When I finally pulled myself away from this guy Matt who said he was an amateur film editor, and I got done tactfully explaining how contemptible it was to have one’s life’s passion to be editing someone else’s life’s passion, I discovered I was the only woman left at the party. In confirmation of my life-long hypothesis, none of the men seemed to have noticed.

When I got out to the parking lot I saw Lise Novacek trying to un-park the Infiniti her husband Brian usually drove. (On my way out I had seen Brian by the stairs engaged in some kind of liars’ duel with a guy I didn’t know.) I had time to get into my car (a ’98 Hyundai Accent hatchback, which should have doomed my dating life but never seems to have) and pull out before Lise finally got the Infiniti pointed toward the street. I don’t know why I followed her. I suppose it was one of those combinations of Red Bull, dark rum, nicotine cravings and late-night hypomania that sometimes grabs me towards the end of a party. My gas gauge was riding the empty line so I was hoping we didn’t have more than forty or fifty miles to go.

We dodged drunk drivers all the way through the godforsaken (and probably eight-tenths-abandoned, in this economy) northwestern commuter suburbs and out into the (until late 2007 soon-to-be-ex-) cornfields and farm towns beyond. The gas light came on as we passed through Brocken (a diesel station, two bars and a house) and we made five lefts on three gravel roads and came to a stop at the edge of a bare field. I waited for the dome light to come on in Lise’s car. And waited.

When she stepped out into the moonlight she was naked. She’s frighteningly skinny when clothed but naked she looked like a seedling of some fast-growing softwood, or like she had been drawn in ballpoint pen. She had tiny breasts and shaved-bald pubic hair, which further decreased her resemblance to a mammal. She walked purposefully into the field.

I wanted to congratulate her on the eccentricity of her suicide staging. From her, I always expected something girly and banal like Valium and vodka—certainly nothing with this degree of flair. I followed her, planning to save her at the last minute but dying to watch the foreplay. (I know how sick that makes me.)

I followed her over the rise of a contour-plowed hill and started to revise my assumptions. In the low spot below the hill were several dozen naked women, all busily and silently applying sunscreen—some to each other’s backs. I stuck my hands in my pockets and stared at the moon for a few seconds while I let the shock wear off. When I finally took a second look, Heather Schierke from work was waving me over. I remembered seeing her at the very start of the party and then losing track. She looked pretty great naked, as I would have expected and probably should have envied. She was holding out a tube of sunscreen and staring at me with a sort of curious smirk, like we were all fifteen years younger and this was some kind of high-school dare or prank. Well hell, I’m not proud. I stripped down and smeared sunscreen on my too-short legs, too-wide hips and too-long torso, hoping to god I’d be able to find my clothes if things went sideways or the moon went behind a cloud. The sunscreen burned a little—like porn shop novelty grease (not that I’d know)—but I was sure (sure enough to take my clothes off) that this crowd didn’t have that kind of vibe. I wondered who the leader was.

An older lady lit up for a second as she turned her phone on. God, I hoped this wasn’t a photo session. She clamped the phone under her butt and lifted off into the air.

My whole body felt great! Better than the first Red Bull of the day on an empty stomach. This suntan lotion was good shit! Soon all those skinny, chunky, toned and saggy buttocks were perched sidesaddle on tiny Apples and Blackberries and Samsungs, drag racing and playing chicken. If they had had baseball bats they’d have been knocking over mailboxes. I sat on my phone and hovered.

Some girl I didn’t know came diving at me from three hundred yards in the air, all calves and breasts and bared teeth. I waited until the last second and swung just out of reach, then fell in behind her and shadowed her all over the sky. She tried all the kung-fu and fighter-pilot moves she’d ever seen on film—hairpins and zigzags, top speed and sudden stops—but she couldn’t shake me. All those years of Tai Chi had taught me a thing or two.

She raced upward, on her way to a makeout party with the man in the moon. I flew behind her, close as her spine. At the very top, when the moon was the horizon and the ground was out of sight, we suddenly lost reception. Two women, hair streaming, butt-naked and ripped to the tits, fell from the sky with our arms extended, gripping our phones like the strings of two busted balloons.

It took six weeks before they let me out of the hospital. Heather Schierke won’t make eye contact at work. I never did find my car.

_{Image CC-BY-NC by Trypode}