Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 

   This is a work of fiction.  This is a fan novel set in the "Hard Day's
Night", "Help" and the assumed-fiction "Let it Be" universes, with nods to
some other basic Beatles historical facts (some of it is, indeed, true).  I
am no more saying that the Beatles are/were gay than I'm saying they
are/were vampires - one should not infer literal reality in this novel any
more than one should assume Picasso's women had three eyes or that Robert
Burns' wife literally looked like a rose.  It's a metaphor - a myth - a
story phrased in the mythological gods of the modern era and the homoerotic
vampire tradition.  It's also a slash novel, meant for a specific community
of readers (and we all understand the game rules of the art form) and not
for the reading public.  I've also removed the names of the innocent (wives
and families), since they are not gods of the common mythology and just
regular old folks like you and me.  The only real peoples' names employed
are Julia Lennon's and Timothy Leary's.  Both are dead, and I figured Doc
Tim would understand.

   To Beatlefans who may have happened across this: unless you're a slash
reader, this is not for you.  IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT SLASH IS AND ARE
READING THIS, STOP READING IT NOW.  Otherwise, severe eye damage may occur.


   In writing this, I wanted to create a story to satisfy all the lost ends
of Beatlemania for those fans still haunted by it.  It is what I think may
have happened based upon my assessment of known events - it is not
presented as a fact-based representation of what did happen.

   I should also point out how this whole story came about: In a very Anne
Rice-like setting, I dreamt I was the interviewer of the vampire John
Lennon.  John then went on to relate this story...most of the major events
(in terms of Paul and him) came from that dream (yes, including the
fucking).  This includes his own commentary on Paul's later work (some of
which I agree with and some of which I don't).  Most of the rest is my
creative confabulation.  Just in case there was any actual external input
made, I'd like to give credit where credit is due.  However, Paul, you'll
have to take up the content with John.

   Two points of order for non-Beatlefans: Macca was the nickname John
bestowed upon Paul.  It has since become Paul's "other name".  Ringo's real
first name is Richard (which you know if you've seen HDN), so that's why
he's called "Rich" or "Richie", as that is what he's usually called by
family and friends...occasionally they get by with "Ring".  I didn't reach
for "Lennie" or "Harrie" or "Boog" or any of the other pet names because I
thought at some point, one has to draw a line at reality.  I did opt for
"Puddin'", "Pudges" and "Prudence" because they're so damned cute and there
is public record of them.



















   The Vampire John Lennon



   Thursday morning, eight o'clock.

   He found himself sitting there, staring at the empty wall....just
staring at the empty wall...beside the desk...beneath the light...before
his reservoir of paper.  His hand had grasped pen and wandered after a
word. Focus, he would tell himself, and then bolt back into this narrow
room of attention, not quite remembering where his thoughts had been
hiding....where he was...bugger that, when he was.

   He checked his watch and found he had none.  He saw the message light
blinking for his attention.

   He looked around the room.  Weird... And where the hell are we now?  Had
he been that distracted on his way up that he had forgotten where he had
come?

   Felt comfortable here.  Safe like home.  Or almost home.

   Almost like he was waiting for something...anxious to exhale...headed
home on that last leg of a long, old journey.  And he was sitting here,
scribbling until whatever it was arrived to carry him home.

   He rose up from his chair, walked to the window.

   The eyelet sash seemed to slide up above a street in Surrey.  Fresh
air...new morning.  He was overlooking a small green hill and a path.  A
storm was gathering.  It was the sort of place his security detail sought
for him when he was out on his own on the road.  Somewhere with old people.
Somewhere out of step with the day.

   He stepped to the side and somehow knocked something over.

   Something plunked to the ground at his feet.

   The phone rang.  He looked in its general direction.  He knew one of his
staff would answer the line.  That was one of the few perks of being filthy
rich and powerful as Almighty God and then some.  In truth, there weren't
many more perks - beyond purchasing whatever he wanted - but the phone
thing was one of the better rewards.  He never had to answer a phone or a
door or a page.  He paid for people to pay attention to all such things. 
He could just sit here and scribble...if he had been able to sit there...or
scribble...

   The phone quit ringing after the seventh time.  He wondered if the line
had been answered or if the caller had just given up.

   "Mr.  McCartney," a voice spoke behind him.

   He wheeled around to find a reasonably pretty young woman dressed as a
secretary.  ...though he couldn't remember her to spare his life...or how,
in fact, someone dressed "as a secretary".  She was clearly waiting for his
reply.

   "Yes?" he said.

   "Sorry to bother you, sir, but you have an old friend on the line.  He
wouldn't give his name."

   "Caller ID?"

   "Local call," she said, shrugging.

   All of his truly old friends were at a distance or dead.  (Now how the
hell is it you know that, old son?) "Tell them I'm not available, would
you?"

   "Yes, sir.  You have about one hundred and fifty messages, all of which
I have handed along to your support staff.  You do have some requests for
appointments this morning.  However, I know you have very important plans
today so I can shuffle them all over to your assistant."

   He nodded, again distracted.  "Yes, would you?"

   "Of course.  Oh, and the Apple limo will be here any moment, sir."

   "Oh, great, thanks...wait, what limo was it you said?" he asked.

   "The corporate limo, sir," she said, smiled.

   "Oh, sure, right, exactly....  Forgive me, but I seem to have forgotten
your name..."

   "My name?  Martha, sir.  I'm Martha.  And I'll alert you when the limo
comes round."

   She was gone - like that, just gone.

   Weird that he couldn't remember anything...but then, as if to comfort
him, he remembered knocking over the photograph.

   He had toppled it to the ground.  It was a small, framed portrait, lying
at his feet.  Where on earth had this come from?  The very appearance of it
filled him with nothing short of sadness.

   He picked up the picture.  It was of the four of them in Bermuda: The
four of them.  During word association tests throughout the world, when the
word "four" came up, they were the first "thing" remembered.  Psychologists
had checked that out for years...it held true everywhere - even in Bengal,
even in Katmandu.  One, two, three, four meant Ringo, George, Paul and
John. The four most famous faces - walking along the Great Wall, he had
heard his name called down within a barrage of Mandarin Chinese. 
Everywhere...they knew him everywhere.

   Everyone knew them...yet nobody knew them at all.

   His finger swept across Ringo's face, over George's, and at last to
John's.  There was a marked difference in the ache around his heart as he
looked upon each one.  It writ large the respective levels of his coming to
terms with his relationships with them.  Ringo and George and he had sorted
through things...there was never, ever enough time, but there had been more
time with them than there had been with...

   John.

   Paul's finger inquired against the picture, as if trying to feel the
moment through the mast of years.  He ran his finger over John's face,
seeking some connection...some comfort from it...if only just.

   In his gut he knew it was a face he would never see again.  Paul had
first seen that face the night of the Woolton Fete: a first glimpse of
plaid shirt and sun-streaked hair.  And then Dead, December, 1980, one mote
past midnight....  A frigid, bone-dead winter prior to an aborted Yuletide,
and a new year that would never come again.

   In his own mind, McCartney entertained no illusions.  He would of course
have offered the usual Sunday school platitudes to the men of the press,
but anyone who knew Paul, knew he was a practical, logical, pragmatic man
who didn't believe in it...any of it...not really.  He tried to,
occasionally.  But the flicker never founds its full flame.  "What do you
think happens when you die?" he had been asked once, by some friend
somewhere.  And he'd been much surprised by how quickly he had just said,
"Nothing."

   There would be no finish to the healing that already had started.  There
would be no fences mended.  Nothing.  So much unsaid...and so much never to
know...  Never.

   That was the beastly, gnawing, aching truth that punched at him over and
over and over again every morning of his life and through every quiet
moment in all the years since Johnny's murder.  For months after it
happened, it stole Paul's abilities and his capacity to hope.  His future
seemed trapped in a dark, endless cavern resounding with an awful Joycean
knowing: Never, ever, ever, ever...

   ...always...always...always...

   The fact of the matter was he didn't believe in God.  And that meant he
couldn't believe in John...anymore...

   "Mr.  McCartney," her voice said through the door.  "The apple limo is
here."

   "The Apple Limo," he said.  "You said it before and you just did now. 
What did you mean by Apple Limo?  You mean Jeff?"

   She smiled.  "Did I say that?  Well, anyway, the company limo is waiting
for you.  The driver is at the door."

   And she was gone, like that.  Just like that.  Again.

   A drumming knock came knocking at his chamber door.  As he opened it,
one of those smiling lads in the generic hired driver's uniform was
standing there.  A limocab, wondrous hybrid of the modern age.  Some local
enterprise called Apple Limousine no doubt, and Jeff figured there was a
magical gravity to their cross-association.

   End of mystery.

   "You're from Apple?" Paul asked.

   The young man smiled and nodded.  "I am at that, sir. 
Mr.....McCartney?" the fellow said, looking at his clipboard.  He said it
as if he'd just said Mr.  Jones or Mrs.  Thackery or any other common,
ordinary household name.  Paul loved the sound of it.

   "That would be me."

   "Yessir," the stranger said.  "I'm Jude, sir.  I'm the one what's meant
to bring you in."

   "Oh, sure," Paul said, not knowing what in hell the fellow was talking
about, but happy for company and someone who might know what he was doing
here.  "You say your name is Jude?"

   "Yes, sir."

   "Not born in 1970, were you?"

   "Yes, sir." He grinned, scratching the hair under his cap.  "No worries.
Given the songs of the year I'm just pleased Mum didn't fancy Johnny Cash.
Old Mum's going to be dead chuffed when she hears who I got to drive to his
eventual destination."

   Paul pointed at him.  "You're funny.  I like you.  You need me out of
here then?"

   "It would move the process along, sir."

   So he followed Jude out to an open door that connected directly to one
of those big, roomy important Presidential stretch limos.  Paul crawled in
the back, happy to be going somewhere that would jog his memory and finally
make some sense.

   As they drove up the first winding path of road, Paul motioned to his
chauffer and then toward the window.  The driver nodded and chugged down
the windows a bit.

   Alas poor Jude.

   1970 would make him...what?  ...thirtysomething...or...?

   This was strange.  And what was stranger still, young Jude didn't look a
day over twenty.  They grow them hale and hearty on this Sceptred Isle.

   Paul shrugged it all off, as there was little to be done but shrug it
off, since it couldn't possibly be anything else but some odd thing he
hadn't figured out as yet.

   He turned around, looking out through the wall of rain behind the auto.
Looked like Glastonbury, pigeon-toed toward Chilkwell Street.  Wonderful:
Somerset in autumn...why not iceskate on his shortpants all the way to
Shepton Mallet?  Frostbite is our friend.  The village was glowing in the
surrounding cold, more so than usual.  It had taken on almost a spectral
glow.

   It was, almost suddenly, later in the evening.

   Sundown?  Must have misjudged the time at the suite, he reckoned.  He
could see straight up the black wall sky to the harvest moon shining
through the storm.  Clouds parted so he might see a bright flash of
lightning sprint away.

   He clicked in the CD of Nat King Cole.  For All We Know...

   This may only be a dream...we come and go like a ripple on a stream...

   He clicked it off.  Bloody sad.  Nat King Cole was typically a jolly old
soul.  That song always reminded him of...

   The car banked hard to the right.

   It goated up a steep incline then pitched a hard left to burrow
underneath some thing.  Suddenly, the road sloped downwards.

   Behind them, angel's wings double doors enfolded them into a deep, black
encompassing dark.  The air was thick and humid as if from standing
water...not rain, but a river or pond.  He felt the imminent weight of
flanking walls.  He could see little at first, but then there appeared
wavering blue white shadows that encased him...like impressions of the
water flickering over high gloss wood.

   This was an interesting place for a meeting...he guessed he was going to
a meeting.

   He had it in mind to be frightened, until young Jude popped open the
door as if opening it for a friend.

   "There ya go.  You'll find your reception committee waiting for you over
there, sir.  Feel free to partake of the refreshments if you like."

   "My reception committee?" Paul asked, glancing around at the little he
could see.

   More blackness, more close air and flickering shadows as if he stood at
the edges of a pool cabana.

   "Yes, sir," Jude called back, "right over there, sir."

   Then Jude was gone through some long, darkened egress or another.

   Weirdest damned day in a life of weird days...Paul felt as if he'd
stepped out of his life and into some other unknown.  Like a night clouded
in ether and then, the day.  He knew who he was...knew what he was...
...but didn't have a hopeful clue as to when, where or why.

   `Paul,' his inner George voice said.  `You started life as a scouser
street urchin and ended up with more financial resources than Elizabeth
Regina and Walt Disney combined.  You're in no position to judge weirdness,
you know.'

   McCartney stepped haltingly around the front of the car, finding the
cause of the damp air - an inside swimming pool...or ornamental river...or
something of the kind.  It might have been an eccentric lap pool if it
hadn't wound around the vine-woven wall and disappeared.  It was a damned
river, no doubt about it, but it was inside a building, like some bloody
theme ride.  Pirates of the bloody Caribbean or somethin'.

   It wasn't just mugginess or closeness...there was a spooky sense of
gravity to the air...an instinctual reflex in some muscle of his soul.  It
was pulling at him and all the while warmly welcoming him home to somewhere
he had never been before.

   He walked circumspectly around the indoor courtyard, to see that the
vined wall along the edge of the river bottomed out into a half-circle of
old stone.  It was a cobbled wall to guard something beyond it, cascaded by
a fountain waterfall made of four joined hands.  It flowed first into outer
tributaries in the winding river.

   Fucking weird.  Fucking beautiful, but fucking weird.

   Beyond the bending Riverwalk arose a wall of leaded glass.  Fine
filament veins in brandy-colored flashes became four yang lines laid
parallel: like an I Ching trigram alive in the light.  Above him as he
entered the courtyard, a blue-black sky tableau flashed back in the
language of lightning.

   At the edge of the river, a circular flight of steps walked up to a
mezzanine.  At the iron railing, a café table was centered at which a man
sat with his back toward him.  Had he not known this man very, very, very
well, he might not have recognized him in these strange surroundings.

   "Ringo?" Paul said, a question of amazement rather than of genuine
inquiry.  And with the amazement was a major tide of relief in finding
family in this increasingly bizarre little spot.

   The man turned around to greet him, as if he'd always known Macca was
there.  He leaned over the mezzanine railing to just above Paul's head.

   "Been wondering when you'd finally make it over," Ringo said, a deep
fondness in his gaze, as if they hadn't seen each other in a very long
time. He toasted toward him a crystal glass of something deeply red. 
"Welcome.  I reckon you're wondering how it is you find yourself here, eh,
old man?"

   "Yes, precisely.  Wondering indeed.  Where is this place?  I must have
really gotten pissed last night.  I can't remember what happened.  I don't
even know how I come to be here.  Is this some new place of yours?"

   "It's a long story, old friend.  And you've had a long trip you can't
remember yet."

   Ringo vanished from the mezzanine into its upper darkness, but
resurfaced at the circle steps.  He was wearing his own sort of
incandescence as he began to walk down to Paul's level.

   Paul looked up to seek the source of his old friend's glow, finding
nothing as a likely cause.

   But as the other man reached him, it was clear the glow had centered in
Ringo's eyes.  The eyes shone brightly at McCartney with an intensity that
was almost painful to behold.  They absorbed each moment of seeing
him...each bend of light across his face.

   Ringo's hand outlined Paul's face a moment more.  "You've no notion yet
how grand it is to see you, Mr.  McCartney.  You will soon enough, though."

   "To see me?  But we just saw each other last - " Paul said, thinking. 
He backed up a little, as if unsettled at his sudden thoughts...or lack of
them.  "When?"

   "You can't remember now, can you?"

   "No, but it couldn't have been long.  Damn if you don't look like you've
had a small fortune of the old nip and tuck, too." Paul reached out and
tapped his old friend's face.  "Whoever did the work, he did right by you."

   Ringo laughed, shook his head.  "No work, Paul.  There's been a lot gone
under the bridge.  When's the last point in time you remember?"

   "Well..."

   What?  Or more precisely...when?

   The longer he paused, the wider grew Paul's deep hazel eyes.  The eyes
seemed to catch glimpses of shadows escaping around corners of the mind. 
Days, weeks, months, years...decades even...

   "I remember..." Paul said.  "Wait a minute; I knew there was something
wrong in all this..."

   "Exactly." Ringo pulled a mirror from his pocket, flipped it open, held
it up.  "Take a gander at yourself, my young, old friend."

   Paul leaned nearer the mirror.  His hand reached half-consciously for
his face... His impossibly youthful face.

   "Hold on, I don't look like I'm thirty.  I can't look like that!  I'm -
"

   Ringo nodded.  "Old."

   "Very old!  And you were - "

   "Dead." Ringo smiled.  "Very dead.  For a number of years, in fact. 
Old, grizzled and finally dearly departed.  Gone to meet my Maker.  Join
the Choir Invisible.  I was an ex-ex-Beatle."

   Paul looked at him as if Rich had finally lost his mind.  "But you're
standing right here, aren't you?"

   Ringo reached for Paul's hands again, squeezing them both for moral
support.  "Get hold of yourself, Paul.  We have shocking news to impart. 
Ready, steady?"

   "Yes, yes, what?" Paul said, as if knowing anything was better than this
utter spin of knowing next to nothing at all.

   "If I'm dead, and you're speaking to me....  And I am and you are.... 
then guess who else has shuffled off this mortal coil?" Ringo pointed at
him.  "Eh, matey?"

   "What are you talking about?" Paul said, finally sensing an open door in
his mind.  Something was easing him back into remembering.

   "You've gone on to the great beyond yourself," Ringo said.  "And it's
not just a nasty rumor this time."

   Paul coughed out a second, bigger laugh.  "You're daft."

   "I'm not.  Reflect a moment, they'll let you remember enough to go on
with the rest of our story."

   McCartney drew back a full step, looking around them.  This was what
seemed so odd...so strange...this place.  As if this whole piece of life
had been shoveled up like mortal sod and plopped down in another site and
out of synch...in another time and out of place.

   "Good lord," Paul said, shaking his head.  "I've missed the whole end
game.  I lost out on half me fucking life."

   "No, no, you haven't.  Like the fellow said, death is a sleep and a
forgetting.  They anesthetize your memory as you make the leap.  And don't
ask me who they are because it seems to be everybody and nobody at the same
time.  Or no one is particularly disposed toward telling the likes of us."

   Paul shook his head.  "No!  I'm dreamin' this.  I've gotten hold some
bad tabs and I'm trippin' under somebody's sink somewhere, haven't I?  I'm
hallucinating."

   "No, that was my game when I first got here, too.  I'm still not
entirely convinced this isn't some sort of ether-induced delirium or a Lucy
flashback, but I'm beginning to be very strongly persuaded in favor of
reality."

   Paul circled around.  "You're joking...you must be." He gazed around at
the beautiful but strange if strangely compelling place.  "I mean, this is
it?  This is Heaven?"

   "No, not exactly.  Imagine, there is no heaven."

   "You don't mean it's -- ?"

   "No, no, calm yourself, me bucko.  No Hell either.  The old boy was
right on both those counts.  This place is sort of like the Afterlife.  But
it's not Purgatory or Perdition or any of those other Churchie concepts. 
It's sort of what the holy men meant when the gods told `em about the
Rapture and all that rot, but they did a piss poor job at the translation."

   "If we're dead, why are we in bodies?" Paul cut in, in quiet voice, to
ask gently...a bit of wonder in his words.  "I mean, it certainly looks
like we're in bodies."

   Ringo reached over and thumped his shoulder affirmatively.  "Spirit
bodies.  You remember holograms?  Help me, Obi Wan Kinobe, that sort of
thing?  These bodies are created from highly focused energy emitted from
our minds.  Our minds are electromagnetic, as it were.  Our head thingies
spin it into interference patterns until it solidifies into stuff."

   Paul listened carefully, nodding.  "Vibrational, you mean?  Like music?
The music of the spheres?"

   Ringo pouted a little.  "Yeah, they said you'd get it before me. 
Exactly.  It took me two days of charts and diagrams to grasp it.  And I'm
a musician."

   "Just makes sense.  And I like the idea of having bodies." Paul looked
around again.  "But where's everybody and everything?  All we've got is
Jude?  Where are all the harp-playing diaphanous angels?

   "Please," Ringo said, shaking his head.  "That dreary old angelic place.
We saved you from it.  The so-called spirit realm is terrifically oversold.
Perpetual chamber music.  Sunday night at the Pops and it never bloody
ends. Eternity reminds us of the worst potluck social at some Merseyside
Home for the Elderly."

   "Still, I'd like to have seen it, just to have the choice."

   "No, you wouldn't.  I went buggery crazy till the others broke me out
and I came here.  After I died, I mean."

   It felt as if Paul could finally see the whole sweep of their existence.
He saw before him a roadmap in his head.  He remembered, in a flash, all
the days that followed...loss like a wrecking ball into his gut...all the
years of growing old, being old, till at last he lost Ringo, and then many
of the other people in his life...

   "Wait.  You...died.  You did die, I remember now."

   Paul reached out to frame Ringo's face in his hands.  The other man
smiled in return - suddenly a haunting vision from another age: something
precious a lifetime lost, and now suddenly restored to him.

   Ringo's eyes misted over, nodding.  "I knew it would kick in
eventually."

   "Rich," he said, gathering the shorter fellow up in his longer arms. 
Paul kissed his forehead, raked a hand through his young-again hair.  He
pinched at his legendary nose.  "Rich, my God, you're really alive."

   "Alive and barely thirty."

   "My God... all that stuff I never told you and I wanted to tell you - "

   "Ah, we sorted through most of that.  There wasn't much left unsaid, by
the time we were heating up our liniments together."

   "But there was stuff."

   "There's always stuff, old man.  That's what all this stuff is
about...to make up for that stuff.  And we've got eternity to talk now. 
Besides, we need to show you around the new accommodations."

   "I'm staying here then?"

   "You couldn't be anywhere else if you tried," Ringo said, smiling
cryptically.  He toasted him and then finished off the wine.  Wine
consumed, the crystal vanished in his hand.  "I like being the one to make
enigmatic cosmic assertions.  Used to be the other two, didn't it, Paul?"

   Paul was still squinting around, looking for the crystal glass.  "I had
my own moments."

   "No, you didn't, you just thought you did when you were toking, and we
let you think it." He motioned him to follow.  "Wait till you see the
place. Forget the Ritz."

   Paul followed Ringo across the courtyard, to the edge of the cobbled
wall before the waterfall.  Standing near, Paul could see four distinct
palm prints flat against the center surface.  He thought he saw his own
palm print as one of the four.

   "Go on.  Put your hand up to the wall and wait for the magic," Ringo
said, smiling.  "It's so incredibly cool."

   Paul reached his hand up to a perfect fit over the palm print which was
clearly his.  Immediately, the colors of the glass wall filaments turned
ruby red.  The cobbled wall swung aside enough to reveal a door within the
wall.

   "Fantastic!" Paul exhaled, eyes big.

   "See, I said as much," Ringo said, leading the way through the wall.

   Paul as a boy once dreamt up his perfect, ideal, beautiful house.  Those
were the sort of dreams that were always compromised in the winter's light
of reality - costs versus sheer gravity in architectural truth.  But the
room that unfolded before him reminded him very much of this dream room -
all as beautiful a thing as he might have imagined.  It felt like perfect
comfort...and perfect artistry...all perfectly at peace with his soul.

   It was every ideal Christmas morning for which a soul had ever wished,
all coalesced in one room.

   It nearly moved Mr.  McCartney to tears.

   "This...is..."

   "I know," Ringo said, nodding.  "But wait till you see this."

   Ringo reached a hand up to a series of four palm prints.  Once again,
Paul spied his own hand represented there as well.  As Ringo's hand
touched, the whole room changed...now dark and deep and richly colored in
brocades and old velvet and ingot stone walls.  It gave the impression it
was half-cave, half-16th century castle, with a much homier, plusher spin
on things.

   "Fantastic!" Paul said again; because that was all he could really think
of to say.  "It changes?"

   "As you will it to change.  We have us a mood house.  Cool, eh?"

   Had the dictionary sought a visual definition for astonishment, it would
have shown Paul's face, with the term spelled out beneath him: Astonishment

   "More than cool." Paul turned around completely, three times, still not
seeing it all.  "This is bloody, damned, flippin' amazing...and then some.
Where is this place?"

   "Wherever we are," Ringo said.

   "You mean it goes with us?" Paul asked.  "That's not possible."

   "Oh, but it is, Paul," said another voice suddenly beside him.

   Paul turned around: not believing, half believing, wanting as much as
anything to believe.

   George smiled at him.  "In fact, I'd be prepared to state it is us in
its own way.  And the look on your face when Ringo disclosed to you the
awful truth about the death thingy nearly gave us all a case of the
rampagin' giggles, didn't it, Ring?"

   Paul reached a hand toward the face, as if it had to be an image from a
dream.  His hand didn't pass through it, but met a firm, solid surface that
felt like skin.

   "Look at you!" Paul said, unable to believe his eyes anymore than his
ears.

   He had been a schoolboy when Paul had first seen him...next to him on
the bus to school...this wondrous young man who had known all the words and
chords to --check that-- real rock n' roll songs.  This made Paul's friend
a schoolyard deity back in their day and age.  Somewhere, between a first
day and the others, they became good friends.  Through the fiery trials
that followed, they became something more than friends or brothers.  There
wasn't a word yet for what the four of them had become.

   Even when their comradeship hit choppy waters, he had always deeply
loved this sweet reed of a man who'd been his friend for life.  When he
remembered their love it seemed infinite in a deep, soul-devouring way,
just as his love for Ringo.  But he had grown comfortable with the terms of
his friendship with one Mr.  Richard Starkey whereas Paul's times with
George in comparison seemed turbulent and unresolved.  One half of him
wanted to find a firm and final place to stand with George, but found
none...because there wasn't one...and he knew it...anymore than there was
for Rich...or for the one whose name if recalled would surely break Paul's
heart...

   His choices had been either (1) ignore the depths or (2) surrender to
them completely.

   In his mind, Paul only discovered another memory of this gentle face the
last time he'd seen him.  And George had been much older and deeply ill and
not far from death in that other place and time.

   Here he was - young, full of life, smiling at him from beyond the grave.
Hell, from out of the grave.

   Paul's arms swallowed him up, and then held George away for further
inspection...for the defects of badly drawn dreams.  Paul found none.  It
was him.

   Macca grinned so hard, he thought his face might break.  He didn't know
whether to cry or laugh or kiss the little bastard full on the lips.

   "You're fuckin' here," he whispered, amazed, stunned.  "You're actually
you."

   George grinned, as though through the greater mystery of everything he
was feeling.  He smoothed away Paul's tears with his thumbs.  He tapped
both pudgy cheeks then kissed the thick of each of them.  "I missed you
badly and horribly and terribly, you know.  I can tell you that now, with
all the hubris removed.  And I must say you're taking all this surprisingly
well."

   "George thought you'd freak," Ringo said.

   George shook his head.  "No, not freak exactly."

   "Pardon us then what exactly did you mean by Paul will freak."

   "All right," George said.  "I confess I thought you wouldn't take it
well, but you should have seen this one when he came here." George pointed
to their friend the drummer.  "First he barked at us and said foul things.
Then he sat in a corner talking to himself.  You know what you shoulda
done, Rich?  He says.  You shoulda just stuck with Rory and them
Hurrycanes. Been a one-hit wonder for a few odd bob.  But no, you had to
sign on with those three and now it's all padded rooms for you here on out,
Mr.  Starr."

   Ringo cleared his voice.  "George's clever way of saying I thought I had
lost my marbles when I got here.  Not that Mr.  Sitar-Plucking Spiritual
Centre of the Guru Galaxy helped all that much."

   "How was I to?  You thought I was a hallucination."

   "It's not that really.  It was more complex than that." He brandished
his hand and its array of rings.  "For instance, I have here a favorite
ring from each different Ringonic era.  One theory I had was all this might
be like Madam Tussaud's in the future."

   "Then I pointed out Madam Tussaud's was all wax," George explained. 
"And that wax doesn't breathe.  But then his Ringoness here hit upon the
theory that we might be made of special, military top-secret breathing wax.
How was I to respond to that?"

   Ringo pouted a little.  "I didn't say I held to that theory now.  The
clothes thing persuaded me otherwise." He looked to Paul.  "First of all,
noticed your garments?"

   Paul touched at his chest, at the blue sweater beneath his hand.  He
looked down at himself.  His favorite blue running suit - the blousy,
sweatery one.  It had long ago gone to some rag bin and thence to some
charity auction or other, circa 1969.  He had often thought of it
fondly...well, as often as one thinks fondly of old clothes.

   "Good heavens.  This is an oldie but a goodie."

   "Okay, check this out," Ringo said, nodding.  "Behold your garments
now."

   Paul watched the blue fade to black and he was suddenly wearing his old
dark jeans and black mutton-sleeve sweater.

   "This is brilliant," Paul said, thunderstruck.  "You just rethink your
clothes and they're changed?"

   Ringo nodded.  "And no need to bathe or do any of those other vexatious
grooming things."

   "A fact which greatly pleased some of us," George added.

   Ringo tossed him a semi-sour look.  "There was a cheap shot.  Your just
dessert is that you can tell him about the other thing."

   "Which thing?"

   Ringo nibbled at the edge of his finger.  "That thing."

   "Oh.  That thing."

   Paul, still fairly distracted by his new way of changing clothes, barely
reacted.  "What thing?" he said.

   George smiled with forced bravura.  "Very well, here we go, so here's
the rest of it and then some.  Remember we mentioned the spirit bodies? 
Well, the things work like the old world ones, so we have to tank up on a
kind of...fuel...on occasion."

   "Fuel?" Paul asked.  "Food, you mean?"

   "Yes, if you like, we can eat and drink and all that.  But there's
something else, too."

   "Be careful," Ringo said.  "This he's not going to take well."

   "I was wrong about before, perhaps you are about this, eh?" George said,
looking again to their newly arrived friend.  "All right, here's all of it,
Paul...this is the worst, from a newcomer's perspective.  You see, to
survive we sap little bits of vital energy to replenish our own plasmic
cells.  Usually we do this straight off the Mater, but every so often, when
the opportunity presents itself, we can partake from living beings, so long
as they consent.  The nice thing is the whole process is very, very
pleasant, so they don't mind.  It's very, very, very pleasant for us, too.
Almost better than sex."

   "It is better than sex," Ringo added.

   "Certainly in your experience."

   Ringo eyed him sardonically.  "You're the one who refused to seek
counseling."

   "Stop." Paul held up a hand to staunch the flow of words around him. 
"You're saying we sap living creatures?  If I didn't have a firm toehold on
reality...such as it is...I'd think you were saying we're flippin' vampires
or something."

   Ringo shook his head.  "That's an ugly word for it, Paul."

   "What do you mean that's an ugly word for it?" Paul snapped at them
both, looking from one to the other.  "You don't mean to say we are
vampires?"

   "Calm yourself, Paul," George said, lifting his hand for a moment of
peace.  "No, we're not really vampires, in the
Bela-Lugosi-Castle-Dracula-big-ugly-Nosferatu-teeth and all of that manner
of speaking.  It's a metaphor of sorts.  And the blood thing isn't a
requirement...except for the first time.  That's all just showbiz, in the
abstract sense of things."

   Paul's eyebrows crawled to the eaves.  "Blood?  Except for the first
time?  What on earth have you two dragged me into?"

   "See, I knew you'd react negatively - "

   Paul buried his face in his hands.  "George, I fancy crossin' over to
the other side and becomin' a beautiful angel and instead I'm a vampire? 
And you tell me not to react negatively?"

   George smiled.  "You're a beautiful angel in any event, aren't you, Sir
Cute One?"

   "Nice try, that," Paul said, "but not working.  Not even close."

   Ringo elbowed George.  "Nice job there at the explaining thing, oh Quiet
One."

   "Well, I had a lot more insidious thing to explain, the vampire aspect
of things, didn't I?"

   "I had to tell him he was dead, didn't I?"

   "This can't be happening," Paul said, looking around as if for a route
of rapid escape.

   "It's not as bad as all that," George said softly, quickly.  He closed
the distance between them, to block Paul's flight and touch his old
friend's shoulder, to bring him around to the moment.  "It'll be your own
choice at the time.  Really.  And there are wondrous things, too. 
Beautiful and wondrous.  You'll see what we mean when the time comes."

   "I'd like to know some of the wondrous now, if it's all the same to you.
Just to offset the horror show facets a bit."

   George nodded.  "Well, we're physical with all that implies in the great
expanding human sense of things.  We feel everything we used to, the good
and the bad, but we cannot die.  And we're telepathic...well, we are, you
will be soon.  We've got an unlimited wardrobe, which the ringed one here
especially likes.  And we've spectacular digs, haven't we?"

   Paul nodded, as if forced to admit.  "It's very cool at that.  But we
don't...that is to say...I mean, you know...the sleeping in the casket
stuff...?"

   "No, no," George said.  "That's all just old Universal monster movie
gab. We rest in the dark just to conserve energy, but there are good things
about that as well." He smiled rather largely.  He pointed toward an
internal wall of light, dragging on Paul to force him along with him in the
indicated direction.  "Next we show you our personal accommodations, away
from the living space, I mean."

   Paul exhaled, shaking his head.  "It can only get better from here."







   The light wall dissolved into a dark room.  Not just dark, but black
dark, John Milton dark...O dark, dark, dark...Without all hope of day dark.
That kind of thing.

   George waved a hand and beyond it, the room glowed suddenly golden warm
and bright.  It seemed inviting beyond any previous welcome Paul had ever
known.  This was as home to him, in that moment, as any place he had lived,
in fact.  He had never been here and yet he felt as if he'd returned to
somewhere he loved and knew better than his own thin skin.

   "Avast, he's Merlin Harrison," Paul said, smiling.

   "Don't be a sulky boy.  You're the pretty one, remember?" George snapped
his fingers and the floor before them vanished into a sunken pool of silk
cushions and thickly piled pillows.  "Remind you of anything?"

   "Derivative artist, aren't you?" Paul said, grinning.  "That looks like
the sunken movie bed contraption, of course.  Increased in size by a factor
of four or so."

   "It helped to launch my celebrated cinematic career," Ringo said,
collapsing into the thick of the cushions.

   "The Magic Christian, Lisztomania and Caveman do not comprise a
celebrated cinematic career," George replied.

   Ringo pouted.  "You forgot Son of Dracula and Two Hundred Motels."

   "No I didn't."

   "And Give My Regards to Broad Street," Paul said.

   "No," George said.  "I definitely didn't."

   Paul and Ringo plucked up pillows and slung them at their friend.

   Paul ducked the return volley to lower himself slowly to the edge of the
pillow pit.  He looked around them, an attempt at casualness.  And in
truth, he was feeling fairly relaxed, funnily enough.

   "I've only just arrived and I already love this place," Paul said
softly. "You promised there were nice things and this is a nice thing.  You
said there were others?"

   George grinned roguishly, winking at Ringo.  "Time?"

   Ringo smirked.  "Past time."

   George lunged forward.

   He grabbed Paul's arm and dragged him with him into the bed pit.

   Paul fell amid pillows, feeling like he would never stop until he did.
Breath knocked from him, he reeled back against his arms.  After a moment,
he dragged himself into a defensible corner, coughing until he might laugh
again.

   "We're physically as young as we need to be," George explained, vaulting
another pillow in his direction.  He hooked an arm around Ringo's
shoulders, dragging him toward him.  He lipsmacked the side of Ringo's
face. "We have each other.  And..."

   "And?" Paul said.

   "Listen, Paul.  This is the important part.  I told you before, but you
didn't hear me.  Hear me now." George leaned forward to draw the full
attention of his oldest friend.  "Nobody.  Ever.  Dies."

   Paul shrugged.  "Sure, I sort of thought as much."

   "Yes, but you're not thinking.  You're not realizing.  Nobody.  Ever. 
Dies, Paul.  Let's count us into the next set.  One Paul...two
Ringo...three George..." He pointed to the space behind Paul's head.  "And
four?"

   The strategic pause between them might have been a whisper in time.

   "...you don't...mean..."

   George's eyes glowed with a radiant meaning.  He nodded.  "I do mean,
Paul."

   "No," Paul said, as if refusing to think...to believe... "That's not
possible.  Don't toy with me like that, it's cruel - "

   Ringo shook his head firmly.  "We're not toying with you, Paul.  They
left you somewhat unsurprised to see George and me, because we had a span
of years to sort through portions of the interpersonal toxic garbage barge
we created between us.  But because of the sheer impact involved, you
haven't been allowed to realize who else would obviously be here with us."

   "No," Paul said, without a breath to spare.  "All right, I can take the
dead and alive thing...maybe... Hell, I can even accept the vampire thing,
I mean, if I was dead and now I'm alive, that's dotty enough, so bloody
hell why not?  But I can't bear to think... I mean, if I turned `round
and..."

   He covered his eyes with his hands, straining for a last bit of calm,
but he filled his palms with tears before he could reach any peace.

   "Paul," Ringo said, stepping forward, as if to say something to comfort
him.

   "No!" Paul stepped away, composing himself raggedly, sharply,
desperately.  In another place, another time, he'd have never have
confessed this... He would have communicated this perhaps only through a
P.R.  buffer, a million miles away from his heart.  "When John...went...it
bloody killed me the first fucking time... It bloody fucking killed me..."

   "There's no reason to be afraid," one of them said...Paul couldn't tell
which now.

   "Afraid?  This isn't fear you see, its fucking incredulity.  I mean, who
am I joking?  This is insanity!  None of this is rational, let alone
possible."

   He turned around to seek an escape, in search of any alternate
direction.

   On the other side of the dark lay a room of light.  The light was so
intensely white it drowned out all other features -- blinding and
disorienting him -- like a midday gleam off December snow.  In the midst of
it all, he saw the faint odd geometry of what might have been a window and
moved toward it.  As he touched it, the lines that defined it melted at his
touch.

   All at once, the room of light was swallowed by Milton's Dark.

   He could see nothing...no thing...he might have been standing in a void
in space...but all at once he could hear everything.

   From everywhere around him, there came footsteps Paul knew better than
the rhythm of his own heart.  He had thought, before, he had known every
feature of fear.  He had thought, before, he knew what dread was.  There
was something nearing him now bigger than all of it... the personal Polaris
to his binary star system.  And whatever Macca was made of was responding
to it, at every level of being.  It was terrifying because it was so real,
so vivid, this...love.

   "Paul," said a voice the very sound of which instantly melted the last
vestige of what remained of Macca's resistance.  "You couldn't leave here
if you wanted to.  And the fact is you don't want to in the least and you
damned well know it, so quit playing like a hard to get queen."

   McCartney forced his eyes away, but he found himself opening them
against his own terror...as if he had gone on autopilot at the will of
something bigger than himself.

   He could see before him black sneakers...black jeans...a black
shirt...and finally...

   Paul's chin was touched by the tip of a finger and gently lifted up.

   Could there be anything more terrifying than a miracle in the clear
light of day?  Paul knew now there was only one answer.

   After a second, the man before him stuck out his tongue and made a funny
face.

   Against every muscle in Macca's body, a laugh jerked forcibly from him,
intertwining at once all love and wonder, terror and disbelief.  Through it
all, Paul would have expected nothing less from John Lennon.

   "Give us a kiss then," John said.  "It's been awhile."

   "You can't be here," Paul said, pushing back the wonder and love, in
favor of the more dogged demands of disbelief.  Paul was afraid to
think...afraid to believe, afraid to even consider belief or else have his
last hope dashed again.

   "Problem with your theory, then, Paul.  I am."

   "No.  No.  No.  No way this is happening.  I begged God for you.  I
offered up everything I had to have me wake up and find it all a horrible,
goddamned dream.  Do you understand that?  How can you just be here, you
bloody, fucking bastard?"

   "Because, this is the way it's supposed to be, love.  It's a long story
beyond all that, and we'll get to it eventually.  First we have to get
through what comes next.  Sort through this first, then the rest comes
after."

   "And that is?"

   "You'll see."

   Paul looked at him, as ever, with a mixture of pain and fury and
longing. "Calling the fucking shots as usual, Lennon?"

   "Haven't I always?"

   "To your way of thinking perhaps."

   John shook his head.  "No, really, in fact.  It's the natural order of
things with you and me, isn't it?  No avoiding the truth, Paul.  It is that
way and it's always been and it always will be.  I know you're not
comfortable with it, but that doesn't change a thing, does it, love?  And
if you didn't really want it that way, you wouldn't be here to begin with."


   "Lennon has it all sorted out, does he?" Paul shot back, so angry now he
could barely formulate words.  "Maybe I think you're mad."

   "No, Paul." Lennon smiled and took a long step closer.  Reaching, him,
he lifted up a daring hand to tenderly stroke Paul's face.  "You get cold
night clear about love and meaning staggering with a load of projectile
metals in your guts, believe me.  The panoramic life review leaves one
little room to doubt.  You only fled the first time because you thought I
didn't love you anymore."

   "Please.  You never loved me.  You said as much yourself."

   "I took that back, in public, too.  And I lied about a lot of things
regarding you, Paul, if you'll remember.  That's only one."

   Paul yanked back from him.  "Oh, I remember.  Sixteen months, John,
never mentioned in the world-wide press - that's what you left for
me...that was my reward for loving you.  Do you know what co-dependency is,
Mr.  McCartney?  Do you know what it does to self-esteem, Mr.  McCartney?
And all the while you kept batterin' me in the major media over and over
and over.  It never stopped.  You never let it.  And you got the rest of
the music industry to do it, too, Mr.  Love and Peace."

   "You know that I'm not proud of that.  But while you're making of
yourself a martyr, you might remember you're not entirely innocent either,
Sir Paul."

   "I didn't say I was.  The only point I'm making is I wasn't entirely
guilty either.  Yes, I'm flippin bloody fuckin' rich.  I can buy and sell
you three times over and still have change for tea.  You see, there's a
survival mechanism that sets in when you've had your light stomped on and
your soul bound for years and years.  I have that now.  As ye sow, so shall
ye reap and all that sorted crap."

   "Bad news, then." John gave him a gentle smile.  "Look around you, Paul.
You come here naked.  We have no money here.  No corporate attaché.  No
herd of Wall Street attorneys.  No miles of bureaucratic buffers to protect
you, Mister Billionaire.  We're here in the realm of all that matters, and
it's just us now.  I love you, Paul.  I told you early, I tell you late, I
loved you before you loved yourself.  That never, ever stopped."

   "I stopped, John.  I didn't let it happen again.  Let you destroy
me...again.  I made myself stop loving you the night you fucking died, you
damned - "

   He punched blindly.  Lennon caught the half-hearted fist like a bad
popfly.  John spun him around, forced his arms down beside him.  He pinned
his arms fast until the fight bucking furiously through the other man
gradually weakened and finally subsided.  There had never really been a
contest.

   "You bastard," Paul wept.

   "I know."

   "You bastard."

   "I know."

   As Paul sagged to his knees to escape, John sunk with him in a slow
battle to the floor.  Macca rolled one way to push off John's shoulders,
but John's reach countered the move.  All at once, Paul's fingers slipped
past the shoulder and merged into the wild brown riot of John's now
thirty-something hair.  The touch of it reflected sharply in Paul's big
eyes: some kind of validation of the miracle itself.
Macca's hand grasped at John's hair, as if at fading bits of panned gold
in an old miner's dream.  Like his own dreams, for years after.  But this

time, the gold was solid...the ghost was real... and it wasn't going away.

   Paul slammed a hard kiss to the side of John's face.  "You sweet,
fucking bastard."

   "I know."

   Macca could sob silently...without a cracked voice or wavering
word...which is how he had listened over a telephone extension to the three
whom he loved more than life talk about their long-ago plans to sue him. 
He'd wept his fucking heart out and they had never heard his tears.

   This time, Paul knew John could see them... and they all could hear
them. These tears would not go quietly.

   "You're really here," Paul whispered, still not quite believing.

   "I am, Paul.  I am.  And I swear I'm not going away."

   John held him gently, strumming the other man's long, darker hair like a
gentle, lilting ballad of belated sorrow.  He knew what Paul did not: that
the expense of emotion was dispersed as energy and Macca would soon be
surrendering to a restorative process which, in this higher realm of heaven
and earth, passed for a few hours of sleep.







   It was written that I would love you From the moment I opened my eyes
Paul McCartney

   As his eyelids lifted, the world around him was vague and indistinct - a
sketched charcoal outline so ambiguous he thought they might be less dim
visions than shadows in his own mind's eye.

   He reached up a hand to his shoulder, felt something under his touch. 
Something cool and sleek like satin whispering beneath inquiring fingers,
inciting a memory of other nights in other places.  Even the duvets in this
place were top notch.

   "When you're sleeping, you look like one of those rococo alabaster
cherubs," said a nakedly admiring voice hovering over him.  "Only you're
more beautiful."

   Paul smirked; opened an eye.  There was one brown eye staring down into
his eye, as if searching for something the seeker had lost.

   "You in there, Macca?"

   He couldn't stop the giggle, and he bloody well tried.  And a good 97.5%
of him wished to hell and back he wasn't this damned happy.  Not this
damned happy...not
sprinting-through-the-universe-painting-silly-arcs-of-rainbow-light-through
-furry unicorns happy.

   Paul opened the other eye.  "Where else would I be, Lennon?"

   "Dunno, but for a moment your eyes looked suspiciously green, didn't
they?  I was about to ask if you were William Campbell or Billy Shears or
some other perfidious fourth horseman of the Apocalypse and just what in
hell you had done with my Paulie."

   A grin was extracted from Paul forcibly.  He shook his head.  "My eyes
are hazel, as you know very well.  They pick up the color of whatever I'm
near.  They only look green when you're around, John."

   "If only that wasn't the truth." John sat back, tipping his head for his
further Macca inspection.  "So, you going to confess you're happy to see
me?"

   "Wasn't it appallingly obvious when I transformed into a blubbering
jumble before your very eyes?"

   "I confess, the anger kind of threw me," John said, leaning forward. 
"We had that lovely conversation before my run-in with the hand of God. 
Two hours of sweet talk."

   "Followed by the release of your album with the snarky cut meant for
me."

   "My lady told you what that was about."

   Paul nodded a little.  "Yes, she did.  She's about all that kept me sane
in the days after, too.  She's the only way I knew you...well...didn't hate
me..."

   "Macca, you didn't really think that - not really.  Of course I didn't
hate you.  Well, okay, I occasionally hated you, but you only hate people
you also love.  I even admitted on David Frost that I loved you more than
her."

   "David Frost was it?  Well, that makes it official."

   John grinned, poking a toe at him.  "Admit that you love me.  Go on,
admit that you love me."

   "Stop it," Paul said, giggles beginning to escape their internal
lockbox. He fended off the toesy intruders.  "I want to be grim and stern
and hard-faced right now.  I can't do that with you breathing sweet things
all over me." For the first time since awakening, he glanced around their
common room.  He looked, for a second, like a disappointed little boy. 
"You mean to say, I don't have any money?"

   "Not a henny penny, Paulie."

   "It's all of it gone then?"

   John nodded.  "Not gone, you just can't take it with you, like they
said. You leave it all behind.  But then we don't need any here because
everything is provided for us."

   Paul looked about suspiciously.  "I'd rather provide for myself.  Fewer
strings attached.  And anyway, what...provides?"

   John shrugged.  "Seems to have always existed.  Beats me.  But it gives
us much of what we want and everything we need, even when we don't know we
need it." He poked him with a flirtatious toe again.  "If you won't admit
you love me yet, go ahead and pummel me with questions.  I feel them
seething beneath your lovely exterior."

   "Stop flirting, John, it's hopeless." Paul fought to restrain the smile,
but it would not be stopped.  "I'll see if I can come up with questions,
though."

   John ascended slightly into the air.  He folded his legs before him. 
"We have a lot of new abilities."

   "So I see." If it had been Ringo levitating, Paul might have reacted
with surprise.  With John, it was somehow not unexpected.  With George,
levitation would have seemed de rigueur.  "How do you go about doing that
one, eh?  We can fly?"

   "Not really flying, is it?  More like artful hovering really."

   Paul winced at his approaching thought.  "We don't...you
know...transform, do we?  You know...really fly?" He flapped invisible
wings.  "Squeak - squeak - and all that."

   "Turn into vampire bats, you mean?  Well, of course.  It's our regular
mode of transportation, isn't it?  It's cool, too, sailing as great black
bats across vast distances bathed in spectral moonlight.  And we transform
into as ugly a bat as we are good-looking in life, which means you - "

   "Truth, John," George's voice dropped down on them out of nowhere.  A
window on the ceiling above appeared, a head poked through it.  "Tell him
the truth or I'll come down there and play my sitar in your face
incessantly."

   "Yes, Mahatma Harrison," John called up.  "All right, Paul, we don't
transform into vampire bats."

   "I didn't believe him anyway, George," Paul said.

   John poked a hovering toe at Paul's flat abdomen.  "You did for a
nanosecond.  You always believe me for a nanosecond."

   Paul smirked at him, glancing back up at George.  "What are you doing up
there?  Where's Ring?"

   Another window in the ceiling slid open.  Ringo's head poked down. 
"We're giving you and John space, which is what privacy passes for
somewhere where everyone knows what you're thinking and feeling.  The four
of us can't be as one and we're supposed to be as one until the two of you
are together again.  To do that, you must process several hundred thousand
accrued pieces of not-so-instant karma netted between you.  We'll be down
after the dust settles.  It's safer that way.  And less painful."

   "Over and out," George said, as he and Ringo's heads pulled out of view
and their windows shut quickly after them.

   "Meanwhile, back at Junior's Farm," John said, with added emphasis and
raised voice toward the ceiling.  He stretched out across the air, lowering
himself gradually beside Paul on what seemed to be a big, black bed.

   "Show off," Paul said.  "And for the record, I don't want to thrash
things out with you.  I got over all that.  I'm past it."

   "Rubbish."

   "Not rubbish.  That was shock talking earlier.  I got over it.  Even
your issuing bleedin' papal bulls every fifteen minutes on what a queenie
mawkish twat I'd become."

   He threw a gesture at him.  "Nobody paid attention."

   "Like hell they didn't.  After you...died, I'd guess you'd call it...I
got it all quoted back at me on the nightly news."

   "Partly your fault for going in front of the bleedin' news camera after
taking six benzodiazepines and two crobs.  You looked like a big, stunned
salmon.  I didna want to be alone...iss a drag innit?  I'm surprised you
were that erudite."

   "Your faithful would have buggered me regardless."

   He leaned in to flutter his eyebrows.  "Only if I let them.  You had
your own faithful who hated me, too.  We each are responsible for our own
flock, son.  Beyond which fact, don't spoil a poor boy's fun, I still have
issues."

   "Was ever thus, John."

   John gently popped a hand against the top of his head.  "Besides, your
little Maccapout just proved you're not all past it.  May I continue?"

   Paul shrugged.  "Go on, go on."

   "That's more like it," he said, rubbing his hands in ceremonial glee. 
"Firstly, recordin' with Whacko Jacko.  How do you reckon that one out,
eh?"

   "Boredom and stupidity.  That accounts for a lot in both our lives,
yours and mine."

   "But Paul, I mean you've got to grow a fuckin' ego.  You talk about how
big mine is...and I mean ego, ducks, don't give me that come hither
look...but you act like you don't know how great you are.  You go and take
up creatively with the likes of `im.  You know how that felt from the other
side, where I couldn't snipe about it to the press?  Damned painful, I'll
tell you.  Not a pig's ears to tickle in sight."

   Paul smirked.  "At the time, Jacko was the King of Pop."

   "Please.  You're one of the fathers of modern music - and don't give me
that look either.  It's that false modesty of yours which makes you do shit
when you should be reaching for stars."

   "Father of modern music?  Reaching for stars?  There's the heft of irony
for you, Mr.  Lennon.  What happened to `all you did was Yesterday'?"

   "Ach, that's why you should stay close.  The whip stings hardest when
it's flung from far away.  It was my tough love way of keeping you honest.
You got off on How Do You Sleep, admit it." Lennon wiggled his eyebrows. 
"And I took the meaner parts back and you know it.  See also Rolling Stone
interview and Playboy.  I gave several love fest interviews where I
practically French-kissed you through the Daily Mail."

   "The Martin Luther Lennon theologians never quote those, do they?"

   "When have they ever listened to a bloody thing either of us really
said? It always soars right past them.  Look at all those flippin'
interviews you gave in the `80s.  I mean, how many times have you blunt out
told some journalist that you and I fucked each other and they never -- "

   "John!" Paul hissed, looking around for security.  "They might've heard
you - "

   "They?  Who they?"

   "George and Rich!"

   John leaned over, knocked at Paul's forehead.  He blasted him a big,
cheeky smile.  "Headline news, Macca: George and Rich already know."

   "They do not."

   Above them, the ceiling windows slid back in unison.  Both heads popped
through at the same time.

   "They do so," Ringo said.

   George added, "They've always known.  We being the They of the first
part."

   Paul's eyes widened.  "Who the hell told you?"

   "You did," Ringo said.  "We walked in on you that time, about which you
only dimly recall.  And we knew anyway as we were playin' your songs for
all those years.  You think me and George didn't notice neither of you had
anything more than a showcase significant other for something like four
years running?  As if that all wasn't enough, half the city saw you two
spooning in the grass during the Monterey Jazz Festival.  We heard about
that one, believe me."

   George smirked.  "Hell, half of New York called me after they watched
Lennon and McCartney dancing at the Manhattan gay bars during John's
celebrated vacation from the Other.  That was loads of fun explaining to
cynical Atlanticans, I'll tell you.  Oh, that, they just like boy-boy
dancing with each other on occasion."

   Ringo nodded.  "And to think George had to bear up nobly through the
Inquest.  You'd crushed his tiny, tender heart, since he'd had a big crush
on both of you at one time or another."

   George looked over at him.  "And you didn't?"

   "Didn't say that, did I?  Just said you did."

   "Stop pouting, the lot of you," John shot back.  "We're all together
now, remember?  And what was that about givin' me and the Missus some
sorting space?"

   Paul shook his head, even now mystified.  "I still can't believe you two
know."

   George smirked.  "I can't believe you thought we didn't."

   As if just belting a Fizzy Lifting Drink, John arose slowly to the
ceiling.  He gently pushed the other two heads back through their windows.

   "So long now, farewell, don't be a stranger, ta ta, tot ziens, auf
wiedersehen," John said tartly, but quickly added, "But don't go too far
away, you two." He quickly closed the slide windows.

   "Quit pushing the lads around, John," Paul said sharply, craning his
neck to look up at him.  "That's really astounding.  They know.  George and
Ringo.  That you and I were in love."

   John smirked at him knowingly.  "We were in love, that's your story, is
it?"

   "Of course," Paul said, looking down into his hands at bits of nothing.
"Okay, you know, I love you...I admit it... But we've both gotten over that
in-love thing."

   John reached across to tow Paul's chin back to meet his gaze.  "You're a
pitifully appalling liar, Mr.  Paul McCartney.  You're as bad a liar about
that as you were about totally forgiving me for all my historical
trespasses."

   Paul looked up with wounded eyes, pulling his knees protectively to his
chest.  "And you come to this bit of wisdom how?"

   "By knowing you better than anyone.  I even know you a bit better than
the two with their fuckin' ears stuck to the parquet floor up above, and
they know you better than anybody." He yelled upwards.  "Except for me of
course."

   Macca relaxed a little, loosening his arms' grip around his knees.  "So
you can't read my mind then?"

   John lowered his gaze to peer into his eyes.  "Not yet, so you can stop
sitting there all cinched up like an anal retentive mummy.  We do need to
sort out our differences.  I suspect I know what you feel.  I damned well
know what I feel."

   "Do you?" Paul said, in more than brittle tones.

   "Yes.  I told you early, I told you late.  I loved you before you loved
yourself, Macca, and that's never changed.  It never will change.  In love,
on love, up love or what-have-you.  And what we're feeling is important. 
We're important, you know, and not just to us.  It's the point of all
Creation, I might add."

   Paul laughed darkly.  "Now your ego has really gone aground, John."

   "Not literally, Pauline.  I mean metaphorically.  You and I comin'
together tells us the why of existence."

   "Which is?"

   "In the beginning, God was lonely."

   "And lucky old God, along comes John Lennon to keep him company?"

   "Don't be saucy...not until later anyway.  In the beginning, there was
only the one thing - lets call it, for want of a better word, oh, God.  It
was fine, it was consistent and sane and peaceful, but it couldn't grow or
create and it wanted a companion to share all that was."

   "That was the reason for Genesis?  God created the heavens and earth
because he wanted a puppy?"

   "A soulmate, I mean...a kiara...a sacred friend, if you will.  So God
tore itself apart so it would have the other - problem was because it was a
unity, its other half was its opposite.  Without the immediate unity, the
halves fell out of synch with each other.  And so the immortal wheel of
creation began.  It goes on in you and me.  The friction of opposites
spinning the web of all being.  And giving each other bloody hell in the
process of being in love."

   Paul rolled his gaze upward.  "Oh, here it comes.  The bleedin' Tao te
Ching again.  And I'm the Yin, of course."

   "Of course."

   "See, that's the whole problem.  Like I said to Mahahahaha all those
years back.  Why do I always have to be the Yin?  Why can't you be the Yin
this time and I'll be the Yang?"

   "Because you're not Yang material, Paul.  That's not your nature."

   "It might be if I put me mind to it."

   "But it's not who you are, puddin'.  It would change things.  I can't be
me without you.  You can't be you without me."

   "Goo goo gajoob."

   "No, really.  We need each other.  We opted out of the climax yet again
in the final go-round of Liverpool Götterdämmerung.  But we're going to
deal with it now, Paul."

   "Sounds like you've created the perfect binary system in your head to
keep me under your thumb.  I thought we had gotten past all that in our
later years.  Maybe you just want to bully me again, like the old days. 
Well, I'm not going to sit for it now, John.  I'm not the docile boy you
used to play like a fuckin' cello.  I don't care if we never get anything
accomplished.  I'll sit in the damned corner over there and ignore you for
perpetuity, if I must."

   Lennon grinned.  "No, you won't," he said, moving across toward Paul on
the bed.

   Paul moved back a little.  "You said you couldn't read my mind."

   "Not yet but we have a way here of clearing the decks.  You know the old
Vulcan mind meld thing on Star Trek?"

   "The one Mr.  Spock did?  He's around here, too?"

   John smirked.  "Stay with the bleedin' program, ducky.  No, but we can
do that thing, I mean, or something like it.  And if you're really over
everything...including me in the hot and spicy old way...then we decide
what we do from there, but I doubt seriously that's an issue."

   He squinted, suspicious.  "You sound certain of yourself."

   "That bother you?"

   "No, of course not."

   "Then you won't mind my having a look," John said, reaching a hand
across their narrow division.  His hand nearly touched his face.

   Paul moved away, his back now flat against the bed's headboard.  "Didn't
say that.  It's an invasion of privacy, isn't it?"

   "Privacy?  Humbug.  We gave up privacy between you and me long about
1961." John leaned forward, his eyes lit up like all day.  "Just proves me
point.  You don't want me to see."

   "I didn't say that," Paul said, hiking his chin.  "Go on then.  Pinch my
neck, have a visit.  See if I bloody care."

   "Don't mind if I do," John said, grinning again, his hand finally
encountering skin.

   As if at the center of theatre in the round, a memory played across the
world enclosing the two of them.  John was both looking in and looking out.

   He saw an exposed light bulb burning, lonely in the dark.  Beneath its
glow, a shattered boy.  The boy was remembering.  He was remembering it all
before his silent eyes.

   A tall, strong woman stalking a worry like a fractious ghost through a
little door - only the door was no longer there.  Another person's shadow
stayed steady on the half-lit wall: "We can't afford it.  That's mine to
worry.  What are we to do without the other wages?  I can't go it now. 
There are things to be done.  You play, but it's me and the boys who pay."
"I provide.  I do what we have to do," said a second devoutly even voice,
heaving only slightly but tellingly at its locks.  "I'm not saying that, I
- "

   The memory bowed, followed by a quickening other: the same woman
surrendered to a small kitchen chair.  Another version of the shattered boy
slipped an arm around the weeping woman.  "We will get by, Mum," he had
whispered a promise.  She looked at him; eyes open wide, as if she saw so
much more than he did at any point in time.  She smiled while in her eyes
reflected the past and the future.  "You're my magic boy," the woman had
whispered, drawing him into her arms.  She seemed to hold on for dear life.
"My magic, magic boy.  Take care of them for me when I can't, my darling."

   Another moment gone, a second taken up: the same woman lying in a
hospital bed.  He could only see her through the grated door, but their
eyes somehow met in the middle.  In her eyes, more pain - pain of the
heart, not of the body.  "There's still hope, son," she promised, her
countenance now grave and thin.  "But if it happens, Paul, let it happen.
It'll be whether we'll have it or not.  Get on with things.  Let it be."

   The scene shifted through a different doorway: the same kitchen chair so
awfully empty now.  The morning had ended.  It was cold and silent in the
different room.

   In the converse chair, an ashen man sat stilted in the distant corner: a
thoroughly decent man, judging himself by his own iron-fisted inner code of
justice.  The ashen man was reading his open hands, as if skimming the
pages of an unseen book.

   "Dad?" his voice was small and failed him.

   "Son?"

   The boy cleared his voice to try again.  He said the only thing his
memory let him say.  "What are we to do without Mum's wages?"

   Between the man in the corner and himself passed a second figure.  A
woman like his mum, but younger.  She was carrying something in her hands.
She dropped down to a knee, near him, as if she might fill his field of
vision.

   "Got you a gift, Paul," she said.  "Cos' me a week's pay packet, but
it's worth it.  Look it here."

   It was a brown wood thing in his hands.  It felt cool and right to his
touch.  His hand slid up the neck as if boldly past another's swan-like
neck.  As he turned the wood thing over, he saw its silent conspiracy of
strings.

   "But Auntie, what is it?" he asked, his voice still small.

   "It's a guitar, Paulie.  You seen `em with us.  At the open market me
and your mum took you to in Mersey, remember?  I noticed you liked it.  We
put it away for Father Christmas to bring you, but you can have it now
instead."

   "The boy doesn't need -- " said the corner man, now relocated to the
window.

   "Says who?  The boy needs to communicate with something," his aunt shot
back.  She looked around again at him.  "Tell it your woes and pain,
Paulie. It'll always listen to ya, just like your mummy did."

   The boy, less shattered, let his memory drift to a different room.  The
same guitar was held in his arms, him speaking to it, it talking for him.
He was surrounded by his mates.  George, his beloved easy art friend, was
at his side.  But one mate would always stand out among the rest: always
and always.

   "How can you?" that one mate said, his voice pitched above all other
voices.

   The less shattered boy looked up from his conversation with the cheap
guitar.  The one mate was looking at him sternly: as if unswerving and yet
devoted in a way that truly frightened the staring young man from within.

   "How can I what, John?" the now less shattered boy asked.

   The other one gestured to the whole of him.  "How can you just sit
there, livin' normal-like, with your own mum dead and everything?"

   The boy shrugged a little, returning to gaze at his guitar.  "I do what
I have to do.  It'll be whether I'll have it or not.  Best to get on with
things."

   "Hush you, Jackal Lennon!" another woman said laughing.  Another older
woman of whom the less shattered boy was deeply fond.  Julia, the name
rushed up on him.  The woman reached across to kiss and rustle up John's
sun-lightened hair which John all but tried to push away.  She walked
between them.  "Paul knows what is right for him.  Leave him to his music
playin'."

   Yet another day: another hour, the older boy John seated at the center
of a room.  All other boys naturally spread out around him, an acknowledged
leader of men.  But the John's eyes lifted, seeking the surety of one face
only, and found it in the door.  John left the circle of others, heading
for the one he had seen.

   "Paul," John's voice lashed out, hard and tight as a battened sail
against the cresting wind.  The sail had finally found its head.  "Come
over here.  Please.  Christ."

   Paul leaned into his field of vision.  "John...I just heard...I..." Paul
wiped away the fresh crop of his own tears.

   "Don't talk, just hear," John said, coughing words instead of speaking
them.  His face was pale and blank and tear-stained.  His hands seized
Paul's arm, squeezing it for dear, old life.  "Lead me through this.  I
gotta go up and see me mum layin' in that fuckin' death basket thing up
there on the fuckin' altar.  I can't do this shit alone, Paul.  I'm lost.
You been there already.  You can lead me through it, eh?"

   "You know that I will," Paul said gently.  He reached for the other
man's hand, taking it in his.  John was so lost, he let him hold it.  Paul
pulled him along.  "Come on, John.  Don't mind the others for watching. 
I'll go there with you."

   Years later, over the big wild wall they scaled together...

   The sound of knocking...a sharp fist battering in terror at another
door...

   Paul's perspective, staring in through a cracked-open door.

   "Johnny - what's wrong?" he said sharply.  "I came home, I found your
note."

   A hand from within the row house claimed his coat lapel and towed him
into the dark.  It yanked him into covenant with John's face.

   Pale, eyes huge and glassy, skin moist: he'd been crying.

   "It was that Dawson prick who done it."

   "Dawson?  Tinky Dawson?  What'd he do now?"

   "That party!  That big jazz bash we went to.  The one last night at
Porgy Stemmon's house.  You left early, but the little bastard shit Tinky
slipped me some in a Coke.  He fuckin' dosed my fuckin' Coke, Paul, what am
I gonna do?"

   "Did you ring Hospital?" Paul asked, breathless as he hurled closed the
door to seal them in from the street.

   "For what?  So they can fuckin' call the farrows?  The Yard Weed Heat's
been doggin' us for three bleedin' weeks so you know they'd bust us sure as
sin and we'd be slam prattlin' in our knickers before the London Sun."

   "I'll ring some-..."

   "Who?"

   "Dunno!  Someone.  George maybe...Big George...he'll know someone who'll
know someone.  Someone who'll know what to do... Just sit here and - "

   "Don't leave me!" John's voice screeched out several hardscrabble words
across a textured floor of sound.  He grabbed Paul before he reached the
phone.  "Don't leave, Paul.  Don't leave me.  Don't want anyone else to
come.  Just don't wanna go down there alone, Paul.  Shit.  Stay so I don't
go down there all alone."

   Paul reached out to steady him, bring his eyes back to him.  "Then what
do we do?"

   "You're good.  You're the good one." His fingers unfolded to claim him:
last anchor to a benign lost world.  "You won't go back on me.  You shep me
through it.  I trust in you totally."

   "John - " Paul stopped a moment, fought for a memory.  "Do you have any
of it?"

   "Any what?"

   "Panes, John," he said, thinking for words.  He lowered his voice. 
"Acid.  Tabs.  Any of it."

   "Fuck no I don't, that's the whole damn -"

   "Think!" Paul said.  "In your garden.  The mad doctor's back up stash.
You let him hide it here.  Where?"

   There came a partial clearing in the dark mists in John's eyes.  "It's
buried under the peach tree out back!  There might be some there.  Why?"

   "Stay here, stay right here in that spot, Johnny.  I'll dig it up and be
right back."

   "And what the high holy fuck is that gonna do for us?"

   Paul gestured a moment, his thoughts racing, as he grabbed back the rear
door and thought but a few steps ahead.

   "It's all I know to do," he said, shrugging at the idea of anything
else. "If you go with someone, the trip's not supposed to be as scary.  So
I'll trip with you."

   John coughed out something blocking the words, his voice clearly
throttled for sound.  "Macca... You'd do that for me?"

   Paul looked at him in near-disappointment at the spoken words.  "Was
there ever any doubt?" he said.



   Doctor Robert's Stash was an arrangement of packets in a yellow shoebox
cache.  The smell of sweet raw earth pulled out of the ground, Paul's
fingers gouged up fresh mud to strike at cellophane.

   In the internal bag, several rolls of what looked like rub-on tattoos,
the youngsters called them.  They were waxy at the touch and bore small
planet earths at every square's center.

   Paul tore off a handful and stuffed the rest away into the bag, then the
bag into the box.  He shoved it all under, palming the earth across the
top, then patting it back down like mud pies.

   He cupped the tabs like a fading fire in his hand, as he shot back into
the house.

   "John?"

   "Here!"

   Lennon was hunkered down between the piano and the street backed wall.
He embraced himself as if his last, best friend.  He was looking down,
rocking back and forth, staring at something dead ahead of him, unseeable
and unseen.

   "Make it leave, Paul," John said, pointing at something that wasn't
there.

   Paul knelt before his friend.  "I'll send it packing."

   Paul tore away one of the tabs, considering it for a moment.  A moment
of admitted terror, to be quickly set aside.  It was resting in the valley
of his open hand.

   "They say it makes you see things..." John said in equal measures fear
and warning, his eyes lifting up at Paul with a dawning light.

   Paul looked down at the no-thing he had been asked to send away.  "Well,
yeah, I..."

   "No," John said shortly, his voice beginning to burn.  Intense was John
Winston Lennon's silent middle name, but there was a power in John's words
that McCartney had never heard in them before.  "They say it makes you
understand things.  About yourself...other...people... Things you didn't
see before.  Or tried not to see.  I wouldn't ever ask this of you -- "

   "You didn't ask me," Paul said, slowly tucking the tab beneath his
tongue and lower lip.  He drew a breath.  He took a very, very deep breath,
as if he was about to plunge into the depths of unknown water.  "Here goes
everything."

   Moments faded in and out of memory.  It cleared again to find them
sitting in the middle of the room, side by side, two backs against the
front-facing wall.  Paul's head was leaning back, as he was giggling
ambitiously at something already half-forgotten.  John was hulking forward,
staring fixedly out the rear glass doorway into the garden from which Paul
had come.

   "Well, look at that out there.  There's something you don't fuckin' see
everyday."

   "Such as what?"

   "I have an octopus in me garden."

   "You haven't."

   John pointed.  "I have."

   "I was just out there an hour ago.  I didn't see him.  A thing like that
is bound to be hard to miss."

   "Bah!  You know you never see anything unless I see it first.  Look now.
See for yourself."

   Paul leaned sideways, his head in John's lap.  He could see out the
backdoor to the wide drain culvert that semi-circled the tree.  And sure
enough, a very large, lime-green octopus smiled and waved back at him with
several friendly tentacles.

   "How'd I fuckin' miss him?"

   John laughed at the queer sound of a not-angry Paul openly swearing. 
"Well, maybe he's just now come callin'."

   "Seems pleasant enough," Paul said, waving back.  "Bright green, isn't
he?"

   "Yeah, but he wears it well."

   "Some creatures can carry off that shade." Paul turned over on his back,
his head still squarely in Lennon's lap, looking up.  "Weird I didn't see
him, but then I wouldn't see my own flat key on the hallway table if you
didn't see it first."

   "Well, there is one thing.  One thing you saw."

   "What thing?"

   "The thing I wouldn't see.  Not till now anyway."

   "Such as?"

   Lennon laughed, but the fragile sound splintered sharply into tears. 
The tears had burst violently through as if long gathering against a wall
that finally succumbed.

   "I can't tell you," he whispered.  He enclosed himself in his own arms
again.

   "Can't tell me?  I thought we told each other everything.  I'm your best
friend."

   John capped his hands over his eyes, as if at futile hide-and-seek.  His
breath was hitching deep within him.  "We haven't told each other
everything," John said, his fingers lowering just enough so he might gaze
down into the other man's face.  He allowed one unsteady hand to alight on
Paul's moist forehead, one finger almost tracing its length.  John's words
were a whisper when they started, but the sound - once born - gained
quickly in strength.

   "Like what, John?  What?"

   John exhaled a deep, burdened sigh.  "You're not my best friend, Paul,"
John said, and once having said it, seemed to relax a little into himself.

   Paul winced a little at first, until a greater understanding emerged. 
"How do you mean?"

   "You're more to me than a friend.  A bigger thing than that, I mean."

   "Best friend is a big thing."

   John laughed sharply, more from pain than anything.  It was the Tao of
John to laugh all the way into sadness.  "Not as big as this.  This is so
bloody big it blocks out the sun.  It fuckin' scares the holy shite out of
me in a way I never thought I could be scared.  And not just what it is,
but how fierce it is inside me."

   "What is it?"

   "You know what it is!" he hissed back.  "Quit actin'.  Stop actin' like
you don't know.  It's all so fuckin' fake...this shit.  All that play
acting is shit.  You and your whole bloody pretense about it."

   "What on earth are you talking about, John?"

   Lennon's gaze came around the long way, a tracking beam seeking only one
thing in the night.

   John stared through his bangs, spilling a little into his eyes.  He
rushed the hair up from his gaze - a gaze that might have burned old
leather.

   "I know, Paul."

   Macca sat up, spun around with urgency to look at John fully, but Paul
couldn't bring himself to lift his eyes.  "What do you mean you - "

   "I know!" he roared back at him, grasping at Macca's slender shoulders
as if to shake out a single secret.  "I know you go around with them. 
Those aging Teddy Boy bastards.  It's where you were this evening.  Why you
left the party early.  Fuck, even Brian knew about it coz he told me.  The
poor old bastard saw for himself what it was with us...with you and me...he
saw every fucking thing."

   Paul felt for a moment like he might pass-out from shock.  "What did
Brian say to you?"

   John was still looking at him, not once looking away.  "He said every
daddy queen in Great Brit was droolin' for you.  He was right sure you had
taken one of `em up on it.  He threw it in my face to see what would
happen. He saw what he saw when he said it.  Hell, I think it's half the
reason that he -- "

   "Don't say that, John!" Paul wailed back, a voice of rage and fright. 
The younger man was holding out both hands, as if keeping the thought
jumble away long enough for him to grasp it at all.  His face evinced, all
at once, a sudden understanding.  "Jesus...Mary...and Joseph... you know."

   "I know." John slashed the silence with his piercing laugh.  He
struggled to his feet, slinging himself over the piano to grasp the Chinois
vase boastfully standing there.  "It was that fine posh prick that done it
wasn't it?  The one the label sent."

   "Fine posh prick that - "

   "It was him!  Admit it!  He wanted to sell me the flat suite for this
squathouse.  Sold me this £10,000 vase instead.  Said it would give me
class, as if I didn't have none to begin with, unlike him.  But the worst
part of it all was how his fuckin' filthy stare kept puttin' it to you."

   Paul gazed up at the ceiling, as if he had wished for wings.  "What do
you want me to say?  You want to just shame me?  You're a fairer man than
that.  What is it - "

   "I want you to tell me you don't love him!" John said.

   Paul physically moved backward from shock at the words.  "What?"

   "Fuck a fuckin' skyscraper full of girls," John screamed on.  "I don't
fuckin' care about them.  I can't stand you bein' in love with some guy.  I
just can't bear it.  Just tell me you don't love that bastard."

   Macca blushed as deeply as his high tone natural pallor allowed.  "Of
course I don't love him!" he said, aghast.  His voice slimmed down into a
throttled whisper.  "It's not like that."

   John exhaled in deliverance at the words: some demon driven from his
soul.  "Thank fuckin' God...coz if you did.  If you ever love...any of
those...bastards..." John wall-slammed it - smashed the £10,000 vase into a
hail of blue ceramic.  It all fell to the carpet in brittle, whispy sounds.
"That's him.  Right there, that's him broken on the floor.  `Coz every time
you go with him...or any of them, it fuckin' rips out my - "

   Nothing.

   Suddenly, the whole conversation had shifted focus.  Suddenly, it was
taking a very different direction indeed.  One too wondrous to be real.

   It was all in the next word...the word Paul needed to hear at the end of
John's sentence... more than any other word in the world.

   "For Godsakes, say it, John," he whispered, as if cheering from the
sidelines and not standing in the room.  He shook his head, his lips
finally yielding to a budding smile.  "Please, just say it, Johnny, say
it...please..."

   "My heart," he snapped.  "It rips out my fuckin' heart.  Are you happy
now?" He kicked at the expensive debris field.  His palms wiped at his
eyes, jerking away the escaped proof he'd been crying.  "This is the
hardest fucking thing I've ever had to say in me life."

   Paul let himself breathe once.  "I know, John.  Believe me, I know."

   "I mean, at first, I blamed you for it.  I blamed you because you're so
goddamned beautiful.  I thought that any man would fall for you like he
would a fuckin' woman.  It was just a mistake of nature, I told meself. 
What I was thinking.  What I was feelin'.  But I was wrong.  Which means
I'm just as fucking sick and twisted as them shits you run with."

   Paul waited a long moment, trying to patch his thoughts together.  "You
think I'm sick and twisted, John?"

   "I didn't say that!  I said they're twisted.  I'm twisted.  Not you."

   "If you're saying to me what I think you're saying, then I would be
twisted, too.  Same as you."

   John slumped onto the piano bench in a posture of submission.  "No. 
God, no.  You're beautiful.  Everything about you.  Bloody hell, I need you
to write the refrain on this one, Macca.  I don't have the words to tell
you what I have to."

   Paul felt for the still point within him, to follow it to the bench.  He
scooped up John's chin with a tilt of his hand.  He smiled into his tears.

   "Remember the day we met?" He whisked the last of the drops from John's
face.

   "How could I forget?"

   Macca nodded.  "There I was, this little chubby mouseboy trying to act
like a real bad jack.  And there you were all tall and tanned from working
on the docks all autumn.  You were so damned grand.  I knew that even then,
but I thought I was admiring your gear stage presence."

   John laughed like something had broken through to understanding.  "No
shit," he said.

   Paul nodded again.  "There you were, with your cool attitude.  And the
whole week long, after we met, all I could think of was you.  You - that
was it.  I didn't know to feel guilty about it, because you know how it
was, when we were kids.  No one had a clue about all that.  The girls we
knew about, but not the other side of things."

   "Did it jolt you?" John asked in a whisper.

   "Sort of.  I talked to my art teacher about you, and he said I had a
crush on you and it was normal for a sensitive boy my age.  I have a
feelin' he was a closet case trying to banish his own skeletons.  That
sufficed, primarily... for awhile.  We had all the girls around us.  And
then the world exploded.  But then the night you told me what had happened
in Spain...with you and Brian...I felt locked out of this very deep place
that I wanted to be in with you.  I didn't want anybody else there but me.
It hurt like hell."

   John's every muscle went slack.  His weary head leaned sideways against
Macca.  "Sweet Jesus.  Please don't let this be the acid talkin'."

   "I've never been so sober in me life."

   "Then why haven't you said somethin'?  You knew and you still went
around with the likes of - "

   "I knew what was in my heart.  What would it matter if I told you, if
there wasn't anything on the other side?  I saw how you reacted to the hand
job thing with Brian.  If I'd said something about my feelings, I feared it
might ruin everything with you and me now, which is too precious to me to
risk on some blue sky dream of what we might become." Paul nodded to
himself, as if at an inner prompting.  "And to be completely candid, I was
a little banty chicken about it."

   John laughed, rubbing away new tears from his face.  "So.  What happens
now then?"

   "What do you want to happen?"

   John shook his head, laughing tightly.  He damned near averted his eyes.
"More than fuckin' anything?  I want to do with you a whole array of things
the very thought of which scares the shit out of me."

   Paul tilted his head aside, staring down into the small space between
their faces.  His fingertips came to hover just above John's mouth.  He
smiled shyly and moistened his own lips.

   "Starting slow then, in way of suggestion, what would be your reaction,
Mr.  Lennon, if I kissed you?"

   "I'd be forced to respond in kind, wouldn't I, Mr.  McCartney?"

   "I'd be significantly inclined to accept."

   One tear trickled from the corner of John's eye.  His breath hitched as
he drew it.  "If you don't fuckin' kiss me, Macca, I'm going to burst on
contact.  And since we're both good and dosed, I ain't takin' any chances."

   Paul teased him with a smooth, slow smile.  "A good point, that."

   John's soft lips were a high polished coral shade like carnation petal
pearls - as distinctly male as silk from satin, Paul thought to himself. 
That mouth tantalized him incessantly, especially when John fancied Paul
was watching him and strummed the measure out to its fullest.  John was a
man who always played to his strengths.

   Paul neared his lips to John's.  John's tongue lashed out and up into
Paul's mouth, as Macca's lips enclosed it.  His long, eloquent fingers
filled hands with John Lennon's hair.  When he sensed John shifting upward
he knew he was about to attack.

   John shoved Paul to his feet, and then flipped him over against the baby
grand.  His lips locked down to overwhelm Paul's mouth, as if to suck up
his breath and swallow down his soul.

   John dipped to his knees, dragging Macca sideways under the piano.

   The hours spun forward through the sequence of moments.  Another memory
emerged.

   A brightness, all around.  Two voices beside them.

   "Ah, look at that, will you?" Ringo said.  "A final consummation to the
mating dance of the musical genius avis."

   "So I see." That was George.

   "Later," Ringo said.  "We'll have to get sottish over this in a major
way."

   "Oh, we will.  First thinks first, though." John and Paul both felt
their legs being shaken.  "Lads."

   John looked up first, squinting through a fall of Beatles mop hair
across his eyes.  "Oh, hullo, George.  Hullo, Rich.  Hey, Paul, wake up,
it's the boys."

   Paul picked up his head from under John's arm.  He looked around.  "So
it is.  Hi, lads.  Oh, hey, we have big news."

   "Now there's a shocker," George said, grinning.  "But just so's you
know, you're stark naked and all wrapped up in each other's arms in full
frontal view of the flippin' world.  Not that Ring and I care, but when the
cleaning crew comes marchin' in at the top of the hour, Cambridge
Janitorial Service will have much to report to the men of the press."

   John looked over his shoulder at the door.  "Georgie has a point, Paul."

   "Of course Georgie has a point," Paul said, reaching across to pat his
knee.  "Georgie always has a point.  We love George, don't we, John?"

   "We do indeed.  And we love Richie, too."

   "We do.  A lot.  As much as we do George."

   "I know."

   "Well, it's settled.  We all love each other very, very much," Ringo
said.  He flipped a high-arched look at George.  "You grab the smart one,
I'll get the cute one."

   Moments shifting, days on end.

   The sound of an angry fist slamming into wood.

   Three men in dark suits jumped at the sound: they were inside an office
on Blair Annex, just off the top of that road and Berkeley.

   "That's shit," John said, as ever using his body as a distinct and
looming threat.  "It's the 1960s, for Christ's sakes.  We're all talking
about walkin' on the moon, and you tell me that Paul and me can't love each
other in the light of day?"

   "I'm not saying that, John," Phil from their management said, sitting
forward.  He lowered his voice, in deference to the men in the outer office
who were all slamming phones in full, terrified ripping crisis mode.  "For
pity's sake, I'm community.  You know that.  And I'm telling you love each
other.  Cherish each other.  Live with each other.  Make love to each
other. But do it behind closed doors."

   "This is our love?  We're the stars, and we have to hide it?" John said,
flipping it back in his face.

   "Yes, I'm afraid you do.  That's just the way it is."

   "Why?"

   "Because we have all invested a lot of time and effort in your rise to
the top.  Yes, you two are among primary reasons, but we're all involved.
So are George and Richard - "

   "George and Richie said it was our decision," Paul answered that, from
his location on the opposing sofa.  "They said it was up to us."

   "They would say that.  They love you.  More than I do even, and I'm an
old friend.  But I'm asking you to put them first a second.  John, you were
raised all nice and tidy on your aunt and uncle's dairy farm.  But Paul,
you've been ruddy poor.  You want to go back to that?  To Council Housing?
For your families?  I sure as hell don't want to go back to pushing papers
in a Broadstreet storefront, I'll tell you.  If I could save enough of a
reputation to do as much."

   "Money isn't the only consideration," Paul said.

   "Christ, I know that.  Here's one more.  What you boys want to announce
so freely to the masses of humanity is still a significant criminal offense
in the United Kingdom and the United States, to say nothing of the
Anglo-Saxon world.  The bloody straights hate you anyway.  There are a
whole host of latter-day Queensberrys straining at their locks to right the
world again.  And they'd spit in their tea to stick you both with
scurrilous charges and a lengthy prison time.  It's only been sixty years
since Oscar Wilde left Reading Goal, boys.  And you wouldn't be together in
prison, I can assure you.  You might not see each other for years...maybe
ever.  John, you may survive in prison, but can you imagine Paul in there?
With his physique and sweet looks?"

   Paul leaned over, surrendering into his own arms.  "It's hopeless then."

   Phil gave them both a sad smile.  "Look, I know it's horrible.  I know
it's tragic.  I live that tragedy every day of my life.  And I'm happy as
hell for the two of you, honestly I am.  But half the fuckin' schoolgirls
in Great Britain and North America want to bear young Macca's babies.  A
significant portion of them wouldn't mind tossing out a few of yours, John,
come to that.  The sex thing is part of the allure.  Even if the legal
changes we hear coming make it to the books...and hasten the day... can you
imagine what the shock would do to your record sales?  To all you've worked
so hard for, for so long?  All that George and Richard have worked for. 
Like we all have done.  You can't change the whole bloody world in a week."

   "Yes we can," John said.  "That's how we change it.  One hero at a time.
Paul and I want to stand up and tell people.  Walk in the full light of
day. Say to the whole world look what we've accomplished...here's our
music, the product of our love.  Listen to its beauty.  That's what we
are...there, in those songs, those are our children together."

   "That's a beautiful idea, Johnny," Phil said.  "A beautiful one.  But
many good men have died for beautiful ideas.  They're still dead, and the
world goes on just as ugly." He looked from one to the other.  "Remember
what you've come from?  You're both rich, powerful young men.  You can have
so much, just being together in private.  We can even setup a third house,
a big estate somewhere, perhaps on the continent...fragrant strawberry
fields for miles on end for you to be together.  Bare your real selves in
private and save your brave faces for the rest of the world.  You don't
need to perform for the world."

   Paul looked up.  "You saying the pressure of hiding won't split us
apart?"

   "It might, I won't lie to you.  It's a damned hard thing being what we
are in this world, I'll tell you.  With all the external pressures being
applied to all of you, especially.  People with their own agenda just love
splitting up couples anyway.  But stay calm, stay focused, stay together.
It all works out in the end."

   John looked around for an available object.  He grabbed up a book, and
hurled it at an empty chair.  "None of this matters if Paul and I can't be
together.  If we can't walk through Covent Gardens holding hands, like the
other people in love.  None of it matters."

   A shattering pane of glass.

   A trickle of years.

   "Paul," said the man leaning into his field of vision.  The man was some
doctor from somewhere...some psychological claptrap spinner...somewhere. 
"Have you ever heard of something called Co-Dependency?"

   "No," he said sharply, tossing a look at him like a warning shot off the
starboard board.

   "It's a disorder, for want of a better word, that is really only
beginning to be understood.  It's about what happens after long-term
psychological and emotional control.  Verbal abuse.  Criticism.  Bullying.
That sort of thing.  Over the years it accrues, until you lose the walls of
where one person leaves and another begins.  We feel this may be the
situation here.  Usually this is relegated to
abused...spouses...families...in domestic situations, but - "

   "This is dreadful.  I've never even met you," Paul said, moving forward
in the chair.  "Who are you to come in here and diagnose me?  It's just a
dishonest way of callin' me names.  At least John does it to my face -- "

   "Dr.  Arthur is only saying - "

   The door to the office suite had come open and Phil from the rep was
standing in its way.

   "Doctor Arthur is doin' your bidding," Phil said, to the moneyman's
back.

   The moneyman had turned toward him.  "And who are you - "

   "Never mind," Phil broke in.  "Paul knows who I am.  I'll say to you the
same thing I just said to the Lennon entourage downstairs.  You're using
these boys.  If you really understood anything about them, if you cared,
you wouldn't be here.  I know what's happened, you don't.  It's not their
fault other than in not listening to their hearts.  It's all about people
coming between them.  People like you."

   "We're trying to help Mr.  McCartney - "

   "You're trying to help yourself," Phil snapped.  "You're doing the work
of the devil, the lot of you, and it sickens me.  You use them against each
other.  Breaking up the two geese that lay the golden eggs so you can take
one and them the other, and then both camps get a cut of the egg money."

   "It's okay, Phil," Paul said, quietly.  "I'm handling it."

   "Paul," Phil said gently, as if heading near a deep and open wound. 
"You're hurt now.  You're jealous.  You're angry.  Okay, I don't blame you;
the powers of division are winning right now.  In your self-protectiveness
you're doing things you can't take back.  I know why you're doing them, but
they don't.  They out there, I mean, in the teeming streets and in the
paper offices.  You're going to look like the bad guy, Paul, and I know
you're not, no more than John is."

   "I'm right," Paul said.

   "Probably, but I don't care.  Neither will they.  Neither will you
shortly.  It's not about what's just, it's about what's real.  If it was
merely about justice, your legion of record-buyers would try to understand
where you're coming from and wouldn't mind you for being who you are." Phil
tossed a look around the room.  "I think that's cryptic enough to get past
the straights.  Listen to me; you're going to regret this, Paul, every day
of your life with all that you are.  I promise you.  And I've just said the
same thing to John."

   "Understood," Paul said, numbly.

   Phil shook his head and left the room for the hall.

   "Mr.  McCartney," Dr.  Arthur said from behind him.  "Please, in way of
response to all this, let us play for you a piece of evidence."

   "What?" Paul said shortly, clearly trying to find his agonized way back
to dissociation and an emotional deep freeze.

   Arthur's hand reached over to press a button on a reel-to-reel tape
player.  At first, it was only a thready squeak of sound.  "I want you to
hear something.  This was collected during your last studio sessions when
you didn't know we were taping.  Get mad at us later, just hear it.  I want
you to tell me who it is who is talking here."

   "I don't have time for - "

   "Just listen."

   Suddenly, a voice.  Tough words, short sentences, punctuated pauses...an
unmistakable voice that almost bashed in the fragile bearings of his recent
freeze.

   "That's John," he said, his voice almost breaking, taking everything he
had inside to keep it flat.  "Shut it off."

   "Is it?"

   "Of course!  I'd know John's voice anywhere."

   "Mr.  McCartney," said a new voice, nearer him.  He shut down the sound.
"It's not John Lennon speaking there.  That's you.  We can take you right
now and show you that piece of film that corresponds to it.  From...Get
Back...?"

   "Let it Be," said the other man.  "Its been retitled."

   "That's me?" he said, as if the idea was crazy.  "That was me?"

   "Yes," the doctor went on.  "This is what we're talking about.  You've
ceased to have your own distinct existence.  Listen to your voice.  You
sound exactly like John Lennon.  Not a little like.  Exactly like.  You
didn't recognize your own voice when it was played back to you just now. 
Can you see the hold this man has on you?"

   "So what?  I've lived and breathed John Lennon since I was a kid."

   "That is my point." He paused a moment.  "Why Lennon/McCartney on your
record?"

   "Is that any of your business?  It didn't mean that much to me who went
first.  It did to him."

   "Why, in Hard Days Night, are there four individual spotlight sequences,
five originally, but yours hit the cutting room floor?  Why does John have
two?"

   "That wasn't John's doing.  In the interest of pacing, one of them had
to go."

   "So once again, you fell on your sword.  Very well, then why Lennon and
McCartney at Apple?  Why is it on every contract I could find, John's name
always comes first?  Why?  It's almost like a controlling husband with a
submissive wife.  The only exception is MacLen publishing and it's the only
exception I could find.  Why is it time after time, you end up second rung
under Mr.  Lennon?"

   "Don't tell me who John is to me!  You know nothing about us!"

   "Paul," the man in the tie said, approaching him to block the way of the
doctor.  "You have to break the cycle now.  If you don't, you may never be
free -- "

   "Maybe I don't want to be free, have you thought of that?  Maybe I'm not
supposed to be free.  Maybe it's not good for me to be free.  Had you ever
thought of any of that?  Sometimes I don't know what's right maybe.  Like
that fucking investment portfolio thing.  It never even dawned on me..."

   "Mr.  McCartney," Dr.  Arthur said.  "That was spoken like a classic
battered spouse."

   "Stop making me sound like I'm soft!" Paul snapped.  "We're all to
blame. Me as much as them.  We'll talk it through.  We'll find a way
through it, we always do."

   "Lennon is threatening - "

   "John always threatens - "

   "He's saying he's going to - "

   "I know," he screamed, lifting something off some table somewhere and
hurling it at something else.  "I watch the bleedin' telly news every night
the same as you.  I know what he's sayin'." At that, Paul jerked away from
the chair and the people and the hard light of day.  He walked to the
picture window overlooking the City.  Paul wondered how far it was to fall
from there and if he might somehow fly away.

   He felt a hand sink to his shoulder.  "Paul, we're just doing this for
your own good."

   "Are you?"

   "Yes.  This woman - "

   "This woman has a name.  It's only courtesy to use it," Paul said,
battling back what was leaking anyway from his eyes.  "Fuck.  He called her
the lady...that lady.  He said to me she was a Major Sufferer.  Into
suffering for art and all of that.  And suddenly, after the shit comes
down, she's all of a sudden it.  The one.  How does that happen so fast?"

   The other man shrugged.  "She got in his head?  He got in hers?  Or
maybe it happened?"

   Paul looked away, toward an ashen sky bouncing off a dwindling day.  "I
don't fucking care anymore."

   The office door opened.  Another suit...there were tons of them.  "We
need to hurry him out of here.  There's someone coming up the stairs."

   "Mr.  McCartney," somebody said, and he felt himself being jostled out
the room and guided to the lift bay.

   Hard steps in determined motion trammeling onto steps churned at the
corridor's center like a silver sphere in pinball play.  The stairway was
topped and the hallway was entered.

   "Where is he?" said the voice he knew so well...too well...not well
enough.  And then it was racing in his direction.  "You can't go with her,
Paul.  We're not going to let you."

   He found somewhere, the voice within him.  "You're not my owner, John,"
he barked back.

   "I'm not your owner?  I'm not your owner?  We belong together, you and
me, we belong to them, so you can't go with her.  This isn't you doin' any
of this.  She's gotten into your head, Paul.  As soon as you're apart from
her, you'll see it.  It's as simple as that."

   "Wait just a second," Paul shot back.  "Who's leaving who?"

   "You know what I'm saying -- "

   "No, I don't."

   "My woman knows we're all together.  It can be all of us.  You'd see
that, too, if it wasn't for that woman blinding you to it.  Don't tell me
about the money.  You don't give a fuck about the money.  You drive a piece
of crap.  You're a skinflint about your own stuff.  You'd give it all away
if someone let you do it.  Money's just your dominator drug of choice so
you're using it to build the wall."

   "Maybe you're the one who's drugged.  In any event, I overheard your
phone conversation."

   John shot the other man withering glances.  "I guess they've spun that
for you as well.  You've left us no choice.  But it's for your own good,
Paul.  One day you will see - "

   "I see, John.  I see.  I'm not a starry-eyed boy anymore."

   John moved up near his face.  "I will promise you one thing, you go with
her, and you'll not have a fucking moment's peace from me.  I won't let
you, for your own good.  You won't be with her without my shadow hanging
over you, today or yesterday.  The only place you'll be alone is on the
fuckin' moon."

   "You left me already, John," Paul shot back, amid an oncoming rush of
tears.  "My advisors are trying to protect me.  Finally.  Someone is trying
to protect me.  You're the one who chose sides.  And it wasn't mine.  It
was never mine." He turned a winter's worth of glare at him.  "You hear me,
what goes on from here is business.  Nothing more, nothing less."

   In his eyes, McCartney saw the hunger of things deep in the flesh.  It
was a hunger with only one source of satisfaction...and he was it.  And
half of him wanted to be taken.  And half of him wanted to escape.

   "Listen to me.  Hear me," John said.  "I promise this to you.  I'll
crush you if you do this.  For your own fuckin' good.  They've got your
soul in their teeth and I'll have to shred you to pull you away - "

   "Who are you to tell me - "

   "I am you," he howled back.  "Every time you hear my name from now on
you'll flinch at the fuckin' sound.  Every time anyone hears your name
they'll only remember what I say about you.  So long as you're with her,
every day will bring another torrent...another torment.  Did you hear the
one this morning?  And I'll tell `em what I want to tell them - I'm the
smart one, remember?  I'm the one with the mouth who they listen to. 
They'll quote me."

   "Mr.  Lennon," the doctor said, trying to block his physical threat, "I
really must insist."

   John was looking at no one but Paul.  "Leave me," John said again,
breaking past him.  "And you won't be able to get far enough to be free of
me - "

   "You left me already, John," Paul said again.

   A wall of men in business attire, as if at directive, emerged from
office doorways to move between them.

   John lunged above the Brooks Brothers wall.  His hand struck for flesh,
but touched air as Paul was snapped aside by the suits that made him walk
toward the lifts.

   "You can't even light your own fucking smoke - " The howl grew louder,
harder, thicker, tortured.  John had rammed his way through people,
throwing them off one by one to reach McCartney.  He was almost to the lift
bay.  "Where were you...who were you before ... You're murdering us, Paul,
you're murdering - "

   Some lawyer, Macca was never sure whom, pushed him through the door to
the elevator.  He was thrust into a lift.  But just before the doors
closed, John's hand forced through the gap, clutched at Paul's collar as if
the last float off a sinking ship now bound straightaway to hell.  He
jacked him toward the door.

   John's face was a mask of icy tears.  "Who you going to write your love
songs for now, Paul?  They ever gonna mean anything again?"

   Something shoved McCartney back into the elevator.

   The last thing Paul heard before the whole world dropped away was one
dying scream: "Maccaaaaaa...."

   The muted thundering voice continued, screamed on, unabated, rolling
against walls which echoed back and continued the rambling crescendo.

   The only thing louder in the world that moment was the sound of Paul's
own scream in reply.

   Years followed...times past...things settled...

   Danforth Kilmer's Pub on Liberty Street, somewhere and sometime before
last call.

   A young man in a fairly expensive Macintosh had the waiter refill his
coffee.  He once more checked his watch.

   Finally, the double wooden doors opened.  Another slightly older man
walked through, wearing a sleeveless Amiri Baraka t-shirt, spray-on jeans
and a pair of impenetrable mirror shades.

   "Hadn't you heard, Paul?" he said, plunking into the chair across from
him.  "You've got to buy you some fuckin' taste.  Macks have been out of
fashion for thirty years now."

   "Not in my house."

   John smiled flirtatiously snapped his chewing gum and pushed a cocktail
napkin across the table to the other man.  "Wipe the drool off your chin,
Paul."

   "Still quite fond of yourself, I see."

   "Good of you to notice, such a rich, important man."

   Paul flicked the napkin back at him, pointing at his chin.  "Perhaps you
should have a go at yours as well."

   "Pointless," John said simply, ashtraying his smoke.  "I never stop
drooling where you're concerned."

   Paul nearly dropped his coffee spoon in surprise, but surrendered it
gradually instead to the cup.  He shifted back in his chair.  "I see you
started smoking again.  That's not a good sign.  How's the family
situation?"

   Lennon crossed his legs to strike a pose.  "Oh, sweet of you to ask,
Paul, very well, and yours?"

   Paul smirked at the sarcasm.  "We're fine, John.  You on the other hand
are another matter.  You're creating quite the commotion in the London
press.  Seems you're out using and abusing everything within a ten mile
radius of Manhattan.  Sounds like you and she are at odds."

   John's voice lifted into his polite conversation mode again.  "That's
the way with every modern marriage, don't you think?"

   "Please.  That's no marriage, that's bloody street theatre."

   John dropped the posturing.  "Well, pardon me, but I seem to recall
you're something of a performer yourself."

   Paul shook his head, leaned forward slowly.  "I'm tired of fighting.  I
told you that before.  I'm sick of living in the land of your double-edged
sword.  I'm here to make a suggestion to save your fucking life."

   "Says you."

   "Says the New York Times," Paul said.  "You willing to listen?"

   John picked up the cigarette he'd stranded behind.  He sucked at it in
punctuated fashion, and then put it away.  "It'll be worth a titter or two.
Chatter on."

   "Go back home to the Dakota.  At very least.  Right now, you're killing
yourself."

   "And at most?"

   Paul averted his eyes so he could say it.  "Come home with me.  Come to
Scotland."

   "Come to Scotland," John said, squeaking his voice.  "And see the land
of the Stone of Scone."

   "Knock it off, John.  It's a genuine offer."

   "One we've discussed before, Paul."

   "And we're discussin' again it seems."

   "I'll have my own little guest house, will I?  Wouldn't that be lovely?
Be some lovely little pet for the great Lord McCartney?" John kicked back
in the chair again.  His gaze was a constant, unrelenting dare to the edge
of truth.  "If the two of us somehow survive long enough we'll end up
together again.  You and me both know that.  That's why you squirm at it -
coz through your entire mighty McCartney pretense; you feel the fuckin'
gravity draggin' you back, just like I do.  I wouldn't be us with you and
her.  I'd be me and you and you and her, and wouldn't that be precious?  So
why not knock off this bogus bourgeoisie façade of yours and just fucking
come home with me instead?  I'll go home if you'll come with me."

   "She despises me."

   "She doesn't know you.  Let's change that."

   "Anyway, that's not my home - "

   "I'm your home," John snapped.  "I try to push you away...you try to
push me away, same as always, but it never works, does it?  Some of your
little gibberish tunes don't fly past me like they do past the professional
music snobs.  They make fun of them as meaningless, but I know your code.
The situation being what it is, you can't write what you mean to say, but
they don't know that, do they?  So don't tell me a bloody fuckin' thing has
changed between us.  My offer still stands.  And once you get your head
right and stop thinkin' like the French Vanilla straights, you'll fuckin'
see that mine is the only way for you."

   "I don't know why I bother to be concerned," Paul said, throwing down
the cocktail napkin.  He pulled out greenbacks from his pocket, tossed them
at the table.  "You go out of your way to insult me.  You call me names to
the papers.  Every time I turn around or pick up the tune rags, there's
some new attack on who I am and what I've done and my music."

   John reached out and grabbed his hand.  "Don't try that shit with me,
Macca.  Not with me.  I know what's in your heart...I've lived inside it
for twenty-five years.  I know you get off on it when I strike.  Act badly,
get some attention, eh?  Well, I've noticed."

   "You think everything's about you."

   "Half of everything you fuckin' write is about me.  Go ahead, deny it, I
don't give a fuck.  The truth still stands.  `Two of Us' is about you and
her and `Hey, Jude' is a song to a child and oh `Jet' you wrote about your
little pet dog.  Say what you must.  But I know, Paul.  I know.  And here's
your answer to it all.  I really love you...this is really love with you
and me, not some charity event for the papers... not some dumb song
play-actin' crap... and sometimes love stings.  I love you so much I risk
your wrath by telling you the fuckin' truth.  Who else in the world was
going to say those things to you but me?  And admit it; you think your
stuff is crap anyway.  The fact of the matter is I believe in you more than
you believe in yourself."

   "That's bullshit.  What you say isn't truth, John, it's intentional
cruelty.  Control.  That's what it always is with you and me."

   "Who you controlling now, Paul?" John pulled Paul's hand toward him and
reached for his own still smoldering cigarette from the ashtray.  He
grasped the lit butt and screwed it down onto the back of Paul's hand.

   "Christ," Paul gasped, yanking back the target hand.  He stared down at
it as the new wound reddened and rose.  "What the hell did you do that
for?"

   "Pete, ice," John called to the barman, who filled a cup with cubes,
swung it around to their table, and busily made himself scarce.  John
pulled a cube out of the glass.  "Pass the mitt over, Macca.  Come on.  Be
a good boy."

   "Why, so you can fuckin' freeze it, too?"

   "Stop ya sniveling." John grabbed Paul's hand, pulling it over to him.
He wrapped the ice in a napkin, and blotted it over the burn.  Once cold
enough to stop Paul's pain, he removed the napkin a moment to indicate the
budding blister.  "See, that?  That's why I said what I did.  That's never
going to disappear completely, is it?  Are you ever going to forget me
now?"

   "Forget you?" Paul said, yanking his hand back to hurl himself up from
the chair.  He picked up the rest of the ice cubes.  He looked from the cup
to the wall, in a long moment of consideration, but then he slapped the
container back to the table surface, unthrown.

   Paul combed his hands into his hair, as if madly freeing other fingers
sinking in there, clutching at him.  "I can't fuckin' get past you.  I'm
always thinking of you, for better or worse.  Fucking always and how many
years has it been?  And here you are, still locked in tight, with not a
bloody exorcist in sight."

   "So I heard over Channel 8." Lennon laughed hardly, darkly, as if at
something that hurt so badly he could only laugh at the absurdity of the
pain.  "Tell me something I don't know, Macca.  This ain't comin' undone,
son.  Just be real with that.  Till death do we part and maybe not even
then."

   And the only thing worse was never hearing it again.

   He was the first one she called when it happened.  December 8, one mote
past midnight.  A winter's night at the end of the world.

   The telephone slipped away from each finger and finally out of his hand.


   It had come through in several projective waves of pain.  He thought he
had dropped backward into some chair...struggled to breathe.  He thought he
heard the rising hammer of his careful heart.  And he pulled his knees to
his chest around the airlessness...the pain if only the insensate could
call it pain...an agony beyond any tear or hope of comfort...

   He allowed himself the scream, since there had been only one pair of
ears to hear it: the night man, swabbing, who would later speak directly to
the Morning Report.  One broken staggered word, sobbed out into the
night...into the empty, empty, empty night:

   "Johnny."







   Years later, decades later, deaths later...somewhere in a world without
end...

   "Johnny," a raging word again broke hard against the jagged
silence....the depth of the loss embodied in the force of tears.

   "Paul..." John murmured to the man clinging to him as if the lone
sanctuary in a demon world.  That extended vision, that flash-forward of
their love and sorrow had passed through his soul as surely as it had moved
through Paul's.  It ended only at the moment their future died in Macca's
eyes.

   John had never known a time without some hope of their reunion.  And
seeing it...feeling it through Paul...as that hope was shot dead on a cold
December night...

   "We're here now, you and me and the lads.  That world is over, Macca. 
We're home now.  Remember where we are."

   Paul slowly lifted his head and choked like an infant on its first
breath of air.  He closed his eyes hard, opened them again, as if catching
himself in some fleeting, faithless fantasy.  He lifted his head from
John's chest and looked up.

   "Thank God.  Thank fucking God.  Good lord, that was horrible.  A
horrible, terrible dream."

   "Remember where we are," John whispered.

   Macca shivered as an aftershock.  "Don't ever die like that and leave me
behind again, John.  Never, ever again, John." His words rippled hard at
the horror in his voice, in another realization.  "And Christ, don't let me
leave you either.  Is there some way - "

   "Yes," John whispered quickly: seriously.

   "How?"

   "The way George talked about earlier.  But it has to be your choice. 
Totally and completely."

   "I totally and completely choose it.  Now.  Let's get on with it."

   "You don't know what it is yet, Paul."

   "I don't care what it is.  If it means it keeps me from doing what I
always do, then do it.  Whatever it is, Johnny."

   "It's your choice, then?"

   "Yes!"

   "Then you're of a mind to stay?"

   Paul flinched back a little in shock at his words.  "Of course I've a
mind to stay.  I can't be anywhere else, can I?  And if I didn't want to be
here, I wouldn't be here."

   John grinned at him.  "I'm very proud of you, you've been paying
attention.  You ready?"

   Paul nodded.  "Ready."

   John's hand moved up from a comforting presence at Paul's shoulder to a
tenderly controlling clasp at his jaw.  John's thumb ranged up the length
of the main artery to Paul's throat, massaging the pulse of this world's
blood into life beneath John's touch.  That pulsation was answering in a
fierce sweet resonance everywhere in Macca's body there was an
artery...hell, with that a vein.

   John shined his smile once more into Macca's eyes.  He was peering in to
find the thing he was most seeking.  He found it with a profound smile.

   "We were in love," John mocked him in falsetto.  "But we've gotten over
that." His voice returned to his own rough, heated whisper.  "You're a
dirty liar, aren't you, Paul?"

   He could only gasp back: it was his only means of reply.  "Yes."

   "Lying to me about love is very naughty.  What shall we do to punish you
then?  I know, and it's in line with my special fondness for dirty sayings.
And I do so love these new ones come about in my wake.  What's that very
apt one in this situation?  Oh, yes, I remember now." John's massage
intensified across Paul's every pleasure center.  "Who's your daddy, Mr. 
McCartney?"

   He had to grit his teeth to find the throat to answer.  "Who's it always
been?"

   "I didn't catch the name," John whispered.  "Let's try that again. 
Who's your daddy, Paul?"

   "You are," he moaned out.

   "What's his name?" John groaned, licking up the length of Paul's
ruby-red artery, microcosm of his every gratification nerve.

   "John Lennon," he roared back, not so much as dreaming of a breath.

   "Much better," John whispered.  "Now you're never going to leave me
again, Macca.  There will be nowhere in the whole bloody universe you can
hide from me.  You understand?"

   Paul nodded again, more raggedly than ever.  "Yes," Paul whispered one
crippled gasp of agonized joy and then one other: "Please."

   John lunged for Paul's throat.

   The bright flow of life pulsed across John's tongue as he drank deep
from one-third of all that divided one man from the other.  He was drinking
Paul's reflexive solitude, his compulsive isolation, his knee-jerk
loneliness.  He absorbed it all and set it free.

   "Johnny," Paul murmured, deep in the jaws of thirsty love.  His body
weakened its will between the man above him and the wall.

   John imbibed all that he was allowed in the first time, forcing himself
by sheer will to pull away.  So Paul might see his face.  Might see the red
trickle forming all the new edges of his mouth.  See the red-tinged smile
as it locked over his own.

   Paul's answer was a stiff wild moan deep into John's mouth as his
lover's tongue replied with several deft throat-fucking flourishes, making
certain the implication was clear, and then moved their mouths apart.  John
thumbed a residue of Paul's own blood from the other man's lips.

   "There are many reasons they call it paradise, love."

   John licked at his ear again, feeling every inch of Paul's body
gathering with quickly increasing spasms of pleasure that hit him all at
once like ecstatic lightning: a wickedly hot tornado spun wild on its axis
then ripping him apart at his seams.

   It took a few moments for the changes to happen.

   Paul shook his head, breathing in, looked around.

   John took a fingernail's edge and stroked it across his strong chest,
opening a blood trail through his own nipple.  He reached for Paul who met
him halfway.  He pulled him up, guiding his lips around the blood source
like a suckling.  Paul took to it greedily, the very sound of his soft lips
responding to the blood oath making John Lennon's whole body go hard.  He
replenished from John all that he had lost from himself, beginning the
first of several steps.

   "Macca," he whispered with a sigh, urging Paul on sucking at the
bleeding nipple.  As he drank in John, Paul was taking on the glow of this
world.  But John had to tenderly move him away.

   "John," Paul whispered to protest the separation.

   "Don't be greedy," Lennon whispered, tapping his face.  "We have to do
this all over three different times.  This is just the one.  Save more for
later."

   "Who knew I'd like that," Paul said, laughing at new internal drive.

   "That's just the beginning, baby," John said, smiling.

   As Paul moved to brush his hair back out of his eyes, he noticed his
hand - gleaming faintly gold as if in coruscated resonance with John's own
glowing skin.

   "Fancy that," Paul said.  "I'm almost incandescent, too."

   "Wait for the next two trips, Macca," John said, smiling largely. 
"You'll be just as bright as I am."

   "Very funny." Macca grinned, more than a bit self-conscious.  "What are
you looking so smug and self-satisfied about, John?"

   John's smirk widened.  He wiggled an eyebrow.  "Hmm, I wonder why that
would be.  Oh, yes, I know, is that an obvious torch you're carrying for me
or are you just happy to see me?"

   "Torch?" Paul's snicker tumbled out of him, in wide, slow circles.  He
looked away to say it.  "Ha!  Let's try a volcanic ring of fire, Lennon. 
I'm carrying for you a whole vast system of interconnecting Mauna Loa.  And
they all keep fucking reactivating each other on a perpetual bloody basis.
Satisfied, John?  I'm still fucking insanely in love with you.  There, I
said it.  As if you're at all surprised."

   John grinned, clearly very satisfied but not the least surprised.  He
batted his eyelashes.  "Okay, I already knew but I wanted to have a
kajillionaire tell me he loves me anyway."

   Paul smiled more than a little.  He nodded.  "Okay, so what happens
now?"

   "Two more steps after this," George said, where he had appeared beside
them.  "Congratulations.  There's the next one and then the final.  Then
you're all sworn in, fit and proper."

   "Perhaps you'll even be on time for the next one," John said.

   George frowned guiltily.  "We were only delayed a moment.  Besides it
was the Funny One here who had to change his attire innumerable times. 
You're looking at the last of countless haberdashery selections.  Of
course, I had to be the arbiter of said selection process."

   Ringo pouted, looking down at his black matching velvet togs.  "This is
one of the most important moments of our destiny, third on the ladder of
importance.  I wanted to dress up for the occasion."

   "I dressed up as well, but it didn't take me fifteen hundred tries, now
did it?"

   "Yes, but how many colors of muslin can there really be, George?"

   "Switch it off, lads," John said, turning around a moment.  "Shall I
introduce you to this lovely chap?  Kindly meet Mr.  James McCartney once
of Hamstrung, Surrey, Guildford.  He prefers to go by his middle name which
is Paul.  Perhaps you might remember that we all have been fuckin' waiting
for this to begin for a long, long, long, long time?"

   "Sorry," both said.

   "All right, you lads up here for your moment.  And gentlemen, acceptable
levels of passion from the three of you.  I'm watching."

   "Sexual dominance duly noted, John," George said.  "Paul, present hands,
inside up."

   Still recovering from the John thing, Paul looked down at his hands and
turned them up to show his wrists.  "Why am I doin' this then?"

   George reached over to take one of Paul's hands in his hand.  He turned
it toward him, firmly kissing the nerve point at the carpus.  "Because a
certain local jealous guy, ahem," he pointed at John, "has decreed that
Rich and I can't have a go at the usual location on your lovely hallowed
neck.  Second choice is the wrists.  It's all very silly, but there you
have it.  Plus there are two of your wrists so he says it's faster...as if
that matters, in a land beyond time."

   "Well, going with the apparent order of things," Paul said, beaming an
important look at the man beyond their circle, "he had a go at both of
yours, didn't he?  And you at his.  Necks, I mean.  I'm assuming."

   "A fact we pointed out," Ringo said, moving to take Paul's other wrist.

   John wagged a granny finger at them.  "Just never you mind." He pulled a
stopwatch out of the air.  "I'm timing you.  To your marks, girls..."

   George rolled a look of shared forbearance toward the other men. 
"Ready, Rich?"

   Ringo kissed the same place on Paul's hand that George had, then slapped
it once for the blood effect.  "With southpaws they say the source is
always slower on this side because it's not your handy one.  So I did that
to bring it to the surface a bit."

   Paul nodded.  "Makes sense."

   When John had struck, Paul's soul was on fire, so his own response to
all sensations had been boundless.  This time, Paul had been half-expecting
pain and so the utter opposite was a bracing, thrilling burst of surprise.

   "Sweet Jesus," Paul gasped out, at the pleasure coursing up his veins.
"This is fucking nice."

   George winked back at him, and then his eyes slipped closed as the
interface was satisfied and the flow begun.

   The echoing pleasantness felt strong and ironic and sweet and gentle and
pure and honest and devoted and patient and devotedly impatient while a
true breath of peace from the source.  It was George, Paul realized: the
essence of him.

   That moment ended as quickly and quietly as it had begun.  "I love you,"
George said.

   Paul's eyes shined back at him in a new way.  "Same back to you."

   George winked and stepped aside.  "I kept that short so as not to
overpower you with my own quintessence."

   "So that's what they're calling it these days, eh?" John said from
behind.

   The left side closed, his attention was drawn toward the loving, tender
sensation from the other side, as Ringo's contact finished with a flourish.
This man's spirit streamed funny and sad and sweet and shy and kind and
good-hearted while older than the world was young.

   Rich kissed the wrist when he had finished.  "I love you, you poor ugly
beggar you."

   "I love you, you huge, lumbering nit," Paul replied, smiling.

   Ringo topped it off with a peck of his lips to Paul's face.  He flipped
a look over his shoulder in a certain direction.

   "I saw that," John said.

   "Yeah," Rich said, "I know."

   "So I don't get to do that, too, from you and George?" Paul asked,
pouting a little.

   "The master vampire's rules," Ringo answered, thumbing back toward John.
"You only take from him.  How's that for bloody justice?"

   Suddenly, the black floor slid away, revealing the four-slotted bed from
the hours before.

   "That time again, lads," George announced, clicking his fingers to
transform his clothes to robes.  He jumped into one of the four places. 
"Five hours down and we'll feel more festive for the big events tomorrow."

   Paul pouted a little.  "It was just getting interesting, too.  What
event is tomorrow?"

   "Your first venture outside the boundaries of our place," Ringo
explained.  "Then we have another of your ceremonies.  Second on the ladder
of importance."

   "Sounds like fun," Paul said.

   Ringo winked.  "You've no idea."

   "I saw that wink," John commented, coming up behind Paul.

   "I know." Ringo snapped his fingers, suddenly sporting something blousy.
He jumped into the space beside George.  "I suppose it goes without saying
Paul sleeps in the buff."

   "I heard that as well."

   "I know."

   John's hand went to Paul's shoulder, tapping it once for effect. 
"You're next to me," John said, grinning with insincere shyness.

   Paul tried to act indignant, but the pretense didn't work.  "As if I
don't have a choice?"

   "As if you don't, yes." John nudged him to the edge.  "Surrender,
Dorothy, or I'll have you dragged there by my flying monkey."

   Ringo glanced at George.  "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

   Macca smirked, but then cast himself down into the pit of pillows beside
John.  The four men were surrounded by an enveloping dark.  The dark felt
like a comfort...a cocoon around him, nestling him in its warmth.  "This is
really very comfortable, isn't it?"

   Twin pillows were hurled from his right.  Two people but one voice:
"Hush, Macca."

   "Sorry."

   "Hey," whispered the man to his left.

   Their eyes met in the point between them.

   In his warm little place of comfort, it seemed that all the answers to
all the questions that had ever plagued him in nights so dark, he couldn't
hope to dream, shined back at him from the other man's eyes.

   "Johnny," Paul whispered, shaking his head in wonder.

   John pulled a length of hair away from Paul's eyes.  "This whole very
long time, I'd see your empty place here.  Empty and waiting for you.  Even
emptier for waiting for you so long.  And I'd know what you must have been
feeling, and what you must have been thinking where you were, all alone. 
But this time, for the first time ever since crossing over, when I look
there, I'll actually see your face."

   Macca finally leaned into his arms, feeling at home there, in a way he
had never before.

   "Oh my god, Ringo," a voice rejoined from the side.  "They're in love
again."

   "Oh, well.  We knew the cold war couldn't last."

   "There'll be no end to this lovey stuff now."

   "You're telling me."

   Twin pillows were hurled from their left.

   John piped back.  "Eat your hearts out."

   Ringo tossed a smirk over Paul at John.  "Why don't we eat your heart
out instead?"

   "Because I don't have one, remember?"

   "There's rotten luck for you."

   ***

   Now that was unusual, Paul thought, as he opened his eyes to the light.

   There was John: floating around on top of a life-sized crucifix.  He was
holding his arms extended and crossing his ankles at the base.  He tossed a
wink down at Paul.

   "Morning, Sleeping Beauty."

   Paul rubbed at his eyes, as if to make sure they were working.  "Johnny,
what the hell are you doing up there?"

   "This is part of your instruction," John explained.  "To show you we
don't have to cringe from a crucifix as the crucifix is merely the symbol
of the body, as you see.  The spirit born in flesh to die on the skeletal
cross."

   "That's not why he's doin' it," George called over, "he just likes
floating about on that thing.  Not surprisingly."

   Paul nodded his understanding.  "Well, quit makin' a martyr of yourself,
John, and come down from there.  You look like some nack Catholic Feast Day
decoration or something."

   "Yes, Marmee," John called down, the crucifix dissolving so floated to
the floor.  "But Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents."

   Paul stepped up from the pit as John landed.  They joined hands at the
center, as George gave a big, rolling smirk toward Rich.

   Ringo nodded.  "Told you, George.  It's already started."

   George shrugged.  "Better than their battling.  At least then we won't
have a return of pony-level chaos and destruction."

   Ringo pouted.  "Had to bring that up again, eh?"

   Paul was listening now.  "What does pony-level mean?"

   "Well." George motioned to the room around them.  "You may have noticed
we have a whole lot of beds here."

   "Yes, I had noticed." Paul nodded toward John.  "I thought that was the
Bed-In Master's doing."

   "You love me worst because I'm a slut," John said, sticking his tongue
out at him.

   "He's only responsible for some of them," George replied.  "When I first
came here, I noticed that every time one of us had a mind to doss
somewhere, a bed would be there for his sleeping.  So I determined I would
start counting the beds.  Seemed like a good thing to do for household
coordination.  Well, the beds just kept becoming more and more and then
John figured out it just added a new one each time we counted.  So there
was no end to it.  We finally realized the Mater took our counting as a
request."

   "Some of us found out about ponies the hard way," John added.

   "Well, I'd always wanted a pony as a boy," Ringo explained.  "So I
conjured up one.  When I first came here, I was uncertain.  I've always
sort of been the odd one out with you three - "

   "Poor, old thing," John replied.

   Rich pitched him a glare.  "I didn't know the laws of the land.  I
thought, you know, every time I wanted to sit and talk with me pony awhile,
I had to wish for him again.  I didn't think I had to go out back and bring
the same damned pony around."

   "Somebody realized," John said, pointing at Richard, "that every time he
thought up a pony, it didn't bring back the first one; it created a whole
new one.  So very soon, we had this whole houseful of pretty ponies, all
for little Rich."

   "Forty-seven of them," George added.

   "How was I to know?"

   John smirked toward Paul.  "Thus began the fearful battle of the
ponies."

   "Thank heavens we can't dream up people," George added.  "Or he'd have a
whole fleet of Elvises...Elvi...what-have-you..."

   Paul laughed.  "Which puts me in mind of a question." He looked around.
"We're not the only ones who got here, right?  Where are all the other
people?"

   "We live here," John said, "they live there.  We have to sort this out
between us, and then we can ask them over.  But they're still there and
we're here."

   Paul nodded.  "Makes sense.  Okay, what about the other rules and laws
and the like.  Like the vampire in mirrors thing.  I remember seeing my
face in the reflection Ringo showed me."

   "Myth," the other three men said in chorus.

   "All right.  And the traveling over water thing?"

   "Invented," Ringo said.  "1947 Universal Pictures, Dracula Rises from
the Tomb."

   "I thought that one was Stoker," John said.

   "The uncultivated always do." Ringo tossed him a pointed look.  "Go on,
Paul."

   "What about garlic then?"

   "It's delicious," John said, winking.  "Especially with pasta.  Next
up."

   Paul considered.  "We really can have whatever we want then?  Simple as
that."

   "Depends," John said, looking suspicious, "I'll be frontline
pre-screening your requests."

   "Calm down, Johnny, I don't mean that."

   George went on, "It also depends upon whether we need it or not.  It's
all adjusted by this great cosmic justice thingy.  If it's detrimental, we
can't have it, although one would have certainly thought forty-seven
goddamned ponies would have fallen into that particular category.  And
sometimes we get things we don't ask for because we need them.  It's all to
make us well and happy.  It evens out at the end."

   "I can live with all that," Paul said, smiling.  "So what happens this
day?"

   John grinned, his eyes brightening up.  "We go on our first adventure in
this world together, the four of us."

   "To where?"

   "To the best restaurant in this world.  In fact, the only restaurant in
this world.  We learned our lesson about the counting thing, so we only
have the one."

   "Oooh, fun.  What do they serve there?"

   All three men signed a time-out.  "Penalty, Paulie," John said, "rewind
and review today's class lesson."

   "Oh, yeah, right...sorry."



   ***



   Beatles Food Place the sign above the gateway read.  See Also: John,
Paul, George, Ringo.  Park wherever you like.

   "Well, you can't get much more specific than that, can you?" Paul said,
as the doors opened for their arrival.

   Much to Macca's surprise, there sat an entire table full of other people
- all suspect looking men in buccaneer attire -- instantly looking around
at them as they walked into the cafe.

   All the men wore knee breeches and strange trippy Garibaldi shirts.  Two
of them sported eye patches.

   Paul pointed at them.  "Who are they?"

   John grinned.  "They are called pirates."

   "Hey, no fooling, I thought they were the local solicitors.  I can see
they're pirates, John... I mean, what are they doing here?  I thought this
world was all for us."

   "It is, but pirates don't respect rules here either, same as the old
world.  They come `round lookin' for cast-off stuff they can trade, because
in their world they have restricted access on occasion to the Mater.  I'll
show `em the door.  You lads have a seat.  Mind the floor show."

   Paul let George and Ringo advance ahead into the next little room, while
Macca faded back to watch out after John's own interaction with the
pirates.

   John folded his arms.  "Say, boys, it's closin' time for you," he
announced to the brigand.  "We're terribly sorry, but as you obviously
know, you're on private property.  I realize you don't know us lads because
we're all separated by a ton of years, but in our time, we zealously
protected our privacy for all manner of fuckin' reasons.  So you'll be
hittin' the bricks.  Or I'll be hittin' them with you, and by that I don't
mean we'll be steppin' out together for a pint."

   "We're lookin' for gate keys," the humorless leader spat back.  "We need
us an extra.  One of us is stranded without one.  He's stranded on our side
and can't join us here."

   "Such a pity.  I'll weep for him later, but you'll just have to go back
to your own side and join him there, I'm afraid.  Some people are lax about
those rules, but we keep soundly to them.  Go on.  Off with ya now."

   "You have a new one," the leader said, standing, and pointing to Paul.

   "You need new eyes, ducky, he's not new.  He's been around for ages.  So
long the sheen is off him."

   "He is new.  I can tell by looking at him.  That means he still has a
gate key.  You singin' rogues never leave this land of yours.  It's not
like you need a gate key.  We'd be prepared to trade you handsomely for it,
new man."

   "He doesn't have one, he isn't new, and he's not trading anything with
you, Blackjack," John said.

   "Can't he speak for himself?"

   "No, he can't.  I speak for him.  Now listen up, you nit, off with the
lot of you.  One, two, three.  Skidaddle, whatever the fuck that means
then."

   "We will," the leader said, motioning to his men, "for now."

   "Good for you, Blackjack.  Don't let the front door hit you on your
bustle as you bustle out of here."

   The men passed through the open door which as quickly slammed and locked
behind them.

   "You handled that very well, John," Paul said.

   John retained his folded arms.  "Didn't I say for you to go with the
lads?"

   "You might have noticed, John, there is, nowhere on my body, stamped the
words Property of John Lennon."

   He snapped his fingers.  "I knew I forgot somethin'.  Thanks for the
reminder, sweetie.  In point of fact, what the hell were you to do if that
had gotten ugly?"

   "Back you up."

   "With what?"

   "My fists, if necessary."

   The chortling from the room behind him was immediate and obvious.

   "Well, I like that," Paul replied to the laughter.

   "Paulie," John said.  "That lot would have snapped you like dry twigs
and bound you up for kindlin' wood.  The lads and I would have had to paste
you back together and then go wring their scrawny necks.  You never were
any good in a pub brawl and you know it.  My kid sister was better at it
than you were and she was a little girl."

   "John," Ringo said, from the doorway.  "If you're finished making fun of
someone who was only trying to help you, you might both want to come in
here now, so we can all be together."

   "Paul knows I was only lookin' out for him."

   "Why not let Paul say what he knows?" Macca suggested, following after
John and Ringo into the inner room.

   George was bothering about green tea in a tiny porcelain cup.  Ringo sat
back down at a platter of something distinctly Chinese foodish.  He plucked
a pair of chopsticks out of the air, and then used them for a wicked side
table drum roll.  Both the chopsticks quickly splintered into bits.

   "How many times you gotta try that, Ring," George asked, "before you get
that it doesn't work?"

   "Yeah, but it looks so fuckin' cool, doesn't it?  One day I'll pluck
them off thick enough and then I'll be stylin', won't I?  Of course, none
of you will appreciate it." Ringo abandoned them to the air.  "Paul, here's
how it works.  Ask the Mater provider in your head whatever you'd like but
be specific.  Asking for artichokes will get you a nice farmer's crop
strewn across the floor.  The Mater provider doesn't do fuzzy thinking."

   Paul shrugged.  "Not really hungry.  Maybe a little something.  Without
a face, of course."

   "Relax, PETA Paul," John added.  "Nothing ever had a face here. 
Everything is pulled out of the Mater, spun out of nothing.  No animals
were injured in the making of this foodstuff.  Even the little baby eggies
would never have been alive."

   "Oh," Paul said, realizing.  "Of course.  Why, that's brilliant, isn't
it?"

   John raised an eyebrow.  "You could have prime rib, Paul.  Think of it,
Paul, all the goodies at the sides, Paul.  Me included, Paul."

   "I could," Paul said, smiling a little mischievously.  "And stop
flirting, it's hopeless."

   "You could," John said, nodding.  He was a clearly enchanted man, chin
propped on his hand.  "And like hell it's hopeless..."

   Paul smirked at him.  "Okay.  Eventually, yes...about the prime rib, I
mean.  Going to take some getting used to, the faceless food thing,
however. Right now, I'd just as soon have a fresh fruit salad, if it's all
the same to you." Paul was startled by the appearance of it before him.

   Ringo tossed an aside to George.  "Given the events of yesterday,
there's a statement teeming with double entendre."

   "Given the events of yesterday, yours is a statement teeming with
ethical inconsistency," George pointed out.

   "I suppose.  Do I contradict myself?  Very well then I contradict
myself. I am large, I contain multitudes..."

   "You contain significant amounts of hot air when you want to."

   Ringo flashed him a hurt look.  "That was Walt Whitman."

   "No kidding," John said.  "And here we thought you just pulled it out of
your ass." He yanked up a spitball from somewhere and vaulted it at Rich.
"I'm not hungry, so I'm just going to watch you three."

   "Those two, George said.  "I'm not hungry either.  Besides, we have an
awful lot of ground to cover in this particular Macca bitch session."

   Paul paused in his active admiration of the heaven-sent fruit salad.  He
squinted a little in immediate concern.  "Excuse us?"

   John moved his head down to peek up into Paul's eyes.  "Let's call it a
musical intervention.  On this side, friends don't let friends write crap
pop tunes.  Especially when they're capable of brilliance."

   Paul winced, tossing the fork back at the salad.  "I thought we covered
that yesterday."

   "No, that was just Whacko Jacko.  We saved this carcass for all of us to
feast."

   Paul wrinkled his mouth into a smirk.  "Well, you don't catch me snipin'
about your stuff, Lennon.  Oh, yeah, that Two Virgins.  Quite a few snappy
numbers on that one."

   "If I got it comin', baby, bring it on."

   "I don't like attacking my friends."

   John pounded a palm against his head in sheer frustration.  "When you
gonna get with this, ya thick, ya?  We're not attacking you, Paul.  This
isn't a personal fight.  We're talking about the shit you churn out when
you've got one helluva lot more in ya."

   "Says you."

   "Ah, that snappy repartee from the legendary composer of Bip Bop."

   He pushed the salad away now.  "I was afraid this was coming eventually.
And really what else is new?  Let's put an end to a few hours of happy
Beatlific harmony.  Go ahead, have a bash, enjoy yourselves at my expense.
May as well get back to normal."

   "We love you, Paul," George said, exhaling at having to speak the words,
yet again...for what must have been the billionth time indeed.  "Stop being
so sensitive.  This isn't about you.  You we love.  It's about some of
the...stuff you write... You always get the two confused."

   "I am that stuff."

   "Not all of it, you're not," John added.  "Some of it is noxious."

   "Such as?"

   John pulled a bound gazetteer from the air.  He opened it, moistening a
finger to peruse its pages.  "I've already held court on the earlier stuff,
so this treatise is on the later opus only.  Let us begin with my wanting
to know how the bleedin' hell you love a biker like an icon.  And I know
that one wasn't in code as Jet was or some of the others."

   "I dunno, it's a song.  It takes up space on the album.  So many tracks
on each side, shipped out to market.  I supported my family that way."

   "There, just what I meant, your laziness...your lack of flippin'
standards always pans through.  When you filter your stuff, you hit the
fuckin' motherlode.  But your laziness makes you put out stupid songs
sometimes, Paul.  Just because the market will let you."

   Paul cast him the eye.  "I thought you said they were silly songs."

   "No, I said your love songs were silly.  Well, the early ones anyway. 
The ones not meant for me, I mean.  Some of the other songs are just plain
stupid.  You give up before said stupid song is done."

   "Speaking of the biker like an icon one, I didn't mind it at all,"
George said.  "Thought it was one of the catchier tunes on that album."

   Paul looked at him with evident gratitude.  "Thank you, George."

   George nodded.  "Personally it was that Looking for Changes preachy
thing that I despised."

   "Oh, gee...thanks...to the both of you now," Paul said.

   Ringo sipped at his beverage.  "I myself would like to know what a Motor
of Love is."

   Paul looked around, aghast.  "E tu, Ringo?"

   He nodded.  "Yes, me too."

   "That was a different album," John shot back.  "We haven't even gotten
to it yet."

   Paul crossed his arms, sighing as if ready, at last, for battle.  "All
right...go on."

   "Liverpool Archipelago," John said.

   "Oratorio."

   "That comes later, baby." Lennon grinned.  "I mean, in what other
classical music cantata may we find the opera diva singing about sagging
off?  You even made the basso profundo sound like a big, sappy queen."

   "It was experimental," Paul said.

   "It was excremental," John replied.

   George thumped Lennon's shoulder on cue.  "Constructive, John,
constructive?"

   John gestured in reluctant concession.  "Okay, all right, not all of it
was.  There were some beautiful bits, too.  I loved the fuckin' chorus but
you always do that stuff up grand.  A pretty Macca melody...there's a big
surprise.  And the last part was a lovely wallow.  And I loved all the
veiled homoerotic bits about me, of course."

   "I thought the whole thing was about you," Ringo said.

   George passed Rich a smile.  "Aren't they all?"

   "Flaming Pie was," John said.  "A good half the album.  Even His Royal
Maccastey over there said so.  And that was fuckin' brilliant.  I'll admit
between us four, but never to anyone else if quoted, it was better than any
of my solo stuff.  But I can't help but link that to the fact that I
inspired it."

   "Thanks for that faint bit of praise anyway." Paul considered his
options for a moment.  "Is that it?  We all finished?"

   "For the moment," John said, waving away his gazetteer.  "We'll need a
whole fuckin' day for Ebony and Ivory."

   "Fine.  That's it." Paul threw down his napkin.  He rose from his chair.
"Day is done.  I don't genuflect at my own shadow.  I'm a songwriter; I
build songs as a carpenter builds furniture.  I'm not perfect, I fuck up. I
never said otherwise.  I'll be taking a walk outside now while you have
your dessert.  Let me know when you're finished chewing on the last of my
dignity."

   Paul strode out of the room and was quickly gone.

   George looked pointedly to John.  "Told you it was too soon.  There's a
reason for the walls.  He's a sensitive man."

   "Oh, are you fuckin' putting up for his moodiness now?"

   "If he's not, I am," Ringo said.  "His sensitiveness helped make us all
rich and famous, you might remember.  But when you're sensitive and you get
punched in the gut too often; you tend to move by instinct to protect it.
Gee, I wonder what might have happened to have caused all that."

   "Paul knows - "

   "Maybe he's forgotten." Ringo threw away his second set of chopsticks.
"George, you stay here and talk to the so-called Smart One.  I'll go about
cinchin' up Sir Cute One's wounds as best I can."

   After Ringo had gone, George's stare was directed solely at John.  "He's
right, you know.  We were wrong.  It was too soon."

   "Please." He backed off from the table.  "I used to say all this
nonsense to Paul daily and he never so much as flickered an eyelash at me.
Now every time I try to be who we used to be, he flames off like an
offended Sussex nanny."

   "He thought he had your respect then.  It's different now."

   "Oh, spare me the soul-searching, will you?"

   "No, I won't.  I mean, think of it.  Twenty years to get into the Rock n
Roll Hall of Fame.  Paul McCartney, co-father of rock n roll as we know
it...as you called him yourself... inducted behind tons of gifted
flyweights, who grew up polishin' Paul's image like a fuckin' gold Buddha
on bass."

   "Oh and he and his poor little crippled ego had him puttin' his name
before mine on his records."

   "And why do you always assume yours should go first?  That's the
problem...you and your gang of music journalist thugs.  Do you know what
Paul said to the press when that byline thing happened -- if I don't do
that, how will my grandchildren know what I contributed to the Beatles? 
Imagine Paul McCartney wonderin' that."

   "And I'm to blame for his inferiority complex?"

   "Some of it.  Why did he put out some of the crap he did, you ask? 
Well, he never knew to like something unless you loved it first...and that
includes himself.  He was all of fourteen when you met him.  You cobbled
him on purpose comin' out of the gate and you know you did.  I watched it."

   "You've cast him in the eternal role of victim, have you?"

   "No, just that of a real person.  Finally someone helped him draw a
line. A bad line, a line that hurt him, but a line.  Of course he'd have
been better off with us, but that's only half the story.  You're a fuckin'
brilliant man...there's no denying...and you know the outcome of the legal
papers.  You know where we'd have all been financially if those briefs had
not been filed on Paul's behalf.  You blamed her, you blamed him through
her, but the fact of the matter is Paul dealt us in when he didn't have to
and he didn't make a press junket around it.  And you know it."

   "Of course I know it.  I tried to set the bleedin' record straight - "

   "Yes, you did.  But then one of your macho pseudo-music critic
cohorts...one of those artistic thugs...would tempt you and you'd all have
a nice group bash on Paul as if he was the pansy boy in the play yard, and
you know it.  You set the precedent by treating him like a guilty secret. I
mean, what would those music men think if they knew?  And then you checked
out before you had the chance to truly right the record."

   "I didn't have a lot of say in checking out, did I?  Perhaps you wish it
would have happened sooner?"

   George winced visibly at the words.  "You know, John... You and Paul are
two of the best people to ever live in the old world.  You're also two of
the biggest assholes.  Usually, I vacillate back and forth on who's the
bigger asshole on a day by day basis.  But congratulations, today, you've
got Macca by a mile."

   John held up a hand for a moment.  "You know I'm not proud of...what I
did.  I can't go back and change the past.  What in hell do I do to right
it now?"

   "Do what you didn't do before.  Go to him and choose him."

   "I did choose him."

   "No, you chose both of them.  Go choose him first.  Go love him first.
Don't make him feel like a guilty afterthought."

   "I never - "

   "Yes, you did.  Yes, you did.  The most open top secret in the music
world, some covert writer called it.  Well, go claim it in the fuckin'
light of day for once.  Why not tell him I love you and I'm sorry?"





   Ringo found the other of them walking around the outside yard, scuffing
at the little Beatle patterned name in the sidewalk imprint.  There he was
- a certified, goddamned zillionaire and he might have been a schoolboy
sent out of class for a cool down.  He looked every bit as hurt and almost
as uncertain.

   "John didn't mean - "

   "Yes, he did," Paul said, as if Ringo's remark had just uncorked
something that had been preparing to pop.  "He meant it.  Every word.  He
doesn't love me, he never has.  I'm just another instrument for him to
play. Something else to use...abuse..."

   "Paul..."

   Ringo tried another direction.  He leaned against a piece of wall and
pitched at Paul a stick of gum.  The other man, still pacing off his rage,
caught it.  Ringo pocketed the rest of the package.  "Remember that certain
magazine interview John gave in the mid-1970s?"

   Paul thought a moment.  The gum gave him something to gnaw on in effigy.
He tucked away the paper.  "You mean the one with the quote I paraphrased
for something and they tried to stick on me?"

   Ringo nodded.  "Yeah, that's the one.  The interviewer asked John if he
thought I was the best rock drummer in the world, right?  And John said
Ringo wasn't even the best rock drummer in the Beatles."

   Paul flinched in sympathy.  "Yeah, I remember."

   He nodded.  "Hurt like bloody hell at the time.  But the thing that
really kicked my gut is I knew for certain John was right - "

   "Rich - "

   "No," he said firmly.  "Don't be kind.  It's true.  That's who I am.  I
am the world's not-greatest drummer paired up with musical history's
greatest songwriting team and another fellow who, if he hadn't been
befriended by the star-crossed musical dynamic duo of the century, would
have been the far and away breakout star in the band.  Do you know what I'd
give to be worthy of John Lennon's criticism?"

   "You want the honor, Rich, it's all of yours." Paul looked away. 
"Anyway, I say that you are worthy.  Who is he to say?  You're a good man.
A good friend.  A gifted person in many ways.  There are more bloody
important things in the world than makin' great music."

   "Oh, certainly there are, but we're talking about music now.  And that's
what I was in this instance...a drummer.  A drummer who knows he wasn't
worthy just like he knows you are.  With John and the truth, our feelings
just have to get out of the way."

   "Whose truth?  His truth?  That doesn't make it mine.  Doesn't make it
yours or anyone else's...only his."

   "I realize that.  It is his truth.  But were John some blowhard, you
wouldn't care what he had to say.  If you can't suffer that, one to one,
you have to protect yourself, I understand.  Believe you me.  That's part
of what happened in the old world with you two.  That was the tragedy.  The
thing that brought you together was the thing that blasted you apart.  But
you lost so much in the process, Paul.  You both did.  I mean, screw the
fuckin' money.  We'd have been fine the lot of us eating cornflakes; we'd
have been just as happy.  All we ever really needed was each other.  With
John, there's a lot you've got to forgive, but with John, you forgive a
lot, you know what I mean?  Above anyone else in the world surely you
should know that by now."

   Paul nodded.  "Of course I know it."

   "Then get real and come down from your ivory ego tower.  Put things in
bloody perspective.  A little bit of honest criticism isn't going to kill
you.  It may seem like it will, but trust me, we won't let it - just like
you boys didn't let it destroy me.  You were given the gift of the gods, my
friend.  It could be one hell of a lot worse."

   "Such as?"

   "Oh, such as being the one member of the band that didn't come to it out
of some divine destiny.  Who was a commercial add-on."

   "You weren't - "

   Ringo held up a hand to stop all protest.  "I was.  The soul of tact,
Paul, I was.  It's just the truth.  Doesn't mean I didn't belong.  I mean,
I'm here in this place aren't I?  The first chap is wherever good little
grocery men go when they die.  But when the group busted up and my lifeboat
almost sunk, it would have been right easy for me to just give up when the
second solo album tanked so badly.  Let's be blunt about it, when the label
tried to dump me like a bad investment.  To comfort me, you said many kind
words, my friend, because that is what you do.  They were kind, but they
didn't really help beyond the moment.  But what John said did help, that
moment and the next."

   "Which was?"

   Ringo looked down, as if imitating a clear Lennon stare and flat, nasal
tone.  "Play to your strengths, Rich.  You're not known for your dulcet
tones and movie star good looks.  You're no top musician.  So work with
what you have." Ringo smiled to finish the sentence.  "And what I have, by
some mad piece of luck, is three of the best musicians in the world who
love me.  They all got together and helped me right my ship again.  And one
of them cut a mean kazoo, Mr.  McCartney."

   Paul laughed fondly, nodding.  "I remember."

   "I thought you would.  I figure I'm the luckiest bastard in the world.
Problem is if I punch through instead of pullin', everyone's amazed.  Whoa,
Ringo didn't toss it - fancy that, eh?  Evening standard's got the nightly
news.  But you're held to a higher standard.  And guess who does the
holding in the eyes of the music world?  For better or worse, right or
wrongly, the other half of your sky sittin' in there.  That doesn't mean
the whole of it is all John Lennon's fault."

   Paul thought a moment, exhaling loud and long.  He removed the chewed
gum from his pocket, folding it into the silver paper which as quickly
disappeared.  Finally, and after a long while, he nodded and muttered,
"Thanks, Rich."

   "My pleasure.  And my job as the older, stabilizing force.  The cosmic
reason I was added on, by the way.  Which reminds me...do you know who John
said was the best drummer in the Beatles?"

   "No," Paul lied, looking down again.

   Ringo smiled at him knowingly.  "That drummer would be you, my friend.
Now, let's get cracking.  The lads are waiting.  We still have a damn big
day ahead of us, you know."

   "Where do we go from here?"

   "Second rite for you, Macca," George said, as he joined them quickly,
pointing toward the nearby walk and a suddenly waiting stretch limo.  "The
location for which will be an old friend's garden."

   Coming toward them, John was moving at first in a slow and deliberate
line.  Finally, the walk became a stride that didn't break until he reached
Paul's side.  He moved soon enough to block Paul's attempted escape toward
the limo.

   "I'm sorry...I love you..." John said.  "I'm sorry...I love you."

   A teasing glint of mock-hurt lit Paul's dark eyes.  "You're sorry you
love me?"

   "No!  I mean... Oh, fuck Christ, you know what I mean."

   "I know, I know.  Richie has been chewing on me and reminding me that
all happened a long time ago."

   "Well, I'll compare my nibble marks with yours now, how's that?  George
tells me we're both usually equally big assholes, only today I'm edging you
out."

   "We can't have that, can we?"

   "Kiss and make up, you two, will you?" George said, tapping his watch.
"We've got plans."

   John smirked.  "And we can't disappoint Auntie Mater now can we?"

   Ringo rolled his stare to the gods.  "For the love of all that's holy,
Paul, will you please laugh at that silly Auntie Mater line to thereby
admire his stunning wit?  He's been makin' it for ages, hoping we would
notice.  If you laugh, maybe then he'll finally quit."

   "Ha...ha..." Paul said drolly, in John's direction.

   John as quickly launched himself into the backseat of the limo. 
Crawling to the edge, he crooked a dangerous finger toward Macca.

   "C'mon, Paul, we've got the back seat all to ourselves.  You took the
bad medicine; here comes the heaping spoonful of sugar, my sweet."

   "I told you no already, John.  It's hopeless."

   "Oh, no it's not.  You already admitted you're still mad for me.  And
yesterday -- "

   "Mad for you and mad at you.  And yesterday was all the vampire stuff,
wasn't it?  Don't let it go to your head, John."

   John could only smile.  "Sure, it was, Macca, sure it was."

   George snapped his fingers to open the driverless limo door.  He entered
at the other side, allowing Ringo his perch on the right.  Paul pointed to
the seat between them.  "Mind if I sit up here with you two?"

   Before they could object, in fact, Paul popped easily into the center
spot.

   "Where we going?" he asked George, and then Ringo as the other man
forced himself into the front seat, too.

   "Me and George?" Ringo said.  "Right now, flippin' insane, thanks very
much."

   All of them safely aboard, the limo moved by itself into the open road.

   "Come on, Paul," John said from behind.  He roped an arm around Paul's
shoulders, planting wicked, wet kisses on his neck.  "Stop pouting.  We get
the big back seat all to ourselves, baby.  I have some dirty, little
surprises for you..."

   Paul forced his mouth into a respectably straight line, lifting his
chin. "I thought we just magically zapped around everywhere," Paul said,
appearing to ignore John and the ambitious hickey-inspiration going on at
the nape of Macca's neck.  "Why are we even taking a limo?"

   John nibbled at the back of his ear.  "Because zappin' around that way
doesn't let you get in the back seat with me."

   "Where's our planned destination?" Paul asked, drumming on the dashboard
a peppy, annoying tune, composed specifically to harass the man behind him.

   George slapped Paul's hands to make him stop.  "The place of an old
friend."

   Paul reached across to flip a radio knob on and spin the dial.  "But I
thought we - "

   "You'll see what we mean when we get there," George added, yanking
Paul's hands from the knobs while switching sounds off.  "Look, Paul, you
know it's going to happen.  You two are going to end up exploding all over
each other in great fiery passion.  It's just your natures.  Right now for
me and Rich this feels like having a Pomeranian stud humping our collective
leg while his equally randy bitch coolly refuses to let him mount her. 
It's bloody, damned annoying, I'll tell you.  Now get in the back, His
Bitch, or we're throwing you over to the mercy of your stud, I swear to
god. Time to give up the goodies he's beggin' for so we can all get a
little bit of quiet."

   "I don't have to do anything I don't want to.  I'm not some salaried
companion, I'm a -- "

   "Rich, important man, we know." Ringo flipped a look around him to
George.  "Now he's claiming he doesn't want it, too."

   George smirked.  "You're as burning up for it as he is, Paul, admit it.
You just hide it a little better.  Thank God or we'd have had a mass
conflagration by now."

   John shoved a grin of evil glee among them all.  He hooked his arms
under Paul's.  "Come on, Paulie, quit lickin' your wounds.  Come back here
and I'll lick `em for you."

   "On three," George said.

   Paul defensively hiked his chin.  "You wouldn't really."

   "Three," Ringo said.

   John hoisted Paul backwards and George and Ringo pushed him over.

   Ringo slapped Paul's rear to aid his final descent.  "You suffered the
painful procedure, Paul; you may as well enjoy the compensatory lolly...so
to speak."

   "As an aside, Rich, I saw your hand was on his ass," John added.

   "Sexual dominance duly noted, John," Ringo said.  "Carry on."

   "Just for that.  I ought to drag you both in the backseat with us."

   "Are you jokin'?  Anyone dragged back between you two for awhile would
surely be cut to ribbons in your fits of furious lust.  Me and George will
take our chances up here for the time being."

   George nodded, darkening the pane of glass between the back and front
seats.  "You can say that again."

   They were plunged into darkness, as John rolled backward onto the rear
seat with his treasured booty of one grinning, blushing, kicking, giggling
man.  John shined a smile into his face and laid a wet kiss on him, while
tickling under his ribs.  Paul laughed so hard it broke the kiss, while he
sought half-heartedly to fight off his hands.

   "Lennon, you're a menace," he said, laughing so hard he thought he'd
scream, as he was finally rolled onto his back for full frontal attack.

   John leered into his face with twisty eyebrows.  "Just finding that out,
eh?"

   "I'm at the top of the Fortune Magazine listing!" Paul said as he
giggled when the rib-tickling onslaught restarted.

   "I'm so impressed," John mumbled, still sucking at softer Macca throat
flesh.

   Paul's giggling grew furious.  "I have my own building in Manhattan!"

   "I love it when you talk about your erections!" John climbed up his body
to encapsulate it.  "You may be a bloody jillionaire, but I can still make
you tremble like a virgin schoolgirl.  I can still set you on fuckin' fire
any time at all."

   Macca fought to quiet his ragged breathing.  "If only that wasn't the
fuckin' truth."

   John grinned, recognizing his victory.  "Then stop your empty
protestations, Macca, they'll do you no good and you know it.  What I'm
about to do will change all that."

   "Oh really?"

   John grinned, knowingly into Paul's eyes.  "Really.  What if I were to
tell you I'm prepared to do something?  It's the one thing you always
wanted from me, but I'd never give it to you because I thought it was,
well, too queer.  I still was playin' that game with myself, that maybe we
weren't really queer if we didn't do X, Y and Z, right?"

   "Yeah, I remember.  But it was okay.  Everyone has limits."

   "Stop being so goddamned forgiving.  And no, I don't have limits, not
with you.  And that's what I aim to prove to you now," John said.  "I've
been studying up on fine technique."

   "For what?" Paul said, laughing.

   John smiled to make the moment last.  He kept Paul's stare directed
straight at him as he captured Paul's hand.  John opened his mouth and
slipped it down around one of Paul's fingers.

   The response on Paul's face was hard, sharp, and immediate.  "Johnny,"
he gulped for shorts words faster than he captured breaths.  "You're
fuckin' teasing me..."

   "Couldn't be more serious, Paul," he whispered, shining his smile's
assurances to satisfy Paul's hungry gaze.  "I told you it would make up for
all the pain.  We're talking unabashed queer sex, no circle jerk pleasure,
not all boys fun.  We're talking the real thing now.  Gonna tell me no? 
Gonna say we're only friends?"

   Paul shook his head helplessly.  "Fuck no."

   "Good boy," John whispered, his lips descending Paul's chest.

   Macca's body arched upward as something raw jacked its way up his body
as John moved further down to where he was going to prove the thing beyond
all question, beyond all time.  His unforgiving mouth nibbled at Paul's
belly, teasing muscles as they responded - an old friend to these
well-played nerves.

   "This is my love, Paul," he said, blowing across layers of clothing that
dissolved beneath his demand for them to do so.  John's breath rushed up
across Paul's now open thigh and up the restive shivers of blood pulsating
through his stiffened cock....hard like a fist was hard.  John's fingers
questioned the tip of it...an inarticulate but desperate question followed
by a moist interrogatory by his hungry tongue.

   John's tongue struck Paul's foreskin and the receiving man's body arched
again from a prodding, screaming need.

   "Johnny...please...God..."

   "Is there anything worth what I'm about to do for you?" John whispered.

   Paul shook his head feebly...certainly.  "Nothing.  Nothing in the
fuckin' world."

   "It's all down to this with you and me.  It's all you and me in this one
moment.  Nothing is worth more than what we have...us and the lads.  This
is everything in the world, right here."

   "I know."

   "Are you ever going to forget it again?"

   "No.  Fuck God, no, John.  I swear it." He was nearly screaming now. 
Paul's hand thudded mutely against the limo floor, gouging at surface, as
if pleading with the flesh of the world for some small escape.

   "Good Paulie," John whispered, hard-sucking Paul's vibrant cock down
into the depths of his throat, rubbing tongue like a merciless to demand
across the whole of Paul's glans.

   Paul fought for a hold on himself...some semblance of dignity in the
least of all dignified acts.  He tried to measure his reaction, but there
would be no stop to it.

   "You know you can't hold it, silly," a voice whispered through his head.
Paul had no doubt whose thoughts they'd been.  And the sound of John softly
swallowing swung him over the edge completely.

   "Johnny," Paul whispered...whimpered...all at once.

   It was several full moments before the screaming had passed from his
head and his veins and his lungs...all of it...the full of it.

   John kissed his belly, licked at a last moist trail across his groin
then moved all the way up to finish with a deep kiss into Paul's mouth.  It
was a kiss wrought with the forbidden and exotic and profoundly wild.  He
backed away, to see tears mingling with a smooth sweat on the other man's
skin.

   "No more crying," John whispered.  He rose up for a moment to chuck back
the sunroof on the limo's top.  Then he reached down for Paul to pull him
along.

   "Looks cold," Paul laughed, looking giddy as he squinted up at the sky.

   John whisked off his shirt.  "Naw, the air is fine.  You just stand up,
no balancing necessary.  I know you love the nighttime, so I'll make it
dark for you.  Come out to play, Macca.  You haven't lived until you've
felt the starlight sweeping over your skin."

   Standing, Paul fought a giggle as he found himself circled around by the
other man's arms.  Paul looked around at the invisible fingers of wind
doing wild and passionate things with his hair...and with John's hair.  All
around them, a dreaming, haunted land which was all their own.  Star
sapphire sky...a billion stars in every direction.

   "This is amazing!" Paul yelled, looking around him, every direction. 
"Is all of this ours?"

   "Yes, all of it.  Recompense for a life spent bottled up in hotels, I
suppose.  Whatever is here seems to love us very much, apart from the
celebrated pony fiasco.  I mean, it brought you back to me, didn't it?"

   Macca smiled.  "Sweet talker.  You must want something."

   John grinned.  "As it happens, I have a very naughty idea."

   "Another one?"

   "An even better one." John ran his hands up Paul's chest to his
shoulders.  "You do know you own me, body and soul?"

   Paul sniffed back, grandly.  "Even so, it's nice to hear it."

   "And with all your power...you big, shining star...it gets harder to
keep from wanting to own you, too, Mr.  McCartney.  In the fun way.  Like
the old days." John's grin focused in on Paul's face.  "Remember them?"

   One Macca hand moved back to grasp at John for more solid footing. 
Paul's body lost a little muscle in the moment.  His eyelashes slipped
half-closed.  "Yes."

   John whispered to an ear, "I thought you might.  Remember, after all
that happened, you said never again, right?  Well, I'm thinking, that was
before.  This is now."

   Paul's lashes slid all the way closed, moonlight hinting at moisture on
their edges.  He swallowed noticeably.  "Yessss..."

   "You've been a bad boy, haven't you?  All those years, I mean.  And far
beyond my reach."

   Paul slumped gently against John in a gentle surrender.  He nodded.  "I
have," he whispered.

   "I know you have.  But the first part of making amends is to admit our
errors.  It was a very bad thing you did; straying so far, but I have an
idea for redirection.  To bring us back to the way we should be, you and
me. A very sweet idea.  Want to hear it?"

   Paul nodded raggedly, a little desperately.  "Yes."

   John raked his hand into Paul's hair, to hold his head still while he
sucked dryly for a long moment at the soft bend of Paul's throat.  He freed
his mouth enough to whisper, "Get on your knees, Mr.  McCartney."

   It hadn't been obeisance, so much as a necessity.  Every muscle in
Paul's legs gave way at the words, as if in secret conspiracy.  He dropped
to his knees, Paul's hands grasping out at John for balance, while the
denim dissolved at his touch.

   Paul's fingers claimed it softly, slowly.  His fingertips swept up the
shaft to feel it harden more even as he touched it.  It was hard and hot,
thick and red: more a miracle now than even the first time, when their love
had been young and steaming...a restless, molten untamed planet full of
long-forbidden things.  Now it was much stronger, more solid, and far
vaster than they had ever fathomed possible...than they had hoped to
contemplate.

   Paul's lips parted to swab his tongue at John's foreskin, but John
thrust forward into the depths of Paul's mouth.  There would be no more
foray at foreplay, no tender prodding at teeth, just John fucking forward
through jaw and soft palate that succumbed completely to his rhythm: that
became nothing but the open target of his need.  Paul's hands filled with
nutsack fists soft as brown rough rose petals, as he goaded them tenderly,
his lips sucking demandingly...a slaking search for every last seed at the
root of John Lennon.

   John's hands rammed Paul's head forward, as his cock jacked his mouth.

   Lennon rarely made noises, but when he did they were sounds no one would
forget.  It was a fountain of sound: growl and sob and a hush muddle toward
words.

   "I've wanted this so fucking long, Paul," John gasped out through tears.
"So fucking long, Paul..."

   John's knees gave up, he dropped to the limo floor, but Paul followed
after, not giving up his liplock, refusing to yield.  He jackhammered his
jaw down so fast and often, John was pushed over from the motion itself.

   When John Lennon screamed in pleasure, there was no music grander in the
whole, fucking world to Paul McCartney.

   Paul sucked for all of it, for every last bit of it, leaving no sperm
untapped.  The gentle rhythm of his jawlock slowed to a milking,
questioning pace until finally he let John roll free from his attentions.
Macca didn't mask his tiny victory smile as John tried his best to lift his
head.

   "You're a fucking insatiable slut," John whispered.

   Paul sucked at something left over on his thumb.  He leaned over to
cover John Lennon completely.  Paul continued the sucking of unseen residue
from his fingers.

   "No, I'm not," Paul whispered, leaning into his face.  "I'm your daddy,
aren't I?"

   John's reaction unfolded in his eyes and through his face.  It was a
big, burning grin.  "Oh, Paulie, you're playing with matches."

   Paul smiled his smile of explicit innocence.  "Oh, good.  Say, John,
let's find us an accelerant, shall we?"

   "That's it, it's decided.  I'm going to fuck you through the floor, Sir
Cute One.  We'll have to slow down the limo to a fuckin' crawl to be
certain you won't get road burn by the time I'm done with you.  Hell,
they'll probably find indentation marks all the way there."

   Paul pecked at his mouth.  "You're really becoming the experimental
fellow."

   "Then we know of what I speak?"

   "I suspect I do, yes." Paul smiled in feigned shyness.  "You're assuming
I'll permit it."

   "You're assuming you'll be able to say no by the time I'm done with
you."

   "Planning on being persuasive, are we?"

   "Ooooooooh, yes...I promise."

   The limo around them stopped.  After a moment, the back doors opened. 
One set of eyes ducked down, only to be covered quickly.

   "Jesus, they're naked," Ringo said.

   "So?  You've seen `em naked before."

   "I've not seen them naked together like that."

   "You have so.  You've seen them naked together lots of times."

   "Not...like that.  Trust me.  Go on, see for yourself then," Ringo said.

   A new set of eyes ducked down, only to be covered quickly.

   "Jesus, they're naked," George said.

   "Which was my point."

   "Calm yourselves, Aunties," John piped back.  "We're blinking clothes on
our sinful bare nakedness to soothe your delicate sensibilities." John -
now dressed in tight jeans and a t-shirt - thought tossed a beige sweater
and some brown leather pants onto Paul.

   "What's all this?" Paul asked, looking down.  "Looks bloody tacky. 
Doesn't look very comfortable either."

   John smiled deeply into his face, checking out his ass.  "But it sure
makes me feel better.  Anyway, I dressed up for you."

   "Thank Christ," Ringo said, as the other two joined him and George as
they looked the other way.  "We thought we were going to have to hose down
the both of you."

   John pinched Rich's ass.  "We should've made you two get naked instead.
It's our world here.  No one has a dress code."

   "Some of us prefer one," Ringo said, slapping at his hand.  "And I enjoy
clothing."

   "If we're all done with Beatles Wear Daily," George said, "can we
progress to Paul's next ceremony?"

   Paul had started to come out of his warm cocoon lover's mind into the
open air...all the more lovely given the context of the moments before. 
They were standing at an overlook to a long, unfolding land - stretching
out in every direction.

   "This is our home, Paul," George explained.

   John walked up behind Macca, enfolding him like a sweater.  John pointed
across the vista.  "That's from the top.  We have innumerable gardens, of
various sorts.  Rose gardens, cactus gardens, winter gardens, botanical
gardens..."

   There lay a blue-green natural rainforest that stretched out in every
direction.  Each path to the forest spun out into its own spiral arm of
fronds and trees and moss.  The general design was a center with arms
reaching up and away.  Paul immediately grasped the intention.

   "It's the octopus' garden!" he said, grinning.  "This is great."

   "And there's our old friend," John said, smiling meaningfully down at
Paul.  He pointed at a mosaic tile design with a lime-green waving octopus.


   Paul touched one of the hands around his shoulders.  "So it is.  Still
wears his color well."

   "Tis that he does." John indicated a deeper skyline.  In the distance, a
yellow city was obvious in a secondary light.  John smiled down at him. 
"That's Pepperland."

   "Like Sergeant Pepper?"

   "No, Macca, like Jalapeno pepper." John nibbled at the back of his ear.
"Hot and spicy as far as the eye can see, to signify our burning love."

   "Yes, Paul," George said, adding toward John, "as in Sergeant Pepper. 
It's all out there waiting for us to discover."

   "And what's that up there?" Paul asked, pointing to a bright mix of
colors of a Disney kind in another direction.

   "That's what we call Cartoon City.  We can't quite figure it, but John
thinks it may have something to do with that horrific animated series they
did with us."

   "The one where I looked like a demonic chipmunk?" Paul asked, with a
thick twist of frown.

   "You talk," Ringo said.  "My nose looked like it was shipped to a
separate county."

   "At least you two didn't sound like Dudley Do-Right," John said.  "I
kept expecting to see Snidely Whiplash."

   Paul nodded toward another horizon.  "And in that direction, over there,
that should be Liverpool."

   "Good call, puddin'," John said, drawing close to his face.  "Whatever
made you deduce that with your Poirot-like powers of perception?"

   "The sign," Paul said, pointing to one in the distance, "it's the
turn-off notice toward Merseyside, so Liverpool is that way."

   George nodded.  "In every direction, a whole new land for us to discover
together...or rediscover.  So many vistas and infinite time to do it in. 
And no pointy, gawking people all wanting something from us."

   "That is paradise," Paul said.

   "See," Ringo said, "I told you.  And now, my friend, it's time for the
second portion of our three-part ceremony.  George gets the first
verse...as usual..."

   George slung a sharp smile at Rich.  He looked again at Paul.  "Second
of three stages.  Last time, this time, and one more ahead of us.  When we
go on and formalize things completely tomorrow, Paul, it will be us beyond
time.  The four of us.  No walls, no go-betweens, no representatives using
us against each other.  Just us, like it used to be in the very beginning,
only the bond will be even deeper." George gestured toward Ringo.

   "It's an exchange of light mass," Rich went on.  "Our bodies are shaped
by the resonance from our spirits, and so while we keep our personal
patterns because of the resonance, we exchange the vibratory units that
make it up.  That way we stay in tune as a unit.  We three have already
done that.  Your time is now."

   Paul nodded again.  He was moved to swallow deeply, to clear his voice
of shadows.  "That's beautiful.  And yes, wondrous.  I understand."

   George smiled.  "If you don't feel you want to go through this, it
stops. We're going to give you a way to stop it for you.  At that point, if
you make that decision, you'll be transported into paradise.  We'll
understand and love you forever anyway." He waited a moment.  "We go
forward?"

   Paul laughed a little at the question.  He said softly, "There was never
any consideration otherwise."

   "Excellent.  And now is when John gives you the key," George said.

   John looked askance.  "What key?"

   "You know very well what key.  Hand it to him.  Go ahead.  It's your
job, you know - you're the leader."

   "Some of us should remember that, eh?" John reluctantly removed a
square, golden star shape from his pocket.  He handed it to Paul, forcing
himself to muddle through the words.  "If at any point and for whatever
reason you cannot fulfill your roll as Miss America..."

   "John," said George and Ringo.

   "All right, all right.  This is the way to Paradise such as was
mentioned before...prattle, prattle.  It's our act of selflessness for your
sake...prattle, prattle.  To empower you to return to the celestial
zone...aka paradise...prattle, prattle...if you'd rather not go forward
with the finalization...prattle, prattle."

   "Ah, you woo me with pretty poetry again, John." Macca pocketed the key.
"Okay, what next?"

   "No need to give it to me, John," Lennon said, hiking his voice a notch.
"I won't need to have it with me, John."

   "Well, I won't," Paul said.  "But I'm supposed to have it, so I'll have
it.  It was important enough that those pirate chaps seemed to fancy it. 
I've a mind to hang on to such things of tangible value."

   "There's a major revelation for us," John said.  "Those booty bandits
fancy everything.  I'm not plannin' on leavin' you lyin' around either,
Paulie.  All right, it's given, happy Mahaharrison?"

   "Beyond the scope of human words," George replied.

   Ringo nudged Paul.  "You're going to like this part of it."

   "Which part of it?"

   George pointed at his canines.  "You cut your baby teeth.  You know your
V-word teeth." He pointed toward John.  "And guess which Illustrious Master
Vampire you get to bite first."

   Paul grinned.  "I am going to like this part."

   "See, you lads didn't believe me, but I told you Paul was very kinky,"
John added.  "Okay, Paul, in a second you'll get some teething pain.  It's
only a flash of a second, but that's what it is, FYI."

   "Youch!" Paul said, tapping his lips.

   "There ya go, all finished.  Who's my big boy?" John finally moved to
stand before the other half of his sky.  He made a dramatic gesture, swept
back his hair and presented throat.  "You only get one crack at this neck,
Prudence, so live it for a lifetime."

   Macca was still massaging his jaw a little, moistening his mouth.  "I'll
put it in me keepsake book, John, how would that be?" Paul couldn't hide
the smile upon his face.  "I like this image."

   John peered back at him in secret mischief.  "Bet you wish you had those
fangs when we were in the back seat of the limo."

   "Stop being a nit or I'll use them on it now, won't I?"

   "And they wonder how we keep our love alive." John turned his head a
little more to the side.  "Go on then.  Munch away.  At my neck."

   "My pleasure."

   "Just try not to deafen me with your yummy sounds."

   Ringo shook his head.  "We really have to work on your poor self-image,
John."

   Paul ran his thumb inside his mouth over his teeth.  He leaned across
John to consider his throat.  "How do I go about doing this, eh?"

   "Give in to your urge, follow your bliss, go with gusto, pedal to the
metal, and all that gab," Ringo said.  "Sometimes it helps to smack the
region a little, to get the blood source to the surface.  Enjoy yourself."

   "Watch it, Sir Cute One," John said.

   "Right when you get your hand off my ass, John, so I can concentrate."

   "Really, Macca.  How's an amoral immortal to resist?  Anyway, I thought
you wanted my sweet blood pumping.  Very well."

   "Just bite?" Paul asked, "Like I'm munchin' a sandwich?"

   "Think big," John said, "As when you're - "

   "Please!" Ringo said.  "John, spare us the salacious metaphor.  There's
a lady present." He nodded in mock chivalry toward Paul.

   John leaned up enough to smirk back.  "Poor little Richie's jealous. 
And anyway, it's a simile.  Innit, Paul?"

   Paul glanced over at Ringo, then back to John.  "Can we get back to the
matter at hand, eh?"

   "Yes, yes," John said.  "Okay, just lick the area a little...or a lot,
as you prefer...as I prefer really.  Then go by instinct where you're
compelled.  It's the straw concept.  Same as in the old world."

   "And I'm not going to have a gag reflex problem, because it's
blood....particularly yours, I mean?"

   John smiled sinisterly.  "Not in the least, love."

   "Very well, spot on, cheerio, jolly what, it's vampire time." Paul
slithered his tongue over John's major artery, trying to ignore the roguish
throaty giggle it was eliciting, but thoroughly unable to do so.  Paul
pinched the thick of John's belly in reply.  "It's hard enough here without
you making me laugh, Lennon."

   "Go ahead, just bite me, Macca.  You know you've wanted to do that for
twenty-five fuckin' years."

   "We need no vampire to tell us this, Prince Johnny," Paul said.

   At last, having drawn the deepest of breaths, Paul tried for a nibble.
And out of some deep reservoir that indexed his essence amid all things in
time and space, something primordial took hold.  Something that was itself
the unity already formed of one man to the other... assumed control to
release the bond of blood.

   John's moan was deep, and loud, and long.  There was no hint of humor to
it - only of a primal conduit to something vast and visceral.  His hand
reached up to claim Paul's head and hold it firmly there.

   It would have been effortless to go on and on...it would have been the
simple tide of nature but when John tapped his shoulder, Paul instantly
broke free.

   "That's your fit of the intoxicating bubbly for today - " John said.

   Ringo looked from one man to the other and then onto George.  "Nobody's
peeved at anyone right now?  No need to vent this moment?"

   The other three men shook their heads.

   Ringo continued, "That was easy, we can finish.  I warn you, though, if
anybody's holding back, you get a nasty headache afterwards.  That goes
double for you, passive-aggressive Paulie."

   John swatted Macca's leather backside.  "Meaning, honest answer."

   "Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine.  Answering honestly."

   "Good.  If you had been where you were earlier, you two, our other
option would be to find a boxing ring somewhere and have the two of you
punch it out, fight club style."

   John flipped Macca a teasing look that led to Paul's widest smile. 
"Duke it out with Macca?  We tried that twice.  Both times we ended up
screwin' instead.  If we had ever tried to have a pub brawl, back in that
world, we'd have ended up with public indecency charges."

   "We're in the thick of the too much information zone again, John," Ringo
said, reaching into the air for a plastic strip of something that looked
like a complicated dried fruit strip.  "Paul, this is the capper for part
number two.  This is the combined blood plasmic samples from me and George
for you to imbibe.  We were going to try it the more fun and sensual way,
but we're not taking any chances today with the Alpha Beatle over here. 
Especially today.  We can do the more fun stuff another day...sexual
dominance duly noted, John.  Let's just get that out of the way."

   Paul considered the strippy thing once it was handed to him.  He peeled
the substance away from its coating, and then popped it in his mouth.  "You
guys taste good together."

   "The taste sensations that are sweeping the nation," John said.

   Paul swallowed at last.  "Okay, that wasn't so bad.  What now?"

   As he said this, the soft radiance of his skin brightened into golden
glow.  "Whoa, here we go, another notch toward matching John Lennon's own
brilliance."

   "Too late," John said from behind with a shy smile he only half showed
to Paul.  "Come along then, since you're 2/3rds of the way home, we've
something else terrific to show you.  It happens down inside our own little
grotto."





   "We each get our own rooms," Ringo explained.  "George and mine are both
on that side, yours and John's are both on this side.  Some John who shall
remain nameless used to go in yours and gaze mournfully into your soul
before you came here."

   "The same one who decorated it for me?" Paul asked, smiling over at John
with the question.  Macca moved through the indicated archway that opened
for their access.  `It looks a little bleak and barren in here so far."

   It was a warm summer brown on gray: clean and wood and cozy.

   Ringo went on, "No one decorated it for you; it decorates itself to suit
you.  Once you're all logged in to the Mater, after tomorrow's ceremony,
it'll complete itself.  For right now, it's the colors you're feeling...and
the people about whom you're thinking." Ringo pointed toward hologram
portraits, including ones of Ringo and George, and a bigger one of John. 
"You can tell who has prominence by that shrine-sized representation of
John Lennon hanging in beatific glory off the center wall...doubtless
subtly marred by the indentation where you've furiously rammed your head
into the center over the years."

   "Ouch," Paul said.  "Felt that one.  Think it came from the other
direction, though.  You okay, Rich?"

   "I'm fine, I'm fine.  Let's press on with the discovery process, shall
we?  Next up, the sacred room of your anointed soul mate."

   John smiled.  "That would be me."

   George led the way into John's room.  It was bright red and soft blue
and floating with big cloud-like couches: simple but not austere, buoyant
but not flighty.  It was as uncomplicated and clear as the man himself: a
boy who had matured, but never entirely grew up.  Gone was the anger it had
worn in the old world; it was replaced by a newer, equally energized, but
peaceful speed of light.  His wall of faces included the ones on
Paul's...and Macca's portrait here equaled the immensity of the John
portrait in Paul's.

   "At least we know the worship goes two ways," Ringo said.

   "This is cool!" Paul said, looking around, his mouth open in awe.  "But
why is your room so fine and abstract and mine is all kitten-sweet and
soft?"

   "Because of who we are, ducks," John said.

   "I am not soft, John."

   George looked to Ringo.  "Here we go."

   "I'm not!  Or sweet.  Or epicene.  Or any of your other usual lines of
prattle.  I was the abstract one first, Lennon."

   The other three men rolled their gazes skyward as if in perfect
synchrony.  "Not that again," Lennon groaned.

   Paul thumped his own chest.  "I belonged to the Process, John."

   John smirked.  "So you say."

   "Ringo, tell him."

   Ringo looked back from his assessment of anything in the room outside
this argument before him.  "Paul belonged to the Process, John." He looked
back at Paul.  "You know he knows that already.  He's just pestering you.
If you ignored such provocations, he'd stop making them, but he knows he
can get a rise out of you so he does."

   "I belonged to the Keeley Road Dungeon Group, John," Paul pressed on,
focused on his eyes.  A daring glint sparked up Paul's countenance.  "Ya,
huh?  Right?  Remember?  The Keeley Dungeon.  Most outré place in
Europe...ask anyone from the `60s.  You were out in the `burbs where the
barristers' prowl and I was in the Westminster Vanguard of the Avant-garde.
That was me.  You were Mr.  Suburbanity."

   "Yes, sugar sweetums, whatever you say."

   "You see, there's justice for you.  Everybody thinks I'm the puffy god
of confections, just because I got married and had kids.  You get married
and have a son and you're the Jesus Christ of Central Park West.  Mr. 
Transcendent Domesticity in the flesh."

   John stuck his tongue out.  "Thought I was Mr.  Suburbanity."

   "I can't believe we've got another day of this," George groaned.  "I
know it'll never truly stop with these two, but I thought the sex would
take out some of the tension.  They're back just as hard for each other as
ever."

   "I told you we should have had just the one," Ringo said.  "But no, you
said he'd be lonely and needed a companion."

   Paul was broadcasting wounded hurt and John was replying with a big
smirking leer.

   "I knew Timothy Leary before you did.  I knew your woman before you
did!" Paul said.  "I was thought of as quite the emergent abstract visual
artist.  I had art debuts with important gallery owners."

   "Queer gallery owners who wanted to prod your shapely virgin behind,"
John said.  "Besides, you know what an abstract artist is - an artist who
can't draw but does anyway."

   Paul tossed him a hard-edged glare, and then looked back toward Ringo.
"Listen to him, nothing I do is ever because I'm good enough, it's because
I'm handsome...or because someone who likes me is dumb or dotty or
strange."

   "You're little girl pretty," John said.  "I'm handsome."

   "That's another thing, I'm sick of you insulting me manhood."

   "As if I am the only one who does, Pauline, you vision of testosterone,
you."

   "I do all right for myself!"

   "Look at that little upturned nose.  Those flirty lashes.  Such a pretty
girl."

   "Shut up."

   John stuck his tongue out.  "You shut up."

   "No, you shut up."

   Ringo stomped his foot hard.  "If you both don't shut up, I'll have to
pull the bloody car over and when I do, gentlemen, fur will fly."

   "You don't respect me, John, that's the worst of it."

   John yanked down a floating couch so he might cast himself across it. 
He reached out to pluck for a piece of Paul.  "I don't want respect,
particularly from you.  I want you to disrespect me as much as physically
possible.  Now get over here so I can play with your lovely fun parts."

   "John!" Paul said.  "Honestly."

   "Okay, all right, Paulo Picasso, you were a big, spooky, avant-garde
artist of great renown whom the whole world loved before time.  Now get
over here, so I can play with your lovely fun parts."

   Harrison leaned across to look at Paul, whose back was turned
determinedly toward John.  "He's giggling, you know," George reported.

   "Thanks for ratting me out, old friend."

   "You're welcome."

   Paul's chuckle cracked through to the surface.  "John, you drive me
fuckin' dotty."

   "Ooooh, you know you drive me crazy naughty when you get fuckin' dotty."
John finally bagged Paul's shoulder and hauled him backward into his arms
within the couch.  "Come on, Paulie, surrender.  Time's a-wastin'.  We got
through the ceremony stuff; let's go back to our previous preoccupation. 
Where were we?  Oh, yeah..."

   "Do you ever stop rutting, you swine?" Paul asked, having resigned
himself to the arms that encompassed him.

   "Silly Macca, you know the answer to that question," John said, waving
away Paul's shirt.  "Of course I don't around you, and neither do you where
I'm concerned." John reached for the warm thickness beneath Paul's denim
fly.  "I've a notion that's not a plantain in your pocket."

   "John!" he said, trying to be serious before his face shook into
laughter again.

   "C'mon, surrender.  Capitulate." He poked at his ribs.  "Yield, yield,
yield.  You know you want to."

   "Johnny!" he said once more, one last act of resistance before he
suddenly gave in to a battle of two mouths for control of the other.  The
next sounds from Paul were sharp and loud but formless, drawn out of him
rather than put forth

   "There they go again," George said.

   "You know, you'd think their parts would get sore after awhile."

   "Probably the regenerative capacities of this world's skin, don't you
think?"

   "Either that or they've built up microscopic calluses or something."

   "That sort of thing possible?" George said, suddenly struck behind the
head with a wildly aimed pillow.  He turned around toward the hurler. 
"What was that for?"

   "For sporadic, non-contextual conversation.  Take the hint, gentlemen.
If you two don't want to join in then go to your own rooms while I bugger
Paul in mine."

   "Oh," Ringo said, "certainly, John.  Forgive us for standing in our own
house.  What were we thinking?"

   "C'mon, Rich," George said, leading the way.  "Lets leave the passion
pit to the enemy combatants."

   A circular staircase descended from the ceiling for their use, and then
once they had walked up, it as quickly rose up and away.

   "I think we hurt their feelings," Paul said, leaning up a little to
stare after them.

   "You think so?"

   "As it happens, yes.  Looks like we need to give them the talk..."

   "Right now?" John whined.

   "Yes." Paul admitted a pout.  "Now."

   John groaned sadly, rolling off and away.  "All right, let's throw some
cold water on and go after them.  You take the Quiet One, I'll take the
Funny One."







   The sound of the circular staircase descending was soon followed by a
soft, musical contracting noise.  As the staircase clicked up, it jolted
its occupant who nearly stumbled off the bottom step and into the room.

   "Guess I'll get accustomed to this stuff eventually," Paul said, staring
back at the ascended staircase like the impossible contraption it was to
him.  Then he turned his attentions to the room around him...a new room,
this.  It was a soft, vibrant gentle blueness around an ascending path: a
mint-green wall-scaled mist obscuring what above him would have been a
mountain.  Through it all, a narrow, winding path of water flowed to the
eastern wall and was encompassed by a vision of Bengal.  This river looked
like the Ganges.  In fact, if Paul hadn't been aware he'd just walked into
a room in a house, he'd have thought it was the bloody River Ganges.  If
George Harrison had been a room, he would be this one.

   "Sorry, am I interrupting something vital?" Paul asked.

   George's eyes were shut, but he smiled.  "Since when has that ever
stopped you?"

   "Oh, sorry.  I can, well, you know, just wait over here till - "

   "Paul," George said, laughing.  He shook his head in amazement.  "I've
known you forever.  When will you be comfortable in your own skin?  You've
as much right to be around me as my feet."

   "Oh, all right then.  I'll just -- " He looked around.

   George nodded toward a chair that instantly appeared.  "There you go. 
Bring you down to my level a little.  So, what happened to you and John and
your sofa wrestling?"

   Paul looked shy about it.  "We'll get back to it.  We just thought
perhaps we'd hurt your feelings, so we decided we should check in first
with you lads."

   "And you drew the quiet one," George said.

   "Yeah, I did.  You're my oldest friend, you know." Paul sat down, trying
a smile that somehow got lost between there and a memory.

   "I'd like to think."

   "What do you mean you'd like to think?  Of course you are.  I've known
my brother longer but only slightly.  And you never busted me Fats Waller
record."

   "No, I just scratched your Skittle Boys Extra LP, volume one."

   Macca shrugged, smiled.  "You bought me another of them.  I'm still
waitin' on the one from my brother." Paul leaned forward in his direction.
"You know, that all seems like a thousand years, but yet as if no time at
all has passed, you know?  And yet I can't even conceive of not knowing
you. It's beyond my ability to even consider."

   "I know." George grinned his understanding.  "But what is funny is I can
still recall the bus that morning."

   "Yeah!  Me, too!  I mean, I can bring myself back there to that moment
in my head and remember the smell of it even.  What it was like in the
morning, bloody cold, and how nice it was to get on early to sit near the
motor housing where it got warm."

   George smiled.  "I remember.  You were sitting in that very seat.  There
was a space beside you and you looked friendly, so I asked if that place
was being reserved.  You said no.  I sat down.  And nothing was ever the
same, for either of us.  For anyone, for that matter."

   Paul smiled back.  "It's so odd...the way our old lives became so
different - like entirely other lives.  And yet I can even remember the
smells from that morning.  I wonder if either of us had a clue what
wretched trouble I was getting you into."

   "Funny, I always sort of thought we got each other into trouble. 
Welcome to the wheel of karma that is cosmic justice."

   "Long may it ride," Paul said, shaking his head at the memory.  "Did you
ever wonder what might have happened if you'd been ill that morning or if
I'd have remembered to wear a second sweater?  Or if I'd been late to the
bus and had to sit elsewhere.  I've often, often thought of it.  You might
have walked right past me and neither of us would have realized a thing."

   George laughed gently.  He looked up at his beloved friend with kindly
understanding eyes.  "Paul, Paul, Paul..."

   "What?"

   "You're such an existentialist." George shook his head.  "That would
never have happened.  Our meeting was as destined for that day as the
sunrise on that morning."

   "You think?"

   George nodded, looking around for patience.  "No, I know.  I mean, it's
obvious...especially now.  You were always headed toward me; I was always
headed toward you, the same thing with the lads and the both of us."

   Paul shifted back in his chair.  He was studying his hands, as he had in
the days of the old world when he was uncertain.  "I'd like to think so."

   "Macca, it's still a mystery to me how you could be so plugged in and so
walled up at the same time.  Remember the song Mary Traverse dedicated to
us at the AIDS benefit concert.  The one the three of us attended after
Anthology came out?"

   Paul nodded.  "Like the First Time?"

   "That's the one.  Fairly standard pop stuff, but it always had that line
that struck me right with the four of us - we're a song that must be sung
together.  I think that's just the way it is.  We're none of us as good as
when we're with the other three.  That's why Mary sang it that night
because everyone else sees it, too."

   Paul's small smile lifted into a timid grin.  "You said something before
I was wondering...I mean, I was thinking to ask you about."

   "And that is?" George asked, arising from the floor.  "Want tea?"

   "Thanks, no.  Be my guest, though."

   "I already was," George said, laughing as he pulled a steaming cup from
the air.  He considered the item in his hand, sipped from it and set it
away on a table to his side.  "I'm waiting for some expansion on your
comment however."

   Paul shrugged, his face flushing but his voice staying steady and
strong. "You've said...before...you had crushes on John and me.  Was that
true?"

   "No," George said, shaking his head.  But then he laughed at himself and
smiled.  "Ringo said I had crushes.  I know it was a lot more than that. 
And it's the same thing on Richie's side, though he'd never admit it short
of pain or duress."

   Paul's stare softened as his eyes grew large.  "Why didn't you say
something before now?  Either of you?  John and I will always be first and
foremost all infinitely tangled up in each other, you know that.  But we
could have worked something out for everyone.  It's not like we all haven't
had, you know, experiences around each other.  We don't want you two
feeling set aside.  You know we love you."

   George smiled.  "Tell you a story to illustrate my point.  I know you've
been to Teotihuacán.  Have you ever been past there, through the Avenue of
the Dead to the Aztec pyramid plaza?"

   Paul shrugged, fighting to follow the plot.  "It's possible I might have
done.  I don't recall."

   "Well, I have been there.  I've been all the way up the fuckin' Avenue
of the Dead, up and around the Pyramid of the Moon, and through all the
more modern Palacios, all of them lovely.  But I've never made it through
the best and biggest draw of all - the Pyramid of the Sun.  And do you know
why, Paul?"

   He shrugged again.  "No."

   "Because no matter how perfect and beautiful it is...how utterly
emotionally and spiritually compelling it would be to bask in its splendor
and glory...it's still 242 ruddy steps to the top.  I didn't think my knees
could stand the climb."

   Paul laughed, moving forward again.  "Are we that hard to
circumnavigate?"

   "Apart, yes.  Together, you're bloody impossible.  It's because you love
each other so much that everyone else just gets blown out of the way.  It's
always been that way.  I mean, when you met John, you and I were best
friends.  The day after you met John, you were still my best friend, but I
wasn't yours anymore.  I knew that.  It was always obvious.  It was just
the way it was."

   "Who is being the existentialist now?  That's not so.  In fact, John
told me once he wasn't my best friend, and he's right."

   "Please..."

   "No, really.  He's something else...something different...something none
of us understood at the time.  You were my best friend.  And you still are,
though Richie's a damned close second.  But I think it's in us all to be
more than that if you want us to be.  And I think it would be even more
beautiful than anything in this world you've seen already."

   "What?  And come in second to John again?  And second to you with him?
No, thanks."

   "You shouldn't see it in that way."

   "No - but frankly, I'd rather be what I am now.  Less complicated. 
Anyway, that kind of constellation is still rather unusual, even for a
bohemian fellow such as me."

   "So, you'll just sit it out on the sidelines, will you?  Not make the
climb?  Do the Zen thing?" Paul cast a look again around the room.  "That's
my issue with eastern mysticism.  I mean, I've always liked a lot of it; it
has its strengths and weaknesses, as does everything.  You can stay where
you are, certain of the relative rightness of your actions in the grand and
glorious scheme of things.  You never have to wonder if you're missing
something so rare and beautiful; it's worth the 242 ruddy steps to the
top."

   George looked at him a little crossly.  "Why don't you have this talk
with Rich?"

   Paul grinned with teasing challenge.  "What do you think John's doing
now?"

   George sipped again from his summoned tea.  He shrugged a little. 
"We'll see what he has to say.  I'll consider it."

   Macca flagged his hand over the circular staircase that immediately
popped across for his use.  "No you won't," Paul said with gloomy finality,
just as he descended from the room through the floor.

   To steady his thoughts, George tried to see himself within the tea
cupped in his hands.  It was a moment or two before his sigh finally made
its own way into sound.

   ***

   John had been slinging the parsley at the back of Rich's head for the
better part of an hour.  And Ringo continued to ignore him.

   "Beatleland to Ringo," Lennon said.  "Richie, come in, this is
Beatleland talking.  Your old friend John.  Kindly say something before I
kick your silly backside around your even sillier room."

   "Something," Ringo spat back, looked away.  "That was George's song."

   But he had only said anything because he saw John's reinforcements
descending into Ringo's room.  Paul nearly tripped off the staircase as the
bugger stopped short of the floor.

   Macca corrected his balance, looking around.  "Why is there this debris
field of restaurant garnish around you?" Paul asked, considering the piling
parsley at hand.

   "Ask your lover the Galloping Gourmet back there.  He's the one with the
greenery fetish."

   "So I see." Paul picked up several sprigs of the vegetation and looked
around for a trash receptacle.  "Where's the - "

   "Just toss it, Paul," Ringo said, articulating the process with his
hand.

   "Oh," Macca said, "tossing it" - to watch it vanish in mid-air.  "Thank
you," he called up to the Mater.

   "No need to thank it, Paul.  We're told that is its Tao," Ringo said. 
"We're helping it evolve in the process."

   Paul nodded, glancing around at the room in which they were.  It was big
and intricate, soft autumn in color, with things in various little cool
compartments, all secreted carefully away from each other.  In the midst, a
nice chair, a good book, an eternally hot pot of coffee and a small stuffed
replica of the little Boxer dog that the boy named Richie had loved
profoundly.

   "This is your room?" Paul asked, trying to act cool in such a warm
little place.

   "No, it's John's again; can't you tell by its subtle humor and refined
good taste?" Ringo said, frowning fully a moment more.  "Yes, it's my room,
Paul."

   "I like this room, but then I like you."

   "Why, I like you, too, Paul.  Thank you."

   "Don't be snippy, Ring, you know what I mean."

   Ringo nodded contritely, snapping up a chair for him.  "I know.  And
have a seat.  You're a welcome distraction from the green man back there."

   "Ringo's got a boyfriend," John sang in the background.  "And they
called it Puppy Love.  Sing along, Paul, you'll know this one -- "

   "Shut the fuck up, John, will you?" Ringo finally snapped back at him.
"My god, it's incessant, his blathering.  How in the blue flippin' blazes
do you deal with it, Paul?"

   "Because I know what it feels like to live without it," Paul said
simply.

   Ringo was stung silent.  Shook his head for a moment.  Finally, he
nodded.  "Sorry.  Sometimes I forget."

   "Classic McCartney rhetorical TKO," John said.  "And the crowd goes
wild."

   "Johnny," Paul looked at him tenderly to plead their common case.  "Hush
yourself and help me with this here or I'll lock you in the closet. 
Again."

   "Ooooh, kinky," John said, but conceded with a gesture.  He crawled
across the short span to Ringo's side.  He poked his nose up into Rich's
face.  "C'mon, Richie, don't be glum.  You know we love our drummer boy. 
Who's our favorite Caveman?  Stop playing hard to get and give us both a
big totty kiss."

   "Honestly, John," Ringo said, simply.  He stood up and looked around at
both of them.  "There's no room for anyone else in your tandem universe. 
Look, I realize this is your time for coming to terms, and that your union
is very special, but the fact of the matter is your fuckin' hearts blot out
the sun.  That's our sun, too, you know, George's and mine.  We've a right
to a bit of it."

   "More than a bit, Rich," John said.  "And if you'd been paying
attention, you might have noticed me and Paul have been trying to gently
tug both of you into our solar orbit, if you know what I mean."

   "Why, no, John, I'm a simple little fellow.  How could I know a thing
like that?"

   "No need to get bitchy, Richie.  Answer the fuckin' question."

   "Answer it, John?  All right, I will answer it.  If we were pulled into
your gravity, Planet LennonMcCartney, we would surely be crushed into tiny
fragments of far-flung space debris."

   "That's a convenient excuse," John said.

   "Which means?"

   "Which means you're frightened, Rich," John said, pointedly.  He leaned
into Ringo's face.  "Fine, that's understandable.  It's a big and major
step.  But your particular problem is that the four of us finally getting
together would take away your whole reason for being."

   "Make your point or leave it, John."

   "Fine.  Here it comes.  I mean, how could you still feel unloved when
it's your turn, eh?"

   "My turn?"

   "Your turn in the middle, while the three of us are making hot, nasty
love to you."

   Ringo's bottom lip quivered a second then tightened in response.  "You
bastard," he said.

   "With John and the truth, our feelings just have to get out of the way,"
Paul said to him, his eyes full of promises and regrets.  "We'll see you
later, Rich.  We'll be outside for when you want to talk to us like
adults."





   John picked up the conversation at the edge of his own thoughts, when
their steps had finally come upon a good place to stand.  The men were
looking upon an unfolding plum-black sky and its sparkling puzzle of stars.
"I'd like to get back to the subject of myself for a moment," John said.

   Paul chuckled.  "There's an unnatural act."

   "Hush, you.  It's a question about you actually."

   "Well, okay, then, that's better."

   "Before...in the old life...did I make you feel like a guilty secret? 
Like you somehow came in second?"

   Paul thought about it a moment and nodded.  "Sometimes."

   "You weren't, you know.  And you didn't.  We were just broken in two and
I couldn't find myself.  That's why I acted as I did.  Couldn't connect my
head and heart...same old song."

   "We talked all that through," Paul said.  "Let's not have it again."

   "George made me think about all that anew, though.  As did what just
happened.  It's my contemplativeness, I hasten to add, which is the only
reason I haven't just hauled you into my room and started humping you
furiously and horizontally.  Yet, I mean."

   That triggered a giggle fit Paul tried to hide by looking away.  "You
frightened me, for a moment there I thought you'd gone all squishy on me."

   John leaned his head against Paul's shoulder.  "Only for a moment."

   Paul considered the miracle on his shoulder.  He kissed his forehead. 
"You know, I didn't know it was possible to be this happy.  I mean, God,
not this happy.  Not wildly, no flippin' worries or regrets in the whole
bloody damned world happy."

   "Good, old sensibly English happy, but not really happy," John said.

   Paul slapped at his head playfully.  "You know what I mean.  I know you
do."

   "Of course.  Sweet thing is you don't even know how happy that you're
going to be.  There's only beauty on this side of the night, Paulo
Picasso."

   "You know, young man," Paul said, his eyes gently shining, "you're very
gifted with your turn of phrase.  You could find gainful employment in the
musical composition trade."

   "You think so?  Despite the fact I can't read a spot of music?"

   "That true?  Oh, well, me neither.  Guess that finishes us, eh?"

   "I guess.  Ah well, I hear guitar bands are goin' out of fashion
anyway."

   "Just as well.  We'd have gotten dragged down into the carnal and
intemperate lifestyle of the professional musician."

   "Really?  Well, on second thought..."

   Paul broke first toward a laugh.  "Dangerous, wanton lad, you.  Mrs. 
Donnelly at Art School said you'd be a peril to my Christian character."

   John joined him at the laugh.  "Old witch had no bloody idea how much,
did she?"

   "God, I hope not." Paul gestured to the sky and the horizon.  "It's so
pretty at night here...wherever here is..."

   "We didn't really know where the old universe was either, did we?"

   "Good point, that.  Which reminds me, how come it never follows a
pattern of a day here?  It's night, then it's night, then it's afternoon
and morning again..."

   "It's whatever time of day we want it to be, isn't it?  Sort of like
switching up the house lights or shutting `em down." He nodded toward the
sky with a haunted smile.  "Do you remember still the falling stars that
like swift horses through the heavens raced...?"

   "Rainer Maria Rilke," Paul said.  "And regards the falling stars, you
used to like that when we were kids, too."

   John snapped his fingers, looking above them.  "Mater, please, would you
give us the night sky as seen from the River Mersey?  The sky from down on
Water, and over near Newquay and Strand?  Then dampen out the city lights
so we can see the shooting stars please?"

   "Hard to see them, near our village," Paul remembered his own words. 
"Beautiful, what we could see of them, John and me."

   John smiled at the words set in memory...for which he grappled a bit
harder than had Paul.  "But...we really didn't grasp their meaning...their
beautiful and magic meaning... till the city lights unsighted us no more.
Free verse, some minor poet, 1965.  Gosh, I wonder what happened that year,
eh?"

   Paul chuckled with a shrug.  "Nothing much.  Northumberland Poetic
Journal however did smite me with relish over the unsighted thing in
there."

   "A dangerous choice, but I liked it." He elbowed him.  "Speaking of
being smitten, it's the only poem you ever wrote about me...directly at
least."

   "Not true.  You're mentioned in another one."

   "Yeah, but you called me your best friend in it.  There's a flimsy
euphemism for you."

   "What was I to do?  Out us right there in the New York Times Book Review
section?"

   "Would have been very literary.  And at that, they'd never have noticed.
They never noticed with you and me.  We could have written filthy paens to
our love and they wouldn't have had a clue.  But let them pick up the scent
of me scratching poor old Stuart's buttcheeks and suddenly he and I are
rippin' poofters of the highest order."

   "Living is easy with eyes closed," Paul said.

   John smiled.  "What sort of lunatic wrote that, eh?"

   "Pardon me?  I happen to fancy that lunatic's writing."

   "Yes, well, that's due to your fanatical lust for his beautiful,
god-like body, isn't it?  And also in that you know him better than God
does.  Just like he knows you." John smiled the meaning to his words.  "Let
that comprise a direct response to your musical rhetorical question to me
in that beautiful song you wrote."

   "Thank you," Paul said softly, smiling.  "Speaking of which, mind if I
ask an odd question?  I always wondered.  I mean, several times...back in
the old life... I thought...despite my native skepticism...maybe you tried
to contact me..."

   "That's because I did.  Contact you.  No maybe about it."

   Paul nodded deeply and didn't stop for a long moment.  "In my room that
time.  Was that you that...appeared...?"

   "In your room?  No." John shook his head.  "It was me old Auntie.  Of
course it was me."

   Paul shook his head, laughing again.  "Well, I did read something that
suggested it might have been a hypnopompic image."

   "Hypnopompic, my fuckin' ass.  It was me.  Figure it out, I mean, why
was it always a dead guy appearin'?  Why not somebody's fuckin' accountant
down the bloody street or something if it was just some brain fart nonsense
on wakin' up?  Human beings are fuckin' mad.  We give them voices on their
tapes, we give them photo and video messages, we even manage to put in a
personal appearance or two...and it's never the voices or the images of the
living people, but only the fuckin' dead every single bloody time...and
human beings stand around asking, `Is there a life after this one?' I want
to scream, `Well, what the fuck do you think, Einstein?  It's not fuckin'
musical theatre we're doin' here.  Work with us.'"

   Paul couldn't stop the giggle from firing up again.  "Okay, I take your
point.  Is it safe to ask if that was you who messed with lights and sounds
and things on occasion?"

   "Yes, yes, yes.  I tried to send you a little message every day. 
Especially after you were doing your later songs.  By the way...I
grudgingly admit...I loved all of them.  You're at your best when you write
about me.  Especially, you know that one."

   Paul grinned shyly.  "Thought you might like that one."

   "Yeah." John looked upward again in the direction of the stars.  "If
only we had had it to listen to back when it all happened.  Like you said,
and like poor, old Phil told us long ago, if we'd have just stayed calm,
focused, and together, it would have worked out.  But back then, we weren't
and we didn't and it didn't.  And we let everyone but you and me take the
blame."

   Paul sighed his agreement.  "Our wives you mean?"

   John nodded.  "Our wives.  It's always the poor women who pay for our
short-sightedness it seems.  Everybody blamed them for what was our
problem."

   "Yeah, but we're here now."

   "Thank God.  And since we're bein' all forthcoming and everything, I
have to be honest with you about something.  It really fuckin' bugs me that
you kept the gate key."

   "John, you know how I am.  I save everything.  I've got the first guitar
I was ever given.  Practically the first damned pound note, too.  Well, I
used to have it, before my recent earthly departure.  Life is
uncertain...even afterlife life.  I want to trust completely like you do. I
want to stride forward, much as you do, in full confidence of bloody solid
ground.  But I can't bring myself to trust that much in anything ephemeral.
It's just not my nature.  I have to give up this tomorrow, but I think it
just makes good sense to keep it, just in case.  It's my last ticket to
paradise, isn't it?"

   John dropped his hold on Paul's hand, looking away.  "The classic
McCartney opt-out clause.  We've been that way before, haven't we, Paul?"

   "John..." Paul started to say a thousand things, but decided against
them all.  Instead, he pulled the gate key from his pocket, staring down
into his open palm.  "Didn't you keep your key when you first came?"

   "I arrived by a different method.  I came with a wish of my heart. 
Going back was never an option for me."

   Paul's eyes reflected a sudden tide of sadness...dark and instantaneous
regrets.  "I'm sorry, John... I - "

   Something bright flashed in their eyes.

   There came the screech of the sky splitting open.

   At the side, John first saw the shimmering color flex into a sidelong
falcate light, as if a bending sprite of summer.  He stepped up to block
Paul's path to it as the streaming light resolved into a beam ship fit
enough for four large men, with one of them seated at the helm.  A white
field of light struck up from the beam ship's narrow promenade, giving the
entire crew a hazy mist.

   It was the ones from earlier - the brigand from the food place.  Their
leader rose up to stand astride the deck.

   "Seems we're a little hard of hearing among the buccaneer set these
days," John said, yelling sharply through his hands.  "Thought I ordered
you lot out of our world."

   "We made a solid offer to your Aide-de-Camp...one he's not responded to
yet," the head pirate said, nodding toward Macca.  "It's his property and
he isn't your possession."

   "You lot must be thick as you are ugly, I gave you his answer.  I said
no."

   "You gave us your answer.  We're askin' for his."

   Paul nodded toward John as he answered the brigand leader.  "My answer's
the same as his.  Get along now.  I must say I don't much care for your
manners.  I'll do no trading with the likes of you."

   The brigand leader swaggered forward to the prow.  He hunched down to
bore his bad, black stare into Paul's.  "Oh, see, you're a pretty thing.  I
know what you're here for... you're Lennon's plaything, aren't you?"

   "Ha!  See what happens to you now, you filthy pirate bastard," John
said. "Now he'll natter on insistently till you combust."

   Paul folded his arms tightly.  "What's it to you?"

   "It's to me because I know your sort and that you aren't keen to playing
shoddy second to the likes of him.  I have everything at my whims you know.
I have worlds to offer you."

   Paul yawned visibly, looked away.  "Oh, that again."

   "Don't mock so readily.  Think of it....your own world, complete with
whatever you like there.  And it's all yours to do and have as you would...
no one else to deal with.  No one else's whims to serve but your own."

   "You don't know who you're talking to," John said.  "He's had all those
worlds already, bought `em at a huge markdown and sold `em at a profit."

   Paul shook his head.  "Peddle your baubles elsewhere, Mr.  Pirate, I'm
happy as I am."

   "There must be something that would convince you to part with it.  Maybe
just your freedom then." The brigand leader freed the lock pin from his
sidearm and raised it, pointing it at Paul.  "We can spin your vibratory
bands around so you wouldn't be back here anytime soon."

   John moved between the weapon and Paul.  "Shoot him and you'd destroy
the gate key.  Touch him, you surly bastard, and I'll haul out me
magnifying glass, search out your manhood and snip it for a titty ring. 
You can't get both of us at once.  You zap that thing, the siren will go
off inside and our mates will be out here with reinforcements."

   "May be, Lennon, but as nothing else seems to matter to your plaything,
we'll have you..." the brigand leader said, as a net flashed across to
surround John and hoist him into the air, and into the beam ship.  "Too bad
we didn't have the drag weight to seal you both, but I expect I can use you
for a bargaining chip."

   Paul launched upward to claim the very edge of the laser mainstay that
bore up a light bag being battled against as if a trap to many angry cats.
The projection from the prow swiveled around to carry John away.  Paul
barely had a hand hold until something blinding flashed in his direction
and he saw the ground hurtling up to meet him.

   "When you're ready to deal, McCartney, we're ready to bargain."

   Then the beam ship reared back as if to trepan the sky but instead bored
through the pulp of this world into the chambers below.

   The next thing Paul knew, four hands were pulling him away from the
earth and up to the light.  He was breathing easily...seeing again.

   "They - " he managed to cough out, before he could wrap his head around
the memory enough to die inside.  "They have - "

   "We know," George said, fighting to summon Paul's composure.  "They
stood between your link and the Mater, which knocked you out a moment. 
We're tracking him on the console.  Richie almost has them now."

   "But they have John - " Paul groaned out, desperately, as if no one
understood.

   "We know." George looked solemnly at the other men.  "And we'll get him
back."

   Paul nodded, repeating, "We'll get him back."

   "No other option," Ringo said, unfurling the portable console across the
sand.  "The buggers are here.  Filthy freebooters.  For the record -- and
you know I'm a tolerant man -- I hate pirates.  They deserve every iota of
ill repute history has ever lent them."

   George located a cluster of ambiguous flashes on the screen, tapping at
their signatures.  "Of all the filthy cheek - the cretins are inside our
own house!"

   Ringo shook his head.  "No one has manners anymore.  Especially
pirates."

   "Why didn't they take me instead?" Paul said, as much to himself as to
the others.

   "They didn't have the force to take you both as they're short of Matrix
rounds, due to their ration.  If they zapped you, they'd disable the gate
key.  And they knew they couldn't take you without disabling John.  They no
doubt plan to barter him for your key."

   "They can have the wretched thing," Paul said, snapping a cold look down
at his own pocket.  "I don't want it now."

   George shook his head.  "No, it gives us a bargaining chip.

   "It's not that I haven't tried to like pirates," Ringo said, wheeling up
the console apparatus into a tube he compressed down to a circle and
slipped into a pocket.  "I have done.  But they're just bloody unlikable."
He yanked out the print out from the pocket where he'd slipped the circle.
"I mean, right there, in our own Mater complex, they're holding him.  Our
John in our complex.  Of all the nerve."

   George shook his head.  "We'll deal with it, Rich.  Paul, you stay here.
You're not all uploaded yet and they can do you harm, like they did back
there.  Ring and I aren't vulnerable to nearly as much.  The buggers want
to get between us and John and then hover him close to the Mater complex so
they can interfere with his pattern and possibly scatter him.  That leaves
him vulnerable so they can bargain with you.  They can't kill him, but they
can mess him up a good while.  It's the same as in the old world - the
forces of evil can only win when they divide us from each other. 
Understand?"

   "No way I'm stayin' here," Paul said.  "I'm going with you...in fact,
I'm set to run in that direction now.  If you make me stay here, I'll
follow.  You know me, George.  You know I will.  I'm not letting you leave
me here alone again."

   "Paul," George said, gently, trying to find some short span of words. 
At last, he gestured surrender.  "Very well, but listen to reason.  Stay
behind us.  Follow after Rich and me."

   "Oh," Ringo said.  "And watch out for the ponies."

   ***

   George kicked the shortcut portal drop open.  It was a straight access
into the nerve center of their home.  The internal cylindrical network that
bridged the upper home into the lower supportive structure looked like
nothing so much as a big, bendable flexi-straw.

   "To jump down, you drop slowly," Ringo explained.  "The ground will find
you and get you where you need to go."

   "Drop slowly?" Paul said, squinting.  "Ground will find me?"

   George nodded, shrugging to Paul's confusion.  "It's the way things
work."

   "We're holographic vampires who live near Pepperland.  Who am I to argue
for logic?" Paul looked down into the vertical follow - what seemed like an
infinite distance.

   "There are four individual doors into the place they have John.  When we
all hit ground, you two each take one door," George said.  "I'll take two.
Paul, if you see anything on your end, do not walk in there first.  Hear
me? We lead, for a change.  Understood?  Ready?"

   The other lads nodded.

   "Good.  On my word.  Drop."

   Each man leapt down to the surface... the tallest one George landing
first, but Paul took the leap running and moved first in a single
direction.

   Ringo and George looked at each other, left behind in his wake.

   "You didn't honestly think he'd listen," Ringo said.

   "Every so often I am blinded by hope."





   Paul could clearly see the four pirates trailing off their beam ship
floating above the floor; fading satellites to a doomed star system.  He
exhaled a great volume of relief...enough to leave him flagging a moment...
as he saw the man in the now transparent light sack, hanging at center, was
certainly John Lennon.

   Paul walked up slowly around the circumference, just beyond the range of
the brigand leader.

   He held up both his hands obviously and waved them, to disarm the
leader's reaction if nothing else.  Paul made anxious eye contact with John
and kept it fully for a second.

   "You do seem to have a rude way of conducting yourselves in somebody
else's land," Paul said.  "You need to review Basic Tourism 101."

   "You have what we're looking for?" the leader asked.  He pointed toward
the pendulum light sack.  "We have what you're looking for.  The simplest
of exchanges.  You toss over the gate key and we return to you your beloved
leader."

   "You set him free first."

   "Seems as if we have an impasse."

   "It would seem.  I don't suppose it would do me any good to point out to
you that this is theft, and we're supposed to be in a place of justice.

   "What you have is necessary to us."

   "Something that isn't yours by right.  John belongs to us.  There's the
difference."

   "I wouldn't bother quoting to `em from Miss Manners, Paul," John's voice
streamed down from the light sack.  "I don't think they'll be losing sleep
over their incongruent behavior anytime soon."

   "To them such as us," the brigand leader said, "it's only yours while
you possess it.  The rest is a technicality.  And if you don't stop and
toss it to us, we'll be forced to scramble this one's interference pattern.
After you toss it to us, we'll set down your leader."

   From the corner of his eye, Paul saw George move up.  Peripheral vision,
as in their band days, was the law of that land.  He clearly saw the man
open a door and wave something out of the shadows of the overground.

   At that moment, the directional thunder of nearly four dozen hooves
pounded down the floor grate and headed across the room.  Pink, lavender,
yellow, blue, green...every pastel color and a couple of warm shades thrown
in, all of them bearing down on the brigand four.

   The brigand leader screamed, "It's those goddamned ponies again!"

   Ringo leapt the mainstay, swung the light sack around to clear their
circle, and dropped it slowly to the ground.  The light sack opened like a
flower at dawn.  Paul and Ringo grabbed arms to haul him to safety.

   John free, the brigand climbed aboard the beam ship in flight but was
hemmed in by the ponies as they galloped into a streaming circle around
them.  They became a dizzying carousel of sound and motion, spinning to
keep the brigand at its core.

   At the center, a bright gold star shape appeared - a blackened hole
seeking a piece of light.

   Paul grasped innately what was needed.  He pitched the star-shaped gate
key into the blackened void.  As if by magic (and truly by a higher
science) the brigand streamed with the ponies into a veil of light and
vanished up and over into a hole cut out of space.

   Ringo was staring, big-eyed, into the empty distance.  "Its taken the
ponies also."

   George nodded, big-eyed, witness to a miracle.  "What do you know?  It
has."

   "That was their karma.  Their reason for being." Rich nodded, his face
awash with awe.  "You might say there was a method to my madness.  You
might say there was a higher purpose to the ponies having been here after
all."

   "You might say that, yes," George said.

   "Actually, Richie has a point," John said, as Paul was aiding him to his
feet.  "The Mater works in mysterious ways, its wonders to perform.  We
don't know that it didn't seed the ponies here waiting for this very
occasion."

   Ringo smiled, nodded, lifting a look teeming with satisfaction toward
George.  "Thank you, John."

   George looked back at Lennon.  "You do realize we won't hear the end of
this now, don't you?"

   "I realize that you won't hear the end of it, yes."

   "So, lads." Paul was turning around, as if searching inwardly for a
right direction.  "How do we get back to our place from here?"

   "Right through there," George said, pointing.

   Paul squinted around, fighting for bearings.  "But we had to crawl down
to go around and then walk up and over."

   "So?" George said, leading the way to "right through there", Ringo
following behind him.

   "So to get back we'd have to - " Paul said, turning once around until
his eyes fell upon John, who was grinning ambitiously at him.

   "Your point being?" John asked.

   Finally, Paul waved off his last dance with logic.  "Oh, never mind. 
Right through there it is."





   And as they entered their soft-lit common room, it had become a frame of
shadows of unsuspected heights.  Above it all, a ceiling arch of angled
leaded glass, its panes blue-black with the permanent hue of night.  Shafts
of light sliced through the dark as if beams of magic driven out of clouds.
In their childhood... in the old life...that effect had come from the
dust-caked glint of broken windows.  Now it was a phantom from the prism of
a common memory.

   "My god, it looks like Cill Colghan Abbey!" Paul said, staring straight
up into its steepled heights.

   George nodded.  "I believe this is the Mater's not-so-subtle way of
urging us to get on with things." He looked to the first two, and finally
to Paul.  "Ready, Macca?  For round three?"

   "Round three?  You mean this is it?  The final one?  I'll be a
full-fledged...whatever we are?"

   George nodded.  "If we're all of a mind, I suggest we comply with the
directive.  The Mater can get a bit fussy at times."

   "Sort of like John you mean?"

   "You know, we had noticed the similarities," Ringo said, grinning in a
smirking John's direction, to make certain he received their point.  "Okay,
ceremony time again.  George gets the first round.  Take it, Georgie."

   George looked upward into the distilled memory all around them and
smile. "This is it, Macca.  At the end of this, we'll all four be part of
each other.  Once our minds touch, we can perceive of a beauty so big we
can't know it unless we're together.  That's what our music was, when the
four of us were in synch.  It's also called beauty...symmetry...great
poetry...high art...perfect logic... all that type of thing.  Another word
for it is love.  Now it will be a part of our very physical character.  The
three of us haven't been this far yet.  You boost us higher so we can touch
those reaches, Paul.  We can't see all of it unless we're together."

   "It will forge a higher order between us, you might say," Ringo added.
"We understand it can be very frightening at its peak, just from the sheer
grandeur of it."

   "Every angel is terrible," Paul added.  "Like Rilke said."

   "Almond Rocca?" John said, squinting in mock ignorance.

   Paul smirked at him knowingly.  "Rainer Maria."

   "Gezundheit."

   George cleared his voice to continue.  "We have to each give our choice
in free will to go forward.  We needed you, Paul, to make the ultimate
objective for all of us.  We can't have it at all without you.  And so,
this is your third and final step."

   John stuck his face next to Paul's.  "Have you any questions, Mr. 
McCartney, before we advance into our lightning round?"

   Paul continued smirking back at him.  "Just can't let a tender moment
slide, can you, Lennon?"

   "Not if I can filthy or funny it up in some way, no."

   "Excuse me, gentlemen.  You, too, John." George cast them a sign of
feigned indignation.  "We each must choose a place to represent our bond
with you.  I had decided to use the old abbey, since we spent so much time
here, becoming friends, three of us at least.  We wrote our first half a
song here."

   Paul looked over at Ringo.  "The three of us used to investigate the old
place when we had no school."

   "When we sagged off, you mean," John said.

   "When we sagged off I mean." Paul corrected himself.  "It was such a
lovely, old shanty.  Haunted, you'd think.  Beautiful in a post-modern sort
of way."

   "You abstract minimalist, you," John replied.  "That's the place we got
Paul all sozzled the first time, Rich."

   Paul looked uncertain.  "I don't remember that."

   "I'm not surprised, am I?"

   "Getting back to our ceremony," George said, loudly.  "I had decided to
use this as the choice of my heart.  It's a lovely, old memory for me.  In
this place we formed our bond, Paul, with you my first real friend.  It's
to this place your mind went for comfort on the night you thought I had
died.  And it's this place I choose to say to you I dedicate myself to us
for all time." George reached a hand out to place first in the center of
the circle, on a staff that appeared from nowhere.  "Take it, Ringo."

   "Thought it would end up my turn." Richie snapped his fingers.  Around
them, Cill Coghan Abbey became a mid-priced hotel room with a sashed bay
window and two swaybacked double beds.

   "Recognize this place, Paul?" Ringo smirked.

   Paul smiled sadly.  "Not in the least, I'm afraid."

   Ringo returned his smile but brightened it up.  "No, matter.  It's like
every other bloody room for our first year touring, isn't it?  But this
one's special to me.  We were playing somewhere about a month after I had
joined the band, and I was feeling like a big fourth wheel and then some.
You three were headed out on the town.  You asked me along of course, to be
considerate."

   "Now, Rich," Paul said.

   "No, no, it was just a courtesy at that time.  I know.  But I didn't
want to be a bigger wheel than I was, so I lied and said I was sick and I'd
just stay behind for the evening.  But Paul, you told me you didn't want me
to be alone if I were ill, so you passed on a fun night with the lads to
stay with me and play cards in that old hotel room.  You let me win, too,
three hands on."

   "Better not have been strip poker," John said.

   "No, John, it was the game you always play.  Hearts."

   John flinched outwardly.  "Ouch."

   Ringo nodded.  "To go on...if I may...it was that night, for the very
first time, I felt like one of four and not the other one trippin' along
behind the three of you.  Dreary as it is, it's this place you really made
me feel like I belonged, Paul.  So it's the place I choose to say to you I
dedicate myself to us for all time."

   Ringo placed his hand over George's.

   "That's lovely...both of you," Paul said.  Finally, he crooked a grin
toward John.  "All right, where will it be, Johnny?  Manchester Zoo?  Tower
of London?  La Brea Tar Pits?"

   But John was already shining at him with a soft, engaging smile.  "There
are a million places for me and you, aren't there?  So many first important
memories that we share, the two of us."

   "At least a million."

   "I had to pick one, so I thought of places we became friends, places we
shared pain and joy and anger and laughter, all those memories.  I even
considered the hotel laundry hamper." He winked.  "You know that one. 
We'll tell you later, lads."

   "No, thank you," George replied, grinning.

   But John snapped his fingers and the room became...

   An endless field of strawberries, in every direction.  Somewhere on the
Continent.  Somewhere in summer.  Within it all, a softly green ivy-laced
cottage waiting, alone.

   "I choose to take us somewhere we've never been.  The future that should
have happened.  And the fact of it is, no matter how we raged and fought
against it, it's always been here waiting for us." John drew a step closer
to him, within the circular glow of a moon over strawberry fields.  "It
means so much to me now, at this point, I have to crack jokes just to bear
it."

   Paul laughed a little, blushing a bit more.  He was clearly fighting
back tears.  "Why at this point now?"

   "Because, Mr.  McCartney, just minutes ago, I watched you surrender your
freedom to save me.  Which brings to mind, how the hell did you know to do
that?  I mean, flip the gate key into the vortex so they'd be transported?"

   Paul shrugged.  "Dunno.  I saw the shape at the center.  It was the same
shape as the gate key only it was sort of blank in there, you know.  So I
thought, I just do this and Bob's your uncle."

   John's own smile softened its edges.  "To save me from the spot I was
in, you didn't hesitate for a second to cast away your last ticket to
paradise."

   "Johnny...I told you..."

   "I know, I know what you told me, but when you kept the key, I must
admit, I wondered.  I mean, escaping to paradise can be a very attractive
option when you're dealing with the likes of me."

   "But how could I escape to paradise in the first place, Mr.  Lennon?"

   "What do you mean, Mr.  McCartney?"

   "If I had gone to paradise, you would stay here.  How could that be
paradise if you're not in it?"

   John tried to laugh while tears emerged, as if almost amused as much as
amazed by what he was now feeling.  He reached one hand toward Paul's and
another to be placed third with the others.  "My darling man, it's this
place I choose to say to you I dedicate myself to us for all time.  I am so
damned sorry for the past.  y And I am even more certain of the future. 
And I love you more than you can ever know." John glanced over at the other
two.  "That goes for you as well, even though you two chickened out of the
L word."

   "We said it yesterday," Ringo said, guiltily.

   "Oh, and everyone knows you can only say it once." John leaned near
Paul's openly weeping eyes.  "Dja understand all of that, Paul?"

   "I believe so, John."

   "Wouldja explain it to me then?"

   Paul grinned and mimed a slap upside his head.  "That better?"

   "Much." John pecked at his lips in a kiss.

   George continued, "Now, Paul, you choose a place that signifies our time
together.  Then you make the vow we did and stack your hand on top of
John's."

   Lennon smirked.  "There'll be a first for you.  Just don't mash me bitty
finger."

   "Oh, I'll try."

   Paul considered the years behind them...a quickly shuffling playback of
memory: a reverse life review in a stream.  It all seemed to consolidate
around one moment - one second in time.

   He looked upward and then at his hand.  He snapped his fingers.

   The room around them transformed into the corridor at Phil's fleet of
offices.

   It was in this hallway, the suits had lined up to divide Lennon from
McCartney.

   "While you were all choosing yours, I was thinking of mine.  And I've
gone back to this moment so many times.  The hurt my choices caused.  The
pain I gave to you three...the three people in the world I wanted least to
hurt.  I've said this to people around me a hundred times, usually ten
times a month at least, but I've never said it to all of you at once.  I
would now give it all up to make that choice again.  To have done something
else...said something more... To have pushed through that wall of suits and
reached out to you, John, when you called to me."

   "Paul, there was no need," John said, leaning forward to gaze straight
into his eyes.

   George shook his head, laughing.  "Paul, there you go, our own beloved
existentialist.  Everything happened the way it was supposed to happen,
silly."

   "Everything?  I thought we were making things right here?"

   "We are," Ringo said.  "But that doesn't mean everything didn't happen
the way it did back there for a reason."

   "It's that eastern mysticism thing," George said, his eyes gently
teasing.  "You know, the one you were knocking before."

   "I wasn't knockin' it!" Paul said.  "I just said it had limits. 
Everything seems to have limits to me.  I can't figure out why anything
happens the way it does.  I'm amazed that you lot can."

   "You'll understand shortly," Ringo said.  "In fact, we'll all understand
more in a moment or two."

   John pointed at Paul's hand, then at the stack of theirs.  "We're
gettin' vowers cramp over here, Prudence."

   "Oh," Paul said, placing his hand over John's.  "Well, okay so now I say
something like...it's in this place I say to you that I dedicate myself to
us for all time.  And I love you dearly.  I love you all." He grinned at
John, winking.  "See, I didn't stint on the L word."

   "When have you ever?" John towed Paul in for another quick, nimble kiss.
"And that shut up your churlish rejoinder."

   "No, it didn't."

   Paul thought at first this gentle, lovely light was his imagination. 
But then it swirled around them, within and without them.  It pooled around
them slowly while it centered on Paul...the golden incandescence
strengthening until it was the brightest white that could be seen even with
the eyes of this world.

   Paul suddenly felt as light as air, the pull of the old world releasing
him.  He opened his eyes to his first pure view of the new life.  It was
even more vivid than he recalled - the full world seen for the very first
time.

   "My god, this is so..."

   "Real?" Ringo suggested, smiling his certainty.

   "Yes.  Utterly.  And clear.  And right." Paul's eyes completed their
transition into tears.  "My god, I can see everything now.  Not just here,
but everywhere else, too."

   "Wait for this," George said, with an understanding grin.  He lifted his
hand, offering it to Macca's.

   As Paul touched it, the effect was more immediate than a
"feeling"...more like a direct sensation at the nerve.  He was, in that
moment, the other man...with all his memories, all his feelings, all his
understanding.

   "My God, that's you, George!" Paul said in a voice of wonder.

   "That's me...and that's you, too." George nodded toward Ringo.  "Allow
me to introduce the Magic Christian."

   The legendary many-ringed hand spread itself next across Paul's
outstretched hand.

   "Hey, Ring," Paul said, as if truly saying it and seeing him for the
first time.

   "Hey, yourself." Rich nodded sideways toward John.  "And with no further
ado, the lad you've known for all these years..."

   John's hand replaced Rich's.

   Paul closed his eyes, savoring the moment - an exotic blend of cool and
warm, sunny day all bursting at the edges toward a rainy sky at morning. 
It was funny and restless and passionate and devoted and ribald and complex
and simple and a hundred thousand other things, all clambering over the
others to wave back at Paul through the breach.

   Paul broke up at that one again, continued tears and then a laugh. 
"Hello, John Lennon."

   John's fingers folded around his hand, as if clasping hold of something
long sought...finally found.

   "No need for rough symbols anymore, Paul," John said, remembering a
long-ago discussion about the futile search for understanding through a
crude catalytic lexis.  "I can see you directly...completely... No need for
misunderstandings."

   "We can work it out." Paul looked around at the other lads.  "That's a
musical aside."

   "We had guessed," George said.

   "Here's the fun part." Ringo placed his hand on Macca's head as George
reached over and squeezed Paul's other hand while he still held to John's.

   It felt as if Paul was gazing into a mirror that was reflected in a
mirror that was reflected in a mirror that was reflected in a mirror - the
cumulative effect so big it amassed into one thing in his mind.

   There were no tears for it...no way to smile...no land to cover on the
way to words.  There was only the moment so pure in itself it need not be
reacted to or remembered...it had become a part of them all.

   John came around behind him, reaching his arms around him.  "Welcome
home, Paul," he whispered, pressing a kiss into his hair.  And he pulled
him by the hand back toward their big, boundless bed in the center of the
floor.  "All right, enough sanctimonious rite and ritual, time for the fun
stuff...time for the honeymoon."

   Ringo looked to George: their gazes leapt up to the now-black-again
ceiling.  "Well, we knew the shared beauty was too lovely to last.  Where
shall we go to occupy ourselves, Georgie?  The planet Neptune?  Pluto?  The
moon?"

   "Doesn't matter, so long it's as a reasonable distance," George said.

   The next sentence was spoken by two voices and directed at Ringo and
George: "And where the hell do you two think you're going?"
Paul and John, arms folded, were standing in the center of the bed. 
They were smiling at them with equal parts tenderness and a certain giddy

mischief.

   "We're going to leave you two alone," Ringo said.

   "Don't leave us where we done want to be." John looked toward Paul with
a naughty smile.  "You tackle the funny one; I'll take down the quiet one."

   "Not this again," Ringo said, making himself look downward as Paul
approached.  But he didn't back off or move away.

   "C'mon, Rich." Paul extended his hands in welcome.  "You're the wisest
man I've ever known.  You know in your soul that this is the way it's
supposed to be."

   Ringo looked at him with moist, open eyes.  "That doesn't mean it
doesn't bloody terrify me."

   "Just because it bloody terrifies you doesn't mean it's not going to be
beautiful."

   Paul's hand touched the edges of Richie's...finding a finger and then a
thumb.  He managed to interlace all of his with all of Ringo's.  As if at
autonomic response, Rich's hand opened wide to take them in.

   "Rich," George said, looking with uncertainty at John standing there
within reach...and Ringo clearly now looking at Paul, touching hands, as if
considering.  "Rich, you're not thinking of..."

   "Yes, George, I am, goddamn it." Ringo closed his eyes as if in the only
way he might look inward for the words.  "I have missed the four of us so
fucking much.  Finally now it's the four of us again ... finally... And
yes, Paul, I know it's the way it's supposed to be.  I always have."

   "I knew you did," Paul said.  "I knew you saw it."

   Rich nodded.  "There was never the sex thing before with all of us, but
we loved each other more than we could probably allow ourselves to know. 
And I fucking want that again.  The way it used to be.  Bloody hell, I need
that again.  As long as it's you lads and we're together and we're loving
each other, I don't fuckin' care about the fine details.  Is that open and
out-front enough for you?"

   "More than that, Rich," Paul said.  "It's about the most courageous
thing I've ever heard a person say."

   Ringo glanced over his shoulder to the fourth man.  He extended a hand
toward him as well.  "George, good lord, you know it's the only fuckin'
thing that has ever made sense to either of us.  The four of us.  Why not
be lovers?  Why the bloody hell not?  And it's only going to really be
fucking wonderful if it's all four of us.  We need you there, too, George,
for it to be real.  So stop your goddamned puritanical back-pedaling and
that's a fucking order.  I'm dragging you with me, kicking and screaming if
necessary."

   From behind, Paul's hands climbed Ringo's chest to turn him around and
lean in for the kiss.  Ringo met him more than halfway, slipping his lips
softly and tenderly over Paul's mouth, as if there had never been a
question of not.  The kiss pressed on as gently as the night, until Paul
intensified it for a vivid moment, to then step away with a smile and
relinquish the moment to John.

   Lennon plucked a playing card from the air.  He showed the Ace of Hearts
to Richie.  "Care to deal me in?"

   "I already did that to all three of you a long time ago," Ringo said.

   John and Ringo merged their mouths together in a sudden surge of
curiosity and hunger.  Rich surrendered completely to the other man's
insistence.

   George was watching them, with a quantified mixture of terror and
longing until he saw Paul watching him, an arm's length away.

   "242 steps, George," Paul said softly.  "But only one foot forward."

   George's tears were sudden and solid.  In his life, he never began to
weep...he always started up full sob.  "You don't get it.  This would mean
too much."

   "Why would it matter that it means too much if it's never going to be
taken away?  We're all we have, each other.  We always have been.  We
always will be."

   "But... my god Paul," George said, as if at the very idea, only to find
himself suddenly with his back against a wall.  There was no path for
retreat...no where to run or hide.

   Paul smiled him into the sudden wall.  He dipped his head and dove for a
kiss which was a fast blast of focused heat and attraction, designed to
bend steel and assert gravity over the most distant hearts.  George melted
against it, quickly and without resistance.  He had clearly given up all
fight.

   His fingertips guessed at Paul's face, as their lips pulled softly
apart. Just as George was gaining on the sudden astonishment he had just
received, another was just as suddenly on him.

   John's kiss was a cocky demand...an expectation of full compliance...a
presumptuous loving claim.

   John wished George's clothes away and pushed him backward into the
pillow pit.  He was nothing but a tall, eloquent report of desire now, his
cock having pulsed into life between one kiss and the other.

   John turned and beckoned for Ringo to approach then.  "You next, Rich.
Come ahead."

   Paul laughed a soft husky sound over his shoulder and swept away
Richie's clothes with a wish.  "I like this ability a lot.  All these
years, hoarding the goodies Rich.  I mean, you should share.  We're your
mates." He then pushed Rich forward into the cushions.

   Ringo laughed at his own reaction, folding up into his corner of the
bed. George sat just beside him, praying silently to his knees.  His was a
posture of gratitude and relief.

   "Just look at them, John.  What do you think?  Shall we bring them off
both at once or fuck each of them individually, you think?"

   "Oh, from the sweet look of awful desperation that just crossed both
their faces, I definitely say one at a time.  That way they can join in
too...when they're not themselves being feverishly fucked, I mean."

   "Shall we flip a coin or just pick one?" Paul asked, looking at both
men.

   "I don't know.  What say you, Paul?"

   "You know how it is the first time...all hot and bothered and mightily
on fire.  Particularly with all of this and what this means and how fucking
beautiful it's going to be.  We know them both better than anyone.  We know
how bad they both want this, whether they admit it or not, but they're both
terrified, too.  Terrified of going first but fuckin' busting for it, too,
you know?"

   "Excellent, savory points." John lashed out his smile like a tongue of
flame in all three directions.  "Half of George would really rather go
second.  I mean, really.  And then there's Richie.  I mean, it'll be a
relief for shy little Ringo if he gets to wait a bit.  But then again, you
know it'll really play with his head if he has to watch.  And wait.  For
his turn in the middle.  For your turn, Rich, you hear me?"

   "Of course I hear you," he gasped back, shaking his head as if in
wonder.

   "Then call it, George," Paul said, pulling a penny from the air.  He
flipped it, slapped it down atop John's outstretched hand.  "Heads or
tails. Heads or tails, baby, or you go first."

   "Heads," George whispered, quite clearly fighting to calm something
racing deep inside himself.

   Paul lifted his hand, showing John.  "Bad news, boys.  Or good news. 
Depending upon the side of things we're talking about.  You're still going
first, George."

   John and Paul grabbed for the winner and pulled him toward Ringo, whose
arms closed around George just as quickly.

   John and Paul looked deeply into George's eyes, misted over with a kind
of stunned, awful passion.  It was a need so real it looked like pain, but
it wasn't.  He looked like the happiest and most frightened man in the
world.

   Rich enfolded his legs around the man already in his arms.  He
considered his face, and then kissed it gently reaching up to massage
George's nipples boldly.  The other man flinched at the pleasure.  Ringo
smiled in reply.

   John and Paul moved each to one side of both men.  They were suddenly
four naked men in a pit of pillows.

   Macca looked deep into George's open, honest eyes.  George's stare was a
mixture of wild, honest love and joy and some thing far beyond mere
gratitude.

   "Damn treasonous dick, eh, George?" John said, grinning.  "Sells us out
every time.  Here you're laying there, trying to seem like you're not on
fuckin' fire, and your dick gives away the game.  Macca, know what I'm
thinking?  We needed to get mouthy on this one."

   "What about it, George?" Paul asked.  "Shall John and I suck you off?"

   George physical aftershock in reply triggered first in his shoulders
then shot down through his body.

   "I think that's a yes," John said.

   Paul moved back, shining a smile into George's desire-fogged eyes. 
"Your lips on one side, John, mine on the other?  Rich keeping up what he's
doing now to his nipples?"

   "Just the thing," John said.

   John palmed George's cock up from its bowed surge against his belly,
then looked at Paul.  "On three, baby."

   "Three," Paul said.

   John and Paul merged their mouths into a wide, wicked French kiss, with
George's cock at its center.  They clasped their hands around the pulsing
shaft, squeezing it in hard-fisted demanding pumps toward pleasure.  The
glans was suddenly thickly moist and the shaft steely hard in their hands.

   He screamed out something that might have been both their names burned
together... whispered too heatedly and melted on sound.

   Their tongue tangling cock kiss continued, overlapping, sucking, moving
in rhythm, their fists still pleadingly jerking at hard, hot flesh.

   Ringo whispered to an ear.  He tenderly twisted George's nipples as if
seeking a higher, hotter frequency.  "Fancy that.  Isn't tht something? 
Who knew you'd get off on this so much?"

   George thrashed in his arms, unable to move from Ringo's enclosure and
the men pounding their mouths toward him.  "My god..." he whispered, as if
the only words in English he could grapple toward.

   "Hm, you think the lads swallow?" Rich whispered at last.  "Do you?  I
hope so.  I hope they do.  I really want to watch them swallow..."

   That was it...that was all... It shoved him over the top and George
dropped into the arms of something so exquisite, he couldn't feel it all in
his mind.  He was crying as he was crying out...

   "Suck him finished," John whispered, "And I'll go kiss him nice and
nasty."

   "Make him taste it, of course," Paul said, pausing for only a moment. 
"We love you, George."

   John overwhelmed him, controlling his line of sight; he made their gazes
merge together.  Then he rammed his tongue like a dick down George's
throat. The sound of John's avid sharing and sucking of George's tongue was
audible around the circle of men.

   Once done, John pulled back from the kiss.  "Well, done, George.  See,
there, the world didn't come to an end."

   George laughed, his body clearly still resonating with every sort of
pleasure.  "No, it feels like it just fucking got started."

   Lennon then moved his heated gaze aside to the man sprawled just under
George.  "Oh, Richie...guess whose turn it is..."

   "No resistance here." Ringo's eyes slid closed, at the swift-coming
realization.  "It's all I want in the world."

   "It's a damned good thing," John said, as they dragged Ringo from under
George, to the center of the pit.  "Because you're about to get all of it."

   "How do you want it, Rich?" Paul asked, sticking his face up in Ringo's.
"We could do to you what we just did to our George, but you know what,
John?"

   "What would that be, Paulie?" John grinned in his devilment.

   Paul smiled too brightly.  "As private as Rich is, don't you think it
would really tweak him if we three got in his face about it?  I think a
handjob would be just the thing.  While the three of us watch him come full
on.  Rank invasion of privacy, that."

   Ringo's face contorted; he turned his head aside.  The words had burned
along the length of him like lightning unchained.

   George grinned, moving himself sideways to rest his chin on Ringo's
forehead and stare down into his face.  "I believe he really likes that
idea."

   "No, he doesn't like it in the least," John said.  "Which is exactly why
he's going to get it, because he's our kinky little bastard and his body
will eat it with a spoon."

   John grinned, continuing stroking fingers across skin and down his chest
to the top of his groin...the last boundary finally crossed.  Ringo was
watching the process until John noticed and then moved his hand in one
direction.

   The small, terse spasms mounted...desire on tension, tension up fear,
and the wonderful confluence building as John's fingers finally touched
Ringo's cock.  Rich recoiled toward Paul, but Paul and George tenderly
refused his sanctuary, guiding his face again toward the action - so he
would have to watch John's fingers wrapping around the thickening shaft. 
And then Rich couldn't make himself look away.  It was jacking him boldly,
insistently, with a growing cadence.  It was getting moist results, too;
stiff and pulsating replies.

   "We're getting there," Paul whispered to his ear, as the man tried again
to hide his face in Paul's chest.  Again, he and George made him turn back
to watch John.  Macca's own desire tripped on a smoky void in his voice. 
"No where to hide, Rich.  I mean, we've been everywhere together, but we've
never been here with you.  It's going to be so fuckin' beautiful when we
watch you cum, Rich."

   "All the times we been in the room when it happened...all those groupie
grope sessions... but we never watched it," George added.

   John grinned into Ringo's face.  "We sure the fuck never made it
happen."

   "I bet it'll be better coz we're makin' it happen," George said.

   John laughed warmly.  "It's going to be much better because we're makin'
it happen.  Innit right, Rich?"

   At the words, Ringo coughed out some wicked sound that came too ragged
for a word.  A tear trickled from the corner of his eyes, then down near
his hairline.  He was fighting not to bare his every breath.  "Much
better..."

   Paul kissed the tear away.  "See, I thought so.  Of course it's a bit
scary to be like this with us.  For the first time.  Feel that?  Feel that
miracle?  That's John making you feel that good.  John is."

   "I think you should give us a hand, too, Paul, if you know what I mean,"
John said.  "Innit right, Rich?"

   "Shall I?" Paul asked sweetly, trying to gauge his response.

   Ringo's eyes slipped closed, a tenseness broadening the set of his jaw,
which was all the answer Paul had needed.

   He moved his hand down to wrap around John's.  After a second, John
lifted his own hand to clutch Paul's palm around Ringo's cock.  Then it was
both men, two hands, stroking him in one ambitious rhythm.

   Rich gasped like he'd been seized by the front of a storm - some power
stripping through him as if hard wind through calm water.  George cut the
sounds off with his kiss.

   John tasted Rich's ear.  "Come on, Ringo.  Make it happen.  Make it all
of us now.  All of us."

   "You know what we want to see," Paul whispered hotly, his own breathing
matching Ringo's, breath on breath.  "Give us what we want."

   "Paul..." he whimpered softly when George broke to breathe.  Rich's
tears were streaming, his lungs still pleading at air.  "John...George..."

   "We know our names, Rich," John said.  "And that you're holding back. 
So give it up.  Stop your hiding."

   "Get to it now," George murmured into his ear.

   "God," Ringo groaned out, his voice a twisted wrenching sound jerking
out of him as his body lurched and warped with each crescendo...as John and
Paul clung to him and rode his every crested wave.

   "We love you, Rich," Paul gasped into his ear.

   "It's happening, Richie.  It's a fuckin' fact.  Look at that," John's
voice tickled at the rawest edges of Ringo's mind.

   Rich found himself rolled over one way into one man's arms for a long,
curative kiss and then the other for the next man's embrace and lip-twisted
tongue-tangling.  Finally, Ringo found room enough to breathe.

   "Holy fuck..." was all Rich whispered until his voice surrendered all
together.  He fell back into George's arms, then surrounded by Paul and
John.  "I can't believe this actually happened."

   Paul kissed him fully.  "We can.  John and I've been planning that since
the backseat experience.  For all of us."

   "So, what happens now," Ringo said, smiling through his sweat.  "Do we
get to have a go at you two?"

   "It would only be fair," George pointed out, matching Rich's smile.

   "You know what," John said, as he drew back a little beyond their
circle. "I think it's Paul's turn."

   Paul tossed him a faintly imperious smile.  "Paul's been hearing that
all day, hasn't he?"

   "Except I'm not flirting anymore, Macca.  I'm fucking serious as
goddamned sin."

   Perspiration beaded a little at Paul's forehead.  "Serious about what?"

   "Oh, I think you know."

   "I hope to god I do."

   John smiled.  "If it's about me ferociously bangin' you through the
fuckin' floor, then you've got the right idea.  Hasn't he, boys?"

   "He's into that, is he?" George said, smiling rudely over at Paul, who
smirked back at him.

   "This'll be the first time," John said.  "Won't it, Paul?  And here's
the secret...though it won't be much of one, because you know how it is
with Macca and me.  I'm the top.  Always have been.  Always will be.  It's
a little discomfiting for a strong fellow like him to admit, but in
private, that's the way it plays.  Well, you lads are private to us now."
John sat up from his heels.  His cock was as big and thick and as freely
throbbing as it had ever been in Macca's presence.  "So, I'm tellin' you,
Paul.  Get on your belly."

   Paul shook his head.  "Not like this."

   John nodded.  "Just like this.  Fucking exactly like this.  I've been
promising this to you all day.  And I'm going to give it to you right here
and now.  Right in front of the lads in the position you crave...on the
bottom.  So like I said, Paulie...get on your belly."

   Paul's whole body arched at the impact of his words.  His hands clawed
back for handholds on sanctuary.  His muscles were not going to respond to
any request.

   John looked to their other lovers.  "Seems Paul is having a bit of
trouble.  Lads, you want to help Paul assume the position?"

   "With pleasure," Ringo said, taking one shoulder as George braced the
other.

   They tenderly but determinedly guided his chest down against pillows.

   Paul's eyes slipped closed.  "Christ, Johnny, I love you."

   "I love you, baby.  We must get you ready for this, though.  Otherwise,
it's going to hurt a bit."

   At that point, something cool oozed down the small of Paul's back and
dripped through the crack of his ass.  Immediately, warm and naughty heat
began to goad his prostate into life.

   Once done with the application, Lennon sprawled himself across Paul's
back like a predator on wounded prey.  He chewed softly into the thick of
his throat.  "You want me to fuck you?"

   "Yes."

   "Then I'll move around the pain as best I can, but it's bound to hurt
some, baby.  Sure, eventually, we'll strike gold and it'll feel like
fuckin' eden.  But there you'll be pinned underneath me with my dick up
your ass and you won't be able to do a thing about it."

   Paul reached back for a handful of hair, towing John's face down into
his.  "I - don't - care..." he groaned pitifully, his face now red and
slick with sweat and tears.  "Just do me, John.  For Christ sakes.  Just do
me ..."

   "Ah, well.  You know what they say about me, I'm Paulie whipped.  I
can't say no to you," John whispered, and then with all of the muscle of
his long legs tenderly but surely plunged his cock deep into Paul's slick
ass.

   If that pleasure had been a python, it would have wound, unforgiving, up
through Macca before striking the pain.  The pleasure surged farther up
until another sharp interlude with discomfort but then suddenly the
pleasure of it was all the way through him and there was no lessening it
for a second.  Impaled on joy - doomed to escape -- not that he
ever...wanted to...escape...

   "Paul," John cried out hard and loud, a rare fury dragged out of him. 
He clutched at the man beneath him, fucking him fervently, in a steady
rhythm intended to drag Paul with him to the edge.

   He was already with him.

   It broke across both of them like riptide through an angry ocean. 
Nothing left for muscle...nothing more to breathe...nothing else to do but
lie there and feel the movement of the moments brushing by them.

   And George and Rich's kisses on them.  Finally, after moments or
minutes, John rolled off onto his back...Paul immediately flipping over
onto John.  Paul leaned down to stare into the vanquished, gently smiling
face of the other half of that singular conflicted entity the two of them
comprised.

   "You in there, John?"

   "No," John gasped back, gaining on regular respiration.  "Please leave a
message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can get my fucking brains
back in me head after Macca, George and Richie screwed them out." He
grabbed the back of Paul's head, then reached for Richie's pulling them
both closer.  His hand lunged a third time for George, bringing him over as
well.  "I've never cum like that in all my born flippin' days.  Not once.
Not even fuckin' Paul before and you always do me so I can't untie my
fuckin' windpipe for days afterward."

   "Good, on all counts," Paul said, and then in a voice that made clear
the meaning of his words he whispered, "And thank you."

   "Should have done that a lifetime ago.  I was too afraid.  That's a
shift of attitudes for you.  Boy I was a fuckin' half-wit about that one,
eh?"

   "Yes, well, there's half of that transaction yet to go, you know."

   "That's one's going to have to wait a bit."

   "Okay," Paul said, pointing over both his shoulders.  "And I have
reinforcements now."

   "Guess my days of getting my way are at an end," John said, laughing. 
He squinted back at them as if in scrutiny.  "Until I figure out a way to
prevail."

   "God help us all," said Ringo, snapping on lounging clothes for all of
them.  "Forgive me, but I can only stand us sitting around naked for so
long.  I'm not the Bohemian one, you may recall."

   "Please, you've got more bloody rings than Saturn," John shot back. 
"Still, it is time for a brief respite...brief, I say...from fucking.  We
have a few plans ahead.  First of all being among my favorite times."

   Paul's brow furrowed in thought, as if trying to remember.  He looked
over at George for a hint.

   George used his finger to draw a square in the middle of the air.  He
mouthed, "Presents."

   "Oh, right!  Presents!  I give you all presents," Paul said, looking as
if he was concentrating, then trying once, then twice and finally the third
time, yanking something leather and black from mid-air.  "Hey, I did it!"

   "Well done, Pudges.  Next you'll be chewing gum and walkin' at the same
time," John said.

   "See what I do for you next, Mr.  Johnny Lennon," Paul said, sticking
out his tongue.  "And to think this gift was for you."

   John laced his fingers together in silent plea.  "I'm terribly,
wretchedly sorry, aren't I, my darling lad?  Forgive us our trespasses. 
And please, please give me me present."

   "Very well," he said, tossing the leather jacket to him.

   John flagged it out, examining it with a growing certainty of
recognition: a relatively inexpensive leather jacket with epaulets.  "My
god!  It's it!  My jacket.  The one you bought me.  You've found it!"

   "Well, it probably just looks like it," Paul said.

   George shook his head.  "No, if you pulled it the way we said, it is
it." He smiled over to Ringo.  "First hundred dollars Paul ever made with
the band, he bought John here this leather jacket he fancied."

   Richie sent the smile over to Paul.  "Had it bad even then, did you?"

   George nodded.  "Even a certain Beatles biographer thought that incident
was strangely homoerotic."

   "I lost the fuckin' thing at a club date," John explained.  "Ripped up
the whole place, tryin' to find it.  Never bloody did."

   Ringo nodded.  "At least you know now where it went."

   John looked to Paul; Paul grinned at John.  "You know, it probably did,"
Macca said.

   "I love it...again," John said.  "I plan on wearing it everywhere. 
Except when we're fucking of course."

   "Thanks for sharing, John."

   "You forget, Rich, you'll be there."

   "Oh, that's right, isn't it?  Keep forgetting." Ringo blushed a little.
"So who is next in the gift line?"

   "Savin' yours for last, Rich," Paul said.

   "So what else is new?  And spare me your scornful ripostes, lads."

   George sneered into his face.  "Looks to be my turn then."

   Paul smiled, pulling down from the air a golden steppe pyramid that fit
inside his palm.  "Know what that is?"

   "Pyramid of the Sun," George said, grinning.  He nodded.  "And I take
your point."

   "Good." Paul glanced over at John.  "I'll explain later."

   "My heart will tremble till the hour," John said.

   George reached over and smacked Paul's face with a kiss.  "It's lovely.
Thank you."

   "Watch it, Harrison, "John said sardonically.  "I guess it's time, isn't
it?  Okay, let's get on to the new holy terror known as Richie's present."

   Ringo scowled.  "Pardon us, then?"

   "Well, it's like this, Rich," Paul said.  "When all the ponies came, I
understand some people weren't too understanding.  However, I'm here now.
And since your ponies all went away to save John, I've prevailed upon these
two to give in just a bit on another request."

   "Which one?"

   John exhaled with a little smile.  He pulled from under the leather
jacket a squirming ball of happy Boxer puppy.

   "Bumpy!" Ringo gasped out, in nothing short of astonishment.  He reached
out for him, only half-believing.  "My god, it's him.  It's Bumpy!  My dog
I had when I was a boy!"

   "We know," John said, smirking fondly.

   "He took sick as he got older," Rich went on, "and we couldn't afford
the vet bill, so he...died, you know.  It's my Bumpy, all over again.  Even
to his little bumpy head." His eyes were now filling up with tears, but
then it all crashed around him with a deeper smile torn from the older
pockets of his heart.  "How did you lads do it?"

   "We borrowed the original Bumpy out for a bit," George explained,
sniffing at his own reaction to the moment.  "We counted him to two, and
then put the original back because we know you still needed him then.  But
that may as well be him."

   "Yeah, and you can be sure he'll chew up everything from here to
bleedin' Cartoon City," John said, although even he was grinning through
tears.  "But I'm still glad Paul could get him for you, Rich."

   "Thank you, Paul.  It's the best gift I've ever received," Rich said,
smiling back at the three of them.  "Present company excepted."

   George's chin wiggled a little but he fought it.  "C'mon, Ringo, before
I start turning into weepy willow, let's take Bumpy for a stroll around so
we can explain to him a bit about good manners in Beatleland."

   "And I'll show Paul another of our many talents," John said.  "To say
nothing of the gift we have for him."

   "Excuse us?" Macca said, looking around.  "I get a present?"

   John levitated to the space just above Paul's head.  Lennon leaned down,
as if lying across air.  He reached his hand down for Macca.  "Hey, `do you
know why swallows build in the eaves of houses?'"

   Paul smiled back.  "Why, yes, Mister Pan.  As it happens, I do know, as
I had top marks in English at school.  It is to listen to the stories."

   "Care to eavesdrop?" He offered his open hand.  "I have something to
show you."

   "You mean I can artfully hover?"

   John chuckled, looking around.  "Actually, it is flying.  We didn't want
to fluster you right off.  Come on then, I've been waiting for this a long
time."

   Paul stood up carefully, looking around.  He reached for John's hand,
and before he knew it they were ten feet off the ground...then twenty.

   "God," Paul gasped out, grabbing out for John.  "Holy shit.  Dunno if I
like this!"

   "You will," John said, looping his arms around him from behind.  "You're
only scared because you think you can fall.  You can't because the ground
will find you.  That said, come here, I've something to show you."

   John stepped out across the air...as if some thoroughly invisible floor
lay just beneath him.  He reached for Paul's hand, which he quickly
received.

   "Take a look out there," John said, gesturing toward the open window,
now extending out across their land.

   Paul could clearly see at least a hundred faces smiling, waving back. 
There were so many, it was impossible to see them all.

   "Who is - "

   "Everyone," John said, quickly.  "Everyone we've ever loved and lost. 
It's our home, but they're always welcome.  And today, we're going to have
a party."

   "Wonderful," Paul said, now beyond any words for what he was feeling
within.  He gave John a small, secret smile.  "But I hasten to inform you
this isn't my home."

   "Excuse us?"

   Paul grinned thoroughly.  "This isn't my home because you are."

   "James Paul McCartney," John said, forcing the tears from his voice with
an even grin.  "Marry me immediately and bear my many attractive
offspring."

   Paul could only laugh.  "Do I look like a seahorse to you, John?"