                              

     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 trs 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 t                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       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