The Story of X: An Erotic Tale Read online

  “I don’t have any money! Leave me alone.”

  “Vacca,” one says with a sneer; he is the tallest and skinniest. “Vacca Americana!”

  American cow.

  Fuck them! I get ready to run past them—screaming, screaming for my life—just barge through them. That’s what I must do. Just run and thrust my way into the main drag of the Spanish Quarters, where the fishmongers stand in their gumboots, hosing silver scales and fish blood down the dark cobbles, like sequins in red surf.

  Then one of the junkies pulls a knife. It is long and evil and it glitters in the hard southern sun that slants down from the strip of slummy sky.

  He smiles.

  Too late I realize this is much worse than a mugging.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HELL. IF I fight back they might kill me, they might not even mean to do it—but that knife. It glitters, malevolent and long.

  The first lean guy, with a bad and raw tattoo on his neck like a case of shingles, moves toward me. He is cornering me; like I am just another rat in a Neapolitan alley.

  The knife is phallic and stiff. I glance up at the helpless sky, then down the merciless darkness of the alley beyond the boys. No. There is no hope there. Or here. Or anywhere. I am on my own.

  Maybe I can beg my way out of this, utilize what pitiful Italian I possess. Staring at the leader of the gang, I implore him.

  “Per l’amore del cielo”—for the love of God, I beg you—“ti prego di tutto cuore.” He laughs and his laugh is like some horrible, diseased cackle.

  “Ah, bellezza, bellezza.” He turns to his grinning accomplices, then turns back to me, “Fucking sexy. Sì? Sexy girl.”

  It is maybe the only English he knows.

  Fucking sexy girl.

  My fear rages. And my fury. He is two meters away: two seconds from touching me, and groping me. I am pressed flat to the damp old wall behind. A wall so dark and sheltered and cold it feels like it has never been warmed by the sun. The sun has never reached this deep into the slums—nor into the minds of these men. One of the other youths grins and says, “Divertiamoci . . .”

  The word is something like play. It seems they are going to play with me, and I know what this really means.

  I feel the first grubby hands on my arms, tugging at my dress, trying to rip it away. The dress is casually and gleefully torn from my shoulder, exposing my bra. A second hand feels for my breasts, lifts at my bra strap, and then the strap is severed with a knife.

  I swear at them, crouching and covering myself. Swearing again.

  But the boys just laugh. They are all around me; it feels like there are dozens of them, hands everywhere, feeling my hair, touching my arms, trying to pull my fists away.

  “Stop!”

  I start to kick and to flail; I don’t care if I am outnumbered and cornered, to hell with them. I am not going to let them touch me. Not going to let them play with me.

  Now I am writhing in their grasp, wrenching myself free—but they are simply too many—four lanky and grinning Italian youths. I sense I could probably take one of these junkie bastards—knee him in the groin, knock him to the ground—but four? It is too much. I am drowning under their hands as they pull at the fabric, feel for my thighs—

  “No, stop! Stop! Please stop! Please!”

  They just laugh, and their laughter echoes down the empty lane, down the alley with the shuttered windows and the crumbling walls. A cold hand claps over my mouth, silencing my words. I wonder somehow if I should pray. I haven’t prayed in years; maybe now is the time. But then I have an idea. One last chance? Biting the hand that covers my mouth, so it is whipped away, I yell, as loudly as possible: “I know Marcus Roscarrick. He is my friend. Lui è mio amico!”

  The reaction is intense. The boys freeze. The hands pull back. The leader squints at me, looking deep in my eyes, as if to see if I am lying. Another one shakes his head.

  “Guappo.” The others nod, pale, ugly faces in the dark of the alley. I shout the word again.

  “I know him. Roscarrick! E un buon amico!”

  But it’s not working. They are unconvinced. Either they think I am lying or they just don’t care. Maybe Roscarrick means nothing. The grins become snarls. Now they come at me again—with renewed intent.

  A dirty hand slaps over my mouth once more; another hand is groping, and now I begin to succumb. This is it, I think, this is how it happens, this is how you get raped. My mind is almost detached. I close my eyes as I sink under the ocean of pain and humiliation—

  “Lasciala sola.”

  What?

  The voice is new.

  Leave her alone.

  “Coniglio!”

  Coward.

  Who is this?

  I see a strong fist, flying. One of the youths is physically wrenched away—as though he has been plucked up by some deity, by a giant. He is virtually lifted off his feet and thrown to the floor. The leader of the gang swivels and yells, but a fist strikes him hard; his tattooed face rips left and right as he is punched twice, and again, blood squirting everywhere, like scarlet ink.

  I can see a dark, handsome face in the gloom of the alley. Who is this? Not Roscarrick, not someone I know. But this man is intervening: he is with friends—young allies—well dressed. They are brawling with the youths; one of the junkies is already on the dirty cobblestones, groaning, but the others are fighting back. I gather my shredded clothes to myself and look for escape. This is horrible. The brawl is intense. Someone is going to get knifed.

  And then another voice calls across the cobblestones, masculine, older, arrogant, and everyone is silenced.

  “Cazzo! Porco demonio—”

  This is Roscarrick. Unmistakable. His white teeth, his dark face, running toward us. That anger in his blue, blue eyes.

  The reaction of the youths is quite astonishing. As soon as they see Marc, their violent defiance drops utterly away. They stare at one another, then at Marc—in desperation. They look like kids, like terrified toddlers. Marc approaches the leader of the gang. And punches him in the face. Just once, but very hard.

  And then he smiles.

  Marc smiles. And the smile is so menacing, so much more frightening than the punch, the youth starts to whimper. He is crying, slumping away, his back to a wall, nose copiously bleeding. He looks terrified. Terrified of Marc Roscarrick. It is a look I have never seen on a man before: the look of someone who thinks he is about to die.

  Why is he so frightened? Who is Marc Roscarrick, that he could so terrify this boy?

  There are too many questions in my mind. I am blinking away my tears of horror, and pulling my clothes back into place, yet still watching. The kids are now being dragged from the scene, hoisted by their collars like schoolboys being led to their punishment. I hear car doors slamming shut; I hear the vivid ripple of expensive tires on old cobbles. Then I hear silence.

  Now it is just me and Marc Roscarrick in the alley. He is in a cream linen suit with a blue shirt; I am in a tattered dress. Vulnerable and forlorn, yet rescued.

  His gaze is intense: there is anger in the searching blue of his eyes, and compassion.

  “Are you all right? X? I am so sorry. So so sorry.”

  “But . . . but . . .”

  I have already felt myself for injuries. I am all right. Just a few bruises and scratches. But my mind is hurting, furious, bewildered. Who is this man who dismisses me one day, then rescues me the next?

  I need to know.

  “How did you know where I was? How? How did . . . ? I don’t understand what is happening.”

  Marc is looking me up and down, but not sexually—more like a doctor, assessing. My bare knees are grazed. I look down at my stomach; I realize I have a faint sprinkle of blood on what remains of my blue summer dress. But it isn’t my blood.
It is the blood of the boy who led the assault on me. The boy who was punched so clinically by Marc.

  There was savagery there. I look at Roscarrick anew. This man may be an aristocrat, but he is also, what, primitive? No, not primitive. But certainly not entirely refined. I recall the rip in his jeans when I last met him, the dark, hard skin beneath; the glimpse of the animal inside the urban male. His very presence terrified these boys.

  I don’t know what I think.

  “Do you want to see a doctor, Alexandra?”

  My wits begin to reassemble.

  “No. I am . . . okay, I think. They didn’t . . . They didn’t get very far . . . You got here in time . . . but I don’t—”

  “How about the police? Would you like to go to the police?”

  I vacillate. Part of me wants to scream my anger from the top of Mount Vesuvius. Part of me wants to totally and immediately forget what just happened, because it was, of course, my own stupidity that got me into the situation in the first place. Wandering around the worst slums of a challenging city, a city known for its crime as well as its swooning beauty—wandering like some damn foolish girl, a naïve and silly Yank abroad.

  “Let me think about the police. I don’t know.”

  His smile is grave, even apologetic. I ask the real question: “But how . . . ?” I really need to know now. “How did you find me?”

  He nods, as if this is a very sensible question. Which it is.

  “Sorry, X, you must be confused. Since you came to see me in the palazzo—I have been thinking about you.”

  Is that a faint blush? No, it is not. But his normal certitude is momentarily flawed. Marc gestures away his own embarrassment.

  “Let me get you away from here, let you clean up, buy you lunch? Please. Then I will explain everything.”

  Who is Marc Roscarrick? What is happening?

  I don’t care. I don’t care. A very handsome young man has just saved me from my own stupidity, and from something worse—something I don’t care to relive right now—and he wants to help me. I am too weak to resist; I want to surrender.

  “Yes,” I say. “Please. I’d like to go home.”

  There is a tingle of silence. He nods, takes my hand and raises it to his lips, and he kisses it delicately. The silence between us lingers. I know I want him to kiss my hand again; just kiss it again . . .

  CHAPTER SIX

  NO. I PULL my hand away as if I have been scalded. What risk am I taking? I don’t trust my desire. I am still shaking a little from the assault.

  I gesture at the blood on my dress.

  “I want to go back to my apartment.”

  “Of course, of course.” He nods attentively. “You must want to change. Come this way, X; my car is parked on Via Speranzella, just a few hundred meters.”

  I don’t know what I am expecting—a Maserati, a Bentley, a horse and carriage with a liveried footman?—but Marc’s car is a simple yet very expensive Mercedes sports car: subtle, chic, fast, new, dark silver-blue. A small luxury car for narrow, squalid streets.

  I get into the passenger seat. The car smells of him: clean and sophisticated, and also scented with that heavenly yet inscrutable bodywash, that remote cologne. And leather seats. The drive to Santa Lucia takes just a few minutes, from the slums to the boulevards, past the little bassi—the cell-like homes of the poor—to the neoclassical apartment blocks of newer Naples.

  The drive is almost wordless. I don’t know what to say. I am too wary, too upset. And all too attracted to Marc Roscarrick. My feelings are treacherous; I wonder if I am being betrayed by my own sexuality. Stop this, X. He is just a man.

  But a ruthlessly sexy man.

  As he navigates the mad Naples traffic, calmly steering between the Fiat Cinquecentos, Marc glances at the blood on his knuckles. Then he chuckles. Briefly. “Christ, I look like a boxer after six rounds. I didn’t mean to hit him quite that hard.”

  His words release my own. A barrage of questions.

  “Who was he? Who were they?”

  “Well, as the local women say, Si buca sai, renzo si buca.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Bucarsi.” He shakes his head. Unsmiling. “It literally means to put holes in oneself.”

  “You mean junkies?”

  “Yes.”

  At least I got that right. Heroin addicts. Looking for a fix, and then for something more. I don’t know what to think about them. Hatred or pity? I feel both.

  “What will happen . . . to the junkies? Who were those guys who helped me?”

  “Friends and assistants. Giuseppe was the first to reach you. My manservant.”

  “What will your assistants do to them?”

  Marc shrugs as he drives.

  “Don’t worry, my confreres won’t kill anyone. They will just put the fear of God in them.”

  “But what then? Will you take them to the police?”

  “The carabinieri?” Marc shakes his head. His voice is tinged with contempt. “What is the point? They’d have to build prisons from here to Palermo to house all the addicts, and half of the police are corrupt anyway.”

  He turns a sharp left, down my street. He talks as he parks. “No. We’ll let them go, after giving them a lesson. I don’t think they will be assaulting any women for a while.” He sighs. “The people I would really like to put in jail are the bastards who get these vermin hooked on heroin. The Camorra. The ’Ndrangheta.” His handsome face is tight with anger; it is almost scary, and he turns to me. “I hate them, X. They poison everything. This city should be so beautiful, yet it is so often ugly. Hence what happened to you.” He turns the key, and the engine is silent. “Here is your apartment. I will wait in the car?”

  “Wait?”

  “I’d like to buy you lunch.”

  “But . . .”

  “That is, if you are up to it. Because I do want to explain, and I wish to do it in the most civilized way.” His stubbled jawline is firm. “And perhaps you shouldn’t be alone, Alexandra.”

  I pause, bewildered. I do feel a need to eat, and an even greater desire to drink some alcohol; to erase the mental images of the assault. And Marc is maybe right: I don’t want to be alone.

  “Yes . . .” I say. “Okay, yes, but—”

  “Take as long as you like.”

  I climb out of the car, slip upstairs, and quickly shower, washing away the dirt from the grubby hands that groped me, trying to wash away the memory of the entire morning. Then I change into my last new Zara dress: navy blue, trimmed with broderie anglaise. I feel the need for softness and prettiness. And then, for ten or fifteen minutes, I simply stand there, silent, contemplative, regretful. Yet trying to move my thoughts from what has happened.

  Somehow I succeed. Moments later I am back in Marc’s car—but we only drive a few hundred meters, then Marc pulls up and jumps out. We are parked on the seafront that leads to the little bridge. That leads to Castel dell’Ovo.

  I’ve looked at this stone pier, with its castle thrusting formidably into the sea, so many times. I’ve read about its history: built where a siren of a mermaid was legendarily washed up on the empty Mediterranean shore, thus establishing the city itself, the new city of the sybaritic Greeks—Neo-Polis. New City. Naples.

  But this is my first visit to the “island.”

  Marc opens my door like a chauffeur and we walk across the grand stone bridge to the castle, which is guarded by iron gates. Then we duck left.

  To my surprise I see a row of cheery outdoor restaurants, built against the castle walls, sheltered under blue-and-white awnings yet staring out across the Bay of Naples.

  We take a table at the very first restaurant. A waitress greets Marc with a wide smile, while another waitress pulls out a chair for me at a table shaded by a parasol. I sit.

&nb
sp; “Signorina, buongiorno—e Signor Roscarrick!”

  Marc is obviously well-known here; his arrival has created a tiny but perceptible hubbub among the other diners, but especially among the staff. I wonder how many other young women he has squired to these tables under this Italian sun, in this same sweet and cooling sea breeze.

  I don’t care. Nibbling at a breadstick—grissini—I gaze and sigh, and feel the sincere horrors of the last hour begin to drop away.

  Because if there is any place that might soothe a troubled mind, it is here. The view is so beautiful; the great bay sweeps with cavalier generosity from the ancient glittering center of Naples, past the brooding heights of Vesuvius, down toward the cliffs and beaches of Vico and Sorrento. Italian flags ripple in the mellow wind, yachts ply the prosperous blue waters, smart polizia in speedy motorboats unzip the sea into exuberant vees of surf. It is a painting of Mediterranean Happiness.

  “It is very lovely,” I say, reflexively.

  “You like it?” Marc seems genuinely pleased. His white-toothed smile fits perfectly into the scenery. The ocean? Check. The sun? Check. The handsome man? Check. All present and correct. Hmm.

  “The waitress knows you, right? I suppose you come here a lot . . . ?” My question is unworthily suspicious. I chide myself for my rudeness. But Marc answers very graciously, nonetheless.

  “I know the owner, Signora Manfredi. Her husband was a police officer. The Camorra . . . killed him.” Shaking his head, Marc glances down at the menu but my guess is that he knows exactly what is written there. He is disguising emotion. He pauses, then his expression lifts and brightens. “I helped her set this place up, with a little loan. In return, she guarantees to serve all my favorite dishes. And my very own wines. Here.” Marc leans across and points at something on my menu. “You see this one?”

  I attempt to read the item. It is impossibly difficult. “Pesci ang . . . basilic . . .” I give up. “Um, some kind of fish?”

  He nods.

  “Yes, some kind of fish. Actually it is angler fish on a basil risotto, with lobster foam. It is quite sensational. You want to try?”