Love Creeps by Amanda Filipacchi

want to go through that nightmare again.”
    â€œMe neither.”
    â€œI felt like I had lost you.”
    â€œYou haven’t,” she said, hugging him. She noticed Patricia giving her a little smile and raising one eyebrow.
    The following day, thanks to the rat’s company, Alan felt slightly better and was able to eat. He skipped work again, and by the end of the afternoon, he felt strong enough to get started on a little stalking of Lynn and Roland: the couple.
    Alan intended to quit stalking soon. He knew it wasn’t healthy for him. He would stop it, cold turkey. He already had an idea of how he would do it. But before reforming, he wanted to sink into the most gross behavior he could manage.
    â€œTraitors!” he shouted at them, when Roland picked Lynn up at her gallery after work.
    Carrying a small white basket, he followed them down the street. He didn’t even try to make the stalking good. “You stink, you pretentious asshole. And you, Lynn, you’re ugly! And what is this crap about you trying to want him! And about you stalking him insincerely! You sicko! You are both fucked-up sickos!”
    They walked more briskly. Roland dropped a button on the sly. He and Lynn gave change to Ray. Alan did, too. The redheaded, ex-psychologist, homeless man scrutinized them and tried to repress his curiosity. He restrained himself from throwing the change at their backs.
    He heard Alan scream at the two others, “And look what I have here!” He saw Alan take a squirming animal out of his basket, and say, “It’s a rat!”
    Pancake was on a leash and halter, so there was no risk of his running into the gutter to join the other rats. “He wants to kiss you, Lynn! Won’t you give him a little kiss? I know you like kissing vermin.” As was often the case with people who intended soon to quit something cold turkey, Alan was binging on his addiction.
    Roland suddenly stopped in front of a fabric shop and said, “I need to go in here for a second.”
    â€œWhy?” Lynn asked.
    â€œI’m out of buttons.”
    Alan did not follow them into the store. Roland picked out some buttons and paid for them.
    Lynn examined the buttons and couldn’t think which of his clothes they would suit. Some were red, some yellow, some were suede, some were tiger’s eye, and some were covered in fabric. They were all small. “What are these buttons for?” she asked.
    â€œFor nothing. I just need them.”
    â€œDo you collect them?”
    â€œNo, I lose them. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
    â€œWhy does something have to be wrong with you? Everybody loses buttons.”
    â€œBut not as many as I do.”
    Alan stalked the couple again the next day, after work. Roland begged him to stop, and promised he’d go out with him to help him meet women. But Alan wanted Lynn. The couple decided to endure the stalking. They didn’t think Alan was dangerous, and they felt sorry for him.
    Alan was frustrated by their newfound indifference to his stalking. After what they had done to him, they could at least do him the courtesy of acting annoyed. He toned down his stalking to make them nervous. When neither subtle nor obvious stalking was unsettling them, Alan shut himself up in his apartment and didn’t go to work or eat for days. He sat facing his window hour after hour. Sometimes he held Pancake on his lap. Finally, one afternoon, weak from not having eaten, and yet not hungry, he put on his boots and went to a meeting of Stalkaholics Anonymous.
    Most of Lynn’s fifteen artists came back to her. A couple of them even cried from joy that she wanted them. She only lost two, who were by then committed to other galleries, but even they were disappointed that their ties were severed.
    Opening Lynn’s mail one morning, Patricia saw that Lynn had not lost time in using her rejection method to prevent the future loss of her