Sex and Vanity

by Kwan, Kevin

  As they walked toward the cliff to look out at the view, they came upon Olivia and Rosemary staring intently into a monitor held up by one of the younger drone operators.

  “What are you all staring at with such fascination?” Charlotte asked, ever the busybody, as she peered into the high-definition screen.

  “Oh, this man is showing us a rather curious spot that he’s making the drone fly over,” Olivia said.

  “We are standing right above Salto di Tiberio—Tiberius’s Leap. This is where the emperor would make all the subjects and servants that he didn’t like jump to their deaths,” the young man explained as he piloted his drone to fly sharply off the edge of the cliff toward the rocks hundreds of meters below.

  “Well, that’s a view to die for!” Olivia quipped.

  “There are a few servants of mine I wouldn’t mind doing that to,” Rosemary said.

  Charlotte glared at her in horror.

  “Hee hee hee—joking! I love all my servants.” Rosemary giggled. “Except maybe Princess. Princess has gotten rather lazy, which I guess goes along with her name.”

  “Come, Lucie, we forgot to deliver our congratulations to the Count and Countess,” Charlotte said, pulling at Lucie’s arm.

  As they pretended to walk in the direction of the receiving line, Charlotte fumed. “Ugh, that woman! I couldn’t take one more second of her. I know there are vast cultural differences between us, but I’m sorry, I find everything about her to be offensive. Her jokes, her snobbery, her inability to accessorize with any semblance of restraint.”

  “I get it, Charlotte,” Lucie said quietly, feeling quite exasperated with Rosemary herself.

  “With any luck, we’ll never have to cross paths with her again after this weekend,” Charlotte said as they passed the table where little cards embossed with every guest’s name had been carefully laid out in circles in preparation for the wedding banquet. “Ah, the seating chart! Let’s see where they’ve put me. If that woman is seated at my table, I will simply change the cards. Oh thank god, she’s nowhere near me.”

  Scanning the cards, Lucie saw that she was assigned to table 3. Almost reflexively, she found herself searching for George’s card and saw that he was at table 8. Damn, was this going to be yet another night where they wouldn’t have the chance to talk at all? Did she dare to quickly swap cards when Charlotte wasn’t looking so that she would be at table 8 too?

  Bending down to peer more closely at the cards, Charlotte said, “You know, I do love looking at seating charts. They’re always a fascinating indicator of who’s considered important at any event. See, you’re at table three, which is a prime spot as one of the tables orbiting the bridal couple. I’m at table nineteen, which is most certainly Siberia. Last night I was seated in between the second wife of the De Vecchi’s tax lawyer and Isabel’s dog psychic from Ojai.”

  “I would have preferred them any day over Mordecai von Ephrussí,” Lucie replied, annoyed that Charlotte was so attentive to where she was sitting. How could she possibly change her table now? They wandered through the villa’s inner chambers for a while, and when Charlotte became engrossed in a discussion with Auden on the benefits of intermittent fasting, Lucie saw her chance to slip away. She rushed back to the seating chart table, thinking that the best thing to do was swap out George’s seat so that he would be at her table.

  Arriving there, she discovered to her dismay other guests swarming around the table in search of their own seating cards. The cocktail hour was about to end, and guests were making their way back toward the fleet of golf carts to head down to Villa Lysis for the banquet. By the time the crowd had dispersed, Lucie saw that she was too late. George’s seating card was missing, so he must have already come by and taken it.

  Returning to Villa Lysis, the wedding guests were greeted by a battalion of footmen holding lit torches, dressed in costumes straight out of nineteenth-century Sicily. Entering the villa, the guests gasped in delight to discover interiors that had been utterly transformed since the wedding ceremony an hour ago. “I was inspired by Visconti’s Il Gattopardo,” Isabel told everyone after she made her grand entrance, sweeping down the vine-twined staircase in a Valentino couture ball gown that looked as if it was constructed entirely of silk rosettes and billowing white ruffles, reminiscent of the gown Claudia Cardinale wore in the legendary film.

  It was the understatement of the year. Studio Peregalli, the famed Milanese design atelier, had been commissioned to re-create the set of the film inside the villa, and when the guests entered the banquet room, they were treated to a magnificent space draped from floor to ceiling in yellow moire silk, towering antique tulipieres bursting with apricot peonies, and tables set with heirloom china from the royal house of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. The entire space seemed to sparkle, lit only by thousands of tapered candles hung from the ceiling in crystal lanterns.

  Lucie took her seat at table 3, feeling giddy as she admired the voluptuous surroundings and watched the waiters crisscrossing the room in nineteenth-century livery and powdered wigs. The decadence of it all was almost too much to bear, and she felt as if she had suddenly been transported into the pages of her favorite childhood fairy tale, “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”

  “Hey there,” said a voice to her right. Lucie turned and saw George taking the seat beside her.

  She glanced at the place card in the silver holder, and sure enough, it read MR. GEORGE ZAO.

  “Wait a minute! Did you change seats?” Lucie asked in surprise.

  “Er … would you like me to?” George asked.

  “No, no, I meant … I just thought someone else was sitting next to me.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Lucie said, getting flustered.

  “I know,” George said, suddenly flashing a disarming smile.

  “Oh.” Lucie felt like a fool.

  “How are you today?”

  “I’m good,” Lucie replied automatically, before wondering what exactly he meant. Did the addition of the word “today” mean that he was checking if she was hungover? What exactly was he implying? Oh god, she was never ever going to get drunk ever again. Fed up with the never-ending cycle of doubt she seemed to have trapped herself in, she decided it was time to rip off the bandage, hard. She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “Okay, I just have to ask … were you on the yacht last night?”

  George grinned. “You don’t remember?”

  “I do … kinda … Weren’t you wearing some strange furry costume?”

  “Says the girl who was dressed like Madonna.”

  “I know what I wore. I’m asking what you came as.”

  “Myself.”

  “Did anything, you know … happen?”

  “What do you think … happened?” George asked, clearly amused by her apparent amnesia.

  Lucie gave him an exasperated look, and he decided to put her out of her misery. “Lucie, nothing of significance happened that I can think of. I went home pretty early. You were dancing with the girls when I left.”

  Lucie let out a quick sigh. Thank God she didn’t make a fool of herself with him, at least. She wondered if what she was feeling was relief or regret. Then she remembered the Neruda poem. Just as she was about to ask if he had slipped the poem under her door, a pretty blond girl in her thirties sat down in the chair to George’s right.

  “Hallo! I am Petra [Munich International School / London School of Economics / Barbara Brennan School of Healing / The Omega Institute / Esalen],” she said with a German accent.

  “Hi, Petra, I’m George.”

  “Are you from Australia?”

  “I’m from Hong Kong, but I went to school in Australia.”

  “Ja, I could hear the Aussie in your voice!”

  “Where are you from?” George asked politely.

  “Originally Munich, but I am really just a nomad. I’ve lived in Bali, Ibiza, Fort Lauderdale, Rhinebeck, Big Sur—wherever spirit guides me.”


  Lucie wanted to roll her eyes. This girl was obviously one of the trustafarian, New Agey friends Issie had met since moving to LA. Not wanting George to get hijacked for the rest of the dinner, she impulsively did something she knew her grandmother would never approve of. She leaned over George, stuck out her hand, and said, “Hi, Petra, I’m Lucie!”

  “Hallo, Lucie! Are you from Malibu?”

  Lucie laughed. “No. I’m from New York.”

  “Ah, I thought I met you once at a drum circle in Topanga. I know Issie and Dolfi from Malibu.”

  “Of course you do,” Lucie said with a smile.

  Turning back to George, Petra continued. “I looove Australia, especially Byron Bay! I go there a lot because there is this really great hoshindo sensei there. Have you ever done hoshindo?”

  “I haven’t. Is it like ayahuasca?”

  “No, no, no, nothing like that. Ayahuasca is so last year! Hoshindo is Japanese for ‘bee venom therapy.’ It’s like acupuncture in some ways, but it predates acupuncture by one thousand years. It was invented before the Bronze Age, in the time before they had needles, you see, so they used bee venom to treat the meridians and heal your body.”

  “Bee venom? Are they live bees?” Lucie jumped in.

  “No, unfortunately the bees have to sacrifice themselves for your healing. And you don’t get stung—they remove the stingers from the bees and just brush it lightly against your skin, to stimulate an immune response. That’s all it takes. I always do a ceremony for the bees after I have a session. I think that’s very important to honor their gift. I’m an empath, you see. I do energy healing work, so I am very sensitive to all animals, to the land, to places. Like this villa, for example. It has terrible energy.”

  “Really, you can sense it?” Lucie asked, genuinely curious.

  “Absolutely. Look at my arms! All these goose bumps! If it weren’t for you nice people distracting me right now, I would be miserable here. I would have cramps and be in the toilet making nonstop diarrhea.”

  “Oh my. I’m glad we’re here for you,” Lucie said, trying her hardest not to giggle.

  “What is it about this house that creates the bad energy for you? Is it because of how it’s sited on the land?” George probed.

  Petra stared at George and Lucie in surprise. “Ja, the feng shui is very unfortunate, but that’s not the only reason. You don’t know the story? The owner died here. Jacques Fersen. I can sense his spirit in the house, even among us right now, and he is very restless.”

  Lucie looked at her dubiously. “Really?”

  Petra took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. “Ja, Fersen was a French baron.fn3 He was very handsome and rich, but he got kicked out of Paris because he was having affairs with all the scions of the French aristocracy. It was a big scandal, because these were the sons of top politicians and noblemen. So they wanted to throw him in jail, but instead he fled to Rome. There he fell in love with another schoolboy, Nino, and he brought Nino here to this island, where they built this villa and threw the most amazing drug parties. If you go downstairs, there’s a sunken opium den where Fersen and Nino would get high and have orgies with the most famous artists and writers of their day.”

  “Really?” George remarked.

  “Ja, this place was like the Studio 54 of Capri in its day.”

  Lucie wasn’t sure whether to believe this woman, but she was fascinated all the same. “So how did Fersen die?”

  “They say it was suicide, that he drank a lethal cocktail of champagne and cocaine in his opium den. But you know, I don’t believe that. His spirit is telling me that he wouldn’t kill himself like that.”

  Lucie and George contemplated her words for a moment, and when George looked up, he saw his mother waving at him from a few tables down, trying to get his attention. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, getting up from the table.

  Lucie smiled at Petra, deciding that she liked this girl in spite of her strange stories and all her talk of spirits. Petra returned Lucie’s smile and said, “You know there’s a full moon tonight. Anything can happen. I’m so glad I changed the place cards for us.”

  Lucie’s jaw dropped. “You changed the place cards?”

  “Yes. I was staring at the seating chart up at Villa Jovis, and the name card beside us said ‘Colby,’ and I thought, No, no, that’s not right. There isn’t supposed to be a Colby sitting between me and you. The energy is all wrong. So I looked around and something made me pick up George’s card. And when I placed the card next to us, I could feel the flow. I thought, Lucie and George and Petra. We three were meant to be together tonight.”

  Lucie looked at her with a mixture of surprise and confusion.

  Petra caught her look and gave a throaty laugh. “I hope you didn’t think I meant a three-way! No, thank you, I’m not into three-ways. I did it for you and George.”

  “I’m not sure why,” Lucie said stiffly.

  “Oh, come on. The chemistry between you two is crazy. All my chakras are opening just thinking of you two!”

  “But I don’t really know him.”

  Petra laughed again and shook her head. “You two have known each other over many lifetimes. You just don’t realize it yet.”

  You two have known each other over many lifetimes. The words echoed in Lucie’s mind all through the five-course dinner, the toasts made by various Chius and De Vecchis, the cutting of the wedding cake, the handing out of bomboniere, and Isabel’s first dance with Dolfi while some guy named Erosfn4 serenaded them and all the Italians went nuts, and even now, as she wandered the grounds of Villa Jovis, Lucie couldn’t shake off Petra’s words no matter how hard she tried.

  Isabel and Dolfi had invited their closest friends to the wedding after-party back up at Villa Jovis, where the palace’s ruins had been luxuriously outfitted with velvet ottomans and sofas, fur throws, and painted silk lanterns. This being Italy, everyone lingering about the villa’s grand chamber seemed to be smoking either cigarettes or joints, and Lucie opted to get some fresh air instead. Besides, George hadn’t paid her any attention since dinner, and now he seemed all too happy to be curled up in the corner, deep in conversation with Daniella and Sophie.

  Taking the lit pathway around the side of the palace’s outer wall, Lucie walked by Tiberius’s Leap again and spotted a glowing stairway that she hadn’t noticed earlier in the day. Curious, she went down the steps and through a heavy rusted metal door and discovered a narrow candlelit chamber. The chamber was built into the cliffside, its ceiling eroded away by time and open to the stars. A seating area had been carved out of the rocks, and at the far end, a small window faced the sea.

  Lucie went up and peered out at the view. The waters looked almost phosphorescent tonight under the gigantic moon, and Lucie wished she could go swimming in the moonlight. She wondered what it must be like inside the fabled Blue Grotto during a full moon, and she decided that no matter what happened, she had to see the grotto tomorrow. It would be their last day on Capri.

  She suddenly realized how silly she had been, nursing this strange fascination with George, when after tomorrow she would in all likelihood never see him again. Petra was dead wrong—George had no interest in her; he had made it abundantly clear all week long. She was the one who fainted in the square, she was the one who slobbered like a little girl on his shoulder, she was the one who had thrown herself at him in Positano.

  While he had been polite to a fault, he had for all intents and purposes ignored her after that. He had ignored her at the monastery, he had ignored her on the yacht, and he was ignoring her right now. Why did she even entertain the notion that someone like him could possibly be interested in her, when up at the villa there was a bevy of beautiful, sophisticated women clinging to his every word. She must have been swept up in wedding fever, in the waxing moon, in the romance of Capri.

  As she was about to leave the chamber, she heard the sound of someone coming down the steps, and a moment later George appeared at the threshol
d.

  For some reason, she knew it was going to be him.

  “Are you stalking me?” she joked, trying to sound nonchalant, although she could hear her voice quivering.

  “Yes, actually.”

  “Really. Why?”

  “Because I need to give you this,” George said, as he suddenly leaned forward and kissed her. Taken by surprise, she lurched backward for a moment, before reaching around, grabbing his head, pulling him closer, and kissing him hungrily.

  “Isabel told everyone last night that you were her little angel, you were off-limits. That’s why I went home,” George whispered as he kissed the area right below her ear.

  “Fuck Isabel. I was off-limits to everyone but you,” Lucie muttered, surprised by her own words as she realized at that moment how much she wanted him, from the first moment she had set eyes on him in the lunchroom of the hotel to the vision of him as a godlike Apollo diving off the rock at Da Luigi, she had wanted him so desperately she could hardly breathe, gasping deeply while he shoved the heavy door closed with his foot, pressed her body against the ancient stone wall, kissing her throat, her neck, letting his mouth linger, as she reached for him urgently. They lay on the bench and he kissed her for what seemed like an eternity, but Lucie didn’t want it to ever stop, and as his fingers and lips found her breasts and tortured her so exquisitely, she found herself pushing his head down, down, down, until her diaphanous skirt pooled around his head and she could feel his stubble graze her inner thigh, his searing tongue on her skin, hearing him murmur, “Are you sure it’s okay?” as she answered with a moan, opening herself to him, closing her eyes as time collapsed and she submitted in a way she never had before, letting herself get lost in a pleasure so intense she thought she was going to pass out, holding her breath, biting her lip trying not to scream as his warm sweat beaded down her legs, her heart pounding in her chest, pounding as if it would explode, pounding louder and louder until a scream filled her ears and she realized it wasn’t coming from her and wasn’t coming from George, but from Charlotte.