Junk Mail

Both the beginning and the end of his life hinged on that first $20,000.

Nick had never won anything in his life, so it was with more than a bit of skepticism that he received the news of his “grand prize” win. Certified mail. A real address. A legitimate company. What would otherwise have been tossed aside as an elaborate scam, continued to defy his expectations. He leaned back into his seat at the computer. Could this bit of junk mail be real?

The sudden knock at the door startled him. Nick didn’t know anyone that would just pop over, especially without a call or text first. He opened the door to reveal a trio of women on the other side. The woman in the middle was all business in her fitted pants suit and tidy updo. The women on either side of her wore nearly identical dresses and matching jeweled leather chokers, and each carried a briefcase.

The woman in the middle had a smooth, but commanding voice – deep but feminine. “Nicholas Andrew Reyes?”

Nick bristled at the sound of his full name. Flashbacks of an angry mom lecture. “Yeah?”

“Congratulations,” she said with a thin smile. “You’re a winner.”

Nick tried to come up with a clever response, but all he managed to do was come across as a bit slow.

“I’m Lucy and I’m here to deliver your prize.”

Nick still couldn’t quite speak, but he managed to let out a bit of a curt laugh, like a scoff as if to say, “Yeah right.”

Lucy gestured to the woman on her right, making the large colorful bracelet on her wrist jingle. Without any flourish, she raised her briefcase and opened it so Nick could see the rows of stacked twenty-dollar bills inside.

Nick gulped, took a step back and turned his body out of the door frame, clearing the path for the women to enter. Suddenly aware of his unkempt apartment, he scurried over to the couch to clear off the beer cans and discarded takeout boxes.

Lucy moved like a stalking tiger, lithe, powerful strides with one high-heeled foot in front of the other until she had swept into the room and seated herself on the sofa as though it were a throne. The other women maintained their positions to her right and left, but they walked softly, heads just a bit lowered as though in reverent deference. Nick gulped again. Who did he just let into his home?

Lucy cleared her throat and Nick realized he was staring again. There was no other furniture in the room, so he sat on the floor across from her. From this angle, the clutter of empty cans, bottles and Chinese food boxes on the coffee table between them looked like an odd city skyline with Lucy looming over it like a goddess. She gestured with her other hand to the woman on her left. Her bracelets jingled again. The woman presented her briefcase showing a single stack of papers resting in a recess in the middle of the dark velvet interior. Lucy withdrew the stack and handed them to Nick.

“In order to release this money to you, I will require your signature on this agreement.”

Nick flipped through a few pages, catching on a word here or there. Indemnity. Liability. Ownership. None of it really meant anything. He just kept thinking about that other case. Twenty thousand dollars would go a long way to exhuming him from the financial grave he’d dug himself into.

“It’s standard language. We have to make sure that you’re really you, that you’re making decisions out of your own free will and not under any duress.”

“Right...”

“There is also the matter of our continued relationship.”

Nick looked up from the papers, eyebrows raised. The corner of Lucy’s mouth winked towards a smile.

“Our organization requires subjects to periodically test our products and services. These positions are highly sought-after so we’ve opted for a lottery system to choose candidates. This $20,000 isn’t just a prize. It’s a signing bonus.”

Nick leaned forward. “What kind of products?”

“It could be anything. Shampoo. Cereal. A stereo or an app. It all depends.”

“And I get to keep this stuff?”

“It’s mandatory.”

“Do I have to write reviews or something?”

“Nothing like that. Simply partake and enjoy.”

Nick tossed the papers onto the coffee table knocking down a bottle that rolled onto the carpet. “No way. There’s a catch. There’s always a catch.”

Lucy picked up the papers, flipped to a specific section and handed it back.

Nick scanned the language and looked back up at Lucy with wide eyes. He signed.

The ladies gathered their things and headed towards the door, leaving Nick with the pile of cash on his sofa and the e-mail address from which his weekly assignments would be coming.

Just as Nick was closing the door behind Lucy, she stopped and opened her briefcase. Inside was a little black notebook.

“I almost forgot. It’s stupid, but you have to take this book and keep it with you at all times.” Nick picked it up, and as he moved to open it, Lucy interjected. “No need to look inside. There’s nothing there. Just keep it. It’s part of the deal.”

“Right. Part of the deal. Thanks.” Nick closed the door, took one more look at the notebook before setting it on the coffee table.

***

Nick received his first e-mail a week later. Despite having marked the address as “safe” in his filtering program, it still ended up in his Junk Mail folder. And, oddly enough, it was the only item there.

“An Exciting New Product for YOU!” read the subject line. And true to Lucy’s word, the contents of the e-mail were all about a brand-new shampoo. Guaranteed, it declared, to make his hair thick and shiny – the type that ladies love to run their hands through. Same silly marketing ploys. Same ridiculous promises.

And then there was a knock at the door.

Nick opened it to find a box containing the shampoo from the e-mail. Oddly enough, it worked. After only a couple of days of using it, he had a head of hair that would be the envy of any Hollywood leading man. The next few weeks continued on that way. The toothpaste did, in fact, whiten his teeth. And the skin cream did clear up that case of acne that had persisted since high school.

Between the inexplicably-timed appearance of each product at his doorstep, and their impossible record of effectiveness, Nick was growing more and more convinced that he was involved in something supernatural. But what pushed him over the edge were the diet pills.

“Get SHREDDED!” the e-mail declared, sitting there alone again in his Junk Mail folder. Between “before” and “after” images of obese men turned into bronzed Greek gods were claims of miraculous weight-loss without a diet, muscle gain without exercise – the holy grail of diet pills.

Nick wasn’t unathletic. He could usually hang tough in a pick-up game of basketball. He’d even played a bit of competitive intramural soccer in college. But since graduating, his physical activity had fallen off and he really packed on weight. The once-daily pill began working immediately. And over the next few days, Nick dropped 10 of his excess pounds.

The following week’s e-mail was for a food delivery app. Any meal from any restaurant in the city, and Nick’s app always had free meals available. Even after indulging in some of the most decadent foods available, the pills kept improving his physique.

While scarfing down the last of his fifth bacon-wrapped filet mignon, Nick noticed the black notebook peaking out from under the takeout container from yesterday’s lasagna. He wiped his hands on his pants and pulled it free.

It was a nice notebook. He felt the round corners of the cover with his fingertip, remarking to himself how the heft of the 400 ivory pages made it feel truly substantial. He pulled off the elastic closure, opened to the first page and was surprised to see writing. Lucy had told him there was nothing in it.

In the top left corner was a date, and towards the center of the page were the words “Eat right and exercise.” The next page was similar. This time it read, “Don’t be greedy.” And then it struck him. The dates were a week apart, corresponding to when he received the e-mail about the diet pill and then the food app respectively.

“What the hell?”

Nick flipped through the other pages, but the rest appeared blank. He frowned at the book, wondering if it were some sort of trickery to go along with this whole magical deal with Lucy. Just then his phone sounded an alarm, marking the usual time when a new e-mail would show up. And suddenly, the notebook got warm in his hands and shook, oddly similar to his buzzing phone. Nick opened it again to find a new entry for today. “Don’t do it,” it said.

Though curious about the notebook, Nick was even more so about the e-mail. “Hot Singles In Your Area” was the subject line. It was another app. This time for a dating service. Nick already had a profile. It listed his new weight. It even had a profile picture showing off his newly acquired six-pack abs. “Just looking for fun,” it said, under his picture. Seconds later there was a knock on the door.

Nick smiled to himself hoping upon hope that this assignment would play out like in the movies he watched. He opened the door and it was one of the women that was with Lucy. He couldn’t help but let out a sigh of disappointment.

“Hello,” he mumbled.

“Hi,” she said, caressing her choker.

“Did I do something wr-“

She rushed in and kissed him passionately – fingers through his hair, her body pressed up against his.

Nick gasped for air. “Are you…? Is this…?”

She pulled off her top. “Are we going to do this or what?”

The message from the notebook flashed in his head. “Don’t do it.” But it was gone again as quickly as it appeared, and Nick threw himself into “it” and everything else that was in store.

When they gave him access to other people’s credit cards, he didn’t hesitate. When the e-mails told him about a chemical that would give him a “natural high,” he took it.

But then things changed. He didn’t know when it happened, or how, but what once felt like a charmed life of unending pleasure had become empty and meaningless. The food became ash in his mouth. His carnal desires remained unsatisfied no matter how many women he was with. No high could lift him out of his depression. In desperation, he turned back to that little black notebook, to that warning. “Don’t do it.” He turned the page, and there again it gave the warning. The next page simply said “Stop.” And the next. And the next. And the next. Each one seeming more desperate than the last with larger and larger fonts. And then today’s entry (what should have been an entry), was blank.

There was a knock at the door and Nick answered it, the notebook still in his hand. It was Lucy, and the other two women. He didn’t even know their names. Lucy clasped a jeweled choker around his neck and pulled the notebook gently from his hands.

“There, now. You won’t be needing that.” She tossed it aside and gestured towards him with her right hand. Her bracelets jingled. Nick felt heat at his throat from the choker and a not-so-subtle tug on his soul. Even if he had a mind to disobey, he couldn’t. He was hers now and he knew it. If only he had listened to the little black notebook…

“Come along, dear. We have a new winner to crown.”