Only nine-hundred and sixty-two people stalked me today. I counted them carefully. My chest heaved. This was four fewer than yesterday. Maybe they chose to stalk Henry Linting instead. He did look stunning last time I saw him, with his bulky figure and red cravat as he exited his limo to fanfare. Walking by him felt like going past a black hole, sucking my stalker-count in. No matter how many times I worked out at the gym, with hundreds of people of all ages peeking through the glass walls, I couldn’t quite compete against his stalkability.
The city’s skyscrapers penned my stalkers in. Water from the rainstorm earlier dripped from the buildings and hit them. They didn’t move away They barely noticed anything but me. Their eyes were alert, some with pencils and notebooks in hand, documenting my activities. I bet they read the notes before bed as comfort.
“Hey, Mr. Chrissom,” asked a twenty-something stalker, her hair tied in a bun from a ribbon I signed. “What underwear are you wearing?”
I grinned. “Calvin Klein, boxer briefs. The black ones.”
Many stalkers nodded, whispering to their neighbors about the last time I wore them and the last time I had it washed. Apparently, this was my second time wearing it since it was washed.
Oops.
I walked down Billingsley Street and passed people of low stalkability. I quickly counted the stalkers to compare. The most stalked person had a woeful nineteen. His eyes seethed with envy, quickly quashing it when my gaze trained on him. They showed deference to their superiors. Meanwhile, their stalkers looked at me longingly. I imagined their internal conflict festering, weighing the attention they get from low-stalked losers against my magnetic charms.
I might be no Henry Linting, but my upbringing in a family of tech executives didn’t hurt my standing in the stalk market. But most of all, my short, dark, meticulously combed hair sheened, while my smile almost made people want to put their hand in my mouth, my teeth biting into them, so they’d feel a sense of worth. I’ve interacted with enough stalkers to understand them.
I stopped at the corner of Billingsley and Noffer. My stalkers followed suit. There was the familiar neon sign: Cred Club. A muscle-bound, tobacco-breathed bouncer with a scrawny stalker blocked the door. “Welcome,” the bouncer said. A woman with blotchy skin tried to take advantage of his divided attention by rushing through. The bouncer tackled her to the ground.
“Where are your stalkers?” he shouted.
The intruder mewled. “I just want to see. Please let me!”
The bouncer’s voice hardened. “Stalkers?”
“I don’t have any. Please just let me-“
The intruder got up, and the bouncer pushed her away. “Consider that a warning. Next time you come here, there’ll be none of that.”
The intruder stomped away, sniffling. The bouncer turned to me. “How many?”
I fixed my posture and upturned my chin. “Nine-hundred and sixty-two.” Cred Club required five-hundred stalkers for entry. It was my goal since I was eighteen to amass enough to get in. Now that I’d blown past that dream, I was awash in a different feeling, and not a welcome one. It felt like stalks – the kind in plants – wrapped around me, suffocating anything close to joy from emerging.
The bouncer nodded. He and his stalker got out of the way.
My stalkers and I marched inside, down a marble tunnel. The stalkers asked, “Are you doing well?” “Will you go on a second date with Darla from last night?” “Is visiting your mother still a biweekly thing?” I replied yes.
We arrived at an arena converted into a club. Only a space this big could accommodate multiple people with hundreds – sometimes thousands – of stalkers.
Pop music boomed. Some of my stalkers took in the gilded railings and diamond-crusted chandeliers, while most kept their eyes on me.
I pitied them.
I’d been surrounded by these people long enough to know that all of them once had dreams of being stalked by the thousands. But that was unattainable for them. So, they channeled their life into another.
But sometimes I saw them appreciate the luxuries I was afforded. In those moments, their old life peeked out. Diamond-encrusted chandeliers sometimes evoked want instead of awe.
I headed to the club’s center: a space closed to stalkers, opened only for the stalked. I danced. I tried to get lost in honeyed music and movements, but it didn’t work. I watched the stalkers watching me They salivated. Their rancor became more apparent. It was always there but I’d learned to ignore it. That skill had tired out.
I tried to regain my bearings, but each effort I took to anchor myself made me more adrift. I ran out of the club. Stalkers tried to follow, but they were slow, and the distance between us grew.
Outside of Cred Club was a man with unruly curly hair, wearing headphones. He walked down the sidewalk and whistled a familiar song. He was not stalked nor was he stalking. He beamed at everything. I was struck with something close to adoration. Part of me wanted to stalk him, but I knew that would ruin his magic. I let him walk away. The only thing stalking him was his shadow.