Melinda Hall credits herself as being the first. Her husband, Terrance Hall, worked on K street in 2017, and she’s always referred to herself as a socialite by trade. A week after the 2018 crash, Terrance hung himself in their garage with an extension cord. Melinda talks about it like she’s discussing what she had for dinner last night. “After Terrance, I was broken, but now I’m whole,” she tells me. “I wouldn’t go back to that empty life for anything in the world. I didn’t know what happiness was until I found Curtis.”

Janice Mayfield can’t remember if she was the third or fourth member to come to the family. “Girls were coming in and out all the time,” she says. “Some women lack discipline. Curtis ran a strict household, and some girls were trying to get clean and just ... didn’t make it.” Janice had just started a hair salon with a high-interest bank loan when the collapse hit. “When you start a business you’re already vulnerable. Then something like that happens and you don’t even have a chance.” The domino effect that she describes is terrifying. Couldn’t pay off the loan, the bank took the house, welfare shut down, homeless shelter filled to capacity and extremely dangerous. “I know how we look to people with the sex stuff and the costumes, but where were those people when we needed help? Nowhere. It was only Curtis.”

Sally Burton rounds out the three, referred to collectively by the media as “The Maidens of America’s Midnight.” “Like, the whole 50s aesthetic is dope,” says Sally. “Curtis was always talking about family. Well family is so overrated, I just want a place where I can like, express myself and be happy.” Sally isn’t as forward as the the other two; she dances around her story. You get a sense she didn’t interface well with normal life. It’s interesting that the others accept her — Sally is the reason it all fell apart.

The missing centerpiece of this family is the infamous Curtis Cant. When I asked the women who he was to them they all used the same title: “Father”. Sally rolled her eyes when she said it, but she said it nonetheless. Curtis’s father, Danny, rolled his eyes as well. “It’s still so strange to me he would use that word,” Danny says. “I always thought he hated me, even as a little kid. He was always so open and loving to his mother, but around me he just shut down. But I know why. I saw him for what he was, and I don't think he has any use for anyone that knows he's lying every goddamned minute of the day.”

In 2015, Curtis got three years in San Quentin for extortion, pandering, and kidnapping, and when he got out he had a decent inheritance from his mother waiting for him. He put all of it into a medium-sized condo in Calabasas that he bought from an elderly couple right before the collapse. The house looks like a time capsule from the Cold War era; none of the maidens who still reside there know if Curtis redesigned it that way or bought it like that. Regardless, it became the iconic visual setting of the family.

After the collapse, Curtis started inviting women from the shelters to live with him. As Janice mentioned, many women were coming and going, and Melinda’s claim that she was first contradicts other accounts. At one point, I was told, upwards of 30 women were staying in the house. “The shelters were frightening,” Janice recounts. “There were so many people, sexual assault and drug use was everywhere. It was a really bad time. I practically jumped into Curtis’ arms when he chose me. The fact that they took our father away is proof that he was right. It’s the system that’s wrong, only family matters.”

In March of 2019, Sally showed up on her own; she was 15 at the time. Her father hired an investigator to find her, and he reported his investigation to Bastion. What followed was an all-you-can-eat buffet for the media outlets: A 15-year-old found in a house with a bunch of women dressed up in clothes from the 50’s, all calling an ex-con “father”. Curtis Cant was immediately taken into custody and from there vanished without a trace.

As the country begins to heal so do the last three women living in the house, each claiming she is bearing Curtis’ child. Sally says she's not entirely sure, but she's hopeful. It's clear they all love and look after each other like a family. “He’s coming back, he tells all of us in our dreams,” says Melinda. “Maiden is such a patriarchal word; I hate that word. The media paints us as these weak, sheep girls, victimized by a cult. I was weak when I was hosting dinner parties for the people that broke this country, that’s what a cult looks like. Now I’m powerful. We’re not maidens, we’re fucking Matriarchs!”