“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.

She was panting louder now, her pale body squirming, white hair thrashing against the earth. I gasped in lustful fascination, desperate for release but still not touching. Watching. Just watching.

Both her hands now spread her pussy wide, the pale fingers of one delving deep, and the heel of the other rubbing faster, harder. And when at last her body spasmed, and a high-pitched cry, full of ecstasy and yearning, escaped her wide red lips, it was as if this was something that Heaven demanded.

But, even as my shaft still tented the cotton of my sarung, she began to fade. Her pale hair, crowned with dried flowers, became paler, until it disappeared. Her skin, so white and pure, blended into the now nearly horizontal sunrays, and then was no longer there. Her red lips, and the deep pink of her labia, lingered a touch longer, but then were gone, leaving nothing behind but the soft fragrance of cunt and grey foreign wildflowers – rue, daisies and withered violets.

I cursed myself, and her, as my penis shrank despondently, dissatisfied. There was pleasure, yes, and fascination – but my soul, for another day, would be empty and bitter.

That night Sri and I made love. She was beautiful, oh so beautiful, her dark skin soft and glowing in the dim flickering light of our oil-lamp. I sucked her feet until she giggled and squirmed: they tasted of coconut oil and lime leaves.

She lay on her front whilst I stroked my fingers softly up and down her back and thighs, slurping with abandon at her warm anus, while the tip of my tongue lapped her perineum and the damply perfumed bottom lip of her cunt. She moaned softly.

When she mounted me, her long black hair swishing from side to side as she fucked and squirmed, her fulsome body looked darkly radiant against the half-lit ceiling. She came many times, her on top, grinding her clit against the base of my cock, whilst I grabbed her hair tight and slobbered over her big brown areolae.

As I came in her cunt, on top in missionary, I broke down. “Minta ma’af” – “I’m so sorry,” I blubbed into her neck, “for being so difficult to live with – for betraying you, again and again.” My tears dripped onto her shoulder. “I don’t deserve you, you know.” She said nothing, but nodded almost imperceptibly, as if she not only agreed but knew and understood more than I did. Wordlessly she pulled me tighter, and I felt her full breasts squash against my chest. As my cock went gradually flaccid inside her, she ground against me again, extracting a last few orgasmic shivers from her soft body.

I wiped my tears on her long black hair. She looked beyond me, through the window, at the dark sky, and I felt her cheek smile.

The scent of pansies and columbines wafted past on the breeze.