How I Made My Stalker Disappear

No, I’m not a magician, but I did find a magic wand.

At 19 years old, I looked about 14. I cycled to work every day, so I was a skinny bean. I dressed like a boy, always in jeans. Nevertheless, I caught the attention of a man who lived at the end of our road.

One night, around 6 p.m., the landline rang, and I picked it up to hear a stranger’s voice. “Hello, would you like to go out for a drink with me?”

I asked who it was, and he explained he lived down the road. I told him no, and he hung up. A man sometimes waved to me, and I’d thought nothing of it. We lived on the same road. What I had noticed however, was his wife and children. The children often played in the street.

A few nights later, he called again to ask me to go to a club with him.

“Why don’t you take your wife?”

“I don’t fancy my wife, I fancy you.”

The sheer brazenness of his reply made me drop the receiver back into its cradle pronto. He said it as if it were a perfectly reasonable remark.

Cycling to work a few mornings later, he stopped me en route. He drove a van, he’d parked it on the side of the road. I had no idea what he did for a living. I wasn’t remotely interested. He wasn’t threatening or unpleasant. He acted as if we were already…