Amber StClaire And The Beast Of Sanur

by Brooke Dark

  ‘Not sightseeing today?’ Amber asks.

  ‘Not with Sam at least. He’s at a bar someplace. Watching FC Lahti playing West Ham.’

  Amber looks puzzled. ‘Football?’

  ‘Yes. Europa cup. He tells me all about it. Every day. It’s so boring.’

  ‘Makes two of us,’ Amber says with a smile.

  ‘I hope you did not mind,’ Veronika says, ‘but I asked at hotel reception if they know where you are.’

  Amber smiles, enjoying the Finnish accent in Veronika’s voice. ‘Not at all. I’m glad for the company actually.’ She folds her book away.

  ‘I am not disturbing you?’ Veronika asks, indicating the book.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Are you working?’

  ‘Trying to. Jetlag isn’t helping though.’

  ‘You mind if I ask what work you do?’

  Amber considers her answer. ‘Not at all. I chase rare and ancient antiquities for private collectors.’ It’s a fib. Still, less complicated than the real answer.

  Veronika frowns. ‘Oh, that sounds like an exotic job. You travel a lot?’

  ‘Yes, my work takes me around the globe actually. It’s tiring but rewarding. How about you? What do you do?’

  ‘I work in a book store in Helsinki. Dat’s all. It’s where I met Sam. He was doing maintenance. I think he was really there just to talk to the girls.’ She laughs. ‘Anyway, not so exciting as your job, I think.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with working in a book shop,’ Amber tells her. ‘My mother worked in a bookshop in Oxford. I grew up surrounded by books. Reading helps broaden the mind. Do you read?’

  ‘Me? Not so much.’ She shrugs as if that might be viewed as a mild failing. As if slightly embarrassed by her confession. ‘So you are from Oxford?’

  ‘Not exactly. At least, I haven’t lived there all my life. My mother and father are both British but I was born in India. On Majuli.’

  Veronika gives a look. She hasn’t heard of it.

  ‘It’s an island. In the Brahmaputra River. At the time, my mother and father were these sort of new age hippies trying to set up medical clinics there. I was three when we left. Unfortunately I have very little memory of the place. After that my parents moved to Vanuatu.’

  Veronika frowns. ‘In the Pacific, yes?’

  ‘Yes. We lived there for two years. My parents were doing similar work. Lobbying private enterprise for funds to help set up medical facilities in remote provinces. Following that we had a stint in the Congo before my father fell ill and we returned to England. We lived for a while near my father’s brother in Devon, in a cottage by the sea. I have fond memories of being there. If not a bit sad. Those were the last years I spent with my father. When he passed away I was ten. After that my mother took me to live in Bath near my grandparents. We moved to Oxford when I was twelve. That’s where mum found work in the oxford university book shop. And that’s where I currently live. In a village in Oxfordshire.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Sadly my dear mother passed away two years ago. Complications from what should have been a straightforward surgical procedure.’

  Veronika puts on a sympathetic face. ‘I’m so sorry to hear dat.’

  Amber nods. Reflective. Remembering her mother. Her father. Her childhood days.

  ‘So, how did you get into dis line of work?’ Veronika asks.

  Amber considers her reply. ‘I was doing a post grad degree in Ancient History at Oxford. While I was completing that, I met some people. I needed work. They took me on. There’s a lot more to it than that. But ah, I shan’t bore you.’

  ‘So you travel alone?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Amber says but smiles. ‘Though if I didn’t I mightn’t get to meet people like yourself.’

  Veronika smiles self-consciously. ‘You have captivated me since we met yesterday,’ she declares. ‘I have not stopped thinking about you.’ Immediately she looks embarrassed. ‘Oh my god, did I just say dat?’ She blushes, her face has turned red.

  Amber reaches across the table and touches Veronika’s hand. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. It’s okay.’

  Veronika smiles. ‘It’s just that… you know, I have never thought so much about a woman before’ She gazes into Amber’s eyes. ‘Something about you intrigues me. Myself and Sam only recently became married. I did not think I would ever want anyone else. But…’

  Amber senses Veronika’s thoughts. Sam is out. Possibly for another two hours. Veronika has imagined taking Amber back to her hotel room. Veronika has imagined kissing Amber. Touching her. She knows that Veronika’s desire is to perhaps explore this fantasy.

  Such as Amber was hoping for…

  They return to the Villa Apsara. Veronika looks uncomfortable. Amber reassures her, ‘Nothing need happen between us if you don’t want it to.’

  They sit on the edge of Amber’s bed. Veronika’s hands are in her lap. She looks into Amber’s eyes.

  Amber senses no reluctance in Veronika, only curiosity, a nervous eagerness.

  ‘Would you like to touch me?’ Amber asks eventually. ‘Is that what you’re nervous about?’

  Veronika nods.

  Amber takes her hand and lifts it gently to her face. She feels the warmth of Veronika’s palm. For a while she holds Veronika’s hand there. Then leaves her hand there. She rests her hands behind her as Veronika softly caresses her cheek, as Veronika slowly runs her fingers through Amber’s hair, lifting wayward strands behind her ear.

  Amber watches Veronika lick her lip, swallow.

  A moment comes when their eyes lock and Veronika can’t help but giggle self-consciously.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Amber asks.

  ‘It feels nice.’

  ‘Would you like me to touch you?’

  Veronika smiles. ‘I would like dat very much.’

  Amber straightens and reaches her hand to Veronika’s face. Bringing it to rest on her cheek and jawline. Veronika leans into it, her eyes closing for a moment. She takes in a small breath.

  Amber sees her thoughts. Veronika’s desire to feel her lips against Amber’s grows ever stronger. Amber shuffles herself closer. Their faces are inches apart now. Eyes locked.

  Veronika leans forward. Their faces touch, cheeks and noses first. Gently. Their lips are ever so close to touching, but not yet doing so.

  Amber sees Veronika watching her. Gazing into the other woman’s eyes, Amber now brings her mouth close until their lips meet.

  The touch is tender, soft. Amber softly kisses Veronika’s mouth. Veronika responds, moving her lips with Amber’s.

  They kiss like this. Five minutes. Maybe longer. Their kisses becoming more and more passionate.

  At one stage Veronika seems to catch herself, as if only just acknowledging what it is she is doing. She breaks their kiss. She is breathless. She laughs. ‘Wow, am I really doing dis?’ She doesn’t know it but her nipples have swollen. They push against her t-shirt. They tingle deliciously.

  Amber can’t help noticing them. She fights a ravenous desire to tear Veronika’s clothes from her body.

  Veronika’s lips are reddened. Wet. She pulls a strand of hair from her face, curls it behind her ear. ‘My God,’ she says breathlessly. She can’t help smiling. She feels wicked, delicious, naughty. Her groin tingles. She would never have thought she could get so horny kissing another woman. She imagined something like this would have repulsed her. Quite the opposite. She hungers for more.

  ‘You okay?’ Amber asks her.

  Veronika takes Amber’s hand, drags it too her heart. She places it there, on the swell of her breast. ‘Feel my heart?’ Veronika asks her. ‘Can you feel dat? It’s thumping like crassy.’

  That’s how she says it, Amber notes. Crassy. Not crazy.

  Veronika leaves Amber’s hand there. Leaning back, chest pushed outwards. As if offering herself to Amber.

  ‘You want me to touch you more?’ Amber asks, her palm gently caressing Veronika’s b
reast in slow, circular movements. She already knows the answer. She already knows how far Veronika wants her to go.

  Veronika nods. ‘Yes.’

  Amber squeezes her breast, gently. Releases. Squeezes. Rubs it gently again in circular motions, applying pressure on each rotation. Veronika’s breath deepens. She keeps her eyes on Amber. Her eyelids only half drawn. Her lips sightly parted.

  Amber slips her hand to Veronika’s waist. Slides her fingers beneath her t-shirt. Slides her hand up her belly, reaching the bulge of her tits. Only the thin fabric of Veronika’s bra guards her breasts from Amber’s fingers now.

  The girls continue to watch each other as Amber caresses the swell of Veronika’s breasts. Veronika finds herself saying, ‘Would you like me to take my clothes off?’

  Amber doesn’t hesitate. She feels a tingling in her own groin. A heightened urgency to have it sucked, licked, fingered. She nods.

  Veronika begins by removing her t-shirt. Soon she sits there in just her bra and shorts. Except now she begins unbuckling her belt. Unzipping her fly.

  Amber watches as Veronika pulls the fly open gently.

  Amber now curls her fingers over the waist band of Veronika’s shorts and begins dragging them off Veronika’s hips. Veronika helps by shifting her buttocks and legs. Amber drags them down Veronika’s tanned silky thighs. Revealing blue panties with a red waist band. She tugs her shorts unceremoniously over her knees and then from her feet, discarding them, the belt buckle clattering against the tiled floor.

  Veronika does not yet act to remove her panties. The realisation that she is now more exposed to a woman than she has ever been in all her adult life makes Veronika hesitate momentarily. Her thighs not quite pressed together, but nor are they open.

  Amber kneels there at the edge of the bed now, watching her. ‘It’s alright,’ she tells Veronika. ‘If we are going too fast… we can stop.’

  Veronika swallows. She smiles as Amber climbs up beside her. Their faces are inches apart once more.

  ‘If you have not done this before…,’ Amber says, caressing her behind her ear, smoothing back her hair.

  Veronika pulls Amber’s face to hers. Again their lips meet, again they kiss. Veronika whispers at Amber’s ear, ‘I don’t want to stop. I want… I want to make love to you.’

  Their kiss continues. Veronika reaches up, cupping Amber’s breast. For the first time she touches the swell of another woman’s bosom. The sensation excites her. They kiss and while she continues to press and squeeze Amber’s tits, Amber’s hand moves to the inside of Veronika’s thigh, gently caressing the firm muscle of her leg. Veronika’s legs relax and part further.

  Amber teases Veronika, running her fingers either side of the swell of Veronika’s groin. Amber imagines she can feel a warmth radiating from that area. A wanting. She now brushes the backs of her fingers against the swell of Veronika’s pussy. The fabric of her underwear all that separates them. Veronika freezes at the touch, her head rolls back, her eyes shut, her neck arched, her breath almost a pleasurable gasp.

  Amber kisses her neck, gently sucking at her skin, running her middle finger now up and down the curving bulge of Veronika’s hidden labia. Her finger sliding up and down the soft groove. The fabric of Veronika’s panties grows damp.

  When Amber slides her fingers into the side of Veronika’s panties, Veronika gasps again and shudders. Amber’s fingers play in Veronika’s wetness, caressing the wet folds of her vagina, running her fingers up and down Veronika’s moistened slit.

  She continues to suck Veronika’s neck, licking her. Yet when she pushes her fingers into Veronika, Veronika pushes her mouth back to Amber’s and they kiss feverishly. Amber slides firstly one finger, then two inside Veronika. At first just shallow, gentle insertions, but when Veronika grabs Amber’s hand and pulls it against her, it drives Amber’s fingers as deep and full as they will go.

  Veronika gasps again. Her breath is short. Amber feels the velvety smoothness of the warm, wet, insides of Veronika’s vaginal cavity engulfing her fingers. The heat and moistness is intoxicating. She feels the need to taste her, to feel that flesh on her mouth.

  She breaks the kiss, Veronika is breathless but keenly she watches as Amber, smiling, slides off the bed, and kneels before Veronika, gripping the waist line of her panties and sliding them down her legs. She drags them from her ankles, flings them aside and pushes Veronika’s thighs apart.

  Aside from her bra covering her tits, Veronika is now completely naked.

  The scene before Amber makes her shiver. A small, clipped patch of pubic hair resides above Veronika’s labia. Wet, glistening pussy lips. Gorgeous shapely legs, parted and spread wide. A stunning flat belly, beautifully proportioned breasts. An attractive woman looking breathlessly down at her.

  She leans forward and begins kissing her way along Veronika’s long legs. She watches Veronika, who watches her.

  She moves her way seductively to Veronika’s groin, sucking the insides of Veronika’s thighs, licking, teasing. Veronika still watches her, a look of delicious anticipation caught in her dreamy eyes.

  Amber holds back no longer, she moves her mouth over swollen pussy lips and sucks them into her mouth, sucking off the wetness that has coated them, swallowing it like honey. She sucks and licks and takes in as much juice from it as she can, almost licking it dry. She probes her tongue about the soft fleshy folds, pushing the flat of her tongue against the hood of Veronika’s clit, licking either side of it.

  Veronika’s head is flung back, her hair tumbles free, her eyes shut, her mouth ajar, breathing heavy, gasping. She has never felt pure raw pleasure like this. She feels Amber’s mouth enclose her pussy, she feels Amber’s tongue push inside her. She has had two lovers before Sam. None of them ever ‘reached’ her like this, none of them ever touched her the way Amber has. She has only ever cum once in her life. By her own hand.

  The sensation is almost alien to her. She doesn’t know what is happening, her pussy feels as if it’s pulsing. Rolling waves of pleasure seem to push up from somewhere in her thighs, down from the insides of her belly, rolling wave after wave, like violent pleasurable ripples, rolling toward the central point of her cunt.

  There’s a climax like no other. Her hips push upwards, every muscle feels like it’s contracting, constricting, as if the sensation rips through her entire body. Her legs lift her torso off the bed, her back arching, her weight against her elbows, the back of her head against the bed sheets, her fingers white-knuckled, gripping at the bed spread.

  Ambers sucks and licks without hesitating. She hears Veronika gasping, crying out, and she feels the final burst of energy pulsate through Veronika before Veronika’s muscles give way, her thighs pressed together now, and she collapses upon the bed.

  Aftershocks continue, the muscles around her pussy, tensing, relaxing, tensing, relaxing, making her hips jolt ever so slightly each time.

  She lies there and Amber climbs back up to lie beside her, resting on her elbow, gazing down into Veronika’s eyes. Veronika pulls Amber’s face to hers and gently they kiss, Veronika tasting her wetness on Amber’s warm lips.

  Then Veronika lies there, catching her breath, Amber smiling at her.

  Five minutes later, Veronika’s phone chimes. Incoming text message. She brings it up. Reads it. ‘Sam’s wondering where I am,’ she tells Amber. ‘I have to go.’ She can’t help herself, before she leaves, she kisses Amber on the mouth. They both smile. Veronika leaves.

  Amber, still dressed. Removes her clothing now in front of the mirror. Whether Veronika noticed or not, Amber’s wounds have completely healed. Not a single sign that she’d had a gaping wound across her rib cage the night before. No sign of the contusions that were on her face. The colour has returned to her cheeks. Thanks to her love-making, the last of the poison that had been in her system has washed out. She feels once more that she has all the vitality and energy of an eighteen year old girl.

  ♥

  ~ CHAPTER EIGHT ~

&nbs
p; GHOST GIRL

  Midday. Amber and Brata sit at a table that overlooks the sea. People fly kites. Tourists plough through the surf on wave runners. A glass-bottom boat takes holiday makers out across the coral beds. Along the beachfront, people jog, cycle, walk. Hawkers are out and about trying to sell their wares. A skinny old dog trots across the beach.

  ‘So, you had an encounter last night?’ Brata asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You believe it might be our killer?’

  ‘It’s too early to say,’ Amber tells him. ‘Although… I have a feeling it isn’t. It’s more likely that it was one of its minions. I believe it was sent to attack me.’ She presents the scales.

  Brata takes them, studies them with great intrigue. ‘What are dees?’

  ‘From the entity that attacked me. Have you seen anything like them before?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing like them have been discovered at any of the locations where the bodies of the women were found?’

  Again he says, ‘No.’ He turns the scales over in his fingers. Testing their durability, their firmness. ‘They look like snake scales.’ He looks across at her.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you what the entity was,’ she tells him, ‘but it was no snake.’

  ‘And you are sure it iss not da one dat attacked da young women?’

  Amber thinks this through. Trying to picture the entity that assailed her. ‘It may have been involved in attacking the young women. But I do not believe it was the thing that killed them. I do believe however that it was sent to attack me.’

  ‘Really? By da killer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You think da killer knows we are looking for it?’ Brata asks.

  ‘I do,’ Amber tells him. ‘Which may make it more dangerous.’

  Brata studies the scales again for a few moments.

  For a little while Amber watches him. ‘Would you tell me about Rangda?’ she asks.

  He looks across at her. ‘Rangda?’

  ‘Yes. I understand she is prominent in Balinese folklore.’