Love Creeps: A Novel Read online

  “So talk.”

  “In person.”

  “Then catch up with me right now and tell me.”

  “No, because then Lynn will do the same, and she mustn’t hear.”

  Alan sighed. “I’m on my way to a doctor’s appointment. I can tell the doorman to let you in, and not Lynn. We can talk in the waiting room. It’s Dr. Reilly, third floor.” Alan turned off his phone.

  In the waiting room, Alan read a magazine. There were two other people in the office: a young woman and a man in his fifties, arms crossed, legs not, staring straight in front of him, which happened to be at Alan.

  Roland arrived. “Why are you seeing a dermatologist? Acne?”

  Alan sighed. “No.”

  “Melanoma?”

  “No. My skin is dry.”

  “You’re here because your skin is dry?” Roland said, sitting in the chair next to Alan’s.

  “It’s very dry,” Alan said. “From the chlorine. What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “I assume you would like it if Lynn, and therefore I, too, stopped stalking you.”

  “No. ‘Like’ doesn’t describe how I would feel. I would love it. Which reminds me, shouldn’t you be at work? What excuse did you give them?”

  “I said I had something to do in court. And you? What did you tell your boss?”

  “That I had a doctor’s appointment,” Alan answered, looking at Roland with meaning. “I think you’re missing even more work than I used to when I was stalking.”

  Lynn waited outside patiently for the two men. A passerby noticed her standing there and stopped.

  “Well, hello, Lynn.” It was Maria Stanley, a social-climbing artist.

  “Hi there,” Lynn said.

  “I heard you didn’t attend Jania and Peter Collin’s party. They didn’t invite you?”

  “Yes, they did. I had something else to do,” Lynn said, trying to remember what had prevented her from going. She suddenly remembered she had been attending a Stalkaholics Anonymous meeting.

  “Oh,” Maria said, sounding disappointed. “They didn’t invite me. I felt excluded.”

  “Yeah, I know how you feel.”

  “But you were invited.”

  “Yeah, but exclusion can come in all shapes and sizes.”

  “I doubt you get excluded very often.”

  “Not true. Just last week I was excluded by a club I tried to join.”

  “What kind of club?”

  “A club for people who want nice hair,” Lynn said, stretching the truth a little bit—it was actually a club for people who wanted hair. It was the Hair Club for Men.

  Maria gazed at Lynn’s lustrous, dark blond hair. “You already have nice hair. Is that why they rejected you?”

  “No,” Lynn said, self-consciously pushing a bunch of hair behind her ear. “But anyway, you shouldn’t get upset about not being invited to parties. Exclusion is like an apple. Getting a regular dose of it is healthy and keeps the doctor away.” She was suddenly reminding herself of poor dead Judy, with her extravagant theories on happiness.

  Maria didn’t seem comforted by Lynn’s words. Lynn took pity on her and gently added, “Your invitation probably got lost in the mail.”

  The artist smiled feebly. “What are you doing here? Are you waiting for someone?”

  “Yes.”

  Maria said good-bye and walked away.

  “Let’s get back to my topic,” Roland said to Alan in the waiting room. “There is one way to make Lynn and me stop stalking you.”

  “And what is that?”

  “If I win her back.”

  “You’ve been failing miserably.”

  “I need your help.”

  “I’ve already spoken highly of you to her. I don’t see what more I can do.”

  “Redo the weekend deal,” Roland said.

  “You’re insane.”

  “I’m sure I can win her back if I just have one weekend with her.”

  “But I don’t want to spend a weekend with her,” Alan said.

  “I did it for you.” Roland looked as though he suddenly realized the extreme ineptitude of that argument. After all, he had ended up keeping Lynn for himself on that famous weekend. He quickly added, “I’ll do the weekend with her first, and I’ll win her over, like the last time. Then you won’t have to do the weekend with her, and she’ll be off your back.”

  “But what if she still wants to do the weekend with me afterward? If I give her my word, I can’t back out. I’m not like you. Or like her.”

  “I thought of that, and if it comes to that, maybe you should do it. It would give you a terrific opportunity to make her fall out of love with you. It’s a lot easier to be unappealing during a weekend than while walking down the street.”

  Roland had a point. And made another. “And then you would be free of her, free of me, free of your stalkers.”

  “Okay. It’s worth a shot. I’ll talk to Jessica about it. I think I can persuade her to trust me.”

  When they were all back on the street, Lynn said to her stalker and stalkee, “I felt excluded just now. I know you guys were plotting something. It disrupts the stalking order, what you did, and that’s wrong. You two have nothing to discuss without me.” After a moment she said, “So what were you plotting?”

  “Nothing,” they answered, one walking ahead of her and one behind her.

  Alan and his girlfriend had a special day planned for the coming Saturday. Jessica had persuaded Alan to fulfill her rabbit suit/Central Park sexual fantasy. It had taken her months to talk him into it (she’d been trying since Easter).

  A small part of him could see the appeal of it. After all, he had enjoyed himself at Halloween, when he and Jessica kept repeating “We really shouldn’t,” while having sex dressed as a priest and a nun.

  But the reason he had finally agreed was that afterward might be a good time for him to ask Jessica if he could go on the weekend with Lynn.

  When they woke up on Saturday, Jessica said, “It’s not too hot. It’s a perfect day for wearing a rabbit suit.”

  Alan sighed, remembering Roland had guessed that the woman in the ocean had said, “It’s a perfect day for mangofish.”

  Alan and Jessica went to a children’s playground in Central Park. They were being followed by Lynn, and therefore also by Roland, who were wondering why Alan was dressed like a big pink rabbit. Roland suddenly remembered Alan telling him months ago that this was one of Jessica’s fantasies and an ongoing point of tension between them. Roland chuckled to himself.

  Alan was able to walk comfortably in the suit. It was not as heavy and hot and itchy as Alan had feared. Jessica headed for the jungle gym. She jumped, gripping an overhead bar. Her thin form lengthened and narrowed a little more. Alan glanced nervously at the hem of her very short plaid skirt. He knew she wasn’t wearing panties, and the elongated position she was in had caused her hem to rise. Luckily, no one was around, except for Lynn hiding in the bushes, and, therefore, Roland not far away either, but they didn’t really count.

  Jessica hung there, swaying gently, and said, “Frisk me.”

  “Frisk you?” Alan said.

  Her “Yeah” was a cavernous exhale.

  Sometimes when he frisked her he found her gun.

  He placed his rabbit head on a seesaw and approached Jessica. He pressed his palms against her ribs, against her back. He searched and came upon some very small, hard bumps, and he took them out, and they were pink foil-wrapped chocolate Easter eggs. He continued searching her body and he pressed his chest against her hips, and his face against her stomach, and he was turned on, not only sexually but romantically, and he loved her. She let go of the bar and slowly sank into his fluffy pink rabbit arms, wrapping her legs around his soft rabbit hips, crossing her ankles over his fuzzy white tail, and kissing him deeply.

  Lynn sighed painfully in the bushes.

  Alan was happy, but would have been even happier if Lynn weren’t hiding in the bushes. Hopefully
, his weekend with her would be the solution to the problem. He had to bring it up with Jessica that afternoon.

  But first, Alan and Jessica had sex on a bench. Jessica was sitting on his lap, facing him. There was a special opening in Alan’s rabbit suit.

  Then they had sex on the grass.

  Lynn and Roland knew exactly what they were doing, but not many other people did. It looked as though Jessica was just straddling the rabbit man lying on his back. She was barely moving.

  She and Alan then went to the Ramble, and walked on the path holding hands. Alan brought up his possible weekend with Lynn.

  No sooner had he explained the idea to Jessica than she started fleeing from him. She ran through the woods like a gazelle. Alan ran after her. Lynn and Roland ran after him, staring at his fluffy white tail bouncing crookedly behind him. It was poorly sewn on but cute anyway, Lynn thought.

  When Alan caught up with Jessica, she said breezily, “Let’s go downtown.”

  He couldn’t tell if her breeziness was benign or the type of breeze that turns into a hurricane.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Walking downtown, Alan kept his rabbit head on, hoping it would make her feel more kindly toward him. He finally, cautiously, asked, “So, how do you feel about this idea of my spending a weekend with Lynn?”

  Abruptly, Jessica turned right, walking into a clothing store. Alan frowned. He had a feeling she was upset. Part of him was flattered that she might be jealous.

  He followed her into the store, taking off his rabbit head like a gentleman taking off his hat upon entering a church.

  Neither of them realized they had just entered a store for larger-sized women.

  Jessica began compulsively trying on outfit after outfit, distraught and preoccupied by her own thoughts. There were no tags on the clothes indicating sizes, the store not believing in numerical sizes, so Jessica assumed the gigantic proportions were just a different, loose style.

  Alan thought the clothes really didn’t look very good on her, and they were not at all her usual style of dress. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what was wrong with them, because his sense of style was not much better than his sense of direction or observation, but then again, he wasn’t giving it much thought either; he was trying to read his girlfriend’s mind through her gestures. His best guess was that she was fuming with jealousy and trying unsuccessfully to hide it.

  Alan couldn’t have been further from the truth. Jessica was indeed very upset, but the one thought that kept running through her mind since Central Park was “I’ll try not to be too bad.” She was horrified at the prospect of being left to her own devices for a whole weekend. She was trying to bring herself to tell him not to go away with Lynn, so that she, Jessica, wouldn’t be able to indulge in all the fun she would be powerless to resist. Unable to make herself tell him, she decided not to think about it, hoping to gather willpower by finding an outfit that fit. None of the clothes suited her, which was weird; usually everything looked great on her. She was too perturbed to notice the reason.

  Jessica did not consider herself a sex addict. She knew she used to be one, but believed she no longer was. Yes, she had affairs. Yes, she had a morning lover and an afternoon lover, but so did lots of women, and that didn’t mean they were sex addicts. Even though she was not a sex addict, she knew that because she used to be one, she was vulnerable to temptation. Temptation had to be avoided at all costs. Alan should know that. Especially since he was a strong proponent of the ridiculous notion “Once an addict always an addict.”

  Outside, Lynn spied. She couldn’t understand why skinny Jessica was trying on large sizes in a store for heavy women. Suddenly, a chilling thought occurred to her: Perhaps Jessica was shopping for maternity clothes! Maybe she was pregnant!

  Jessica continued trying on outfits, drowning in them, as the war within her still raged.

  Alan thought she clearly seemed ill at ease with the weekend idea.

  “Jessica,” he said, “you’re not answering me. I need to know if it’s okay with you if I go on this weekend. I need you to tell me how you feel about it.”

  “Hang on, I want to find an outfit.”

  “We can go somewhere else if none of these fit you.”

  “No! I love these. The colors are gorgeous, and the material is soft and there is so much of it. I’ve never worn clothes this great. They’re unrestraining, I feel naked in them. I can feel my own flesh, it’s very sexy. Look, the armpits are so low, they come all the way down to the waist, practically. So the skin of my upper arm can feel the skin of my rib cage. It’s really fun and secretive. It feels like I’m my own lover.”

  She was restraining herself from screaming to Alan, “Go for it! Fuck her brains out! And I will do the same with my own lovers. Leave me to my fun!”

  The two large saleswomen sat there, watching Jessica.

  Alan saw their perplexed expressions, went up to them, and said, “Can you be honest with her and tell her these outfits just don’t look right?”

  One of the saleswomen exhaled, heaved herself up, and made her way to Jessica. “May I help you?”

  “Yeah, is this how it’s supposed to fit?” Jessica asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh, good, I had a feeling I hadn’t put it on right. How does it go?” she said, turning to the woman and holding her arms out, offering her body for modification.

  “These outfits don’t look good on you,” the woman said, without moving to help her.

  “I realize that. Could you make them look good?”

  “I can’t do it for you, but I can give you instructions.”

  “Okay,” Jessica said, thinking this woman must have some sort of phobia about touching people.

  “Go home, eat a box of cookies, a pint of ice cream, and six slices of pizza. Repeat every day. Come back in three months.”

  “Oh.” Jessica looked around her and finally understood. To save face, and also because it was true, she said, “That’s pretty much what I eat every day anyway. So I guess I should just give up hope that these clothes will ever fit.”

  The saleswoman nodded, and said, “Some things in life are unfair. It’s best just to accept defeat. Move on.”

  Jessica chose to take those words as military advice regarding her inner war. She nodded to the woman knowingly. “Thank you for your help.”

  They walked down the street without talking for a while, Alan carrying the rabbit head under his arm like a motorcycle helmet. Finally, he said, “I understand if you’re uncomfortable with this weekend idea. I just want to know your thoughts on it.”

  She was trying to persuade herself that maybe she’d have enough willpower not to engage in the mock-bordello scenario she always fantasized about. In the fantasy, she was in a bedroom, and there was a line of twenty men outside, taking their turns with her.

  “The foods that saleswoman mentioned made me hungry,” she said, and headed for an ice-cream store across the street.

  The ice-cream store only served those perverted European cones where the two scoops of ice cream were positioned side by side, like testicles. She always avoided getting those cones because they aggravated her problem. Sick, those Europeans, to make an innocent ice cream look like a penis.

  She considered not getting an ice cream at all, but she was afraid Alan would suspect her problem.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t suspect anything—she could never tell how obvious sex imageries were, to other people. Nevertheless, not wanting to risk arousing his suspicion, she took the cone and gave the testicles a tentative lick, just to look natural. She tried to be relaxed, but her tongue came out pointy and tense. It jabbed at the balls in a manner that might not have pleased them had they been alive.

  “So, what do you think about this weekend idea? Is it okay with you?” Alan asked.

  She looked at the ground, holding the edible penis guiltily. “Yes, it’s okay with me.” She was disappointed that she didn’t have enough willpower to tell him not to leave her to h
er orgiastic fun.

  Alan laughed. “Don’t seem so sad! You trust me, don’t you?”

  She sighed and nodded. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, kissing her temple and squashing her creamy testicles between his furry pink chest and her breast.

  “Oops.” He grinned. They wiped themselves.

  A few blocks later, they passed a bookstore, and Alan wanted to stop in.

  “Why?” asked Jessica. It had already been four hours since their last sexual intercourse, and today, on her day off, she expected more sex. Plus, the ice cream got her hot.

  “I want to check out a short story called ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish,’ that Roland told me to read,” Alan said. “Have you heard of it?”

  She didn’t answer. Alan looked at her and saw a curious expression on her face. He had no idea how to interpret it, so he repeated, “Do you know it?”

  “Yes. There’s no reason you should read it. Roland is a fool and an asshole. Let’s go.”

  “Aren’t you curious to know why he wanted me to read it?”

  “No”

  “Because you already know?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why?”

  “You obviously told him that story about when you were little and the woman said it’s a perfect day for mangofish and she helped you pet one. I don’t know why you open up to that bastard. You shouldn’t tell him personal stuff.”

  “It’s not very personal.”

  “Yes it is, as a matter of fact. It’s very personal.”

  “Well, I don’t agree,” Alan said, swinging open the door to the bookstore and heading toward the literature section.

  “Alan,” Jessica said, in a small voice behind him.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound harsh.” She stroked his neck affectionately and gave him a kiss. She looked sad.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, smiled reassuringly.

  He found the book. He skimmed the story and suddenly dropped his rabbit head, which went rolling down the isle. He sank to the floor. Jessica ran to his side, hugging him, kissing his cheek.

  “Say something,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”