The Story of X: An Erotic Tale Read online

  I swallow some gin and tonic.

  “Yes.”

  His gaze is intense. He reaches out and takes my hand in his. He looks down at my white fingers, laced in his darker hand.

  “You are absolutely sure, Alex?”

  I hesitate, for a second. I am not absolutely sure. But I am sure enough.

  “Yes, I am sure.”

  “Then the next time I see you will be at The Palazzo Roscarrick.”

  “What?”

  He stands, abruptly, and drops a generous offering of euro notes on the table. “The bride and groom must not meet before the wedding; do they have that tradition in California?”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “Come to the palazzo at midnight tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? But, Marc, what do I do? What do I wear?”

  He stoops and takes my hand, kisses it. Then he steps away, gestures good-bye, and says, “Come as you are. Take a taxi. I will pay. Midnight tomorrow. E ciao.”

  MY TAXI STOPS right outside the somber russet walls of The Palazzo Roscarrick. In the darkness, the streets of the Chiaia are different, subdued, echoing, and somehow . . . expectant. They are also menacingly deserted. I’m glad that Marc offered to pay for a taxi; I wouldn’t have wanted to walk even this short distance alone.

  Getting out of the car, I look down at myself. Assessingly.

  For the last three hours I have been bathing, dressing, and preparing: ruthlessly plucking my eyebrows, glossing my lips just so, drying my hair with great care, and shaving diligently everywhere. I am also wearing my best perfume, pretty much my only really good perfume. Marc told me not to worry about my clothes, but I still felt a definite need to feel my best underneath my jeans and top. These careful preparations were also, in part, a way of calming myself before the initiation.

  But the ruse hasn’t really worked. My mind is alive with anxiety. What’s going to happen? Will it happen now? Is this the first of the Mysteries, tonight? Is that why I was ordered here at midnight? But would the Mysteries really be enacted in Marc’s very own home? He implied there were special venues, across Italy, Britain, France—that certainly didn’t sound very domestic.

  “Grazie, grazie mille.” Fumbling for the euros in my purse, I pay the cab driver, who glances first at the money, then at me, and then at the great door of The Palazzo Roscarrick.

  Is that a smile of pity or knowingness on his middle-aged face?

  The taxi speeds away, scattering a few littered pizza boxes as it disappears around the corner.

  The door looms before me. Swallowing away my anxieties as best I can, I hoist and drop the big iron door knocker. The noise clangs and echoes, perturbingly loud and ancient. Everything, in this light, seems older. Antique and historic, and hostile in its strangeness.

  The door opens. A face peers out. It is one of Marc’s manservants: the same man who opened the door to me the very first time I came here.

  “Buona sera.”

  The familiarity of the face is welcome, but the man barely acknowledges that he recognizes me. Instead, he hands me a fifty-euro note for the cab—which is way too much. I protest, but he will not take change. He is unsmiling, and backs away, inviting me in. His demeanor is stiff and formal.

  What is going on?

  I step over the low wooden threshold into the hallway with its glinting suit of Oriental armor—Samurai? Chinese? Ahead of me, the splashing fountain looks forlorn and silvery in the moonlight. The whole house still smells, quite divinely, of lilies and roses and southern, tropical blooms.

  “This way,” says the manservant.

  We begin another walk through the long, quiet hallways. Everything is so unerringly hushed, and I am flooded with an almighty urge to flee. I hate this silence; it is the silence of a forest where a predator lurks.

  Stop it, X.

  “Where are we going?”

  My question is pointless; I don’t really expect an answer. I’m asking just for the sake of breaking the quietness. And indeed the servant does not reply. He walks on.

  But then I am alerted by a different noise, and I pause, looking into the scented gloom. Yes. I think I can hear giggles in the distance. Behind a few doors, there are girlish giggles—then nothing.

  Is someone watching me from above? The passages and corridors are so dim: lit elegantly yet rather faintly by candles set in beautiful antique chandeliers of gilded wood and crystal.

  The historian in me is impressed: the lighting is entirely correct for the period of the palazzo’s construction—seventeenth to eighteenth century. Someone with good taste has therefore restored—or fabulously maintained—these light fittings, probably at serious expense.

  I have no doubt it is Marc. A man who wears suits that elegant would know how to fix a house with equal flair.

  But if the historian in me is approving of Marc’s taste, the lone woman is agitated. To hell with the chandeliers; I want neon. I want blazing strip lighting dissolving every shadow. Frightening away the darkness so no one can giggle, unnervingly, in a black and blinded corner.

  Finally, the monotone manservant speaks. “This is it.”

  We’ve reached a fairly insignificant doorway, painted gray. The servant creaks the ivory door handle and gestures me inside.

  “Oh God,” I say, quite involuntarily.

  The room within is as beautiful as its entrance is humdrum. Lit by soft candles in cages of glass and cast-iron, its walls are decorated entirely in Pompeian style, with frescoes of long-tailed birds and sweet prancing antelope surrounding the kohl-eyed faces of young Roman women, nude or dancing, erotic and demure—with rich scarlet borders of trellised vines and grapes.

  “Take off your clothes and wear this,” the manservant says. He hands me a soft and folded silk dress, so light in my hands it is barely there.

  “But—”

  “All your clothes. When you are ready, please exit through that door.”

  He points to a second door, cut into the Pompeian red decor; it is cleverly made to look like a Roman door, a fake door that is a real door—an elegant trompe l’oeil.

  “And remember this,” the man adds, ponderously. “If ever you want anything to stop, you must say Morpheus.”

  “Sorry?”

  “If ever you are . . . uncomfortable, you must say, out loud, the word Morpheus. If you cannot speak, then clap your hands three times.”

  And that is it. The manservant closes the first door, leaving me quite alone. I can hear the faint strains of music somewhere. And it is beautiful music: soothing choral voices, centuries old, but vivid and tranquil and alive, some kind of Mass.

  It is perfectly timed. How could anything bad happen in a world with music like this?

  Just take off your clothes, X. That’s all. I just have to take off my clothes.

  In the flickering candlelight I remove my T-shirt, my Converse sneakers, my white socks, and then I unbutton my jeans. I deliberately dressed down as instructed. My only indulgence was underwear: I chose nice panties. Why? Maybe I just knew that most of my clothes were going to be swiftly removed, so it didn’t matter.

  But now I am naked.

  The simple silk dress weighs, in my hands, maybe three ounces. Like something weighed on the moon. I admire its exquisite stitching for a moment, then I slip it over me, and it descends with an aristocratic sigh to my knees. It is sublimely silken, probably the softest thing I have ever worn, and maybe the most expensive.

  In the flickering and adoring light of the candles I can see that the dress is a flame-orange hue, verging on red. But it is also see-through. The cleanly waxed delta of my pubic hair is clearly visible.

  I can’t do it. I just can’t. Giving in to my shyness, I slip my lacy black panties back on and then I close my eyes and count to seven.

&nb
sp; Be calm, X, be calm.

  My mouth is dusty dry; my hands are damp with nerves. My white feet are bare on the polished parquet floor. I open the second, “fake” door in the red-painted wall.

  And step through.

  Beyond, the light is so broken and scintillating, and glittering and strange, I do not quite understand; it takes me several seconds. Then I realize: the room is made of porcelain.

  During my research into Neapolitan history, I have read about rooms like this—porcelain rooms—built by the richest of the nobility at the very height of the city’s power and affluence. Deliriously impractical, almost impossible to keep clean, yet intoxicatingly lovely. The white porcelain of the walls and ceiling is decorated with wild narcissi and curveting blue sea serpents, all fashioned from more porcelain. And the chamber is illuminated by silver and wooden candelabras, which are being held aloft by four servants, who are very much alive.

  I do a double take. In each of the four corners is a handsome young man, in uniform—presumably the livery of the Roscarrick family. The servants are staring fixedly ahead, certainly not at me, and they are holding candelabras, which afford the only light.

  And in the center of the room is a large, simple wooden chair, with its back to me. The chair looks medieval, like a throne for a Dark Age king. The choral music drifts across the room from some unseen speaker: holy, spectral, sensuous.

  “Come here, X.”

  It is Marc’s voice. He is sitting in the chair.

  I am glad I wore my panties. I am otherwise naked under this see-through dress: barefoot and nude and bashful, like the women in the frescoes at the Villa of Mysteries. My nipples are tingling in the fresh air of the porcelain room. I am aroused already. I wish I wasn’t. But I am.

  I step around the chair and look at Marc, who is deep in shadow. I can barely see his face, only his noble profile.

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “But what do you want me to do?”

  “Bend over, X.”

  “What?”

  “Bend over my knee. The first of the Mysteries is simple submission, in public. I am going to spank you in front of my servants.”

  I want to laugh; yet the ambience is entirely serious. And a little objectionable. He’s going to spank me? In front of his servants?

  No.

  “You can leave. Or you can submit.”

  “Marc—”

  “And you must call me Celenza. During the Mysteries, you may only call me Celenza.”

  “Marc—”

  “It means Excellency. But in Italian the c is pronounced as in cello. So you call me Celenza, or sir—or you can leave. With all that this entails.”

  My entire upbringing is telling me to go. My feminist soul is instructing me to leave. And yet—and yet—something in me wants him to spank me. Is this me? Is this the effect of the music and the candlelight, and the fabulous room of porcelain? Or maybe I just want him, so I will agree to anything?

  My mind is swimming. I feel a need to let someone else decide. I feel a need to submit, just to get it over with.

  “Celenza,” I say, and I cannot believe I am saying it, “spank me.”

  My whole body is tensed. I walk close, and lay myself over his lap, facedown. My bare feet are in the air, I have one hand pressed to the floor to steady myself. I can sense the servants looking. I don’t care so much. This is seriously arousing, and simultaneously disturbing. I am outraged, and yet I am wet between.

  He gently lifts up my new silk dress and says, “Tut tut, X.”

  “Celenza?”

  “Panties?”

  “I just . . . I didn’t—”

  He doesn’t wait for an explanation. He is starting to peel down my best Victoria’s Secret panties. With the dark lacy frill. My hand reaches instinctively to stop him—these men are looking at me; surely, they mustn’t see me—but then I feel Marc’s firm hand on my wrist.

  “You have to let me, X.”

  I want him to stop. I want him to carry on. I want him.

  Closing my eyes in shame, yet tingling with arousal—why?—I drop my hand.

  “Celenza.”

  He has my permission. Slowly and carefully he pulls down the panties, peeling them down my calves, over my bare ankles, then he drops them into some kind of basket—I can’t quite see because I am sprawled. I can feel the cold air on my bottom. This is it. He is going to spank me. In front of these men I have never met. His servants. The intensity of my confusion is baroque. But inside me is desire. Go on and do it. Do it.

  He does it. With a smarting and shameful pain, I sense the slap of his hand. My buttocks quiver.

  “Count.”

  What? What does he mean? I manage to speak: “Celenza?”

  “You must count, as I spank. In Italian.”

  A pause. He is leaning to his left and doing something. Then I realize he is drinking red wine. The casual, offhand nature of this is no doubt part of my submission; my initiation. And it too is bizarrely stirring. I can feel the sweet, urgent irritation of a very serious pleasure, like gorgeous pins and needles down there, down there. Oh more. More please. Scratch this gorgeous little itch. Stop this, don’t stop. Stop this, but don’t stop.

  He spanks me again, harder this time. My bare ass is in the air and he is spanking me. And men are watching. And I am counting, aloud.

  “Uno.”

  Spank.

  “Due.”

  Spank.

  “Open your legs.”

  I resist this, as best I can. but his firm hand is between my naked thighs, prising me open. And maybe I actually want him to do this. Because I can feel myself dissolving, where my legs meet.

  He spanks me.

  “Tre.”

  Again and again he spanks me, and I start to breathe deeper, and then I gasp, with a mixture of shame and shameful delight. I don’t know where this gasp comes from; I don’t know where this embarrassing desire comes from, but it is brilliant and glittering, it is candlelight on glorious porcelain, it is rose and red and fabulous. I want him to spank me harder. The humiliation is delicious.

  “Celenza.”

  “X?”

  “Spank me harder. Please, sir.”

  He obliges. This one stings, very beautifully. I am nearly full up, I am almost topping out. Nine, ten, eleven.

  Spank.

  It is like someone applauding my nakedness. I feel wild; I want to be totally naked. I am tremblingly close to some kind of outrageous and unexpected climax.

  “You ran away in Pompeii.”

  Spank.

  “You didn’t do what I said.”

  Spank.

  I am half moaning. And wholly desirous.

  “I am sorry, Celenza, spank me harder.”

  Spank.

  Oh, his hand on my bare ass. I want it forever. I don’t care if men are watching. I want them to watch. The pain is so sweet, so delicate, so erotically naughty and delightfully embarrassing. How can you feel all these things at once? Now I can sense his hand delicately fluttering on my clitoris—then spanking me again—then trembling and soft on my clit—then spank, and spank, and once again spank.

  That one was the hardest. I bite my lips. But it doesn’t work. I am gasping.

  Yes yes YES.

  SPANK ME.

  As his fingers press with sweet firmness on my clitoris and his hand hits my bare ass, I think of these servants watching me, Alex Beckmann, being spanked so hard and so firmly by him, Marc Roscarrick. And as he spanks me hard and then hard and then harder, three or four or five more times, this triggers some inner release, some strange, different climax, like a waterfall of silver roses, a cataract of platinum dollars, a glorious uprush of scintillating relief.

  “Oh God, o
h God . . . ohhh . . .”

  “X?”

  “Grazie, Celenza . . .” I am mumbling, and panting. “Grazie.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I LIE DRAPED over Marc’s lap, half naked and quite replete. He snaps an order in Italian—this time in dense Neapolitan dialect—and his manservants set down their candelabras on side tables and disappear. It is just him and me and the room of prancing porcelain antelopes, eternally jaunting in the guttering light.

  I rise unsteadily to my feet, reaching for Marc’s shoulder by way of support—my knees are actually wobbling—but he picks me up and carries me to the end of the room. Brusquely, he kicks open a door and transports me into what appears to be a dimly lit bedroom.

  I am woozy, made incapable by my strange climax. I nestle my head on his shoulder and kiss the crook of his neck, inhaling his bodywash, inhaling him, as he carries me across the room and gently lays me down onto a vast bed. And so I lie there happy, strange, dreamy, and half asleep, yet still significantly aroused.

  Then he takes off the dress, strips himself, and begins to make love to me.

  First he pushes my thighs apart, slowly and firmly. It is all somehow the opposite of what has gone before: caressing, very tender, and gentle. And I am lost in smooth and bewildered delight. I clutch at the sheets as he descends my body and licks me there, again, where it counts. Celenza, Celenza.

  Excellency.

  For several minutes he pleasures me, licking my clit with unnerving expertise, biting softly on my thighs, then licking again. Just as I tire of one, he does the other; he senses my sexual moods telepathically—bite, lick, then bite and lick. And as he does this, I lie back in my swooning state and I stare into the darkness, and I gasp and I sigh and I think of the spanking.

  It was so erotic, but why? What has he done to me? How could I enjoy that? My feminist self is incensed, but my sexual self is abandoned and gleeful. Positively gleeful.

  “Marc—”

  I am close to coming, oh so close to coming, but I want to kiss him. My handsome man, the man who spanked me.

  “Marc?”

  He lifts his face from between my legs, he ascends my naked body—and he kisses me deeply, and again. And then he stops kissing me and he slips a thumb into my mouth. For a moment I suck on his thumb—but then I suddenly bite down, pretty hard, to punish him for spanking me. I don’t know why I do this.