I did not see that I had any other recourse but to agree and thank him profusely.

Walking home after that emotionally charged meeting, I felt that God indeed loved me. After spending three days in the belly of the whale, I must have said something that pleased God, because now He let me out of the darkness. I could again enjoy the blue of the sky, the softness of the gentle wind against my cheeks, and the sound of my son's laughter in my ear. God must love me, I thought, and the Family was so good to me. No matter what the sacrifice, I was thankful to be called to do a special service for Him and His work, because I now knew that ultimately, He would give me the desires of my heart, as He had promised in His Word! And if I thought about it honestly, giving God's Love to strangers was certainly not a sacrifice for me. In fact, it was the easiest work I ever did in the Family.

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