Kwan Kevin - Sex and Vanity

George dove in, gasping at the icy cold water.

“How cold is it?” Lucie called out.

“Not too bad. Now, hand me the flashlight and dive in over here.”

Lucie braced herself, took a deep breath, and dove in.

“Jesus Christ, it’s freezing!” she cursed through her chattering teeth.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. I’m warming up already,” George said, as he swam up to her. “Okay, now follow my light.”

George put the flashlight in his mouth and glided through the darkness, while Lucie swam behind, following the bobbing light. Soon, they were at the mouth of the grotto, which was only about one meter high.

“This is the entrance where the rowboats go in?”

“It’s the one and only entrance,” George said, as he began swimming through the short tunnel. Soon, they were both inside the grotto, its towering limestone walls dimly lit by the weak flashes of light from George’s torch.

“So this is the Blue Grotto. I’m impressed.” Lucie laughed. “This is so silly, I feel like we’re spelunking in the dark.”

“Just wait a few minutes,” George murmured, checking his watch. His timing had been perfect, and it was now exactly 5:45 a.m. Sunrise would come at 5:53 a.m. He turned off his flashlight, and now they were in complete darkness.

“Was this place always here?” Lucie called out.

“It was a cave that formed over millions of years, and the sea levels rose up to what it is now,” George replied. “In Roman times, it was the emperor’s private nymphaeum, his bathing temple. I’m sure he got up to all sorts of nasty business here.”

They swam around the grotto for a few minutes, and without warning, there was a sudden flash as the sunlight broke across the horizon, refracting against the deep underwater cavern and transforming the water around them into the most intense azure blue. It was as if Poseidon had flicked on a vast lamp at the bottom of the ocean, flooding the grotto with the purest light.

Lucie gasped in disbelief. She had never seen waters so blue, so bright, so inexplicably beautiful. She felt as though she were suspended in the liquid center of a sparkling aquamarine, as though she were having an out-of-body experience. How was such a place possible? The towering walls of the grotto now glowed in shades of cerulean, and she realized that the cave they were in was far larger than she had imagined. She was overcome with gratitude that she had waited till now, and it was George who had finally brought her here. Tears flowed down her face, mingling with the salty sea as she gazed at everything around her like a newborn, wanting to remember every sight, wanting to remember everything about this moment.

She lazed on her back, feeling absolutely weightless as the waters caressed her skin. She thought of Tiberius, of Caesar Augustus, of all the emperors who had swum these same waters, and she let her mind drift further back in time to commune with all the mythical gods that she knew had a hand in creating this paradise, hoping that they would inspire and heal her.

After a while, she swam over to George as if in a trance. He looked to her like an otherworldly silver merman, and she noticed for the first time that both their bodies shimmered and glowed under the silvery surface of the water. Lucie simply stared into his eyes, too moved to say anything. George stared back at her in that unbearably alluring way of his, and then he broke into a grin, filled with an intense happiness at the sight of her joy. He took her in his arms, and they kissed passionately.

“I love you,” Lucie declared, kissing him again and holding him even more tightly.

“I love you too,” George replied, thinking, We’re going to do this again, and next time I’m bringing a ring.

They kissed for a few more minutes, lingering against each other, and then Lucie let go of George. She drifted with the current for a few moments, and then she raised her arms, kicked against the water with her powerful legs, and began to swim out of the grotto, into the bright new day.

Acknowledgments

It should be obvious from the first chapter that this novel is inspired by my love for E. M. Forster’s A Room With A View and the film adaption by James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. I am indebted to their collective genius in inspiring this homage. Grazie mille as well to these wonderful souls, who in their uniquely magical ways were instrumental in helping me to create this book:

Ettore Castelli

Ryan Chan

Judy Chicago

Gianluca D’Esposito

Todd Doughty

David Elliott

Ilana Fayon

John Fontana

Alicia Lubowski

Gillian Longworth McGuire

Aaron Goldberg

Simone Gers

Cornelia Guest

Suzanne Herz

Jenny Jackson

Alexandra Machinist

John Penotti

August Railey

Gemma Rose

David Sangalli

Holly Star

Lief Anne Stiles

Bill Thomas

Chai Vasarhelyi

Jimmy O. Yang

Jacqueline Zirkman

THIS IS JUST

THE BEGINNING

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Copyright © Tyersall Park Ltd 2020

Jacket illustration by Clément Dezelus

Kevin Kwan has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson in 2020

First published in the United States by Doubleday in 2020

www.penguin.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781473576889

PROLOGUE

1 Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, is considered one of the finest women’s liberal arts colleges in America, with notable alumnae like Gloria Steinem, Barbara Bush, and Julia Child. Not that this has stopped the nearby men’s fraternities from coining the saying “Smith to bed, Mount Holyoke to wed, and Amherst girls to talk to.”

I. CAPRI

CHAPTER ONE: ANACAPRI

1 Charlotte, like many native New Yorkers, called Manhattan “the city,” since to them it’s the only city that matters. (Charlotte was born at Lenox Hill Hospital, which, for New Yorkers of her generation in the 10021 zip code, was really the only acceptable place to be born.)

2 New York real estate speak for a prewar apartment that consists of seven rooms: a formal living room, a dining room, a separate kitchen, three full bedrooms, and a maid’s room. In 2018, the average median price for a classic seven was $4.6 million.

3 Le Bal des Débutantes, held in Paris every November, is a ball introducing debutantes from around the world. Previous debutantes have included girls from European aristocracy, the children of celebrities, and girls whose parents simply have insane amounts of money.