Chapter Text
It is the spring of 1967. Sandy is twenty years old, and he would be a sophomore at Berkeley if he was still attending classes. Instead, he is living in an old house in the Haight-Ashbury. He likes it there. He’s found something he’s good at, that people love him for. Sandy is the best trip guide in San Francisco, and everyone who’s turned on knows it.
A warm March breeze ruffles the brilliant rainbow of hand-dyed sari fabrics that cover the walls of Sandy’s bedroom and hang from the ceiling to surround the mattress that lies directly on the floor. The sun creeps through a gap in the cloth and catches some of the tiny mirrors sewn into the hangings, causing pinpoints of light to dance across Sandy’s sleepy eyes and the barely-covered body of the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen, much less thought would ever be in his bed.
He slowly props himself up on an elbow, wanting to get a better view of Kozzy like this. Peaceful. Glittering. His eyes trace him, starting with the disheveled black hair, still short enough that you can tell he hasn’t been here long, moving along to touch upon the closed eyes, so unusual when they’re open—mostly gray with a thin ring of light brown around the pupil, along the nose that is the very definition of aquiline, the high cheekbones, the thin lips, the jawline you could cut yourself on, the long neck, the flat, hard chest, those stupidly defined—and powerful! Sandy smiles to think—abs…he loses his train of thought as he notices Kozzy’s opened his eyes and is looking at him, smiling a little.
“So it wasn’t a dream,” he says, reaching up to run his fingers through Sandy’s long blond hair. “They said you could get anyone to take a good trip, and I guess they were right.”
***
A couple months ago, rumors had started going around about a new rich kid who had run away to the Haight-Ashbury. He was from old east coast money, they said. Said his last name was Black, but he slipped up once after a few bong hits and turned out it was really Pitchiner. Everyone knew what that meant. Politics. Media conglomerates. Real estate. The people that made The System. So wasn’t it sort of fair, you know, that he just didn’t seem to fit in? The guy didn’t even own a pair of jeans! Black wool pants, black turtleneck, did he think they were all still beatniks?
Still, it wasn’t as though no one would let him stay with them. They’d share their space, their food, their acid. Then again, the first time they had done that, it had turned out to be an utter disaster. Pitchiner had freaked out in a major way (“I’m not me anymore! Don’t let me let the black shadows out!”), which had caused everyone else to freak out, and the house he was staying at had used up all the thorazine they had thought they would need for the entire year in order to calm everyone down.
This doesn’t deter him, however, from trying again. And again. And again. Eventually someone tells him to go see Sandy if he’s going to be so pigheaded about becoming a psychonaut when it doesn’t even make him feel good, and eventually someone tells Sandy about a guy even he might not even be able to bring to enlightenment.
And then, yesterday afternoon, Kosmotis Pitchiner had knocked on the door of the house where he had been told to find Sandy. Tooth had answered the door—Sandy and North had been in the basement “kitchen” making blotters, and Iceman and Bunny were out—somewhere—probably looking for runaways that had no place to stay. There were usually a few that ended up on the couches.
“Sandy!” Tooth had called. “It’s that rich kid who always freaks out! Should I let him in?”
Sandy had rushed up the stairs to be greeted with a vision of a tall drink of water all in black, standing uncomfortably on the porch and looking warily at Tooth, who had apparently come to the door in the middle of trying on her newest fashion project, which was mostly composed of feathers.
“Hi,” he said to the young man at the door, trying not to stare. “I’m Sandy. Come on in.”
“Oh! Thank you. But shouldn’t I introduce myself first? That is—I’m Kosmotis Black—I mean—I guess most people know that’s not my real name—er—”
Sandy smiled up at him, taking his proffered hand. All this and a British accent? Okay, so he probably wasn’t for him, but maybe Tooth—if she could stop mooning about for Iceman for two seconds—“What do you want to be called?”, he asked, just as Tooth interjected:
“For the love of! A British accent? What, did they give you tea in your baby bottle?”
“Um, well, I did spend most of my formative years in England, and I attended public school there until just recently…”
Tooth rolled her eyes. “Don’t let the terminology fool you, Sandy. Public schools are the ones over there that the public aren’t allowed to go to.”
“That’s not quite the case—”
“Anyway, have fun dealing with the least radical person under thirty I’ve seen in my life,” Tooth said, taking her feathers and moving back to the room she used as a workshop.
Pitchiner blinked as he watched her go. “Is she always like that?”
Sandy shook his head. “She’s not a big fan of strangers. Sometimes the people who come to see me turn out to be real assholes and she likes that even less.”
“Well I don’t want to be an asshole. So…I hope that counts for something.” He smiled at Sandy as if he wasn’t used to doing so and Sandy felt his heart skip a beat.
“Sure it does.” He smiled back. “Would you like to meet North? He’s the only other person here right now. He makes the moonbloom blotter.”
“I didn’t know he lived here in San Francisco,” said Pitchiner, following Sandy down the stairs.
“Not many people do.”
North, a bear of a Russian with arms covered in tattoos, was about forty and therefore quite old for the Haight-Ashbury, but even those who claimed to not trust anyone over thirty found themselves liking him as soon as they met him—even without knowing that he was in charge of distributing the purest acid available within a hundred miles. He had been a chemist back in the USSR, and that was as much as anyone knew about him before he arrived in California. He greeted Pitchiner with a bone-crushing hug and heavy slap on the back. “So, you are boy who has been bad tripping for two months? You come to right place today! My product better than Owsley’s, Sandy is best guide. The doors of perception shall be opened!”
“Th-Thanks,” said Pitchiner, trying to regain his breath and balance. “I know it probably seems strange that I’ve been so determined to do this, but I’ve heard that acid can—that it will help me be—”
Sandy placed his hand on his arm. “If you don’t want to talk about it now, that’s okay. You don’t need a reason, you know. Sometimes you can do things for their own sake.”
Pitchiner nodded.
“Now,” Sandy said, “What do you want to be called? You never did answer that.”
Pitchiner looked surprised that someone was actually asking for his preference on this. “I suppose,” he said, “that I’d like to be called Kozzy. But no one’s ever called me that before. Kosmotis would be fine too. Just—something that isn’t Pitchiner.”
“Kozzy, then.” Sandy smiled warmly at him. Was he imagining a bit of a blush on Kozzy’s cheeks? He must be.
Just then, the upstairs door slammed open, followed by the sound of several voices all talking at once.
“Aha!” North began to clean up the lab. “Must be Iceman and Bunny. Now we start cooking dinner. Kozzy, you help too.”
The contrast between the basement kitchen and the upstairs kitchen could not be more stark. While North kept the lab as clean as if he was expecting to have to build a satellite or perform surgery down there on short notice, he allowed the upstairs kitchen to exist in a state of perpetual chaos. Tonight, the ordinary disorder caused by North directing Tooth, Bunny, Iceman, and Sandy in increasingly broken English was increased tenfold by the presence of Kozzy and two young runaways that Iceman and Bunny had brought back with them, Jamie and Sophie.
“Are we seriously going to let those kids stay here?” Tooth whispered to North in a spare moment. “The girl can’t be more than fifteen.”
“That is why they stay tonight. You know safer place?”
“According to their parents, who are no doubt looking for them, this is probably the least safe place they could imagine! What about the cops?”
“American police…” North waved his hand dismissively. “Hey there! Jamie, Sophie, where have you come from?”
“We hitchhiked all the way from Pennsylvania!” Sophie answered, laughing.
Tooth groaned. “See!” said North, “Is very far away. Not to worry.”
“So Kozzy, is it?” began Bunny, a tall, muscular Australian who wore his brown hair in long pigtails that started at the nape of his neck, “that what they called you at Eton or whatever poncy place you were at?”
“No,” Kozzy replied softly. “There, they called me Pitch.”
“Huh. You know, I’ve heard stories about those places. Got a bit of a Greek system between the older and younger boys, eh? Got any interesting insights on future members of the house of lords?”
Sandy noticed that Kozzy had started to clench his teeth and that the knuckles of the hand holding the knife he was using to chop onions for pelmeni filling had gone white.
“No,” he said again. “Not as such.”
“Whoa mate, no need to get so on edge. Not like I care. The utopia Sandy and North are trying to create, no one’ll care about things like that.”
“‘Things like that’” Kozzy replied, voice even lower, “do not apply to me.”
Damn, thought Sandy. It was a long shot anyway.
When they were all finally settled down around the table for dinner, North began to ask the newcomers more questions as he passed around tiny glasses full of vodka that Tooth made sure never actually made it to Jamie or Sophie.
“So, Kozzy, what brings you all the way to California? You are from east coast, yes? Could have gone to Millbrook.”
“I think they’re having some problems. Again, though, it’s hard to know for sure. I just wanted…I wanted to get away. I’m from Massachusetts—I mean, I spent holidays there. I was supposed to go to Harvard…”
“And you decided to go to Berkeley instead—only you’re not really going there any more.” This interruption was from Iceman.
“How do you know?”
“Kozzy, I was in your English class this past fall. Admittedly I stopped going a lot sooner than you did—I went to like a week of classes. And they didn’t call me Iceman on the roll call—Jack Frost ring a bell? Weird name I know.”
Kozzy laughed shortly. “You know, I do remember you now. You were supposed to be my partner for the collaborative report at the end of the semester. I had to do it alone.”
“Oh, right. No hard feelings though? I mean—school. It’s all a game.”
“Hmmm. I did get an A.”
“What was your project about?” asked Sandy.
Pitch looked a bit embarrassed. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, I really want to know.”
“It was about that movie—Invasion of the Body Snatchers—I wrote about how it could be read as an expression of both left- and right-wing political fears. A freshman project, you know, but I mean, technically I am still a freshman.”
“Huh! Glad I dropped out,” exclaimed Iceman, taking more pelmeni.
“That sounds really interesting,” said Sandy, handing another tiny glass to Kozzy.
North smiled. “So Kozzy is scholar. You know, Kozzy, Sandy was also at Berkeley until not too long ago.”
“Really? What were you studying?”
“Art—sculpture, particularly, though I played with most media. But I don’t need the university to make art. And then I found something I was good at. Guiding trips.”
“Are we all going to trip tonight?” Jamie piped up.
“No.” Tooth’s voice was firm. “Sandy’s going to have his hands full with Kozzy. Guy’s got a lot of bad trips under his belt. Sandy can’t also deal with two first-timers.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” said Iceman. “We’ll just chill tonight. You’ll love Tooth on pot. She’ll definitely braid your hair, Soph.”
Sophie laughed and Tooth sighed. “Yeah, I probably will.”
After cleaning up from dinner—the addition of Jamie, Sophie, and Kozzy leading to more dishes being done and put away than usual—North gave Sandy two blotter doses of moonbloom. “Good luck my friend,” he said, pressing his massive hands into Kozzy’s shoulders. “And do not worry. Sandy is best.”
Kozzy glanced over at Sandy, who smiled at him reassuringly. “We have the sedatives if you need them. Anyway, it’ll probably be kind of noisy downstairs for a while—”
“Too right mate,” said Bunny. “When Jack and I were out we bought the new Jefferson Airplane album. I was just going to put it on.”
“You see? So if you don’t mind, I was thinking we would go up to my room. It’ll just be us. From what I’ve heard your other trips were in large groups. Depending on what’s going on in your head, that might make it difficult to relax…”
Kozzy nodded. “Show me the way, Sandy.”
In Sandy’s room, Kozzy ran his hands over the many colorful wall hangings. “I’d almost think I’d already taken the acid.”
“Tooth made them for me.”
“All of them?” Kozzy looked at him in surprise.
Sandy nodded. “She’s really very generous and kind once she counts you as part of her tribe. I’m sorry about earlier today. Especially since you don’t seem…too attached to your past. None of us can help our backgrounds. Also, I think she thinks I don’t need the aggravation of dealing with your issues.”
“You don’t.” Kozzy smiled wryly at him. “I’m going to have to find some way to repay you for helping me.”
Oh, you’re going to kill me by smiling. “Sit down on one of those pillows. We’re going to talk a little before I give you the tab. I won’t take any tonight. I’ll just be here to help you if you need anything.”
Kozzy settled down. He looked like some kind of bird, perched, ready to take flight, instead of relaxed. “What are we going to talk about?”
“Anything you want,” Sandy says. He thinks of putting on a record, but Jefferson Airplane echoes faintly up through the floor and he doesn’t want to have contrasting music. “Maybe you could talk about yourself, your life. Anything that’s on your mind. Anything that might be blocking you. Little things. Big things.” He’s pitched his voice into the soothing tone that Tooth has told him could be sold as a better anxiety cure than all the pills prescribed in America.
“All my life, I’ve been told exactly what I needed to do,” Kozzy begins. “Which classes, which sports, which friends. Going to Berkeley was my first big deviation from what my parents wanted. But it was still a college. I could still fix it by going to an Ivy League school for a later degree.
“I’ve been terrified since I came to California. Like I’m about to ruin my life with every decision I make. Sometimes I just want to go back to Massachusetts, admit that my parents know best and let go. Let them make me into the perfect Pitchiner. It would be so easy. They want me to have everything they have. Money. Power. I can look the part. It would be so easy. It seems easy for other people.”
“I could have everything everyone wants. I don’t think I want it. I don’t know how to explain this. My problems probably don’t sound real.
“I want to be myself. I don’t know if I even have a self to be. There have only been two times in my life where I felt there was. Once, a drawing class I took when I was 12 or 13. I was terrible at it. I mean, I got terrible grades. I wasn’t allowed to take art after that.”
Sandy’s expression turned shocked. “I would have run away then.”
Kozzy smiled with closed lips. “Art isn’t required for a Pitchiner. We are patrons, not artists. Who knows, Sandy, even if I had followed their wishes, maybe we would have met that way.”
With a smile, Sandy shook his head. “I’m glad I met you this way.” It was stupid, really, this love at first sight thing. But Pitch was different from the others. Unattainable, of course, but if he was, he would still be different. Sandy imagined Tooth’s reaction to hearing him say that. She’d probably shriek in frustration. She’d say: “No more asshole pretty boys Sandy you love them and they use you and they stay with you for a night because they think you’re safe you won’t tell anyone and they think you should be grateful and you always cry when they leave and I hate them for it.” But Tooth’s not here right now and Kozzy is talking in that delicious accent of his again.
“The only other thing that made me feel like I wasn’t just a shell filled with all the things supposedly making a perfect scion was riding. Here comes more jackass rich kid stuff. My family owns several racehorses, and shares in others. One summer we went to visit the stables and I was simply…enchanted. Yes, to a small child they were a little frightening, but that didn’t stop me from reaching up to pat their noses, learning how to offer them bits of carrot. I begged to learn to ride. Thank goodness that’s something rich kids have done for ages.
“I’m pretty good with horses, I think. They have a lot fewer criteria for judging you than people. And sometimes the judgments they make can surprise you. Soon after that failure of an art class, my parents bought me my own horse. So I guess they have some human feeling. He’s a gelding, named Gringolet.” He laughed softly. “He’s beautiful. A dapple gray. Half-wild—well, really poorly trained—when they bought him, half-wild when I came back from school that year. They had bought him for his looks, assuming they could hire the best trainer and it would all work out. Well, they did hire the best trainer, but Grin was having none of it. After our introduction—and a few days—he was like putty in my hands. And liable to bite anyone else! In the summers I’d go riding with him almost every day. He’s what I miss about Massachusetts. Everything else can go hang.”
“Your face lights up when you talk about horses,” Sandy tells him. He doesn’t think Kozzy will think it’s flirting—doesn’t think that he would react to flirting well, based on the incident in the kitchen this evening—but it’s true, and it’s beautiful, so he says it.
“My parents say it’s vulgar. I was supposed to have started building a stable, not become friends with Grin.
“Ah, what is all this though? Is this the kind of thing you were looking for me to say?”
Privately, Sandy thinks that there’s a lot more Kozzy needs to deal with, but he’s no psychiatrist. He’s just a trip guide with a crush. “You’ve told me some things that might help me know what you’re afraid of, if the trip starts to go bad. Before we start, I want to let you know that your worries about knowing yourself might have been a problem before. Acid wants you to be open to ego-death. You have to be able to let go of the ‘I’. Of everything you think you are, and everything you think you should be. There might be a new Kozzy on the other side, but you’ve got to accept you don’t know that Kozzy yet.”
He looked so serious! “I’m hoping to be a different person after this.” Kozzy shifted uncomfortably on the pillow. “Can I tell you something?”
Sandy nodded.
“And you won’t tell anyone else?”
“I promise,” says Sandy. He’s kept a lot of secrets over the past two years.
“I—I want to do this…not just to free my mind but because…” his voice becomes almost inaudible, “Leary said it cured Ginsberg.”
Sandy is careful to keep his expression blank. Yes, he had read that interview as well. He also knew that it was total and complete bullshit. Mostly because there was nothing to cure. But what’s he supposed to tell Kozzy? Also, he’s got to be careful not to look happy about this, because Kozzy sure isn’t but if he would just accept it…(“A closeted asshole pretty boy?!” he hears Tooth yelling at him.) “Leary is an expert on acid,” Sandy says. “But I can’t say for sure what exactly the effects will be for you. I’m here to make sure they’re positive. You’re going to be safe with me. All right?”
Kozzy nods. “Your voice is really calming.”
“Thank you. Now, Kozzy, do you feel calm? Relaxed? Are you prepared to accept yourself as part of the unity of all beings?”
“Yes, yes, and I’ll try.” He looked determined.
Sandy laughs a little. “Don’t try too hard. Whatever happens will happen, and it will be all right. If you’re ready, I can give you the blotter now. If not, we can wait more. Talk more.”
“No, no.” Kozzy takes a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“All right.” Sandy takes one of the moonbloom blotters and carefully tears it into quarters. “I’m going to give you a smaller dose than you’ve probably been given before. You don’t need to go all the way to the edge of the galaxy tonight. Just the moon.” He hands him the treated paper.
Kozzy places the paper on his tongue. “How long does it take to kick in?”
“Probably about half an hour. And while we’re waiting, I just want you to relax. If there’s anything I can do to help you do that, just tell me.”
“Hmmm.” Kozzy lies down on the pillow so that his head hangs down over one side and his legs are sprawled out on the floor in front of Sandy. They go on forever. This is not going to be one of my more professional evenings, he thinks, searching for something to say that’s not “maybe you’d find the bed more comfortable”.
“Sandy,” Kozzy says, a bit hesitantly, “I don’t know what you guys are like in your house and I know maybe you’d think this is weird now that you know…er…what I am but…”
“Anything, just ask. I’m here for you.” And also you can have my body. Sandy thinks he’s managed to keep that statement free from the untoward implications that might show up in his tone, because he doesn’t make mistakes like that with his voice. It’s something he’s proud of. Now, though, he wishes he was worse at it.
“Well, when I was really little…” fuck, this is going to go nowhere, thinks Sandy. “One of the things I remember was one of my nannies—yeah, more rich kid bullshit—well, she would run her fingers through my hair to help me fall asleep after I had nightmares. And I’ve seen people play with each other’s hair a lot since I’ve been here so maybe…?”
“Of course.” Sandy moves a pillow over by Kozzy’s head and—let no one say he was manipulating the situation!—gets a smaller pillow to place in his lap, where Kozzy can rest his head. He begins to run his fingers through Kozzy’s black hair. It’s so soft, and Sandy imagines what it would be like if he let it grow out, down to his waist and he would just let it fall like silk through his fingers and bury his face in it—he’s zones out for a bit—Kozzy gives a little contented sigh, and Sandy notices his eyelids are drooping.
“Kozzy, I know you want to sleep now, but stay awake for me? I can’t keep you safe if you go away into dreamland.”
Kozzy opens his eyes and looks up at Sandy, and this is when Sandy begins to notice their unusual coloring and Kozzy is smiling again and this universe just likes to tease him, doesn’t it?
“I think you could. You look like you could.”
“Me? I’ve been most favorably compared to a cherub.”
“‘Every angel is terrifying’. That’s Rilke. There was more that I liked…if I can remember…‘beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,/and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.’”
“I’m not beautiful, and I’m not going to annihilate you.” Sandy begins to massage his scalp a little. If anything it’s Kozzy’s beauty that’s going to destroy him.
“Yes you are,” Kozzy murmurs. Sandy debates for a brief moment about asking him to clarify that statement, when Kozzy continues, “I can see it in your light. Your edges are gone, Sandy. All the light is connected to you. You look like the sun on the first day of creation. You were there, weren’t you? Yes you were. I know that now.”
Sandy glances at his watch. Only twenty minutes. North must have tried something new.
“That’s good, Kozzy. I’m glad you know that. You can tell me everything you know.”
“Not just the creation of Earth…back before that…at the big bang…you helped the stars dream.”
“Tell me how you know this, Kozzy.”
“Because I was there too…back then…we were the same…connected…nothing’s changed…we’re the same person. I didn’t know that just now. Now I do. But you’re pretending not to be me so you can hold me. That’s nice. That’s what someone as golden as you would do.”
“And you must be golden too, since we’re the same,” Sandy says. This is easier than he thought it was going to be. Six hours of this is going to get a little dull though, but he has some paper and paint that maybe Kozzy’d like to mess around with—he notices Kozzy raising his arm and looking at it questioningly.
“No…no…look at me…I’m not golden at all. I’m pitch black.” Shit. Was his darkness hang-up really related to his clothes? He had heard about that first bad trip, why hadn’t he thought of that? It was such a simple thing to change about the setting! Best trip guide yeah right. Okay, okay. He was just distracted. It wasn’t as if the situation wasn’t salvageable. Anyway, it probably wasn’t just about the clothes.
“Sandy…” he was beginning to sound distressed. “I’m covered in darkness. I don’t want to be. I shouldn’t be around someone so golden.”
“Kozzy…look at me Kozzy. You just said we were the same. So it can’t be real darkness covering you. The darkness on you isn’t you. You’re just as golden as me.”
He didn’t look convinced. “How can I tell?”
“Look,” said Sandy, pulling at his sweater. “Does this feel like it’s part of you?”
“Oh, I see…the darkness is false. Yes…I can see that the edges of my hands are going…the darkness is holding me together. It’s keeping me from being the same as you really.”
“But you’re better than the darkness Kozzy.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, Kozzy. There’s no darkness in you.”
“Yes…I believe you. I feel it.” He smiles. “I’m ready to let go of the darkness.”
“Good, Kozzy.” That wasn’t so bad. He had gotten worried for nothing. Kozzy just needed something to talk him through that moment. Sandy watches him carefully as he sits up, flexing his long fingers.
“I’m connecting to the world light now…it’s going to help me get clean.” Sandy nods serenely, and then suddenly freezes, staring. Kozzy’s decided to take the idea of getting rid of the darkness literally. He’s taken off his black shirt, and his pale skin does seem almost glowing in the low light of the lamps Sandy has lit. His slim, powerful core is blatantly perfect, and even more so the way he is now, with no sense of shame at all. He’s known other people to take off their clothes while tripping, but none that he’s been so pleased to see. Kozzy stands up, sighing, and walks toward the window. The glow of the streetlight makes him seem sallow, and he frowns when he looks at his skin. “Not golden enough,” he says, and Sandy wonders the best way to reassure him when he again takes the literal route and removes his shoes, socks, trousers, and underwear. His underwear aren’t black, and so, on a purely technical level, Sandy thinks, he needn’t have removed them, but he’s certainly not going to complain.
If Kozzy wasn’t high right now, Sandy knows he would just throw caution to the wind and beg to touch him, kiss him all over, tell him that everything was going to be okay, but he just can’t. It would probably ruin the trip, and Sandy knows he shouldn’t make decisions for Kozzy in this state. But what if this is the bad thing I do when I’m young and regret when I’m older? No. No, he just can’t. You can’t plan what you’re going to regret when you’re older.
“Sandy…I think I’m part of the light now. I can feel it moving through me, from me to you and everyone downstairs and everyone in San Francisco and America and even Grin. It’s changing everything…you never told me your room was in the center of the universe…”
Six hours, thinks Sandy, six hours, five and a half even, he’ll have come down and I’m just going to throw myself at his feet. I don’t care.
Kozzy walks around the room, gently touching the various wall hangings, while Sandy gets out some paints and paper. Kozzy may want them, and, well, even if he doesn’t, Sandy’s got to do something to distract himself. Still, there’s no question of what he’s going to draw. He begins a sketch of Kozzy, making sure to keep paying attention to what he’s saying, making sure he still sounds relaxed and peaceful. He is. He is still part of the light. Everyone is part of the light. He is part of Sandy. He never knew how compassionate magenta was. He is soon going to become a centaur. You’re already partway there, Sandy thinks, smirking, as he sketches the lower half of Kozzy’s body.
When the sketch is done, Sandy thinks he might as well start finishing it. As he begins to paint, Kozzy keeps talking about the true oneness of everything. Between listening to that voice and looking up frequently to reference his subject, Sandy’s making very slow progress. He’s thinking he’s just going to switch to ink for Kozzy’s hair when he looks up and Kozzy is right in front of him, sitting on his knees.
“Sandy. I need you to answer a very difficult question. And I know you can because you’re in the light too.”
“Tell me, Kozzy.”
“Am I alive or dead?”
It’s a fairly normal question for this stage of the game, but Sandy knows he has to be prepared for any reaction. He moves his paints off to the side and places the painting on a low table. “I think you can tell that doesn’t matter any more. You’re as alive as you want to be. You’re as alive as everything.”
“Oh.” Kozzy begins crying. “I was hoping I was dead. I’ve been feeling so good, you know, so I knew I couldn’t be alive. But if I am alive then I have to admit that taking off the shadows didn’t fix me. I may look golden but there are still shadows inside.”
It’s not too self-indulgent to gently stroke Kozzy’s shoulder now, is it? “You can let go of the shadows,” Sandy says, “let them go and they won’t hurt anyone else. You told me I was light. Let them go and I can stop them.”
“I c-can’t Sandy…I can’t! I’m not holding on to them, they’re holding on to me. You have to take them out! You have to help me!”
“Shhh.” Sandy takes one of Kozzy’s hands. “Remind me how.”
Kozzy lies down on the floor so that his head is resting on the pillow from before. “You have to draw the signs of light on me where the shadows are. Your light sinks in to me, like now, when you’re holding my hand. But you have to draw the signs.”
Sandy wonders if Kozzy notices that he’s blushing. But this is Kozzy’s idea, so it’s okay, right? Right. “Where are the shadows?”
“Everywhere.” Kozzy shudders.
“Okay, it’s going to be okay Kozzy. I understand.” This is going to kill him for sure. “I’m going to start with your feet and go to your head.” Can I draw the signs with my tongue?
Sandy decides to use the Cyrillic alphabet that North’s been teaching him as the signs of light. It will force him to focus on something other than the gorgeous young man lying on the floor who is making happy little noises as he believes shadows are exorcised from his body. One leg. The other leg. Hips. Should he? Kozzy did say everywhere. Cock. It twitches under the light touch of his fingers and Sandy glances at Kozzy’s face to see his reaction. His breathing seems a little elevated, his pupils are dilated. But he’s been kind of agitated overall and with the acid and the not-so-bright lights, his eyes don’t mean anything. He returns to his drawing. Stomach. Waist. Chest. He makes up some complicated collection of lines for the place over Kozzy’s heart.
“That was most of them,” Kozzy says.
Collar bones. Shoulders. One arm, hand, all the fingers. The other arm, hand, and fingers. He draws hearts on the palms. Neck. Jawline. Lips. Cheekbones. Nose. Kozzy closes his eyes. Eyelids. Temples. Finally, Sandy makes up another intricate symbol for his forehead.
Kozzy opens his eyes. “They’re all gone…you got them all.” He smiles. His crooked teeth make Sandy think of the idea that minor flaws in something make the perfection of the whole that much more obvious. “You know how I know?”
“How?”
“I can see your thoughts now.”
Gee, I hope not, thinks Sandy, given the constant background of lust he’s been steeped in since Kozzy decided to get naked.
“I couldn’t before…they’re above your head…like little golden sculptures.”
“Are they good thoughts, Kozzy?”
“They’re very good thoughts.” His eyes are sleepy. Sandy glances at his watch. It would be a little strange for someone to fall asleep in the middle of a trip, but it isn’t unheard of. To his surprise, it’s already 12:30 in the morning. That makes Kozzy about four and a half hours into his trip—he must have been working on the painting for longer than he thought.
Kozzy laughs a little, interrupting his train of thought. “Your thoughts are funny things about bodies.”
North, I swear, if you made acid that can actually induce telepathy I am going to kick your Russian ass…
“I had forgotten I had a real body for a while…it was the shadows that made me think that…now I’m all right with being real.” Hypnotized, Sandy watches Kozzy trail his long fingers from his neck and over his chest. He’s looking at Sandy—well, at the space just above Sandy’s head—the whole time. Sandy’s mouth has gone dry. Kozzy I wish you knew what you were doing.
“Sandy, you don’t need to remind me,” says Kozzy, even though Sandy hasn’t said anything. “I know we’re the same. It’s funny being on Earth, though, isn’t it? We can’t figure out how to not look like we’re different people. I bet that makes other people confused. But they need to understand. I have an idea.”
Downstairs, Bunny or whoever’s still awake has put Surrealistic Pillow on the turntable again. Grace Slick’s voice echoes up through the floorboards.
Don’t you want somebody to love?
Don’t you need somebody to love?
Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?
You’d better find somebody to love.
“Come closer Sandy.” Kozzy beckons him nearer, as if he’s going to whisper something in his ear. “Closer.”
Wow, we’re close enough to kiss right now, thinks Sandy, and in a remarkable moment of mental synchronicity, that is exactly what Kozzy uses their proximity to do. He’s clumsy, but enthusiastic, and Sandy is just fine with that, he can help him improve, no doubt he’s a fast learner and there’s nothing like learning by doing, right? He leans down over Kozzy so that his hands are on either side of his body it’s just for better balance no Sandy he’s HIGH right now it was his idea he can’t even admit that he likes men he’s probably coming down from his high by now that’s not true and you know it but this is just kissing JUST kissing the rest of your body didn’t get that memo there wouldn’t be any harm in making out until he got sober again and sure this has disaster written all over it but it’ll be worth it, worth it and it’s still Kozzy’s idea—Kozzy pulls Sandy closer, rubbing his hands over his back, and oh, if only Sandy had thought to take off his shirt earlier of course there was never really an appropriate time.
It turns out that Kozzy thinks that right now is an appropriate time. He mutters nonsense as he breaks the kiss “Got to work harder the edges aren’t dissolving like I thought” and slips his hands underneath the loose, brightly patterned shirt Sandy’s wearing. Sandy knows he’s going to have trouble with the buttons on the cuffs and the string tying the wide collar shut so he undoes those fastenings—hell, even he has a little trouble with them while Kozzy’s slender fingers are flying over his upper body and he’s supposedly sober. That done, Kozzy manages to get his shirt off easily. Sandy decides he might as well take off his watch as well, though he is supposed to be keeping track of the time…
“Press your skin against mine, Sandy otherwise we’ll never be one person.” Sandy’s happy to oblige, though he tries to pretend he’s keeping some level of decorum by still leaning off to the side and most certainly not climbing on top of Kozzy, though hopefully that option will still be available as soon as Kozzy starts to seem sober.
By the time the album ends, Sandy is pleased to have introduced Kozzy to the concept of love bites—he’s going to need a scarf tomorrow but Sandy has extras—and is enjoying the fruits of such introduction as Kozzy nips and sucks at his neck. He is also ready to simply scream in frustration—suddenly Kozzy pulls back, looking confused.
“Sandy? What? Ohno. But I don’t understand. I still want…”
Sandy works to calm his breathing. “Kozzy. Do you feel like you can make rational choices now?”
“That’s what you’re asking me at this moment? I thought I was making rational choices this whole time! But I was deciding to kiss you and I’m sorry and I decided to get naked and—” he glances down at himself, blushing more than Sandy has ever seen anyone blush before. He grabs the nearest piece of clothing, which happens to be Sandy’s shirt, to cover up his erection, which Sandy has been so diligent about not touching until he sobered up—well okay maybe there had been a few little touches but seeing Kozzy fully hard was not something that was easy to wait for. The thin cotton doesn’t really disguise anything.
“I’m sorry,” Kozzy says again.
No Tooth, he’s really not like the others. He was shy. “Kozzy. Look at me. I mean it. Look at me.” He sees his glance flit to the mark he was just busy making before tentatively looking Sandy in the eyes. “Stop apologizing. We weren’t doing anything I didn’t want to do.”
He looks confused again. “But the acid…?”
“Acid is not going to make you straight. Leary is full of crap. Anyway, things that aren’t diseases don’t have cures.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because like I said, some things you do for their own sake. You remember the light? You remember the universe?”
Kozzy nods slowly. “I can still see echoes. Feel them.”
“That will last for a couple more hours. And weren’t those worth it?”
“I felt like I was fine the way I was. That I was part of everything, and I didn’t need to change.”
“Hold on to that feeling then! Kozzy, there is nothing wrong with what or who you want. And I guess I ought to say that I hope the ‘who’ you want is still me now that you’re coming down because I am dying for you here.”
“Really?”
“Oh for the love of—Kozzy, I will sing your praises morning noon and night but right now I am really tired of talking. I want you, and if you want me, I think we can figure out the obvious solution.”
“But I—I’ve never—I don’t know what to do.”
“Get ready to learn then. You were proving quite the quick study in kissing 101 and advanced topics: hickeys.”
This surprises a laugh out of Kozzy, and Sandy uses the more relaxed moment to move over to the mattress, pushing aside the fabric hanging from the ceiling that forms curtains around it. He beckons Kozzy over, knowing that he probably looks a little ridiculous. But Kozzy does come over, and he’s licking his lips, and he sure seems to be taking this seriously and Sandy manages to spare one second to hope that it’s not just because he’s the first to offer and then there are many other things happening that he finds much more important. He’s got to devote his whole attention to being a good teacher, right?
***
And that is how they reach the morning.
“So it wasn’t a dream,” Kozzy says, reaching up to run his fingers through Sandy’s long blond hair. “They said you could get anyone to take a good trip, and I guess they were right.”
Sandy sighs contentedly. “I was very unprofessional last night.”
“I’m glad,” says Kozzy and the moment is perfect like a drop of honey falling on the tongue.
Sandy is leaning forward to kiss Kozzy again when someone bangs on the door to his room. “Cover up childrens!” North booms. “We have made you the breakfast in bed.”
“The door’s not locked,” Sandy hisses to Kozzy, who hurriedly pulls the blanket up to his neck. He has just enough time to decide he’s not going to risk going for his jeans when, as expected, North barges in, carrying two plates piled high with pancakes, and a tray with butter and syrup and a pitcher of orange juice on it.
“Thanks North…” Sandy notices that the pitcher is the one with blue flowers on it. “Isn’t that the electric orange juice pitcher?”
“Oh, da, but we wash. Tooth is using normal pitcher for hat form. So, here you are.” He sets the tray and plates of pancakes at the foot of the mattress.
Sandy chuckles. How much energy did he think they had burned? “Why are there so many pancakes?”
“Bunny made them,” North says, as if this explained everything.
“Bunny can’t cook.”
“Da! Da, is big problem. We teach. You sleep so late, you are lucky to get last batch. Tooth, Iceman, Jamie, Sophie, they all eat first tries. Pretty bad, but they do not care.” North turns to leave the room and then stops, remembering something. “By the way, Tooth has message for Kozzy. She says—”
“Wait!” Sandy interrupts him. “Whatever Tooth has to say, it can wait. Actually it probably doesn’t need to be said at all. Tell her…”
“Tell her she can’t make me leave,” Kozzy says, and the sky has never been bluer, the air has never been fresher, and is Kozzy actually perfect all signs point to yes… “I mean, unless you want me to,” he says, looking anxiously at Sandy, who answers him with a gentle kiss.
North hides his look of surprise quickly, before smiling widely. “Okay! Will tell her that. Now I bid you farewell. Downstairs is big discussion about what to do about Sophie and Jamie—very boring, you stay up here. I will say you were still asleep. Likely enough, considering amount of noise.”
North waves at them as he leaves the room, but Sandy knows Kozzy doesn’t see. He’s buried his face in the blanket and his ears are bright red. “You said it didn’t matter how loud I was!”
“Hmm?” Sandy pours syrup over his pancakes. “It didn’t. It doesn’t. I mean, no one here’s going to be shocked, they know my preferences and it’s perfectly natural—oh! Did you think I meant no one would hear you if you were loud? No way man. I mean, we’re upstairs and we could hear Jefferson Airplane perfectly clearly from downstairs—this is the least soundproof house I’ve ever lived in.”
“You deliberately withheld that information from me.”
Sandy grins. “How about I say I trusted you to be smart enough to figure it out? Also I really didn’t want any of your attention to be focused on trying to be quiet. Pancake?” He’s rolled up one of the syrupy ones from his plate and is offering it to Kozzy from his hand. Kozzy looks at it.
“Are you withholding information about forks from me now?” he asks, and Sandy rolls his eyes. Kozzy bends forward, and instead of taking the pancake, he eats it from Sandy’s hand. When he’s done, he carefully licks the syrup off of Sandy’s fingers and palm. Very carefully. Looking into Sandy’s eyes the whole time. “That wasn’t a very good pancake,” he says when he’s finished, “they’d probably be better cold.”
Sandy laughs. He’s going to have to question why Kozzy’s treating him like the pretty one, like someone he longs to love, but that can wait for a little while. If Kozzy wants him, he’s going to have him. “I suppose I should remind you that right now we’re supposedly sleeping?” He strokes Kozzy’s face and trails his hand down his neck and lower, pulling the blanket away.
Kozzy smiles at him. “So kiss me the whole time. I’ll swallow your moans, and you’ll swallow mine.”
It’s a good idea, Sandy thinks, as he obeys, lost in the unconscious beauty that is Kozzy. How did I get so lucky you’ll always be mine and if you aren’t still those poor saps never got to see you sleepy and sexy in the morning after you made love for the first time, so perfect and young and wanting more…
Afterwards, when they are curled up together, face to face, legs entwined, the last question Sandy wants to ask is the one he knows he has to ask.
“Kozzy…earlier you said you wanted to stay. And I want you to. But why do you want to stay? If you still do.”
He looks away, up toward the ceiling. “You’ll probably think me foolish. And I know that this isn’t how normal people start relationships. Of course I’m not normal, am I? Hmm. But Sandy…you’re the first person I’ve met who’s made me feel like I could be accepted for all of who I am. Well, that sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? I haven’t even known you for a full day, I’ve fallen into bed with you, and now I say that you can accept me? I don’t know, Sandy…I like you. I like your friends, even if I don’t know if they’ll ever like me. You’re all so confident. Shining with life. That’s pretty rare, I think. I don’t know if I can fit in, but I want to try.”
Yes let me accept you let me heal you my tall dark stranger Kozzy Pitchiner can be anyone he wants to be. Sandy rests his head on Kozzy’s chest. “I like those reasons. But…Kozzy, I guess I should say that if you want to be part of our house, I’ll argue for your place here. But there aren’t any strings attached. You should know that.” Sandy wishes he didn’t have to say what he’s about to say, wishes he didn’t feel like he needed to say it. “If you don’t wish to be my lover, just tell me. You’ve probably gotten plenty of offers around here and I…I’m just lovestruck and maybe I was wrong to throw myself in your way, but I don’t regret it. But I can’t to tie you down, Kozzy.”
“Lovestruck?”
“Yes…” Sandy lets his voice fall so low Kozzy has to curl closer to hear him. “Laugh at me if you want. I fall in love at the drop of a hat. At the knock on a door. It’s happened before…”
Kozzy sounds nervous when he speaks. “So, um, do I have a lot of competition?”
Sandy laughs. “I’m not exactly the kind of person people fight over.” He looks up at Kozzy, who strokes his back. He looks slightly confused. “Come on, Kozzy, do you want to make me spell it out? I’m short. I’m chubby. No one’s going to be impressed if they see you with me on your arm.”
Kozzy combs his fingers through Sandy’s curly blond hair. “So is this another area where I’m abnormal? Then I’m glad. I don’t want to share.”
Sandy sighs. “Kozzy, you can hold on to me as long as you want. But you probably won’t want to. But you can still stay here if you want.”
“Sandy, why are you talking about this like it’s inevitable? Surely—oh. Is this why Tooth was so hostile to me at first?”
He smiles. “You looked like a lot of bad choices she knows I tend to make.”
“I don’t want to be a bad choice. I’m kind of scared, and I don’t know how this kind of relationship works, but I want to stay. I want to try.”
Sandy feels like his heart is going to beat its way out of his chest. Kozzy is perfect, he is, he is, and he is different, and this is what he’s been waiting to hear for so long, and in the spring air it’s easy to push away the little thought that says If this ends, it will be much worse than all the others.