At age nine, I began devouring the fossilized thoughts of all the dead. white guys who still run the world from beyond the grave. My seven mommies believed that by then I had been safely brainwashed by my thoroughly matriarchal education. They wanted me to become familiar with the lies of the enemy. As I read the evil books, I was shocked, appalled, furious, incredulous -- and rather well-entertained. My best guilty pleasure came from reading about how men down through the centuries had sought to jump out of their skins.

In Joseph Campbell's vision of myth, I found, the hero is typically a guy who braves dangerous ordeals all by his lonesome, though he may on rare occasions receive aid from a goddess. In medieval legends, a knight might obtain a talisman from his blessed lady before setting out on his Grail quest, but he sure as hell didn't bring her along to assist him. The history of shamanism is dominated too with stories of male explorers storming the astral plane ablaze with the macho glamour of solitude.

There is not only a dearth of women in the recorded history of humans penetrating the mysterium, but also an almost total absence of collaborative efforts.

I was already aware of this discrepancy at the ripe old age of twelve. By then I had read enough mythology and anthropology to realize how heretical my own jaunts into the other side of the veil were: I had a collaborator, Rumbler. True, he was as non-human as the goddess Athena, who gave the prototypical Campbellian hero Perseus a burnished shield to use as a mirror in his showdown with Medusa. But he was my equal and co-creator. We slipped into the Televisionarium together, and we shared the adventures there.

When my life with Jumbler got underway, I took my apostasy one step further. Beginning on that first night in the Villa Inn in San Rafael, high on pranks and tears and erotic thrills, the two of us, a loving couple, found a way to pull off a feat which as far as I knew no two flesh-and-blood magicians had ever done before: fly away together on a shamanic journey.

As the light from Jumbler's eyes caressed the light from mine, as our hot sweet breaths mingled in each other's lungs, as our almost unbearable pleasure mutated our brain chemistry out of its habitual groove, we disappeared into a gossamer net of shimmering light whose warp was gold and woof was silver. It collapsed gently around us, turning into a soothing, slow-motion tornado that soared and fluttered and finally set us down, many sighs later, in a dreamy landscape that seemed perfectly real. I never once lost sight of Jumbler even though the whole world changed around us.

We found ourselves lying on a grassy hill on a bright day with a very big sun directly overhead. There was an exuberant blend of smells in the air: spearmint, baking cake, varnish, brewing coffee. We were wearing the same clothes we had on back in the tear-stained bed.

"Doesn't this place look like a cemetery to you?" she asked with a matter-of-fact curiosity that made me laugh. How could she be so poised after a wild ride like we just had?

"It's rather festive for a cemetery," I said, trying to match her nonchalance. "Look at the prayer flags hanging from the trees. And the flower-bedecked floats over there. As if there's been a parade. Plus I smell all sorts of delicious aromas."

"Check out the women in their underwear dancing around the maypole," Jumbler said. "That's the wackiest lingerie I've ever seen. My favorite is the two floral shower caps attached to make a poofy bra."

"Do you mind if I ask you a stupid question?" I said.

"They're my favorite kind," she replied.

"Where are we?"

"I believe we must be having a lucid dream together," she said as she squeezed my hand.

"You mean I'm dreaming of you in my lucid dream and you're dreaming of me in your lucid dream?"

"No. We're dreaming the same lucid dream at the same time."

"But this can't be a lucid dream. Can it? I mean, my awareness is like it is in a lucid dream -- I'm in full possession of my logical faculties -- but the landscape itself is too solid. It's not fuzzy at the edges. It doesn't keep mutating."

"Yes," she agreed. "You're right. But don't you also feel that sweet, creamy meltingness of the astral plane? That floaty timelessness?"

"Yes."

"And don't you see things here that you'd only find on the other side of the veil? Like there's a herd of pink octopuses swimming in the air. Like the creature riding the centaur over there is half-woman, half-bird. Like all the gravestones have television screens in them."

I wanted to test a theory. Rising to a squat, I launched myself upwards with the intention to fly. In a moment I was high above the octopuses, swooping effortlessly. I sailed over to the top of a nearby pomegranate tree and picked two fruits, then whooshed back down to my old spot next to Jumbler.

"So if this isn't exactly a lucid dream," I said, breathing hard, "and it certainly isn't waking reality, what is it?"

"Maybe this is the Drivetime," Jumbler replied. "Maybe we're having a joint shamanic quest into the good old Drivetime."

"Is that possible?"

"I've heard of tantrically trained shamanic lovers being able to accompany each other into the Dreamtime," she said. "My teachers told me it was possible with a lot of practice. But they never said anything about two people getting into the Drivetime together."

"What if we're pioneers?" I bragged.

"We'd better start taking mental notes, just in case we are."

"Look at those huge women in bikinis over there," I marveled. "Dancing on the back of that Cadillac convertible. Must be three hundred pounds each. I like the hood ornament, too. I think it's a real vulture."

"I don't know if those are bikinis exactly," she said. "They look like they're round slabs of lunch meat sewn together. Wonder who their tailor is?"

"Do you smell -- what is that exactly? -- seaweed? And car tires? And banana bread? It's weird how the whole palette of aromas keeps shifting."

"Yeah. I smell all that. There's also something like lipstick."

"Check out that long line of men wearing wedding gowns and pushing the shopping carts," I said.

"Wonder where they're going? Can't see the front of the line behind that hill."

"I'll go check."

I launched myself into the sky again and flew to reconnoiter. On the way I saw that all the shopping carts were packed full of brightly wrapped gifts. As I reached the other side of the hill, the procession's destination came into view. It was a tall, round, skinny tower whose surface was an intricate mosaic of red, black, and white tile. There was but a single window in the top floor, and no visible door. My heart leaped when I first spied it. It was virtually a duplicate of the tower pictured in a book I loved in childhood -- the book that retold the Grimms' fairy tale of Rapunzel.

My next emotion was disappointment. Maybe this tower was evidence that the whole scene was nothing more than a projection of my unconscious psyche. I didn't want that to be true. I wanted this adventure to be an objective event, independent of my subjective fantasies.

I landed on the top of the tower and surveyed the scene. For as far as I could see, there was a single file of men in long white wedding gowns. The man at the front of the line stared up at me and began to shout, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair." Was he talking to me? I floated down to the window and perched on the ledge to look inside. No one was there.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair," came the cry again. I climbed down into the room. To my relief, it looked like no place I had ever seen: evidence that tended to prove I wasn't merely making all of this up.

The bed was huge, round, and appointed with a red satin comforter and many black satin pillows. Lutes and hand-drums and flutes lay against a wall on a thick magenta carpet, along with a bowl of dark red cherries and figs. A richly woven tapestry hanging on the wall depicted a blue-skinned goddess with eight arms and long auburn hair. She was dancing atop a giant TV that had a scene of her dancing atop a TV. Among the objects in her many hands was a baseball bat and a baseball glove containing a pomegranate.

Next to the tapestry was a white marble altar. The intoxicating smoke of burning frankincense emerged from an aladdin's lamp. There was a bird's nest containing a single red egg which was noticeably rocking back and forth under its own power.

On the wall behind the altar was a round mirror. I peered into it. The reflection was not me, though in some ways it resembled me. The features of the face were the same. The hair was my auburn color but longer and thicker. However, the skin was blue like the creature on the tapestry, and there were patches of flames burning here and there on the skin--including that spot in the middle of my forehead. I switched my gaze away from the mirror and looked down at myself. Nope, my skin was still flesh-tone, and I was not on fire.

I stared again into the mirror. The blue girl there winked at me and blew a flaming bubble off her tongue. I laughed.

Outside, more voices had joined the lead man's. "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair," chanted the throng. What should I do? Leaning out the window, I saw Jumbler flying towards me. In a few moments she floated in through the window.

"I thought you were coming right back, sweetie," she said brightly. "What's been keeping you?"

"I'm trying to figure out what to do about all those guys down there. They seem to want something from me."

"Come on with me. I met someone who's been asking about you. Maybe she can give us a clue."

"Who is it?"

"Says she's Madame Blavatsky. Your sixty-five-million-year-old secretary."

As we flew out the window and away from the tower, I could hear groans and cries of dismay rising from the men below. Just for fun, I blew several kisses down at them. Cheers and happy cries rang out. Many men fell to the ground and writhed, as if my long-distance smooches had struck them down.

Jumbler led me to a place near our original landing spot. The first thing I saw as we descended was a golf cart. It had a vulture figurine on the roof and sprouted two long poles in the back, at the top of which were "flags" that consisted of three pairs of plus-size white cotton underpants sewn together. They were partially unfurled in the mild wind that was blowing.

An obese woman with oiled-up, light brown hair smiled inscrutably from behind the steering wheel. She was indeed the vivid personage who had identified herself as my ancient secretary during my first visit to the Drivetime. Was that only a few hours ago? Seemed like weeks.

Madame Helena Blavatsky was attired in nothing but a huge white bra and panties. A number of rubber toy vultures hung from her garments, attached by gold safety pins through a loop at the tops of their heads. Our visitor also sported a tall, striped, stovepipe hat and was holding a large soft pretzel which she munched from time to time. Perched precariously on her dashboard was a can of Budweiser. She had an amazingly good smell that was perceptible even from a few yards away.

"Glad to see you went out and found yourself a real, live, fleshy, substantial creature to consort with, Queen Trashdevourer!" she beamed towards me. "Excellent addition to your apocalypse-killing repertoire. Not that I have anything against your friend Rumbler. But he is a little too chimerical to rely on for some of the more concrete work we have ahead of us. On the other hand, don't count the old boy out just yet."

She produced another can of beer from behind her seat, popped the top, and chugalugged.

"Now let me officially welcome you both to the Tantric Campus of Drivetime University," Blavatsky said, punctuating the "ver" in "University" with a prolonged burp, "for couples only. Not a moment too soon, either, what with the mass extinctions going on back on Planet Heavenandhell. Malkuth. Earth. Whatever you want to call it. We need all the collaborative kundalini we can get. Wink wink. Hint hint. Climb on board now, you love-buzzards. Time for class."

"But we haven't bought any of our school supplies yet," Jumbler protested archly as we both stood up. "Shouldn't we take notes?"

"This is all you will need," Madame Blavatsky said authoritatively, handing us each a giant pomegranate she produced from a pouch near her feet.

"A Televisionary Oracle. Like all those sacred machines you see around the necropolis, only mini-versions. Open it up."

On closer inspection, I saw mine wasn't exactly a standard-issue pomegranate. It had about ten black seed-like buttons embedded in a row on one side.

"Press this one," Madame Blavatsky instructed, pointing to a button at the top.

I did, and a door popped open on the pomegranate's surface, revealing a screen that bubbled with images that at first glance looked pornographic.

"You just pour your thoughts right into the swirl," Madame Blavatsky said, "and it will converse with you, in a manner of speaking. You will hear its replies inside your head. It will feel very familiar and strange at the same time. Play around with it. You'll get the hang of it. Now get in the vehicle, please. Time is wasting. Oh, and here is your sacred underwear. Put it on immediately. You cannot do much learning without it. Or rather you should not."

She handed me and Jumbler battered grocery bags which we opened up as we got on board. My "bra" was fashioned out of two gold linen cups that were replicas of the Grail I had stolen and sold. My panties were white satin decorated with several dark brown blotches which were the exact shape and size of the birthmark I had worn on my forehead until very recently.

Jumbler's "sacred underwear" consisted of a flesh-colored leotard bearing a photographic likeness of breasts on top and a penis at the crotch. Laughing, she held it up to show me.

As we changed into our new costumes and rode over the grounds of the necropolis, Madame Blavatsky entertained us with an odd rendition of the children's alphabet song, a-b-c-d-e-f-g etc. She delivered each letter in a vocal ejaculation that was simultaneously a sung tone and a loud belch.

"That was a graphic example of profane entertainment," she proclaimed when she was done. "Though I admit that it is perhaps a slight exaggeration to equate it to the slick productions of Time-Warner or Disney-ABC or any of the other multinational narcissism-dealers that are infecting the mass imagination. But only a slight exaggeration. And it is an excellent context within which to begin exploring the other kind of entertainment--the sacred variety. Which, I am happy to add, is the foundation for the next step of your mission, Queen Chucklefucker. What you do after you kill the apocalypse."

After donning my sacred underwear, I gazed into the screen of my Televisionary Oracle. The scene I saw there can only be described as a sex riot. Hundreds of adults of all ages, universally naked except for red shoes and moving along in a slow, chaotic procession, were attempting to dance and copulate at the same time. They looked like Persians or Afghani. Though the men in the crowd were active participants, it was primarily the women who initiated and led the licentious improvisations. I don't mean to minimize the homosexual activity. There were men embracing men and women with women.

I tried what Madame Blavatsky had suggested: projected my thoughts into the swirl. "What meaning am I supposed to draw," I asked the Televisionary Oracle, "from this sex riot?"

The voice that spoke in my mind was female. Its cadences were stilted, as if it were using shorthand.

"Mass outbreaks of sexual bliss," it said. "You must help unleash them. It will end global flirtation with apocalypse. Explode boundaries through pleasure, not death. Blast apart tyranny of ego's petty vision and revive memory of divine origins through petite morte, not grande."

"And the implications of this for me and my mission?" I beamed into the swirl. "What specific actions should I take?"

"You are Queen Bee of Orgasmic Liberation," it glimmered back. "Not Queen Bee of Titillation. World already has too much arousal without release. You will replace pandemic of repressed teasing with revolution of brazen rapture. You are Great Juice Mother of Psychefunkapus."

"Psychefunkapus?" I asked with a mix of alarm and intrigue. "What does that mean?"

"Psychefunkapus: New Covenant of Primal Nookie; Rebirth of Once and Future Throbwiggle; Apotheosis of Slippery Boink; Coming of Fuckissimus."

"And tell me again what this has to do with me?"

"You are High Priestess of Global Jiggy Snake. Holy Empress of Planetary Oozeshimmer Revival. Sovereign Shamanatrix of Collective Flutter Magic."

Madame Blavatsky was demanding my attention with annoying pinches to my arm, so I had to promise myself to return later to my conversation with the Televisionary Oracle. She had driven us up to a large rock outcropping about three times our height. There was a giant television screen embedded in a steep, flat part of the slope, with long streamers of tied-together bras and underpants hanging down from large hooks on either side. A vulture was also perched on each hook. On screen, a talking head in suit and tie was pressing a headphone into one of his ears, keeping his eyes closed as he apparently listened to a message. He looked like an anchorman, complete with impeccable blow-dried hair and heavy make-up.

To the right of where Madame Blavatsky had parked the golf cart was a metal pole planted in the ground, at the top of which was a white box.

"Lesson one in Sacred Entertainment," Madame Blavatsky announced, "courtesy of the one and only Televisionary Oracle." She turned a knob on the box. The face on the screen opened his eyes and began to speak. The sound spilling from the box was surprisingly high-fidelity.

"Warning of imminent 'hype-ocalypse' and 'genocide of the imagination,' a team of self-described 'benevolent terrorists' calling themselves the 'Televisionary Oracle' is now in the third day of what they term a 'channeled coup d'itat.' Two days ago they managed to seize control of at least a portion of the broadcast facilities of a number of major television networks. How exactly they accomplished this remains unknown, though they themselves have invoked the improbable term 'menstrual shamanic telekinesis' to explain it.

"Much of the regular programming on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CNN has been seriously disrupted. In its place the Televisionary Oracle has been presenting a bizarre hodgepodge of well-produced but controversial material, ranging from the mysterious 'Mary Magdalen's Monster Truck Rally and Tantric Cryfest' to the black comedic 'International Tribunal of the Multinational Narcissism-Dealers' to a kind of erotic telethon, the 'Kundalini Pledge Drive.'

"Less than an hour ago, we were contacted by one of the apparent leaders of the takeover, Rapunzel Blavatsky. She joins us now from an unknown location in Northern California. Welcome, Ms. Blavatsky."

"Dude, you are looking so good tonight I wouldn't mind licking whipped cream off your forehead."

Butterflies stirred in my belly as my doppelganger appeared on the Televisionary Oracle. She was an older version of me -- how I might appear ten years in the future. I -- she -- was wearing a striped baseball jersey. The words "Menstrual Temple of the Funky Grail" were written in cursive across the chest. A smallish vulture was perched on her shoulder.

The anchorman ignored the joke.

"Until two nights ago, Ms. Blavatsky," he droned, "you didn't exist for me. That's when I saw you on the pirated CNN broadcast. I was confused at first. Why would someone with the media savvy to kidnap the airwaves then appear on those airwaves without a trace of make-up? You can't possibly be ignorant of the impact a close-up of a face without make-up has on the viewing audience."

"I wanted my new viewers to see the pimple I have here on my forehead," The Other Rapunzel said, pointing to her reddish bump. "If I make it difficult for them to attribute perfection to me right from the start, I might have a chance to prevent them from turning me into an energy-sucking monster they worship with all their hearts."

"Well, I have to say," the anchorman continued, "that pimple had a strong impact on me. As I fell asleep the other night, I could not take my mind off it. It was so big and ugly! And on such a pretty woman, too.

"Around dawn I had a strange dream about you, Ms. Blavatsky. I dreamed you had crawled into bed with me and my wife. You were lying between us, sexually arousing us with sweet words and tender touches.

"You murmured in my ear as you nuzzled it. You said something like, 'I predict Congress will pass new legislation decreeing that all Americans must be rewarded financially in direct proportion to how much beauty they create.' Then you were rubbing your feet up and down my legs and stroking my wife's breasts. 'I predict a Sufi real estate magnate will announce plans to build a chain of sacred shopping centers in the American heartland,' you said. My wife and I lay there for a long time while you pleasured us. The entire time you kept uttering more of your silly predictions.

"Just before I woke from the dream, Ms. Blavatsky, you had your right hand on my penis and your left on my wife's vagina. You were softly chanting, 'The apocalypse is dead! Long live the apocalypse!' I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have never felt so perplexed and yet so blissful in my entire life.

"Would you mind telling me your thoughts on the meaning of this dream? First of all, what did you mean when you said, 'The apocalypse is dead! Long live the apocalypse!'?"

The Other Rapunzel slowly stuck her tongue out to its full length before she spoke. It did not seem to be a sign of juvenile defiance, but a gesture akin to the depictions of the Hindu goddess Kali in her moments of arch ferocity.

"My greatest desire," The Other Rapunzel said finally, "is to kill the decrepit old patriarchal apocalypse in the hearts of the mass audience. That will clear the way for me to resurrect a fresh, new, sexy apocalypse. A sweet, aromatic apocalypse that restores the original meaning of the term apocalypse: revelation, a great awakening, second birth. Thereby eroticizing the same kundalini that the bad old daddies have been thanatizing all these centuries."

"And does that require you, if you'll excuse my irony, to make love to the mass audience in their dreams? As you did with me and my wife?"

"Think of me as a kind of succubus Santa Claus for adults," The Other Rapunzel said with a sly grin. "I bring a very special kind of blessing to everyone in the world."

"Now really, Ms. Blavatsky, do you expect me to take seriously what you just said?"

"I am as serious as the big old pimple on my forehead."

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but you sound like a deluded guru wannabe."

"Indeed, I am the most humble guru wannabe in the history of dreams. The most total nobody in a world full of nobodies. And as far as being deluded: I'm sure I am in my own lovable way, but do you know any other deluded fools who are capable of engineering a takeover of ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CNN broadcasts?"

"Will you explain for us how you managed to accomplish that feat?"

"The rowdy ruby glissando of the silk lotus."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Ms. Blavatsky. Would you care to try again?"

The Other Rapunzel stood up suddenly and ripped open her shirt, which revealed a bra surmounted by two rubber vulture puppet heads with their maws open. The real vulture on her shoulder flew off.

"I predict that compassion will become an aphrodisiac," she declaimed in a loud, laughing tone, her arms raised in a V-shape, "and charisma will replace cancer as the official national disease. I predict the networks will be required by law to show live childbirth in prime time every night. I predict supercomputers that will be able to converse with the Goddess. I predict that the launching of celebrity garbage into outer space will lead to miraculous breakthroughs of new sources of free energy. I predict that the Twenty-Two Hours of World Orgasm will usher in the amazing, thrilling,and just-in-time end of history -- turning millions of entertainment victims into well-rounded, incredibly kind, sex-crazed geniuses -- with lots of leisure time."

As I -- she -- finished her rant, she began to do a whirling jig, hands high above her head.

"End of lesson one in resurrecting the apocalypse," Madame Blavatsky announced with a triumphant chuckle as she turned down the volume on the speaker and peered at us with an expression that was both shifty and piercing. "Any questions?"

"So I don't have to just kill, kill, kill," I exulted appreciatively, glad for the apparent revelation that my mission was not merely as a destroyer, as she had insisted last time I saw her in the underground junkyard. "But how exactly am I supposed to go about resurrecting the good apocalypse?"

"Twenty-Two Days of World Orgasm, my dear," she said. "You will be hearing much more about that."

"Now I've heard three different versions of the World Orgasm thing," I noted. "Is it twenty-two minutes or hours or days?"

"Well, now, that is completely up to you, is it not? Seeing as how you will be the one to plan it and carry it out."

Madame Blavatsky revved up the golf cart engine and turned to depart. I could see that The Other Rapunzel had been joined on the Televisionary Oracle by women dancers wearing skimpy yet goofy clothes. Aluminum foil and Spanish moss and rainbow-colored clown wigs were common sartorial materials, as well as band-aids, flowers, papier-mbchi, and plastic wrap. An older-looking Jumbler was one of them, though she was barely visible in the background.

"Well, I hope I get a bigger part in lesson two," the real Jumbler complained good-naturedly as we rolled away. "How come Rapunzel gets to have all the fun?"

"The Eater of Cruelty shall be the father of the new covenant," Madame Blavatsky replied with a portentous and scolding tone that seemed to misread Jumbler's jest, "and the Pomegranate Grail the mother. But you had better get used to the fact that the girlfriend you picked is Queen Bee, Sex President, and Chief Anchorslut of the United Snakes of Rosicrucian Coca-Cola. Believe in her, Jumbler. Help her. Most of all, get used to sharing her. She is the Global Initiatrix of Fuckissimus. The Universal Love Slave."

"Tell me more," Jumbler said to Blavatsky, which I thought was curious. Up till then, she had shown little interest in any conceptions about my fate that didn't originate with her.

"I cannot do that right now," my great-great-great-grandmother replied. "We have run out of Drivetime momentum for the moment. The two of you must return to the hotel back in the Waketime. There is a lot of work to be done, and we must pace ourselves. This is but Day Two of what we will in the future call the First Seven Days of Creation. You are not yet ready for full-scale immersion in the Drivetime."

Madame Blavatsky was weaving the golf cart across a densely packed section of the cemetery now, avoiding the tombstones but driving right over the flat grave markers. We were heading towards a giant Televisionary Oracle, the size of a highway overpass, at ground level on the far end of a field. Meekly I asked, "Is this safe?" The air smelled of mint candy and rum and cedarwood.

"Quickest way to get you back. Don't worry."

When Jumbler and I awoke on the morning after, back in the tear-stained bed at the Villa Inn, it was almost 2 p.m. We were dressed as we were at the height of the tantric exchange that had propelled us into the Drivetime: black flannel pajamas for her, black velvet tights and tunic for me. It took me a disappointed minute to adjust to the fact that I wasn't wearing my sacred underwear from Madame Blavatsky's necropolis.

We didn't groom ourselves with great care before making a foray to the crummy food market a couple of blocks away. We were barefoot and tousled and deliriously happy. It was amusing to witness the reactions of innocent bystanders as we foraged for our Ritz crackers, string cheese, lemonade, and celery. The latter was far from my favorite vegetable, but it was the only one in the store that didn't look like it had been invaded by rot.

I might have preferred our conversation during those first couple of waking hours to have centered on our excursion into the Drivetime. I wanted to compare notes and analyze the meanings of the experiences we had shared. And Jumbler did agree to a modest exchange that made it clear her experience had been identical to mine. It was not merely a creation of my unconscious mind.

Perhaps driven by Madame Blavatsky's parting words, though, she was mildly obsessed with questioning me at length about the story of my life as Rapunzel, which for some mysterious reason she knew nothing about even though she seemed so knowledgeable about my alleged other incarnations. I answered her inquiries happily, spilling out deep secrets about the circumstances of my birth, my upbringing as the avatar, and how and why I ran away. It was the first time I'd ever talked so much to an outsider about my history. My mothers had always forbidden such self-revelation.

Later, after we shared late-afternoon breakfast in bed, her interview finally ebbed. For a while we closed our eyes and were silent, my right leg and her left playing together.

"You are surprisingly receptive for such a flaming narcissist," she said suddenly.

"How can I possibly be a flaming narcissist," I replied, determined not to be offended though I had instantly gone rigid. Would this be our first fight? "All my life I've been trained--brainwashed, really--to believe that my life is devoted to serving all of womankind. More than anything, I want to be of use."

Nervously, I lurched away from her to the middle of the bed and began running my hands through the thicket of my hair.

"Yes. I see that. I don't mean to condemn." She glided behind me, lifted my tunic, and began stroking my belly with her almost supernaturally feathery touch. "But all that stuff is really just skin-deep, isn't it? Your underbelly imprint is very different. And how could it be otherwise? You've never had any other experience except as a dearly beloved object of devotion. Day after day for many years, women who cherish you deeply have poured their life energy into you."

"I can't help that." I was annoyed at her even as she was arousing a sweet warmth in my body.

"I know you can't," she said. "But what it means is that you have never had the chance to feel wrenching, gut-level yearning for anyone who makes you feel the way your devotees feel about you."

"Oh." Was it really necessary to discuss this now? I didn't feel like defending myself, even though I had a good rebuttal: the memories, which had surfaced the day before, of my relationship with my birth mother Magda.

"And until you can add that primal emotion to the mix," Jumbler continued, "all your service to the world will be one-dimensional. By rote. Uninspired. You'll be a charismatic leader who's programmed mostly to feel special about yourself, not to bestow great blessings on other people."

I did not enjoy being told I was superficial, even by my beautiful new lover. I got up from the bed and went to the mirror to check the status of Dr. Lilith's slash in my forehead. As I applied some cleanser, Jumbler continued.

"But I will say this, my dear. According to my tantrically trained reading of your character, you actually possess equal potentials as beloved and devotee."

"And will you deign to teach me the path of the devotee, O Great Master Jumbler?" I said, daring to be sarcastic. "Will you lead me to the feet of the alluring idol where I might immolate myself in the fires of ecstatic surrender?"

"Gladly will I do this, O Great Master Rapunzel. Gladly will I offer my humblest parts to be kissed by the beloved avatar." She stretched out on the bed, arching her bare feet in my direction.

"Ah I see. You yourself are the solution that you are recommending. You are the beloved who will cure my flaming narcissism." I blew her feet a kiss, then returned to the business of applying a fresh bandage.

"My goal would not be to expunge your sense of yourself as the beloved one," she said. "Only to add an additional sense of yourself as devotee. As I said, you have extravagant potentials for both. And I think both are crucial for your ascendancy to goddess-like power and splendor."

"So are you criticizing me or praising me?" I still felt slightly petulant. "Will you make up your damn mind?"

"I would like to quote now from the book that, with your help, I hope to write someday. It's called The Dictionary of Tricky Love. Please listen to the definition for the term 'radical intimacy.' Ahem. Radical intimacy is a virtuoso art that requires me and my freaky consort to master two seemingly contradictory skills: naming and nurturing the highest, holiest, best in each other, and thriving on the fact that our relationship will inevitably draw out and ask us to redeem each other's ugliest ignorance."

"So what you're saying is that the deeper you and I fall in love," I replied, "the more uninhibited we'll both feel about unveiling our worst qualities?" I had returned to the rumpled bed and was making grotesque faces just inches from Jumbler's face. "You'll get to spend lots of time with my inner gargoyles, and I with yours? And that's a good thing?" I grunted like a hippopotamus and licked her hand sloppily.

"It is a good thing," Jumbler murmured self-assuredly as she allowed me to chomp on her arm and shoulder, "because it will give us great ongoing practice at killing the apocalypse right down at the most microscopic levels."

"Yes, I suppose that's true," I allowed. "Each of us, even great masters like you and me, carry a little portion of the apocalypse within us." I got up from the bed and retrieved a black felt-tip pen from a drawer. Slipping the back part of my tights down a little, I drew an oval on my left butt cheek and wrote "The End" inside. This was rather forward of me. Despite our wonderful all-night trance-dance, Jumbler and I had not yet been naked with each other except incidentally in Madame Blavatsky's golf cart.

"Jung called our personal portion of the apocalypse the shadow," she said, taking the pen and drawing an oval on the sole of her left foot. Within it, she printed "Do not look at this" along with a picture of a single eye.

"It's the unripe or wounded part of us," she continued. "It becomes evil only if it's repressed."

"So in radical intimacy," I replied, curling into the fetal position to stare into the off-limits zone she'd just created, "I get to practice killing off the apocalypse in you, and vice versa? Sort of a corollary to Jesus' plea to love thy neighbor as thyself. 'Love thy neighbor's shadow, and work with all thy tender adrenaline to summon its most constructive expressions.'"

"Hmmmm. I like that. But I was thinking more about how I will kill off the apocalypse in myself because I have such a high regard and attraction to you. And you'll do vice versa."

"So like when I suddenly turn into a jerk because my flaming narcissism has demonically possessed me, I'll rise up with a banishing spell. 'Begone demon, for I cannot allow you to trick me into hurting the feelings of my sweet groovemate.'"

I did the trick my mothers had always hated so much, which was to roll my pupils back so far in my head that only the whites showed.

"Yes, exactly," she laughed. "You won't just naturally assume that the demon to be exorcised resides inside me. Which in itself is so contrary to the style of the six billion apocalypticians on the planet that you might just shock armageddon into expiring right then and there."

"I catch your drift, Professor Jumbler. Or is it Guru Jumbler?" I saluted then prayed then bowed to her. "As Jung said, we tend to attribute to other people the very stuff we hate and fear most about ourselves."

"Radical intimacy means we kill the apocalypse at the source."

"So what is your ugliest ignorance, anyway, Jumbler?" I asked slyly.

"Wouldn't you rather have the fun of provoking me into accidentally leaking it at an unguarded moment?" she returned. "And there's also the possibility that I don't even know all the subtle varieties of my own ugliest ignorance. Maybe you can help me discover them."

"As long as I also always tell you how beautiful and wonderful you are, too, right?"

"Exactly."

The front half of Jumbler's body was on the bed while she knelt on the floor and held my feet, one in each of her hands. She placed her tongue on the top of the middle toe of my right foot and kissed and licked very softly and slowly in a straight path up the front of my foot all the way to the spot between my ankles. She repeated the gesture with my left foot. Then she returned to my right foot and began again. This time she murmured a wistful tune as she proceeded. I couldn't understand the words, though I thought I detected syllables that sounded like Sanskrit. Whenever it came time for her to take a breath, she would keep her lips on my skin and suck gently as she inhaled. After she finished with this sweep, she performed the same operation on my left foot.

A third time she returned to my right foot. This time she added a new move. Instead of lightly sucking my skin on her inbreaths, she turned her head up and sipped the air. As she brought her mouth back to my foot, she made a delicate spurting sound, as if she were taking the essence of what she'd sipped and infusing it into my flesh. All the while, she kept singing her mysterious tune.

By the time she completed my feet and began applying a similar rhythm to my calves and shins, I was slipping into a most relaxed rapture. She continued with amazing patience, methodically but gracefully covering my entire body, removing my clothes as she wandered.

Then I was naked before her. It pleased me profoundly. I wanted to peel myself open for her, find ways to let her more deeply into me. I wanted her to wash over me, pour into me, turn me inside out and touch me in my oldest fantasies about myself.

"Come and find me," I sighed. "Surround me. Fill me. Engulf me."

A strange and wonderful feeling arose in the midst of this spreading expanse of surrender: a tremendous potency. It made no sense at first, and I held it at bay. How could relinquishing my will generate such strength? But as it continued to build, I accepted it, allowed it to billow. Confidence and authority surged through me crazily. I felt wildly powerful, as if I could do anything. This in turn cracked open a fresh intuition--a prophecy, really: that in the years to come I would indeed be called upon to take on assignments that would test me to my limits.

In the wake of this revelation, I wanted to plunge back into the Drivetime without delay. I longed to collect more clues about the destiny Madame Blavatsky had been unveiling. But I willfully held myself back. I didn't want to slip over to the other side unless Jumbler accompanied me.

"How can I give you what you're giving me?" I asked dreamily. "Let me rev you up too."

"You can't imagine how much you've given me by allowing me to worship you like this," she sighed. I could hear the other world in her voice. "More and more, I sense the truth of what Madame Blavatsky said about you. You are the Sex President. The Supreme Adept of the Fuckissimus."

"But I want you to come with me to the Drivetime," I insisted quietly.

"I'm almost there already," she said. "Lie on top of me."

I helped her take off her clothes. She lay down spread-eagled on the bed.

"Crucify me with your love, girl," she whispered. "With all your most furious gentleness."

I eased myself down onto her, matching her pose in every way except for my head, which was face down on the bed to the side of hers.

"Visualize that I am you and you are me," she said. "Imagine that you are me feeling Rapunzel's thighs on yours, and Rapunzel's breasts on yours, and Rapunzel's arms on yours."

As I obeyed her suggestions, we synchronized our long, slow breathing. Rippling swells of liquid velvet textures glimmered up and down the length of my body. Soon I felt like a syrupy slow-motion waterfall cascading into Jumbler and then spiraling back into myself.

So gradually I wasn't aware of the moment when I crossed over the threshold, I found myself in the Drivetime. It was a familiar yet strange place. I was lying down inside the husk of my old lightning-struck redwood tree on the grounds of the Pomegranate Grail. Jumbler was sprawled on top of me but just lifting herself off. We were naked.

The first thing I noticed was that the woods were missing. My redwood sanctuary looked and felt like it always had except for the fact that there were only a few yards of wild nature around it. Now it was inside a building with a high roof punctuated by a large skylight. In front of us a few yards away, visible through the "door" of the redwood husk, was a sizable image screen, maybe eight feet square, which I guessed was a Televisionary Oracle. At the moment, the screen was filled with a line of naked men snaking up to the back door of a red and black double-decker bus that bore a sign saying, "Global Initiatrix of Fuckissimus."

Suddenly, Madame Blavatsky's stout form trundled in front of the screen, blocking my view. She was clad in a black conical witch's hat, pearl necklace, red cashmere mini-slip, and burgundy satin bra. The latter was far too small for her corpulent breasts.

Smoking a cigarette and chewing gum, she was sitting on a giant red tricycle that had a basket attached to the handlebars. Her saturnine face peered in at us.

"Wake up, sleepyheads," she snorted. "It is high time for your next Drivetime University class. But first put on your sacred underwear." She removed her gum so she could stuff her mouth with a spoonful of what looked like mashed potatoes from a bowl in her basket. Then she hurled a bunch of clothes towards us. It was the same stuff from before: for me, the Grail-shaped bra and the panties decorated with replicas of my birthmark; for Jumbler, the flesh-colored leotard painted with the realistic likeness of breasts and a penis.

I put on my costume and strode out of the redwood husk to survey my surroundings. It was a cross between a temple, a toy store, and the studio of a sculptor who uses junk as raw materials. I saw three majestic altars crammed with elaborate candelabra, big bouquets, and tiny, brightly colored UFOs, some of which were hovering in mid-air. A giant metal and wood scarecrow with glowing eyes and many arms was clapping in rhythm to a guttural melody that was flowing from her mouth. Next to a "garden" of fantastic Salvador Dali-like flowers and vegetables made of painted dishes and kitchen utensils, a miniature roller coaster reeled along a wooden track. Its cars were filled with puppet versions of fanged Tibetan deities and crones.

"Where are we?" I asked Madame Blavatsky.

"Glorious Universal Diddlemaster," Madame Blavatsky replied, taking another spoonful of mashed potatoes from her bowl, "I am glad you asked. You are on the grounds of the Menstrual Temple of the Funky Grail, the mystery school with which you will replace the Pomegranate Grail. We are visiting the future again so as to further instill in you the confidence you will need to oversee the many mutations it will be your fate to initiate."

Jumbler had joined me as I stood with Madame Blavatsky.

"We did it again, baby," she grinned as she took my hand. "We're pioneers of Drivetime collaboration."

"You must be a very skillful tantric magician, my love," I said admiringly, kissing her on the mouth.

"I am not nearly as experienced as you might imagine," she replied, "although it's true I have received an extensive education. But I swear I have never before done a shamanic journey together with anyone to the Drivetime. You and I must have a natural talent that we bring out in each other."

"I'd like to claim a bit of credit, too, if you don't mind," a familiar voice called out from behind us. I turned to behold a shocking but welcome sight. Rumbler was walking towards us. "It's not as if Rapunzel is a virgin in these collaborative out-of-body experiences, after all."

He strode over to Madame Blavatsky and handed her a blue popsicle. She seized it eagerly and began to slurp. Then he glided over to Jumbler and me and offered one to both of us. I took mine and hugged him, unable to speak. After a moment, I partially broke away, grabbed Jumbler, and pulled her into a three-way embrace. I was aware that neither of them knew who the other was -- I had included only a bare mention about Rumbler when I told Jumbler the story of my life -- but I fantasized that both of them loved me so much they would just naturally love each other.

"Looks like I'm overdressed," Rumbler said as we finally dissolved the hug. In contrast to the skimpy attire Jumbler and I had on, Rumbler was dressed like an actor I once saw playing Robin Hood in a movie: bright green linen tunic with a rough leather belt, deerskin pants and green wool cloak, and leather boots.

I was still having trouble making intelligible sounds. Cognitive dissonance ruled my brain. The first impossibility was seeing Rumbler in this place, the Drivetime, which was so much more like the daytime world than the Televisionarium landscapes he and I had always frequented. We were not lying beneath a lemony sky right now, afloat on an ocean of geraniums where giant flakes of orange snow that tasted like butterscotch fell on our delighted tongues.

The second impossibility was being with Rumbler in the company of an actual flesh-and-blood person from my waking life. In all my years of consorting with my male playmate, there had never been such a crossover. Our companions in the Televisionarium were creatures like Firenze the Musical Sasquatch, Snapdragon Dragonfly the Firefly, and Itchy Crunchy the Beautiful Empress of the Trolls. My shamanic travels and my life in ordinary waking reality were strictly segregated.

"I'm Rumbler," he said to Jumbler, reaching out to shake hands. "Rapunzel might prefer to tell you I'm her muse or animus or her vivid imaginary stand-in for her dead twin brother, but I like to think I have an objective existence aside from her."

I had rarely heard Rumbler be so wryly self-conscious. Back in the Televisionarium, he was usually such a creature -- given instinctively to the feral poetry of the moment.

"I have to say that I can see a bit of a family resemblance, though," Jumbler said. "Which is not to say that I don't believe your version of the truth, too. It is the Drivetime, after all. Whenever contradictory statements pop up here, you can be sure that both are accurate."

"And you are who?" Rumbler asked her. "I mean, I know who you are, but I want to hear your version of who you are."

"I'm Jesus the Hermaphrodite Clown, also known as the Wealthy Anarchist Burning Heaven to the Ground. Rapunzel might prefer to tell you I'm her teacher or servant or fool, but I like to think of myself as her sexfriend."

Jesus the Hermaphrodite Clown? What was that about, I wondered. But Rumbler looked delighted at this nonsense from Jumbler. I was glad, because I wanted them to get along. But I was nervous, too, because -- well -- shouldn't they be jealous of each other? I didn't want them to be, and since they lived in different dimensions maybe the usual laws of human nature didn't apply.

"Do you know Madame Blavatsky?" I asked him, trying to find a way to proceed. I gazed over at her. She was busy smoking her cigarette and devouring her popsicle, but she took a moment to give the thumbs-up signal to me with her cigarette hand.

"I'm proud to say," Rumbler replied, "that Madame Helena Blavatsky -- who, I should note, suffers from the same indignity as I do, being imagined by you as a split-off aspect of your own psyche rather than an autonomous spirit with a life apart from you -- Madame Blavatsky has called on me to help administer your next crash course at Drivetime University. Aren't you going to eat your popsicle?"

I was studying his face. Though it had not been so long since our last meeting, he looked older and stronger. He'd always been the embodiment of sensitivity, but now he emanated even more kindness than I remembered. A more mature, vigorous kindness.

"Let's go climb into the Drivetime University classroom, shall we?" he exhorted. "Come on, Jesus. You too. Madame Blavatsky, you want to sit in?"

She shook her head and mumbled, "Maybe later."

Jumbler was contentedly licking her popsicle, seemingly empty of her usual restless initiative. If there was any jealousy flickering here between Rumbler and Jumbler, it was well-hidden.

"You doing OK?" I asked Jumbler as we strolled.

"I'm on a mysterious tantric jaunt into the Drivetime with the lyrical creature I've loved for millennia. Couldn't get any better than this."

As we sat down inside the redwood husk, Rumbler arranged the three of us in a triangle with our legs splayed out, each person with a foot touching a foot of the other two.

"First off, I want you to know that in order to expand my service to your mission, Rapunzel, I have been tending to my fellow men with a new intensity lately," Rumbler announced when we were in place.

"Men as in generic name for humanity?" I said, feigning dismay. "I thought you were free of sexist language, dear."

"Men as in literal guys. Dudes. Fathers and brothers and sons. Who, by the way, gave me a message to send to you." Rumbler blew two kisses, first in the direction of my navel, then towards my face.

"All the men in the world just kissed me?" I asked, holding my hand demurely to my face.

"No, no, no -- not all. Just the lesbian men and macho feminists. A very select group, unfortunately. By Madame Blavatsky's calculations, it represents point zero two percent of all men."

"OK, Rumbler," I said, exulting in the giddy sensation of feeling crisply logical in the midst of crazy fun. "Let me suspend my disbelief here for a moment and accept your implication that you have somehow been in communication with -- how many would it be? -- 480,000 adult males all over the planet?

"Overwhelming majority are in North America," Rumbler noted.

"So let me ask you: How did you get elected to be the representative of this elite group?"

"You are so modest, Rapunzel," he replied. "Of course I got elected because of my close association with the Queen Bee of Orgasmic Liberation. Because I was the first male-type creature to be benevolently infected by the Global Initiatrix of the Fuckissimus."

"Rapunzel's mothers would no doubt be skeptical," Jumbler broke in, "to hear that half a million men are having erotic fantasies about the high priestess of their Goddess cult."

Ignoring Jumbler's kibitz, Rumbler moved to a kneeling position and prostrated himself so that his forehead rested on his outspread hands a few inches from my crotch. "My fellow men also wanted me to convey the following request."

"Yes?" I said expectantly, glancing over at Jumbler. She seemed bemused. Her hands were stroking her inner thighs and she was sporting a grin.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair," Rumbler said with a histrionic stage whisper. "Pull us all the way up to your menstrual hut, so that we can learn to menstruate too."

I cackled hard, the result of being both incredulous and entertained. "I see," I finally managed to spuoulders were shaking with laughter. Brazenly, she reached over and applied a teasing spank to Rumbler's upturned butt.

"We men want to master the art of regular self-abduction," Rumbler continued seriously, not acknowledging the humorous effect of his previous statement. "We want to learn how to die a lot of little deaths so we don't have to get crushed by huge annihilations."

"Hey Rumbler, what's in it for Rapunzel to let these guys climb up into her menstrual hut?" Jumbler blurted out mischievously. I was grateful, wanting to stall for time while I tried to digest what Rumbler was talking about. It certainly seemed connected to the tower and the long line of men in wedding dresses from our previous foray into the Drivetime.

"Rapunzel can't kill the bad apocalypse without us," Rumbler told Jumbler quickly and calmly. "She can't resurrect the good apocalypse without us."

"That's not what my mommies told me," I protested halfheartedly. "My mommies said the male of the species is a lost cause. A drain on our resources I shouldn't bother with. According to them, I'm not even supposed to get married."

"Your mommies are wise and good and strong," Rumbler said solemnly. "We bow to them with reverent devotion. But they don't know everything."

"But neither do you, of course," I shot back affectionately. "Why should I listen to your advice?"

"Besides the fact that it was revealed to me by your eternal secretary, Madame Blavatsky, it also resonates with everything you know about yourself. All your instincts, for as long as you can remember, have told you to be inclusive, not separative. To embrace the contradictions, not reinforce their enmity. Preaching to the choir is not your destiny, Rapunzel. You need to expand your audience. A lot."

"Why haven't you told me this before?"

"Couldn't meet you in the Drivetime till you kidnapped yourself. Them's the rules. Couldn't reveal the missing secrets till you rose up against the old ways and started making your own traditions."

"By the logic you're espousing, Rumbler," Jumbler interjected, "Rapunzel would try to translate the esoteric wisdom of the Pomegranate Grail into a New Age self-help book and tour the world making personal appearances. 'High Priestess of Ancient Mystery School Reveals Ten Practical Ways for Both Women and Men to Make the Menstrual Mysteries Work for Greater Health, Wealth, and Happiness.'"

"Not a bad idea, actually," he replied.

"Well then, I hope Drivetime University has a marketing division," Jumbler retorted, "because the education of our Supergirl here has probably not included much training in that area of human knowledge."

"Actually," Rumbler said, "there is a marketing division of Drivetime University. A whole phalanx of marketing teachers awaits Rapunzel's arrival."

"I can't believe we're talking about this," Jumbler marveled. "It's certainly a day for firsts. My first joint shamanic trip into the Drivetime. My first shamanic conversation ever about marketing."

"Has the dissident propaganda you're preaching been approved by Madame Blavatsky?" I asked Rumbler, dubious. "Is this all an official part of my Drivetime University curriculum? Especially the part about adding men to the choir I preach to."

"My Damn Latchkey!" Rumbler shouted. "My Damn Latchkey!"

As my eternal secretary puttered up to the doorway of the redwood husk on her oversized tricycle, she was wiping her mouth with the back of her arm.

"You require my august presence?" she gurgled.

"My Damn Latchkey," Rumbler said to her, "your ineffable ward here is wondering if I speak with your authority when I counsel her to upgrade her marketing skills and reach out to the masses. She's particularly scoffing at my hint that she should invite some selected men to join her exclusive girls' club."

"You do not have to physically fuck all the men," Madame Blavatsky growled. "Spiritually you do, of course, in the Drivetime. But physically only a small fraction. What was the figure I worked out? Point zero two percent of point zero two percent. Not that many, really, as long as they are the right men. That should be good enough to infect the whole global gang of phallus-bearers."

I was apoplectic. "Fuck them?! What are you talking about?!"

"It will certainly not be fucking in the patriarchal sense of the word," Madame Blavatsky said blandly. "But the specifics about that will be revealed a little later. For now, think of your task as a kind of mass mercy-fucking. For the good of the planet."

"Shouldn't I be at least a little concerned about what's good for me?"

"To the tiny little ego into which you have stuffed your vast primordial self, it sounds extreme. But remember, Queen Giggleshtupper, this is one of those decisions you yourself made while ensconced in the more eternal perspective, if you know what I mean. I am merely serving as your secretary. Reminding you of your agenda."

"I told you to remind me to turn myself into a kind of glorified sacred prostitute?" I laughed with disbelief. "I, the avatar of a mystery school that has only accepted women as members for millennia?"

"There is no better way to set the healing infection in motion," Madame Blavatsky said with curt certainty, taking a sip from a bottle of wine, "than to administer the tantric yoni juju directly to a few elite contagious agents among the beloved enemy. It will make the Drivetime aspect of your work far more effective. Besides, you will have plenty of time to get ready. The earliest possible launch date for you to become Global Initiatrix of the Fuckissimus would be five years from now."

"OK, Rumbler," I said, setting my not-quite-finished popsicle down on a brown leaf, "time out." I lifted his head up off the ground and looked him in the eyes. "I've come to enjoy Madame Blavatsky in the short time I've known her, but I don't know how much I trust her. Your word, on the other hand, I swear by. So tell me. Are you and Blavatsky sincerely offering me a new dispensation about my life's mission, or is this your idea of a prank?"

"It's a trade-off, Rapunzel," he said. "The men will come to you to be filled up with the mysteries of menstruation, and you will exploit their openness in order to infect them with the Psychefunkapus meme. They get something and you get something. Remember what I said. You can't kill the bad apocalypse without them. You can't resurrect the good apocalypse without them."

"Just as long as you don't try to tell us," Jumbler fired in, "that she needs these men for personal reasons; that only a male can bring out the real woman in her. That kind of scripture tends to make me subject to projectile vomiting."

"You have my word," said Rumbler. "I won't say that. But I will say that she needs men in order to reach her full potential as an avatar. No way around it. The bad apocalypse will occur unless she infects the male of the species with the Psychefunkapus meme."

Jumbler stuck out her tongue and gave Rumbler a long, hard raspberry.

"And tell me again what the Psychefunkapus meme is?" I asked.

"Lust globally, fuck locally," Rumbler said.

"Meaning you should desire every halfway attractive person you encounter, but only make love to your committed partner?"

"That's one way to interpret it."

"What are the other ways?"

"Get in the habit of cultivating a tender, appreciative lust for everyone. And I do mean everyone. Convince yourself with brilliantly rational arguments why it makes total sense to overflow with hot-blooded compassion for all of creation. And I do mean all of creation -- the wetlands and the libraries and the hummingbirds and the highways. And then infuse that well-crafted, unconditional generosity into the love you give to any imperfectly beautiful consort you actually fuck."

"Sounds strenuous."

"At first it will be. After a while it will become second nature."

"Jumbler," I said, placing my hand on hers, "I need your counsel. Speak freely, please."

"I'm afraid this is coming dangerously close to being just another in a long line of history's famous megalomaniacal fantasies, my dear," Jumbler said with a hint of an emotion I had not yet seen in her -- disgust. "Not L. Ron Hubbard or Allah's prophet Mohammed or Mao Zedong as the One True Way, but Rapunzel Blavatsky. Just because I love the way your mind works and share all your values, my dear, doesn't mean I want you to be the resplendent saviour that everyone in the world needs to worship or even fuck in a non-patriarchal fashion, whatever that means. 'Global Initiatrix' is another term for 'Fascist Uber-Guru' if you ask me."

"Please, Jesus," Rumbler said to Jumbler with a hint of defensiveness. "It's poetic license. We're playing with caricatures. We're making fun of ourselves. Of course we're not proposing that Rapunzel purge all her competitors and rule the mass imagination alone. But neither do we want to repress all thoughts about the danger of that fantasy taking root in the back of her lovely mind. That would surely make us fall prey to the poison we want to avoid."

"Yes, I understand that principle well," Jumbler admitted. "It's the heart of the tantric teaching. Whatever darkness you ignore will always sneak up from behind and bite you in the ass eventually."

"Rapunzel is not the Great Exception," Madame Blavatsky croaked as she rocked her tricycle backwards and forwards and scooped what looked like deep-fried shrimp out of her bowl.

"Exactly," said Rumbler. "She's merely the Great Example, a role model who shows how it's done. I call her the avatar, but everyone who lusts globally and fucks locally is a potential avatar, too. The goal is six billion masters of Psychefunkapus."

"But she must still be a charismatic superstar," Madame Blavatsky added. "That is the only way she will get enough recruits for Twenty-Two Weeks of World Orgasm."

She pedaled her tricycle in a half-circle so she was facing away from us. "Hop on, Queen Sexlaugher," she called over her shoulder. "Let me take you back to your kidnap of the airwaves. Come on -- you too, girlfriend. You too, Rumbler."

I climbed aboard the step on the back of the tricycle and held on to Madame Blavatsky's shoulders. Jumbler was able to squeeze on, clutching my waist. Rumbler jumped up on the handlebars, barely keeping his butt from sinking down into the food in Madame Blavatsky's basket. We took off with difficulty, but soon picked up speed.

Peddling furiously, Madame Blavatsky took us out a door and into the woods. She proceeded down a narrow paved road that cut a swath through strange buildings. There was not a single rectangular shape among them -- ziggurats, tepees, domes, and pyramids predominated -- and they appeared to be made out of giant rubies and amethysts and topazes and emeralds. Next to each front door, which was lozenge-shaped, was a neon sign. "The Eater of Cruelty" read one. Others said "Feminist Orgy Network," "Center for Tantric Janitorism," "Telepathics Anonymous," and "Drivetime University Presents: How a Global Network of Menstrual Huts Can Stave Off Apocalypse."

After a few minutes of traveling down this road, we began to hear the hubbub of a large crowd. Soon we came into view of a huge structure that towered over the landscape. It was a stadium. Madame Blavatsky wheeled us inside through tall double doors.

The place was packed with a sea of people, most of whom were wearing only the skimpiest clothes. It was shocking to see so much flesh all at once.

At the opposite end of the stadium was the biggest Televisionary Oracle of them all -- maybe a hundred feet square. Dominating the screen was a person who looked like me, only about ten years older: same as last time. Dressed in a green and black tweed kimono and sporting the same pimple on her forehead, The Other Rapunzel was in a television news room with several large video