The Story of X: An Erotic Tale Read online

  How does this work? Is the transgressive quality the key to it all? The key of the Mysteries?

  I let my dress fall, and turn toward Marc, who is now sitting languidly in a chair, gazing at me. He is still wearing his very dashing tux but his tie is effortlessly undone, and his white shirt is ripped open by a few buttons, revealing a swooping triangle of his dark, sexy chest; somehow he looks like a handsome young gambler who has lost it all on a Mississippi riverboat, and who has now blown the last of his inheritance on champagne. There is a nihilism in his smile, an anarchy in the ruffled curls of his black hair, an insouciance in his pose: one leg stretched out, one elbow resting on the chair back, leaning to the side, assessing.

  “What time is it, Marc?”

  He glances at his silver watch.

  “Three A.M.”

  “Is it?”

  I have totally lost track of time. The wine, the whipping, the music. The Mysteries ended with a kind of cadenza as everyone drank more of the spiced and sugared wine in the candlelit chapel. The music got louder and louder, and then it became more modern and percussive.

  And I danced with Marc. But this was a wild dance, wild and romantic at once. We danced out through the floor-length windows onto a vined and lonely terrace, high above the ghost town, beneath the ghostly moon, in the empty valley filled with moonlit summer mist. We danced and held each other tight, as the music ascended and crescendoed, and then somehow we ended up here. At three A.M. I have showered the paint away and put on a dress. With no underwear.

  “I’m hungry,” I say.

  He sits forward, and turns toward the door, and calls, “Giuseppe?”

  With military immediacy the door snaps open.

  “Signor?”

  “We’ll have our picnic now.”

  “Sì, signor.”

  What is this?

  I watch with intrigue as Giuseppe and two of the handmaidens—don’t they ever sleep? Maybe no one sleeps during the Mysteries—bring in three large wicker baskets and a tartan blanket. I recognize the blanket from Capri. The girls lay out plates, cutlery, and wine bottles, and then such a spread: ciabatta bread, fat salamis, and just unwrapped cheeses—cubes of the best Taleggio, creamy and melty Gorgonzola—and big, fat Neapolitan tomatoes, with little green caper berries, and juicy pink-and-purple cherries, and soft red soppressata sausages, my new favorite Mediterranean cured meat, soft and sweet, a kind of transgender saucisson.

  Giuseppe and the girls disappear. The food awaits us on the rug, like an image of cornucopia in a seventeenth-century still life. A glimpse of the land of Cockaigne. Peasant heaven.

  “You think of everything,” I say, swooping down on the food, kneeling rather eagerly.

  “That is my job,” he says, looking at me deeply. “To think of everything.”

  He gazes at me again as I grab a knife and slice into the long, juicy salami and—rather unfemininely—shove the delicious salty meatiness into my mouth. I do not care. I am a shameful creature, I am a bad and terrible girl; but I am also a hungry bacchante, a starving maenad. Marc slips off the chair and grabs some ciabatta, tearing a big, rough, peasanty fistful, which he slathers in Gorgonzola.

  We eat and drink wine, and we smile—and then we laugh. We drink more wine. I feed him a slice of saucisson. He feeds me two cherries, letting me bite the sweet, yielding flesh as he plucks the stalk away. I giggle. He kisses the underside of my white wrist. We share the soppressata. I put my hand down his shirt just to check if his heart is working. He eats a slice of fine lemon tart and then kisses me with his sweet lemon mouth.

  It is a midnight feast; it is a childhood dream of a picnic, made somehow illicit and more delightful by the hour. The moon smiles down over the Aspromonte. Marc pulls down my dress and pours a little Taittinger Comtes de Champagne on my breasts, sucking the champagne from my stiffening nipples, the cold, cold bubbles making me wince with pleasure. I breathe deeply in the half-light. He kisses me again, and sucks and licks the champagne away. There is cherry juice on my white skin. Champagne in my hair, champagne everywhere. Enough time has passed. The cutlery is scattered. The cherries are crushed. The rug is ruffled. Let the moon wash the plates.

  IN THE MORNING I yawn and rise, smiling at the ceiling and turning over to cuddle up to Marc, but he is gone. Gone? The dent in the pillow is faint, meaning he has been gone awhile. Instead there is one of his elegant notes, written in fountain pen. Folded on the bed next to me.

  Gone to Plati for a meeting. Have some breakfast downstairs. I will see you at three. La Serenissima awaits! R. x

  Plati? Meeting?

  I lean to the other side and check my watch: my God, it is twelve noon. Leaping from the bed, I run to the bathroom and scald myself with water—it is too hot, especially on my still-tender ass. Then I towel myself down, then go to the big, heavy, Bourbon-style wardrobe and pull it open. Giuseppe, or someone, has carefully hung all of my clothes here; I could very easily get used to this aristocratic lifestyle.

  I choose a simple Prada summer dress, light marine blue, and laceless white tennis shoes. I have a yearning for simplicity. Exactly how did I ever reach a stage when a thousand-dollar Prada dress counted as “simplicity”?

  Now I am a little agitated. Plati? Meeting? Meeting who?

  I run to the door. Giuseppe is nowhere but I can hear voices downstairs. The voices of people chatting and eating? It sounds like the voices of breakfast in a big hotel—and I can smell fresh coffee, too. I run down the stairs and turn right—no, this is just the rear courtyard. I am gazing at parked cars—some expensive, some utilitarian. Marc’s Land Rover is here. So he must have gone off with someone else. Who? Giuseppe?

  Heading back into the castle I step left, and right, following the scent of fresh baking, and the chatter of people, encountering a big wide terrace with large tables and parasols under the sun. And people taking a very late breakfast. The white-dressed girls ferry coffee, juice, croissants, and confitures to the various guests.

  This must have been the open terrace, staring out over the valley and the forests and deserted Rhoguda, where Marc and I danced last night. It looks very different by day. More daunting, somehow, with all these sophisticated people; these smiling, rich faces, male and female, young and middle-aged and elegantly old, people I dimly recognize, but from where? From last night? Perhaps, but maybe elsewhere. Celebrity websites. Newspapers. Gossip magazines.

  Abruptly, I feel awkward. There is no Marc to guide me through this daunting world of European wealth and upper-class decadence. No Marc to escort me gallantly to my table, his firm hand on the small of my back, gently pressing, guiding, and teaching me without my even realizing.

  I gaze around.

  “Alexandra?”

  A lifeline has been thrown. I crane to see, and I spot Françoise, at the most distant table. She is waving me over.

  I nod at one of the white-dressed girls. “Cappuccino, per favore.” And I step to the table with its white metal chairs where Françoise is just finishing a croissant.

  She smiles at me slyly and says, “Good morning.”

  “Bonjour.”

  Her smile widens.

  “I bet you are good at tennis. Quite the forehand.”

  “I am known for my dramatic service game.”

  She laughs politely.

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “It was . . . exhilarating,” I say. “So, I suppose, yes. I did.” I am looking at her, directly, brazenly, as I reach into the basket and take a croissant, smoothing it with apricot jam. Sweet, dark yellow jam; dark, bitter coffee with milky froth. Delicious.

  Her eyes glitter. She is in jeans and a simple white T-shirt. Dressed further down than me. But I can remember her undressed entirely: painted and naked, hoisted and at my mercy. I can remember my arm raised, caning her beautiful white ass. It was
arousing. Why? I cannot be bisexual, can I? No, I really don’t think so. I want men too much—I want Marc Roscarrick far too much. But it was exhilarating, and also arousing, in its own way.

  “What about you?” I say, sipping more coffee. “What do you think about . . . all of this? I mean the Mysteries, as a whole.”

  “They are changing me,” she says simply. And she seems pensive as she gazes over the old crumbling Bourbon balustrade. The somber forests of the Bitter Mountains lie beyond. “Daniel told me the Mysteries would do this—change me. I didn’t really believe it, but it is true. I am seduced. I love it all—I adore the Mysteries, I even like the drama, the intrigue: Where are we going next? Who will be there? What will happen to me? But”—she hesitates, and turns to me—“they are also . . . rather frightening. Un peu dangereux.”

  A white-dressed girl waits patiently at the tableside; I ask her for more coffee. Then I turn back to Françoise, and I ask her about Daniel. She tells me he is doing business this morning; they will be leaving in the evening. Doing business, just like Marc.

  She duly asks me about Marc, where we met, where he is. I tell her, happily. But then, less happily, I remember the words she used in Capri.

  I really need to clear this up. Marc’s disappearance this morning is niggling.

  “Françoise, on Capri, you said something about Marc.”

  A soft, warm breeze—rising from the deep valley below—ripples the canvas of the parasol as she listens to my question. Her expression is honest and candid. But also a tiny bit anxious.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Françoise?”

  “Really, I don’t know anything more than that.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “But—”

  “Tell me. Please. As a friend.”

  “But—”

  “Françoise!”

  She looks at me, takes a deep sigh, and says, “Okay. There is gossip. The thing he did. But I shouldn’t have said what I said. These are feeble rumors.”

  “The thing he did? You mean the Camorra? That he is in the Camorra?”

  She gazes at me, frowning deeply.

  “No.”

  “Then what? What? His dead wife? His money? What?”

  A bird of prey is circling above us. The terrace is now largely deserted, the breakfast tables strewn with tousled napkins, the chairs set back. We are almost alone. Where is Marc? How dare he just leave me here? To go for a meeting in Plati? I surge with sudden but righteous anger.

  “Françoise, I want to know everything. Everything, anything, everything. Tell me. I’ve had enough of all the enigmatic bullshit.”

  Françoise winces, but she also nods.

  “All right. The very wildest rumor I heard is this.” She breathes in—and breathes out. “I only learned this the other day—because I was talking to a friend, an Italian girl from the Second Mystery, talking to her about you. And then I mentioned Roscarrick and this girlfriend of mine, her name is Clea, well, I mean, she is, you know, connected in Rome . . .”

  “Françoise!”

  “Okay, okay. They say Marc was involved with the ’Ndrangheta—as a very young man—here in Calabria. . . .”

  “What is it? What did he do?”

  A pause. Finally she answers.

  “He is said to have killed someone. Shot him in cold blood. In broad daylight. In Plati.”

  The eagle is still circling above us, mewing as it hunts. A forlorn but sinister noise. I am stunned into silence.

  Françoise reaches across the table and holds my hand with her two hands.

  “X, please remember this. Marc Roscarrick is young and handsome, rich and clever—in a very envious society. This isn’t America, where people celebrate success—this is old Europe. Deepest, darkest old Europe. People often resent success, it breeds bitter jealousy. So I suspect the rumors are merely that. Put your mind at rest.”

  Put my mind at rest? My mind is on fire. Marc is a murderer?

  And then a switch is thrown. I turn from Françoise and stare at the circling eagle.

  Plati.

  I recall the face of the old man at the door last night, talking in that conspiratorial way with Marc. I thought I remembered it; now I realize why I recognized his face. I have seen it often in the newspapers, seen it in the Corriere della Sera. Not because that old man is a famous politician or an actor or industrialist, but because he is a notorious gangster: one of the most infamous and powerful ’Ndrangheta gangsters of all. I can even recall his name.

  Enzo Paselli.

  And that’s why I have heard the name Plati. It is the home of the ’Ndrangheta, the heart of their terrible darkness. The home of the Clan Paselli.

  I rise, abruptly.

  Françoise pales.

  “X, where are you going?”

  “Plati. It is near here, isn’t it? It must be. You carry on down the road, Marc said.”

  Her shock is vivid.

  “You can’t. That is crazy. They have . . . they kill people . . . the roads are frightful!”

  I am running from the breakfast table. I am running through the castle. I am climbing into the Land Rover. And, as I guessed, the keys are hanging from the dash. Who would dare to steal a car from a party attended by Italy’s most brutal gangsters?

  I turn the key and rev the engine.

  But I hear a voice. It is Françoise. Running out the door, onto the gravel.

  “Don’t do this, X. You mustn’t. Plati is a terrible place—very dangerous—Alexandra!”

  I reverse the car, and turn right. Taking the dirt road to Plati.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE ROAD TO Plati seems okay at first, but then it narrows to a slender strip of flattened earth, curving around a steep mountainside. The valley yawns away at my left, filled with rocks and dull gray grit, a river of dust being shunted all the way to the gray-turquoise flatness of the Ionian Sea: at times I can glimpse the water through the beeches.

  It is bleak. I imagine in spring there might be wildflowers here, the flash of pink oleander and yellow broom—the glint of water, torrents of snowmelt maybe—but in the hot high summer it is just rocks and dust and nothing. And a road that disappears.

  Skidding around another dust-shrouded corner, I see that a landslide has swept this entire section of the “road” clean away. I am going to have to edge the car across a hundred yards of treacherous debris. There is the hulk of a burned-out Fiat maybe a quarter of a mile below, trapped by the trees; the last rusting remains of someone who didn’t make it.

  And yet I edge the car forward: I change down a gear; I change up a gear; the engine complains. Slowly I inch the car across the stones and mud and rubble; the whining, growling Land Rover engine is the sound of my determination, verging on desperation.

  I have to get to Plati. I have to know the truth about Marc. And Enzo Paselli, I am sure, will tell me the truth, if I can find him.

  Why I think this, I do not know.

  The Land Rover squeals. I force my foot down and the car shoots forward, squirting stones, and the rear wheels begin to slide perilously to the left, and they are actually lifting, but the front wheels bite and the Land Rover surges on and we are back on the road. The car and me. Alive.

  But even as the relief surges, more doubts assail me. Maybe Marc will be there, talking and laughing at a white cafe table, sipping amaretto, reminiscing about the men they murdered.

  I shudder.

  A murderer?

  Please don’t let Marc be a murderer.

  I drive on. Just drive. Just get there. Eat up the kilometers. The road is dusty, rubbled, winding, and endless. I glimpse the odd wild horse staring perplexed at me, wondering what a car is doing in the middle of a sunburned forest. Then at last the road impr
oves, and my anxiety tightens.

  What if Marc went to Plati for some confrontation? Marc, don’t do this to me. Don’t be this. Don’t be one of them.

  Plati.

  There it is. I am descending from a narrow, treeless pass into a different valley, and now I can see a town, not as small as I had expected, littering the slopes below. The town looks like trash and debris rudely scattered by someone upending a sack, and then walking away. There are half-built houses everywhere, half-built roads, half-built shops.

  “Eh! Eh!”

  Two kids are shouting and pointing at the car. I am passing a walled cemetery on the outskirts of Plati, and they are playing some purposeless game among the tombs—but when they see me they shout and jump excitedly.

  “Signorina! Signorina!” One of them makes an obscene phallic gesture and the two boys laugh and whoop. I cannot work out if they are astonished by the arrival of someone on the absurdly dangerous back road, or acting as some kind of lookout for everyone in the town.

  Then I realize they are simply astonished that anyone unknown should come to Plati. Because I get the same wide-eyed, mouth-half-open expression from everyone. There are old men outside a grimy bar, sharing a bottle of grappa—and they all turn, as one, and gaze at the strange vehicle passing by. One of them shakes his head, somberly and gravely, as if amazed to the point of being offended.

  I am properly frightened now. Plati is hideous, and the sense of hostility is intense. For a moment I get the strongest desire to just press on, floor the pedal, keep driving through this ghastly town, get onto a proper road, then head on down to the coast, and Reggio, and the airport.

  But I can’t. I have to know the truth about Marc. I park the car in what amounts to ugly Plati’s closest approximation of a central square, a piazza, though in reality it is just a bunch of slightly taller, unfinished cement buildings, gazing at a flat and empty car lot. It is Islamically austere.

  Then I spy a big utilitarian bar, half hidden by a concrete wall. The bar boasts a few plastic tables out front, a few drinkers staring glumly back at me. This is it. Cafes are the center of Italian sociability and this is the biggest cafe in town. If I am going to find Enzo Paselli and the truth about Marc, I will find it here.