I had met Angel, I thought, by chance. Though, that was simply not the case. She had been hired by the media production firm I worked for in Santa Monica ostensibly as an apprentice of some sort-milling about the offices and video studios, doing what seemed like a lot of observing but really little else. Most of the staff in my 'stills' photo department was suspicious of her sudden presence, mainly because she was, admittedly, a head-turner. All positions of employment after Crash II were especially coveted and no one felt secure.

In appearance Angel seemed of Southern-European origin, with dreamy, bluish-gray eyes. Her hair was a shock of crow black, though suspiciously in contrast to her fairer complexion. Nevertheless, it only added to the stunning mix. She had radiant skin, slightly olive in tone, and an honest-looking, 'girl-next-door' demeanor when she interacted with anyone.

The total package I was getting was 'aspiring model,' but she came off alarmingly innocent for that platform. She also presented a curvaceous silhouette, accented by an obvious choice of tight-fitting clothing, which, but for the studious glasses she wore, would have given her an overly sexualized presence. Angel did have the looks which could make other women insecure in a workplace, and her sudden appearance that day in my photography studio had the effect of bringing on an undeserved ire. On the other hand, those very looks she embodied had a tendency to make men overly attentive and behave foolishly around her-I dare say dangerously in my own case. At least that describes my initial interaction with her, and I can blame no one else for my immediate attraction, leading to what I fully hoped would blossom into a more substantial connection.

The next day when I saw her again milling aimlessly about the studio, I assumed from her provocative clothing-even more stylish and colorful, that she was what is referred to as "talent" on the video and photo sets of an advertising firm. The fact that I was the only still-photographer working for the agency put me in a direct line of contact with her that morning as she showed up with our projects director. It was an odd juxtaposition, this striking young woman, child-like in some ways, and my balding, grossly over-weight, train-wreck of a boss, ambling down the corridor in tandem with her. Lou seemed extra animated that morning, and gesticulated through noisy quaffs of his coffee about his "ingenious vision" of the layout for which this girl was apparently going to be featured.

He finally and dramatically demystified her existence at the firm for me and everyone else at a project meeting, introducing her as "our model" several times and through the details of the shoot, which was scheduled for the following week. It was to be a music group's website design-becoming exceedingly rare in those times, considering the new holigraphic standards used to today to promote talent. And it was scheduled to be shot and wrapped entirely in two days. The recording group, for whom the layout was intended, I had never heard of, though they were reportedly called Messenger.

Lou's 'big concept'was that I would feature this young "siren" with my digital Hasselblad on an ethereally-lit and gauze-draped set, a la "somewhere in space on a distant planet." Her aggressive and celestial stance in a silver space suit would be "under a Maxfield Parrish blue sky," as Lou insisted. She was to be "unearthly," yet an "angelic herald" of some sort. A true "messenger," he concluded, twisting both hands upward toward the heavens.

Bravo, Lou. The craziest thing I was to learn that morning was that this "angelic herald," who barely looked twenty in her tight jeans, turquoise tube top and sneakers, actually went by the name of 'Angel.'

The photo session on Monday turned out to be pretty easy, in spite of the fact that I knew all along Angel wasn't a professional model. Nevertheless, you can imagine my surprise when two days later, while I was formatting and enhancing the photo files on my office computer, I looked over my shoulder and there she was-Angel in the flesh, peeping into the monitor screen next to me. She explained herself as "interested in the whole production process," and "hoped she wasn't bothering me." She also told me she had permission from Lou to come aboard for the duration of project to just "scope things out," if it was fine with me. Of course it was.

That whole afternoon Angel's "celestial" face glowed in the blue light next to mine as she gazed into the HD plasma screen with me. I let her watch as I tweaked up her space suit to resonate with photo enhancers on a few shots, and I made her skin more metallic on some others. She seemed to like the whole business and didn't want to leave anytime soon. Sensing something strangely clingy about this girl, who was at least five years my junior, I invited her to lunch, mostly out of a cultivating curiosity, but admittedly because I was interested in looking at her through a more substantial reality. Being single and normally a quick study with women, my instincts up to that point had told me there was some sparky sort of energy going on with us, which surprisingly had just come out of the blue. I would later learn that in Angel's case, I never did have her totally in focus, though that seemed to matter less the more time we spent together. I also would never have predicted the bizarre turn of events this whole adventure was to take in less than two months.

I will spare you most of the subsequent details of our trysts after work-those eventual euphoric sessions lasting long into the night-though there was a quirky element to them worth noting. Suffice it only to say that my private time with Angel seemed to be on a positive path toward some sustainable bliss-at least physically. Outside of her talk of modeling, photography and guarded comments about her current "promotional assignment," she only had one subject which strangely would embed itself into our lovemaking-the recent opening of The River Styx, the newly opened theme park, shrouded in controversy and mystery. Aside from her fascination with the place, for which I cared little in the beginning, she spoke of nothing else when we were intimate.

She had the persistent habit of talking about the hype surrounding the Styx phenomenon mostly while we were in bed: The "transformations" of those who had entered the ride, she would say. How people had come out "powerfully changed" in some way or another. And even how some had even been "healed of serious illnesses while taking the long journey down the underground river." I would listen to her during our lovemaking about individuals whose "fortunes had changed after their involvement with the ride." She talked enthusiastically amid our caresses and kisses of others "all having a different experience, some quite profound and sometimes seriously life-changing." The River Styx, she claimed, as we would undress and fall into bed, even had been "a sort of religious awakening to some."

The euphoria, she claimed was from something more than the mere technical brilliance of the ride, she would go on-describing bits of it in detail as we frantically became more intimate. "Scenes of day drifting quickly into night," I remember her saying, breathlessly-expressing as she climbed on top me, how the skies would project down in virtual reality from the heavens, manipulating everyone's moods. With Angel's head back and her eyes closed she would recite what had been said about the holographic creatures and characters emerging along the riverbanks-all the while in the throes of her and my pleasure. While it all sounded based on a Greek pantheon of legends, it was all the more surreal to hear Angel raving about it in sexually excited tones.

In the process of this strange theater, I had naturally become steadily and more deeply infatuated with her, encompassing by association that peculiar obsession-how The River Styx could spill over into our lovemaking. Yet, unlike the initial photos I had taken of Angel back in the studio, where her image had appeared impeccably focused through my lenses, in real life she was never so lucidly defined. With this girl there was always an intractable blur-a delicious ambiguity which plagued but also enchanted me. And regardless of the stories she would tell or those sensual description which only enhanced the pseudo-violent-tenderness of our lovemaking, there was this one climactic incident she would wait for to describe-always at the peak moment when we were both breathless and most intense.

"The waterfall," she would whisper-always in the same way. She had often described this enormous cataract, "waiting and roaring, in front of the ships." Her voice would rise and then cry out at the moment she described the Grecian triremes helplessly and irreversibly approaching some great precipice with the continuing river far below. And then there would come out of the depths of her that familiar low moan while she yielded to spasms of bliss. It was at that moment that I too, could conceive of a silent, slow-motion image. An ancient ship careening over the edge of a great waterfall. . . into an abyss od destruction.

It was during the height of our brief relationship after the "Ride" had been open only a month that Angel seemed to be the most animated about the topic-specifically and while we were in bed and highly aroused. It was the anticipated, weightless fall, she would tell me, in her afterglow of pleasure. A "death-fall," she had called it on more than one occasion, "into those raging waters."

Later, over dinner, or in the car back to her apartment, she would tell me of people who had "entered Styx and were never seen again." The mystique had been created during those times, whether true or not, that not everyone came out of the ride who entered it. I freely admit that under such erotic circumstances I had enjoyed hearing all the tales about Angel's preposterous ride-especially while bringing her to her own peak moments of pleasure. For it was then when I cared precious little for the whereabouts of any victims the notorious ride and its dark river claimed.

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