The surf of sea washes. A strange music of quietness falls over this coast. Rushing water against rocks breathes itself into my ears, I feel myself as part of this fictional location; smelling salt, sea weed, in this rocky area from the sand. I feel stronger and stronger emotions toward the woman in front of me. If only there were a way to tear myself away from her- I am a puppy drawn. I think about how pleasant the temperature is here but that makes it worse. A gentle breeze wraps around my body, hugging like her affections now coming forth as she leans over and kisses me upon my cheek.

"Please..." I mutter quietly, knowing I should run yet where will I go? This is the sweetest moment I have felt in a long time, a dream-like existence where I have no control.

"Release to me...Private....Alan.....Walker."

"I can't..." I am feeble in protest as she kisses me on my lips. I respond slowly, unsure yet sure, surreal apparition feeling real.

She sucks my bottom lip, my whole being on fire, heart racing through delicious tingling.

"Please....I......" smothered out with kisses I decline from further arguing.

Pausing, coming back from me, arms now cuddled up around my waist, her hands move toward my shoulder area.

"Do you really want that soldier?"

I black out. A sweep of intensity, causing me to faint through ecstasy, something she/they are doing to me.
*
I wake. Around me that whiteness from before surrounds me entirely. There is nothing to focus upon. I feel numb. My vision is hazy as I look at the woman with her back to me, several feet away.

I focus. She turns grinning that bewitching thing once more. She slips off her dress revealing a body that makes me heady.

"Please...I can't," I beg like some simpering boy seduced by an elder lover.

"You can."

Against my will, against everything I feel in this altered state, I find myself being turned onto her anew, not knowing where I am, not knowing what is happening it snaps up and not knowing who I am, she controls me.

I smell her. I can feel her hand as she strokes my member with touches of pleasure that reverberate throughout my entire nervous system. The woman's large breasts dangle in front of my face as I caress the softness of her inner thighs, stroking past mine.

What is this? The woman opens herself up as she sits down on me, I enter. My body is in some sort of paralysis without loss of sensation, I enjoy what comes from my loins. I cannot construct thoughts..I feel her clasping me inside, with slow steady rhythm.

I mumble words of feign protest. I groan words of joy. My words are lost as she observes me. Then closing her eyes, smile altering to a pained expression, beginning to swamp over, pleasure increasing within her.

The woman begins to cry out, increasing speed; banging into frenzy, hips bruising my supine body, picking up- beyond parameters of any human capability. Like a drug trip, speeded up film- the sound of us meeting slapping past my ears as I feel as though my very dick were about to fall off. I close my eyes as I scream out as she utters a high pitched, frantic squeal.

She is no longer moving in an act of love or whatever, but shunting to frenzy. I am awash in a noticeable wetness from her flooding increasingly as she focuses herself into the very liquid, smoothing out unbearable heat. A sensation that surprises me I perversely enjoy, reveling in a point of never wishing to stop; to carry on through my frail humanness and be sucked into that soft place.

Cries scream out from her. She thumbs back my clinched eyelids making me watch her. She claws me as her own pleasure continues and consumes. My chest bleeds as her finger nails dig in. I cry out. In an instant of pain, then flooding blackness, I am lost, my whole body shaking, convulsing with hers as I erupt.

I remain, as if there were only a little left of me, a small amount for this woman to drain on. I watch her as she gets off me, her vagina wet with us.

I do not have the strength to lift my head up to watch her walk away from me but see reflections of light on my skin as she changes back to that natural state of pure energy shimmering. A mark of an alien, of them.

She comes back. Floats above. I hear those voices that move in confused static sound. A crossing of mumbled messages that I cannot understand. Here in this whiteness I am naked and exposed to a life form beyond comprehension. How long until I die like some lab' rat? Not long? It feels good now.

Everything seems distant. I do not care for my nakedness. I am overcome by an urge to sleep. To sleep. I tire of wishing to know anymore..must rest...more of them entering this space......who cares.....who..cares..?
*
"Patsy?"

"Alan."

"How did you get out here Pat's?"

"I'm always here Al'."

My girlfriend from distant, distant, Earth approaches me from over a space of several feet.

I get up from the ground, checking my body for any unusual sign; tampering from them. I seem okay. No injuries. My
strength is back too. I'm naked yet I feel no cold in this non-place. It's as though I have just had a good night's sleep. Fully refreshed, I am in a state that is treating past experience as a dream. Patsy stands before me- dressed exactly as I remember her:- loose fitting cardigan black, elegant floral dress with small roses red patterned about it; a style from the Twentieth Century; her beautiful large blue eyes exactly as I recall, Patsy has those complexions which would look anemic on a guy but on her it simply makes her ever the more beautiful.

"Where's your clothes?" She smiles, directing the question in a playful manner, toying with her hair.

"I…" my mind floods back to what happened early.

"It doesn't matter...really..it doesn't," she laughs out loud, taking it all in great humour.

As my mind motions through possible ways to broach the subject of me being unfaithful, whiteness changes to an interior, somewhere I recognize. Patsy twists from me and reaches into a great wooden wardrobe; handed down from generation to generation: worth an absolute fortune, kept as sacred as a family name. I smell, hear, see, feel a worn bed knob beneath my right hand as this whole indoor scene strikes me painfully as her boudoir, as if it were....real. She tosses me some jeans, rummaging now for a top in an ill-matching synthetic chest of drawers. I hold the jeans as if not knowing what to do with them, rubbing my thumbs repeatedly over their coarse surface, even this feels of Patsy! That odor of her reproduced to minute detail.

I look through her window....exactly the same as my memory cells have stored them: planet Earth, street lamps hung in suspension over a quiet suburban street, casting warm yellow light, MEAKINS store opposite Pat's second floor flat. What is this?

"There you go," she throws me a shirt after much rummaging around.

I let it fall, not bothering to make an effort to catch it.

"What's the matter?" Patsy has that familiar frown, even to the slight crinkling of her nose- very clever.

"You know," I throw the clothes on her big bed immediately I fill with guilt; even for that small action- I cannot believe these aliens have duped me for so long, emotional contact feeling so real that I can't stop myself from reacting so.

"No I don't darling," the intonation in her voice is the same as Pat's.

"Listen…you are not real. Got it! None of this is real! Fuck me!! What do you bastards want from me?!" I search the room with my eyes directing my outcry to anyone listening.

"Darling, who are you speaking to?" She grabs my hands, pulling on them as though I'm having a breakdown.

I may be crazy. I could have lost all my use of rational faculties. This certainly isn't a dream. I know that Patsy doesn't exist here though, some paradox that engages me?

"Don't 'darling' me you thing, whatever the fuck you are. Get back!!" I shove her away with all my might.

Patsy slumps on the bed, sobbing. "Why are you being so horrible?"

I must stop it, she isn't real.

"Don't you feel anything for me anymore?"

"Why are you DOING THIS TO ME?!" I scream at the top of my voice to them.

Patsy pulls back and away from me, cornering herself against a back wall. I've seen this before, my once-in-a-blue-moon rages, my missus scared stiff because she's usually the one caught in the after-effect of my verbal blasts. She cowers as I switch from hot to cool; manic' to easy-going bloke.

"Pat's?" I'm too late (as usual) in apology, I shouldn't have done it in the first place.

Must gain strength. Mustn't allow my spirit to be drained like that. I skirt around bed, drawing up to her, if I destroy the vision before me perhaps one of them will reveal itselt..I care not anymore...I am a member of the U.F..better to.....die..than let this sick experiment go on.

I grab her arms hard. Her flesh kneads easy under my far stronger grip.

"OOOW! Al'?!!" Patsy cries out still sniffing.

"Not 'Al'. Who the fuck are you???" I bring up my anger, finding difficulty in battling against my confused mind, torn heart, emptied spirit.

The woman, my girlfriend, this thing, cannot even plead but moans and sobs, shaking as Pat's would have, as I recall her doing on such occasion's and I feel my neurons flashing memory images back on me; torturing, cutting into the core of what makes me....me.

"STOP!" I aim my hand toward the side of her face in a long, full, frustrated swing.

My hand hits a screen. The loud bang shocks me. I'm in a phone booth. The screen remains unaffected by my crashing blow. Pain hits me. "Argh! Shite! Fucking hell!!" Shooting numbing stabs of the collision pass swiftly from my hand up my arm.

I spin around in booth seat. It's an ordinary everyday booth .Like any you get, private. A link across light years of space or continents on a planet or just a few streets.

My card flashes in the machine- MESSAGE BEING RELAYED- beaming on the monitor. Not a phone call today, a letter, that's weird…

There it is yet a-bloody-gain. Believing in this shit. How can I stop myself from being sucked in? Objects hurt when hit. Women feel real. Water is wet. Suns are hot. That woman (alien) I could even taste her?! How can I avoid self-deception when it is on this grand scale?

I'm clothed in a much sort after U.F de-mob suit. MESSAGE RECEIVED. My card pops out to halfway. I stare at the card which holds my identity, my passport, my money, my letters from Pat's, my driving license.

I grab my card and push against the door. It's jammed.

I press EMERGENCY button. Nothing happens. I slump back down on the worn synthetic seat. I can sense that I'm going to get despondent. Come on Al'..are you a soldier or not? I will not give up. I WILL NOT GIVE UP!

For some reason, I slip my card back into vid-screen slot. The blank greyness shines into life. A green glow warms up the small space. I instruct booth to zip to last entry. Sure enough, Pat's last written words come up:

Dear Alan,

thank you for your last letter- I realize how much I've hurt you and I recognize that a lot of what you said was true, I have plenty of problems of my own to sort out and I will try not to burden you with them again.

I do moan too much but it's only my way of getting rid of angers and frustrations- people accept me for the way I am.

I feel that our relationship has not been going right for some time now. It is not the fact that we only see each other when you are on leave- that would make no difference to me- I guess I've just drifted apart from you and there is nothing I can do about it. I don't want to hurt you anymore but I don't want to deceive you as that would be even more hurtful. I am ending our relationship on one level. I can't be your girlfriend anymore but I can be a friend, if you'll let me.

I know that I can be difficult to be with but that's the way I am.....

Something is odd. Me and Patsy had a few problems but this? The last letter I sent her related to a few strained words we had at our last phone call, nothing of this seriousness.

…I'm sorry if what I've just written sounds awfully cold. I don't mean it to, it's just difficult to put into words what I am trying to say. I am really sorry I have taken so long in telling you but I had to take time to make sure that I was doing the right thing for me as well as for you. I hope we can remain friends and I will call when you return to Earth.

Take care of yourself. Hope to see you soon,

Love Patsy.

Outside the booth I can hear traffic passing by. An occasional siren distantly wails like a well-cued sound effect. I gaze into the screen, which buzzes green, as I am transfixed in a shocked state; more what's said between the words than what's in them. This is not real. This is not real Private Alan Walker.

I remove my card. The screen blanks.

Like closing one's eyes and then opening them once more, Patsy's room surrounds me. I'm lying on her double bed, staring up into her ceiling. Tears form in my eyes, I hold them back, getting up swiftly from the soft, big bed.

My left foot catches something on the floor. I almost trip up. I launch into curses then stop as I spy blood in a small puddle on the polished wooden floor, most of it being soaked up by a green rug (a tatty thing which Pat's loved).

Stooping down, the blood is also on my hands, smattered like I have hit someone hard. My girlfriend's feet stick out from beneath the bed. I slump down onto Pat's rug.

"Pat's?" Laughing nervously, thinking I could make up with her, even if she isn't real at least I can try to make a joke of it.

Kneeling, shock numbing me out of any emotional response, I examine under the bed more fully. Her body doesn't move. She has been stuck under there in a daft attempt to hide the evidence. I choke up.

Taking a deep breath, feeling tightness in my chest, I pull on her ankles, sliding her out from underneath poor hiding place. She is covered in blood. Her face has been badly battered, hardly recognizable as a human woman just some poor, swollen, red creature. Her chest is still, no more breathing. Her weight is hardly movable, a slumped hunk of what once was.

I can hear my own voice as if I'm a spectator, a person removed from this horror.

"Weeping isn't going to solve it son."

"What the fuck would you know about it?" I address my drill-sergeant that stands by me as if this were nothing out-of-the-ordinary, like an enemy corpse.

"I know more about pain than you can ever know boy!"

He actually said that. The real sarge.

"What am I going to do?" I see the muscular, hardened individual towering above me, I still knelt, legs weak.

"Look at this..." my ex-sarge disappears.

Slowly, Patsy's room fades into whiteness. Her body, which I have been holding, fades from beneath my fingertips like some annoying dream where your desires or wishes to be with someone, elude at the last moment.

"I know your game, "I point at one of them who floats by me.

It changes back into a human, into the woman from before.

"What 'game'?" She asks.

"This is not real. Nothing about this is," I reply.

"Here," she reaches out her hands, palms directed to my temples as she unleashes a force of something unknown into me.

A dull, unpainful energy throbs in my mind as I feel my brain eased, my muscles relaxed. I fall instantly, the last thing I observe are the bodies of fellow human beings laid with me in this whiteness, not fading away as before but remaining as I swirl down into comforting, deep, sound sleep.