The Story of X: An Erotic Tale by A. J. Molloy Read Free Book Online

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