Love Creeps

Eleven

After Lynn’s weekend with Roland, she received a phone call from Alan. He invited her to join him and his girlfriend for dinner at his place.

Alan said, “I want to reassure Jessica that my upcoming weekend with you isn’t a big deal and that you’re not a threat to her.”

“What do you mean I’m not a threat?” Lynn asked, offended. “Why would having dinner with me convince your girlfriend I’m not a threat? Is it the way I look?”

Alan sighed. “No, just our interaction.”

The real reason Alan wanted Lynn to come over was for her to see that he and Jessica were very happy together and would not be torn apart by anyone.

Jessica was seated on the armless white easy chair, staring sullenly at Lynn and Alan, who were sitting across from her on the couch, talking to each other politely. Jessica was not participating much in the conversation, even though she was hosting the dinner.

Jessica resented Alan for planning to go on that weekend and leaving her in a position to be tempted. He was so blind that way. Like the times he’d given her gift certificates for massage appointments, insisting that she ask for “Roman,” who was supposedly the best, not suspecting for one instant that of course — of course — she would seduce this Roman dude, whoever he was. Poor little Alan. And who could blame her, in such an intimate setting? It had nothing to do with being a sex addict, which she was not.

She would have to negotiate the timing properly in order to maximize the use of that brief weekend. She had written out a list of men she would invite over. There were twelve. She was trying to show some restraint, even though, after much ruminating, she had decided that there was actually no limit to how many men she could have sex with on this particular weekend and still not have it mean she was a sex addict. Any self-respecting woman would be sure to stay home and have affairs if her boyfriend was spending a weekend with another woman. That was abusive treatment on his part. Twelve men did not signify sex addiction. They merely signified that she was a spurned, jealous, normal woman.

As she sat watching Lynn and Alan chat, Jessica realized she should force herself to make some displays of discontentment, just to put on a good show of jealousy and normalcy.

“So, you’re going to try to seduce Alan and steal him from me,” she said to Lynn, while sipping her tea. She hadn’t managed to convey the right tone of repressed hysteria or even edginess. This shortcoming in her delivery made her a little uneasy, until she realized no one had noticed her monotone, her words having been potent enough. Lynn and Alan looked very uncomfortable. This reassured her, and she was able to relax again. She stretched, arching over the back of the spotted white easy chair.

Jessica was lithe, Lynn noted.

“I’m really grateful that you’re so understanding, so … accommodating,” Lynn said to Jessica.

Lynn attempted to entertain her hosts with descriptions of Max the hotel manager. A troubled expression came over Jessica’s features. She softly asked, “He really says, ‘Come and sit on my cock’? And he really has a codpiece?”

“Yes!” Lynn said. “He’s quite a character. He took it off recently — his codpiece — and was just wearing normal pants, but I’m sure anyone could ask him to put it back on. And he says he has a very big penis. Bigger than most penises in those parts.”

Jessica looked preoccupied for the rest of the evening.

Lynn knew that what she had done, tempting and tormenting Jessica that way, was cruel. She didn’t care.

The truth was, Jessica was even more perturbed than Lynn imagined. Jessica had to use all her willpower to restrain herself from jumping into a car and going to the hotel manager.

God, how badly she wanted to hop on his penis.

But she was not a sex addict.

She was a normal woman, having affairs.

The problem was that now her mock-bordello fantasy seemed pallid compared to that hotel manager.

Suddenly, she realized that a normal woman would be too jealous to stay home having affairs and would instead secretly follow her boyfriend to that hotel, in order to spy on him, and would do her damnedest not to get caught by that sleazy hotel manager; otherwise, she’d have to beg him, no bribe him — with all sorts of off-color means — not to tell her boyfriend she was spying on him.

Roland had certainly had urges to beat up Alan since the first day he had met him, but never as much as now. He had just told Alan on the phone that Lynn had sprayed him with Mace, and Alan, the little jerk, still intended to go on the weekend with her.

“You should back out,” Roland said. “Out of loyalty to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Alan said. “I’m not like you. I stick to my word. We promised Lynn that if she went with you, then I would go with her.”

Roland promised himself that as soon as Alan came back from the weekend, he’d beat him to a pulp. But for now, he contented himself with hissing into the phone, “You want Lynn.”

Alan felt sorry for Roland. He said, “You should try to do something fun … and distracting during that weekend. I can tell you from experience that it’s not pleasant to wait a whole weekend while the person you love is with the person she loves.”

“When are you going to stop rubbing it in my face that she loves you?”

On Friday, Patricia came waltzing into Lynn’s office, waving a letter. “I have some strange news to relate.”

“What?”

“Disney World has accepted your application to play one of the seven dwarfs in their summer production.”

“But I’m not very short!” Lynn said, slapping her desk and rising out of her chair.

“No, not very.”

“That’s really insulting of them to accept me!”

“Calm down. You shouldn’t have applied if you thought you might get in.”

“I obviously didn’t think I would get in, Patricia. I’m not short!”

“Yeah, but height is relative. Maybe they’ll make you act on your knees.”

“Well, write back and tell them I’ve already committed to playing Mini-Me in a touring Austin Powers production.”

Early Saturday morning, as they had agreed with Roland, Alan and Lynn were driving Roland’s Jeep to the inn. The leaves were brilliant, red and yellow.

Jessica, in a rented car, followed them. She had brought all her equipment — binoculars, disguises, Kleenexes — as a spurned woman would. Her radio was blasting as she bounced in her seat, and she occasionally grabbed her big binoculars and looked through them at their car to reassure herself that she was normal.

She couldn’t wait to get to the hotel and was tempted to tailgate Alan to make him move faster. He was so unobservant, he’d never notice it was her.

As soon as they arrived, she would waste no time in trying not to get caught by Max. The mere words “get caught” made her let go of the steering wheel and wave her arms in the air to the beat of the disco music.

Max greeted Lynn and Alan warmly when they arrived. Lynn was surprised that Max had gone back to his old self. His codpiece was on as well as his ruffles. His long hair, of course, could not grow back immediately, and he had not resorted to a wig.

Lynn made the introductions.

“Max, this is Alan, the man whose girlfriend I told you about.”

Alan looked at Lynn. “You told him about Jessica? What did you say?”

“That she’s a very pretty private detective,” Lynn said.

Max had been greatly looking forward to Alan’s arrival and the opportunity of doing the opposite of what despicable Roland had ordered him to do. Max had put beautiful satin sheets on Alan’s bed and the most expensive bath products in his bathroom. And the most luscious towels. And flowers and bowls of candy. He did everything possible to put Alan in the most flattering light, figuratively as well as literally. He even had someone come in to give him a massage and a facial. Alan was certainly not averse to the massage. Max explained that it was included in the price of the room. Why Lynn didn’t get all those amenities was a mystery. When asked, Max said the luxuries happened to be included in Alan’s particular room — room 5—not in any other. If you were lucky enough to happen to be the occupant of that room, which was not more expensive than the others, then you got those advantages.

Max had no desire to give Lynn any luxuries, because even though he had not been as offended by her as he had been by Roland, it hadn’t delighted him to hear that she thought Roland shone next to him in contrast.

Alan offered to switch rooms with Lynn so that she could get the luxuries, since she was the one truly in need, the stalkaholic. He felt that sensual pleasures would do Lynn good. They always helped stalkers. Alan thought to himself that he should one day write a self-help book for stalkers. The number one advice he would give them was pamper yourself. Stalkers usually didn’t pamper themselves enough. There were, of course, exceptions — cases of stalkers who pampered themselves too much, which increased the severity of their stalking. One needed a perfect amount of self-pampering in order to lessen stalking. Too much worsened it. Too little worsened it. But too little pampering worsened it more than too much did.

So they switched all their belongings and went out for a walk. By the time they returned, they were astonished to see that the satin sheets, the fancy bath products, and other luxuries, had switched rooms and were in Alan’s new room. There was a note that said, “The management frowns upon guests switching rooms. Switching rooms will do no good. The room will follow him wherever he goes, for the remainder of his days. Unless he is discovered to be a prick.”

Alan stared at the note, shrugged, and said, “Whatever” to himself, intent on not letting the manager’s quirkiness sidetrack him from the purpose of this weekend. Alan had a plan to be unattractive. Bad clothes, bad cologne. He tried once again to make facial expressions that were “too drastic,” as Lynn had put it long ago. He tried to recapture his nervous body language, but he found it just too disturbing, too frightening, like being repossessed by the Devil. He decided his body language was the only thing he would not mess with, for that was too dearly earned. Instead, he focused on speaking well of Roland. “He’s energetic. He has a great metabolism. He’s tan. He’s French. Oh! And he used to beat me at racquetball every single time!”

During lunch, Max sat with Lynn and Alan while they ate the grilled salmon he had prepared for them. Max praised Alan incessantly, pointing things out to Lynn about Alan that he thought were wonderful. Lynn agreed completely.

As for Jessica, she roamed the hotel, spying. She kept trying not to get caught by Max, and he kept not catching her. She tried spying more vigorously, but she still didn’t get caught. So she spied so fervently that she barely hid. And Max finally caught a glimpse of her at 3:00 P.M. in the sitting room, wearing a black miniskirt and two pairs of binoculars dangling around her neck. She fled behind the sitting room’s heavy door.

Max approached her and asked, “Why are you hiding?”

“I’m spying on my boyfriend.”

“Do you want me to help you?”

“No. I just really, really don’t want you to tell him about it. I would do anything so that you not tell him.”

After a few seconds, he said, “Oh.” Not sure what to say, he finally just said, “Anything?”

“Yes. That’s how much I don’t want you to tell him.”

It was only then that Max realized this woman might be Alan’s girlfriend, the terrific sex addict whom Lynn had raved about. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, be Alan’s girlfriend, would you?”

“Yes, I am.”

He frowned. He appreciated the situation she had set up for him.

“I highly disapprove of spying. So the price may be high.”

“I know,” she said, lowering her eyes bashfully and even managing to blush a little.

He was impressed.

“You may not be ready for what I have in mind,” he said.

She kept her eyes lowered.

“It may involve bringing my repulsive person near you.” He took a step forward.

“You are not repulsive,” she said, softly.

“Oh no? Flattery will not lighten your sentence, you know.”

“I know.”

His body was now very close to hers, and he dared to bring his hand under her skirt.

“Where is your underwear?” he asked.

“I lost it.”

“Where?”

“In the garden. It fell off when I was spying. I didn’t have time to retrieve it.”

“How unfortunate for you. That will not help your case.”

He pressed her back against the wall, behind the door, and unhooked his codpiece. He whipped a condom out of his pocket and slipped it on.

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.”

“That’s because there is no such thing as a bananafish,” Miss Tuttle said. “But I did have a mangofish. I still do. It’s in my bedroom. Go in and see, if you want.”

He went into the bedroom, expecting her to either strip for him or attempt to murder him.

But in the bedroom was a fifty-gallon fish tank that shone in the darkness like a gigantic jewel. Inside was a fish that was about six inches long, and had whiskers and wrinkled skin, like a basset hound.

“But how did you have the fish in the water with you? You can’t hold a fish on a leash.”

“I had it in a plastic bag, and I opened the bag a little under the water to let you pet it.”

Alan apologized to Miss Tuttle for having accused her of such a heinous crime. He had an irrational urge to apologize to the fish as well but knew it wasn’t the exact fish, because fish didn’t live that long.

They went back into the living room. Alan seemed deflated. In an attempt to make him feel better, she brought in a muffin from the kitchen, and asked, “Do you want to taste my pussy? It’s nice and warm.”

He blanched. She burst out laughing. “I’m teasing! You are too funny. You must come and visit me again. People around here are so jaded, let me tell you. But you!” She left it at that.

He confessed to her that he would have liked her to have been his abuser and that now he couldn’t help resenting her a little because she wasn’t. He explained how bad his life had been, and how it had gotten better, and now bad again, and how blaming it all on her had eased his suffering.

And he rushed out, disgusted with himself.

Ten minutes later, Alan had to pull over on the side of the road to cry some more. Jessica pulled over behind him. She looked at him through her binoculars. She felt sorry to see him cry but knew this was how things had to be.

As he cried, Alan felt like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight. All the wonderful things in his life had turned back to crap. He had lost his girlfriend and his abuser. And to top it all off, he hadn’t even registered for the fall semester. If only he had classes to fall back on, perhaps things wouldn’t seem so dire.

He thought of calling Lynn and using her for sex, but first he would check his messages to see if any suicidal friends called who might cheer him up. There were nine new obsessive messages from Lynn, which made her unappealing, and therefore useless, even for a rebound.

He would meet with Roland, and they would commiserate: two dumped men.

Alan started up the car and headed to the field of Lynn’s love.

As he drove, Jessica looked at him through her binoculars. Even though she could only see the back of his head, he seemed calmer now. So she turned her car toward Manhattan to start an ordinary day of private investigating and a new life as a single sex addict.

While Alan had been confronting his abuser, Roland had his meeting with Max.

Max was surprised to see Roland at his door. They sat in the living room, to chat. Roland was visiting him under the guise of wanting to hear how the weekend went.

“Have all your guests left?”

“Yes,” Max said.

“This house is very quiet when it’s totally empty.”

As Roland had hoped, Max did not contradict the part about the house being totally empty.

“Don’t you have cleaning people who work for you or any sort of help? It must be so much work to do everything yourself.”

“A cleaning person will come this afternoon,” Max said.

“So, do you think you were able to shine a bad light on Alan?”

“Yes.”

“You know one thing that really annoys me about him?”

Max shook his head.

“It’s that he drinks water so slowly,” Roland said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly that. And if he tries to drink it more quickly, he chokes. Maybe because I drink water very quickly I expect it of others,” Roland said. “I never knew I drank it quickly until I noticed that certain people could not drink it as quickly without coughing. You’ll see, I’ll show you.” He got up.

“Are you serious?” Max said.

“Yes! Do you mind if I go in the kitchen and get some glasses?”

Max chuckled. “Be my guest.”

Roland came back two minutes later with two tall glasses of water. In front of Max, he placed the glass in which he had mixed the contents of his locket.

“What? I’m supposed to do this, too?” Max asked.

“Yeah, but hang on. Look at this, okay?”

Max nodded.

Roland drank the water very quickly — not extraordinarily quickly, but like a normal human drinking a glass of water quickly.

Max nodded again, slightly, to acknowledge being mildly impressed.

“Oh, come on,” Roland said. “You have to admit that was pretty damn quick.”

Max snorted, said, “You’re nuts.”

“There’s no way you could drink water even half as quickly as I just drank it. Anyway, I think French people have a natural advantage over Americans. I think we’re able to drink water much more rapidly, on average.” Roland plopped down in a chair, as if ready to leave it at that and move on to another topic.

Max languorously heaved himself into an upright sitting position and picked up the glass of water.

Roland’s heart raced. He couldn’t believe it was as easy as that. Now that Max was about to drink the cyanide, Roland’s mind was free to worry further about his risks of getting caught and charged with murder. He blurted, “Where’s your assistant?”

“What assistant?”

“The guy who, on the first day, told Lynn and me that you arranged for us to walk in on you having sex because you love feeling embarrassed.”

“Oh, he was just a friend of mine who does that favor for me sometimes.”

“Because you love feeling embarrassed.”

“Yes. And blushing, especially.”

“That’s crazy, you know. But also stupidly endearing,” Roland said, annoyed.

“I’m glad you think so. And let me be even more endearing by showing you how quickly I can drink this glass of water. Ready?”

Roland scowled, but didn’t move. He didn’t stop him, though it would have been easy. He could have taken the glass from him, said he had peed in it, or something harmless of the sort.

Max drank the glass of water very quickly. A few drops ran down his chin. He slapped the empty glass on the table.

“That water sucks,” he said. “You got it from the tap?”

“Why did you betray me?” Roland asked. “When I phoned, not only did you tell Alan and Lynn it was me calling, but you lied and said I was asking if they had had sex! I heard it all.”

Max only had a few seconds to live, and Roland wanted to satisfy his curiosity. “Why did you betray me?”

“Because you’re a prick. Today, however, I find you more charming, with your special water criterion for evaluating people. Ow,” he said, clutching his stomach.

“Why am I a prick? Because I asked for your help? Because I revealed that Lynn thought you were my sublime enhancer? Is that it? Your feelings were hurt? And you think that’s enough reason to ruin my life?”

“Ow!” Max buckled over. And then he shouted, “You gave me something bad to drink!”

“Yes! Cyanide. In seconds you’ll be dead.”

“No!”

Max convulsed and slumped on his side. Roland knew it was the one-minute coma that preceded death.

As soon as Max was dead, Roland wiped his fingerprints off everything. He used all his willpower to restrain himself from dropping a paper clip — he didn’t want to leave any evidence.

Roland returned his car to the rental place and took a cab to the field of Lynn’s love to meet Alan. He got there before Alan, who had been delayed not only by the visit to his abuser, but by his poor sense of direction, which had been just moderately improved by the map-reading class.

When Alan arrived, he saw Roland sitting cross-legged, in the middle of the deserted field. As Alan got out of the car, Roland called out to him, “Is Lynn still interested in you?”

“Yes. She won’t leave me alone. She left nine messages on my voice mail.”

“You just couldn’t get yourself to be more unattractive, could you?”

Alan didn’t need to be criticized at the moment. He decided to get a quick ego boost. “I tried. But, you know, it’s hard.”

Roland approached Alan and screamed, “You are an asshole!”

“Really. Did you try to make Lynn dislike you when I wanted her?”

“Blah, blah, blah!” Roland screamed, and surprised Alan by punching him in the face. “Did you really think I came to this field to be in the place of Lynn’s love?” Roland said. “You are so gullible. And dumb.”

“I don’t need this,” Alan said, straightening himself, finger to bloody lip. “My girlfriend just broke up with me, I’m not registered in any classes, I’ve caused Lynn to be on the verge of self-destruction. And most troubling of all, my childhood sexual abuser never abused me, which means there is no explanation for any of this, other than that I am a born loser.”

Roland again punched Alan, who fell to the ground. He kicked Alan once, twice, but forced himself to stop. He had already killed one person that morning. He dropped a paper clip, hopped in his car, and sped off.

Alan dragged himself to the train station and took the train home, repeating affirmations that he was great, he was pure, he would remain well-adjusted, would not let himself slide back, would not stalk his girlfriend, would never again chase after someone who didn’t want him.

He was repeating these mantras as he stepped out of his elevator and was jumped on from behind. Lynn had sneaked past the doorman and been hiding in the stairwell, waiting for Alan to come home. This was too much. He felt beaten down. He flung her into his apartment. She stumbled but was not deterred. She came back at him like a magnet, arms outstretched, to hug him. And she did. She tried to kiss him. She put her hand on his crotch.

Alan could feel his erection. He knew he didn’t have to take it anymore, and he knew how he could fight back. He would rape her.

It would be difficult, but he would try. It’s hard to rape someone who wants you desperately.

As he ripped off her clothes, she clearly misinterpreted his actions. She thought he was being passionate. He’d show her it was not passion. It was violence, it was rape.

Of course, that she opened her legs so willingly and widely didn’t appear much like rape, but he’d fix that by thrusting hard.

“Yes!” she moaned.

Was she actually attempting to enjoy this? How dare she! She was hugging him, which spoiled the rape effect, got him dangerously close to coming, and also hurt him where Roland had kicked his ribs, so he took her wrists and held them down on either side of her head. He came anyway.

She moaned slightly. With pain. Or at least he tried to believe it was with pain.

That hadn’t done the trick. She still wanted him. He got off the bed, feeling emasculated. He dared not inform her that he had raped her, for fear she’d laugh in his face. He didn’t know what to do. He took his rat from the cage and stared into its beady eyes, and thought to it, Did you see Jessica cheating on me, again and again? He couldn’t tell what response the rat was giving him, but he was sure the answer was yes.

The phone startled them both. It was a wrong number. Alan turned off the ringer and sat on his armless white easy chair in front of the window, staring out. He said to Lynn, “Leave me alone for a bit, will you?”

She sat on the couch and read a magazine, glancing at him regularly.

“What happened to your face?” she finally asked.

He didn’t want to tell her Roland had beaten him up. “I fell.”

After a while he went and took a shower. At noon he said he was going out for a walk.

Perhaps if he allowed her to stay in his apartment, she wouldn’t follow him down the street. It would be a welcome respite.

An hour later, when he opened the door to his apartment, he was assaulted by a delicious smell of cooking.

He felt oppressed and comforted at the same time. He happened to be hungry. Dammit, he thought. And when he finally got a glance at her, she was wearing nothing but boxers and an undershirt, and she looked damn sexy.

She came out of the kitchen with a saucepan and presented him with the wooden spoon, asking him to taste her sauce. She pushed it against his mouth more gently than he had pushed himself into her. He parted his lips reluctantly and tasted. Mmm. His stomach growled. He hoped she hadn’t heard it, but her smile seemed to indicate she had.

“Sit down. It’ll be ready very soon,” she said, and sauntered back into the kitchen, her firm butt jiggling in that special way only firm butts can.

Five minutes later, she placed a meal on the dining table.

He dug into the pasta. It was good. He felt embarrassed by the pleasure it brought him. He ate, his eyes focused on the plate. He looked up at her only once, just out of curiosity, and she was looking at him, smiling. He looked back down, irked. He ate a few more mouthfuls, pushed his plate away, and was about to get up when she said, “There’s more.” She got up and came back from the kitchen carrying a warm crème brulée. Damn, he thought. He didn’t know she cooked. He pressed his palms over his face. What was he going to do? She giggled. She must have guessed his thoughts. Yes, he would eat some crème brulée. But that didn’t mean she had won. The grilled caramel on top looked crispy. And the smell. The smell was perfect, too.

He just stared at it.

“Eat it,” she said.

He picked up the spoon and tasted the crème brulée. He frowned. How had she become such a good cook? Had she taken secret classes? He ate all of it.

“Please make love to me again,” she said.

‘Make love to me again’? That’s what she thought he had done before? I fucking raped you. What was the point of even trying? He looked at her coldly.

“Please make love to me again,” she repeated.

“I never made love to you,” he said, getting up from the table.

“Ouch.”

Ah, now, finally, she said ouch. It was about time.

“Please take me again,” she said, stepping in front of him. She held his face in her hands and kissed him gently on the lips. He didn’t move. His arms hung limply at his sides. She raised them and attempted to wrap them around herself, but when she let go of them, they fell.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “I didn’t want to before, and I don’t want to now.”

“You didn’t want to before? You could have fooled me,” she said.

“That was an act of violence, not of sex,” he informed her, hoping she knew he had just uttered the definition of rape.

But she didn’t pick up on it.

“I wish you would go home and leave me alone,” he said.

She kissed his ear, licked his earlobe. He hoped she couldn’t feel him getting hard. She stuck her tongue in his ear.

He wished she knew the art of seduction. How to play hard to get, blow hot and cold. At least then he’d get momentary respites from her stalking while she blew cold. It would be so refreshing. He would search his course catalogs for a class for her. It might even teach her how to give up.

Alan pushed Lynn away. She stroked his jawline, caressed his left buttock. He pulled his hips back slightly, so she wouldn’t feel his erection.

“God, I love you,” she murmured.

He had backed up against the bookcase, and he couldn’t back up any farther. The shelves dug into his back.

“You’re hard!” she said.

She rapidly unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, lowered them and his underwear.

“God, you turn me on,” she said.

He pressed his lips shut, his arms spread at his sides, hands resting on shelves. He was looking away from his penis, the way he would look away when blood was being drawn at the doctor’s office.

She was rubbing her thumb around the tip of his penis. He held his breath. He would not move an inch.

She pulled him to the bedroom and to the bed, laid him on his back, and straddled him. He stared fixedly at the ceiling.

She slid her tongue between his lips, licked his teeth. Nothing worked. She gave up trying to kiss him, and just rode him, her cheek against the side of his head. He could hear her panting in his ear. Her breath was warm. And then she sounded different. The panting turned to sobbing, and she rolled off him and curled up on her side, her back to him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“You’re not responding,” she said.

He sighed, got dressed, and moved to the living room. She followed him.

Alan was starting to think about Jessica again, and it made him sad. He suddenly remembered that Lynn didn’t know he and Jessica were broken up.

“You’ve made yourself quite at home, cooking a meal, and everything,” he said. “What if Jessica walked in?”

“This is the first time you brought her up. You haven’t used her as an excuse for why we shouldn’t do what we were doing. That’s a good sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“That she doesn’t have such a strong grip over your affections. Or maybe a sign that she doesn’t satisfy you completely. I mean, you know, you’re cheating on her.”

“No, I’m not. I would never cheat on her.”

Lynn frowned, then her features softened into a smile. “You’re not?”

He shook his head.

“That’s great news!” she said. “When did it happen and over what?”

“It’s not great news. I’m very upset.” He sat on the couch.

“Oh, don’t be!” she said, hugging him from behind. “I’ll make you better. You’re my honey.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Everyone can decide who her honey is. The honey can’t object. The honey has no say. The honey can only decide who his honey is, not whose honey he is.”

Lynn took off Alan’s shirt. Not this again. He tried to resist, but with so much lassitude that she succeeded in undressing him completely within three minutes. She spread plastic from the dry cleaners under his butt and over the couch.

She had just put on a CD — Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

She stood behind him. Using a dinner knife, she was spreading something on his arm. In her other hand, she was holding a jar of honey. Harmless enough. She covered his entire body with honey. His penis became erect, but he ignored it.

He picked up the newspaper and began reading an article on lawns.

“See, now you are literally my honey. You can’t object to that,” she said, continuing to futz about him, touching him, and when he looked down at himself again, he saw that she’d covered his body with fresh mint leaves.

“I really should be going to work,” he said.

She next put Rice Krispies all over the honey, which made his body bumpy, as if he had a horrible skin condition. He suddenly wondered if she was going to eat him.

She then sprinkled cocoa powder over his entire body, turning him dark brown in addition to bumpy. He looked monstrous, she noticed with satisfaction. She’d always had a fantasy of having sex with a monster. She thought that this act of covering him with food might win him over: it was whimsical, spontaneous, playful, artistic, charmingly childlike, and sensual.

She used Nesquik on some parts of his body and Ovaltine on some others. She asked him to close his eyes. As she was sprinkling Nesquik on his face, he said, “I really should be going to work. What about my job? I can’t go to work looking like this.”

“It’s already two-thirty in the afternoon. Don’t you think it’s a little late to get to work?”

“Better late than never.”

She then brought out a can of whipped cream. The organ music was passionate as she sprayed whipped cream on his nipples and over his pubic hair and balls and all over his penis.

“If I don’t go to work, I’ll become homeless. I’m already a beggar. A beggar for mercy. For solitude.”

Since there were no cherries in the kitchen, Lynn came back with a blueberry, which she placed on the tip of his vertical penis.

She had left his feet and the top of his mostly bald head clean. She knelt at his feet, covered them in olive oil, and started giving him a foot massage. He jerked his foot a few times because it tickled. She slid her fingers between his toes. The pleasure, which he was trying to ignore, kept infiltrating itself into his article about lawns.

The doorman buzzed. Alan and Lynn looked at each other.

“Can you get that?” Alan said.

Lynn put down his foot and went to answer the in-house phone. “Yes?” She listened. She looked at Alan. “The doorman says that Roland wants to come up.”

Alan didn’t respond.

“I’ll tell him not to let him up,” Lynn said.

“No! Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t let him up?”

“No, don’t tell him not to come up.”

“You want him to come up?”

“Yes.” Alan paused. “Yeah, tell him to come up.”

“Why? Are you insane? And look at the state you’re in. He’ll be upset to see me here. He might lose it.”

“Good, let him kill us. What else have I got to live for, anyway? Let him up!”

Lynn told the doorman to let Roland come up. She opened the front door. She perched herself up on the back of the couch, behind and above Alan, her legs on either side of him, the back of his head in her crotch. She began giving him a head massage.

Roland walked in, stared at the spectacle.

Alan was glad to be covered in food, because he realized it was a testament to Lynn’s obsession, to the power he had over her. That was one way of looking at it, and he wanted that to be the way Roland looked at it.

And Roland certainly was looking. The way Lynn and Alan were sitting, she looked like his throne. Her fingers on his head were his crown. As she massaged his scalp, the skin on his face was being stretched, his eyes were pulled back into slits. Alan tried to shoo her away. But she stayed attached to him, the tips of her fingers clasped to his mostly bald head like tentacles, like a crown of clinginess.

Alan had clearly won. Nothing could have made Roland feel more defeated than this display. It went far beyond a scene of domestic bliss, which certainly would have been discouraging. Alan had become a powerful, grotesque beast, majestic. Roland blinked a few times. He had an urge to bow and leave but forced himself to stay.

“What do you want, exactly?” Alan asked.

Roland didn’t answer at first. Eventually he said, “Can I take Lynn?”

Deliver me from her, deliver me from her, Alan thought. What he said was, “I’d rather you not take anyone by force, but in principle, yes, you can take her, if she’ll go with you.”

“You’re so weak and spineless, no wonder your girlfriend dumped you,” Roland said. “It’s amazing she was with you to begin with.”

“Lynn, please go into my bedroom and bring back what is at the bottom of the third drawer from the top.”

Lynn obeyed. She came back holding Jessica’s gun.

“Kill him,” Alan said.

Roland stared at the gun in Lynn’s hand, pointed at him.

Lynn didn’t shoot.

“If you don’t shoot him, I want you to leave and never return,” Alan said.

Lynn still didn’t shoot. Finally, she said to Alan, “If I kill him, I’ll go to prison and never see you again.” She placed the gun next to Alan on the couch.

Roland rushed toward it. Alan didn’t move. He allowed Roland to grab the gun. Roland shot at Alan. No bullets. Roland tossed the gun back on the couch. “You wimp. You weren’t going to kill me.”

“That’s right, I wasn’t,” Alan said, haughtily. “Now, please, the both of you, get out.” He sounded tired.

Lynn sat next to Alan on the couch and begged him not to make her go.

“Could you please take her with you?” Alan said to Roland. “My feet are oily, and I’m afraid I’ll slip. And I’m exhausted.”

Roland dropped a paper clip, picked up Lynn, and carried her to the door, screaming.

“One moment,” Alan said, and Roland stopped. Alan got up, the sheet of plastic clinging to his butt. He approached, careful so as not to slip. He stroked Lynn’s hair, and said, “I was mildly excited by the idea that you would do anything for me. So I tolerated your presence. But you didn’t pull the trigger. I’m not the least excited any longer.” What he said was true, but one did not always utter something just because it was true. He uttered it in yet another attempt at being unappealing.

They left.

Alan fetched the bullets from his bedroom closet. He loaded the gun.

He took out a piece of paper and on it wrote Jessica’s mother’s phone number followed by the request that Pancake should be taken care of by Jessica. He added a few words: “No one is to blame for my decision to end my life. I’m just not a happy man. Mom, I love you very much. You were and are the best mother imaginable. Please, don’t be too sad. I’m okay now. Love, Alan.”

He left the note near the rat cage.

He said good-bye to Pancake. He knew Jessica would take good care of him. She was a rats-and-guns type of woman.

Alan pressed the barrel of the gun against his temple. He slid it down his cheek. He placed it in his mouth. He tasted the honey and Nesquik that had gathered on its tip. He licked it clean, then stuck the barrel farther into his mouth.

The fire alarm went off. He dropped the gun, grabbed Pancake from his cage, and ran out of the apartment. He could smell smoke. He started racing down the stairwell, cocoa powder flying off him as he ran. He hadn’t bothered closing all the stairwell doors in the building recently, and now there was a fire! He wondered who had started the fire, whether it could have been Roland. A few mint leaves flew off him like loose feathers off a bird. The Rice Krispies slowly rolled down his surface. They were still held on by the honey, but no longer crispy, and the whipped cream dribbled down his nipples and thighs. He slipped and fell a couple of times because of the olive oil on his feet. He was carrying Pancake in one hand and raised that hand high in the air every time he fell, to protect the rat.

He was surprised that nobody was in the stairwell, but since he lived on the top floor, he had always known he’d be last in line, with no one rushing past him in the event of a fire. Anyway, they were probably all taking the elevators down, the fools. They knew nothing about fire safety; they didn’t even keep the stairwell doors on their own floors closed.

When he reached the sidewalk, panting and shaking, most of the tenants were already gathered there. They were horrified at the sight of this chocolate-covered naked man holding a rat. They assumed his skin looked the way it did because he had been scorched by the fire, that his skin was burnt to a crisp and already bubbling up, blistering and doing gross stuff. The whipped cream was some weird fluid the body produced when it got burned: The groin and nipples started foaming. The mint leaves were confusing. The blueberry was long gone. Had it still been there, the tenants might have understood.

Alan reassured them that he was just covered in food. He walked through the crowd, petting Pancake to calm him, and asking the tenants where the fire was, how it had started. They didn’t know for sure. Some said it was on the fourteenth floor, but they kept changing the subject back to the chocolate covering his body. They seemed to be trying tactfully to remind him that he was naked. They asked him whether he might not like to cover himself up, but no one offered any clothing. Alan didn’t understand why his neighbors concerned themselves with such a trivial matter as his nudity. Wasn’t it clear he had been engaged in some kinky sexual game? Was it really the time to giggle about chocolate-covered nudity when there was a fire in the building? What about perspective?

It was a chilly afternoon.

A cop came by and told him to cover up or he would arrest him for indecent exposure.

“But there’s a fire in my building!” Alan said.

“Exhibitionists always have excuses,” the cop replied.

A rumor began spreading that the fire was started by a young woman from the fourteenth floor, technically the thirteenth floor, the bad-luck floor, who was burning a contract her boyfriend wrote and signed in his blood that he’d never lie to her again. And then he did. So she burned the paper and left the fire unattended to cry on her bed.

Alan approached the woman from the fourteenth floor — the fire starter. The crowd of tenants parted to let him through.

He stood in front of her and said, “How could you leave burning paper unattended? Are you insane?”

“I’m sorry it caught you at that bad moment, when you were doing whatever you were doing,” she said, pointing to his chocolate-covered nudity.

“There is no good moment to cause a fire,” Alan replied.

“I’m sorry. I was disillusioned.”

“Why?”

“It’s personal.”

“Everyone already knows about it. You burned a contract in which your boyfriend swore he’d never lie to you again, but he did. Tough. So what?”

“Get away from me. You’re naked and disgusting and infringing on my privacy.”

“And you started a fire. I’m one of your victims.”

She rolled her eyes.

“On candles it says, ‘Never leave burning candles unattended.’ Haven’t you ever had a candle?”

“Get him away from me,” she said, cringing. “You’re naked and disgusting and holding a rat.”

Alan puffed out his chest and loomed over her. He then hopped up on a little wall and spun around, facing the tenants, his rat in one hand. With his other hand he pointed to the disillusioned fire starter. “And whose fault is that? Am I the one who chose to leave burning paper unattended just when I happened to be naked and covered in food? What did you expect me to do? Stay in my apartment and burn to death with my pet?”

“Listen, I can understand why you’re upset,” the woman said. “You’re feeling humiliated and frustrated because I obviously interrupted you in the middle of some perverted sex game, but you’re not improving your lot by screaming.”

A businessman from 3A said, “It does look like the fire alarm caught you in the middle of a titillating situation. It must have been a drag to be interrupted.”

“No! I was in the middle of trying to kill myself, okay?”

A few tenants laughed, assuming it was a joke.

The businessman smiled. “What suicide method involves being covered in chocolate?”

“None. But being covered in chocolate does not stand in the way of suicide,” Alan said.

“No? I think it should,” the man said. “Finding oneself covered in chocolate periodically and for any reason is a sign that one’s life is rather exciting and not worth ending, in my opinion.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

“If I’m wrong, why did you run out of the building to save your life, just when you were about to end it?”

“I was saving my rat, not my life.”

People were silent.

Alan added, “Every day of my life I go up and down the stairwell, closing every door on every floor to protect myself and others from maniacs like her who leave burning, broken, bloody contracts unattended!”

After a moment, the businessman said, “And now, do you still think you’ll kill yourself?”

“Possibly not. The moment passed.”

“So the rest of your life will be thanks to her.”

“Yes. And if my life is bad, which it probably will be, as it has mostly been, it’ll be thanks to her, too.”

“You can’t blame things on others.”

“Just watch me. I’m sure you’re all very familiar with how comforting it is, how mentally helpful it is to blame things on others. You all have your childhood molesters, your bad parents, your abusive teachers, people to blame everything on. I never had one. I thought I did, recently, but I was misled. Now I finally have mine.” He pointed his finger at the woman from 14C and proclaimed, “The rest of my life will be her fault!”

The ex-psychologist homeless man, Ray, looked on, askance, wearily transfixed. He felt beaten down, worn down by the flurry of questions coursing through his mind like a drug whose effect he was trying to resist. It looked to him as though Alan were auditioning to be his patient, and Ray had to admit it was a convincing display of insanity.

Alan suddenly heard a loud voice from the crowd shout, “Drop your weapon!” He looked in the direction of the voice and saw two policemen pointing their guns at him and asking him again to drop his weapon.

“No, it’s not a weapon, it’s my pet rat!” Alan shouted.

“Drop what you’re holding!” they said.

“No! Look, it’s not a gun, it’s just my pet rat, Pancake. He’s not like a dog. He’ll run away if I let him go.” Alan raised Pancake by his tail, letting him dangle. He held the tail between his thumb and index fingers, the rest of his fingers lifted high and spread out, to show that he wasn’t hiding anything else. Pancake struggled at the end of his tail, and abruptly swung up and bit Alan’s hand.

“Ow!” Alan screamed, dropping the rat, who scurried away. Alan leapt off the wall and chased his rat, shouting to people, “Catch him! Catch him! He’s my pet!”

The policemen ran after Alan, who finally caught up with his rat and managed to grab him. Furious, Alan turned to the cops. “How dare you make me almost lose my fucking pet! What do you want? I’m naked because there’s a fire in my building, and I didn’t have time to put on clothes, is that a crime?”

“We need to take you in for questioning.”

“Because I’m naked?”

“No, it’s about another matter.”

“I’m not the one who started the fire. Everyone already knows it’s the woman from 14C. She confessed.”

“It’s about another matter.”

“What other matter?”

“Get in the car.”

“But I’m naked and covered in chocolate and honey. I’ll dirty your car.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve seen worse.”

The police questioned Alan about Max, eventually revealing to him that Max had been found dead. Alan told them about his last exchange with Max and about catching Max having sex with Jessica. They questioned Jessica, who answered all their questions truthfully, and immediately fell into a deep depression, believing she had been the cause of Max’s suicide when she had told Alan, in front of Max, that she had no intention of seeing Max again. They questioned Lynn. They also questioned Roland, even though as far as anyone knew, he hadn’t been at the inn in over a week.

After their brief investigation of Max’s death, the authorities chalked it up to suicide.

Jessica left New York and decided to stay with her parents in the Midwest for a few months to think about her life and the people she had hurt.