Lover of Stars

By Bikka Hart

A magical, mythical tale, set on the sensual island of Bali, Lover of Stars, has at its center Abigail, a sixty-seven-year-old American gallery owner who hops bravely on Tinder to search for love and sex, despite a past sexual trauma and not liking men. After many sexual adventures, when Abi finally falls in love, she has to come face to face with the terrible incident of violation that launched her quest for love. 

Lover of Stars, Abi's creative subconscious from the Milky Way, who has her own arc and love story, appears in Abi's life to help her healing and her search for love. 

Abi realizes it was the journey itself and her experiences that inadvertently healed her, giving her tremendous powers of self-actualisation and the ability to heal others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bikka Hart
• Release date: Jan 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393606109

Bikka Hart

Bikka, lives and works around the world, in Bali, Europe and the USA. She is also a visual artist, poet and goumet cook. Lover of Stars is her first novel.

Book preview

The Search for Love

Abigail stepped back from the easel to look at her calligraphic koans splashed onto canvas in thick black ink flowing from oversize sumi-e brushes bought in one of Singapore's art shops. Abi collected art supplies from Chinatown like other women collected shoes. Stretching her neck, she pleased herself to deliver the new series of poetry paintings to her gallery tomorrow for Monday morning sales.

Smiling, Abi admired her contemporary modern home with the art studio cottage, sunlit sparkling pool, sun-bleached wooden deck, white umbrellas shading the pink canvas cushions on the teak sun beds, covered by a canopy of blossoming yellow frangipani trees. Her personal tropical paradise complete with a giving banana tree and blossoming fuchsia bougainvillea draping the walls.

On clear mornings, from her garden, from more than seventy kilometers away, she glimpsed the majestic volcanoes protecting Bali: Batur, Agung, and Bratan. Islanders kept an eye on the volcanoes, watching for signs of smoke after a quiet forty-five years.

Content with the morning’s progress, she wandered out of her studio stepping into the clear turquoise pool for her morning laps, under the cloudless cerulean sky. After a few minutes of swimming, her thinking relaxed into free flow. A good morning zoomed by when she painted and wrote. Her life felt perfect.

Perfectly lonely. 

Maybe it’s time to get over her trauma.

Swimming to the end of the pool, with her head in the water, she barely heard her phone ringing, answer me, answer me. She stayed in the water, resisting the call, but the ringing persisted. Who could be calling early on a Sunday? Who died? 

She surrendered to the call, wrapped a cotton sarong around her, sat on the pool steps and picked up the call from Ursula, her Swiss friend. Hi Cutie, Abi said. You are up early. How are you?

My husband, the cheat, my husband, the prick. I found months of emails back and forth from his girlfriend, during my banking this morning. I am filing for a divorce. Stupid ass left his email open, she answered sobbing.

Whoa, wait a second. When? This morning? Where are you? Are you ok? 

I am here in Bali for the weekend. I think I am going to move here, leaving him and Singapore behind, bye to his bank and his bitch. Thanks, no, I am not ok, maybe later we can talk. I had to say the truth of it out loud, to hear the words, for me to believe it.

Breathe. Yes, of course, let's talk. I am so sorry.

"I am very sorry for calling you this early. Did I interrupt you? In this moment, I found their emails, planning trips together, their disgusting I love your ass messages."

What a betrayal. I can't believe it. You are married so many years now. I finished a series of new paintings this morning. No, not really busy now, swimming and thinking I do not want to be alone any more.. My thoughts wander when I swim. You called in that moment. You are finishing your marriage and I want to start a new life by dating, Abi said.  Life is funny. Boy, you make fast decisions.

I am ending it and you are starting again. Well, good luck, Ursula said. It's a war out there. I don't have any friends who are happily married. I gave ten years of my beautiful life and a child to this man and he is a cheat. No point to draw out the separation. I can never trust him again.

Ten for you and ten for me, Abi said. After ten years in Bali, ten years of no sex, no men, no boyfriends, I have not even considered having a serious boyfriend until this morning's swim. Time is passing me by like the stars in the galaxies above, moving faster every night. The water is my sensuous pleasure, I want a swimming companion and have great sex in my pool. Listen, I am going to bake myself a ten-year anniversary cake announcing the end of my celibacy. I will bake a ten-year divorce cake for you. I will invite friends over for lunch or bring a no more celibacy" cake to one of my gal pal lunches. And, your cake, you can smash in your two-faced husband's lying faces with a ‘Fuck You!’ written on it in pink icing. Can you see it?

Ursula laughed at Abi's silliness. Yes! I would throw a cake in his face, his two faces, smear the ‘Fuck You’ icing on his Armani shirts if he didn’t live in Singapore. That's not all I would do. Bastard.

Abi suggested, I heard stories about betrayed women who cut up their husbands' clothes. Do it if you feel better.

No, I am not going back to our apartment except to move out. I have to find a house for me and my son, or I stay in a small cottage for a month while I look. Tell me about your end of celibacy?

Ok. It will be great to have you living here. You can get a dog at one of rescue events. Since moving to Bali, I’ve worked non-stop to make my gallery a semi-moderate success. My habits have been to bury myself in my work, hide from men, hide myself in general. Many of my new Bali friends don’t really know who I am, or who I was before moving to Bali. Realizing it's been a sexless ten years startled me into action this morning.

Your gallery is a success. I admire you having a business in Bali, not easy, I hear. I have to find something for me to do besides being a wife and mother. I owned a small jewelry business in Singapore, he made me stop, but I liked the creativity of it.

Start a creative venture again, you will have more free time, away from lying hubby. As for my life, I don’t want to be lonely, missing love, sex, and companionship. Despite getting older every year, I still look good for my age.

Yes, you do. Abi, go for it. Take a lover, have an adventure of the heart, though I cannot recommend it from the broken pieces of mine. I am in pieces.  She cried again.

Oh, Ursula, I am so so sorry. You called to tell me your news, and I go on and on about my own morning mutterings.

It's ok. I want to know what is going on in your life. Go online and find a man, a companion, a lover, a cuddle buddy, whatever you want. I am going online to the Swiss Embassy to research how to divorce when I am not living in Switzerland. Fun!

What a morning, I change my life and you change yours, around the number ten.  Must be in the stars, heavenly planetary shifts, both of us at ten-year markers. First, I am going to bake my ‘end of ten years of celibacy’ cake.  Maybe tomorrow you pop by and we celebrate beginnings and endings eating my cake. OK?

Yes. About 3:00? Thanks for being there. Abi, you are not really going to bake cakes? Are you?

No, not really. Doesn't it sound warm and fuzzy? Bake a cake! Nostalgic? Healing food? Gooey cakes? I will pop by the gluten free bakery.  We can breeze through a bottle of bubbly I bought in duty free!  Always here for you. I want a yummy man to see me as a gooey pink cake and smooth his fingers around in my pink cake, make me delirious.

Abi, this is a new you. I never heard you talk like this. Great! See you tomorrow! You make me laugh! Thanks!

Yes. A new me. Soon a new you! Bye!

Bye.

Abi's doubts re-surfaced after talking to Ursula. Abi met Ursula at an ex-pat Sunday charity lunch months ago on one of her weekend trips to Bali. They talked about spirituality at lunch and exchanged numbers. Every time Ursula came to Bali, she called Abi to chat or to have lunch.

Abi walked inside to make a coffee, shocked by Ursula's betrayal. What chances did she have for falling in love when women like Ursula have trouble? Beautiful, smart, kind, Ursula, who spoke five languages, twenty years younger than Abi, married to a successful banker and, now, shattered. What chance did her friend have to put her life back together in Bali?  

Coffee in hand, Abi wandered out to the pool deck. Would she have the courage to look for something to possibly destroy her? How will she survive a broken heart? Or would she be stronger and more vibrant from male attention? Will she get over her past hurts and traumas?  Would she find magic? What would the stars bring her?  

What are the chances of another man holding a knife to her throat for sex? She never told anyone, not her mother, her friends, her British boyfriend waiting for her in Mykonos, about the assault in the alley of an Italian port, before she boarded the ferry to Athens. She was not a naive twenty-three-year-old traveler any more. And yet, the memories, the guilt, of thinking she was at fault, linger. She freely expressed herself these days from the many healings on her throat chakra. Words no longer stick in her throat.  His tiny Greek dick stuck in her throat, leaving no room except for gagging and fear. 

Maybe it’s time to stop being afraid of men, solve her mysteries about men, and learn to like them again. Tomorrow she would go on line and start her search for love.

How much more perfect would her life be if a dishy guy, tall and lanky, longish grey hair, smiling eyes, kind heart, relaxed in her lounge chair, and patiently waited to take her to lunch followed by a saucy siesta?

The Mission Begins

Meanwhile on a star in the Milky Way . . .

Lover of Stars relaxed under the floating Well of Wisdom, dreaming her morning poetry, wondering what to ask the Well for the day, when High Command zoomed! flashed! sparkled! over to her, landing in mid-air, a bit above her head, almost crashing into her and her golden space dog, Larry. They were zooming! too fast. High Command hovered above them, sending her a light-filled morning mind greeting. Sparkle, Sparkle.

Lover of Stars tumbled off her dreaming poetry bench from the near collision, straightened up her sparkles to meet her High Command. Lover of Stars’ dreaming position placed her under the Well of Wisdom, a movable circular portal to the stars, stationed in the endless galaxy’s sky, full of spiral maps of five hundred billion years of desire, tales of love stories, luscious galaxies, floating poems in the night skies, exploding stars followed by moons, spiral star maps giving guidance to lost star travelers, all of this eternal knowledge traveling at the speed of thought. The Well, a quirky starlight personality, gave answers to questions about anything, on some days yes, on some days no, or the questions would have to wait until the Well pleased herself to give answers.

No time, no linear time, no circular time, no time at all existed in Lover of Stars’ galaxy. The starlight beings understood the idea of time in other galaxies because the Well revealed past, present, and future to a starlight being if curious.  No starlight beings lived in the Well and none were allowed to enter, only to ask questions and to peer in.

Omniscient High Command, the tallest star being, hovered next to the Well and peered in for fun, not needing answers to anything.

High Command, neither a male nor female starlight being, unlike Lover of Stars, a female, had grown into an immense ancient star, by trying to save other stars from total disintegration. Having absorbed many other stars into what once was a her, High Command became referred to as they, as well as being the largest starlight being, towering over all the other starlight creatures. Their starlight wisdom grew each year, visible by their increasing size and mass. They were a multi-colored star being composed of various colored gases: pink, blue, orange, green, brown, showing off sparkling diamond lights.

Good morning to you, said Lover of Stars, surprised she lapsed into an Earth greeting. Oh! I meant to send you the morning light greeting. Where did the Earth greeting come from? And what’s the rush?  She frowned as she noticed her sparkles in disarray after the tumble..

High Command smiled through her eyes, Good. You remembered your Earth greeting, since we are excited to tell you, you are going to Earth. Get up. The council has decided you may take the injured Pilot back to Earth for healing and change their ships' trajectories to stop these frequent crashes into our star homes. Your two missions. Did you feel his ship crash in a sparkle? You better get going. We have no Earth food or water for him. He needs to breathe Earth air before his helmet runs out of his air.

Lover of Stars moved away from the Well of Wisdom, floating up higher to challenge her High Command. Oh no, not me. I remember all too clearly my last trip to Earth. My wing fell off, I got lost crashing into a forest. Not a pleasant experience. I have probably outgrown my wings since the last trip and need a new fitting.

High Command reassured her, I promise you; your trip will be better. We refined our stardust formula to convert into any matter you may need.

Still Lover of Stars protested, "Oh no, no, no. I am never going back there again. Pilot? What Pilot? A human he? He may die on the way back, or I may disintegrate, disappear, poof, evaporate, vaporize, dematerialize from unforeseen circumstances, or new Earth weapons. You remember what happened to my wings last time? One tore off entering Earth’s atmosphere, leaving holes in my back. My stardust continuously leaks out those holes. I leak more stardust  compared to anyone else here. I am always refilling my stardust. Plus, you read my last report. The Earthlings are mean to each other, they kill their animals for fun, for food to eat. Not all of them. But enough to notice their bad habits. Parts of Earth are disgusting and dirty. Their deadly weapons kill each other. They put animals and children in cages. The Earth’s vibrational noise greatly disturbs me, also."

"Well, you have to. It’s decided. You are the only one of us who is part human, part stardust, wearing a useful mouth, who can talk to the Earthlings, like the morning greeting popping out of your mouth.

See? they continued. You sense you are going there again. Did the Well tell you about your trip? No matter, you are going. You will find kind Earthlings to help you heal this almost dead, barely breathing Pilot. You finish your two missions and come home. Get going.

True, probably true. No, she did not tell me anything today . . . but . . . but  . . . Silently, Lover of Stars understood.

Lover of Stars’ successful deconstruction changed her into a vibrant, glowing creature, made of stardust, able to live in the Milky Way galaxy, except for the distraction of her human mouth remaining on her starlight face. Only the wisest stars, the exceptionally skilled practitioners, like High Command, knew how to deconstruct or re-construct matter from one form into another. Because of their skills, they were able to transform her consciousness, her soul, her Earth spirit, into the body of a starlight being, allowing her inner life to continue inside a starlight form.

Deconstruction of humans into starlight beings usually failed, but the starlight creatures reasoned if the human died anyway, why not try to save the essential human spirit? Maybe her deconstruction worked on her successfully as a small child when she crashed because of her sparkling! alive eternal spirit.

Lover of Stars remembered her first days.  Her visible human mouth remained a public and personal embarrassment after her deconstruction into a starlight being. Her mouth embarrassed High Command’s skills as a master practitioner as well, when she became one of them, who are all now part of her. Still her spirit blissfully survived the crash as an injured Earth child into her new form.

Her new family, her only family, welcomed her despite her strange feature, her mouth. Still at odd times, she felt different.

Well, OK, my mouth will be useful, she reflected. They saved me, giving me a beautiful life as a star being.

Lover of Stars beamed light and emitted silver and gold stardust mixed inside of blue moon beams. Her eyes were dark black luminous stars, her star covering held also blue galaxy water coated in pink stardust sprinkles. None of her friends held a mouth, only eyes. No one had the ability to talk to the Earthlings, except her. As star creatures, they pinged messages to each other from their light minds, no words. Her starlight friends were many colors: blues, browns, yellows, whites, pinks mixed from different intensities of gasses and densities of stardust.   

In a sparkle! moment, the Earthman’s ship crashed onto her star, as many other ships before. Maybe an exploding star sent him off this path crashing into her star house. Maybe the Pilot absorbed deadly ultraviolet rays. Lover of Stars and her friends understood the Earth humans' skills in almost deconstructing matter. Yet not quite. They generally died when they crash landed except for Lover of Stars, as a child, and the rare pilot. After saving their lives, High Command erased the memories of those few pilots who survived and were flown back to Earth. High Command sometimes failed to deconstruct and save the lives of seriously injured pilots, though they tried. They said the humans’ miscalculations of trajectories created errors in passing through the portals to come to their galaxies. If Earth humans only knew how easily starlight beings passed in and out through the Milky Way’s many portals.

I want to deconstruct the Pilot to stay here, close to me, Lover of Stars announced to High Command.

Maybe I can deconstruct our new casualty. I will have a companion who is part human and part stardust like me. If I can heal him, I don’t have to go back to Earth. Maybe he can stay. For me, to be only mine, like Larry, my golden space dog companion. I will have another playmate living on my star.

High Command gently squashed her request. No, he is not going to be your pet. You know, dear Star, your skills are not good enough to deconstruct him.. You never paid attention in class. You are better at dreaming starlight poetry fragments, sending them out into the atmosphere, drawing, swimming in your Sea of Intuition as a wise star. Your best medical skills won’t save him anyway; he is too injured to deconstruct. He would not make it.

Lover of Stars protested again, I don’t know who is receiving my poetry fragments anyway, where they land or who receives my words. I want to do something more important.

"Listen, you beautiful star, saving the Pilot’s life is important, for many beings, as well as preventing more Earth pilots from dying and crashing here, to stop the Humans from coming this way at all. They are becoming a nuisance. You will find their launching control center and reconfigure their trajectories to miss us. Maybe leave codes or hints about how to pass through portals and return safely, avoid crashing into us. You will have an adventure to write about when you get back.

Logically, there are only three outcomes: He will either die here or die on the way or you can bring him back to his own people for saving. He has a better chance for human life if you take him back to Earth. Teach the Earthlings how to have safe galaxy explorations, no more crashing or dying.

Well, I am not going back to Earth, Lover of Stars protested, to no use.

Yes, you are. Get ready. Before you leave, I will bring you more stardust and magic to help you on your trip. Go get your back fixed quickly. Fit your wings. Get going.

High Command zoomed! flashed! sparkled! away. 

Fuckless on the Menu

Back on Earth in Bali...

The gal pals’ lunch bunch focused on testing new food spots around Bali, popping up like magic mushrooms in and around their beaches or rice fields. Some weeks they would travel an hour to sample a new lunch venue. They stayed away from driving east toward the three stately volcanoes. Mount Agung, or Gunung Agung, is the farthest Western volcano, gently puffing, giving islanders occasional frights.

Abi and her friends searched for new restaurants near a rice field or ocean view by only going south or north to places hugging the western sea coast. The Balinese believe food tastes better in a rice field on a sunny day, breezes blowing over the rippling rice plants. Abi believed food tastes better by the ocean from the sea air close by.

Weekly lunch topics included rating and dissecting the new menu, living in Bali, complaining, face and herbal treatment, new aches and pains, the best doctors in Singapore or Bangkok, expat gossip, travel, shopping for shoes that fit, sharing house maintenance information, and discussing more food. They gossiped regularly once a week for about four years. No one talked about art or music or books or sex or men. Netflix, yes.

This week they visited a favorite restaurant, Serendipity, an air-conditioned inside space and a rare valet parking lot covered in green velvet shade from the ancient Banyan trees. The Balinese custom is to never cut the Banyan trees, as they believe their ancestors’ souls live in the trees.

Always smiling and efficient, Serendipity’s staff offered great service, and a comfort food menu of European mains and salads, like fresh Burrata mozzarella, basil, and perfectly ripe tomatoes. Or grilled salmon and buttered asparagus. Their specialty, crispy duck, filled Abi’s occasional need for primal crunchy, fatty food. Although vegan, she deviated from her diet at times to enjoy their duck, even eating the bones.

The over-the-top decor included too much welcome glitz, dark purple silk curtains, friendly chairs and supporting arm rests, under decadent crystal chandeliers. The tables were the right height for sitting, without having a gal’s titties the same height as the table. Restaurant designers can buy chairs too low for the table height, one of Abi’s pet peeves, when her titties brush against her salad's vinaigrette in a white silky summer shirt. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the fifties music relieved them of pervasive trance music tracks suffered in many restaurants. Indonesians like their music disturbingly loud, killing all conversations. Here the gal pals heard their friends' lunch talk.

Today, as they settled into their table and comfy chairs, Abi decided to explain her plan to find a lover, realizing in advance who would be against her.

After the usual air kisses and hellos, she announced, Who is going to Australia again? I need a new vibrator, mine is worn out. I think I broke it. Do you ladies use a vibrator? We can not buy vibrators in Bali. Help! Singapore? Maybe on line? Delivered to a hotel?

Heads in coiffed short hair styles, were shaking no in silence except for cute perky Naomi, from Melbourne. Yes, I do, when my husband is away. He travels too much. Honestly, I have to, if I am not golfing or traveling myself.

Helen said, Why not ask Stephanie? I hear she likes to fuck a lot. Maybe she is more experienced about vibrators. She is a real slut. Helen, from Vancouver, a Chinese-Canadian princess, moved to Bali importing her opinions and family money to buy up houses for her Vancouver family. In her bleached blonde hair, tiny heart tattoos on her arms, too many gold chains around her neck, and tight ripped shorts and a skimpy tank top, no bra covering her ancient titties, she spouted and pouted her too many opinionated fucks about anything from her perch of vanishing Hong Kong family wealth, still clinging to her family's glorious past. Nothing and no one met her impossible by-gone Colonial standards.

Why call her a slut because she likes sex? Honestly, what a terrible thing to say about a friend. She likes men, like I want to—or like I think I want to. Are you going to call me a slut behind my back too? I believed you are her friend. OK, I am really surprised about the stigma or infrequent use of vibrators. What about the marble yoni eggs Asian women use? Anybody? No? Or you are not being honest? I wanted to share. Silly me.

Can we pick another topic, please? Let’s order, chimed in Nancy, a petite woman with short, black choppy hair, gelled-up spiky red highlights, black pearl earrings. Previously she worked as hedge fund manager in Sydney, retired after making a fortune, no husband, no boyfriend.

Sex talk embarrassed her? Abi wondered. Relax, I ordered some wine when I walked in already. What? Sex talk gives you indigestion? My American girlfriends talk openly about sex. Really going into details, he did this, he touched me here. Do you like this? Openly, showing no embarrassment. Are you all embarrassed?

Not embarrassed, really not interested about this talk at lunch time, explained Nancy.

Abi pressed on, Gosh, my favorite topics, food and sex, well, art too. I am not done talking about sex. I am going online to find a boyfriend after ten years of no men, no sex, in Bali or from before I moved here. I am not going to be fuckless. Isn’t it great? I made a big decision to change my life.

Reactions were mixed. Dreadful and fretful. Fuckless and feckless.

Abi continued, During my late-night Facebook chats to the USA, to my friends in Europe, I told my friends about my loneliness. My switched-on American girlfriends recently convinced me to go on the internet dating sites, giving me examples of their friends who fell in love via dating sites. Here in Bali, my friend Ursula from Switzerland introduced me to the idea of dating in Bali using Tinder and landing a cuddle buddy, taking a lover. Do you ever see her? I would like to have a lover. Very French.

Aren’t you afraid of an online scammer? I hear online dating is a dangerous thing to do, warned Patricia, green eyes, perfect straight blonde hair, posh boarding school accent, also retired from banking in the UK.

No, not afraid.  You can be afraid for me. I can't wait to have sex again! How can I be scammed in a protected online forum?

I read about women giving out their personal information to these guys and getting their bank accounts emptied, Patricia answered as a banker.

Abi laughed, You think I am gullible, to send money to a man I barely know? You think I would do something so ridiculously stupid? Gosh, you think I have no sense?

Tell me, Abigail, how are you going to meet these men? And where? This online thingy is more popular in the States than here in Asia. Georgina, a red-haired beauty from Sweden, commented gently.