Bill was almost as old as Max, and Keith was 15 years younger. When Sunrise ran strong they’d both been hounds, with Bill cruising the older women and Keith panting after the young ones. Keith was only 20 when he first arrived, but that was too old for what he did with the Posen twins (even though they were promiscuous, they were 12 and indiscreet, and as Max said, the commune definitely couldn’t risk that sort of attention). To the extent that the group ever had problems about sex, it was either Bill or Keith and their priapic activities with other men’s women or children, so it was a huge surprise to everyone when they decided that they were gay and for each other. They’d been a couple for 18 years. They were offended that Max was too busy with Guen to greet them.

Robert couldn’t shed any light for them. He’d been acquainted with Guen for a couple of years but he didn’t know her. He was too involved in his own cognition to pay much attention to other people. He had always been impulsive and distractable, and he set up his life to govern those conditions. He made few appointments. He was so careful to watch himself in social situations that he didn’t have the energy to notice others. He thought if he just let everyone do what they wanted, no one would have a complaint. He never altered that opinion even though it didn’t work. Half of Robert’s children dropped out of high school and never came back but he contended it was poor schools and bad luck. He met Guen in a small empowerment group, and they both enjoyed camping. He kept hoping it would lead to sex. She knew it wouldn’t.

Sunrise reunited for four and a half days, and the tension between Max and Guen continued the whole time. No matter how he tried to lecture, she modified it from the general to the personal. No matter what he tried to engineer, she revealed the emotional manipulation. It wasn’t until they were splitting up that Bill told them all he’d researched Lilith and learned that the demon Semuel was her brother. That was the name Guen had hissed. She admitted she was Max’s little sister. She was ten years younger but the Goldberg family haled from San Jose, so she spent time with the SRI guys along with her big brother. In her opinion the wakeup had to come from within. She was as charismatic as any of them, and smarter.

Max and Guen hadn’t seen each other for over a decade. She had enough money saved that they could live there awhile. Everyone else drove away from them, bumping on the dirt drive and seeing them in rearview mirrors, a pair standing in sunlight, crazed by golden dust.