The Story of X: An Erotic Tale Read Online Free PDF

plotting something. God, is this ever going to dry?”
    She grabs a magazine and uses it as a fan to dry the polish on her toenails. Cotton
     swabs are scattered everywhere among the magazines and paperbacks. Jessica’s apartment
     is, as usual, something of a mess. When we roomed together in Hanover she used to
     exasperate me with her untidiness; now that I am living next door I find her slovenliness amiable, even lovable. Best of all, it is unchanging. In
     a confusing world, Jessica is the same, my best friend, my smart, funny, sane, and
     lovable friend. I really don’t mind if bloody Marcus Roscarrick desires her, not me.
    Her.
    Our thoughts are duetting; Jessica looks up from her newly cerise toenails and says,
     “So he really said I was beautiful, huh?”
    I can’t stifle the slight pang of jealousy in my heart, even though I love Jessica.
     She can’t hide the flash of sly delight in her cynical eyes.
    “Yes. He really said you were beautiful . . .” My smile is brave and maybe less than
     convincing.
    “Jessica Rushton. Apple of a billionaire’s eye? Better get my hair cut.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Dunno. Shag him?”
    “Jess . . .”
    She giggles, and then she stops giggling as she looks in the mirror tilted against
     a bare, painted wall.
    “Seriously, I soooooo need a haircut if I am gonna start appearing in celeb magazines.”
     She twists a few split ends between her examining fingers, then says, in a different
     voice, “The beautiful Jessica Rushton tells us about her lovely fitted kitchen, following
     her hundred-trillion-dollar divorce from Lord Roscarrick.” She glances my way. “We
     can get a Ferrari. I’ll buy you a Ferrari. Babes, I’m sorry, I know you fancied him.”
    “No, not at all—don’t be idiotic—please, Jessica.” This is again ridiculous. I am
     actually holding back tears. How can one stupid man turn me into such a pathetic mess?
     I hardly know him. He was faintly menacing. Yet I did yearn for him. I did. For that
     moment. My soul called, and there was a response, or so I thought. Now I feel a bit
     lonely. Ugh.
    Slipping on my sandals, I summon up my common sense.
    “No. I’m fine. I am in Naples. I am twenty-one. I have an excellent education. Avanti! ”
    “Attagirl.”
    “I am going to work. I’m here to work.”
    And so I do: I work.
    F OR THE NEXT fortnight I settle into a satisfactory and rewarding rhythm of hard work and just
     a little partying. In the mornings I study in my sunlit apartment. I study hard. I
     am good at studying.
    Amid my scattered books, laptop, and takeout cups of weirdly unsatisfactory cappuccino,
     I drive away thoughts of men with conjugations of the verbs credere and partire, and the precise structure of the futuro semplice.
    Tomorrow you will prepare pasta puttanesca.
    Domani prepari la pasta alla puttanesca.
    This lasts, on average, for about two hours.
    After the language learning comes the thesis. Between the hours of eleven A.M. and one P.M ., I blot out the memory of his Tyrrhenian blue eyes by rehearsing facts about the crime syndicates of south Italy, especially the Camorra,
     though I am also drawn to the even more sinister and mysterious ’Ndrangheta , the mafia of the toe of Italy.
    The ’Ndrangheta is a criminal organization in Italy, centered in Calabria. Though
     not as famous as the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, or the Neapolitan Camorra, the ’Ndrangheta
     is probably the most powerful crime syndicate in Italy, as of the early twenty-first
     century . . .
    There is something about the ’Ndrang that intrigues me. Maybe it is just the apostrophe
     before their name? Like the The in The Palazzo Roscarrick.
    No. Study. Come on, Alex. Study.
    The principal difference from the Mafia is in recruitment methods. The ’Ndrangheta
     recruits members on the basis of blood relationships. This makes the gangs extremely
     clannish, and therefore impenetrable to police investigation. Sons of ’Ndranghetisti