Bonding & branding at sex cult ‘retreat’

What began as a women’s bonding session in the Berkshires quickly became a perverse parade of private parts for an oversexed cult leader, a former NXIVM member testified Friday.

On the quiet Western Massachusetts getaway, the women invited went on a hike, explored a small town and cooked dinner together in a quaint cabins, said a witness, identified only as Nicole.

But one night their “master,” “Smallville actress Allison Mack, said they had to pose for crotch shots to be shared with NXIVM leader Keith Raniere, who is on trial for sex trafficking and conspiracy.

Nicole told the jury the request was infuriating. The women had just gotten dressed after taking their “family photo,” a group nude picture during which they were instructed to “look happy.”

“You had to sit on the couch and spread your legs,” Nicole explained.

Later, the women were told they had to be branded. Mack told Nicole the brand represented the elements, and it was “sealed by fire.”

In reality, Nicole later learned, the brand was Raniere’s initials.

“I was like, no effing way!” Nicole recalled. “I said it in my head.”

But Nicole relented, thinking of her family to get through the pain.

“I can do this,” she thought at the time. “It really, really, really f—ing hurt. I just kind of disconnected from my body. I didn’t say a thing.”

Raniere (ohoto), 58, is accused of helping himself to a harem of brainwashed women who were recruited and mutilated for his sexual pleasure.

Raniere, who has pleaded not guilty, says his encounters with the alleged victims were consensual.