Free Journal of a UFO Investigator by David Halperin

felt myself hardening. High and well-separated breasts. Thin waist and small stomach. Wide hips and large thighs. These were other details Villas Boas had given of the alien who’d taken him captive and twice had used him. I didn’t want to repeat them to Julian; I didn’t even want to remember them. But did I have a choice?
    â€œWell,” he said at last, and I wondered if he’d been thinking the same things I had. “If you’ve got to be kidnapped by an extraterrestrial, I suppose you could do worse. Still, there’s a lesson there for us.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œNext time it’s dark, and a red fluorescent disk flutters down into your cabbage patch, don’t wait around to take pictures. Just drop your hoe and run like hell.”
    â€œHuh? Red fluorescent disk?” Somehow I’d forgotten that detail. “What did you say?”
    â€œI said, we’re at our destination ,” Julian said loudly, as though I were hard of hearing. He signaled, braked, and turned off the narrow two-lane road—we’d left the expressway long before—onto what sounded like a gravel driveway. “Our own little observatory, laboratory, and think tank. Otherwise known as Super-Science Society headquarters. Isn’t it a beauty?”
    There was a house at the end of the driveway. In the gathering darkness I could barely make out its shape, but it seemed to be large, at least two stories. There was a tower, looking something like a silo, attached directly to the house. I could not see how high the tower was. For all I could tell, its top might have reached unto heaven.

CHAPTER 7
    THE FIRST THING I SAW AS WE WALKED INTO THE HALLWAY was the staircase. It impressed me; I don’t know quite why. There was something about the width of the brown wood stairs, or the heaviness of the banister, that gave the feeling of an immensity suggested rather than seen.
    Hanging on the wall by the foot of the stairs, framed in wood so dark it was almost black, was the trisected angle, the SSS emblem from Julian’s card. It was painted starkly in black on what looked like parchment. Next to it, similarly framed but in brilliant color, was a manuscript page like the one I’d seen in the Rare Book Room, of the man flying the winged horse.
    Equal impossibilities—magical flight and trisecting the angle? Was that what the artwork was supposed to communicate? Before I could ask, Julian led me down the hall and through the doorway of a large, comfortably furnished living room. There was an ornate fireplace, without any fire, in the wall opposite us. Close to the fireplace, lit by the warm yellow light of a standing lamp, a chessboard lay upon a small square table.
    A girl sat at the table, studying the chessboard.
    She wore a long black evening gown of some velvety material. The chess game, to judge from the positions of the pieces, was in its middle stage. There were four chairs at the table, hers included, but no sign of whoever it was she was playing against. Her tawny blond hair fell almost to her bare shoulders. I saw at once she was attractive, but I didn’t realize how attractive until she looked up from her game, smiled, and rose to join us. She was just about my height or maybe a shade taller. Julian towered over both of us.
    â€œAllow me to introduce—” Julian began.
    â€œRochelle Perlmann,” the girl said. She held out her hand, and I shook it. Her grip was firm and strong. I gazed into her face, partly to keep from staring at her bosom.
    â€œI’m Danny Shapiro,” I said.
    â€œPleased to meet you, Danny.”
    â€œOne, two, three,” said Julian, pointing to Rochelle, me, and himself in turn. “But where is the fourth?”
    â€œTom? He’s up in the lab. We heard the buzzer go off, and he went to check.”
    â€œIs everything all right?” Julian sounded worried.
    â€œWe’ll know in a few minutes.”
    She