Stalker Problems - Chapter 12 - Hermit Weekend
I hated when things were up in the air. And right now, it felt like everything was.
I was nervous about my new job starting tomorrow.
I was worried the police would come arrest me for the rape of Dr. Lyons.
But most of all, I was torn up about the Society.
My good sense told me to terminate the contract and never think of it again.
They had taken my blood without my consent.
There was something shady going on with the million dollars that they seemed to think I’d paid.
And they expected me to have unprotected sex with strange men.
That felt like three strikes, and those were just the first three things that came to mind.
And yet...when the prompt on the app asked me, "Are you sure you want to terminate your contract? " I couldn't bring myself to press YES.
Terminate it, said my twelve-year-old self, the one that went to religious education classes every Wednesday and mass with my dad every Sunday.
The one that prayed every night and tried to follow every rule to a T.
I had always been susceptible to peer pressure, so when that pressure was coming from priests and those priests were telling me that I'd go to hell if I disobeyed God, I listened.
My faith, or rather, my fear, was the reason why I didn't drink until I was 21.
And why I didn't have sex until my wedding night.
When I was a kid, the priests would get mad at me because I'd usually say that I hadn't done anything to confess during confession.
They'd badger me about it until I finally gave up and made up some lie about punching my brother.
And lying to them gave me something real for my next confession.
It was a terrible cycle that I still felt bad about.
Despite that, I still played by their rules.
Until my divorce.
In the eyes of the church, my soul was damaged goods.
The door to heaven was closed to me. Just because Joe was an asshole.
The priest told me I could try to get an annulment so that I could marry again without offending God.
The next day he was arrested for molesting four altar boys.
That was when I realized that my entire religious upbringing had been a sham.
Screw you, twelve-year-old self and your pious bullshit.
Was my spitefulness the only thing keeping me from listening to reason? I didn't think so. Chastity thought wishes from the Society could count toward my list of new things to try. Which was true. And it was also peer pressure.
The letters from the Society added even more pressure.
It didn't have a face, but it felt like there was this group of people expecting me to fulfill the contract I had signed.
Or…they expected Raven Black to do it. Gah, I was an imposter!
That was a good reason to terminate the contract. But…they had sent it to me.
Besides, I was too far in. I would die of curiosity if I didn’t go to at least one event.
Or die of horniness. Whatever label you want to give it, the fact remained that it was drawing me in.
What if I really could fill out a form about my perfect man and the Society would deliver him to my doorstep, wrapped in whatever fantasy I desired?
What if I could really complete my three wishes and then terminate the contract and get a check for a million dollars?
What if I could really find love? With my stalker.
It wasn't lost on me that I saw my stalker leaving his apartment every Tuesday and Thursday at 8 pm and wishes were scheduled to occur at 8:30 on those same days.
A half-hour would have been plenty of time for him to get to wherever the wishes were taking place.
I lifted up my list of new things to try. I’d tasted 32 new smoothie flavors and still preferred strawberry banana. And I’d blacked out. That was pretty much it. Trying gross smoothies wasn’t living. Having sex with strangers was! Gah, no. Gah, yes! Just…gah!
To terminate or not to terminate . There were pros and cons for both.
And the decision was paralyzing. I couldn't bring myself to terminate the contract, but I also couldn't promise myself that I'd accept the first wish.
Hell, I didn't even know when the first wish would be.
Would the next black envelope arrive tonight?
Tomorrow? Three months from now? It was just one more thing up in the air. And it was driving me freaking nuts.
Instead of enjoying my weekend of reclusivity, I’d spent most of it stress cleaning and compulsively checking Joe and Sierra’s Instagrams to see if they were officially together yet.
I didn't know why I tortured myself with it.
It didn't matter if they were together. I would never take him back. Actually, it did matter if they didn’t work out.
I wanted nothing more than to see that she had cheated on him the way he cheated on me. Like I said, I was spiteful.
By Tuesday morning I had cleaned pretty much everything in my apartment. Twice. Okay, okay. I’m lying. It was three times. The only thing left to do was try on my new clothes and pick out an outfit for my first day of work tomorrow.
I was halfway through the fifth box of clothes when I heard a knock at the door.
Weird. I was pretty sure all of my clothes had already been delivered.
I counted the boxes again just to be sure.
Yup, all nine boxes had arrived. For twelve outfits.
All shipped from Amazon Prime. And all the boxes were at least five times too big for their contents.
Why didn't they ever just ship everything together?
There was another knock, this time accompanied by Chastity's voice yelling something about food. That tricky bastard.
"Why is it so clean in here?" asked Chastity as she pushed past me into my apartment. I wouldn't have even opened the door if not for the Red Robin take-out bag in her arms.
"There better be a cheeseburger in there.
And fries. If you Trojan Horsed your way in here.
.." The cheesy, greasy aroma wafting up from the bag stopped me mid-sentence.
In a second, my apartment went from smelling like a 900 square foot container of Febreze - the original scent, not that stupid new odorless one - to smelling like a fast-food kitchen.
My mouth was watering almost as much as it had been when my stalker dropped his pants during that filthy delivery boy dream I’d had last night.
Yeah, that's right. After hermitting all weekend, I had started having fantasies about my stalker coming to my door dressed as a FedEx man.
The night before that he'd been a pizza boy hell-bent on giving me sausage with my pizza whether I ordered it or not.
And the night before that I'd just dreamt that Amazon had a sale on cleaning supplies. My vow of reclusivity wasn’t working. I was definitely still a pervert.
"Come on, I wouldn't do that to you." Chastity pulled two Styrofoam boxes out of the bag and put them on the coffee table.
“Thank you, you’re amazing and I love you.” I plopped down next to her on the couch and took a huge bite of my burger. I knew it was terrible for me, but I didn’t care. Red Robin was the one unhealthy thing I still enjoyed. And pizza. And maybe ice cream…
She laughed. “Love you too. So what have you been up to?"
"Oh, you know. Watching some TV, cleaning a little…”
"A little? This place is immaculate. It looks like a serial killer just sanitized it to destroy the evidence of his latest kill."
"Thank you." I bet my stalker’s apartment was this clean too.
"The only thing out of place is...that." She nodded towards the kitchen table.
It was still covered with Monopoly games and the creepy black wig.
I had started to clean it up, but I couldn't even.
Having to do one return was bad enough, but we had gotten them from like twenty different stores. And I hated people.
"I think I'm just going to keep them," I said.
"Didn't you say they cost $1300?"
"$1314 to be precise, and that’s just the Monopoly games. Don't even ask me how much the wig was."
"I still can't figure out why we bought that thing," said Chastity. We had texted about it multiple times throughout the weekend, but neither one of us had any recollection of why we’d purchased it. I'd read the contract front to back looking for any mention of a wig. No such mention existed.
There was only one explanation. "It was probably Liz's idea."
"That makes sense. Really, how much was it?"
"Oh, only $1500."
Chastity nearly choked on a French fry. "Holy shit. Ash, you have to return everything."
I casually took a bite of my burger to appear like I didn't care.
"It's not worth it." But I did care. I cared so much.
Wasting money made my skin feel like it was melting off.
The prospect of my fake security deposit getting returned at the end of three wishes softened the blow a bit, but it seemed too good to be true.
They'd probably realize their error and refuse to pay me.
Or just pay me in Monopoly money. God knows I already have enough of that.
"What if I help?"
"You'd really go with me?" That was good. Having her there would make it less awkward. If I was tricky enough, I thought I might even be able to get her to do most of the talking.
"You don't even have to come if you don't want to. I don't want to disturb your vow of reclusivity." At first I thought she was being the best friend ever, but then I noticed the twinkle of mischief in her eyes.
"What's the catch?"
She pretended to look hurt. "Why do you think there's a catch?"
"First you're eating burgers with me and it's not even your cheat day. And now you're offering to run around town returning all that crap. There's no way there's not a catch."
"That depends. Do you consider making you go out tonight a catch?"
"Definitely."
"Then I guess there is a catch."
"Forget it. I'll keep all of it. Maybe Monopoly will go out of print and they'll suddenly be worth millions on eBay."
"Oh come on. I found this awesome little speakeasy where famous actors like to hang out."
"Tempting, but no thanks."
"Why not? You have to go to work tomorrow anyway. You're just going to be more nervous than usual if you haven't reintroduced yourself into the wild yet."
"Into the wild? What am I? A zoo animal?"
"Speaking of zoo animals...what do you think the odds are that the guy at One57 will be wearing a leopard print suit tonight?"
I shook my head. "Unlikely. He never wears the same suit twice, and he wore leopard print five Thursdays ago."
"Okay, stalker."
"What? I was kidding." I laughed awkwardly. "I don't remember his suits." Besides, he’s the stalker, not me. And having a good memory didn’t make me a criminal.
"Sure you don't. Well, either way. I bet he's going to look super hot. Oh no, and you’re staying here so you can’t see him. Do you want me to try to take a selfie with him so you can see?"
Damn it, damn it, damn it! Why had I ever told her about my stalker?
I should have known she would use it against me.
At least I didn’t actually tell her that I thought he was stalking me.
She never would have believed it, even though it was 100% true.
"Okay, here's the deal. You return all that shit we bought, and I'll go to spin class tonight, no speakeasy though. "
"Deal."
We finished our burgers and then attempted to make it look like none of the boxes of Monopoly had been opened.
It took us at least 10 trips to carry all the games down to Chastity's car.
And it was going to take us just as many trips to carry them all back up since all the stores rejected the returns.
Well, not all. Chastity said one store in a particularly sketchy part of the city took back three of them for store credit.
But the rest could tell that they'd already been opened.
Eight stores in, the cashier at a CVS told Chastity that they weren't accepting returns of any Monopoly games because it had been flagged as organized retail crime.
"And the wig place?" I asked.
"Apparently Amy just started working there.”
“Huh, I haven’t talked to her in a while. I should reach out.” She and her husband had been best couple friends with Joe and me. But I hadn’t really heard from them since the divorce.
Chastity looked away. “Maybe don’t?”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say I think Joe got her and Bill in the divorce.”
“Why?” I asked again. I needed details.
“Did you guys have a fight? She told me I shouldn’t hang out with you. I think the words homewrecker and dumb slut were used. Did you sleep with Bill?”
“What the hell? No! Joe must be telling people that the divorce is my fault.” And thanks to the blackmail, I can’t do a damned thing about it. I clenched my fists. I wanted nothing more than to punch Joe right in his stupid lying face.
“Wow. What an asshole.”
“Whatever, he’s dead to me.” The divorce was the last thing on my mind right now. I was a little preoccupied with all the Monopoly games Chastity couldn’t offload.
“Well…anyway, she wouldn’t accept the return. Apparently they have a NO RETURNS policy. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that it only applies to us.” Chastity tossed me the bag with the wig and then loaded me up with four Monopoly boxes.
"We have to find a different way then. Maybe I can sell them two for $50, kind of like that homeless dude with the Oreos.
" It had happened a few months ago, but it was so strange that I could still picture it perfectly.
Chastity, Madison, and I had been walking to get some Thai food when this guy holding two boxes of Oreos had approached us and said, "Two for $3.
" We respectfully declined his offer. "I always wondered how he had been able to offer us such a good deal,” I said.
“Now we know. He must have signed up for a sex club that uses Oreos as currency, drunkenly bought a million boxes of them, and then had buyer's remorse. "
Chastity laughed. "At least someone can eat two boxes of Oreos. Two boxes of Monopoly, on the other hand, are completely useless."
"Maybe we can convince someone that it's good to always have a back-up."
"Oh yeah, that'll totally work."
"Do you have any better..." As we walked into my apartment, my left foot slid out from underneath me. I tossed the four Monopoly boxes in the air and ended up on my ass. "What the hell?" I muttered. I had just cleaned everything. What could I possibly have slipped on?
"Looks like the Society paid us a little visit while we were downstairs." Chastity bent down and picked up the lacy black envelope that I had just slipped on.