Chapter 277

Sex with Jane or Kendra or Shaniqua was a now and then thing, but love with Sara went on and on, filling Laura's days, enlivening and spicing up her nights, and leavening every bit of her life with sweet anticipation. They spent their weekends together, watching old movies (Sara's, and quickly Laura's, favorite pastime), eating popcorn on the floor and fucking finally, or sometimes unable to wait until the movie was over, fucking maniacally and exhaustingly on the carpet while Fred and Ginger were smartly bantering or stylishly dancing in the background.

They went to museums and concerts and out to dinner or lunch, walked in the park, took long drives. They never tired of one another. It's a miracle, Laura thought. Just a miracle. Though their relationship had very early come close to being dashed on the rocks of sexual betrayal by Laura's dalliance with Dee Dee, they had somehow managed to recover, mainly through Sara's good sense and forbearance, and now they were perfectly comfortable in their deep and moving intimacy.

During the week they spoke by phone occasionally, but both agreed that seeing each other every day or night would be pushing things a little too hard. The joy they took in each other's company was made more intense for both of them by the sweet anticipation they felt all week long, although on a few Friday nights they had verged on tearing one another apart in the heat of their longed for reunion.

For Laura, it was a revelation that one could feel this way. Accustomed to the ups and downs of the tempestuous lusts and passions she had suffered through-as well as enjoyed, in fact exulted in-with her other lovers over the years, she now found herself bathing continuously in the warm current of Sara's steady love, which did not shift or alter from day to day but was always a constant, radiant force, relaxed and humorous, but also keen and piquant and sweet, though anything but saccharine.

Consequently, Laura was more relaxed herself, already noticing that she was not desperate to fuck every attractive woman she saw on the street, not always scheming to see which of her current contacts might be free for a delicious little romp. This was not always a welcome phenomenon, since the middle of the week frequently found her wondering if just a tiny moment of fucking with, say, April might be fun, or Yvette, whom she had not seen in ages, it seemed. The truth was that when Sara had mentioned 'old friends, ' she had not had a clue how many old friends Laura actually had, though her opportunities were admittedly fewer now that Randi was in North Carolina and Shontay in France.

But basically, she was loyal and happy.

Working in the Corporate Communications unit of her company meant that she was obliged on occasion to attend social events representing it. One of these, held on a Thursday evening, was a swank party for an Eastern European dignitary held by the mayor of San Francisco in the Garden Court of the Palace Hotel, an enchanting Victorian domed restaurant that had been the carriage entrance to the fabled hotel one hundred years earlier and was now an elegant and classy fantasy-room that made one feel like a princess just by walking around in it.

The champagne was flowing freely when she arrived, and several men tried to pick her up immediately, but Laura, while remaining civil, did not allow them closer. One of them she recognized as Brad Dickinson, a Member of the Board of Supervisors, who was pretty wealthy, very handsome, and rumored to be a leading candidate for mayor in the coming year. She was flattered by his obvious attraction to her, so apparent that he followed her around for several minutes, but she firmly and sweetly let him know she was otherwise occupied. Then, already friendly with a staffer of the current mayor's that she had known for years, she stuck close to her and discouraged any further approaches.

It was just before the dinner was going to be served that she felt a light tap on her shoulder and turned to find herself face to face with a stunning young black woman in a slinky red dress and a diamond necklace. She was as tall as Laura, slender though with quite alluring cleavage since her dress was cut daringly low, very dark, her skin richly smooth and flawless, her hair cut high around her ears. The diamond necklace appeared to be real, though Laura realized she wouldn't actually know. But why would someone wear a diamond necklace to such an occasion if it were not real? Either you were a vulgar showoff and a fraud, or you were rich enough to wear one.

"I'm Amber," the woman said, looking directly, almost boldly, into Laura's eyes.

"I'm Laura."

Slowly, Amber took Laura's instinctively offered hand, raising it almost in slow motion, her fingers cool and coiling around Laura's knuckles, her eyes never leaving Laura's.

"Do you really want to stay here and eat this rubber chicken? Or would you rather come back to my place. I've got an apartment in the Fontana. Sixteenth floor. Great view. I've got champagne, too. Better than this swill."

She raised her champagne flute and made a charming face. The Fontana Towers, Laura knew, were twin apartment buildings on the northern waterfront overlooking Ghirardelli Square and Angel Island, very expensive, inhabited almost exclusively by the people she had grown up thinking of as 'the filthy rich.' My god, am I being picked up? she wondered. By this incredible young woman, so gorgeous, apparently so rich?

The last time Laura could recall being so blatantly approached was when the wild and molten Kim had picked her up boldly in the Dallas airport. She had never regretted that, since they had nearly killed one another with fucking for twenty-four hours and since then had a few more incendiary meetings. But this woman, though also bold, was about as different from Kim as you could get. For one thing, she was not brazen and fiery but elegant and cool, though there was a smoldering, ambiguous sensuality lurking in the bottom of her gaze. She also had the self-assurance and almost imperious confidence that came, Laura speculated, from being rich, probably all her life; a life unencumbered by want or deprivation or pecuniary anxieties. Kim had been, as Laura herself had been before her present job, in a constant state of financial uncertainty. And finally, of course, on a purely physical level Amber was very dark, enchantingly black, whereas Kim was golden and dark wheat colored, like a jaguar, which she resembled in other ways too.

Apparently these little reflections took longer than Laura had realized, for she saw one of Amber's eyebrows rise in impatience and curiosity, as if she were herself speculating, wondering if she had after all got it wrong, and Laura was not a prospect.

"Well?" she said to Laura, wanting a decision.

I don't even know you, Laura thought. You might want to take me home and rape me. Though I probably wouldn't fight it much. She smiled at Amber mysteriously.

"I'm thinking it over," Laura murmured, feeling her eyelids lower a little, almost unconsciously, but a reaction over which she had no control.

"Don't take too long," Amber murmured back.

Laura set down her own champagne flute on a nearby table. "Okay. Let's go."

The smallest hint of a grin tugged at the corners of Amber's mouth. She placed her own flute next to Laura's. Without speaking, she tilted her head to one side, indicating the door.

"Did you bring a coat?" she asked Laura as they walked casually toward it.

"Left it in my car," Laura said, staring straight ahead. "Hot tonight."

"Have to stop for mine." Laura waited while she picked up a silver fox wrap at the check-in counter.

They waited under the awning while the valet brought Amber's car. "Leave yours here. I'll bring you back," she said to Laura.

The car was a black Mercedes two-seater. Laura noticed the word Kompressor in chrome high on the side fender. Amber drove it the way Isadora Duncan must have driven hers just before being strangled by her scarf. The top was down, and the wind was sharp, so that both of them became very tousled and wind-blown.

"Doesn't it make you nervous, walking around with all those diamonds on?" Laura asked her when they were sitting briefly at a stoplight, and the wind was less vigorous. "You could be... attacked."

Amber gave her a satirical stare. "Who's going to attack me... you?"

Then the light changed, and she drove on.

"Not me," Laura said. "You know, some criminal. Jewel thief."

"But not you," Amber repeated.

Laura swallowed, feeling nervous and not knowing what to say. It only took a few minutes for them to reach the Fontana Towers. The doorman greeted Amber by saying "Evening, Miss Grant," so that Laura now knew her last name. Her apartment was spectacular, something Laura had only seen before in movies.

It was hard to say how you knew that something was expensive, but you knew. The furniture and carpets all reeked of money, gobs of it. Everything had clearly been put together by a designer, not the usual throw-it-together slapdash style, however tasteful, that Laura herself would have managed. It was like one of those apartments where models posed in Vogue or Elle, looking trés chic and vapid or bored, with a Giacometti sculpture in the background. In this case, no Giacometti, but actual Georgia Okeeffes on the wall, four of them.

Stunned, Laura paused in the white hallway, which was arranged like an art gallery, walking from painting to painting, scrutinizing them. Certainly in all the flowers she had painted during her long life, Okeeffe had probably done only a few that looked exactly like vaginas, but Amber Grant seemed to have every one of them hanging on her walls. They might be disguised by odd coloration, such as the one with the green inner lips framed by the long, graceful arcing outer curves of dark purple.

"God, they must've cost you a fortune," Laura said, under her breath.

Amber was watching her from the end of the hallway, looking like this was a common experience for someone entering her home for the first time. She seemed calmly pleased to find Laura so enchanted by these splendid paintings.

She nodded. "It's worth every penny just to see how much you enjoy them."

"How much does something like this cost?"

Amber looked bored and shrugged, leading Laura out of the gallery/hallway and into the rest of her apartment, which was impossibly elegant, with a one-eighty degree view through huge plate glass windows. "I have somebody who buys them for me," she said. "I don't know how much. Sorry."

Laura stood for a while in front of the windows, mesmerized by the view, which only mildly reminded her of the view she herself had given up by moving from her old apartment. She had not had such huge windows, and anyway the Fontana faced in a more northerly direction, so that the sights were different. She was in a pleasant hypnotic trance of visual fascination and barely heard the popping of a champagne cork in the distant kitchen. Like the windows, the rooms themselves were huge. Amber appeared seconds later with champagne for both of them.

"You must have a lot of money," Laura said softly, trying to keep the awe out of her voice, as Amber handed her one glass.

Instead of answering, Amber raised her glass, looking deeply and seriously into Laura's eyes, and clinking the rim of her crystal champagne flute lightly against Laura's. "Welcome to my place. I'm glad you came. I like you."

Laura blushed, but the room was very dim, lit mainly by the starlight and the streetlights below, and she doubted that Amber saw the red flush on her face. "I don't know anyone who has real paintings on their walls," she said nervously. "Just prints."

Amber smiled, more warmly this time. "You don't have to be nervous. I'm not going to attack you either."

Laura grinned. She raised her own glass, to make a toast too. "Thank you for inviting me."

Again the small, semi-amused grin tugged at the corners of Amber's sensual mouth, a mouth Laura was now beginning to hunger for, a very kissable, very desirable mouth.

"My father was the first great black media mogul," she explained, after a long pause. "You never heard of him. Always in the background... nobody ever knew much about him. Not famous, fanatically private. Hated the limelight. He made gazillions of dollars. He was almost seventy when I was born. Only child. I inherited all of it, after my mother died a few years ago." She looked blankly at Laura, as if that was all there was to say. "Yes, I have a lot of money. I hope you won't hold it against me."

Laura looked searchingly into her black eyes. "You must be kidding. You're gorgeous, you're rich, and you like me? What could I have against you?"

Amber smirked, and turned away, walking over to a marvelous heavy glass table and setting her champagne glass on it. "Do you just run off with anybody to her apartment, without knowing anything about her, whenever you feel like it?"

"Why, are you a serial killer or something?"

Now Amber laughed out loud. "Probably worse. I might be after your virtue more than your life."

It was Laura's turn to laugh. "My virtue? What makes you think I have any of that left?"

"Believe me, Laura, you have plenty of it. I could tell the moment I saw you from across the room. Do you know what virtue really means? Power. I saw the way you brushed off those guys who were hovering around you. One of them was Brad Dickinson, too. Every little chickie in San Francisco has a severe pussy-flutter when he simply walks into the room. I saw the way you stuck close to Wendy Small, the mayor's aide. I've known Wendy for about a thousand years, and I was going to get her to introduce us, until I saw you alone. And vulnerable. To my devastating charm. So... the rest is history. You have... virtue. Believe me."

"And you want it?" Laura asked, boldly, enjoying this banter.

Amber smiled, amused. "I usually never have to do without what I want," she said, mysteriously.

This was the moment Laura always loved and feared, in equal measure, the time when something was going to happen but nobody knew how. She felt pretty sure that they were going to wind up in bed, in only a few minutes probably, but how they were going to get there was anybody's guess. The air in the room was electric, and she realized that both of them were giving off vibrations and scents that signaled their sexual anticipation. In my wildest dreams I never thought I'd be in a situation like this, Laura realized. With a beautiful rich girl. Who picked me up.

Amber came over to her, only a few steps, and turned her back. "Since you like my necklace so much, maybe you'd like to... take it off for me."

Now Laura was nearly overcome by excitement. The intimate, stirring, almost sweet odor of Amber's body quickly penetrated her nostrils and made her giddy. Of course she smells good, Laura reminded herself; she probably has all that ruinously expensive perfume that no one else can afford. Laura's face, her lips, were only inches from the smooth, black nape of Amber's neck. She could see the soft firm black velvet of Amber's nearly bare shoulders, broken only by the thin red straps of her dress. She could smell her clean, perfumed hair.

Slowly, she raised her fingers to the clasp of the necklace and unfastened it. The necklace was very heavy as it came away from Amber's neck, and for the first time Laura realized how big the stones were, how much they actually weighed.

"God, this thing must put an extra two pounds on you."

Amber smiled back over her shoulder, not moving, even though the necklace was off, dangling from Laura's hand. "I can use it," she murmured.

"Oh... I don't think so," Laura stammered. "I think your figure is... just perfect."

"You want to kiss my back, don't you?" Amber whispered in a distant, soft, almost shy way, still not moving. "If you do... I want you to. And my neck, too."

"Oh god," Laura said, "I think I want to kiss all of you. Every bit."

Amber grinned, turning slowly now to face Laura. "See. I knew I picked the right girl to bring home with me." She took the dangling necklace from Laura's hand and set it next to the champagne flutes on the glass table.

Laura ran her fingertip slowly along Amber's lips, whispering very softly, feeling her eyelids getting heavy again. "You didn't give me a chance to do it. Turn back around."

Amber looked into her eyes, her own gaze now less amused but soft and glowing and questioning. "You really want to?"

Laura nodded slowly. Gently, she placed her hands on Amber's shoulders and slowly turned her, with Amber acquiescing, until she was again positioned with her mostly naked back to Laura. I am a connoisseur of backs, my dear, Laura thought, and it looks like this is an all-time beauty I plan to add to my collection.

Amber's hair was cut short, up around her ears, exposing the entire lengthy, smooth black column of her neck. Laura began by pressing her lips against the smooth bump of her nape, the same place she had caressed with her fingertips moments earlier. Amber's sleek black skin was warm against her lips, and she moved them slowly, sensually, kissing this marvelous swelling as carefully and expressively as she could, then slowly extending her tongue and licking it, running the tip of her tongue around it and then up to the first roots of Amber's hair above it, then down again to the nape of her neck.

She was looking for a sudden, unanticipated shiver, and she got it quickly.

"Ahneeee!" Amber sighed and giggled, her whole body gripped by a quick, light, racing tremor. "Oh god, that tickles!"

"Don't move," Laura murmured. "I'm not finished."

Amber's giggles tapered off into rapid breathing. "I wouldn't dare move." She glanced back over her shoulder at Laura. "Go ahead. I'm loving it."

"Mmmm, me too," Laura purred.

Now she began kissing the smooth upper slopes of Amber's back, nuzzling the firm flesh between her neck and shoulders and both sides, then returning to kiss the nape of her neck again, lick it as before, again bringing happy giggles and shivers from Amber.

"I think you've done this before," Amber sighed, wriggling her shoulders as the sensations caused by Laura's mouth became more intense.

One thin red strap of her dress slid off her left shoulder. Laura immediately moved her lips over to that shoulder and began to kiss every inch of it, also licking the round flesh at the top.

"What ever gave you that idea?" she teased.

"You're good at it," Amber panted softly, now turning around again, forcing Laura to pull her face back from her smooth, gleaming black shoulder.

"Why... thank you," Laura grinned. "If I'm so good at it, why did you stop me?"

"Because I'm good at a few things too." She caressed Laura's cheek with the backs of her knuckles, a very tender gesture. Maybe she isn't going to rape me after all, Laura thought. "Want to find out what?"

"I think I do," Laura whispered, looking at her mouth, wanting now to kiss it hungrily.

Slowly, tantalizingly, Amber ran one slender dark finger down Laura's pale arm to her hand, hooking it through Laura's forefinger, and gently tugged it, motioning for Laura to follow her, smiling in a mysterious, ambiguous, and yet devastatingly sexual way. As if in a deep hypnotic trance, Laura, though linked to her only by their crooked fingers, followed her through the half-darkened apartment until they reached what was apparently Amber's bedroom.

It was, like every other room in the place, amazingly large. There was a huge oriental carpet on the parquet floor, extra thick throw rugs on it surrounding the bed, a large salt-water aquarium filled with brightly colored tropical fish in the center of the room, and a gas-fired hearth on the wall opposite the bed, which was a canopied four-poster, draped in expensive fabrics. Whereas Laura thought of four-posters as a quaint, bygone era sort of bed, this one was ultra-chic, made of expensive polished mahogany cut in slantwise modernistic shapes and beautiful curves. The whole thing looked like something out of a high-class furniture catalog, aimed only at the super rich.

Amber saw her looking at it. "Feeling sleepy?" she joked.

Not trusting herself to speak for fear her sexual excitement would clot her throat with choked off words, Laura merely shook her head. But she also shot Amber a hot, knowing glance, signifying that they both knew what was coming.

"I'd like to lie down on it, though," she finally managed to say, softly.

"Why don't you? Go ahead... kick off your shoes and try it out."

Laura tried a little coyness, a role she was not accustomed to, usually having it sprung on her by the other party. "Only if you... join me," she whispered.

Amber moved closer. Her face, her whole manner, became more sultry and sensuous, and her eyes fell to Laura's lips. She propped both forearms on Laura's shoulders, locking her fingers behind Laura's head, staring directly into Laura's eyes.

"I want to do this first," she whispered, almost inaudibly.

Without another word, she just pushed her face forward until her lips met Laura's, still pushing, mashing them gently into Laura's mouth. The first time kissing someone new was always a special thrill for Laura, and she could feel a little quiver of excitement ripple through her body as Amber's cool, sensual lips curved into her own. For a brief instant they reminded her of the sublime pillowy paradise of Sara's mouth, but she quickly realized there was little emotional content to this kiss, which always gave her and Sara's kisses their extra moving and sexually heated character. It was a kiss between near strangers, and it had the excitement of novelty and adventure that such a kiss always had.

Amber did not touch her but simply moved her lips against Laura's, finally coaxing Laura's mouth open and letting her tongue dance in between Laura's teeth. Laura was an expert kisser herself and responded in kind, and after about a minute she could hear her breathing and Amber's accelerate, even though their tongues, and their lips, were still moving and gliding slowly together in a patient, romantic tangle.

Amber had a long tongue, longer, Laura thought, than any she had ever come across, and she slithered it so far into Laura's mouth that Laura wondered if it might slide halfway down her throat. At the same time, it made Laura's pussy simply gush with juice. Oh god, I'll die if she sticks that tongue all the way up my cunt, she thought. Amber ended the kiss by taking Laura's lower lip between her teeth and tugging it gently outward, opening her eyes and gazing deeply into Laura's.

Then she released it.

"Still want to kiss all of me?"

Laura smiled and nodded. "Every inch. You're beautiful."

"You ain't so bad yourself, girlfriend," Amber said, again in her soft, sultry voice, now peeling the other strap off her shoulder and letting her slinky red dress slide down her body.

Underneath it Laura saw that she was wearing an ivory-colored backless, strapless bra that covered her stomach down to just an inch above her navel. The bra had a fringe of ivory lace along the top of the cups and a pretty little bow in the center, just below Amber's fetching, shadowy cleavage. Around her navel was a filigree of dark tattooing, a fancy, symmetrical design elongated at the top and bottom. Laura usually despised tattoos, even when tastefully done like Randi's ankh, but this one was very attractive. Amber was a pretty elegant creature, and of course had a pretty elegant tattoo.

Laura was wearing a sheath dress that easily unzipped down the back, and she reached behind her to pull down the zipper, doing it slowly, without taking her eyes off Amber, who was similarly unfastening the backless bra behind her waist. Their eyes never left each other's while they slowly disrobed. There was a current flowing between them, hot and steady and throbbing, and Laura could feel it coursing through her whole body, rippling down to her toes and making them curl slightly, also coiling deep inside her womb, making her belly tremble and quiver.

She could see that Amber was feeling it too. God, I am going to be exhausted in the morning, Laura realized. We are going to eat one another alive, I just know it.

Amber knew how Laura was scrutinizing every little inch of her body that came into view, and she purposely removed the backless bra slowly, just to tantalize her. Laura slipped out of her sheath and gently laid it on the end of the four-poster's mattress, at the foot of the bed. She knew she wasn't exactly an ugly troll herself in her underwear, which was confirmed by Amber's admiring, even hungry eyes. Laura had had no plans for sexual encounter this evening but had worn very alluring underwear anyway: black lace bikini panties cut very high on the hip, and a skimpy black bra that plunged between her breasts and had lacy tops too. She loved wearing sexy underwear, no matter who was going to see it, or even if nobody was but her. It made her feel almost lethally lecherous, which she was certainly feeling at this moment.

But the wonder for her was Amber's body, which was slowly coming into view. Amber was tall and lean and dark, her skin smooth dark velvet, her bones perfect, a model's body really, like Laura's, with straight horizontal clavicles and a long waist. She also had the most incredible puffy black nipples Laura had seen since Rina and Trina, the twins. Amber's nipples and areolas were perfect soft cones, rising almost an inch off the surface of each firm breast. She looked down at them as she saw Laura staring.

"See something you like?" She looked up at Laura from under her eyebrows, questioningly.

Laura swallowed. "Yes... I do."

"See something you'd like to touch? Or... more?"

Laura nodded.

Amber gave a throaty laugh, throwing her head back. "You don't just like me for my money after all, do you."

"I'm afraid not," Laura laughed softly too. "In fact, your money means nothing to me. I want your body."

Amber came over to her and turned Laura around so that she could unclasp Laura's bra. "It's so refreshing to meet someone so honest, Laura."

The sexy black bra came loose, and Amber slid the straps down Laura's shoulders. Then she again using her fingertips she turned Laura's shoulders around so that Laura was facing her, their naked breasts now brushing, their nipples touching. Laura emitted a tiny gasp, the sensation was so amazingly acute and exciting. She felt Amber quiver a little too. They both looked down at their breasts touching.

"Still feeling sleepy?" Amber teased.

Laura gnawed her lower lip. "I never was sleepy. I don't think I could sleep with you in the same room. Too many other things on my mind."

"Mmmm, like what, may I ask."

Without answering, Laura bent forward and kissed Amber's long, smooth, dark neck, running her lips up to the girl's earlobe and nipping it gently. "I think you know what," she whispered.

Amber tilted her head to one side, making it easier for Laura's lips to reach more of her delicious skin. Laura breathed in her ear. This seemed to ignite Amber, and she suddenly grasped Laura harder, finding Laura's mouth with her own and kissing Laura more hungrily then ever, snaking her long tongue down to the entrance of Laura's throat.

This in turn made flames leap up inside Laura's pussy, and she could feel, as if they were moving on their own, her own arms encircling Amber's naked back more aggressively. She could now feel their naked breasts, which had merely been brushing before, mashing together. She could also feel Amber's soft, large, puffy nipples squashing against her own, which made her desire to have them in her mouth fierce and urgent.

They were both now wearing only their panties, Laura's the sexy black lace ones, and Amber's just as alluring, ivory bikini-style panties to match her bra, devastating against her velvety black skin. When they broke off the kiss, they were both panting, their fingers digging into each other's warm flesh. Laura could see Amber's black eyes swirling and throbbing and knew hers were doing the same.

"I want to lick your beautiful tattoo," Laura panted softly, dropping one hand to Amber's hard, flat belly and running her fingertips over it.

Amber gave her a soft, throaty laugh, her eyelids heavy with sex, and bent her face forward to run her lips up Laura's neck, the way Laura had done to her. When she reached Laura's ear, she slithered her long tongue into it.

"I want to lick your pussy," she murmured.

The combination of her words and her tongue in Laura's ear almost sent Laura over the edge. Her knees sagged a little, and a sharp, wild pulse leapt up in her throat, and her neck, where Amber's lips had just been.

"Ooohhh, you like that," Amber murmured, clutching her body harder. "Come here."

She pulled Laura over to the bed. They fell onto it immediately, kissing feverishly, groping, clutching. "Who goes first?" Laura panted, nibbling Amber's chin, biting her earlobe.

"Why me, of course," Amber laughed again, her throaty laugh. "It's my place, isn't it? Little rich girls always go first."