The next day, as Lynn walked into the house carrying bags of groceries, Roland pranced into the kitchen in his boxer shorts and said, “Guess who called?”
She hadn’t seen him this cheerful in a long time. “Who?”
“Alan.”
“Really?”
“Yup.” Roland plucked a grape from a bag, popped it in his mouth.
“Why?”
“It seems that I was right. No one’s life is perfect. His is not, despite that little show he put on for us, and his stupid riddle. He’s having some problems.”
“What are they?”
“Wants to meet up with me, man to man, to confide. What a loser.”
Lynn placed the milk in the fridge sadly.
Roland went on. “And so I very cleverly thought of something we could get out of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in exchange for doing him this favor, I asked that he let us see his apartment.”
“Why?”
“So that we’ll have something to amuse us afterward. In case his problems aren’t enough.”
“But if he wants to see you man to man, I can’t go with you.”
“We can still meet him at his place, then you can go off and do something else while I have lunch with him.”
“I don’t feel like going into the city.”
“You’re such a drag. I want you to come. I did this for you.”
“Did what for me?”
“Got him to agree to let us see his apartment! I did it for the sake of our relationship, so that you and I could hopefully have a little rapprochement, through laughter. If you don’t come with me, I’ll take it as a sign that you have no interest in our relationship.”
Lynn sighed. “Okay, I’ll go.”
He leaned his body against hers, pressing her against the fridge, and lifted her skirt. The magnets squeaked, digging into her back. She tried to resist him, slightly. He persevered. There was really only one type of occasion left in their daily lives when she didn’t find him repulsive, and that was when he pretended to force himself on her. But the appeal of even that was fading.
“Not a bad little place you’ve got here,” Roland said, standing in Alan’s living room, as Lynn looked on. “This white chair seems out of place here, though. It’s dirty.”
“I know,” Alan said. “It’s my white elephant. I keep meaning to get rid of it, but I can’t stand the thought of just throwing it away. Do you know anyone who might want it?”
“Lord, no. Just dump it. And that rat, too, in my opinion. Okay, shall we go to lunch?”
“Yes,” Alan said. “Lynn, will you be all right on your own? Feel free to stay here while we’re out, if you want to rest. There’s plenty of food in the fridge.”
Lynn started objecting, but Roland cut her off. “That’s so nice of you. I’m sure she’d like to rest a little before walking the streets.”
Lynn rolled her eyes at Roland’s fondness for incorporating lame insulting double meanings in his comments about her.
“Okay then. Let me just go to the bathroom, and we can go.” Alan left the living room.
Roland whispered to Lynn, “When we’re gone, rummage around a little. Try to find stuff we can laugh about later. Believe me, we need it.”
The two men left Lynn alone in the apartment. Roland dropped a button on his way out.
Ray the homeless man had been surprised to see Lynn and Roland entering Alan’s apartment building and was even more stunned to see Alan and Roland leaving together with Lynn still inside. He wondered what it all meant, but he suppressed his curiosity, telling himself that whatever the explanation, it was bound to contain a core of triviality. Strange people were just trying to tantalize him, and he was determined to resist.
“So, what’s your problem, little buddy?” Roland asked, biting into a cheeseburger.
That French accent didn’t mix well with his Americanisms.
“I’m afraid my girlfriend might be cheating on me,” Alan said, not having had the time to come up with a better pretext for the meeting.
“Hmm. I’m sorry to hear it. But before we get into that, I’ve always wondered, why is being a sex addict a problem?”
“It gets in the way of work and relationships.”
“How did it get in the way of her work as a private detective?” Roland snickered. He was capable of snickering in a normal fashion.
“For example, she was hired to follow a man to find out if he was having an affair. And even though he was not, he ended up having one with her.”
“Oh, I see. And you said you met her when she was in a Sex Addicts meeting next to your Stalkaholics meeting? How did you start dating?”
“The two meetings let out at the same time, and you can often see the stalkers and the sex addicts eyeing each other. It’s not uncommon for members of one group to start dating members of the other.”
“Please go on.”
“There’s a lot of tension when the stalkers and sex addicts mingle in the hallway. Many of them scurry away like criminals, trying to resist their temptations. She, being a professional stalker, liked the fact that I didn’t seem ashamed of my addiction. That was important to her, since my addiction is her profession, and she didn’t want to be with someone who was ashamed of what she did for a living. It’s kind of ironic since she’s ashamed of her addiction.”
“She’s ashamed of being a sex addict?”
“Oh, horribly. In fact, she’s in complete denial of it. Not at first, she wasn’t. Later, when she started getting her addiction under control, she no longer wanted to think of herself as a sex addict and became convinced she no longer was. I had to constantly remind her of the twelve-step belief that an addict is always an addict.”
“Well, maybe she isn’t one, any longer,” Roland said.
Alan gave him an exasperated look. “One of our ongoing battles is she wants me to dress up as a pink rabbit and go to Central Park and have sex with her in public.”
“Is she nuts?”
“No. She’s a sex addict.”
“For everyone to see? In the middle of the crowds?”
“Yes, but hidden by the costume I’d be wearing, so it wouldn’t be obvious what we were doing.”
“Do you guys have sex a lot?”
“A fair amount. She’s like a very lovely patient who needs to be administered to. The Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings have helped her a lot, though. She’s doing so much better. She’s had relapses in the past, but not since I’ve met her, and I don’t think there’s much chance of one happening at this point. I really trust her.” Alan caught himself just in time. “Except, of course, that I don’t.”
Roland nodded. “So what makes you think she’s cheating on you?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just my paranoia.”
“You brought me all the way over here for your paranoia? No, man, tell me the truth.”
“It’s just a feeling I have. But I’m probably wrong.”
“Give me some facts.”
Not having expected Roland to be so pushy, Alan had not prepared any facts. So he had to improvise. “Oh, there’s that chair. My white chair. It has some spots on it.”
“Damn you, I can’t believe you dragged me to the city for this.”
“Well, how do you explain the spots?” Alan stabbed at his spinach salad. “They look as though they’ve been washed.”
“So? Do people only scrub off sex spots, not food spots? What makes you think they’re sex spots and not food spots?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. I told you it was my paranoia.”
“What else?”
“Hmm. The fact that sometimes when I call her, she’s out of breath and when I ask her why, she says she’s exercising, and only then does the aerobics tape start playing in the background.”