Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

“It’s not just that. It’s also what I said. I don’t have a problem with people, like your girlfriend, who stalk for a living, who stalk for profit. But when people stalk for pleasure, that bugs me. It’s the same as with hunting. Hunting for pleasure is sick. Hunting for food is fine. And it’s the opposite of sex. Sex for pleasure is fine. Sex for profit is wrong.”

“But she was only fake-stalking you. She was forcing herself.”

“I don’t buy it anymore. I think that was her ploy to get me.”

“That was her ploy to want you. Not to get you.”

“I said I don’t buy it anymore! Also, this will probably sound sick to you, but the fact that you wanted her …”

“What?”

“Well, that added some spice for me.”

Alan just stared.

Roland added, “Now that you don’t want her anymore, it’s not the same. You don’t want her, right?”

Alan hesitated. “She’s … a very desirable woman.”

Roland snorted. “That answers my question.”

Alan tried to reason with him, sang Lynn’s praises, but it didn’t seem to do much good. He gave up and drank his beer.

Back at the apartment, Lynn did not rummage or snoop. She sat on the armless white easy chair, flipped through some fashion magazines she had brought with her, made a few phone calls from her cell phone. And then she thought.

When the two men returned to the apartment, Lynn raised her eyes, but not herself, from the white chair, and said, “I’m sorry, but it’s over, Roland. I’m not going back to the country with you. I want out of this relationship. I called Patricia. I’ll be staying with her.”

“Lynn, are you sure about this?” Alan asked. “We talked at lunch.”

“Very constructive, I’m sure,” she said.

Alan could not, in all good conscience, tell her that it had been very constructive. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“Well I do,” she said. “It’s better this way.”

Roland’s pride did not allow him to show that he was stunned, did not allow him to say much more than, “Okay, then, if that’s what you want. I’m off.”

When the door closed behind him, Lynn cried. She cried in Alan’s arms. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m not really sad.”

“It’s okay,” Alan said, holding her nobly.

When Ray saw Roland leaving alone, he didn’t know what to think. He tried not to think. He distracted himself by thrusting his cup at passersby more vigorously than usual.

After Roland left, Lynn and Alan talked all afternoon. Alan canceled his plans to meet up with friends in the park, so that he could stay and comfort Lynn.

They drank herb tea on the couch, facing the empty white easy chair, and talked about her problems. She apologized for the way she and Roland had treated Alan, and also for never having given him a chance romantically. She again expressed admiration for the way he had turned his life around and said she wanted to do the same with hers. Would he teach her?

He told her that one good way was to meet new people and that she might like to come on the set of the movie he was acting in, the filming of which was continuing tomorrow at the miniature boat pond in Central Park.

Lynn was noticing how even his voice had changed. It had become more relaxed, less tight, deeper. It was as if he had let go of his voice.

They continued talking until Jessica, done with her day’s work, came home. The two women were introduced and Lynn, intimidated by the idea of a private detective sex addict and not wanting to stand in the way of Jessica’s addiction, promptly departed.

That night Roland called Lynn, threatening that if she didn’t come home immediately it would be over between them. Not bothering to remind him that it already was over, Lynn said fine.

What gall , he thought.

The shooting of the scene set in Central Park ended up taking three days, because the director was a perfectionist when it came to filming kisses, and there happened to be two in this scene.

Many people came to watch the filming, including six recovering stalkers from Stalkaholics Anonymous who had come to support Alan. Outings were a big deal for these men, who ventured out rarely and only in groups in order to be stronger in case the need to fight temptation arose.

They arrived carrying folding chairs and checked out their surroundings to make sure they were relatively free of temptation. To their consternation they spotted, three benches away, a group of people equipped with binoculars and telescopes, which were pointed at a tall building across Fifth Avenue.

One of the stalkers grabbed a crew member’s arm. “What in God’s name are those people doing?”

“They’re bird watchers.”

“Why are they looking at a building?”

“There’s a huge hawk’s nest up there, on top of a window. In it is a red-tailed hawk family. The birders come here every day of every spring to watch the babies.”

The stalker grimly turned to his associates. “They’re stalking the hawk. They’re stalking the whole damn hawk family, even the babies.”

The stalkers slumped, defeated. They had not counted on running into bird watchers.

“Jesus, they’ve got five, no six, telescopes, and what, ten, twelve binoculars!”

They debated whether they should risk staying anyway. They decided that they would, as long as they positioned their folding chairs so that their backs would be to the birders.

The informative crew member walked by again and leaned over them. “And in the building next to the one with the nest is the apartment of Woody Allen and Soon Yi, who sometimes come out on their balcony to stretch, and when that happens, all the telescopes change direction.”

The stalkers glanced at each other, alarmed, and shook their heads with disapproval, but they stayed. They wanted to see their friend Alan perform.

As did Lynn, who was also there and very curious to see how much Alan had changed. She immediately noticed she was not the only one fascinated by him. There was a very sexy woman watching him, alternating between looking riveted and just sitting there looking at him suggestively.

Alan introduced Lynn to the crew and to the sexy woman at whose gorgeous apartment he said they had shot much of the movie. After the introductions he went back to makeup.

Lynn’s cell phone rang. It was Patricia telling her a curator wanted to have lunch with her next week. Lynn set a date. Before hanging up, Patricia said, “Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you that you’ve been rejected by the World Wrestling Entertainment Training Camp.”

“I see,” Lynn said softly, absorbing this information, giving it time to seep into her emotional bloodstream and work its preventative magic.

They hung up.

Lynn observed Alan perform the kissing scene numerous times. She was particularly absorbed by the pause just before their lips met. She was also captivated by the way he had his fingers threaded through his scene partner’s hair, and the way he held the back of her head so tenderly. Lynn admired the fact that he repeated the kissing scene with endless patience and goodwill. And the fact that his scene partner didn’t seem at all bothered to kiss him. The actress was even kidding around with him, treating him totally respectfully, and she was quite attractive.

The sexy woman came and sat next to Lynn. They both watched Alan and his scene partner.

“He told me he used to be a stalker,” the sexy woman said to Lynn, not taking her eyes off Alan. “You wouldn’t think so, would you?”

“No,” Lynn said.

“I wouldn’t mind being stalked by him.”

Lynn laughed. “I was,” she couldn’t resist revealing.

The woman looked at her. “You were?”