I tried to explain the bliss, the purity of experience we had accessed, a wholeness, an interconnectedness surpassing human understanding, beyond flesh, beyond orgasm, beyond spirit.

Orgasm? She balked.

A pleasure beyond the body, Ash. Something so completely unbounded, why’re you crying? Don’t you hear what I’m saying? We have unlocked the secret of The Hum.

Sex?

What?

Through sex?

No. No, through the sound of the Earth itself.

I can’t—Stop. I can’t hear this.

And we’re at peace.

Mom, listen—

A true liberated peace.

This is killing me, she said, and then screamed into the phone—You’re killing me.

Ashley really laid me on the plinth and ripped out my heart with that one. Were there any worse words a child could scream at her mother? I scrunched my face, against tears—Please don’t say that.

If you love me then you’ll walk out that fucking door now.

I told her that I couldn’t.

Then you don’t.

Ash—

You don’t.

I love you more than anything in—

No, not enough. Not fucking—

And then the line went dead.

Ash? Ashley?

I crossed the room to the window, and peered out through the curtains. I could see Ashley’s phone smashed on the asphalt by her feet. She was arguing with Paul once more, and Brenda was walking back over to them across the front yard. I watched for a while as the three of them conferred. Brenda was incensed, gesticulating wildly towards the house, and it seemed Paul was doing his best to de-escalate the situation. Ashley threw up her hands, crossed around to the passenger side of the car, and got in. I could hear the muffled slam of her door from inside the house. She sat and waited with her arms folded, but it didn’t look like Brenda or Paul were prepared to leave anytime soon, least of all Brenda. I turned back into the room, to the worried and expectant faces of the group, and told them—I think we might be in this for a while.

And sure enough, within an hour, the police arrived.

17