Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

Lynn sighed. “Okay, I’ll go.”

He leaned his body against hers, pressing her against the fridge, and lifted her skirt. The magnets squeaked, digging into her back. She tried to resist him, slightly. He persevered. There was really only one type of occasion left in their daily lives when she didn’t find him repulsive, and that was when he pretended to force himself on her. But the appeal of even that was fading.

“Not a bad little place you’ve got here,” Roland said, standing in Alan’s living room, as Lynn looked on. “This white chair seems out of place here, though. It’s dirty.”

“I know,” Alan said. “It’s my white elephant. I keep meaning to get rid of it, but I can’t stand the thought of just throwing it away. Do you know anyone who might want it?”

“Lord, no. Just dump it. And that rat, too, in my opinion. Okay, shall we go to lunch?”

“Yes,” Alan said. “Lynn, will you be all right on your own? Feel free to stay here while we’re out, if you want to rest. There’s plenty of food in the fridge.”

Lynn started objecting, but Roland cut her off. “That’s so nice of you. I’m sure she’d like to rest a little before walking the streets.”

Lynn rolled her eyes at Roland’s fondness for incorporating lame insulting double meanings in his comments about her.

“Okay then. Let me just go to the bathroom, and we can go.” Alan left the living room.

Roland whispered to Lynn, “When we’re gone, rummage around a little. Try to find stuff we can laugh about later. Believe me, we need it.”

The two men left Lynn alone in the apartment. Roland dropped a button on his way out.

Ray the homeless man had been surprised to see Lynn and Roland entering Alan’s apartment building and was even more stunned to see Alan and Roland leaving together with Lynn still inside. He wondered what it all meant, but he suppressed his curiosity, telling himself that whatever the explanation, it was bound to contain a core of triviality. Strange people were just trying to tantalize him, and he was determined to resist.

“So, what’s your problem, little buddy?” Roland asked, biting into a cheeseburger.

That French accent didn’t mix well with his Americanisms.

“I’m afraid my girlfriend might be cheating on me,” Alan said, not having had the time to come up with a better pretext for the meeting.

“Hmm. I’m sorry to hear it. But before we get into that, I’ve always wondered, why is being a sex addict a problem?”

“It gets in the way of work and relationships.”

“How did it get in the way of her work as a private detective?” Roland snickered. He was capable of snickering in a normal fashion.

“For example, she was hired to follow a man to find out if he was having an affair. And even though he was not, he ended up having one with her.”

“Oh, I see. And you said you met her when she was in a Sex Addicts meeting next to your Stalkaholics meeting? How did you start dating?”

“The two meetings let out at the same time, and you can often see the stalkers and the sex addicts eyeing each other. It’s not uncommon for members of one group to start dating members of the other.”

“Please go on.”

“There’s a lot of tension when the stalkers and sex addicts mingle in the hallway. Many of them scurry away like criminals, trying to resist their temptations. She, being a professional stalker, liked the fact that I didn’t seem ashamed of my addiction. That was important to her, since my addiction is her profession, and she didn’t want to be with someone who was ashamed of what she did for a living. It’s kind of ironic since she’s ashamed of her addiction.”

“She’s ashamed of being a sex addict?”

“Oh, horribly. In fact, she’s in complete denial of it. Not at first, she wasn’t. Later, when she started getting her addiction under control, she no longer wanted to think of herself as a sex addict and became convinced she no longer was. I had to constantly remind her of the twelve-step belief that an addict is always an addict.”

“Well, maybe she isn’t one, any longer,” Roland said.

Alan gave him an exasperated look. “One of our ongoing battles is she wants me to dress up as a pink rabbit and go to Central Park and have sex with her in public.”

“Is she nuts?”

“No. She’s a sex addict.”

“For everyone to see? In the middle of the crowds?”

“Yes, but hidden by the costume I’d be wearing, so it wouldn’t be obvious what we were doing.”

“Do you guys have sex a lot?”

“A fair amount. She’s like a very lovely patient who needs to be administered to. The Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings have helped her a lot, though. She’s doing so much better. She’s had relapses in the past, but not since I’ve met her, and I don’t think there’s much chance of one happening at this point. I really trust her.” Alan caught himself just in time. “Except, of course, that I don’t.”

Roland nodded. “So what makes you think she’s cheating on you?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just my paranoia.”

“You brought me all the way over here for your paranoia? No, man, tell me the truth.”

“It’s just a feeling I have. But I’m probably wrong.”

“Give me some facts.”

Not having expected Roland to be so pushy, Alan had not prepared any facts. So he had to improvise. “Oh, there’s that chair. My white chair. It has some spots on it.”

“Damn you, I can’t believe you dragged me to the city for this.”

“Well, how do you explain the spots?” Alan stabbed at his spinach salad. “They look as though they’ve been washed.”

“So? Do people only scrub off sex spots, not food spots? What makes you think they’re sex spots and not food spots?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. I told you it was my paranoia.”

“What else?”

“Hmm. The fact that sometimes when I call her, she’s out of breath and when I ask her why, she says she’s exercising, and only then does the aerobics tape start playing in the background.”

“Maybe she turned off the volume to answer the phone, then turned it back on when she heard it was you. What else have you got?”

“Actually, once when she said she was exercising, I told her to undress so we could have phone sex, and she said something like, ‘Hang on, my underwear is caught on my heel.’ Her heel ? She was wearing heels while exercising?”

“Maybe she meant the heel of her sneaker or the heel of her foot.”

“Right. Or maybe she meant the heel of her red pumps, which she only wears while having sex. Or maybe she lied and was already naked, already having sex, with someone else, on my spotted white easy chair.”

“Too bad you can’t ask the rat. He probably saw it all.”

Alan didn’t answer. He was looking down at his food, playing with his spinach salad.

Roland said, “Jeez, man, I’m sorry. It sounds like she probably is cheating on you.”

“No, I’m sure she’s not. It’s all in my head.” Abruptly, Alan raised his hand, flagged down the waitress, and ordered a beer, hoping to get carded, but he wasn’t.

Finally, he said to Roland, “So anyway, how are things with you and Lynn?”

“Hmm. Not so well. My problem with Lynn is that I can’t get over the fact that she used to stalk me. It’s hard for me to respect her. Scratch that. It’s impossible for me to respect her.”

“That’s a shame. You may lose her.”

“Pff! Where do you get off?”

“I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, but isn’t it the same story with lots of folks? If only you hadn’t succeeded in winning her over so thoroughly, you’d probably still be crazy about her?”