“Back soon, mbak!” I called towards the kitchen.

“Jalan-jalan?” – “Going for a walk?” came Sri’s voice, amid the clatter of pans and the scent of terasi and lemon grass.

“Is that OK?” I asked.

“Of course: Ningsih can help me with supper. Be back by sunset, though.” Her voice, tinkling like degung, radiated trust and cheerfulness. My heart twinged briefly, but I dismissed the feeling with a deft and practiced gesture of moral legerdemain.

The forest was glorious – hibiscus, white jasmine and anggrek bulan glimmering in the late, hot afternoon sunshine. But I wasn’t really looking at them. Instead, my heart pounded as I delved deeper into the woods, jaw set with aching determination.

She sat the same place she did every evening, against the outer slope of a hollow marked out by some vine-encrusted temple ruins, on an andesite block adorned with rain-eroded bas-reliefs. She was pale and white – whiter than anyone I had ever seen in these lands, even the earnest foreigners who occasionally tramped through the woods in search of lost candi. She turned to look at me – no, actually, past me – her red lips glowing against her white skin, eyes wide with inscrutable purpose and perspicacity, her crown of strange dried foreign flowers – rosemary, pansies, fennel, columbines – fragrant, but oddly grey compared with the colour in her cheeks and her bright, bright pale skin.

She wore what I can only describe as a singlet, apparently woven of filigree chains of silver – finer even than from the smithies of Kotagede – which covered her pale breasts. She said nothing, still apparently ignoring me as, barefoot, I stumbled clumsily down, past the decapitated statue of a multi-armed goddess, to stand and ogle.

Reaching downwards to touch her groin, she spread her pale white legs. For whom was she doing this? I wondered. Her eyes never met mine – and I was too penis-absorbed to care. Instead she fixed her eyes on a black stone Siva-lingam at the opposite end of the hollow, before tilting her head slightly backwards, white hair splaying onto the earth bank, red lips parting with almost imperceptible pleasure as she found her pink button and began to circle it with one moistened finger.

I opened my mouth to speak, but there was nothing to say but silence. Actually, I wanted her to speak, to tell me, to explain why. But all she did was continue to rub her clitoris and stroke her tight glistening pink pussy-lips – pinker and shinier than any skin I had ever seen, even among the sweaty sunburnt tourists down the coast at Pangandaran.

I felt my member begin to grow and throb, felt pre-cum smear against my sarung and then, as my penis continued to rise, against my belly. I reached down, not for my pleasure, but merely to ease the awkwardness. I did not rub or stroke, or reveal myself. I knew, somehow, that that was not what she was here for.