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On the 23rd August 1974 at 9 o’clock John saw a UFO.
It glided its way down the river before turning right at the United Nations. An actual flying saucer, silent, mostly flat and grey, with blinking lights. He dropped his coffee, heard himself say “what the fuck” and after a few seconds of hesitation—he didn’t want her to look at him like he was ripe for the loony bin—he yelled for May. With shaky hands she took a slew of photographs that should be undeniable proof of extraterrestrial life.
The saucer stopped and hovered for a bit, as if it was looking at them, studying their naked bodies.
When it got too far they kept observing it through a telescope John had somehow acquired a while back. He couldn’t remember why exactly. Maybe it all led to this moment.
They’d tripped on acid some time before, but calling around confirmed other people had seen it too (“Is May here? Did she see it?” or something of that effect, John was asked every time, as if he was crazy). And he kept thinking about it and talking about it—the most exciting thing that had happened to him in ages.
Yoko called too, upset she didn’t get to see the UFO with John. Well, whose bloody fault was that?
He was stuck to his television with a purpose this time, hoping to see their visitor on the news. There was no mention of it, though, no blurry pictures and no witness account, not even very-important-person John Lennon’s. Children were singing about Spaghetti O’s and life was already slipping back into its monotone course.
Then Yoko called again. And again. Years ago he might have fallen in love with her because of just that—her ability to disrupt his life.
“I wish it had taken us both away,” he said that night after the third call, holding May's hand. It was a forgotten but familiar feeling (his thumb drawing circles on Paul’s hand, the stars in the sky) from a lifetime ago. He liked May enough. He could disappear with her.
And every evening of the following week, he stood on his balcony. Smoking and waiting.
On an October night at 2 o’clock, when the feeling had almost become distant again, John got his wish.
They were smoking on the balcony, Paul babbling next to him, desperate to fill the silence John wanted to enjoy. They’d all double dated a few times like normal little couples, the Not-So-Lennons and the McCartneys. May was always ecstatic about it. What did you think? It was nice, wasn’t it? What did you think? He wasn’t sure what to think, where he stood, glad and wary all at once. Too much talk of the lawsuit could get him fired up but his blood hadn’t started boiling at the mere mention of the name McCartney for more than a year now.
John even had a moment, in the middle of an argument with Yoko, where he found himself longing for the simple sight of Paul’s smile across a room. It’d weighed on his heart, as heavy as it was sudden, this yearning for what used to be an easy comfort. He’d yelled I wish I was back with Paul, and he’d hoped Paul could hear him and feel it too, wherever he was. The itch. The pain. When Yoko asked if he was going to crawl back to him, looking at John like she’d have looked at Paul—with a touch of curiosity, a touch of contempt—he’d said, maybe I will. Maybe I fucking will!
(In the end, he’d dialled half of Paul’s number and thought better of it. Had fallen asleep with a Wings album he’d pretend not to know on the turntable.)
He took a look when Paul finally paused to breathe. The city lights shed a subtle glow on his face, highlighting his nose, the bow of his upper lip. The screwed up haircut remained but that awful moustache was gone and he looked beautiful. Still. John watched him take a drag of his cigarette and slowly exhale. He always smoked like he had cameras on him—it irked John as much as it gave him the urge to grab and taste that delicate wrist.
Paul took another drag, a shivering breath, and then: “I’ll be going to New Orleans soon. To record, you know.” He glanced at John. “I’m sort of wondering if you’d like to come. Maybe we could—”
His voice faltered as his eyes grew wide. White little circles of light were shining right on them.
John straightened up, letting his half-finished cig fall down the void below. His heart had started acting up at Paul’s suggestion and was going crazy. “Fucking hell. It’s back!”
“It’s back?”
The same UFO, hovering in front of them, getting brighter by the second.
He thought of May. She wanted to leave, too. He started turning around to yell for her when Paul’s hand closed on his arm.
“What do you mean ‘it’s back’? The hell is this?”
John grinned. “A ticket to ride.”
He thought about calling for May again but they weren’t on the balcony anymore. Or it didn’t feel like they were, basking in white heat. Paul was trying to dash in the direction of the sliding doors but how could he? There was nothing here but white. Perhaps this was the heaven people were talking about. John closed his eyes.
When they opened back up he couldn’t see, couldn’t move, surrounded by total darkness and a buzzing sound, like electricity.
John stared at nothing for what seemed like ages until panic started taking hold of his chest. This wasn’t what he was hoping for. What was he hoping for? Was he stuck here forever? Where was ‘here’?
He couldn’t hear anything but the buzz. Couldn't tell whether he was alone.
“May? Paul?”
Nothing.
“Paul!”
Nothing.
“Someone? Anyone?” His voice started to shake. “ANYONE?”
Only the buzz.
‘A ticket to ride.’
Stupid fucking Lennon. What the fuck did you expect? Heaven with little green men? What the fuck did you expect?
“GET ME THE FUCK OUT!”
A light, huge and too bright, appeared above him, the way he’d imagine the view on the operating table.
He squeezed his eyes shut. A rat in a lab, he was.
He’d heard about aliens and their experiments even before August. He thought a bit of anal probing couldn’t hurt anyone really, and anyway, most of these nutters had probably made it up to excuse their latest buggery sessions, right? But now, naked and afraid and heating up under the big light, John didn’t feel ready to have anything inserted anywhere.
TEST
A voiceless word in his head, like a transmitted thought.
He let out a useless “what?”
TEST
There was a feather touch on his prick. Then a full hand wrapping around it.
John opened his eyes to May kneeling above him, naked, long hair curtaining her face, her hand slowly working him up. She smiled, as pretty as ever, and he instantly felt more at ease. The light above her was the sun. They were at home, in LA, near the pool. He could feel the wind on his face. He could smell the flowers. What kind of daft dream had he been having, getting abducted by aliens? John was here with her. He threw his head back and thrust into her fist.
MALE?
Calloused fingers where May’s used to be. He lifted his head and it was Paul kneeling there, naked under the sun. Paul as he could be before the storm, smiling at John on a summer day in one of their huge gardens, his hair a mess, his pale skin bright. His hand working deftly on John's shaft. John’s breathing quickened, arousal jolting through his veins as his hips jerked up and he looked into those eyes. God, it’s been so long, it’s been so long—
The sun went off with a clang.
It came to him then, that it had just been an artificial light in a dark room.
There was no one to hold his cock, still hard and leaking against his stomach. He followed the urge to get his own hand on it for relief and was surprised to feel he could move. Sitting up, he moved his legs around to check if they were free, too.
He remembered the thought. Test.
“Is your bloody test done?”
There was just the buzz.
John was considering jerking himself off to completion for lack of a better thing to do when a door opened in front of him, on a rectangle of light. He scrambled off whatever he was laying on to get on his feet. His knees were jelly. Slowly, he dragged himself across the cold floor to the opening.
No darkness there. The room was a blinding white, like a laboratory of some sort, with black shapes scattered on the curved walls. There was a big bed in the middle, a television on a cupboard in front of it. They felt out of place, as if his abductors had wanted to recreate a typical human room but couldn’t go any further than a few pieces of furniture.
Then he saw him, naked and curled into the opposite side of the room. His glasses had been taken away but he’d recognize the shape of Paul anywhere.
He sat on the bed and Paul joined him there, almost running. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m…” John looked down between his legs, saw his erection had eased up. “I’m okay.”
Paul slid closer, his breath short. “I think those cunts get into your head. Show you things.” He looked around. “I can’t believe it.”
John had been in LA, near the pool, while staying in that room. He wondered if the same had happened to Paul, if he’d also had the tease of a good handjob from someone other than Linda. “Did you see me?”
“Um. I did. You’re real, I hope,” Paul said, starting to nibble on a fingernail. Then, “You said ‘it’s back.’ Did you—did this already happen to you? How are we getting out of here?”
John shook his head. “I—”
MATE
They stared at each other.
MATE
Paul straightened and looked up, as if the word was coming out of speakers instead of their own heads. “What do you mean?”
The television lit up. A pair of tits immediately appeared, with loud moans over an uninspired, jazzy soundtrack.
MATE
They watched the bird getting bent over what looked like a kitchen table for a minute until a laugh burst out of John. This was all too much for his flimsy sanity. Mate. They want us to mate, mate, he thought and laughed some more, lying down on the bed, a little hysterical.
He opened his legs and grinned at Paul, who looked back with wide eyes. “Do your worst, Paulie.”
“You think this is funny?”
“You think we have a fucking choice?”
They stared at each other again, Paul’s horrified face a stark contrast to the blue movie playing behind him. They’d watched a few together, back when they pretended that tossing themselves off with elbows and thighs touching wasn’t a sign of something more. Until the day he reached out and finished Paul with his own hand, that is.
Paul looked up again. “Can we go home if we do this?”
YES
OVER
A chilling thought passed through John’s mind after the words—over for now—and he didn’t feel like laughing anymore. How much of this would satisfy their curiosity or whatever the fuck it was? He’d wished for this, too, like the daft git he was. He’d wished for it.
Paul kept asking questions and trying to negotiate, of course. And what would happen if they refused? They both wordlessly decided not to tempt their fate as “USELESS”.
He heard Paul open one of the drawers under the TV, which he’d managed to turn off, and give a nervous laugh. “Full sex shop in there.”
“Go wild.”
“I just need—you know.”
There was shifting on the bed and Paul laid down next to him, already coating his fingers with lube.
“No foreplay?” John said. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Don’t really want to make it last.” A beat. “Sorry.”
John turned to the ceiling. “Yeah. Just fuck me and get it over with. Think of your wife if you have to.”
“That’s not—sorry,” Paul mumbled again before kissing him. A quick peck on the lips, as though he didn’t have the right. John’s heart jumped all the same and he craned his neck, tingling lips chasing for another kiss, but Paul was focusing on the task at hand.
One finger entered John, slowly, then another. This was—this was happening. After a bit of back and forth they curled just right, shocking a moan out of him.
“Straight to the point,” he breathed. As if fingering someone open was just another Tuesday for Paul, who gave him a small smile.
“Straight to the spot.”
“Well, come on.” John’s cock was fully hard again and he grabbed it, gave himself one lazy stroke. “Come on.”
It wasn’t something he’d had often, the sight of Paul lining himself up between his thighs, and his stomach quivered. They’d done it like this a few times, on some nights at Cavendish, like the one he’d been thinking about lately with all the alien shit, that familiar feeling: holding Paul’s hand, gazing at the sky, wishing something would come down and take them away so they could finally just...let go of this life together. He’d had enough of superstardom. Not Paul, though. Paul would have to be taken away.
(In a way, he was. Taken away.)
And they were there, John realised. The carpet that would burn his skin. The smell of weed in the air. Gone were the makeshift bedroom and the white walls. The stars were shining bright above them through the glass of the geodesic dome.
“Come on,” he said again, enthralled. “Paul.”
“I just—this is—”
He pressed a hand on the back of Paul’s neck, tugged at his hair to make him look up. “Please.”
Paul stared at him, biting his lip, then looked around in wonder. “Can you see this? It looks so real.”
“The dome?”
Paul frowned. “The dome?”
For a moment, John felt betrayed they weren’t in the same place.
He tucked Paul’s hair behind his ear with a sigh, caressed his cheek. He was getting used to it again, squashing down negative feelings about the man. “Where are you?”
It might be a blush there, under his lingering fingers. “Paris.”
John pictured it. The crampy room, the flowery wallpaper, the smell of dust and mould. The one bed they shared. Waking up next to Paul everyday. Ignoring the French girls looking down on them because all he wanted anyway was the boy with the socks and sandals and oily hair next to him. They didn’t even have sex in Paris, but they’d let go, just like he wanted. They ran away. He wondered if the idea was as precious to Paul as it was to him. He wondered if Paul would follow him again.
“I miss Paris,” he murmured, and pulled Paul in for another kiss.
This time his mouth stayed and opened for John, their tongues finding each other as Paul finally pressed inside him. His body filled with a warmth that felt like coming back home, and he wrapped himself around Paul as much as he could, hands and heels digging into his skin.
“John,” huffed against his lips.
“That’s it, go on. Give ‘em a show.”
Paul tentatively started to thrust, looking right into John’s eyes for one harrowing (beautiful) moment before moving to hide his face in the crook of John’s neck. John allowed himself to relish in the sensation of being filled, of having Paul in his arms again, Paul’s warm breath on his raging pulse, Paul’s cock inside him. God, he still wanted him so much, in spite of everything. This man who got into his brain, his heart, under his skin. His fingernails dragged down Paul’s back, meaning to hurt, leave red hot trails, and he gasped when teeth bit down his neck in retaliation. Paul found the right angle then, slamming into his prostate.
“Fuck, yeah, that’s it,” John panted, arching his back. “Oh, Paul.”
It seemed to break a dam in Paul’s mind. With a shaky “yeah” he pushed at John’s thigh to further bend his leg, fucking into him harder and faster. His mouth was hot and damp on the patches of skin it could reach until he pushed his tongue back into John’s throat with a groan, and the stars above started to melt together.
Once Paul wrapped his hand around him it only took a few strokes for John to come, cry swallowed by Paul’s eager mouth.
Then the rhythm of Paul’s hips picked up again. His left hand, sticky with semen, was tight on John’s hip, and John couldn’t move, pinned down, still buzzing from his orgasm. In bliss. He watched Paul’s face contort in pleasure, his fluttering eyelashes, the way his lips parted and glistened.
“God, John, John, I never—I—” His breath caught and he pulled out in time to come over John’s stomach with stifled moans, cock sliding wetly in the mess there.
Me too, John wanted to say, no matter what it meant. His hands ran over Paul’s back, gently this time, feeling the muscles there, and slid further down to grab at the perfect cheeks of Paul’s arse. He felt light, listening to their heavy breathing, staring at the ceiling. White and bare again. He’d almost forgotten where they were, why they were doing this. His sweaty skin prickled.
“Hope you got off to that,” he told the room, his voice weak.
Paul chuckled into his neck, then sighed. “We’re still here.”
John buried his fingers into the dark mop of hair, nuzzled it. Tobacco, a touch of herbal scent. He asked, “what were you trying to say?”
With another sigh Paul rolled off of him and sat up, his back to John. No marks there like he’d hoped, only a slight redness—fingernails too short.
It took Paul a little while to answer “I don’t know.”
“Right,” John said, thinking you haven’t changed. “Okay.” He wished the illusion would come back. The sky was nicer to look at than this sterile white. “Sure.”
“I thought we could—“ Paul started hastily, words jumbling together. “In New Orleans, you know, I was thinking we could play, and talk, and then maybe…” He waved his hand in the air. “I didn’t think it’d happen this way. And I—I don’t know.”
“How could you possibly not foresee this would happen?” John said, trying to get another laugh out of him. It didn’t come.
That playing together was the prime goal of the invitation, he’d figured as much. Hey, John, while you’re here…you could… And they'd hand him a guitar. Linda would be there constantly, though, stuck to Paul’s side like a conjoined twin. There would be little time for “and then maybe,” really, unless Paul had an actual plan for it. And would that be surprising?
“I knew it would eventually,” he added, uncertain whether he meant the UFO, fucking Paul again, or both. “I’ve been waiting for it.”
Paul trailed his hands through his hair, tugging at the ends, then turned to him. “Is that why you’re so okay with this?”
“Oh, I’m just basking in the afterglow, baby.” John stretched out with a grin, palmed his chest and the come drying there. “You gave it to me good.”
What sounded like a “piss off” from Paul was drowned out in his head, as the room turned red.
SUFFICIENT
They looked at each other, eyes wide with fear, as the red light turned brighter.
John watched his cigarette fall off the balcony and into the darkness below.
Again?
“What?”
There was the noise of New York, the warm lights in the windows. The cold air of October. Something itching on his chest, on his neck, pain in his backside. Paul next to him, looking lost.
“Sorry,” Paul said. He nervously ruffled his hair, scratched his nose, then took out his pack of cigarettes. “Blacked out for a bit, I think.”
“Uh. Right.”
There was an echo of Paul moaning his name worming itself through the car horns.
Paul’s jumper looked wrong, inside out.
“So. Um.” Paul sucked on his cig like his life depended on it, made a show of blowing the smoke out. He always did smoke like he had cameras on him. “Will I—will we see you there? New Orleans?”
Right. To get in the middle of a Wings recording.
There was guarded hope in his eyes. John had seen that look before, when Paul was about to kiss him for the first time. Hope and fear, with his tie in Paul’s hands and the fans screaming somewhere in the background. The stumbling start of a new relationship.
And he felt like it’d happened only moments ago, kissing Paul. Like he only needed to step forward and do it and it’d be that easy to start over. Take the guitar Paul would hand him, take the seat at the piano Paul would leave for him, and it’d be that easy.
John looked at the stars.
“I reckon you will.”