Love Creeps: A Novel Read online

  “Because you can’t change the past. There was no need for you to know.”

  “No need to know I was sexually molested as a child?”

  “What’s done is done.”

  Later that evening, Alan said, “I wish I had known years ago. My life could have been different.”

  He didn’t say anything more about it.

  But he thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it.

  His abuser was his mother’s neighbor, Miss Tuttle, and she had given him to pet what she claimed was a mangofish, but what he now learned was her vagina. He had been floating on her yellow raft. She had brought his hand under the water, his view blocked by the raft. She said the mangofish was shy and didn’t like to be seen. He remembered what it had felt like. It was mushy and it had folds. And yet, in all the years since, it had not occurred to him that he had touched the woman’s genitals.

  Maybe he would pay her a visit one day and confront her about what she had done.

  Over the years, Alan had frequently asked his mother how Miss Tuttle was doing. His mother had always told him Miss Tuttle was the same as ever, that she hadn’t moved and still earned her living mostly as a hairdresser, and occasionally entertaining children at birthday parties. He never understood why he inquired about Miss Tuttle. He didn’t care one way or the other about her. Now he recognized this neutrality was his repressed shame, his disgust, his hatred of her.

  In awe, he thought, I am actually a normal person, who happened to have been abused. Deep down, I am normal. I was not born defective—I was damaged a little later.

  Alan had always felt inferior to the other stalkaholics in SA meetings, who seemed more sane than he, because they talked about their childhood abusers, on which they blamed their stalking addiction. Alan had a happy, sound childhood, which made him feel like an outsider, a freak, a truer criminal than the stalkers with excuses.

  Now that Alan had discovered he had not had a wholesome childhood, things were different. His sexual abuse was like religion. It explained his deficiencies, his problems, even his lack of artistic talent. All of it was the fault of that abuser. He almost felt grateful to her. Grateful that he could dump it all on her. His stalking habit—her fault. His poor sense of direction, of style, of observation—her fault. His facial expressions that were formerly too drastic and too frequent—her fault. His poor singing, poor dancing, weight problem, hair loss, poor muscle tone—her fault. Life made sense. Finally.

  He pondered his problems with swimming. He wondered if there were swimming lessons made for survivors of aquatic sexual abuse. He thought of himself as a completely different person now: a victim. It was liberating and empowering. It raised his self-esteem. He marveled at how his life just kept getting better and better: First he had conquered his stalking addiction, then he had embarked on self-improvement and improved himself, then he had found a great girlfriend, and now he had just learned he was a victim of childhood sexual molestation!

  Patricia informed Lynn, “The British Transport and General Workers’ Union has rejected your application for membership on the grounds that you are not British and not a transportation or general worker.”

  Lynn nodded slowly, a look of concentration on her face.

  Patricia admired Lynn’s devotion to her rejection method, her perseverance in applying it despite getting rejected by Alan on a daily basis anyway.

  Alan and Roland told Lynn about their idea of redoing the weekend deal. They gave her no choice as to the order—she’d first be going with Roland, then with Alan.

  She agreed.

  Ray the homeless man still closed his eyes and held his breath when the stalking chain passed. He had long ago stopped his therapeutic comments. These beguiling crazy people.

  When Roland and Lynn arrived at the inn, Max exclaimed warmly, “Ah, Roland and his stalker!”

  “Not quite,” Lynn said. “Things have changed. Roland is now my stalker, and next week I’ll be coming with the man I’m currently stalking.”

  Lynn scrutinized Max. He hadn’t changed at all. He still had his long curly hair, his ruffles, his codpiece. For some reason, Lynn suddenly wondered how Max and the sex addict Jessica would have hit it off if they had met. After all, he was the guy who thought female stalkers were whores and wanted to be fucked. Jessica would probably have no problem with that. If he were to say to her, “Come and sit on my cock,” she’d probably say, “Are you sure you don’t mind?” It could free up Alan.

  When Roland was carrying their bags up to their rooms, Lynn said to Max, “The girlfriend of the guy I’m stalking is a very pretty sex addict. And in complete denial of her addiction. I think you guys would really hit it off. If I succeed in winning him over, she’ll be free. She forced her boyfriend to dress up as a big pink rabbit and have sex with her in Central Park.”

  “That seems a little tame,” Max said.

  Lynn coldly replied, “I think she would like you. That’s not tame. And neither is the fact that she has a gun.”

  When Lynn was unpacking, Roland found Max and asked him if he could speak to him privately. They went into Max’s office.

  Roland discreetly dropped a button. “I need you to help me win Lynn back.”

  “Sure, man. How?”

  “Make yourself as unattractive as possible.”

  “Why? You don’t need to worry about her being interested in me.”

  “I know. What I’m looking for is the contrast.”

  “Contrast?”

  “Between you and me. We need to increase the contrast. Even more.”

  “Why?”

  “So I’ll shine by comparison.”

  Max produced an amazed chuckle. “You think that would work?”

  “Yes. It did the last time.”

  “What do you mean? I wasn’t trying to be unattractive the last time.”

  “No, but it worked anyway. So it should work even better when you’re actually trying.” Roland realized he was being mildly insulting, and he didn’t know how to get himself out of it. So he tried this tack: “Lynn thinks that you and I are a perfect match, that you are my most sublime enhancer. You know, like a precious stone and its most perfect setting.”

  “You mean you shine, next to me, by contrast?”

  “Yes,” Roland said, as if this were a good thing.

  Max was silent. His mood had undergone a shift. He gazed at Roland fixedly. “Do you really think I can make myself even more unappealing than I already am? I mean, do you think there’s room for me to get worse?”

  “I don’t know. I would be at a loss how to do it. You would know.”

  “I guess I would. I’m honored that you have confidence in my judgment.”

  “Well, it worked the last time, and you weren’t even trying.”

  “No, I wasn’t trying to be unappealing. On the contrary, I was trying to be charming and entertaining. So you can just imagine how gross I’ll be when I’m actually trying to be repulsive.”

  He waited to see if Roland would say anything, object in any way, but he didn’t. Roland just nodded. And that’s when Max’s heart, which had gradually been sinking, finally hit bottom and broke. But he didn’t let on.

  Back in the city, Alan was sitting on his spotted white easy chair, stroking Pancake, who was sprawled on his lap, and dwelling on his abuse. He was relishing it and cursing it in turns, but he didn’t want it to take over his life, so he tried to distract himself by perusing some of his continuing education catalogs, even though it was too late to register for fall classes. In one of the catalogs, he came upon a particular swimming class he had not seen before. The name of it was, Swimming: For Adults Afraid in Water. There was a picture of a woman with a dolphin, and it said, “You can learn how to swim quickly and painlessly—and to love the water and the spectacular creatures in it!”

  Spectacular indeed, those creatures! He slammed the catalog shut. He felt mocked. How naïve he was. Or had he, in fact, known, deep down? That was the question th
at haunted him. Why else would he have attached a fish tail to the vagina he had sculpted in Goddess class, producing a vaginafish?

  He opened the catalog again and read the rest of the class description: “A variety of swimming aids are used, from swim noodles to floating devices.”

  Again, he felt mocked. Was the catalog implying he was a noodle? In his own swimming classes they hadn’t used noodles. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t made more progress. Maybe the noodles were necessary for noodles like him, dense noodles abused in water.

  Alan went to check the stairwell doors in his building. He hadn’t been as good about checking them every day these past few months and had taken that as a sign of his increased mental health. He also knew that neglecting the doors was dangerous.

  As he walked down the seventeen flights of stairs, making sure the doors were all closed, he wondered if he would ever actually visit Miss Tuttle. He wondered what he would say to her and how she would react.

  The next time Lynn and Roland saw Max was at breakfast the following morning in the dining room. They were stunned. Max was barely recognizable. He was gorgeous. He had cut his hair, gotten rid of his ruffles and codpiece. He was dressed for the twenty-first century.

  Roland was confused. He looked at Lynn. She looked dazzled.

  Max said to both of them, “I hope my music didn’t keep you up last night. I was listening to Maria Callas sing an aria from Il Trovatore … wonderful. You should get a disc of her arias, if you don’t have one already. Or I’ll make a copy for you.” After a pause, he said, “By the way, I can suggest lovely spots around here if you’d like to picnic. The kitchen can prepare you a basket.”

  “When you say ‘the kitchen,’ what do you mean?” Lynn asked, knowing he didn’t have any staff.

  “I mean me, of course,” he said, smiling. “I could prepare you a picnic.”

  Roland was outraged. It was obvious to him that Lynn was charmed by the transformation. He could kill Max.

  After breakfast, Roland sought out Max.

  “What have you done! I asked you to make yourself worse!”

  “I did. I got rid of my few attributes. I cut off my luscious locks. Do you know how many years it took me to grow that hair? And I put away my wonderful ruffled shirts, and my manly codpiece, and now I’m wearing these wimpy pants.”

  “You look marvelous!” Roland said, giving him a fierce push in the chest. “You’ve ruined it. And what the hell did you do to your personality? It’s even more changed than your appearance!”

  “I’m glad you noticed. I turned myself into a clean-cut, anal prick, for you! So that you could shine in contrast!”

  Roland decided he had to take matters into his own hands. He tried to be charming all day. He even offered to feed the squirrels and raccoons and any other wild animals there might be, like rats and skunks and snakes and bears, anything at all. It was all to no avail. Lynn was cold and uninterested in him. He bad-mouthed Alan. He warned her that they would have ugly children. But nothing seemed to soften her up.

  As a last resort, he made a feeble attempt at forcing himself on Lynn physically, something she had enjoyed in the past. This time she sprayed him with Mace.

  As Lynn sprayed him, she felt as though she were spraying a giant mosquito. It was a tired and weak mosquito that seemed almost at the end of its life. It buzzed around her heavily, unnervingly slowly, not aware of its own sluggishness, which made it perfect for killing.

  She hoped that spraying him would make him so mad that he would leave her alone for good and give up all hope of a reconciliation. Instead, he wailed and made her feel so guilty that she had to nurse him.

  The weekend was turning out to be a fiasco.

  Just before leaving the inn, Roland privately gave Max instructions.

  “When Lynn and Alan come on their weekend, I want you to stay exactly the way you are now. Don’t change a hair. Alan will pale by comparison.”

  “Sure.”

  Roland concluded with, “You and I will be in contact via cell phone the entire weekend. I’ll want constant reports.”

  The next day, Roland was called in to see his boss, the solicitor general.

  She said to Roland, “You told me you were going to review David Lester’s brief of the Garcia case and take out that shitty First Amendment argument.”

  “I thought I told him to take it out,” Roland said.

  “Also, you missed the deadline for filing a notice of appeal in the Freestone Industries case.”

  “Yes, I know, I’m sorry.”

  “What’s the excuse this time?”

  Roland considered saying, “I’ve been stalking somebody, and my job has been interfering.” What he said was, “I’ve had some personal problems. Health issues. I’m sorry. I’ve got things under control now.”

  Eleven

  After Lynn’s weekend with Roland, she received a phone call from Alan. He invited her to join him and his girlfriend for dinner at his place.

  Alan said, “I want to reassure Jessica that my upcoming weekend with you isn’t a big deal and that you’re not a threat to her.”

  “What do you mean I’m not a threat?” Lynn asked, offended. “Why would having dinner with me convince your girlfriend I’m not a threat? Is it the way I look?”

  Alan sighed. “No, just our interaction.”

  The real reason Alan wanted Lynn to come over was for her to see that he and Jessica were very happy together and would not be torn apart by anyone.

  Jessica was seated on the armless white easy chair, staring sullenly at Lynn and Alan, who were sitting across from her on the couch, talking to each other politely. Jessica was not participating much in the conversation, even though she was hosting the dinner.

  Jessica resented Alan for planning to go on that weekend and leaving her in a position to be tempted. He was so blind that way. Like the times he’d given her gift certificates for massage appointments, insisting that she ask for “Roman,” who was supposedly the best, not suspecting for one instant that of course—of course—she would seduce this Roman dude, whoever he was. Poor little Alan. And who could blame her, in such an intimate setting? It had nothing to do with being a sex addict, which she was not.

  She would have to negotiate the timing properly in order to maximize the use of that brief weekend. She had written out a list of men she would invite over. There were twelve. She was trying to show some restraint, even though, after much ruminating, she had decided that there was actually no limit to how many men she could have sex with on this particular weekend and still not have it mean she was a sex addict. Any self-respecting woman would be sure to stay home and have affairs if her boyfriend was spending a weekend with another woman. That was abusive treatment on his part. Twelve men did not signify sex addiction. They merely signified that she was a spurned, jealous, normal woman.

  As she sat watching Lynn and Alan chat, Jessica realized she should force herself to make some displays of discontentment, just to put on a good show of jealousy and normalcy.

  “So, you’re going to try to seduce Alan and steal him from me,” she said to Lynn, while sipping her tea. She hadn’t managed to convey the right tone of repressed hysteria or even edginess. This shortcoming in her delivery made her a little uneasy, until she realized no one had noticed her monotone, her words having been potent enough. Lynn and Alan looked very uncomfortable. This reassured her, and she was able to relax again. She stretched, arching over the back of the spotted white easy chair.

  Jessica was lithe, Lynn noted.

  “I’m really grateful that you’re so understanding, so … accommodating,” Lynn said to Jessica.

  Lynn attempted to entertain her hosts with descriptions of Max the hotel manager. A troubled expression came over Jessica’s features. She softly asked, “He really says, ‘Come and sit on my cock’? And he really has a codpiece?”

  “Yes!” Lynn said. “He’s quite a character. He took it off recently—his codpiece—and was just wearing normal pant
s, but I’m sure anyone could ask him to put it back on. And he says he has a very big penis. Bigger than most penises in those parts.”

  Jessica looked preoccupied for the rest of the evening.

  Lynn knew that what she had done, tempting and tormenting Jessica that way, was cruel. She didn’t care.

  The truth was, Jessica was even more perturbed than Lynn imagined. Jessica had to use all her willpower to restrain herself from jumping into a car and going to the hotel manager.

  God, how badly she wanted to hop on his penis.

  But she was not a sex addict.

  She was a normal woman, having affairs.

  The problem was that now her mock-bordello fantasy seemed pallid compared to that hotel manager.

  Suddenly, she realized that a normal woman would be too jealous to stay home having affairs and would instead secretly follow her boyfriend to that hotel, in order to spy on him, and would do her damnedest not to get caught by that sleazy hotel manager; otherwise, she’d have to beg him, no bribe him—with all sorts of off-color means—not to tell her boyfriend she was spying on him.

  Roland had certainly had urges to beat up Alan since the first day he had met him, but never as much as now. He had just told Alan on the phone that Lynn had sprayed him with Mace, and Alan, the little jerk, still intended to go on the weekend with her.

  “You should back out,” Roland said. “Out of loyalty to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alan said. “I’m not like you. I stick to my word. We promised Lynn that if she went with you, then I would go with her.”

  Roland promised himself that as soon as Alan came back from the weekend, he’d beat him to a pulp. But for now, he contented himself with hissing into the phone, “You want Lynn.”

  Alan felt sorry for Roland. He said, “You should try to do something fun … and distracting during that weekend. I can tell you from experience that it’s not pleasant to wait a whole weekend while the person you love is with the person she loves.”

  “When are you going to stop rubbing it in my face that she loves you?”

  On Friday, Patricia came waltzing into Lynn’s office, waving a letter. “I have some strange news to relate.”