Full Circle. Michael Thomas Ford

beginning of the semester, but the results had been unimpressive. At least mine had. Jack’s was thicker, but because it was blond, it looked a little scraggly. We fixed that with some greasepaint. We also painted on heavy beard growth, smearing our cheeks with the stuff. The combined effect of the makeup and the getups was presentable, if a little haphazard.

      Andy had given Jack the address of the party, and we drove over there in Jack’s Fairlane. Things were already in full swing, even though night had barely fallen. A grinning jack-o’-lantern greeted us on the front porch, a flickering candle lighting up its eyes and mouth. A paper skeleton hung on the front door, flanked on either side by arching black cats.

      Our knock on the door was answered by a young woman dressed as a witch. When we told her that we were friends of Andy, she showed us in, saying, “Andy’s over there talking to the milkmaid.”

      She pointed to a couch on one side of the room. We saw the milkmaid, all breasts and pigtails, and we saw Andy. He was shirtless, and his pants were covered in what looked like clumps of fur. On his head he wore what appeared to be a fur hat with pointed ears affixed to it. It wasn’t immediately clear what he was supposed to be.

      We worked our way through the crowd of people standing around with beer bottles and plastic cups in their hands. There were perhaps twenty people crowded into the house’s living room, and the din of their voices, combined with the Cream album being played on an invisible stereo, made it difficult to hear anything. When we reached Andy and the girl, it was all we could do to say hello.

      “Look at you two,” Andy said. “Git along, little doggies. Who-hoo!”

      “What are you?” I asked.

      “What?” Andy mouthed.

      “What are you?” I shouted.

      Andy lifted his head and howled. “A-woooooooo. A-a-a-woooooooo.”

      “The Wolfman!” Jack exclaimed. “Cool.”

      “I hope you brought a silver bullet,” Andy said to the girl, biting her neck. The girl laughed. Andy grinned. “Guys, this is Melanie. How do you like her milk pails?”

      Melanie laughed again. I could tell she was high, or drunk, or probably both. Andy, too, seemed to be stoned. He squeezed one of Melanie’s breasts and stood up.

      “Come on,” he said, putting an arm around each of us. “You guys need a drink.”

      He led us back through the crowd to the kitchen, where a table was piled with cookies, candy, and other assorted treats. Andy picked up two brownies and handed one to me and one to Jack.

      “Try these,” he said. “They’ll start you off right.”

      While Jack and I ate the brownies, Andy procured three beers from the refrigerator. He popped the tops off and handed us each one.

      “That’s good shit,” he said, nodding at the brownies, which we’d almost finished eating. “Premium California weed. I’ve had two already.”

      The pot was good shit. Within minutes, all my worries about Andy, the party, and Jack were gone. I was laughing at everything Andy said, and when we returned to the living room to see what was happening, I even found myself in conversation with a mummy about the films of Franco Zeffirelli, none of which I’d actually seen. The mummy, most likely as high or higher than I was, didn’t seem to notice. He (or she, I never saw the face behind the toilet paper wrappings) nodded a lot and said very little.

      I know I went back for at least one more brownie, and possibly more. Having skipped dinner, I was easily wasted, and soon I had no idea of the time or much of anything else. When Andy came over and guided me back into the kitchen, I went willingly. He’d brought Jack as well.

      “Here,” he said, handing us each a small square piece of paper. “You’ve got to try this. Don’t eat it. Jut put it on your tongue.”

      I didn’t ask what it was. I placed the paper on my tongue and waited for something to happen. Nothing did. I looked at Jack. He, too, was holding his paper on his tongue, looking from me to Andy and back again.

      “What’s it supposed to do?” I asked.

      “Just wait,” Andy said. “It takes awhile to kick in.” He put a tab on his own tongue, then motioned for us to follow him.

      We went upstairs to the second floor, where Andy led us down a hallway and into a bedroom. The lights were off, but several lava lamps glowed in the corners, the purple, blue, and yellow blobs inside them bubbling thickly. In their glow I could see that the floor had been covered with several mattresses, on which nude bodies were writhing. Their moans mingled with the music of the Beatles as Abbey Road played in the background.

      “Come on,” Andy said, stepping over a pair of legs and heading for a bare mattress.

      I hesitated, unsure of what was going on. I saw full well what was happening in the room, but I didn’t know what we were doing there. But I was also high enough that it all suddenly seemed perfectly ordinary. I took Jack’s hand and walked to where Andy had seated himself. He was stretched out in the middle of the mattress, arms behind his head. Jack and I took up positions on either side of him.

      “Just listen to the music,” Andy instructed us. “Let it talk to you.”

      I stared at the ceiling, where the light from the lava lamps swirled in slowly-changing patterns. I watched circles form and stretch, becoming ovals that eventually broke into two. It reminded me of viewing amoebas under a microscope in biology class. As George Harrison sang “Here Comes the Sun,” the amoebas danced joyfully above me, changing shape and color. I became lost in them, following each one’s birth, halving, and death with intense interest.

      I don’t know how long I lay there. I remember at one point looking to my left and seeing a man with his head between a woman’s legs as another man pumped his penis between her breasts. I was sure I could see writing on the men’s skin, and I was trying to read it when I felt someone take my hand.

      “Do you feel it?” Andy asked.

      I turned to look at him and saw the face of the Wolfman, all hair and teeth and dark eyes. But I wasn’t afraid. I reached out and stroked the soft fur of his cheek. He leaned forward and kissed me with his lupine mouth, his tongue slipping inside and exploring as I ran my hands down his hairy chest. I paused at his stomach, but with a firm hand he pushed me lower.

      I felt something hard and pulled away, looking down. Jack’s face was buried in Andy’s lap, moving up and down slowly. What I’d felt had been the crown of his head. I watched, not comprehending. Jack was naked, and I realized with surprise that I, too, had somehow lost my costume. We were all three of us bare.

      I felt something grab hold of my cock and begin stroking me. It was Andy. I bent my mouth to his stomach and kissed it, feeling hair beneath my lips. Slowly, I worked my way up his abdomen to his chest, taking a nipple between my lips and sucking. I lay beside him and wrapped one leg around his. I could feel his heart beating beneath me, a steady pounding that seemed to be driving the music that played in my head.

      Jack moved up on Andy’s other side and the three of us lay entwined. I kissed Andy’s mouth, then made way for Jack. I kissed Jack, our heads meeting over Andy’s chest as he stroked us both. It felt as if the three of us were becoming one creature. I saw us joining, splitting apart, and coming back together until none of us were comprised of our original cells. We had melded into something new.

      Hours seemed to pass, during which we changed our configuration many times. First, I would be between Jack’s legs, feasting on him, and then I would be on my back, Andy’s mouth drawing me in. Mouths, hands, and cocks came into contact with one another like colliding asteroids, connecting and going off in new directions, only to collide again. The whole time, a kaleidoscope turned in my mind, the images and colors shifting continuously. For a moment, a pattern would freeze and I would be looking as if through a stained-glass window in a church. Then it would melt away, becoming something new before I could make out what I had been looking at. At one point, I