Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

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 that 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.”