The Story of X: An Erotic Tale (5 page)

C
HAPTER
S
IX

N
O.
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.

“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?”

I look at him, and he looks at me.

Kicking off my sandals under the table, I sit back, driving the worries from my mind
again and focusing on the moment. Only the moment.

“Why not, Marc. You choose. Choose for me.”

He nods, with just a hint of a smile.

“Okay.”

I smile in return. I am barefoot in the sun, and now the relaxation is working—it
is pervading me like a drug: anesthetizing the pain of the morning. We are surrounded
by happy Italian families chattering and eating, where the scents of lemon and good
cooking and the glittering sea all waft and refresh.

“And some wine? If you will permit me?”

“You officially have my permission. Not least, Marc Roscarrick, because you’re paying.”

Where did that come from? Maybe danger has emboldened me, made me flirtatious. He
laughs anyway.

“Very good point. Okay, we will have some wines from the Alto Adige—you know it?”

“No.”

“It’s the far north of Italy, the South Tyrol, where they speak German. One day, maybe
. . .” He gazes at me, then shakes his head, as if correcting himself. “The wines
are just brilliant, but barely known outside the region. My family has estates there—vineyards
and a
schloss
. That is to say, a castle.”

“But of course,” I say, half smiling. “Who hasn’t got their own
schloss
? I used to have a
schloss
but I got bored.
Schlosses
are
so
last year. Now I want a
palacio
.”

“Ah. You’re teasing me.”

“You’re a billionaire. The first billionaire I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not sure whether to be gratified, X.”

“What’s it like having that much money, anyway?” I crunch a breadstick. He smiles
at my audacity. There is a European flag fluttering over his shoulder, bleached pale
blue in the seafront sun.

“Not having to worry about money is like not having to worry about the weather,” he
shrugs. “It is an incalculable advantage; I do know I am very lucky. But I had to
work to make a real fortune. And being rich brings its own difficulties.”

“Such as? Too many private jets? An annoying choice of beautiful women wanting to
sleep with you?”

“No.” His sparkling eyes meet mine. “It makes life more . . . ah . . .
complicated
. Say you buy a Tuscan villa. Then you have to pay someone to look after the villa—because
you aren’t there most of the time. Then you have to pay someone to protect the man
who is looking after the villa. Then you have to hire someone to check the man who
protects the man who . . . well, it becomes a crashing bore.” He pauses. And chuckles,
that languid, infective chuckle. “I’m not looking for sympathy.”

“You’re not getting it.”

Our food has arrived. It looks a little odd, and also beautiful: chunks of soft white
fish laced with pink “lobster foam,” like a kind of translucent froth of pale rose
caviar; and all of it lying on the green island of risotto—rice tinged with basil.

And then I taste it.

“Oh my God.”

“You like it?”

“It’s . . .” I struggle for the words. “It is delicious. Like nothing I have ever
eaten.”

“Good!”

His smile is wide and dazzling. I can see the dark vee of his bare chest under his
open-neck shirt. Dark hairs, a little gilded by sun maybe. His elegant hands reach
for a wine bottle that lies tilted in a silver bucket.

“And now the Gewürztraminer. Lightly chilled, from Tremen, in the Etsch valley. That
is where Gewürztraminer was
invented
. It matches the slight spiciness of the basil and the angler fish.”

My only previous experiences of Gewürztraminer have been cheap German wine, or cheaper
Californian remakes. I sip, somewhat reluctantly, but Marc is right. Of course; I
bet Marc is
always
right. The wine is delicious. It lacks that icky sweetness I expected; it is rich
yet dry, with a ghost of floral perfume. Just perfect, dammit.

We drink and eat, and the conversation warms, and then it positively
flows
: I tell Marc funny stories from my days as a student, stories about me and Jessica.
They are not
that
funny, but Marc laughs, and his laughter seems real, and as the lunch proceeds my
mind is again suffused with a sense of well-being. The terror of the alleyway seems
like it happened to a different person, in a different time.

The wine is crisp and cool and lovely, and the afternoon stretches sunnily ahead,
and I can hear people chattering happily away in Italian all around me, and it is
like the best soundtrack ever. I am glad I do not understand the people here, because
their talk becomes blissfully meaningless, just a mellifluous burble of foreignness.

At last Marc sits back. And he tilts his handsome head, looking at me with curiosity.

“X. You still haven’t asked me about this morning. Are you no longer interested?”

He’s right. I haven’t asked. Why is this?

It is partly because I don’t want to ruin the moment, perhaps. But it is also because
my mind is helplessly clouded. And it is clouded by thoughts—not of the morning’s
events—but of sex. Right now, right this minute, I want to make love with Marc. I
want to feel his hands on my skin; his lips on my lips; his hands caressing me, endlessly.
I imagine us on a beach, alone and together. The sun above me, Marc above me . . .
It feels wholly inappropriate, after what I have just experienced, in the alley; yet
it feels wholly natural, too. I want life, and love, even more.

Moreover, I can see by the way Marc looks at me that maybe he wants me
as well
. A moment ago I stood and shifted to another chair to keep out of the beating sun,
and I saw him staring at my legs, at my bare feet. With pure and devouring lust. Trying
not to look but looking. And now he gazes at me.

The erotic tension between us, the almost-touching-ness, is delicious yet unbearable.
Gloriously intolerable. It cannot go on. It must go on. The drought must break, the
wet season must return. Yet still the sun beats down.