Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Ch 33

There is something fundamentally wrong, thought Gus Keller, in staying at the home of the man you have been hired to kill. In smiling and smiling, and being a villain.

They had arrived at Lightning Ridge that evening. Keller had been surprised at his first sight of it, rising out of the desert. It had looked like a normal town – albeit of only two thousand people – and somehow in his reading over the past couple of days he had gotten the impression that most of the buildings in the town had been built underground, because of the heat of the day – over 100 degrees Fahrenheit each and every day during the winter…and hotter than that during the summer.

And indeed, when he stepped out of the air-conditioned car it was like walking into a furnace.

The six foot six Alain Pretorius had met them at the door of his home…which did appear to have been half built into a hillside. It was a luxurious home…in an understated, tasteful fashion.

Keller had watched as Pretorius had greeted Marguerite Zelle warmly..extremely warmly, he’d thought in an annoyed fashion. And she had returned his warm smile. He’d seen that before…the way her eyes and face had lit up when she spoke up with Pretorius, the first time they had met.

Pretorius’ smile faded…only slightly… as he turned to greet Gus Keller. He extended a large, well-manicured hand and Keller took it. Keller half-expected Pretorius to try to crush his hand to show off his strength, but it was just a firm handshake, nothing more.

“We’re ready for dinner,” he said in his low baritone. “I expect you’re famished.”

The meal was delicious, and Keller and Marguerite (or as Keller knew her, having lost his memory, Taran Tula) ate with enjoyment. Keller liked to watch her eat…not so much because she was particularly attractive when she ate, but just that she actually did eat…didn’t pick at her food like so many women nowadays who were afraid to eat and preferred to look skeletal rather than the slightest bit well fed.

After the meal, Pretorius took them on a tour of the living room, where dozens of examples of opal from Lighting Ridge were displayed.

Keller watched as Taran Tula moved from opal to opal, gazing at them with rapt attention. She picked each one up, and tilted it this way and that, watching the play of fire within the living gem.

He looked up to see Pretorius watching her as well. He too seemed fascinated by her….

Keller swore to himself. There is something fundamentally wrong about all this, he thought, sadly.

Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Chapter 32

Gus Keller rested his forehead in his hand as the large car drove toward Lightning Ridge, home of Australia’s largest black opal deposits…and of the man whom he and Marguerite Zelle were supposed to kill.

“This is it,” he thought. “This is it…this is it…this is it.”

His thoughts were chaotic. He had had a good night’s sleep, and his memory had still not returned. He still couldn’t remember who he was, although he knew what he was… a cold-blooded assassin.

*Was that logical? He thought. If he were an assassin, would he really think of himself as a cold-blooded killer? Even without his memory? Wouldn’t he be the same person? Just as cold-blooded now as he had been then? What made a person have ethics and morals….the way they were raised? But if he couldn’t remember how he was raised…why did he have ethics now. Why did the thought of killing someone fill him with abhorrence?

At least, killing someone for hire, he amended. There were plenty of people who *should be killed. Rapists. Murderers… his thoughts trailed off.

“This is it…this is it… this is it…”

Out of the corner of his eye he looked at the beautiful form of Marguerite Zelle. She was watching the scenery passing outside her window. She looked so….patrician. So beautiful. Even when she’d been firing off that shot gun earlier today. The way she’d stood there, in total control of that weapon. He had found that so damn sexy, even though there was a subtext there…how many people had she killed with such a weapon.

But when she looked at him with those eyes…smiled at him with those lips….he was just ready to melt.

“This is it…this is it… this is it.”

Every tick of the odometer was bringing them closer to Lightning Ridge, and his destiny.

Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Ch 31

“Pull,” called Michele Bravo.

Jan Janasz swung his arm in an arc, and the clay target released from the hand-held skeet thrower and soared out over the ocean.

Michele brought her shotgun to bear quickly, pressed the trigger, and watched as the clay pigeon disintegrated.

“Pull,” she called again, and the process was completed.

Although they were scheduled to leave for Lightning Ridge, Michele had felt in the mood to do some skeet shooting right then, and Janasz had accommodated her. Adaams nd Gus Keller were watching also.

Michele enjoyed skeet shooting…indeed, any kind of target shooting, from pistol to sniper to shot gun. She felt a kinship with the weapon in her hand…it was part of her – an extension of her. And the feeling of complete control she felt as she utilized that weapon to destroy target after target…it made her feel good…in control of her own life.

Which explained why she’d been in the mood….because she felt out of control in the rest of her life. This scenario with Gus Keller wasn’t going as she had planned, and she didn’t like it when things didn’t go as she’d planned. The more so when the failures could be laid at her door.

So, she did some trap shooting, which helped to clear her mind and center her focus, and put herself back into control.

The fact that she was impressing her audience of three men no end was just a delightful byproduct.

Erotica by Bravo: Dighton & Forrest in new series - Part 1

I.

Peter Dighton and Sasha Forrest walked hand in hand through the WASP museum, which was located in the original Hangar One on what had been Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.

In 1941, just after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the armed forces of the USA mobilized to go to war, thousands of women wanted to do their part. They were encouraged by the government, who put out propaganda posters for them to go to work in munitions plants, and to join the WAVES and so on. Jackie Cochran, the most famous aviator of her day, wanted the government to use female pilots to ferry planes around the country, freeing up male pilots to go overseas.

Originally she was turned down, and she travelled over to England to fly with the ATA pilots there – which included women. Meanwhile in the USA , Nancy Harkness Love continued to press the military, and finally the WAFS – women’s auxiliary ferry service, was formed. Hearing of this success. Cochran flew back to the States and insisted on a larger program…which would become the WASP – women auxiliary service pilots.

From 1942 to 1944, over 1800 women trained at Avenger Field, and a little over 1,000 women graduated and became ferry pilots. The last class, which graduated in December, 1944, never got to fly, however. By the end of 1944, the Allies knew that the war was won, and they began to make plans to integrate soldiers back into peacetime society. Part of this plan was to get women to give up their jobs and go back to being homemakers, allowing the soldiers to have jobs to go back to.

This included the WASP, who were disbanded right after the last class graduated. They were civilians, and had to pay their own way home, and they and their services to their country were forgotten until the 1970s.

Avengers Field was still in existence, and in 2005 Hangar One was turned into a museum for the WASP. The small town of Sweetwater still had several buildings from that era, as well.

“I’m thinking,” said Sasha.

“Yes, my darling?” asked Peter.

“You know how we’ve always talked about retiring and running a B&B?”

“Yes, but that’s a looooong way in the future,” Peter said.

“Well…why don’t we do it now? I was walking through the town earlier today, and there’s a few shuttered businesses. I was thinking we could buy one, start up a B&B, and do it with a WWII theme. We could put plays on WW II-plays, and have themed events, and capitalize on the current interest in the WASP.”

“That’s a pretty ambitious plan,” commented Peter, “but I like it.”

II.

A Big Band was playing swing music in one corner of the ballroom in the Avenger Field Canteen and Caravan B&B, the new business of Peter Dighton and Sasha Forrest.

Everyone in the ballroom was dressed in either WW II era fatigues or clothing. The band was dressed in tuxedos. A professional dance pair were regaling the diners with classic dances of the period. When they took their break, the diners got to their feet and cut the rug.

Peter, dressed as a WWII pilot, and Sasha, dressed as a WASP, did the boogie woogie with the best of them.

Although this was their business, they were having fun with it. They had hired a manager and a variety of staff, whom they let do the work, while they entertained the clientele with their plays, or, as on this occasion, simply pretended to be customers themselves.

This was “the night before shipping out” event, and couples had checked into the B&B to have a romantic dinner, then a romantic evening, and finally, a romantic night.

The food hadn’t been stinted on – great food could always be got during war time if one had connections – and Sasha and Peter (as well as their guests) had had prime rib, potatoes and corn, with huge slices of chocolate cake for dessert.

Peter and Sasha were nothing if not thorough in their characterizations – they had each researched their characters and played their roles throughout the evening.

And now…they walked hand in hand to their room (which did not have a TV, only Bakelite radios, and books, newspapers and magazines of the era).

They made love for a long time, that evening, to the background sound of airplanes taking off in the distance. Both of them knew that they might never see each other again. 38 WASP had already died serving their country, she, Sasha, might be next. As for Peter, he was due to ship out to Italy and who knew when a dogfight might not claim his life.

That was the ambiance that gave a certain soupcon to their lovemaking.

Afterwards, they lay back in bed, listening to a Jack Benny program and cuddling.

“I wonder how many people in the rest of our rooms are making love right now,” Peter said, “In the proper spirit, I mean. Pretending to be in the middle of the war, and this being their last night with their sweetheart. “

“It certainly adds a certain..poignancy…to the lovemaking,” Sasha agreed.

“This was a good idea, Sasha,” Peter said, kissing her lovingly.

“Thank you, my dear,” said Sasha.

They turned off the lights and listened to Jack Benny in the dark, while the constant drone of aircraft provided a counterpoint to the end of the evening.

Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Chapter 30

Black opal

It was time to go to Lightning Ridge, where the opal mines that Jan Janasz and Alain Pretorius supposedly had, were.

Michele had long been interested in opal, particularly black opal, nad Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, is the main source of it.

Most Americans never see the best opal - buyers from Asia purchase it and have it made into jewelry to sell in the Orient.

90% of the opal in the world is ‘light opal’ -- opal with a white background. 8% is black opal, and only 2% is boulder opal.

The town of Coober Pedy in South Australia is a major source of opal. Indeed, the world's largest and most valuable gem opal, “Olympic Australis” was found in August 1956 at the “Eight Mile” opal field in Coober Pedy.

Andamooka in South Australia is a major producer of matrix opal, crystal opal, and black opal, but the main source of black opal is at Lightning Ridge in New South Wales. Black opal has a predominantly dark background (dark-gray to blue-black displaying the play of color). Boulder opal consists of concretions and fracture fillings in a dark siliceous ironstone matrix.

Michele had selected Lightning Ridge as the location for the denouement of her game with Gus Keller. It was very much a "frontier" town, like the old west, except that most of the homes in which people lived were underground.

Lightning Ridge is about 6 km east of the Castlereagh Highway, and has a population of about 2,000 people. It is a flourishing tourist town, however, with plenty of caravan and camping parks, the Diggers' Rest pub (which, according to Michele's info, was in the process of being rebuilt after having recently burned down for the third time) and a bowling club.
Boulder opal

It was there, in that wild-west atmosphere, that Michele would bring her plan to fruition.