Free Love Creeps by Amanda Filipacchi Page A

to ask herself why she was finding rejection appealing and try to remember the last time she’d been rejected.
    She said softly, “I have to confess something.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’m not a stalker. I was forcing myself to stalk you.”
    â€œGood,” he said, clearly not believing her. “Then, we can end this weekend right now and go home.”
    â€œNo, it’s not that simple. I no longer feel desire for anything or anyone, and so I picked you to practice on. I want to want you.”
    He sighed and put his napkin next to his plate. He said he was going to his room to rest.
    Alan was in a state of awful anxiety. Roland still hadn’t called. He tried not to think about it by busying himself with the preparations for his own weekend with Lynn. He looked for his lost driver’s license, because he didn’t want to seem unmanly in Lynn’s eyes by asking her to drive. After searching for it for twenty minutes, he figured he had more important worries. He planned the weekend in great detail. He made a list of topics of conversation. He went shopping for attractive clothes. He researched hairdressers. He went to the gym.
    But it all wasn’t enough. He would not deserve her if he didn’t do more to make up for his deficiencies. Go to more trouble , he told himself, but he wasn’t sure there was any more trouble available.
    Later, Roland suggested to Lynn that they go for another walk. She brought along some bread to feed the squirrels. The air was pleasantly cool at five-thirty. Their voices seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet of the country.
    Lynn wore a cream shirt and brown suede skirt. She was a becoming woman, Roland thought. It didn’t make sense that she would be stalking him, not that he was not becoming himself, or that becoming women didn’t stalk, but there was just something that didn’t fit.
    He said, “You were putting me on, right, when you said you were forcing yourself to stalk me?”
    â€œI so wish I was,” Lynn said. “But no. Stalking you is an ordeal. I don’t know how Alan manages to stalk me with so much energy.”
    â€œListen, I have no idea if what you’re saying is true, but it’s certainly quirky. You know, I could have liked you if we had met some other way.”
    â€œI wish I could say the same to you, but I’m sorry, there’s no manner in which we could have met that would have made me like you.” After a pause, she added, “You, or anyone, of course. I don’t always add that, because it gets wordy.”
    Softly, he said, “I think you should add it, even if it gets wordy.”
    â€œOh, okay.”
    They came upon a bench and sat down. Lynn was on the lookout for squirrels.
    Out of the bushes appeared a little pointy face. A raccoon. She threw bread at the raccoon, not quite far enough, in order to lure the animal closer. It worked.
    â€œYou should not feed this animal. It’s vermin,” Roland said.
    â€œI strongly disagree.” Lynn kept feeding it, bringing it closer.
    â€œYou’re not even trying to like me. Why did you bother coming this weekend?”
    â€œI am trying,” she said.
    Roland used another tactic. “I’m hungry. I want to eat your bread. Please give it to me.”
    â€œI don’t have much left.”
    â€œWill you choose to give your bread to an animal rather than to a hungry man?”
    â€œYes.”
    Lynn continued feeding the raccoon. How much more she enjoyed taming than stalking. Perhaps the world was divided into two kinds of people: the tamers and the stalkers. She was clearly a tamer. Taming was a more evolved activity. Stalking was a more animalistic activity. Like eating. Like fucking.
    â€œIt might have rabies,” Roland said, looking at the raccoon, who was a foot from Lynn’s leg. “You better be careful.”
    By then the raccoon was eating out of Lynn’s hand. It gave