Alan introduced Lynn to the crew and to the sexy woman at whose gorgeous apartment he said they had shot much of the movie. After the introductions he went back to makeup.
Lynn’s cell phone rang. It was Patricia telling her a curator wanted to have lunch with her next week. Lynn set a date. Before hanging up, Patricia said, “Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you that you’ve been rejected by the World Wrestling Entertainment Training Camp.”
“I see,” Lynn said softly, absorbing this information, giving it time to seep into her emotional bloodstream and work its preventative magic.
They hung up.
Lynn observed Alan perform the kissing scene numerous times. She was particularly absorbed by the pause just before their lips met. She was also captivated by the way he had his fingers threaded through his scene partner’s hair, and the way he held the back of her head so tenderly. Lynn admired the fact that he repeated the kissing scene with endless patience and goodwill. And the fact that his scene partner didn’t seem at all bothered to kiss him. The actress was even kidding around with him, treating him totally respectfully, and she was quite attractive.
The sexy woman came and sat next to Lynn. They both watched Alan and his scene partner.
“He told me he used to be a stalker,” the sexy woman said to Lynn, not taking her eyes off Alan. “You wouldn’t think so, would you?”
“No,” Lynn said.
“I wouldn’t mind being stalked by him.”
Lynn laughed. “I was,” she couldn’t resist revealing.
The woman looked at her. “You were?”
Lynn just smiled.
“Did you go for him?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“I was messed up, then. And he was, too.”
They watched the filming in silence for a few minutes. And then the sexy woman said, “Look at the way she flirts with him. Shameless. She has no pride.”
It was between takes, and Alan’s scene partner was showing him her bra strap and giggling. Then she mussed up his hair.
“Uh-huh,” Lynn agreed.
“I guess I don’t blame her,” the sexy woman said. “There’s something about him.”
Lynn began flipping through a fashion magazine. The sexy woman leaned over and whispered to her, “If you could pick only one of those guys to stalk you, which one would it be? Not counting Alan, of course.” She was pointing to the six recovering stalkers.
“None.”
“Me neither.” She paused. “Although maybe that one at the end, just for the hell of it.” She licked her lower lip. “But it wouldn’t bring me much pleasure.” After a few seconds, she said, “I’m very naughty,” and got up. She walked over to the recovering stalkers and said, breathily, “You boys stalkers?”
They nodded; one uttered, “Yes,” and another specified, “Recovering.”
She slowly walked to the one sitting at the end, and said to him, “But, what if a girl wants to be stalked? Would you make an exception?”
To their embarrassment, the stalkers noticed they were breathing in unison, which they immediately tried to stop doing, causing some of them to hyperventilate and others to suffocate. And then they glanced at their buddy at the end, who could not bring himself to look up at her; he was staring down at her feet.
Finally, one of them asked the others, “Do you know the answer? Are exceptions allowed in cases of women who want to be stalked?”
“I seriously doubt it,” said the one at the end, still staring at her feet but jiggling his leg nervously.
“Are you sure?” the woman said. “I’d really like to be stalked by you. It would be so … titillating.”
Lynn listened, while pretending to be absorbed in her magazine.
“Just say no,” they whispered to the one at the end. They nudged him. “Recite the anthem.”
“Okay.” He shifted in his seat, cleared his throat, continued bouncing his leg, and began to recite, “Stalking is not for me, not my thing. That’s not to say I won’t ask a woman or man on a date. I’d say, ‘Would you like to go to the park? Stroll about? People watch, not stalk? Would you like to give me your number? Or would you prefer to take mine? I respect women’s privacy, men’s, too. I would never do anything you don’t want me to. Especially I wouldn’t stalk you.’”
He finally glanced up at her with apprehension.
“But I want you to do something I don’t want you to. I want you to stalk me. Stalk me,” she exhaled.
“OKAY!” he exploded, shooting up out of his chair. “I will stalk you! I will stalk you day and night, whether you want me to or not. Move! You have to move for me to stalk you. If you just stand there, I can’t. So move. Take a step, then another.” He was shouting in her face, so she took a step back, and he took a step forward.
The other five stalkers gasped and shielded their eyes from this tempting display of stalking.
Alan heard the commotion and came over. “What’s going on?”
The five stalkers couldn’t answer, as they were too busy protecting themselves from the bad influence. The sexy woman took another step back, and the man a step forward.
“Tom,” Alan said, shocked, “are you … stalking her?”
“You know I am!”
“How did this happen?”
The five stalkers pointed their fingers at her with their faces still averted from the spectacle. “She did it! Horrible woman!”
“Everyone here is insane,” Alan said. “Lynn, tell me what happened.”
Not wanting to get the sexy woman into trouble, Lynn said, “I didn’t really see. I was … reading.” She slightly lifted her fashion magazine.
“It’s true what they say,” the sexy woman said, throwing her head back defiantly, reminding Lynn of Kathleen Turner. “I did it, and I don’t regret it.”
“Not yet anyway,” Alan said.
“I like it, I tell you.”
“You like it so far. You’ve been stalked exactly two steps. Wait till it’s been a thousand.”
“I look forward to it,” she said.
Alan next addressed Tom, the relapsing stalker. “Just turn away. It’s not too late. You can still turn away.”
“No,” the stalker growled. “Don’t touch me. I’ve never been happier in my life.”
“You shouldn’t be hearing this,” Alan shouted to the five stalkers.
They all stuck their fingers in their ears.
“If this is what you both want, please go and do it somewhere else. I shouldn’t be exposed to this either,” Alan said. “I feel my resistance weakening.”
But they did not go somewhere else. They were too absorbed with each other, she taking one tiny step back, and he responding with one small step forward. It was a beautiful, enticing dance in the eyes of the stalkers.
One of them suddenly remembered he had an antistalking motivational tape — a tape especially made for stalkers faced with temptation. He yanked his Walkman out of his knapsack and shared half of his headphones with one of his buddies. They listened to the tape for a few seconds, then allowed the three others to hear some of it for a few seconds, like scuba divers sharing one mouthpiece connected to one air tank, to survive. The headphones ended up breaking in half, because of the hysterical energy with which they were handled, but they still worked.
The stalkers calmed down. The commotion was over. The fallen stalker was finally gone with his prey, and the only bothersome thing left in their surroundings were the birders, from whom they occasionally heard distracting exclamations, like, “They’re both on the railing!” and “It’s been a very busy birdy day.”
Although the stalkers bad-mouthed the birders, they repositioned their chairs in order to hear the annoying things the birders were saying, such as: “I like the way the pigeons fly in that direction, then see the hawk and they go, ‘Uh-oh, uh-oh, never mind!’”