The Story of X: An Erotic Tale (2 page)

“Jesus, X.”

“What?”

I have been staring at the sky for two minutes. Now I am staring at Jess—who is, in
turn, staring with an expression of shock at the bill.

“What? What? How much?”

She groans.

“Why did we drink here? We could have gone to my local for a bevvy. Bollocks.”

A cold nausea sweeps over me.

“How much is it?”

“Ninety euro.”

“Christ, we only had those Venezianos.”

“And the coffees, and the snacks. Bloody hell, what a half-wit I am, I should have
remembered how pricey this place is, sorry.”

Jessica has very little money; the teaching job pays a few bucks. She lives hand to
mouth, and she tolerates it well enough. But a ninety-euro drinks bill could ruin
her week. I reach reluctantly in my purse for a card, but the waiter has already glimmered
into view, and picked up the check, with a smile.

“But you need my card,” I say.

The handsome waiter smiles graciously.

“Is okay! The signor pay. Signor Roscarrick.”

“Huh? No—”

I turn, heart jumping, stupidly excited, half embarrassed, to remonstrate in a bogus
way—please don’t pay—we will be fine. My name is Alex. Alexandra. Alexandra Beckmann.
Yes. That’s right. With two
n
’s. Here’s my phone number. Write it down. Maybe have it tattooed on your hand.

But the table is empty.
He
has gone.

The designer cop leans against the palazzo wall, smoking quietly in the dark.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

I
WANT TO
get
him
out of my mind, so I spend the next day
vigorously
unpacking boxes in my new and infinitely tiny one-room apartment near the Castel
dell’Ovo.

When Jessica called me in the States a few weeks back, and told me she could secure
an apartment next door to hers, she said it was located in a smart new district of
the city, Santa Lucia. As I walk out, barefoot, onto the tiny, vine-wreathed iron
balcony, I realize what “smart and new” means by Neapolitan standards: it means the
neoclassical buildings are no more than two hundred years old, and the piles of uncollected
garbage down there on the sidewalk only reach head height.

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.