Lofty Birthday

That's good, because the music got turned up and everyone started dancing. Appropriately enough, the Bee Gees' "You Should Be Dancing" blared from the speakers. Megee got onto the swing while scantily clad svelte men and lithe women gyrated on and by the runway. A tall, thin shirtless guy in short shorts and plaid wedges put his hands on a pillar and stuck his butt out. A chick with short red hair in denim shorts, a sheer pink shirt and cowboy boots playfully spanked him. Later, she unbuttoned her shirt to reveal sparkly, purple star-shaped pasties on her breasts. Then she and a blond woman in a black embroidered bra, black hot pants and knee-high boots got on the runway and writhed with each other. I wanted to meet them, but the woman in the black bra seemed occupied later when a guy in jean shorts took off his shirt and gave her a lap dance.

Instead, I met 21-year-old Garrett, who was bare-chested and wore a cop hat. He was sharing a chaise longue with Cassie, his 19-year-old best friend. She had taken off her blue state-trooper hat, due to the steaminess inside the loft. I asked if they had any good road-trip stories. Garrett said he once rode on a bike from the Art Institute to Lee's Summit while clutching the back door handle of a car going 65 mph. "It was kind of scary. It was a $5 bike," he said.

The trippiest part of the night, though, was the amount of breastises that were bared. The redhead with the purple pasties had her shirt off for a while. Then I ran into my friend Rita, who bared her top half entirely. "There are so many topless guys. How can I resist? I didn't have pasties," she said.

Apparently, toplessness is the new roadside attraction along the stretch of I-35 known as David Wayne Reed's epic birthday.