Author’s Note: This is a novel set to music. Footnotes throughout will indicate when to cue each song.

The wine was in the broom closet in the end. Once it began to flow, Arthur noticed the guests getting a little sloppier. Laughing louder, drinking more liberally, dancing with abandon to the records Jim took over selecting. (“Watch Her Ride” Jefferson Airplane)

“You know,” Jim said conspiratorially, leaning over to Arthur as they both resumed their lean upon the record console. “I can’t ever bring out Jefferson Airplane when Eve’s sober. She gets too sour trying to sing along.” 

“Sour?” 

“Jealous, I guess. Grace Slick’s just got a rounder tone than Evie. And there’s nothing she can do about it. You can’t compensate for human variation.” 

Arthur raised his brows; he couldn’t imagine a woman like Eve being jealous of anyone. Eve and several other girls were swaying with their eyes closed to the music. They looked like evangelists at a prayer revival, except the only deity here was Grace Slick. 

“But when she’s drunk,” Jim said, taking a swig of his beer without taking his eyes off Eve, “she doesn’t care. She loves them. It’s like her nerves disappear, and all she feels is the music.” 

Eve writhed, her hands sliding up her sides and catching on that damned flimsy excuse for a top. The silk was printed with a large blue circle, with ripples radiating out in purple and black and brown and pink. It had to be china silk, because it draped delicately over her piqued nipples. Her curves were elegantly proportioned, smooth like an hourglass, a gift she clearly had no problem sharing. The female form was so graceful, not sharp and clumsy like men were. And Eve Clark’s body was ideal. The silk caught on the back of her left hand, lifting, and he could see she had a pin-prick of a mole over her left ribs. The silk fell back into place before anything more scandalous could be revealed; though given how sheer the silk was, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. The only thing it had going for it was that it was opaque. 

“I see you understand what I mean.” 

Arthur snapped his eyes up to Jim, mortified to be caught staring, but the other man didn’t seem annoyed or derisive. His blue eyes seemed distantly amused, one eyebrow lifted. 

“You look like a castaway staring down the prospect of a square meal,” Jim observed. 

“I—” Arthur stammered. “Um, I’m sorry.” 

“No need,” he replied, turning to change the record. “It’s the normal human response to Eve.” 

Arthur gave a nervous laugh, turning away from the female spectacle before his interest became a point of public notice. “I think I might be drunk too, come to think of it.”

No time like the present, especially if liquid confidence was already in evidence. “Jim, where did you get your skirt?” Arthur blurted, his fingers gripping the edge of the record player.

Jim stilled, the new record selection halfway to the turntable. A small smile played on his lips as he looked over at Arthur. “I made it. You know, I don’t think many people know this, but it is really difficult to find men’s skirts these days.” 

It could have been a sarcastic response, but the way Jim’s blue eyes played on Arthur’s, he felt in on the joke. Like Jim could see him, just a glimpse inside his shell, and found something he liked. 

“I, um,” Arthur said. He should have said it made Jim look like an elegant, phlegmatic druid or something else equally as likely to be a lyric on a Led Zeppelin album, with his sweeping skirt that trailed behind him when he walked, golden curls cascading over his shoulders. But all Arthur could muster was, “I like it.” 

“Good,” Jim said, dropping the needle on Janis Joplin’s solo record. (“Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)” Janis Joplin) “Let’s dance.”

Arthur hesitated, but Jim pulled him into the thick of where the girls were waiting for the next song to play. When the drums dropped in and Janis began to keen, Jim grasped Arthur’s two hands in his own. Arthur swallowed hard and looked anxiously at the others. Just because Jim was wearing a skirt didn’t all of a sudden make this normal. 

“Trust me,” Jim said with a sardonic brow. “This is my best party trick. In three … two … one—” 

And as if on cue, Eve slid herself up in between their arms, so that their linked hands formed a loop around her waist. And as Janis began to wail in earnest, she twirled her hips and slid an arm around each of their necks. Jim gave Arthur a look that was the universal nonverbal expression for “I told you so.” Arthur let out a relieved laugh and let the alcohol carry his nerves away, closing his eyes to tune in on the music and enjoy the slip of silk against his forearm. 

The dancing dominated the party for the entire A-side of the album. When the needle scratched the label, Arthur opened his eyes. Eve’s chestnut hair curled slightly at the ends from the heat of the room, and she was grinning like a fox as she disentangled herself from his arms and went to flip the record. Arthur couldn’t help but watch her with astonishment. He was not the kind of person who fell in with people like Eve and Jim. Artistic people, non-conformists. Glancing up, he caught Jim regarding him with an inscrutable expression. 

The party thinned out after that. Arthur felt like he should have met, well, anyone else, but he’d spent the whole night either wall-flowering with Jim or using the cover of dance to touch Eve. He said as much to Jim as he was putting Janis back in her sleeve. (Well, about the not meeting people part. Not the groping part.)  

Jim frowned and looked up at the backs of the last retreating guests Eve was seeing out. “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss meeting anyone famous. It’s not like Jack Baker comes to these parties. They’re just some of the folks from FREE.” 

“I sense that FREE has some sort of meaning that I don’t understand,” Arthur pointed out, lifting a brow. 

Jim hesitated, holding Arthur’s gaze for a moment. Then, he swatted Deb’s hand away from the record player. “Don’t you dare put on Joni Mitchell. Do you want to kill what’s left of the party?” 

Deb’s mouth dropped open. “How dare you. Joni Mitchell weaves a tapestry of the female experience wefted with heartstrings.” 

“Jim, Karen just told me to tell you she’s not doing FREE anymore.” Eve sidled herself in between Jim and Deb and resolutely dropped the needle on Joni Mitchell. “And FREE, Arthur, stands for Fight Repression of Erotic Expression, except now that Jack Baker’s pulling publicity stunts trying to marry his boyfriend, it’s just ‘FREE: Gay Liberation of Minnesota’.”

“Tell us how you really feel,” Deb muttered, rolling her eyes. 

Arthur found it a little difficult to swallow for the tension in his neck. Was that his own repression? Best not to interrogate that too deeply, especially after drinking.

“They’re suing the District Court over it,” Jim pointed out.

“The name change?” scoffed Eve. “They would.” 

“No—Jack’s marriage,” Jim corrected, sneering at the folksy lullaby of “Morning Morgantown” drifting out of the console’s speakers. “If you’re going to make me listen to this, I’m gonna need a joint.” 

As he stalked off, Eve snatched a bottle of gin hidden inside the console and poured some of it into Arthur’s half-empty glass of wine. Apparently it served as both a record player and a bar. “Don’t look so shocked, darling. A homosexual is in every way the same as a heterosexual, except they are much more likely to know where your clitoris is.” 

Arthur choked. Wine and gin was not advisable. 

“What?” Deb squawked. “There is no way in heaven or on earth Tom knows where a clit is, and he’s the gayest person I know.” 

Arthur swallowed the rest of his glass in spite of his better judgment.

“I mean, in theory, he probably does.” 

“I should probably get going,” Arthur said, feeling the heat from Eve’s evil cocktail radiating through his stomach. 

“Oh no, darling, stay,” Eve cooed, wrapping her hand around his wrist. “Did you just drink all that? No, you must stay. You’ll be a perfect target walking across campus this time of night.” 

“It’s alright, I’ll be fine.” 

“Just sit for a minute,” she chided. She pulled his hand to her chest and turned her big, kohl-rimmed eyes up at him. “See how you feel in five minutes.”

Well. In that case. 

“Jim, does Tom know where a clit is?” Deb asked as Eve led Arthur to the sofa and curled up next to him. Piano softened the room, cooled it and made the room feel larger, looming. Jim was right. Ladies of the Canyon was a terrible album to get drunk to. 

“How should I know?” Jim replied, folding himself onto the floor and taking a long drag from the joint he’d brought back with him. 

Deb laughed. “Well, he’s gotten closer to yours than anyone else in this room.” 

Jim leveled her with an irate expression. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, Deb, but I do not have a clitoris.” 

“Ignore them, Arthur,” Eve pouted in his ear. “They’re terrible deviants.” 

“Takes one to know one,” Jim called, flopping back to sprawl on the floor.

Arthur couldn’t help but crack a smile at this. He should leave. He really should. But as much as he’d love to bury himself in Japanese silk right now and build his wall of denial ever higher, he wouldn’t find The Tarts at the back of his wardrobe. Perhaps he did belong with these people. After all, normal men didn’t need to wrap themselves in women’s clothes to feel like they had their head screwed on right. 

“Are you gonna pass that joint, Jim, or are you going to hog it all to yourself?” Deb chastised. 

Jim let out a groan as he sat up like he was twice his age, and held the joint begrudgingly out for Deb to pluck from his fingers. She dragged smoother than a Dead Head and passed it to Eve. 

Eve pressed her shoulder assuringly into Arthur’s as she took a drag. “You want some?”

“I, uh, haven’t ever—”

“Oh!” Her eyes lit up predatorily as she passed the joint to him. “Go on. You’ll love it.” 

Arthur set the moistened paper to his lips and sucked in.

“You have to inhale it,” she said, eyes intent on him. In his effort to pull the smoke into his lungs, he choked and sent himself into a fit of coughs. 

Deb giggled. Eve leveled a glare at her. “Don’t be a twat, Deb.” 

This only made Deb giggle louder and with such abandon that Jim joined in too. Soon they were all laughing like preschool children, in an effervescent fizz fueled by cheap wine, hash, and Joni Mitchell.

☯