Naked on a leopard-skin chair with a receiving line of adoring women bearing housewarming gifts as you rest your bare feet on a supplicant male. This was most of my 2007.

A flattering head wrap, a handful of men you have magicked into speechless, loyal beasts, a good book, and a lion to sit on: a perfect Saturday night.

Massive cats, melodramatic robes, and yelling: there was a lesbian house party in LA like this every week the summer I was 22.

If you lived in Southern California and had more than a handful of gay friends in your twenties, every Halloween felt more like a competitive event than a chance to party.

“Just the three of us. Wear your freshest cape-veils and bring something you want to burn.”

“If anyone tries to talk to me tonight, I have claws for tearing their throats out and wings for flying away. I’m ready.”

I went to this party at least once in high school. You both got sort of dressed up – not quite enough to feel like you’d transcended your dull, everyday persona, but definitely enough to feel like an idiot for wearing a costume – and lit a candle and tried to feel something for each other. Maybe you became blood sisters that night, then lost touch with each other after graduation.

“You didn’t miss much. Clara pulled out her usual baby-in-the-mouth trick and terrified the newcomers.”

Science candles, skulls, a fire pit, and forty-five of your most skillful girlfriends. Clothing optional. Experimenting with everything.

Just pin your hair up, take your clothes off, and float.

Or just huddle in a cave with your wickedest-faced friend and talk poison to each other while the real action takes place outside.

Just a regular Thursday night.

“No one else is dancing. Isn’t this weird? I feel weird. No one else is dancing. We should sit down.”

“I don’t care what everyone else is doing. It doesn’t have anything to do with what we’re doing.”

“…What are we doing?”

“You mean together?”

“Yeah. What are we doing?”

“Everything. We’re doing everything.”

What is not to love about this? Who in her right mind would decline this quiet, naked, ram-flying get-together? Just a few close friends and a few goats and a few pots of mysterious unguents generating a terrifying, nameless wind, that’s all you need for a good party.

[Images via]