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Alyssa Lamontagne

Monday, December 13, 2010Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Shore Party

And by the time the ceremonies began the party was in full swing. Alice stood in the

middle of the room brandishing a yellow pool noodle, her pink polyester wig tumbling over her

naked shoulders. She wore only a pair of blue panties and a stethoscope. Her left nipple was hard.

“Listen up, people,” she screamed with jiggling breasts. Of the thirteen guests only

Michael noticed, who left the room to conceal his erection. He was prone to inappropriate blood

flow.

“Shut the fuck up,” she shrieked, and then fell to the floor with a delighted cackle.

The noodle was passed on to David, who stood on an ottoman and held it between his

legs where it pulsed as he swayed his hips. His naked body was thickly muscled.

“The Noodle commands silence,” he bellowed. The low rumble of his voice carried

through the room and nestled in the ears of the other guests. All were silent.

Alice composed herself and mounted the beige ottoman once more, retrieving her noodle

and deposing David. As the host of the party, Alice had named herself Cult Leader until a more

worthy representative could be chosen by the guests.

“Thank you,” said Alice to everyone except Michael, who was finishing himself off in

the bathroom. “It’s about fucking time.”

Everyone laughed except for Michael.

“We have some rules here in this house.”

A chorus of boos erupted.

“Shut up, you drunken sluts.”

The guests laughed.

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“The first rule of the house is don’t touch the walls. Especially you, Justin,” she said to

the boy with shaggy brown hair and red body paint smeared all over his face. “Where the fuck did

you get body paint anyhow?”

Justin pointed at Melanie, who had two red handprints on her naked breasts.

“I’m being a Neo-Pagan Tribalist tonight,” said Melanie. She wrapped her arms around

her naked chest a little tighter and shrugged. “It’s not my fault he found my paint.”

Her boyfriend Zach, goggles hiding his long, dark eyelashes, leaned over and kissed her

on the cheek. He took her hand and squeezed it. His lab coat was sitting beside him on the couch.

Tonight he was a Science-ologist.

“Whatever. Just don’t anyone be a dick about it,” said Alice. “The second rule is don’t

make anyone do anything they don’t want to. If someone doesn’t want to be naked, fine. If they

don’t want to candy flip or even take anything, fine.”

It was at this point that Michael returned from the bathroom to notice that Alice was

swaying back and forth very slightly. Her breasts swung with her body. He tucked his thick black

hair back under his cap and left again to get a beer.

“Just so you know,” said Alice, “Bertie and I are selling ecstasy tonight at twenty bucks a

hit and David is selling acid tabs for the same.”

“It’s really good stuff,” affirmed Bertie. “We took it the other night and it was

amaaaazing. We had the best sex”

“I’ve got weed too if anyone wants,” David supplied. He put his arm around her waist.

“I’m happy to smoke you guys out.”

“Did you bring any K?” inquired Justin.

Alice shook her head. “Only enough for myself.”

“I have nitrous, though,” said Alice. “We can do whippets.”

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Justin cheered and somebody asked what whippets were and Michael returned from the

kitchen, keeping his thirsty eyes on his beer. He’d thrown jeans over his loose, cotton boxers. He

frowned at David’s naked body.

“Later tonight we’ll be electing a chief, so keep your eyes open for who would make a

good Cult Leader,” said Alice.

“But we’re all supposed to be from different cults,” someone protested.

“Right,” Alice agreed, “but it doesn’t matter. We also have a communal cult.”

“That’s so awesome,” Justin said, already knee-deep in his first acid trip. He looked back

down at the carpet. “It’s just so interesting,” he whispered to Bertie, who was sitting next to him

on the couch. “Look how the patterns move together. I mean, I know they’re not actually moving.

But they are, you know?”

“Justin’s tripping balls already,” Bertie announced delightedly. Her dyed blond hair

tumbled around her pixie face as she spoke.

“People, I think we should all be tripping balls right now,” said David.

“Whoever wants to, that is,” Alice corrected.

“Right.”

The group split up then. Justin and Melanie went outside to smoke a cigarette, while Zach

and Michael went downstairs to get drinks. The others crowded around Bertie and Alice, washing

against the two bare-breasted women in urgent, sweaty waves.

“One at a time,” hollered Alice, and yet a line did not form until David forced everyone

back; even then the guests pushed against one another in their excitement for intimacy and

psychedelia.

Money changed hands and tabs were distributed, and soon everyone tripping together

was holding a pill or a blotter or both.

“A toast!” someone shouted, and Alice and Bertie climbed onto the couch.
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“Make out!” cried another.

“Later,” said Bertie. “Do you want a toast or not?”

After some discussion it was unanimously decided that they would prefer to have a toast

now, and lesbian debauchery later.

“To life!” shouted Alice, and Bertie yelled something in Hebrew and then a cheer went

up and everyone popped and licked and consumed, and soon they were all on their way to a

glorious evening.

Outside, Melanie was drunkenly pontificating to Justin. Despite a few beers, she was

sober compared to the others. Her feet played in feet the water were hanging off the end of the

dock into the water. The lights from the house lit up a jellyfish not far away from her in the

murky brine of the sound.

“I’m going to write a book about a girl who spends a rainy night on a park bench because

she doesn’t want to go home. No one even noticed she’d left, and in the end she’s all alone

because she can’t bring herself to go home after spending so much time on that damn bench.”

Justin was quiet for a long while. The only noise was the lapping of waves against the

dock and the wind in the weedy shore across the way, to which they had earlier swum and stood

in the cold mud for a few minutes, only to swim slowly back again.

Eventually he spoke. “But why,” he began, dipping his toes in the water and studying the

tiny circles that appeared each time he did, “couldn’t she go home?”

Melanie pushed her dark, curly hair back over her shoulders. Justin’s sturdy frame

dwarfed her own.

“It was too late,” she said. “She’d already decided to stay.”

“Oh.”

She pulled out a cigarette and after a few tries lit it successfully. She pulled out another

and handed it to Justin.

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“I think Zach was fine with it, by the way,” she said, lighting it for him.

“With what?”

She gestured towards his handprints with her cigarette, her hard nipples cracking through

the paint in the cool air.

Justin closed his eyes and smiled. “I knew he would be. This just isn’t the kind of place

to be bothered by stuff like that.”

“Yeah.”

They sat silently together smoking their cigarettes until the hollow, wooden thud of

footsteps made them turn around.

It was Zach, springing lightly down the dock towards them. He had freed himself of his

pants.

“Did you take anything?” asked Melanie.

He sat down beside her, slipping his hand into her lap. She took a drag of her cigarette,

not looking at him.

“No, I didn’t take anything,” he said.

“Why not?” asked Justin, shocked.

Zach shrugged and squeezed Melanie’s hand. “I guess I just didn’t want to.” He laughed

and rubbed Justin’s back. “You’re somewhere else, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Justin. “Hey, do you guys wanna go swimming again?”

Melanie crushed her smoke against the wet wood, stood up, and pulled off her skirt and

panties. “Come on,” she shouted with crocodile glee, and leaped into the water followed almost

immediately by a naked Justin.

A cool breeze set the wind sock fluttering in the night and ruffled the hem of Zach’s

shorts, who looked down at them from the dock. “I don’t want to get wet again,” he protested.
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Michael stood in the window alone, drinking his beer. He watched Melanie strip down

and leap into the water, her bare cheeks flashing in the floodlight on the side of the house. He

stayed there for a moment, watching her, before returning to the party.

David and Bertie were trembling with excitement and dancing on the edges of

psychedelia. Twirling and swaying, they pushed the boundaries of reality back until they could

practically feel themselves moving inside a palpable bubble of surreal intoxication.

They nearly bumped into Michael on his way to the bathroom, who muttered something

under his breath before readjusting his baseball cap and stepping around them.

David looked at Bertie and shook his head. Michael was very much not where they were

right now. He took her arms from behind and began to undulate slowly. The only clothes they

wore between the two of them were her knee-high socks.

When Michael arrived, the bathroom was occupied. Through the door there came

laughter and the hiss-crack of a nitrous bottle opening. He knocked and Alice came to him,

smiling beneath her wig. There were a few other people in the room. Someone was sitting on the

counter sucking on a balloon.

“Want to do whippets?”

Michael shook his head and pointed at the toilet.

“The other bathroom full, huh?” Alice shrugged and turned away from him and glided

back into the bathroom to collect the others.

They left in single file, blinking against the bright lights of the party. As they left the

bathroom, two of the guests began to kiss. A two headed creature, they left for one of the

bedroom with limbs intertwined, tripping on dropped panties and drug paraphernalia.

“I’m going to go pass out for a bit,” said Alice, watching them leave. She brushed past

Michael as she left.

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He watched her leave, before stepping into the bathroom and closing the door.

The swimmers toweled off and Justin wandered back into the party, trailing his

underwear behind him. Zach was sitting in a folding chair on the dock and put his foot out when

Melanie attempted to sit on his lap.

“You’re wet.”

“But I’m cold.” She rubbed the beach towel over her naked torso a second time, paying

close attention to the deep crevices between her cheeks and thighs.

“Your hair is still wet,” he protested, but took her into his lap regardless. They strained to

sit quietly together and listened to waves crashing in the distance.

“I don’t like this,” she said finally.

“I thought you were enjoying yourself.” He motioned to the faint pink stain on her

breasts. “It looked like you were having fun.”

“It’s weird here.”

“Maybe it would help if you smoked some weed?”

She shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe.”

Neither of them spoke. They walked back to the house like prisoners to the scaffold. Zach

slid the glass door open and closed it hard behind them, the cold slice of a guillotine.

Melanie went to put on clothes and Zach walked up the stairs alone to the living room,

where the trippers were engaged in a spectacular show of insensible dancing. Arms flailed

ferociously and legs extended birdlike. They had decided to draw inspiration for their dance from

the animal kingdom. In that moment they were performers, all of them.

He was spotted by Bertie and pulled into the fray. “We’re being animals,” she squealed.

“Be an animal!”
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He thought for a moment, then curled his hands into claws and let out a playful roar. The

dancers were unimpressed and stopped their performing to look at him. The African rhythms of

the Lion King soundtrack stood out in the sudden silence and pulsated in the background.

“You’ve got to really feel it,” David explained. “You’re not feeling it.

“Justin’s got it!”

Justin was on his hands and knees on the floor, soaking in the rich delight of the carpet

fibers through his palms and knees. He roared and arched his back and everyone really got it.

Almost immediately they all joined in, crawling on their bellies on the soft blue carpet of the

living room, which matched the nautical theme of the beach house. Starfish and sailing ships

bedecked the walls. Zach remained standing and took a sip of his beer.

“What fun!”

“What a great idea!”

“Justin should be Cult Leader,” someone shouted.

“Yes! Justin for the Leader!”

Bertie, who had stood up to continue dancing, stepped over to Zach, whom she had

known the longest of all of them, wrapped her arms around his waist, and nuzzled his chest.

“I’m so happy you came. We were so worried you and Melanie wouldn’t make it.”

Melanie came up the stairs to see a naked woman attached to her boyfriend, only inches

from his semi-clothed xgroin. She looked again and saw that it was Bertie, who had brought them

here. The handprints on her breasts had washed off. There was nothing to remind her that this

wasn’t the kind of place to be bothered by things like that.

A tap on the shoulder and the naked David turned around.

“Do you want to smoke some weed?” she asked over the music.

He grinned and they left without a word to anyone else.

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Brushing the balloon and canisters into the wastebasket, Michael opened the top drawer

of the cabinet under the sink. He peered at the contents and sifted through tampons, a bottle of

Advil, a sample bottle of Nizoral, a pack of condoms and a loose screw, looking for Alice’s

razors. They were small and pink and came in a pack of five. When he found them he paused to

examine the one that had been previously used. He held it up to the light for a moment and

watched the icy gleam of the fluorescents glance off the few remaining sharp edges. A blond hair

stuck in the razor caught his eye and he gently brushed it off before setting it on the counter.

He took off his Expos cap, setting it very delicately on the counter, and pulled his Swiss

Army knife out of the pocket of his jeans. He flipped open the longest blade. He held a piece of

his thick, brown hair out and slid the ragged blades across it, as closely as he could to his scalp. It

came off in his hand and he dropped it in the sink and began to hack at another.

When the last bits of hair fluttered to the floor, Michael took the razor and ran it across

his scalp, starting at the front and working his way to the back. The blade tugged at his scalp and

he cringed. He did not stop.

The smoke curled catlike around the gaping mouth of the pipe, twisted into the air and

dispersed. David passed it to Melanie, who took a hit.

Soon the slightly throbbing skin and strobe light vision would take over. It would be

especially poignant for David, who already had a whole alphabet of chemicals in his system.

“Everything alright?” asked David. She had been staring absently at his pendulous balls

and caught herself, looking up and away.

“Sorry,” she stuttered. “I’m kind of distracted tonight.”

“I feel that,” he said with a friendly smile, passing her the pipe. “What’d you take?”

She took another hit and exhaled with a cough. “You know. This and that,.” she lied.

“Well, just be careful,” cautioned David. “Most of us have done this before a few times,

so if you need to talk to someone or feel sick just let us know.”

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“Thanks,” she said truthfully.

David put his lips to the pipe and breathed in deeply. The dying embers in the bowl

glowed faintly and then went out. He set the pipe down. “Cashed,” he said.

“Was there ever anything between Bertie and Zach?” she asked, sounding casual.

David shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know they made out at a couple of parties, but nothing serious. Why?”

She said nothing. The high had begun, though she showed no signs of relaxation. “I

wonder what’s going on upstairs,” she mused. The question committed them to leaving and so the

two put away their drugs and returned to the party.

A giggling Justin stood on the ottoman, surrounded by party guests, who were danced

around him and paid tribute to their new Leader. He was an involuntary tyrant and held the pool

noodle loosely in his hand. “I think I’m too gone for this, you guys.”

“Don’t we have to wait for Alice to start the ceremonies?” asked Zach.

“She disappeared with Joe. Who knows how long they’ll be.”

“Obey the Zeitgeist of the Party,” commanded Bertie.

Someone asked if Zeitgeist was what they were calling the Cult Leader now.

“As Cult Leader,” Bertie began magnanimously, “Your new name will be the Animal

King. What is your first edict?”

Justin paused to think for a moment. Then he said, “Continue having fun,” and the other

guests obeyed his command and turned back into themselves like a night bloom in morning,

having put their activities on pause to stand on ceremony.

Zach went to the top of the stairs to look for Melanie, who he met on the way up with

David. They moved very slowly.

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He let David move past him into the party, but stopped Melanie and took her hands. “Are

you okay?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you much.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m sorry.”

Michael set the razor down and stared at his shoddy work in the mirror. He rubbed his

mostly bald head and then leaned over to splash water on his scalp. Spots of blood had appeared

in places where he had cut himself. His shiny, wet head now glowed in the light, reminiscent of

how Melanie had looked in the moonlike flood light plunging into the freezing water. The razor

was dull now and he tossed it in the basket. He pulled another out of the drawer and began to take

apart the blade cartridge.

Melanie led her boyfriend through the pulsating crowd, through the living room and into

one of the bedrooms and shut the door, pulling him across the room. She sat down on one of the

two beds. The room was dark. “I want to go home,” she whispered. “If we spend too much time

here I’ll never be able to go home.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” She wrapped her arms around her chest and looked down at her breasts,

which melded together in the shadows.

“Did you ever no fuck Bertie?” she asked.

“No”

“Did you want to?”

“Once, a long time ago.”

“You still want to.”

“No.”
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He sat down on the bed beside her and tried to put his arm around her, but she pushed

away his advances and recoiled before settling back into stony silence.

After a while, she asked, “Why didn’t you get jealous when you saw Justin’s

handprints?”

“Those were his?”

She said nothing and studied her breasts again.

“Well,” he said carefully, “this isn’t the kind of place to be bothered by things like that.”

Michael tucked his knife back into his pocket and sat down on the floor. Small bits of

hair were glued by blood to his arm and wrist. He went to remove them, but dropped his hand as

if he couldn’t be bothered. He lay back against the door, already woozy from blood loss and the

shock of the driving pain in his wrist. Blood ran down his hand like body paint and poured onto

the floor.

“I wonder if it will stain,” he said to no one in particular.

Though she was not yet comfortable, the high crashed relentlessly against the levee of her

will and Melanie could no longer resist him. Zach smelled like pine trees and his warmth spilled

over and disarmed her from the side. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and he kissed

her on the lips and then tilted her chin back to gently suck on her neck.

They lay down together and she reached into his boxers to massage him to rigidity. It did

not take long and he slipped them off and got on top of her, entering her in a quick, comfortable

way. He was taller than her and she could see only his neck, but writhing within her high, she did

not care.

The pile of blankets on the other bed stirred and Melanie heard a low grunt and the

spring-squeak of someone rolling over.

“Hey, guys,” said Alice.

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Zach stopped and pulled out and Melanie clutched the sheets around her. They looked

over at a naked Alice, who smiled at them serenely. Her breasts glowed in the dim light that

streamed in under the door. Her pink wig had fallen off and her fine blond hair streamed over her

naked shoulders. Music throbbed under the door; the African rhythms had been replaced by a

throbbing electronic beat.

“Do you want to have a threesome?” asked Alice.

Melanie said nothing and clutched the sheets closer. The room spun and an electrical

discomfort zipped through her spine. She tried to process the request as Zach lay back on the bed.

His erection waved in the air despite the interruption and he smiled at Melanie. He held on to her

hand supportively.

“It’s up to you,” he said.

She held her stomach to prevent the nausea that crept up on her. She “You’re disgusting,”

she whimpered inaudibly, but she did not leave. She was paralyzed. Even when Alice came over

and began to kiss her neck she did not leave. Her lips moved unconsciously against Alice’s flesh.

In what only looked like a willing submission, her body turned itself over to the act. In her mind

she was elsewhere, sitting on a damp park bench.

Even when Alice and Zack began to kiss she did not leave.

Later that night, the disco ball discarded and the pool noodle abandoned once more in the

kiddie pool outside, David and Bertie retired to one of the other bedroomsAlice slept quietly next

to Zach and Melanie. The Animal King and the other party guests collapsed exhausted on

couches and floors. Lovers cuddled up together on beds, telling silly stories. Discarded clothes

became pillows and blankets and as everyone except for Michael nodded off with swimming

heads they all said to someone else or to no one in particular that this had been the best shore

party ever.