The Story of X: An Erotic Tale (23 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SEVEN

“S
O
S
OUTH
T
YROL
is nice?”

“Beautiful, really, really stunning. The Dolomites are just amazing. Le Corbusier
said they look
designed
—and they do.”

“Le Creuset? The guy who makes saucepans? Who gives a toss what he thinks about the
Dolomites?”

I suspect Jess is joking.

“Not Le Creuset, Le Corbusier. The Swiss architect.”

“Oh.”

“They are ravishing, Jess. There are these green, green meadows with wildflowers and
sweet, warm lakes, at four thousand feet, and then these enormous rose-gray peaks,
like cathedrals—a parade of Gothic cathedrals.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, really.”

“Meh. Mountains. Who needs ’em? Overrated.”

I smile. Jess laughs on my phone screen. We are Skyping. She is in her room in Naples,
with the ironic calendar of Mussolini on the wall. I am in a large room on the second
floor of a rented palazzo on the Grand Canal. And I am in Venice. We drove down here
from Marc’s Tyrolean family home this morning. We parked the car in Mestre and got
the boat across the lagoon.

Venice!

“So you went to his famous schloss and stayed there and ate
kartoffelsalat
and everything?”

“Ja. Es schmeckt gut.”

“And you are fully, you know, recovered from your wounds?”

“I am perfectly fine, thanks for asking.”

“Well, hey. I just worry about your
ass,
X. I’m guessing it’s taking a lot of punishment?”

Jess is mildly irritated that I am not telling her more about the Mysteries. She wants
details, the more salacious the better. But, naturally, I can’t tell her very much.

“Trust me, I am fine. We’re all fine.”

She rolls her eyes and chuckles. Then she says, “So what was the schloss like?”

“Big and . . . imposing. And I met his mother and sister.”

“Really? Lady Perfect. And?”

Her eyes are wide with anticipation.

“They’re not quite what I expected, actually. The sister is very sweet, very English,
slightly reserved, rather funny. The mother is more, sort of, Teutonic.”

“Yeah?”

“Blond and Nordic. Like a Norman queen. Eleanor of Aquitaine. Is Aquitaine in Normandy?”

“Yeah, probably. But I thought the mama was from Naples, X? Blue-blooded Neapolitans
and all that?”

“Well, yes. That’s what I mean. She is not what I expected. And there is something
a little sad about her.” I look over my own shoulder. I can actually hear a Venetian
vaporetto hooting its way up the canal. I reckon I can hear tourists heading for the
Rialto. Or St. Mark’s Square.

I am desperate to get out there, to see it all, because I have, of course, never been
here before; we have arrived just in time for the Fourth Mystery, which is happening
tonight.

Venice!

I turn back to my laptop, and Jess’s happy, smiling, pretty, funny, snub-nosed British
face. My friend. I miss her. It’s been three weeks since I was in Naples. Three weeks
since Marc flew me to Calabria, then the Tyrol.

The emotions of those moments still make me shiver. Marc Roscarrick has truly entered
my soul. There will be no getting rid of him now.

I rouse again from the memory, and gaze at Jess, who is checking some text on her
phone. And smiling. I say, “How’s everything in Santa Lucia?”

She looks up and shrugs.

“Pretty cool.”

“Teaching?”

She grimaces—but in a contented way. A half-smiling way.
Hmm
. I sense there is some secret there, she has got something to tell me. But Jess has
questions of her own.

“So, X . . . I’ve been meaning to ask. How about . . .
it
?”

“Sorry?”

Her voice drops an octave, and quite a few decibels.

“I mean, you know, it, the
thing,
the thing thing, what happened in Plati. Are you, like, over that?” She squints,
close to the camera. “Can you cope with all that?”

I have told her this story in an e-mail: I sent it two weeks ago. I told her everything:
all I had learned about Marc killing a man, in cold blood. Maybe I shouldn’t have
told her; but she
is
my best friend, and I had to share it with someone: it was too much to own by myself.
I had to dilute the knowledge, and spread the burden.

Her e-mailed reaction was total shock and surprise. With not a trace of her usual
sarcasm, or cynical amusement. Which only served to underline the seriousness of the
facts I was relating.

But she also expressed her worries for me, as she is expressing them now.

“I think I am okay,” I try to reassure her. “Because when you hear the context, what
he did was . . .” What’s the word? Acceptable? No. Understandable? Not quite. Justifiable.
Yes. It was
justifiable
—rough and personal justice, meted out in a land effectively without the law.

Marc, as I see it, had little choice. Otherwise Norcino, the psychotic killer, would
have carried on killing, slaughtering men and women, literally mincing them up. That
is how I have rationalized it anyway; that is how I cope with the knowledge.

I tell this, once again, to Jess. She nods, gravely.

“You could argue that what he did was heroic,” she muses. “You could also say that
Marc is still a killer.”

“Jess.”

“Hey, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I
object
.”

“Okay . . . ?”

“I’m actually agreeing with you, X. Because it is a different world. Down here in
the south, the Mezzogiorno. This isn’t the peaceful towns of New Hampshire, is it?
This is their world, their laws.” She frowns. “Fact, I was thinking about this the
other day. And I decided: who are we to judge Marc? I could have married an RAF pilot
who drops bombs on kids in the Middle East in some pointless war. Would that be any
different? Would that be any better? Yet no one would think ill of me then, would
they? No one would ask me: Oh, how can you bear it, knowing what he did?”

I nod, and say nothing. It’s an interesting point—possibly a good point, a point that
makes me feel better. But it’s not a point I want to discuss now, because I can hear
Marc downstairs, talking to the maid who comes with our hired apartment. We have to
get ready soon. Apparently there are handmaidens coming to dress me, here, in preparation
for the Fourth Mystery. I am guessing these costumes must, therefore, be quite elaborate.

But before I go, I want to know Jess’s news. I know there is something.

“Okay, Jessica, I have to say bye.”

She nods and looks at her phone, checking the time. “Yep, six
P.M
. Better get cracking. I’m going to Vomero this evening—”

“Vomero?”

“Uh-huh.”

There it is
again
. That flash of a secretive smile. And now I think I have guessed. There is a
man
. I have seen that fleeting smile before, and it normally indicates there is a new
body in Jessica’s bed.

“Who are you going to Vomero with?”

She shrugs.

“Just
someone
.”

“A new boyfriend?”

She shakes her head. Then she smirks. Then she nods.

“Yes. A new boyfriend.”

I squeal.

“Oh my God. So go on then—tell me! You have to tell me!”

“Well . . . It’s . . .” She looks away from the camera. “It’s tricky. I didn’t . . .
I don’t . . .”

This is odd. It isn’t like Jessica Rushton to be bashful or reticent about her love
life. Usually she tells me every last detail. Every last
inch
of detail. With relish. Then she demands the same of me. She loves gossiping about
men and sex. I’m not averse myself. This shared fascination with the intricacies of
love is one reason she and I get on so well.

So why is she being so coy?

“Jessica?”

She looks directly at the camera. She sighs and says, “I’m seeing Giuseppe.”

What?

“You’re seeing Giuseppe? Marc’s Giuseppe?”

“Yes.”

I clap my hands. I am genuinely delighted. I knew she had a thing for him.
Gorgeousaurus Rex
. He is also very likeable and charming. Excellent!

“But that’s great!” I say.

She looks at me, then she breaks into a smile.

“You’re sure? You’re totally sure? You’re sure you’re okay? You don’t think I’m crowding
you or anything?”

“Jessica Rushton, don’t be an idiot. Course not. It means I get to see you more.”

She nods. “Well, yeah, it does! Giuseppe is flying to Venice tomorrow—Marc’s orders.
He actually wants me to come with—but—until I’d spoken to you—I didn’t know what to
tell him.”

“So do it! Fly up! Of course you must fly up! We can drink Bellinis at Harry’s Bar.
This is great!”

“Okay.” She beams back at me. “This is cool! Don’t worry, I’m not doing the weird
Mysteries or anything. Not that I’m invited anyway. But I will see you in Venice.
Tomorrow.”

“Okay, bye!”

I give her a wave; she waves back and says, “Don’t fall in any canals.”

And then the screen goes black. I sit back. I am happy. I am truly happy. The world
is perfect once again.

Or at least it is
almost
perfect. There is just that last niggling doubt, the tiniest serpent in this otherwise
pristine paradise: the doubt about Marc’s wife. I cannot forget what Enzo Paselli
said over that restaurant table in terrible Plati. His words about Lady Roscarrick’s
sudden death, which meant her money went to Marc . . .

That was an evil fortune.

But I don’t
want
to think about it. I want to be
happy
. So I am happy. And tonight I will be Alexandra of the Fourth.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT

T
HREE HOURS LATER,
I step out onto the damp, mossy pier of our private rented palazzo, the Palazzo Dario.
I am alone. Marc is still inside, finishing some business, attending to those digits
that drizzle down his laptop screen, blinking scarlet and black.

I glimpse my reflection in the starlit water of the Grand Canal. And I can’t help
smiling.

The handmaidens have done their costuming: I am in a high-waisted, narrow-sleeved,
purest muslin Regency ball gown, colored a very soft cream. It is adorable. I look
like a Jane Austen debutante: the long, silk gloves, the satin dancing pumps, the
bracelet high on my arm, and a single strand of fine pearls. The muslin is superbly
fine; it is also rather see-through; I am wearing cream stockings underneath but,
of course, no underwear.

However, it is dark. So no one can tell. Or so I hope. Stepping forward, I look up
and down the canal. The gondola is booked for nine
P.M.
; I know that I am early—but I wanted to enjoy the view.

My heart flutters as I look up at the house where I am staying. We only arrived here
this morning and I barely know the place.

But I love it already.

By day this palazzo—from what I have glimpsed—is very pretty; by night, softly lit
by canal lights, Venetian stars, and Gothic lanterns, it is a vision, a mirage of
spectral beauty: of deep-violet recesses and doomy black windows and a rich, melancholic
stony gray, and all of it made more intangible and alluring by the swaying light reflected
from the water all around. The sight of it makes me unsteady; it makes me feel unbalanced,
like I am inwardly dancing to the eternal and unheard music of Venice.

Chattering laughter drifts across the canal. The scents of wine and diesel; of perfume
and smoke and the distant sea.

The Bridge of Sighs. St. Mark’s Square. Santa Maria della Salute! So much of this
city is already inside me; I have been here so many times in my imagination, in my
yearning daydreams, in my schoolgirl and student fantasies of travel. I don’t know
what to think of the reality; it is so intoxicating I am not sure this
is
reality: Venice looks like a gorgeous copy of itself, like an incredibly well-realized
backdrop in a movie, and I am part of the drama.
Alexandra of the Mysteries
.

Is that the Gritti Palace Hotel? If I stand on tiptoe, in my satin pumps, I can see
chic men and women eating on a lamp-lit terrace across the wide, dark waters of the
Grand Canal. Their laughter carries, along with the sultry tinkle of cutlery and glass.
Then a louder noise intrudes: Venetian
polizia
in a moonlit blue boat are speeding down the canal toward the tower of St. Mark’s
campanile, red and ghostly on the near horizon.

Right in front of the palazzo, four poles are candy-striped blue and white with golden
caps, lit by heavy Gothic glass lanterns hanging from hooks. I turn, and look up again.
The Palazzo Dario has strange chimneys: “carpaccio” chimneys they are called, top
heavy and archaic, weird shapes framed by the clear and starry night sky. The Gothic
tracery of the palazzo’s façade is famous. The balcony is exquisite.

And the legends that attach to this place are quite romantically tragic. I have done
my research. Famous people have expired in various ways in the Palazzo Dario. An Armenian
diamond merchant died here “enigmatically” in the early 1800s. Then the house was
bought by some British bigwig, Rawdon Brown, who committed suicide after his fortunes
were exhausted by his obsessive restorations. An Irish lieutenant marshal owned it
next, but he died “mysteriously” in 1860; then came a colorful series of contessas
and counts, the last of whom was knifed to death by his lover. Then a rock band manager:
murdered. Then a financier: drowned. Then an exorcism: failed.

And now: me. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Ah, Mistress Beckmann. What news on the Rialto?”

It is Marc. In his Regency dress. He looks magnificent: a darker, taller Darcy. He
is dressed in narrow black trousers, or maybe breeches, which end in long leather
boots. Above the waist he wears a plain-fronted, high-collared white shirt, a sumptuous
purple vest, and a long, sweeping, and very dark frock coat, with tails. The costume
is finished by a rather dandyish top hat. I myself am hatless, but my hair is gorgeously
coiffed: piled in curls that are meant to look natural and even tousled, but aren’t.
Very clever.

Marc clutches his white silk gloves in one hand as he steps onto our private marble
pier and bows.

“Look at you.” He gestures at my dress, then he steps forward and takes up my white-gloved
left hand, and he kisses it, courteously.

“She walks in beauty like the night,” he murmurs, “Of cloudless climes and starry
skies, and all that’s best of dark and bright, meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

Marc takes my muslined waist in his arms and kisses me on the lips.

“Celenza,” I say, pressing his chest with a flat hand, as if half resisting. But I
am not resisting.

Marc smiles reassuringly.

“Are you ready for the Fourth?”

Am I ready? I am not sure. The nerves flutter within. But there is also a determination.
I have told Marc I love him, because I love him; I cannot go back now.

I do a fake curtsey, which somehow turns into a real curtsey.

“
Sì
, Celenza. I think so.”

“You really are
very
convincing. An American princess in Venice. Inexplicably dressed like Elizabeth Bennet.”
He gazes past my shoulder. “And now, the gondola.”

I turn on a satin heel. Emerging from the flickering semi-darkness is the long, dark
shape of a polished black gondola; it silently knocks into our pier. The gondolier
is handsome, of course.

“Signor Roscarrick?”

“Sì.”

The narrow black gondola is upholstered with plump silk cushions of scarlet. Marc
assists me into the boat and I lie back on the sumptuous pillows, with Marc beside
me, and I stare up at the warm, clear skies.

I can smell his bodywash; he is showered and handsome in his Regency clothes. I want
him. I want Venice. I actually want to have sex here and now.
Tooling in a gondola
.

The gondolier churns the water and we are slowly sailing up the Grand Canal. The gondolier
is singing a song, very quietly. It is a cliché, yet it isn’t. Why shouldn’t you sing
when you are a gondolier in Venice? Where else, where else in the entire world, is
there a better place to sing as you work?

The whole city is singing, silently, on this warm, stilled, summer evening of perfection.
We pass under the Accademia Bridge, where faces stare down at us, looking at the film
of Venice, looking at us, the film stars. The movie of X and Marc.

I am dreaming. I am not dreaming. I am really here, we really are passing Palazzo
Fortuny and Ca Rezzonico, we are passing under the arching whiteness of the Rialto,
we are looking at the houses where Wagner died and Marco Polo lived, the houses where
Stravinsky wrote and Henry James sighed, the houses of Browning and Titian and Casanova,
the palaces of poets and doges and princes and courtesans. I lie back, holding Marc’s
hand, enrapt. Still dreaming, never waking. Never wanting to wake. Murmuring the words
myself: “She walks in beauty like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies.”

Now I am here, I realize Byron was writing about
Venice,
not a woman. The city
is
the dark, seductive, moody woman, elusive, flashing-eyed, complex, ever sexual—and
flooded every month, yet somehow enduring. Venice is a dark, beautiful, and suicidal
poetess always trying to drown herself in a lake.

And Marc has slid his hand discreetly up my dress.

I say nothing. I point at one palazzo, fairly austere and gray.

“Isn’t that Byron’s
house
?”

“It is. The Palazzo Mocenigo.”

His hand is still between my thighs. Seeking, seeking.

“He lived there,” Marc goes on, “with a fox, a wolf, at least two monkeys, and a sickly
crow.”

His fingers stroke me, there, finding the source of my pleasure.

“A sickly crow?” I say innocently, trying not to gasp.

“I believe the crow expired. And that’s where his mistress threatened to drown herself
in the Grand Canal. She survived.”

The gondola turns, gently steered by the gondolier. Marc withdraws his hand from under
my dress, and I feel a faint pang of regret. I want him. I have a terrible and naughty
urge to lean across and unzip those fine black breeches and take him in my mouth.

What are the Mysteries doing to me?

Whatever it is, I like it. And I like being in Venice. We are heading north, up a
narrower canal, and as we go it is the
little
sights that intrigue me, the fleeting and tantalizing glimpses of side canals, the
couple kissing down a dark tiny
calli
as if they cannot be seen, a tiny church that stares at itself in the black, oily
water. Then someone singing in a yellow-lit room, then another gondola carrying a
woman crying, then fleeting lights in black alleys—that end in a wall with blinded
Gothic windows.

“Marc?”

I hold his hand tighter. The Fourth Mystery is approaching.

“Kiss me.”

He leans to his side and kisses me, quite fiercely, on the lips, then he lifts his
handsome face away.

“Can you see us?” he says. And I realize he means the Constellation of Us: up there,
near Orion.

I nod, with an unexplained urge to cry.

“I can see us, Marc. I can see us.”

The silence is maybe the most stunning quality. Venice at night. No cars. No engines.
Is this the most silent city on earth? Just the quiet slap of canal water on medieval
marble, and the gentle caroling of a gondolier. And beyond it silence. Dead and beautiful
nothingness, like a city on the edge of dissolving.

The gondola is steering us to the very edge of Venice. I sit up; now I can see open
water, the wider lagoon. Glittering lights from Murano, maybe, then the low, dark,
somber shape of the cemetery island: the island of death.

“We’re nearly there,” says the gondolier in English.

He needn’t. I know we are approaching because we are now, abruptly, in a crush of
other boats, more gondolas, some water taxis,
lots
of water taxis. A vaporetto is berthed on the waterside that fronts the wider lagoon.
People are stepping off all the boats and gondolas in elaborate clothes, exquisite
Regency costumes, just like me and Marc. Again. I can see dresses of mull and gauze,
and delicious silk satin, and bodices and chemisettes and gowns from the Empire and
the Directoire. And men in fitted tail coats and high white collars and stiffened
silk cravats.

These are my people. Hard as it is for me to believe.

I turn and look above them. And ask, “Is that it? That building?”

I am staring at a modest, square palazzo, evidently historic, situated forlornly at
the very end of the canal. Facing the lagoon, the building is somehow isolated and
cruelly exposed, like a child sent into a corner of the classroom.

“It is the Casino degli Spiriti,” says Marc. “It has a rather baroque history: hauntings
and artists, poets and orgies.” He lifts my arm and assists me off the gondola. “Please
do not worry, X. The Fourth Mystery is one of the sweetest.”

Of course I am worrying. But I am stirred and excited too, as I see the now-familiar
girls in white coming to greet us and give us glasses of wine, as we wait to step
inside.

The gondolier poles his boat away; the other boats disperse. One of the handmaidens
steps forward and squats down in front of me. Then, quite brusquely, she lifts up
my translucent muslin dress, revealing my nudity to the world, to all the people around
me.

I have been told to wear no panties. That I have obeyed this firm instruction is now
obvious to everyone. The girl squints and she examines my tattoo, above my garter,
and then drops the dress with a curtsey.

All of this is being done on a canal sidewalk in Venice, watched by dozens of people,
dozens of rich, sophisticated people—some of whom I recognize: celebrities, politicians—and
yet I suppress my shame and embarrassment. I drink wine and talk with Marc as the
girl does her job. The people all around me talk and nod and drink. And then we are
led by one of the handmaidens inside the Casino degli Spiriti.

The house is larger than it looks from outside. The bottom floor is shadowy and quite
grand. It is also slightly sinister in its darkness. Cryptlike, even. It has a faint
odor of damp from the lagoon, lapping outside. Now we are invited upstairs. This floor—the
piano nobile,
the principle floor—is brighter and
much
more impressive. White stone gothic arches and white marble pillars support a tall
and elaborately plastered ceiling; the room is wide and airy, and akin to a ballroom.
Mildly erotic frescoes adorn the walls, blush pink and white, with female nudes and
cherubim. Tiepolo, perhaps.

The handmaidens are dutifully handing out large metal cups.

“This is kykeon,” says Marc. “Drink an entire cup.”

Kykeon?
I have, of course, heard of this. The drug of the Eleusinian mysteries. The fabulous
yet secretive narcotic.

For the first time tonight I seriously pause. Drugs? I do not take drugs; my only
experience of drugs has been the odd hit of marijuana, which made me sick, and made
the room spin. Marc senses my hesitance.

“It is all legal, made from herbs, and wildflowers.”

“But what herbs?”

“I’ve not the faintest idea, X. It is a
mystery
.”

He smiles. Regretfully.

The handmaiden is staring at me. I chasten myself for my timidity. I have come this
far: I want to know the Fourth Mystery and I cannot lose Marc. Just cannot.