An Immersive Experience by Darren Bradley Jones
No one knows why the aliens decided to land off the coast of Costa Rica.
Landed is the wrong word. They hovered above the ocean, the space between the base of their vessel and the water below unreachable. David and Venus had seen photos taken from a distance, the vessel looked like a hole in the image, a shard of obsidian or onyx dropped onto a page. Had they landed in the water with any force, their ship would’ve flooded the small beaches, driving out the tax-evading locals and bronzed ex-pats selling woven jewelry and knick-knacks from folding tables, racks of tie-dyed shirts and dresses curtained behind them—shirts formerly printed with images of sloths and lizards now displayed the oval green bug-eyed visage of a cartoon alien that did not, as they understood it, resemble the real thing.
Their flight and their villa had been booked months before the arrival of the Throx. David considered cancelling, worried nations more given to war would launch a preemptive attack. Venus rolled her eyes and told him he was paranoid, rising to her toes to kiss him, squeezing his hand in reassurance.
You’re not intimidated because I have a thing for Spanish men, are you?
David smiled and may have blushed. Their vacations provided them the anonymity needed to explore their marriage without fear of judgement from their peers, allowing each other to indulge, feel reckless and young. Their hotel room the year before had been littered with dancers charmed and swooned, post-show, from the stage of Le Crazy Horse. Venus found French men to lack the appeal David found in the women, and it was agreed upon their next trip would be hers to choose.
Not at all, he said, although he weighed the regret of not having dedicated more time over the last year to learn Spanish. He’d had nothing but free time, lethargic in the comfort of his considerable severance.
Venus eased David’s worry with articles detailing how even the more war-hungry world leaders welcomed the Throx, perhaps out of fear of what a species with the capability of interstellar travel could potentially bring to the battlefield, or perhaps, in a rare moment of optimism, they sought peace in hopes of obtaining such technological advancements for themselves, reverse engineered, packaged, exploited and resold.
David lamented, trusting in his wife, in the smile eager to explore the unknown, to have an immersive experience over those sanctioned by Tripadvisor.
There’d been no clear pictures taken of the Throx, but it was understood the nature of their physical being didn’t translate into a two-dimensional medium. They’d been described as a blur of colour; sentient cotton-candy, uttering telepathically what was assumed to be their names. Throx. Encounters were not rare, and the details diverged little, describing the aliens simply as love, and despite the flaky and reductionist sentiment—presumed as a detail lost to the void of language barriers—skeptics later conceded the description as apt.
The couple landed in San Jose, rented a Costa-Rican brand SUV at the airport in the hopes a domestic vehicle would mark them less as naive tourists. They drove the four hours to Uvita through winding mountains, gazing in awe from the windows, cautious of the locals who buzzed about on small dirt bikes. They bought fried plantain chips and fresh mangoes from friendly locals while lined up at toll booths, politely declining offers of roadside ceviche. When asked about the aliens, locals shrugged indifferently.
Have you met one?
They asked this of the waiter who brought them mango margaritas and pescado casado.
Si, he smiled, nodding.
David leaned forward. What were they like?
Hermosos, he smiled, then: Amor.
Beautiful. Love.
The stores and shops in Uvita happily cashed in on their beaches’ occupancy. Indigenous wildlife took a second seat to the aliens. Handcrafted statuettes described the Throx as spun pink and baby blue pipe-cleaners adorned with Pura Vida T-shirts wore patterned shorts and lazed against surfboards. Loud tourists they’d attempted to avoid by steering clear of all-inclusives and party destinations found their way to Uvita, blocking traffic, orienting themselves with cell phones, taking selfies, sweating profusely in their poorly fitted Star-Trek uniforms, wielding lightsabers and Bat’leths.
Mateo, the property’s caretaker, removed his helmet before the grocery store, killing the engine of his dirt bike and smiling wide. Firm musculature presented through a sweat clung t-shirt. Wind moved through his spun hair. David shook his hand and envied his youth, despite being no more than five years his junior. His wife gushed and offered a passive hand. She’d spoken only Spanish in the months leading up to the vacation, practicing about the house.
They talked and Mateo politely corrected pronunciations, his voice lowering as he moved closer, lifting her chin with a guided finger, stroking her throat to summon the soft roll of an R which she repeated with obedience and longing. A cough erupted from David and Mateo parted from his wife with a nod before mounting his bike, leading them up the dirt road, through a small subdivision where the shops no longer displayed English translations or advertised their prices in American dollars. The houses they saw as they climbed were all single-story bungalows, painted in delicate pastel colours, the roofs either shingled terra cotta or corrugated tin, doors and windows barred even behind the tall chain-linked fences with razor-wire spun and uncoiled across their brim. The children played and waved and chased small brown dogs.
They rounded a corner and the small shacks and houses gave way to tall walls of red clay where bamboo jettisoned to meet immense palm trees, blotting out the sun, bugs clicking against their windshield the size of ping-pong balls. They bounded over the uneven ground and the engine’s pistons revved high and struggled while Venus steadied herself against the ceiling and dashboard.
Were shocks extra?? she bellowed.
WHAT? David said, ascending yet another road embraced by clay walls and technicolour birds-of-paradise growing wild.
They reached the top and rounded a small path through a tall metal gate painted green, walls bordering the property high and mounted with CCTV cameras and the same spiralled razor wire. Mateo killed the engine and removed his helmet before their villa.
He unlocked the door before handing over the key, showed them to the bedroom, and helped them with their bags. The villa was well stocked with appliances and kitchenware and a dining room table carved from a tree. High ceilings were made of bamboo slats sheltered by tacky murals of sunsets and Macaws and Toucans that marked the walls.
Venus and Mateo made casual conversation during the tour, David gleaning what he could, catching on that Mateo had asked what they did back in Canada, hearing the word desempleados—unemployed—when jerking her head back in her husband’s direction. David fought against the tightness in his gut, reminding himself it was temporary.
Where’s the living room? David asked, Venus too awed by the view to notice the missing room.
Mateo smiled and opened the sliding glass doors onto the vast marble deck where woven resin-wicker furnishings overlooked the bold blue infinity pool, the sun glinting off its surface before the acres of jungle below, lush with life, the ocean beyond, a black hole burned into it like incinerated film.
Is that—
Si, Mateo said, nodding eagerly.
David spun to face him. Have you met them?
Hermosos, he said nodding, then shrugged: Amor.
In the morning David rose before Venus to make omelettes with avocado, pico de gallo, and manchego. The smells and sizzling of the pan woke her. He greeted her with a coffee. She thanked him with a kiss. They ate as the sun rose at their backs, David reading while Venus researched local customs and nightlife, restaurants and beaches. David looked up from his book to squint at the small black anomaly above the water.
Where are the aliens? He asked.
They’re on Uvita beach, she said. Right below us. But it’s the only beach where they charge admission.
They charge you to see the aliens?
Well, it says there’s always been a charge to go down to Uvita because of the Whale’s Tail but, because of the Throx, they’ve started charging more. Venus sipped her coffee. It used to be only ten dollars, but now they’re charging a hundred.
A hundred?
Per person, she added. So it’d be two hundred.
Fuck, David said.
Anyhow, all the other beaches are free and will probably have less tourists. Uvita would be nuts. There’s a little beach town called Dominical where all the surfers go. It has good restaurants and some shopping. That’s the beach I want to go to.
Yes, but Dominical doesn’t have aliens.
We’re on a budget.
Seriously? Aliens.
She dropped her tablet to her lap in a huff. I didn’t come here to meet aliens. I came here to relax on a beautiful beach and swim in the ocean and maybe get into some trouble with my husband. I want to assimilate for the next week. I want to be Costa-Rican.
She lifted her tablet back into view and began swiping, gushing at the views, book-marking restaurants and parks and animal sanctuaries, smiling and showing him a nightclub in Ojochal, insisting he take her dancing, changing the subject.
He put down his book and moved next to her, removing her tablet from her grip, determined to make her forget momentarily her desire to fuck a stranger on vacation, failing in his haste.
In Dominical they shopped and found clothes that made them feel at one with local colour. They ate tacos for lunch. They tanned and read and held hands before finding a bar on the beach where they sat and drank beer and watched the surfers and ordered nachos when the beer took them. Venus practiced her Spanish with eager and hopeful locals, leaned close to them and smiled as she had with Mateo, insisting their physical contact with her was local custom, and wasn’t inappropriate. Ignored and bored, David wandered the strip before the beach where hippies and tattooed locals with dreadlocks sold their wares. A young woman with a beaming smile sold necklaces she’d made herself, greeting him in a handwoven bikini, eye contact inviting. David turned blushing when confronted with a nipple and she laughed, adjusting herself, asking if he liked what he saw.
You speak English! he said, excitement bordering on desperation.
So do you! she laughed. Are you here to see the aliens?
No, he smiled. Booked this trip months ago. Before they landed. Was hoping for a nice quiet getaway, but… he gestured to their surroundings, to the abundance of tourists crowding around them.
Do you want to see them?
I’m curious, he said. But I’m not interested enough to pay a hundred bucks for it.
Oh, there’s ways onto the beach without paying. Especially late at night, she leaned forward with her hands braced on the table, a sway to her stance. Where are you from?
Toronto, he said. You?
My dad lives in Toronto! she said, but I’m from Colorado. I moved here last year. I’m Willamina. My friends call me Billy.
She leaned forward and offered her hand and David took it delicately, summoning the charm and sex appeal and proud posture he’d once been envied for. He noted the darker hue of her skin from the sun, second guessing her ancestry.
It’s nice to meet you, Billy.
You too… she said slowly, softly, the words heavy between them. Do you smoke?
He shook his head thinking she meant cigarettes before noticing the hand carved pipes that littered the table, all engraved with cartoonish marijuana plants. He smiled for the first time since he’d landed. God, yes, he said, and she bounced in place, her smile cutting deep into her cheeks.
She turned and called to a man named Pablo, tilting her hips from side to side as she spoke, pleading with him in Spanish. He looked up from the carving he performed and nodded before continuing his work. Billy bounded from behind her table. Throwing a small canvas bag over her shoulder she took David’s hand and led him past the restaurants, yoga shacks, the backpackers’ hostel, saying nothing until the path opened to a lagoon at the ocean’s edge where children splashed in shallow waters.
So, Toronto, huh? she asked. She sat on a fallen palm and patted the space next to her and he sat, watching as she expertly spun a joint, pausing to put the entirety of it into her mouth, pulling it out slow, wet, tight. Shit’s legal there now, right?
Well, it’s not without a ridiculous amount of restrictions, yeah, it’s legal.
She sparked and puffed, passing it to him, hissing through held breath. That’s nice for you guys.
Sure, but it’s still easier to buy from bootleggers.
Bootleggers? she asked, breath constricted.
Well, it’s legal now. No one calls them drug dealers anymore.
At this she laughed and slammed her hand against the tree, finding it funnier than he’d intended. He took a long haul and enjoyed how it moved through his lungs, feeding his brain, causing him to melt into his seat, the veil of reality lifting to reveal the vacation beneath.
So, you’re here with someone?
My wife, he said, his admission heavy.
And where’s she?
Back at the bar, he gestured. Flirting with the locals. She has a thing for Spanish guys.
Oh yeah? she beamed, butting her shoulder to his. It’s like that, huh? Nice. Monogamy’s for suckers.
David smiled at this and tried not to laugh. Excited by the attention, by this stunning young woman’s casual touch, affection. He watched hope burn in her smile. He pulled back, heart racing.
Don’t be shy, she said drifting closer, mouth parted, eyelids giving to gravity. David met her halfway.
He could still taste her on his lips when he found his way back to the bar lamenting to let himself feel any guilt but enjoy the brief, and welcomed, affection of a stranger.
Venus wore one of her new sarongs—pale blue flowers printed large on a gleaming white landscape of rayon and polyester. She sat close to the man opposite her, their faces inches apart, her legs pressed together between his parted knees. The groundskeeper. He cupped her cheek and whispered in her ear and David wondered when and where she’d managed to change.
When she saw him, she smiled and stretched her arm out in the space between them, fingers dancing in greeting, tottering on her stool.
There you are! she said. You remember… she paused and turned back to face him; memory restrained by caution.
Mateo, said the man. He rose, grinned.
Mateo, she repeated. You remember Mateo? He’s been kind enough to keep me company while you’ve been…where did you go, anyhow?
David shook Mateo’s hand, the confidence of his smile and posture still present after his encounter with Billy. I went for a walk, he said. A local smoked me up. Good weed.
Señor, said Mateo. Do not say too loud. Is not very legal here.
Right, David said. He gestured at the bartender. A bottle of Pilsen, por favor. Gracias.
Mateo wants to take me dancing, she said.
Both of you! he corrected, pleading innocence, friendliness. He braced his arms over both of their shoulders, pulling them in close. There is a club not far from here. We don’t tell tourists about it.
You just did, David pointed out and the three of them laughed.
Mateo clapped both of them on their shoulders before pulling Venus in closer, testing boundaries. She cooed, stroked his chest. What do you think? she asked.
David smiled, nodding, thinking of how Billy had invited him to smoke a bowl and wander the beach of Uvita, smuggled in to see the aliens. David second-guessed the declined invitation in seeing his wife’s welcome attitude toward their new friend.
The Club was on the outskirts of Uvita. Smaller than neighbourhood dive bars back in Toronto. The patio sat at its rear, a dirt floor hung with paper lanterns, a small stage constructed of shipping flats supported a band performing a mix of reggae and samba to a dancing audience. Mateo greeted friends with long embraces, whispering in their ears before introducing Venus and David, laughing, gazing. Venus beamed, David shouldering the offence for both of them.
David guided Venus to the bar, determined to hold her attention before she’d be swallowed by a sea of men. I think Mateo’s a bit of a creep, he said.
Maybe, she shrugged. But he’s a sexy creep. She hung her arms around his neck, swayed against him, waiting for his eyes to find hers. Come now, she whispered. I know you love watching me. You’ve always loved it. Sharing is caring, remember?
David ordered two beers—dos cervezas.
Venus grunted and drank, shaking her head as she swallowed. Why are you doing this?
Doing what?
She paused, weighing her words. I didn’t try to ruin your time when we were in Paris, she said. She steeled herself against bitter pouting, hooked her arms around his waist and drew him closer, lifting her head to smile at him doe-eyed, innocent. We had fun. I wanted you to have fun. Because I love you and I want you to be happy.
David swallowed his beer and looked out over the room and away from his wife, shaking his head. I want you to be happy too, I just wish you were happy with me.
Venus’s demeanour steeled. You need to get over this, she said. She stepped back and took a slow and calculated drink, the utterance of her threat left silent.
David drew a long breath and pulled his wife close, passion supplanted with desperation. I just need to go to sleep, he said. You stay out. Have fun. You’ve earned this.
I’ve earned this? She pulled back and caught his eye, her brow tight, impatient. We’ve earned this, she said.
David wasn’t so sure.
He walked from the club as monkeys leapt from branch to branch, shuddering with each noise rising from the depths of the roadside jungle. His wife was going to fuck that Mateo guy. He was exactly her type; the assuredness, the charm, the abs he’d revealed when hoisting the hem of his shirt; an inefficient path to a fictitious itch. He smiled at this, feeling a modicum of flattery in how Mateo’s arrogance reflected his own, remembering Paris.
He’d twirled and dipped their choice burlesque dancers, inviting them without pretense to join them for drinks, bottles of Champagne ordered for the table, personal spaces invaded, his blazer offered to chilly shoulders as an excuse to expose a physique strained beneath a fitted t-shirt. With laughter and whispers Venus bragged on his behalf, and they played ambiguous long enough to seed a hybrid of doubt and want, lingering good-night kisses revealing a disappointment he and Venus were happy to extinguish.
David missed that version of himself. His shared narrative with Venus, the lavish life of rock gods, anonymity intact.
He’d thought himself infallible.
He paused at the end of the road, considering the walk back, the hike up the mountain and the darkness of the jungle, the quiet of their villa. Venus was right. She was always right. This was their vacation. He pulled his phone from his pocket, dialed, looking up at the night sky. So little light pollution compared to the city; pocked and iridescent, revealed as layers pulled back, reality thinning.
Hey, he said into the phone. You convinced me. I’ll come see the aliens with you.
Billy leapt into his arms as greeting, kissing his neck, locking tan legs at his back. She climbed down and led him in a light trot away from the line of tourists and into the darkness of the tree line. She relieved him of his shorts, fellating him erect, sensing reluctance in his stature. She stood and lifted the hem of her sundress, presented an eager lean against the nearest tree complete with a suggestive wiggle, her direct language leaving little room for misinterpretation.
He let go of caution, hindered by it since his unemployment.
Fighting modesty as headlights passed over them, embracing the taboo thrill of discovery, he let go. He enveloped her in a pace she welcomed, encouraged, demanded. He found himself at home in his rhythm, feeling like a god, complying to inspired requests until her legs trembled and body tensed and seized, a groan expelled from him as warning she stood, guiding him free with her hand and rose and spun and kissed with laughter the wordless grunts that escaped his lips, aiming him into the brush.
She kissed him; a thank you.
Come on, she said. She took his hand and led him deeper into the jungle.
Hello to you too, he said. He pushed long leaves from his view as he followed. They were less than twenty feet into the bush when a path opened up, moonlight squeezing between palms, bamboo reaching in their wake.
So, where’s your wife?
She’s back at Club, with the guy she met earlier.
Cool, she said. It’s not much further. Did you want to smoke before we see the spaceship? It’s right through this way.
Yes, he said. Before. Sure.
They rounded the clearing and climbed the red clay and perched themselves between two palms imbedded in green grass, looking out over the sea of tourists, firefly camera flashes, the waters beyond hinted at by the moon, the extraterrestrial vessel invisible against it.
So, what do you do in Toronto? Billy spun their joint by the pale blue of the moon.
Nothing, he said. I’ve been out of work since February.
Nice, she said. Perfect time for a vacation, huh?
David began to tear the grass from around his ankles. I’d been working there since I was twenty, he said. Worked my way up from a teller into finance. I haven’t been unemployed since I was a kid.
Billy sparked up the joint, her features glowing warm and orange against the night, swallowed by smoke. That’s a long time, she said. Seems like you could use this time off.
He nodded, wishing he could enjoy their vacation for what it was, but the truth was he’d fucked up. Friday night cocktails had been the breeding ground for so many years of internal fraternizing. The nature of his marriage an open secret, four drinks deep and unaccustomed to rejection, their conversation was silenced only by long moments of unbroken eye-contact he’d misinterpreted as invitation. The complaint filed regarding his unwanted advance called the request for his resignation. He’d been handed two-years’ salary and a letter of reference, all of which felt bitterly like a reward for his poor judgement.
He’d taken the job at the bank not because it’d been his dream, but because he’d needed a paycheque. Comfort and complacency held him there, but he hadn’t chosen it.
Now, there were aliens, and anything seemed possible.
Let’s go take a closer look.
Billy nodded and smiled and yelped as David pulled her to her feet, the two of them racing down the dune, moving across the beach, circling cautious tourists with their cameras.
Closer to the water they saw it hover. It had no shape, its hue uniform from end to end, colourless, no reflection of light above or shade beneath it. The two of them squinted, trying to make out greater detail, but there was none to see.
Far-out, Billy said. She peeled off her shirt and shoes and buried her satchel safe beneath the sand, marking its location with a polished stone before sprinting into the water. David removed his wallet and cellphone and mimicked her, the two of them yelping childlike as they ran, diving into warm waves white and loud, submerging into the magnanimous silence. They resurfaced and saw two figures standing on the skin of the ocean, turning with cocked heads to greet them. They had arms and they had legs, lanky and long, protruding from bulbous pear-shaped bodies with heads matching in shape but not size. Their skin appeared blue, the spectral fragmentation of light creating the illusion of colour—like the sky, the water beneath the sun, certain breeds of jellyfish—circulatory systems wove around each other as plumes of stationary pink and baby blue smoke beneath opaque skin. Without mouths or noses or ears the figures still wore expressions, simple, welcoming, passive.
Their eyes matched their vessel, vacant and dark and warm and calm.
Fuck, Billy said.
David nodded in agreement.
The water around them became heavy, dense, its movement slowing as they gained proximity to the ship, still an immense black smudge without depth or texture or colour. He blinked to compare it against the darkness of closed eyes, finding supernovas in the contrast. From the beach David had wanted to call it black, but now he saw it was simply nothingness. He wondered if it were a ship at all, or a hole—a portal—through which they’d arrived.
Look! Billy said, kicking beneath the surface, ascending, placing her hands on the now pliable surface. She shuffled to keep steady, moving with the waves as they gave to her weight.
She stepped out of the water.
David rose, the water tightening beneath him as he climbed, accommodating each step higher. He laughed in disbelief that Venus wasn’t there to share the experience.
Billy stepped closer and took the alien’s hand. Her shoulders went slack, body limp, still standing, smile euphoric. Hi, she said. Smiling lips quivered, a tear salted her cheek.
What is it? David asked.
She didn’t respond, or she didn’t hear him. Her mouth parted. She closed it, second guessing her answer, head shaking.
What is it? David repeated. Billy stepped away from the creature with gratitude on her face. David expected her to hug it.
She looked at him, hands covering her mouth, eyes wide, nodding; her expression relating to him that she didn’t have the words.
Did you see that? she asked.
See what?
It—it was my father. My Papa.
What?
I have to go, she said. She kissed him on the cheek.
Then she dove into the ocean.
David took a deep breath and stepped closer. He took the being’s hand.
The hue of its skin changed, softened to a creamy tan, its shape womanly, naked, glistening pubic region trimmed in the familiar shape of a heart, breasts tightened by the breeze, scent haunting, his gaze following its curves to his wife’s neck, her daring smile arched slight and left, eyes blinking and welcome.
Hi, he said. It was her. Venus. He held her hand and kept himself from asking what she was doing there, reminding himself this was the alien. But it wasn’t. Somehow it was her. He felt a heat move through him. He felt a sadness that wasn’t his. He felt worry, and heartbreak, all of which was hers.
The way she’d looked at him had never changed, despite his pessimism.
He felt her tongue bitten in his mouth with all the things she’d kept herself from saying, revelations he had to reach on his own, knowledge that losing his job had rendered him impotent, caused him to second guess her loyalty. He felt her desperation to welcome him back into her arms, to know she tried to free his worrying mind with juvenile play and sex and drinking and drugs and adventure and be to each other who they’d so madly fallen in love with, and he felt her loneliness, laying presently on the bed of their rented villa, the sweaty arms of a local holding her beneath his weight, pushing into her, grunting, her own pleasure hindered by his absence.
He hadn’t returned as promised. She watched the door.
The face of the alien—the face of Venus—soured, smile weak and pressed, eyes wet, looking down, pleading. It said nothing, but when its gaze turned back up to him, it was an invitation. He knew those eyes. They were the eyes of their first date, their first fuck, his proposal, their wedding. They were the eyes of certainty. The eyes of yes.
They were always there, even when he wasn’t looking.
He nearly resisted when the alien let go of his hand, watching as it changed. Its form shifted, his wife’s skin dissolving into the air. Despite the affection in her eyes, this was why Billy hadn’t hugged it.
He opened his mouth to say thank you, but saw—felt—his gratitude had already been acknowledged, accepted.
He turned to see that Billy was long gone and he looked past where she’d stood on the water, the ocean stretching and reaching and lapping against the coast, the curious tourists on the beach waiting, and past the dark tree line he saw the mountain silhouetted against the sky, their villa one of the faint lights glinting, his wife there with his surrogate, her plaything, their shared perversion, waiting for her husband to return, to join them in reclamation and celebration as he dove and swam and ran and climbed to her, telling the tourists as he passed the aliens are beautiful, they are love, knowing those words will never be enough.
Darren Bradley Jones was born somewhere near a large body of water in Southern Ontario with a fair amount of trees. In Toronto he worked as a bike courier, bartender, and restaurant consultant, and was a student at both OCAD and UofT. He now lives in Paris, Ontario with his wife and daughter, where together they own a charming bookstore/café.
