What have I done?
Stalker Problems - Chapter 12 - Hermit Weekend
Tuesday – April 11, 2023
Ihatedwhen 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 whyI 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 knowwhenthe 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 shehad 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 allweekend, 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.
