Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

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.