Paul Theroux - O-Zone

Hooper recorded this. He recorded her washing that afternoon, be recorded her trying on dresses, he recorded her painting her face. When she phoned him from her suite to ask whether he wanted to join her in the whirlpool bath he recorded in close-up the changing expression on her face. In the week after their return from Africa he had recorded a hundred hours of her on tape, and for about half that time he had been watching, directing the camera, changing angles.

He sensed that time was running out. They would find Fizzy — or more likely, Fizzy would find them — and Bligh's people would bargain for her back. But watching her, he had learned so much about her it was as though he had entered her life — known her for years. What husband knew as much about his wife as be did of Bligh? And it was an advantage that she was very young, because it seemed to Hooper characteristic of the young that their inner states were reflected in all their surfaces. He was seeing her naked, and while with some people nakedness was a special form of concealment, Bligh's nakedness said everything. She did not know he was watching.

It was always said that aliens were infectious — they were unhealthy, they were carriers of disease. It was the reason that they had no legal existence, that the cities had been sealed against them. It was not simply that they were regarded as career criminals, but that they were a danger to public health. Hooper had watched Bligh for symptoms of disease — sores, leaks, rashes, spasms. So far, he had seen nothing but her prowling and her dozing and her eager appetite: she lived like a cat, padding and stretching in her rooms. Yet even if she weren't carrying anything, she represented risks. But that was no discouragement to Hooper. He felt a kind of lust in being a lawbreaker; but he was justified, he felt, for if she were dangerous he was the only person who would suffer.

The possibility of danger-from the Feds, from Security, from Bligh herself — excited him and kept him watching her. He loved the hard muscles that moved under her curves, the colorless gaze of her large pale eyes, and her sunburned hair. Her buttocks were small and solid from her running, her legs slender, and her lips full on her wide mouth. She was lovely and so young; but her attraction was not only physical. Hooper loved her tomboy's daring, her curiosity, her darting glances, the way she paced at the windows. She had learned to use the binoculars and she remained fascinated by the city.

Without knowing it, she stirred his interest and took away all his loneliness. He had not even known he was lonely. She had shown him that, and he was anxious not to lose her, because he wanted to know more. Bligh was making him a better man. In spite of all the dangers associated with her being an alien, he felt very happy with her. And thinking about her, he dared to think about the future that had always seemed so familiar, and for that reason, so deceptive.

The image he always returned to was a simple one. It was not her youth, nor her nakedness, nor the fury of her eating, nor making love to herself, nor revealing herself to a mirror, nor energetically pissing. It was rather the sight of her standing at a large daylit window in a silk robe, with dawn showing through it and darkening the silhouette of her body, her small breasts and her boy's hips and bright hair, and looking like a princess in a castle tower.

Then he was burdened by the very beauty of it, and oppressed by everything he knew of her and all the hours he had spent watching her. He understood her well, and needed her, but without her realizing it she had become his secret life. He hated his sneaking and his excuses of work.

"What is it?" she asked. She had seen the strain on his face. They were in the whirlpool bath, bobbing in the warm currents, but at opposite sides of the tub. I can see you better from here, he had said, and meant it. She said, "Tell me."

He decided to approach the truth.

"I want you to let me watch you when you're alone," he said.

"How could you possibly do that?"

He explained how he would set up cameras and monitors and mirrors, and how they would work. He told her how he planned to watch her. He hoped she would not laugh.

"Is that all you want?" she asked in a wondering way. "To look at me like that?"

As soon as she said it in that certain way his desire for it died. He had never wanted her to know she was being watched. The pleasure lay in the secrecy. But her permission took all the blame away, and all the eroticism of watching her, and in that moment he wanted more.

Later, after their meal, when they lay on the cushions by the window — the yellow brightness of the early-evening skylights shining in on them from above the city — he touched her face. She was burning — he almost drew his hand away, he was so startled by the heat. But she was quicker, and snatched his hand, and took some of his fingers into her mouth. She moved nearer to him and rolled his fingers on her tongue until it seemed a bulb of heat traveled up his arm and burst, wanning his whole body.

Hooper pulled the blinds, needing darkness, and tumbling into that darkness they struggled slowly with each other. It was as though they were inventing by trial and error an ancient ceremony, testing each separate move until it became part of the magic. It was a ritual he did not understand, but it changed him, and it could not be undone.

He woke, believing he had killed her by splitting her in half — he had a frenzied memory of lifting her by her ankles, one in each hand, and opening her wide to impale her and then devour her. But she had groaned with pleasure, and when he stopped she squawked for him to continue, and then she uttered little grunts until he was done. Now he was bumping against the ceiling, reawakened. He was horrified. He said, "You're wonderful."

The praise provoked her. She moved against him and dived deep, and then it seemed as though they were trying to drown each other, but were too buoyant to sink. The air was as thick as liquid around their bodies, and they held on as if performing a furious baptism in which two submerged lovers were purified to become one whole rising organism, flesh against flesh. Passion allowed this special creature to exist.

His heart was thumping in his ears. And then he woke again, but this time he was cold and solitary.

"I didn't think you were interested in that," she said, and drew him to her, warming him.

He did not speak. He was afraid again.

"I thought you might have some kind of infection," she said.

He was relieved to hear her say something he had himself feared. But he was still afraid.

"No," he said. "Do you?"

"I'm clean — cross my heart."

He knew it was the truth, and he caressed her, touching her between the legs, wetting his fingers. It was as though he had put his hand on an open wound.

"You taste like smoked salmon," he whispered.

She smiled. She said, "I wish I knew who you were."

It amazed him to hear her say this, because he felt he knew her so well — every habit, every mumble and mood, every fleck on her body, her teeth, her toes.

"You'll have to stay with me to find out," he said, "because I want you for a friend."

He put up the blinds to see her face better. She seemed thinner, and rather small, but he had the sense that she was indestructible. He lay gently next to her, and the skylights gave them both a second skin. He became perfectly calm. He had not known such peace since early childhood.

He thought: I'm home.

His happiness with Bligh gave him a glimpse of Fizzy in O-Zone. In his vision the boy had grown older and had overcome his fears. He was stronger and more sensible, living among people much like Bligh — just as patient and watchful, just as gentle. The boy was happy at last.