Lilian

Prologue Johnny Morelli is celebrating his thirtieth birthday in his luxury villa in Thailand. His wealth allows him to celebrate it anywhere he wants to in the world, but this is an extraordinary occasion, so he decided to throw himself a party hidden from the world. The house on Phuket’s prestigious coastal hill is the perfect spot for such an event. There will be a party with his friends in Miami too, where he lives, however before that, he has organised this private celebration for himself. It starts today, on Friday, and will last until Sunday. After a few days of rest, he will set off to the United States. The party is attended by one host and twenty-five guests, twenty of whom are women, all of them celebrities: top models, beauty queens, actresses, singers, porn stars, and the distressingly beautiful new meteorologist from CNN. Johnny is convinced that he is having the time of his life with the twenty prettiest women on earth. Johnny is by the swimming pool, sunbathing in the company of an actress, the previous year’s Oscar nominee, Hollywood’s latest starlet, and a blond porn star—the embodiment of many men’s secret desires. They are chatting, laughing, and drinking tequilas, one after the other. The meteorologist is relaxing in the pool with a cocktail in her hand. She had lost her bikini top about an hour ago. Johnny has been a ladies’ man all his life. He is tall and handsome, a modern-day Don Juan. He inherited his American mother’s and Italian father’s attractive features, and his mixed-blood skin creates an illusion of being under the sun all year long. Moreover, he is blindingly rich, thanks to the prospering companies of his parents and the family inheritance, including the hundreds of millions his grandfather made through shady dealings, then laundered clean. Johnny was born and grew up in the United States. In high school, he abandoned his given name, Gerald, and started using Johnny. After graduating from Stanford, he plunged into the business world at his father’s company. The company prospered so Johnny had as much free time as he was unashamed to take. He knew times would eventually change so he tried to make best of his younger, responsibility-free years. Johnny Morelli bought a twenty-thousand square foot villa in Thailand, a fact known only by a handful of people. This is where he brings the women dearest to his heart, those he wants to spend more than a day with. Maybe even a week. There is a breath-taking view at the Andaman Sea from the balcony where Johnny is standing and from the terrace where a pool is located. The turquoise blue water sparkles like the most valuable diamond in the world. The sea is dotted with lush green islands and white beaches. The sight always set Johnny’s—and of course the girls’—hearts throbbing, and the current guests feel the same, although being well-connected and having a fortune means they must have visited many places all over the world. The air is warm, the sun is sparkling brightly, and the colours are vivid. Only the salty sea breeze, the ice-cold drinks, and the cool water of the pool alleviate the blazing heat. One of the singers—though no more than nineteen, two of her songs have already appeared on the hottest American billboard lists—tells Johnny that she thinks this is the best place in the world and Johnny agrees. Johnny promises her to bring her here every year. She giggles at this, and so does Johnny as he unclips her bra, which comes loose obediently and falls on the snow-white stone of the balcony. Her beautiful, curvy, suntanned breasts spill out from under her long brown hair. “Lovely!” thinks Johnny. Not everyone can become a star. The singer keeps on giggling as if nothing had happened. Loud music is blasting in the house, and the girls are dancing in flimsy summer clothes, some in bikinis and others half-naked. Then the music transitions to soft melodies, the light and gentle vocals of a female singer, and rhythmic drumming. Johnny is dancing with two girls, then with three. They dance around him and adore him. A black American singer busts the best moves. The host stares in amazement as she dances to the rhythm of the music as if she had the body of a panther. Now and again, she darts a glance at him and smiles. She is glad that Johnny enjoys the show. Her breasts obediently, but with a little delay, follow the rhythm of her dance under her short, black top, momentarily and playfully slipping out, but never putting everything on display. Not yet. The villa has four bedrooms, and Johnny has just entered one with two bombshells. On his right side, the action star of a blockbuster movie hitting last year eight hundred million dollars at the box office, and the other woman, with disproportionately large breasts compared to her hips, is the current Miss Sweden, whose blonde hair attracts men’s eyes like a muleta teases a bull. The party is frenetically wild. They are drinking the most expensive drinks, snorting cocaine, taking speed, smoking pot, or doing all of these together, listening to the music seeping out from inside, enjoying the sun and Johnny’s company. Everything is allowed here, there are no taboos, and anything that happens here will remain Johnny’s secret. The stars don’t know this. They are just having a good time. Johnny has brought so many drugs and booze to the party that it will certainly last until Monday without anybody having to leave the house for more. There is no way that twenty-six people can drink so much beer, champagne and spirits, although they do look like they are doing their best to achieve this feat. Johnny is standing on the balcony and kissing a singer, who grabs him by the hand and pulls him inside the house. Johnny looks back down to the lower balcony and sees Johnny in the pool making love to the meteorologist, another Johnny feeling up a Thai model under a room-sized sunshade, being caressed by an Oscar nominee and a porn star without clothes, except for her rectangular, secretary-style glasses she left on at his request, because that is how he remembers her from a movie. The singer leads Johnny from the balcony into the house. They walk past a room, its door wide open. Inside, on a queen-size bed another Johnny is lying with the most beautiful Japanese actress. The past few hours have visibly exhausted them. Johnny has just passed a joint to the Japanese beauty. They are smiling at each other playfully, like a couple sharing a secret. The singer steps into a spacious bathroom with Johnny and pushes the door closed, but through a crack they are still visible as she undoes the side-knot of her bikini bottom. There are twenty-six people in the villa, twenty of them are women, and the rest are Johnny. It’s his birthday, completely out of control with drugs, booze, and endless s*x with the most beautiful women in the world. It is Friday afternoon, and the party lasts until Sunday. There are twenty-five guests, but no one has been invited.