May 5

Dear Editor, Weekly Global Spectator,

       I have a celebrity body.

       I do not mean to say that I am a Bruce Willis body-double, nor that I have baked a burrito in the shape of Madonna's figure, as desirable as either of those things might be as feature stories for your fine publication. No, I mean precisely that I have a celebrity's corpse sitting on the couch in my living room.

       I cannot yet say which celebrity. I must gauge your interest first. I am sure you understand.

       Do you wish to do a story about us? With pictures? For a substantial fee, of course. Our life together is quite fascinating. The hilarity that ensues when I attempt to vacuum near her is, by itself, worth a story.

              Yours truly,
              Rex (not my real name)

PS -- Please run the following lines in your personals if you should decide to proceed, and I will contact you.
       "I go where only a mortician goes,
       because my love is a dead, dead rose."

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May 26

Dear Editor, Weekly Global Spectator,

       I have not heard from you.

       I am the person who dug up a celebrity. I didn't intend to dig up a celebrity. Any old body would have sufficed at the time. Well, any old female body. I am not 'that way' if you understand me. I am a regular churchgoer, and some things, after all, are just wrong.

       She is not like she was in the movies. She is much less perky and animated than in life. There is no glamour, no pedestal, no isolation. There is a very real earthy quality about her.

       She can be stubborn and close-mouthed. It is difficult to open her up, but once, during a particularly emotional plea on my part for understanding, she just fell to pieces on the couch in my living room. She is fragile, and putting her shattered self back together again was the work of an afternoon and most of a roll of duct tape. But now she is again as beautiful as a dead, duct-taped butterfly.

       Perhaps I could arrange a regular seance or channeling for your fine publication. Would you care to buy the rights to any such interviews? They would be exclusives, I guarantee. Think of the headlines: "Celebrity in Limbo!" "Rich and Famous Repent at Leisure!" "The Purgatory Diet!" The possibilities are endless. But of course I am not the professional, although I understand that your circulation increases whenever she is on your cover.

       I remind you of a series of covers exposing her lesbianism a few years back. Quite lurid, and very successful, although I must say, factually speaking, also quite false. I may with some pride confess that I have heard no complaints from her regarding my prowess.

       She is a quiet, open girl, amenable to all sorts of sexual experimentation, insatiable in a passive sort of way, and with an exceptionally sturdy skeletal structure, but she is definitely all woman, especially once the sutures were removed and she loosened up a bit.

       And a damned fine listener too.

       We await your answer.

       Yours truly,
       Rex (still not my real name)

* * * * * * * *

June 10

Dear "Ask Doctor Dixie", Weekly Global Spectator,

       I badly need some guidance.

       Last evening, I took advantage of...a houseguest. She was quite...stiff at the time, by which of course I mean quite drunk, not quite dead, and I could no longer contain my urges.

       She did not resist when I arranged her limbs like X-rated origami, though she did not help either. She has expressed no regrets. She in fact expresses no thoughts at all. She does not speak a word to me. We pass the time sitting on the couch in my living room, sitting for hours, just sitting. She drives me to distraction, since her very immobility is an aphrodisiac to me. I tell her this, and, if anything, she remains even more obstinately motionless than before, as if to tease me.

       If "no" means "no", and "yes" means "yes", then what does being utterly ignored down to the meaty core of my being mean? You are a woman; you must know. Is this a good sign?

       All right, all right, I cannot bear your suspicions any longer. She is dead. Dead when we met. Dead during intimacy. Dead now. Dead, dead, dead.

       Her sutured mouth, her provocatively decaying clothing, her little hands so twisted and brown, her duct-taped breasts, all conspire to arouse me.

       My question is, was making love to her repeatedly too much? Yes, yes, you've caught me. I have succumbed to her limp charms repeatedly. You have the whole story now. Are you satisfied? You have all the grisly, rotting, decaying, putrefying details. No, I must stop. I am only arousing myself.

       Please tell me, is the solution to my problem to have even more sex with her? In anxious anticipation of your positive response.

       Yours truly,
       Rex (a pseudonym)

PS -- Is the use of a condom absolutely necessary during such unusual intimacies? Please, please say no!

* * * * * * * *

June 16

Calvin Klein Corporation,
New York, New York

Dear Calvin,

       May I call you Calvin?

       I have been sitting on the couch in my living room, considering my love. She is as dead as a parrot, but she inspires me.

       And the inspiration is this.

       Have you ever considered creating a fragrance called Formaldehyde? Radical, perhaps, but I smell a real moneymaker. Who "knows" how big it could be?

       Consider the advertising possibilities. 'Formaldehyde, it fills you up with love.' Treat this slogan as my gift. No, don't thank me. My reward will be the smell.

       Yours truly,
       Rex (a pen name)

* * * * * * * *

July 12

Dear Subscription Dept., Refrigeration Technology Monthly,

       Enclosed please find a check for $36.95 to cover my next year's subscription to your fine publication. Also please note my change of address.

       I apologize for my frequent moves, as I know this must complicate your record-keeping, but my neighbors hound me wherever I go, only because I am different.

       So what the F--- do I care? you must be saying. And you are right to be profane, to be obscene, to curse me and spit on me, since my problems are of no concern to you, and why should you be any different than the rest of merciless humanity? "I only deal in subscriptions," you say, "so leave me alone in my cubicle."

       I feel, however, that some elaboration of my behavior is due. I can no longer bury my secret. I can no longer lead this underground life.

       I have a corpse on the couch in my living room, and I love her. Yes, damn it, I love her.

       My dead love does not drink or smoke or swear or take drugs or lie or cheat. She does not criticize or complain. She does not throw my shortcomings back in my face constantly, desecration this, micropenis that.

       She can be inexpressive, it's true. She is not always in touch with her emotions, with her inner corpse. But she is patient, uncritical, accepting, and limber enough for any stretch of my poor, lifeless imagination. She is so different from family and friends, who are supposed to supply this sort of support and love. Not my family and friends, of course, but families and friends I have heard of, the families and friends of my friends.

       She is always there for me, right where I left her on the couch in my living room.

       But to return to my address change.

       The peculiar smells in my house, the unusual fluids, the odd hours I keep, the heavy thumping sounds of evenings, Bolero playing at all hours of the night. These things simply confound my neighbors, and so I must move often to stay ahead of the tangles of questions and prejudices that society unearths in my wake. It is not perversity, but necessity that forces me to force you to change my address so regularly. I apologize.

       Thank you for your attention to this matter. Your publication is an inspiration, especially in the warm summer months, when a chilled couch in the living room is worth its weight in perfume. Looking forward to uninterrupted freezing temperatures.

       Yours truly,
       Rex

* * * * * * * *

August 20

Dear Editor, Weekly Global Spectator,

       Why doesn't anyone ever answer my letters? I feel as if I am writing into the void. What is it about me that people feel compelled to avoid?

       Excuse me for unloading my problems on you. You are not my postman, or the counterman at the donut shop. It will not happen again.

       I am the person with the celebrity corpse on the couch in my living room. I have written before, but have been met only with the silence of the grave.

       By the way, what about that word "grave"? It is so somber, so very inappropriate. Perhaps you could begin referring to it in your fine publication as "the Happy Hole"? Or the "menage a trough"? Or how about the "Zoom-Zoom Tomb"? Well, you are the professionals. You can be more creative than I. Your publication is influential, and many people in mobile homes and transient hotels and grocery check-out lines across the nation look to you for leadership. Thanks for listening. The postman and the counterman at the donut shop only avoid me when I try to talk to them.

       But I digress.

       I must urge you to answer my letters. Entropy is becoming a problem on this end. Duct tape, glue, staples, saran wrap. All of these have become mere stopgaps, and I fear the gaps are gaining on me. My celebrity corpse now has more holes than my imagination knows how to fill.

       True, entropy can have its sensual side. Did you realize that lingerie does not age well underground? Satin panties bear up much better than, say, silk or cotton, in my experience. It is like a strip-tease, but only if one is prepared to be very patient.

       But, again, I digress.

       Please answer my letters. I have included my return address this time, since speed is of the essence.

       Yours in haste,
       Rex (my real name after all)

PS -- Doctor Dixie never printed my letter, or her answer to it. Did she receive it?

* * * * * * * *

August 25

Dear Editor, Weekly Global Spectator,

       I am just dropping you a note to inform you that we may have to put our celebrity corpse negotiations on hold indefinitely.

       There seems to be a large gathering of police around my house. I fear the worst.

       I have placed a lampshade on my love's head and surrounded her with bric-a-brac and doilies as camouflage, but I have watched Cops too many times to hope that my ruse will prove successful.

       I should have thought of a plausible excuse for the corpses, the shovels, the stolen backhoe in the backyard, and the used coffins before this, but it just never seemed necessary.

       Ah, well, dig in haste, invent at leisure.

       Yours truly,
       Rex

* * * * * * * *

September 18

Dear Subscription Dept., Refrigeration Technology Monthly,

       Please cancel my subscription. Thank you.

       Yours truly,
       Rex

* * * * * * * *

September 19

Dear Editor, Weekly Global Spectator,

       May I interest you in the in-depth story of a grave-robbing trial? First-hand?

       My lawyer thinks that writing you is a first-rate idea. He thinks a series of articles by me about grave-robbing is just the ticket to keep me busy. 'Out of his damned hair', as he puts it with such well-feigned irritation.

       I will call the series "From the Grave, by Rex."

       What do you think? I, personally, feel afflicted with a nearly fatal anticipation.

       Also, could you return my correspondence of the past few months? My lawyer assures me that those letters will help my defense immensely. We are in complete agreement that I am not insane, but that certain of my actions, if presented in the proper light, might give the appearance of insanity, and this can do nothing but help my insanity defense. I have a fine lawyer. He devised this defense almost immediately upon meeting me.

       I must sign off now. I can see that my Thorazine syringe is on its way. I will write again the very next time I am allowed the use of my hands.

       Yours truly,
       Rex

PS -- It seems the syringe will be delayed a bit. The orderlies have been distracted by a growling fellow who is convinced he is a tiger.

       This hospital is pleasant. Most of my needs are cared for. My room is cramped, but that is due mostly to the straitjacket. There is no couch, and there is no living room, and worst of all there is no sweet and lovely corpse in white gloves and pearls waiting for me when my shift is over, and to top it off I fear my paramedical career is flatlined. It is lonely with only the living around, and no one to buy mothballs and air freshener for. No one to dust. No one to zip up next to all snuggly in the body bag playing forks. I say forks rather than the more middle-class, conventional spoons, because, truth be told, my love is a bit bony.

       But my lawyer swears the doctors here will help me, and I am giddy with anticipation. The cemeteries are changing colors this time of year. I wonder which doctor will keep lookout, and which will help me dig?

* * * * * * * *

My Love is a Dead, Dead Rose
first appeared in
The Crawling Abattoir,
published by Twilight Tales.