The Story of X: An Erotic Tale Page 15

  And so the night unfurls. I drink too much. Marc tells me that this is fine, he tells me everyone drinks too much in the Second Mystery. We dance close again, and he pulls me to his chest, and slips his hand between my thighs, and rubs me very gently just once—just once, but oh, oh—and as he does this he tells me that drinking is the honor due to Dionysus. Then he tells me things I don’t understand—because I am drunk. And because I want him to keep touching me, in public. Make me come in public. Why not?

  Yet he stops. Abruptly. And I turn.

  Everyone has stopped. The music has ceased. What is this? Grasping my hand Marc guides me across the terrace. Now I see that my sisters—five women who are being initiated—are also being led by their escorting men. We are all walking up some wooden steps to five gilded and feminine chairs that are positioned on a marble dais, above the terrace of dancers.

  Silence rules. Marc whispers in my ear:

  “Sit.”

  Obediently, I sit in one of the chairs. I can hear the cicadas rasping again. What is happening? Gazing along the chairs, I notice Françoise seated on my left, with Daniel standing at her side. She looks at me, her eyes are unfocused. She tries to smile. But she also seems rather unnerved.

  A young man in a dark suit reads from a kind of parchment. The crowd is hushed, watching and listening. It is all in Latin. Then it dawns: this is the moment when I am enrolled—this is the scene on the frescoes in Pompeii—the man reading from a scroll, announcing the induction of five more women into the Mysteries of Dionysus.

  “Quaeso, Dionysum, haec accepit mulieres in tibi honesta mysteria . . .”

  The man stops speaking. I get ready to rise, but Marc leans down and whispers in my ear, once again: “Sit, Alexandra, be still.”

  I wait. The handmaidens are back. And this time one of them is holding some kind of tool—complex, silvery and metallic, vaguely gun-shaped. Is it maybe medical? I try to focus through the alcohol and my rising panic. What is this?

  Marc is leaning closer.

  “Be calm, X, be calm. Let it happen.”

  The Italian girl speaks to me: “Please, open legs.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “No.”

  “Please!”

  Reluctant, sobering up very fast, I open my legs. I now understand, suddenly and clearly, what the handmaidens are going to do. I can see it is already happening to Françoise in the seat alongside mine. The handmaidens are going to tattoo me. My induction into the Mysteries is going to be marked on me, forever. Even if I stop right after this, I will always have this branding.

  But I have to do it. Don’t I? I reach and hold Marc’s hand. Very tight.

  Everyone is watching. I close my eyes. The shame has returned. I feel a sharp stab of pain in my loins.

  Oh God.

  The handmaidens are working. It is quite painful—but it is the shame and doubt that really hurt. I don’t like tattoos—I have never liked them enough to ever remotely consider one. The permanence unsettles me. And now I am being tattooed, on my thigh, by some strange girls, in front of three hundred strange, rich people, who have all been looking at my nakedness for hours. I want to cry. This hurts. This is wrong. I am not drunk anymore. Marc’s hand is tight around mine but it is not comforting.

  “No . . .” I say. “I didn’t . . .”

  The handmaidens are wiping away some blood with cotton wool and water. The tattoo is finished, it seems, but the shame abides.

  The champagne is wearing off. I feel mortified and humiliated; I feel embarrassed and stupid. This is some ghastly, tacky ceremony, and I have been a fool; and now I am branded forever, like some kind of livestock.

  “Morpheus,” I shout. “Morpheus!”

  And it works. Everyone stops. But it is all too late; the induction is done, the tattoo is finished. And I hate myself for my stupidity. Wrenching my hand from Marc’s, I rise from the chair and run away from the crowds and the music. I run into the olive groves, my hands covering my face in disgrace. I stop in a cliff-top clearing, illuminated by the moon and stars.

  There is a warm, soft rock, I sit down and weep for a few seconds, or more. Then I feel a wetness. I look down in horror: a trickle of red blood is running down my inner thigh.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE MOON IS large and melancholy, reflected in the still blue seas, and laying its path of silver on the tiny rippled waves. The olive trees whisper in a barely felt breeze, but still I shiver, here on my smooth rock, ashamed like Eve by my nakedness. I need a fig leaf. I need a cushion. The concept doesn’t amuse me. Everything is detestable. I can’t even bear to look down and see my new tattoo.

  “Carissima.”

  It is Marc.

  “X, I have been looking for you.” He lifts a canvas bag. “I brought you some clothes, and something hot to drink.”

  I gaze his way, then the words tumble out.

  “But Marc, but Marc—I can’t—”

  “What?”

  “I can’t wear the dress, the Armani dress . . .” My voice is still pregnant with sobs, with near-tears. “I’ll ruin it. I am . . .” I take a deep, tearful breath. “Marc, I am bleeding.”

  Marc kneels and opens the bag. He has bandages, swabs, ointment. He speaks into the bag as he sifts through it.

  “I spoke to the handmaidens. They gave me all this, darling. I have a simple black dress for you as well. I had Giuseppe bring it.”

  He looks up, and adds, “Just in case . . .” He hands the dress over. “It’s from Zara.”

  His kind and amused blue eyes—gray in the moonlight—look deep into my own. I can’t help blinking back a few more tears, but these are different: tears of relief, tears of—though I hate to admit it—tears of gratitude. Yet he put me through this. I don’t know what I truly feel.

  Marc turns away as I wipe myself. I apply some ointment, which is antiseptic, and soothing. The bleeding has almost stopped now; only the pain remains, the pain and the humiliation—though the latter is also drifting out to sea. Perhaps I just panicked. I don’t know. I was having a good time—feeling that Mysterious, Dionysian liberation—before it went wrong. Maybe the fault is with me?

  Take a deep breath, X.

  It is time to look at my tattoo. Shifting a little, I open my thighs. And gaze at my white skin in the moonlight.

  And now I want to cry again.

  Because the little tattoo is utterly pretty; it may even be exquisite. It comprises a dark and slender arrow, laced with a very sinuous S-shape along its length. The coloring, black to dark violet, is subtle. It is striking and lovely, despite being so small.

  “It’s an alchemical symbol,” Marc says. He is kneeling and staring between my thighs. I am naked down there, of course, but I like him looking. We are both looking at my naked vulva and my new tattoo on my inner thigh.

  “A symbol of what?”

  “Purification,” he says.

  He kisses my stockinged knee. I have to ask him.

  “Do you like it?”

  “I adore it, X. It is wholly exquisite. The symbols change every year, I believe. But I know that one. Beautiful.” He kisses my knee, and asks: “But what do you think, X?”

  “I’m not sure . . .” I contemplate the symbol. Purification. “I can’t believe I am saying this, but I think I quite like it. Yet now I am marked forever? Tattooed and branded?” I lift his jaw so he is looking at me, not at my tattoo, or my nakedness. “You have tattooed me.”

  “I suppose I have.”

  The moon shines down, and we stare at each other. Then I feel the cold night air.

  “Marc, can you help? I want to get changed.”

  “Of course.”

  I stand, lean on Marc, and slip the new black panties on; then Marc kneels beside me and reaches to
unfasten my garter. Slowly he rolls down my stockings and pulls them from my white feet. He pauses, and kisses my bare thigh. I shiver—from the breeze or from the kiss, I do not know. Now I want to be rid of the corset. I can’t do it myself. It is impossible.

  “Marc?”

  Kissing my neck very gently, he stands at my back and gets to work, unlacing the whalebone. The corset comes loose and my breasts are exposed. I notice my nipples are hardened. I am aroused, but I don’t want sex, not now, not tonight. Quickly, I swoop on the dress Marc brought: plain and black and, yes, Zara. I reach for the canvas bag for something to put on my feet—and I see that Marc even thought of socks and sneakers: new white socks and sneakers. I put them on. They fit perfectly. Of course.

  “Now drink,” says Marc, taking out a thermos as we both sit down.

  He pours the drink into a plastic cup.

  I sniff the liquid suspiciously.

  “What on earth?”

  “An old Roscarrick recipe, fine Islay single malt Scotch whisky, whirred with Bajan cane sugar and just a hint of spice. Scaltheen. It is an absolute panacea, carissima. And delicious, too.”

  I drink the scaltheen. And he is right, it glows down my throat, not like normal Scotch at all. It is ambrosial, it is heavenly, it is the liquor of the gods and it is fitting. The therapeutic warming buzz fills me inside.

  Marc lays down a thick tartan blanket for us to lie back on. He makes pillows from my old clothes. He is attending me.

  “We can go back whenever you like,” he says. “Nearly everyone else has gone already. But it might be nice to lie here for a while? We have Capri almost to ourselves. Quite a rarity.”

  The whisky is working. The scaltheen is a balm. The two of us lie down and I snuggle close to Marc’s strength and warmth, enclosed in his embracing arms: this isn’t sexual, this is companionable, this is friendship—deep, deep friendship. I feel safe with him, protected and cherished. I also feel, very woozily, like I could talk with him for hours about anything—politics, science, basketball. More than that, I feel like I could fall asleep this second in his comforting arms. I am tired.

  As my mind lulls toward sleep we both stare at the stars.

  “Look,” he says. “There’s my favorite constellation.”

  He points. I stare.

  “Orion the Hunter?”

  “No, that group over there, cara mia. It looks like you sneezing. The Constellation of Alexandra with Hay Fever.”

  I laugh quietly.

  “Okay, that one over there, that really weird constellation just under Leo. That’s the Constellation of Marc in a Bad Mood. It’s famous. They use it to frighten children in Sicily.”

  He chuckles.

  “And over there—there—just under the Pleiades—what one’s that? The Constellation of Alex Giving Back the Car?”

  “Oh no, no, it’s not . . .” I smile, and kiss his neck. “That’s the Constellation of Us. That’s the Constellation of Alex and Marc, together, and alone, on Capri.”

  A silence. Marc stares upward, into the turbulent and imperious whirl of stars and moon.

  “The Constellation of Alex and Marc?” He sighs. “I like it.” He turns and faces me. His eyes are serious and sad, loving and happy. “Sweetheart . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Our voices are almost whispers. We are both close to sleep.

  “Darling, whatever happens, even if you leave the Mysteries, and we can never be together, will you promise me, whenever you are angry or sad or alone, you will go out in the night and look up at that constellation? Will you look at the Constellation of Alex and Marc on Capri, the Constellation of Us? Please.” He is nearly asleep. “Please do that, for me.”

  I yawn, close my eyes, and say: “Yes, but come closer, cuddle me.”

  Sleep is inches away.

  As he cuddles me, I say in a bare murmur, “Marc, will all the Mysteries be like that? It was a bit . . . frightening.”

  “No,” he says; his eyes are closed, too. “Different, different, they are more poetic . . . difficult . . . carissima.”

  He is asleep. I take one last look at the glittering sweep of stars, at the Constellation of Us, and then I close my eyes, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FOR THE FIRST few days after the Second Mystery, I am in a kind of daze. But it is not traumatic: more dreamy, and heady, and wistful. With just a hint of regret. Something in me has changed. I have visibly been altered, within and without. Every time I strip, every time I shower, I see my new tattoo. It transfixes me. I have started to love it, like a secret but glorious present. One evening I show it to Jessica: I lift up my dress and she stares.

  She shakes her head and says, “I want one.”

  We both laugh. And then I change clothes and Marc calls round and we go to dinner, like an ordinary couple. We are settling into a rhythm. Like ordinary lovers.

  But it is a glorious rhythm. Usually we make love in the late afternoon, as the heat of the day abates. Then we eat and drink at night. Sometimes I stay in the palazzo and sometimes he stays over in my tiny apartment, usually with Giuseppe parked outside—possibly armed? Possibly not.

  During these days I am seriously happy, even though nothing spectacular happens. Perhaps I am happy because nothing spectacular happens. One night, as I lie in Marc’s vast bed, with him asleep beside me, I recall a line I saw in an old movie, Doctor Zhivago—where the loving couple live in a shack in the wilds and have to fish and farm and fend for themselves. Then a visitor calls on them and says, “When you look back you will see these ordinary days were some of the happiest of your life.”

  Staring at the glass sculpture in the shadowy and shuttered light of the bedroom, I wonder if these are our Zhivago days. The ordinary days of being in love, the days of simple and innocent work and pleasure, which are, paradoxically, the most precious of all: suffused with an inner well-being. The sweetness of life. Regular, simple, everyday life, inflected by love. But also ennobled by work.

  Life is sweet, and strange, and compelling. Leaning to my side I kiss the scar on Marc’s suntanned shoulder. I wonder again where he got that. But I have had enough of anxieties. Let it go, let it happen. I kiss Marc once more. He murmurs in his sleep. I kiss his scented and muscled back. I want him to wake up. I cannot resist.

  L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON I find myself lying on my bed, in my little apartment, chewing my pen. This is not unusual for me. The bed is where I seem to work best, maybe because it reminds me of him. And what we do here.

  Or maybe that is too distracting. Picking up my notebook, I go over the key facts I have learned about the Mysteries. Somehow my thesis has gotten sidetracked onto the Mystery Religions, but I am fine with this, for now. The Mysteries are just so fascinating, especially now that I am enacting them.

  Firstly, and crucially, I have discovered that this area, around Naples—Napoli, Capua, Cumae—was always known for its “orgiastic nature.” This was the pleasure zone of the Roman Empire. Pompeii itself was a place where people retired to lead the good life; Julius Caesar’s holiday home was a few miles north up the coast—though it has since been drowned by a rising sea level. People have come here to party since the first century B.C.

  Therefore is it not surprising the Mystery Religions, with their emphasis on vivid debauchery, orgiastic sex, and spiritual eroticism, took root here?

  Perhaps. Perhaps yes. I underscore this fact.

  And here’s another interesting thing.

  Drink and drugs seem to be key to the Mysteries, in all forms. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, a special potion was drunk during the ceremony, apparently called the “kykeon.” Historians know that kykeon got people very inebriated: a certain Greek scholar, “Erasixenus,” is described in an ancient letter as having died after downing just
two cups on the trot.

  What kind of drink is this? In one place, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the recipe for kykeon is actually listed: barley water, mint, and “glechon.”

  And yet, of course, no one has any idea what the word glechon means.

  I tap the notebook with my pen. It is frustrating and stimulating all at once.

  Wherever I look, I come up against this blankness, this big question mark. Something missing. Something still unknown. What is the exact recipe? How did they keep it a secret? Moreover, how did they keep it a secret for such a fantastically long time?

  According to the history books, two families of Eleusinian priests, who handed the Mysteries from father to son and from mother to daughter, managed to keep the secret for nearly two millennia. Literally two thousand years. An astonishing feat.

  It was either something prepared in a special way or something they didn’t even understand themselves.

  I can hear Jessica coming home from her teaching. Her door slams flamboyantly, and she is singing as she heads for the shower. I don’t have to check my watch; I know this means it is near five P.M. In an hour or two Marc will be here, waiting to whisk me away. I love the way he whisks me away. Whisk me some more, Lord Roscarrick. Tonight he is taking me out to dinner—again—but he says he wants to show me some of Naples first: some things I have not seen. I look back at my notes, chewing my pen until I remember that it stains my mouth with ink.

  So I stop chewing and write a paragraph instead:

  Clearly there was a secret drug or liquor, clearly it was very important, clearly it gave some kind of intense revelation, which made the pains of the Mystery initiations—and they were painful as well as pleasurable—perfectly endurable, for men and women. But what was the final Fifth Mystery? What was the revelation? What was the “katabasis”?