Love After Lockdown: Two Short Horror Stories
Munich, Germany Many singles were hopeful when the coronavirus lockdown finally lifted. Surely, the pre-pandemic parade of dating idiocy, boy-fuckery, and game-playing was about to subside in the face of a potential “second wave” and, therefore, potential second pandemic lockdown, socially-distancing all single hearts and genitals from one another. Even I, the girl who seemed to be most hopeless of all in the love department (especially in Munich), was optimistic that things would finally turn around. But, naturally, for the girl with an apparent love curse, my dates only got worse. So, to put you in the spooky Halloween mood, here are two short (and pitifully true) horror stories from my post-lockdown dating repertoire. Enjoy… if you dare!
👻Corpse Bride👻
For those of you who have already read Good Trash: vol. 1, you know that the first book ends with two twenty-something-year-old “love interests,” who both entered the COVID-19 lockdown being in my life and in my good graces, but neither lived to see the end of it. Well… they lived, but they are dead to me now. Anyway, I was still in the process of writing Good Trash: vol.1 as I began living what is sure to become future pieces of Good Trash: vol. 2 – another collection of stories from my life/love life in Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Germany, but (from what I’ve seen of the writing process so far) with slightly darker undertones than the first book.
The first post-book one, post-lockdown guy to become immortalized by story is Vanilla. The coronavirus restrictions were still in effect by the time he slid into my Whatsapp messages, but we could already see the light at the end of the tunnel. Although bars and restaurants weren’t operating, ice cream shops were already a popular destination for sunny spring days, and this opened up all sorts of low-impact dating possibilities. Vanilla proposed that we go on an ice cream date, and I suggested a specialty Argentinian helado nook close to Nymphenburg palace. For me, as an actual professional foodie, I believe all food should be quality food, and going out for ice cream is no exception. I mean, why go out for sub-par or conventional ice cream, when you can go on a new and exciting flavour adventure? Vanilla didn’t share this sentiment, though.
Nevertheless, he joined me in the massive ice cream line snaking around the plaza at my Argentinian spot. Vanilla was a wee twenty-seven years old, and a stacked 6’3” Bavarian with the standard blue eyes and dirty blond hair. He was pretty for sure, but a dime-a-dozen in these parts, which often makes me wonder if the local ladies take such wonders for granted, and I’m just over here, an old Canadian forest-witch, reaping all the benefits of these rejected beauties. But I do try to have standards, of course, and overall compatibility will always mean more to me than a flawless outer shell. And in terms of compatibility, well, as far as Vanilla was concerned, I might as well have been Double-Chocolate-Peanut-Butter-Salted-Caramel-Surprise.
Naturally, when it was our turn to order, I selected two of the most unusual flavours on the menu, both of which were supposed to be inspired by Latin American desserts I had never heard of before. To my horror, Vanilla walked away from the counter with a gigantic, three-scoop mountain of frozen, white cream.
“Are all of those scoops vanilla?” I asked.
“Yes, I only like what I know I like.” Vanilla smiled.
Oh, boy.
I don’t really remember much more of the date after that. We just kept talking and walking and walking and talking. I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about what he said over the course of those twenty thousand steps, likely because I filtered it all into my brain’s trash folder, clearly already knowing I wouldn’t need to reuse any of this information ever again. What I do remember, however, was that he made it very obvious that he wasn’t planning to leave my side anytime soon. He followed along eagerly beside me like a happy, quick-footed Dachshund, trying to stay close to the woman wielding the power of the leash. Maybe it was true after all – single guys were a new kind of needy in the wake of the pandemic.
“Do you want to get a drink?” I finally submitted. I had made the mistake of trying to break in the pair of shoes I bought the day before the malls shut down weeks earlier, and I could already tell my heels were sliced up and bloodied after all the walking we were doing.
“Sounds good,” he grinned, knowing that the coronavirus restrictions mandated that there was only one place on earth where we could get said drink – behind the sexually suggestive closed doors of my apartment.
I made Vanilla my patented Girly Gin Tonic, a G&T made with fruity pink gins to mask the weird flavour of zero-calorie tonics. He seemed to like it, and it wasn’t long before he was inching closer to me on the sofa, pinning me into the corner.
“I wore cologne just for you. Do you like it?” he whispered as his neck hovered within a centimetre of my face. For those of you who read Good Trash: vol. 1, you already know exactly why he said this. I did, in fact, like that he made the effort. But what I later learned was that he seemed to think cologne was overcompensation for some other form of hygiene, though I don’t know which exactly. What I do know is when my lips eventually came into contact with his skin, well, it was basically like kissing a big pink slab of Himalayan rock salt.
I told him I liked his cologne, though, and since my mouth was already practically against him, it was easy for the anxious Dachshund to quickly meet my mouth with his. He kissed me as though kissing me was the only way to detonate a nuclear bomb with less than a minute remaining on the clock, and hurriedly pulled me into my bedroom, somehow losing every article of clothing he had along the way. He kissed me again with that same unbridled, life-or-death conviction – until I was surprised by something wet and warm pooling on my inner thigh. Let’s just say, it wasn’t melted vanilla ice cream.
“Sorry, I’m just too excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve had sex.” Vanilla blushed. Sex? We were just kissing, I thought to myself. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold back the laughter. I mean, the whole thing was a little too American Pie, and at my age, women generally assume most men have these kinds of things under control by now.
“Could you get me a tissue?” I asked, wondering why he was just sitting there looking at me instead of voluntarily grabbing said tissue from the box on my nightstand. I mean, I couldn’t exactly move from where I was without spilling his sticky vanilla extract all over my bed, right?
He handed me a few tissues and then enthusiastically assumed the position. And, by that, I mean he laid himself out on my bed and looked at me with waiting, expectant eyes. His hands were stiffly placed by his sides, totally motionless, like Frankenstein’s monster awaiting a jolt of electricity from the good doctor. I knelt beside him utterly paralyzed by confusion. In what fucking Twilight Zone, bizarro universe did he think that after his premature eruption, it was my responsibility to get him ready for round two? I realized in that moment that I had absolutely no idea how to proceed. I felt the same helpless panic that I’m sure you would feel after a shipwreck, gazing upon the half-drowned body of a man in desperate need of CPR, but you’re the only person on this deserted island, and you don’t know CPR.
My entire sex life flashed before my eyes. I thought of every time I had encountered sexual ghouls in the past, you know, the fabled Minute Men or Whiskey Dicks? I thought of how these ghosts would also assume the position, but said position was on their knees not on their backs. I shrugged my shoulders and decided to go ahead and try to reanimate Vanilla since this seemed to be the plan, though I felt like an idiot the whole time, like I had never in my life seen a naked human male before.
Vanilla closed his eyes like a body on an operating slab as I got to work. My bedroom was as silent as a morgue the whole time. If a pin dropped at any point, it would have exploded like the screechy, metallic collision of two high-speed passenger trains. Vanilla didn’t make a single sound. He just laid there like a corpse, totally lifeless. I couldn’t even hear if he was breathing. Eventually, I flicked him in the stomach to see if he would react. His eyes instantly flapped opened like the wings of a vampire bat as he looked at me with slight irritation.
“I just wanted to see if you were awake.” I glared.
“Oh, I’m just enjoying it,” he sighed before closing his eyes again. Yeah… try enjoying it a little louder, buddy.
As I laboured, I found myself thinking about every guy who has ever referred to a woman as a “cold fish” or “dead starfish” in bed. Saying things like, “I like the missionary position as long as she doesn’t just lie there like she’s dead.” I remember always thinking such statements were overly exaggerated. Surely, no woman was ever “just lying there.” Surely, legs get wrapped around waists, fingers run down backs, kisses are placed encouragingly. Surely, in the very least, there is breathing. But that afternoon with Vanilla, I realized this must have been what all those guys meant. This was what it was like to fuck a person who just quietly lies there like he’s dead.
Eventually, Vanilla returned the favour, but it was mostly just in ritualistic practice as he prepared to invoke another common sexual ghoul – the Jackhammer. After a few moments of such demonic jackhammering, Vanilla, clearly proud of himself, prepared to make his escape. Apparently, every Sunday was “Pizza Night,” and the young Dachshund was needed back at the puppy pound so his roommates wouldn’t order without him. I wasn’t about to stand in his way. The last thing I wanted to do was waste another minute of my life fucking a corpse.
🎃Fuckboy’s Close Call🎃
A few months after my brief bout of necrophilia, I was sitting in the temporary bedroom of another blue-blond twenty-seven-year-old, but this one was 6’7.” We were enjoying drinks and pleasant conversation, and I had absolutely no way of knowing that I’d be having nightmares about this date for weeks to come.
“I’m not a fuckboy,” the Fuckboy boasted. “Nothing about my Bumble profile says ‘fuckboy,’ right?”
“Right…” I lied. Fuckboy had enough shirtless photos splayed along his dating profile to give any girl the wrong impression, and in my case, I was banking on it. I was, however, quite moved that this guy accepted the term ‘fuckboy’ as a derogatory label, since the internet tells me most idiots think it’s like a backhanded compliment implying that a guy is hot and can get a lot of sex. That’s not what it means. There are hot guys who aren’t fuckboys, and there are unattractive guys who are. A fuckboy is simply a guy who’s not to be taken seriously because he presents himself as a douche bag – remember that.
Anyway, the Fuckboy in question was a really nice guy (once I got to know him), and kept insisting that whatever we were planning to do was not a reflection of anyone’s fuckboy/fuckgirl tendencies, but simply the product of our unfortunate circumstances. You see, he was yet another expat casualty of the pandemic. He was living in the Middle East when he lost his job, like so many of my expat friends have reported to me from across the globe in recent months. He was in Munich for a few days while en route to his home country to regroup and pick up the pieces.
For me, well, without a steady wave of tourists to break up the monotony of dating in Munich, life was pretty dry with the coronavirus. In a town that favours conformity and the job interview style of dating, it’s hard enough to identify a guy you find sexy and interesting enough to sleep with let alone date regularly. I was extra needy by the time Fuckboy came to town. I was days away from publishing Good Trash: vol. 1 and I felt like a massive soul-sucking demon had been exorcised from my body. I suspect it was because I had finally shared the story of Sookie publicly. I had carried the burden of his black saga for so long, never posting it on here out of (undeserved) respect for him. However, it seemed as though finally releasing the details into the universe via the book gave me a sort of sexual liberation. The stars had aligned and the good-looking, shirtless Fuckboy had come to town at exactly the right moment.
Like I said, the book was days away from being published, the only thing I was waiting for was the cover. The graphic designer actually sent over her inital sketches while the two of us were drinking wine. I showed it to Fuckboy and he said he liked it.
“I like it, too,” I smiled. “But I think I’ll tell her it needs more condoms.”
At that moment, it was like the whole mood in the apartment shifted. Almost like the sun had set just enough, and the time was right for spooky campfire stories or murder mysteries. The witching hour was upon us.
“Why do you want so many condoms on the cover of your book?” he asked. I proceeded to tell him the story of the Biohazard. You remember him, don’t you? The guy I met a couple years ago, who told me that he’s never worn a condom with any woman because his “intelligence” is an STD detector? Yeah, him.
“Well, I always wear a condom with a girl the first time,” Fuckboy began. “Unless, she says she doesn’t like condoms and then I don’t.”
“You know she’s saying that same thing to every guy, right?” I rolled my eyes at his stupidity, drinking another large swig of wine. It’s disturbing how many men I’ve met with this exact same policy.
In an attempt to change the subject, I asked him if he had any weird dating horror stories of his own.
“I have one, actually,” he started. “It was about two years ago. She was a flight attendant. Beautiful. And, for some reason, with her I decided I was going to take things slow. Be a gentleman. She was special.”
Fuckboy went on to explain the emotional rollercoaster that his beautiful flight attendant had him on. She was always hot and cold, pushing and pulling, ghosting for long periods then rising from the dead without warning. Eventually, she just stopped talking to him altogether, and ignored every attempt he made to get in touch with her, leaving our poor Fuckboy utterly heartbroken.
“But then one day she called me out of the blue after months of silence,” he continued with an ominous tone. “She said she was calling to tell me that she was HIV positive and that I needed to get tested.”
Apparently, several of the Fuckboy’s friends were in the room at that moment and reported that his face turned as white as a ghost. He told them the news as their collective jaws dragged along the floor.
“But then I remembered something,” he beamed like he was re-remembering this something all over again. “I never touched her! I never had sex with her! I never did anything with her! I was being a gentleman!”
To celebrate, the Fuckboy and his friends drank tequila shots together for the rest of the night, as I imagine one would do when one escapes the clutches of HIV. As for the two of us, well, his friend was due back at the apartment around midnight, and I had to leave before I turned into a pumpkin.
The Fuckboy walked me back to the subway, and hugged me with one of those 6’7” hugs that totally lifts you off the ground.
“This doesn’t have to be the end, you know,” he smiled sincerely. “I really did mean it. I’m not a fuckboy. One day we will see each other again.”
“Yeah, I’ll look you up if the pandemic ever stops and I’m ever on your continent.” I smiled back.
I went home that night with that same feeling of foreboding that follows you to bed after a horror movie marathon. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the Fuckboy’s ghost story, and how he lived through this ordeal, yet still won’t wear condoms with one-night stands if they don’t want him to. It made me think of every guy who has ever repeated that same sentiment to me. It made me imagine all of them meeting their own beautiful, special siren. I picture her turning her nose up at their condoms in disgust, and I imagine them putting up absolutely no fight in response. I imagine them continuing on with their fuckboy lifestyles for months, years before they realize anything is wrong. And I imagined them finally making their way into my bed. I hugged my pillow close to my chest that night, thinking that it was only a matter of time.
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