Love Creeps (21 page)

He slid his erection under her skirt, between her legs, and pushed himself into her.

She had a startled, helpless expression on her face. Her eyes were open wide; her eyebrows downward slopes of sorrow. Her lovely lips were parted, looking innocently shocked. He moved himself in and out of her. Slowly. Every time he pushed himself in, there was a sharp intake of breath on her part. Dismay. He appreciated her acting.

They could hear people talking in the hallway, right outside the sitting room. He slowed his movements even more, but did not stop them completely. Her legs were barely parted.

“I am far from done with you,” Max whispered in Jessica's ear, and pulled himself out.

He took her to an empty bedroom and told her to stay there. He said he had some work to do, that he'd be back.

Roland couldn't take it anymore. Getting reports from Max by phone was no longer placating. Roland needed reports every half hour, or an average of twelve times in six hours, and Max had agreed to this, and despite having agreed, Max only answered his cell phone half the time. So Roland decided he had to come to the inn and see for himself how things were going. He would see if Alan was trustworthy, making himself disgusting to Lynn.

At 4:00
P.M.
Roland rented a car and started his journey.

When Lynn mentioned having fed the raccoons her first time at the inn, Alan got excited and said he wanted to go and feed them, too.

“But one bit me,” she warned. “They can have rabies. I had to get six shots over the course of a month.”

His desire to feed raccoons was greater than his fear of rabies and greater than his desire to seem unappealing.

“I don't care,” he said. “I'm going to feed some raccoons. You don't have to come with me.”

They had fun feeding raccoons, and Lynn found him very appealing.

Jessica waited in the room for Max. Finally, he opened the door. She found him surprisingly handsome at that moment.

She was sitting at the desk. He sat on another chair, near the bed.

“Have you seen any good movies lately?” he asked.

And he asked her where she wanted to travel and what hobbies she had. She didn't understand why he was toying with her. He knew why she was here.

She got up, walked over to him, leaned down, and gently kissed him on the lips. They liked each other quite a lot. He got up and said he had to leave again to tend to something in the hotel.

She remained in the room, perplexed, wondering what she should do.

Ten minutes later he came back, took off his codpiece, donned a condom, lifted Jessica in the air, and impaled her with his erection.

“Life is too short not to have sex all the time, don't you think?” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed.

Alan and Lynn, seated next to an open window, were eating dinner while Max buzzed around their table, being friendly, serving steak and baked potatoes to them and the two other couples. The air was unusually warm and pleasant for an October evening. Hiding right outside, in the darkness, dropping a penny, was Roland. He could hear every word they said.

Roland was stunned when he saw Max sit at their table and say, “You guys really make an excellent couple.”

Roland yanked out his cell phone and dialed Max's cell number. He saw Max look at his ringing phone, sigh, and say to them, “It's him again.”

“Hello?” Max answered the phone, kindly.

“Are you with them right now?” Roland asked, as he always did, except now his voice was a tight whisper.

“Yes,” Max said.

“Okay, so I'll only ask you yes or no questions.”

“Okay. Why are you whispering?”

“Because I'm … in a public place … in a bookstore.”

“Ah, I see,” Max said, then placed his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Alan and Lynn, “Roland is hounding me with questions about you guys. So pathhhhhetic.”

Roland heard him through the open window.

“Hello? Are you still there?” Max asked into the receiver.

“Yes,” Roland whispered.

“What else do you want to know?”

“Are you treating them badly?” Roland asked, feeling weak.

“Oh, yes!” Max replied, pouring Alan more wine.

Roland winced in the darkness. After a pause, he asked, “Are they having fun?”

“No,” Max answered.

“Does Lynn … seem to like him?”

“Lord, no.” Max put his hand over the mouthpiece again and said to Alan and Lynn, “Can you believe it? He's asking me if you guys have had sex yet!”

Outside, Roland felt faint. “Okay, thank you,” he said.

“That's it?” Max asked, sounding almost disappointed.

“Yes, thank you for all your help.” Roland hung up. He had known for most of his life that he was probably not the nicest sort of person. Nevertheless, he never thought he'd have an urge to kill anyone other than himself. But suddenly, to his dismay, nothing seemed more important than to kill Max. The necessity and certainty of the act made him feel helpless, and he resigned himself to it.

Sunday afternoon, Lynn and Alan were lying by the pool.

Flipping through a fashion magazine, Lynn asked him, “If you didn't have a girlfriend, would you be interested in me?”

“Romantically?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Why?” she asked, shocked.

“Because that would be taking advantage of you. You are not lucid. You're a stalker now.”

“Cut the bullshit! If I were lucid, would you be interested?”

“Stalkers are not appealing.”

“But you stalked me. And first! You used to want me so badly! Don't you remember?”

“People change.”

“But I haven't. I'm still the same person you wanted before.”

“No, you're not. You are creepier now. But I've been there. I don't blame you.”

Lynn's voice was becoming strained. “Okay, okay, what if I were not a stalker, but just … reasonably interested in you, would you … could you then be interested in me romantically?”

“Hmm, no, it would never work, with our history of me having stalked you and humiliated myself so much.”

“Not half as much as I'm humiliating myself!”

“First of all, that's arguable, and second of all, that's not a good argument.”

It meant nothing to her what happened after that. “I don't want to drive back with you. I'm taking the train home.” She marched into the hotel and packed her things. Within a half hour, she was gone.

Having done everything he could to help Lynn and Roland get back together, Alan decided to stay one more night at the inn to relax and enjoy his newfound freedom from his stalker.

Early the next morning he would drive back to the city. He called his apartment to tell Jessica his plans, but his girlfriend wasn't answering. He left a message. He hadn't been able to reach her since he'd left the city. He hoped she was doing okay and not overly jealous, but he wasn't too worried, because she'd told him she might spend the weekend with her friend Mary.

He called Roland's cell phone to give him a report of how the weekend had ended. Roland was in his rented car, parked on the side of the road, right at the end of the driveway that led to the inn. He was waiting for the few guests to check out, as they were bound to do on a Sunday night, so that he could be alone with Max and put an end to him. One couple had already left, and he saw Lynn leave in a taxi.

When Roland answered his cell phone, Alan said, “Lynn left without me. She's mad at me.” Alan thought this would please Roland.

“And you? Are you leaving now?” Roland asked.

“Uh, no, I'm going to stay one more night.”

That was very inconvenient for Roland, who didn't want to have to sleep in his car overnight waiting for Max to be alone. “Why?” he said.

“To unwind.”

“Don't you have to be at work tomorrow?”

“I'll go in late.”

“Can't you unwind at home with your girlfriend?”

“I don't think my girlfriend's at home. I'm here, I might as well unwind here. Why do you ask?”

“I want my car back.”

“Is it urgent?” Alan asked.

“Yes! I want it back now.”

“I'm really not up for driving back right now, after all this stress with Lynn. I'm afraid I'd have an accident.”

“I need my car back now.”

“Why is it so urgent?”

Roland couldn't come up with a good reason. “Because the deal was you could have the car until Sunday night. That's it. I want my car back tonight. Stick to your word, as you say.”

“I'm tired. You're being unreasonable. I'll drive back in the morning.”

Roland sighed. “God, you're such a jerk.” He could not wait for an opportunity to beat up Alan. He came up with a way he could treat himself to it after visiting Max. “Okay, I want my car back tomorrow morning. I'll be going to the field of Lynn's love, because, you never know, maybe that map-reading professor was right and it'll increase my chances of Lynn falling back in love with me. The field is on your way back into Manhattan. You can pick me up there, and we can drive together.”

He gave Alan directions to the field and told him to meet him there at eight-thirty the following morning. He added, “Do you think you'll find it, with your poor sense of direction?”

“I'll find it,” Alan said.

“By the way, Max is kind of a jerk, isn't he?” Roland asked.

“Yeah, he goes a bit overboard with the preferential treatment and the luxuries and the compliments.”

Roland was reassured that he had neither misunderstood nor misinterpreted what he had heard through the window.

Alan was still lying by the pool. Max came up to him and said, “I'm sorry Lynn left in such a huff.”

“Oh, I know, it's a shame, but probably unavoidable. Maybe for the best.”

“What time will you be checking out?”

“Seven o'clock tomorrow morning.”

“You're welcome to help yourself to anything you want in the kitchen when you wake, in case I'm not up yet.”

Alan squinted up at him, at his kindness. The descending sun shone behind him.

“Thanks.”

Max planned to have sex with Jessica in the sitting room at about 7:00
A.M.
He didn't tell her that was when her boyfriend would be coming down. What he said, as he lured her down from her room, was that the public aspect would add tremendous excitement to the situation. The truth was that he was smitten with her and wouldn't mind having her for himself. He was hoping Alan would break up with her.

At 7:00
A.M.,
Alan caught them.

He pushed Max off his girlfriend, screaming, “What have you done to her! She's ill! You are fucking with an ill person!”

Max screamed back, “Shit! What does she have? Herpes, gonorrhea, HIV? Please don't tell me it's HIV!”

“She's a sex addict,” Alan hissed.

Jessica said, “I'm sorry, but it's over, Alan. I can't be with anyone for very long. Being with you this long was my record, and I thank you for it, but it was becoming too hard for me.”

“You're dumping me for him?”

“No. I'm not interested in having a relationship with Max. I have no intention of ever seeing him again. It was just a fling.”

“I'm not breaking up with you over this,” Alan said. “I'll help you get back on track. You were doing so well, so many months. You mustn't let one slip-up ruin everything!”

“I wasn't doing well. I was having sex with other men almost every day.”

“No.”

“Yes! You thought I was jealous about this weekend. Well, you were wrong. I was upset with you going away, because I wouldn't have the willpower to resist sleeping with a dozen men.”

Alan thought he might collapse. He staggered to his borrowed car and sped off.

Without so much as a word or a glance back at Max, Jessica rushed to her rented car and followed Alan, not only because it was in her nature to follow, but because she wanted to make sure he wouldn't do anything self-destructive.

Alan cried as he drove. He could feel his stalking urges, but he tried to fight them. He would not stalk Jessica. He did not want to want her. Anyway, he knew that the urge to stalk her was an absurd urge, since at the moment he could see in his rearview mirror that she was stalking him, and on top of that, after learning of her ongoing infidelity, he didn't really want her back at all. And not wanting her back was strangely more painful than wanting her.

His only comfort was that he had been sexually abused as a child. It was a relief to blame his problems on his abuser. Since he had an urge to fix something in his messed-up life, he suddenly made the decision—which lifted his spirits slightly—to go and confront his abuser, scream at her, show her how she had ruined his life. Things could only get better after one lashed out at one's abuser.

Alan drove straight to Cross, forty-five minutes away. He tried calling Roland to tell him he'd be at least an hour late for their meeting in the field of Lynn's love, but Roland didn't answer his phone, so Alan left a message.

He parked his car at his abuser's house. Jessica parked a ways away.

He rang Miss Tuttle's doorbell.

Miss Tuttle had aged a lot in thirty years. She stood in the doorway, tying her bathrobe.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked, and before she could answer, he added, “Not that I care.”

She looked him up and down in a snobby way, he thought, and said, “You caught me in the middle of taking monthly nude photos of myself to observe the aging process.”

“You are a sick woman. I'm surprised you haven't committed suicide.”

“Why say such a horrible thing to me?” Miss Tuttle asked.

“You made me touch a
mangofish
. Remember? I was only five years old, for God's sakes! At least Seymour never made the little girl touch the bananafish.”