The Story of X: An Erotic Tale Read online

  But who cares? The sky is divinely cloudless, the morning is warm, and if I lean on tiptoe—nearly falling off the balcony—I can definitely see a slice of the Tyrrhenian Sea, heartbreakingly blue, just two blocks away, imprisoned between the buildings of Via Lucilio. On the far horizon is the dark, serrated profile of an island. This must be Capri.

  I can see Capri from my balcony.

  I’ve only been here twenty-four hours, and already I love the place. I have to share my happiness. I ring up Jessica, at work, to tell her so. She swears rudely down her cell and tells me to stop being a soppy cow. Very British. Of course, I want to ask her about him. But I can’t. She would laugh.

  “Thanks for getting the apartment, Jess.”

  “Prego. Now get on with your unpacking. And stop thinking about him.”

  I laugh.

  “How did you know?”

  “You didn’t stop talking about him last night. Can’t imagine you’ve forgotten.”

  “I’m glad I’m such a woman of mystery.”

  “Chill out, X. Relax. So Viscount Perfect paid for the drinks. So what?”

  “Jess, why is there so much garbage everywhere?”

  “I told you, it’s the Camorra, they rule the rubbish collection, they won’t let anyone else collect—it’s a racket, a scam. The whole city is a kind of drama—a masked ball, everyone is in masks, remember that.”

  “And?”

  “And the garbage guys, when you see them, have armed protection.”

  “Wow. That’s so nice.”

  Jess pauses, and laughs.

  “Yeah. ’Course, if you really do want to know more about the Camorra, you could always ask an alleged member.”

  “What?”

  “There’s this bloke . . . Lord Roscarrick. Heard of him?”

  “No. Tell me more.”

  “Well . . . I suppose he’s quite attractive, if you are into that whole handsome, sexy, charming, billionaire aristocrat thing. I hear some girls like that?”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Some claim he’s high up in the Camorra, or the Mafia; others say he fights them. Gotta be interesting either way. Ring him up and ask for an interview.”

  “Jessica, now you’re suggesting I just call him? Out of the blue? Are you bored? You’re bored, aren’t you?”

  She groans down the phone.

  “Thursday bloody morning, every Thursday morning, a class of principesse.”

  “Okay—”

  “They just file their nails and talk about orgasms. Anyway, look, X, I’m not joking. I mean, this guy isn’t unreachable. If you really want. He definitely gives money to charities that help mafia victims. That could be a way in. Did you really like him that much? X? Be honest.”

  I draw a breath. Did I? Did I? Do I really want to respond to that enigmatic overture? Do I truly want to get involved with this mysterious, slightly menacing figure?

  YES. Oh God, yes. An almighty YES. No man in my short life has disturbed me, stirred me, roiled the sexual waters in me, the way he did, merely by not really looking at me for several hours, then frowning my way maybe once, then quietly disappearing—after paying for my drinks. That’s all he did, but it was plenty more than enough.

  YES, I want to get involved. YES YES YES YES YES.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Yeah, right. You’d tear his shirt off with your teeth, given half the chance. You tart.”

  “His bespoke shirt, made with Egyptian cotton, on Jermyn Street?”

  She laughs.

  “That one. The one hand-stitched by orphans in Antwerp.”

  “So . . .”

  “If you really want to know . . . He lives in a famous palazzo—in the Chiaia.”

  “The what?”

  “The Chiaia. It’s the, like, really posh neighborhood. And it’s about ten minutes’ walk from Santa Lucia. Palazzo Roscarrick; google it. He’s practically a fucking neighbor. You could walk there after lunch, interview him about the Camorra, and be smoking a postcoital fag by teatime. That’s if he doesn’t have you shot by his gangster pals. Okay, gotta go. Be careful!”

  The call is closed. My heart beats on. I stare at the azure Tyrrhenian and the shimmering serration of Capri. So he lives very close. A palazzo. Of course a palazzo. Where else?

  I stand on the balcony and willingly tip into a reverie. I imagine him—Marcus Roscarrick, the young Lord Roscarrick, the handsome signore—waking up in an enormous room with enormous windows letting in the enormous Campanian light; there are palm trees rustling in a garden outside, the faint noise of Neapolitan traffic rises as a sweet and soothing susurrus. A butler maybe comes in, stooping past portraits of ancestors, carrying fresh breakfast. I see silver pots of coffee, dishes of lime marmalade; I see lemon slices on china and freshly squeezed blood orange juice spilled on endless white bed linen. Blood on pure whiteness.

  A naked woman. Is there a naked woman in this imagined scene? Yes, there she is—misted by the Bruges-lace curtains, standing nude and pensive and beautiful at the sunny sash window. Marc Roscarrick rises, also naked, and aroused, and lean—his body like hard, dark, Amazonian wood. He crosses the parquet floor and embraces her slender naked waist; he kisses her pale neck, and she gasps and turns. And it is me, it is me at that window, me naked in his bedroom; I am his mistress, and as I feel his firm hands on my waist I turn and smile and kiss his sweet face, and then I kneel in prayer on the hardness of the parquet floor and I reach for his desire, and, and . . . and. And.

  And down there in the Via Santa Lucia a kid on a Vespa is looking up at me. At me, here: barefoot in my shorts, mouth half open, erotically daydreaming. The kid is maybe sixteen; even from this distance I can see him grinning. Then he scoots away, toward the Castel dell’Ovo and the corniche and the dreamy blue Tyrrhenian.

  This is absurd. What is happening to me? Erotic daydreams? This isn’t like New Hampshire. This certainly isn’t New Hampshire.

  I need to concentrate. I still need to unpack my clothes and my laptop. Clothes first.

  But—wow. This is an unexpectedly depressing process. I have brought lots of Zara with me: almost a whole new wardrobe, purchased last month from their store in Union Square in San Fran. At the time I thought I was being clever—in California the clothes looked so European and chic and suitable, if not perfetto. They were also pretty cheap.

  Now, however, as I unfurl the dresses and pantsuits I cringe. I know Zara is Spanish but somehow it all looks a bit . . . American. Or rather, it looks a bit suburban and shopping mall. The clothes are nice enough—black cotton pencil skirts, short printed summer dresses, a jacquard miniskirt, a cute lace tube thing—it’s all summery and pleasant, cottony and fresh, but here in the actual Italian sunlight it seems to lack real style and sophistication. This will not impress. This is nothing. I’ve only been here a day but already I know: everyone down there on the Via Toledo is wearing Prada at a minimum. Everything is silk and cashmere and fine raw linen. Even the traffic inspectors look like they are patrolling on a catwalk, not a sidewalk.

  But I have no choice; these clothes will have to do. I do not have the money to upgrade. So I will have to rely on natural attributes.

  Which are?

  I walk to the long antique mirror hanging from the wall opposite the old iron bed. The light is slanted. I look at myself. In my shorts. Barefoot. I have a smudge of dust on my round face from the unpacking.

  My hair is moderately fine, and swayingly wavy. Most of the time. I am five foot five, and 120 pounds—and some people say I am rather pretty. Once a man told me I was beautiful.

  Once.

  I step closer to the mirror, examining myself like I am a slave girl in the market—a Roman slave girl in the Piazza del Mercato; I have been doing my research on Neapolitan history.

 
; My nose is cutely upturned, or perhaps it is just a bit crooked? I get far too many freckles. My teeth are near perfect. My ears are stupidly small. Oysters make me sick. And I have only had three lovers.

  Three.

  The mirror rattles as a truck passes below, over the black cobbles of a side street. Three! I have had three lovers, and I have never had an orgasm from actual sex. And God almighty, I want this to change. I have had enough of being good and dutiful and studying so hard. Just give me one summer, please, one summer of hedonism. And sex. Lots and lots of proper sex.

  Maybe I am a slut; maybe Jess is right—maybe my inner slut has just been waiting to emerge, like a garish butterfly from the albino chrysalis of the Good Daughter. A butterfly of the Borgetto, a teetering tart in Prada, an unashamed young mistress of a very rich man. I think I’d rather like to be that, just for one summer. Then I could grow old happily, and tell my gratifyingly shocked granddaughters about my one libertine summer in sinful and sensuous Naples.

  Oh, Gran, you are such a card!

  The clothes are hung in the big old wardrobe; my last task is to unpack the laptop and plug everything in. This is less stressful than unpacking the clothes. There is a rickety wooden trestle table, which will suffice as a desk; I can tuck it against the wall.

  The laptop booted up, and keyed into the apartment wireless—shared with Jess—I begin my work. Sourcing the history of the organized crime gangs of southern Italy. This will be the first third of my thesis, and it is already nearly finished. Then comes the field research. Interviews. Expeditions.

  Adventures.

  I go over my thesis so far.

  The Camorra.

  The origins of the Camorra, an organized crime syndicate centered in Naples, are not entirely clear. It may be a direct descendant of a Spanish secret society, the Garduña, founded in 1417—during the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples. Alternatively, it may have emerged out of small, native criminal gangs, already operating among the poorest elements of Neapolitan society, toward the end of the eighteenth century . . .

  The hours pass. I stare, dry-mouthed, at the screen. Palazzo Roscarrick. I could just google it. Palazzo Roscarrick . . .

  The ’Ndrangheta . . . The Camorra . . . The Sacra Corona Unita . . .

  Dammit. I google it. And it takes just one hundred seconds to source: on a website dedicated to Neapolitan art and architecture. Jessica was right. “Palazzo Roscarrick” is celebrated in art history circles. And it really is about a ten-minute walk away.

  I am seized with the desire to go there. Now. But I mustn’t. But I must. But I can’t. But I can. I can’t not go there. Why can’t I go there? This is my job, this is my thesis. I have an excuse, no, I have a reason. I could have stayed at home in boring San Jose researching organized crime on the Net, but I am here in Napoli to see it for real. And Marcus Roscarrick is, apparently, a man who can tell me more: he gives money to mafia victims.

  Why does he do that? Out of guilt?

  Before my conscience or my common sense is able to contradict, I take off the shorts and pull on some jeans and sandals and a simple white top. Nothing brash. Maybe one bracelet. I like the way Jessica’s bangles show off her suntanned wrist. Maybe another spray of perfume? Yes. Definitely. Sunglasses? No.

  Okay, yes.

  The walk should take ten minutes. But I still walk fast along the hot and crowded streets. Past van drivers and motorcyclists, past trattorias and fashion stores, past red-faced men delivering trays of fresh white creamy mozzarella to the upscale restaurants, where the cooks take a pre-lunch break down the side lanes, sneaking cigarettes by the potted cypresses.

  Then the street opens out and becomes more spacious, and ancient—and confusing. Via Chiaia has turned into a series of marble steps and descending esplanades. I gaze around, bewildered, lost among the hurrying businessmen in exquisite suits and the policemen sharing one enormous pizza outside a cafe. The city rises abruptly from sea level here; do I go up or down? Climbing one flight of polished and venerable steps, I look left, and right, and I start to worry—but no. Wait. That’s it. I recognize it from the website.

  A large, severe sixteenth- or seventeenth-century building, with Gothic touches and monumental walls. It could almost be a prison, but a beautiful prison, peach and russet and palmed, vast, and shadowy in the sun. And it actually has a plaque: THE PALAZZO ROSCARRICK.

  “The” Palazzo Roscarrick? I like the The.

  Heart somewhere near my mouth, I walk down the narrowing street and approach the enormous doors. My tentative rap of the big iron knocker does nothing. I feel stupid. I feel like an orphan seeking entrance to a workhouse. This is absurd. I should go.

  The large door opens. A uniformed man peers out. What is he? A butler? A valet? I don’t understand this world.

  He looks puzzled. Not expecting visitors. Maybe this is the wrong door.

  “Sì?”

  Oh God. Now I have to use my Italian. My pathetic schoolgirl Italian.

  “Uh, buon . . . uh . . . giorno. Parla—”

  “Please. I speak English,” the man replies, without a trace of an Italian accent. Maybe he is British. “How can I help you?”

  “Uh, I want to see, the . . . um . . . Mr. Roscarrick, I mean the Lord. I mean . . .” This is feeble. I am flushing. I shouldn’t have come. “I am an, uh . . . an American student. Well, researcher. I am researching . . . the Camorra . . . No, I mean . . .” What can I say?

  The servant, if that’s what he is, seems to soften at my panic. The trace of a pitying smile brightens his forty-something face.

  “My Lord Roscarrick. You wish to see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?”

  Go on, Alex: go on. Go for it.

  “Tell him the girl from the Caffè Gambrinus is here.”

  His eyebrows arch for a delicate moment, and then he beckons me in, through the grandiose door. I am now inside The Palazzo Roscarrick. The Palazzo Roscarrick, not any old Palazzo Roscarrick.

  I gaze about: it is dark and smells sweet—of beeswax polish, and orchids, or lilies. The ceiling is arched. Beyond is a shady courtyard open to the sky, where the sun slants down, illuminating the sparkling water of a fountain.

  The servant reemerges.

  “Lord Roscarrick will see you now.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I FOLLOW THE butler—or valet; I’m still not sure what to call him—as we thread through the halls and corridors of this enormous building.

  As we walk, I gawp. The Palazzo Roscarrick is just as I imagined it, only more so. Large and sober portraits of eighteenth-century grandees line the long corridor. Huge rooms lead off—I glimpse halls and ballrooms where the windows are high, though many are shuttered. The wallpaper in the corridor is an exquisite, swirling, pale jade green—Chinese, maybe—and surely old.

  “This way—please.” How big is this house? How rich is the owner?

  I want to linger, and look. And admire. The furniture is a mixture of heavy walnut Spanish and lighter Georgian English, with some starkly modern pieces. Likewise, the dark and venerable oil paintings are interspersed with abstractions—swathes of violent, exciting, and very twentieth-century color. A taste has been imposed here, a young and living aesthetic. This is no museum. I notice one wall is decorated with antique guns. At least, I think they are antique.

  The servant beckons me around one final corner, through some large wooden doors, and into another open courtyard, and my admiration becomes astonishment. I am staring at a mighty wall of twinned stone stairs, ascending vertically a full five stories, like the ribs from a spine; it is dazzling architecture, and rather disturbing in its theatricality.

  “The hawk-wing stairs; typical of the Neapolitan Baroque. Designed by Ferdinando Sanfelice for my ancestor the ninth Lord Roscarrick.”

 
The voice is very English, soft and firm and deep. I know it is him, standing behind me. Has he been following me as I walked, leering like a dumb tourist, through his ridiculously beautiful house? Has he been watching me?

  He talks on: “The stairs are so grandiose because they are designed for horses. When cavaliers returned to the palazzo, they could ride through the great south doors, directly into the courtyard—then ascend the stairs on horseback, without needing to dismount. The horses were trained to move back down the other staircase and trot into the stables by themselves. Quite insane, isn’t it?”

  My neck burns at the nape; I can feel myself flushing. I don’t want to turn and look at him, this man with his staircase for horses. My sandals are ridiculous and cheap. I should have worn a ball gown. I shouldn’t have come.

  “So. The girl from the Caffè Gambrinus . . .” His voice softens to an almost-laugh. “It sounds like a novel.”

  I turn, at last. He is standing there. Half smiling.

  “As do you,” I say.

  “What?”

  “You sound like a novel.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Marcus Xavier Roscarrick, Lord Roscarrick. I mean— I mean— Ah . . .”

  What on earth am I saying? What the hell am I doing? This is virtually an insult. But my mind is torn. He stares at me. I stare back. The servant waits.

  He is wearing jeans: soft, worn denim jeans, exquisite brown English shoes, and a faintly Byronic white cotton shirt, half unbuttoned. There is a button missing. The cotton of his dazzling white shirt is visibly frayed. Expensively bespoke and old. The fine leather of the shoes matches his tan, or his natural skin tone. His teeth are white.

  The pale blue eyes are not entirely cold. His smile is friendly, if a little detached. At least he’s not in black tie and tails, or a vampirish cape. My sandals aren’t so stupid, maybe. I wish he were two degrees less handsome. One ounce less handsome. It is too much.