What You Wish For

  An announcement came over the PA: ‘Ladies, gentleman and any friends from other galaxies who might have joined us today . . .’ There was a ripple of laughter. ‘The eminent UFO research scientist Dr. Jonathan Grimes, PhD, all the way from Boston, will be beginning his lecture on Patterns of Abduction, starting in the lecture hall in five minutes . . .’

  People started to shuffle out through a set of double doors into a hall filled with wooden chairs. I followed them, but remained standing. The seats filled quickly. The audience rustled and murmured until Dr Grimes appeared to a tumult of applause. Just as he was about to start the lecture, I slipped back through the double doors into the main hall, which was now much quieter.

  I approached a stall near the centre of the hall. It seemed less commercial than the others. A man sat alone behind piles of photocopied pamphlets. He had long hair, greying at the temples, and thick glasses. He rolled a cigarette with yellow-edged fingers and looked towards the exit.

  As I approached he looked up. I smiled and took a cigarette from my shirt pocket. I said, ‘I was about to sneak out for one myself.’

  He asked someone to mind his stall and accompanied me outside.

  He squinted at me through a cloud of smoke. ‘You’re not in the business, are you? How come you’re not in there listening to Dr James?’

  ‘No seats left,’ I lied.

  The man snorted. Smoke puffed out of his nostrils. ‘He’s a bullshit merchant anyway. Most of the people here are.’

  ‘I get the impression most of them are in it for the money.’

  ‘Very astute, my friend. Money, money, money. Not enough truth.’ He put out his hand. ‘I’m Don.’

  I shook his hand. ‘Richard.’ We looked at each other for a moment. I said, ‘This is the first Galactica I’ve been to. I came here to meet a friend of mine, but I haven’t been able to find him. His name’s Buzz.’

  Don shook his head slowly. ‘Don’t know the guy. Maybe he’s upstairs?’

  ‘Upstairs?’ For a moment, I thought he meant in space, and suppressed a laugh when I realised he merely meant upstairs in the building.

  ‘There’s a gathering upstairs. For the VIPs.’ He sounded bitter.

  We finished our cigarettes and went back inside.

  ‘How do I get into the VIP area?’ I asked

  He looked meaningfully at the pamphlets on the table. I got the message. I picked up a few and paid for them. Another ten pounds gone. Don put his hand in the air and waved at a teenage girl who was drinking tea near the exit. She came over. She was no older than sixteen, with copper hair and freckles. She looked me up and down, a slight sneer on her face.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘Hey, Lottie, meet Richard. Can you take him upstairs? He thinks a friend of his might be up there. Guy by the name of Buzz?’

  She sighed melodramatically. ‘OK. If I have to.’ She walked off towards the exit at a brisk pace and I followed.

  ‘May you find what you’re looking for,’ Don said behind me.

  Lottie showed me a door concealed behind a curtain. She pushed the door open and led me up a narrow staircase. At the top of the stairs was another door. ‘Through here,’ she said. ‘This is the real Galactica. Good luck.’

  She trotted back down the stairs, leaving me alone. I felt nervous. My palms were clammy. I opened the door.

  I found myself at the end of a narrow corridor. There was a door at the far end and another to its left. As I watched, a young woman came through the door to the left – which, I soon discovered, was the ladies’ toilet – and went through the other door. I followed her.

  A group of people were sitting around on rickety wooden chairs and old tables.

  Some of them were smoking joints or cigarettes, blatantly breaking the law; most of them had alcoholic drinks. A few people looked up at me and then went back to their conversations. The first thing I did was scan the room for Marie, but of course she wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure what I should do next. While I thought about it, the woman I had followed through the door turned around and said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Do I know you?’ she asked, smiling. She was very thin, on the verge of anorexia by the looks of her. To add to this impression she was wearing a Karen Carpenter T-shirt.

  ‘I’m a friend of Buzz’s,’ I said, trying to sound confident, like I fitted in.

  She frowned. ‘I don’t think I know him.’

  ‘What about Marie Walker? You must know Marie.’

  She chewed her lower lip. ‘It rings a bell, but I can’t place her.’ She spoke slowly, dreamily, as if she was on something. Stoned, I guessed.

  ‘Do you come to a lot of these conventions?’ I asked.

  ‘A few.’ She smiled and suddenly took my hand. ‘What’s your name?’

  I told her.

  A look of sheer horror came over her face. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you.’

  ‘What?’ Before I could get any sense out of her, she had retreated across the room, where she hid behind a large group of people.

  I stood there with my mouth open. These people were weird. Very weird. Maybe I should go. But then a man sidled up to me and nodded over to where the anorexic girl had gone. ‘Don’t worry about her,’ he said. ‘She’s one of the Karens.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  He laughed. He was about my age, tall and thin, hair receding a little. ‘There’s a group of them. They believe that Karen Carpenter was an extraterrestrial who was sent to Earth to teach us how to love each other and heal the world’s ills through the power of song. They say that her ‘brother’ Richard is also from another planet, but that he was sent to sabotage her aims. They’ve built up quite a complex mythology around it. Your name doesn’t happen to be Richard, does it?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I thought so. The Karens think that anyone called Richard is evil and is going to want to harm them.’

  ‘That’s crazy.’

  ‘Exactly. The kind of people who give us a bad name.’ He stuck out his hand and I shook it. ‘I’m Oliver. I haven’t seen you around before. Are you with somebody?’

  For some reason, I instinctively trusted this stranger. I needed to trust someone. ‘Actually, I’m looking for someone – my girlfriend. Her name’s Marie Walker.’ I looked at him expectantly. ‘She comes to a lot of these conventions.’

  He stroked his chin and frowned. ‘No, I don’t know the name.’ He looked at me curiously.

  ‘She’s gone missing,’ I said, deciding to be open. I told him the story.

  ‘Have you got a photo?’ he asked.

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to have to show the pictures, but what else could I do? I realised I should have photocopied the pictures and cut out a section just showing Marie’s face. Another mistake.

  ‘Is there somewhere private we can go? I’ve got pictures, but they’re rather, um, well. I’d prefer not to show them in public. You’ll see why in a minute.’

  ‘How intriguing.’ He led me through the crowded room to another door. I felt eyes on my back as we went through the door, but when I turned, nobody was looking my way.

  Oliver led me into an empty room that contained nothing but a woodworm-eaten desk and a couple of dusty armchairs. A small window offered a view of the neighbouring buildings.

  ‘Here we are,’ Oliver said. ‘Why the need for this secrecy?’

  I unlocked the briefcase and clicked it open. I took out the photos and handed them to him. He looked through them without changing his amused expression. Then he laid them on the table between us.

  It hurt me to look at the photographs. To see Marie’s image like that . . . It tainted my memory of her, the times when we had made love, starlight brightening the room, words of love on our lips. The pictures were grotesque and upsetting. And not just that. They bewildered me. Why had they been taken in the first place? Oliver was about to answer some of my questions.

  ‘Alien porn,’ he said. ‘This is a pretty sophisticated example, although I
have seen some that were even better – where you would swear the scenes are real. You can see the joins in these, but only if you look closely.’ He nodded. ‘I’m impressed. Did you create them yourself?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But this is your girlfriend? This is Marie Walker?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t take them. I didn’t know they existed until the other day.’ I explained how I had found them.

  ‘Shit.’ He looked at me carefully, then back at the photographs. He tapped them with an index finger. ‘You know, I do recognise her. I’ve seen her around, definitely. Thing is, though, you see so many people at these conventions, and you don’t get to know everybody. But yeah, I definitely recognise her. She’s very attractive. Shame about her friend.’

  I didn’t laugh. I said, ‘So this alien porn, as you call it . . .’ I gestured for him to tell me more.

  Leaning closer, he said, ‘You know what I was saying about the Karens, that they give us a bad name? There are a lot more people like that. Most of us believe in UFOs and everything that surrounds them for what I would call “pure” reasons. We simply believe that they exist and that they are contacting humankind for reasons that nobody is sure about. There are a lot of theories, and everybody has their favourites . . .’

  I interrupted. ‘Marie believes that aliens are going to land and take a group of people away as ambassadors for this planet, before revealing themselves to the world and inviting us to join them.’

  ‘That’s a common one. A utopian theory – the idea that beyond Earth there is this wonderful society of planets and species where life is perfect. It’s the idea of Heaven, basically. There are a lot of religious ideas within ufology. Some people think aliens actually are gods. And to many, this is their religion. They base their whole lives around it. Coming to one of these conventions is like going to church. Going to Roswell or a site where UFOs have supposedly landed or been seen is akin to a pilgrimage. For them, it’s like going to see the Turin Shroud.’

  I nodded, remembering Pete from the hill, who travelled the world trying to get a glimpse of the thing he so fervently believed in.

  Oliver went on. ‘The unfortunate thing is that as more and more people have become interested in this whole alien thing, or at least since the internet has made it easier to communicate, the more we’ve seen way-out and sick beliefs creep in. This alien sex thing is the perfect example. You must know that a lot of people think that the aliens are using us in a vast breeding programme.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And there have been loads of abductees who have spoken of sexual encounters with extraterrestrials – mostly men, unsurprisingly. They always talk about finding themselves being seduced by some beautiful lady aliens. There’s nothing to say that some of them aren’t telling the truth, but some people have taken the testimonies of these people and decided to make some money out of it. The internet caters to every conceivable taste. There’s even a series of ebooks that have done very well about a well-endowed alien who seduces a young college student and introduces her to his red planet of pain. It’s called Fifty Shades of Greys.’

  I laughed, then looked at the pictures again.

  ‘To some people,’ Oliver said, ‘this is the height of erotica. Seeing young women being fucked by aliens. There are tons of videos too. Of course, they’re even more popular but they are harder to get right than still photos.’

  ‘So you think these pictures are on a website somewhere?’

  ‘If they aren’t I’ll eat my commemorative “I’ve been to Roswell” cap.’ He stroked his chin. ‘There’s actually somebody here who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. Do you mind if I go and get him?’

  Oliver left the room. I was bombarded with images of alien-loving perverts sitting in front of their computer screens, ogling pictures of Marie, masturbating over these images of her. Anger rose up in me. I wanted to wire them up to their precious PCs, electrocute the bastards.

  And who had taken the photographs? Who had made her do it? Because I had no doubt that somebody must have coerced her. I dug my jagged, heavily bitten fingernails into my palms. The prime suspect was a man who was already dead.

  Oliver came back into the room with a guy for whom the term ‘pizza face’ could have been coined.

  ‘This is Kevin,’ Oliver said.

  Kevin grinned at me and picked up the pictures. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Your girlfriend, huh? You’re a lucky man.’

  ‘Except she’s disappeared,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Really?’ Kevin looked at him, then at me. ‘That’s really odd.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  He looked at the picture again. ‘I recognise this girl. I’m, well, I’m a bit of a connoisseur of this stuff.’ He said this like it was something to be proud of. ‘I’ve got loads of stuff at home that I’ve downloaded over the last couple of years. I know most of the girls that they use in these pictures. Not personally – just to look at. And I know a lot of the people who are in the business. Most of them are in America.’

  He went on. ‘The weird thing is that one of the English girls who’s in a whole load of the pictures – she’s one of the top girls – went missing recently as well. Her name’s Cherry Nova. That’s not her real name, obviously. A call went out on the Net a couple of weeks ago – has anyone seen Cherry? She’s vanished from the face of the Earth.’

  We all looked at each other.

  Kevin picked up the photographs again. ‘There’s something really familiar about these pictures. Maybe I’ve got copies of them at home. We can get the Tube there now if you want. I can show you my collection. I might have some more pictures of your girlfriend.’ He traced Marie’s naked, black-and-white outline with a dirty finger. He was foul, but I needed every bit of help I could get.

  He said, ‘You know, she really is gorgeous.’

  He licked his cracked lips and I snatched the photographs back. I dropped them into the briefcase and snapped it shut. I took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then I said, ‘Let’s go.’

  11

  Kevin lived in a flat above a newsagent in a street that was hidden away between Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden. The rent must have been astronomically high. As he showed me up the stairs into the flat I asked him what he did in the way of work.

  ‘I’m a programmer,’ he replied.

  I should have guessed.

  The flat was a disgrace. MDF bookshelves were stacked with DVDs, many of the discs separate from their boxes, dribble-streaked mugs nestled among them. More DVDs were scattered around the floor, along with computer and girlie magazines, mould-lined takeaway cartons, dirty glasses and dozens of cables, like an exploded snake’s nest. A large brown stain took pride of place on the rug – it looked like he had dropped a whole curry and not bothered to clean it up. The room smelled of cream cheese and dust.

  ‘Right,’ said Kevin. He booted up the PC and invited me to pull up a chair beside him. While he waited for the menu to appear he squeezed a whitehead that throbbed on his chin and wiped it on his jeans.

  ‘How long have you been into . . . all of this?’ I asked.

  ‘Since I was six or seven. That’s when I was first abducted by visitors.’ He paused as if he was waiting for me to express disbelief.

  When I didn’t respond, he went on: ‘They came while I was in bed. I remember seeing these funny little men – that’s how I thought of them at that age – standing around my bed, and then they took me aboard their ship. They took my pyjamas off and poked and prodded me. They had long fingers like in E.T., and I remember one of the funny men putting his finger in my anus.’

  Oh God. Another story of personal pain. I didn’t want to hear it.

  ‘Afterwards, they returned me to my bed as if nothing had happened. This went on until I was about twelve or thirteen. They’d come every few months. I looked forward to it. They told me I was special, that I’d been chosen. They hypnotised me so I couldn’t remember most of what happened, but I
know that afterwards – after they’d returned me to my bed – I would always feel happy. I guess they made me feel wanted. Then they stopped coming for a while and I was mortified. I thought I’d never see them again.’

  As he spoke his fingers flickered over the keyboard, clicking into different screens, typing in passwords.

  ‘Then they came back and I was so happy.’ He smiled, displaying his crooked teeth. ‘I was fourteen by then so I was sexually mature. They told me they wanted my seminal fluid. They said it was a valuable commodity where they came from, and that mine was really good quality. They collected it during sex . . .’

  I interrupted. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said they collected it during sex.’

  I drew back. ‘You’re claiming that you’ve had sex with aliens?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Female aliens?’ I asked.

  He looked at me like I was an idiot. ‘They were polysexual.’ He giggled. ‘It was amazing. Completely out-of-this-world. After you’ve had sex with visitors, sex with people just doesn’t compare. Once you’ve had Grey, faithful you’ll stay.’

  I gawped at him.

  ‘The visitors would come every month, regularly. They were the happiest days of my life. Because after my sixteenth birthday they didn’t come any more. I looked out for them, waited for them every night, but they never came back. That was eleven years ago now.’

  I felt horribly sorry for him. It seemed obvious that something awful had happened to him when he was young – sexual abuse, at the hands of his father or stepfather or older brother? – which he dealt with using these bizarre fantasies. But what was I supposed to do? Suggest he go to see a therapist? Try to uncover the real memories? This fantasy was probably the only way he could cope.