For several years in my early twenties, I wore
the same crappy Halloween costume. I took a foam bike helmet that had long
since
exhausted its utility, put it on my head, donned a hooded sweatshirt, stretched
the hood over the helmet and caked my face with baby powder. The result
was something I called "Scary Helmet Man." This led to a number of conversations
that went thusly:
"What are you supposed to be?"
"I'm Scary Helmet Man. Bleeeeeh! Aren't I scary?"
My Scary Helmet Man persona was endemic of something deeper
than slack. In junior high, I once dressed as Dr. Who, realizing my mistake too
late. A high-school
talent show found me in a gold lamé
jumpsuit, singing "Great Balls Of Fire." In college,
I stalked around my dorm in a green rain slicker and black mask, pretending to
be
a
hero called The Green Hood. At thirty, I conducted a reading at a venerable
Seattle bookstore while in a Superman costume.
Decades of narcissistic exhibitionism led me to discover something about dressing up. If used properly, it can get you laid. Halloween was for me, as it is for many people, a rich vein of sexual ore. But nothing worked better than Scary Helmet Man.
My greatest creation made his debut in 1991. I went into the city with some friends
to a non-college party. My friend Ben drove; he gave me his keys to put in
the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt. Within an hour, I was steaming drunk and
chatting
with
a
woman,
adult
by comparison, whose only costume
was a New York Yankees cap she'd cutely cocked.
"Who are you?" she said.
"I'm Scary Helmet Man," I said. "Bleeeeh! Aren't I scary?"
Soon, I was making out with Yankee Girl, and soon after that, she was inviting me home with her. We necked furiously in the cab. As we were getting out at her building, I heard a jangle in my pocket.
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At some point during the night, she jerked me off. I considered this liaison a success.
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"Oh, no," I said. "The keys!"
My friends won't be able to get home, I told her. I'm really sorry. Just go upstairs and get in bed. I'll be back soon.
She rolled her eyes, having realized what a liaison with me involved.
"Can I borrow some money?" I said.
An hour later, I arrived panting at her door. It was open a crack. In the dark, I found her bedroom. She was naked, and very asleep.
"I waited as long as I could," she said.
At some point during the night, she jerked me off. In the morning she made me coffee. Based on my past sexual history, I considered this liaison a success.
Two years later, I traveled on Halloween to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where a friend
had taken a job at the local daily newspaper. My Scary Helmet Man getup came
with me on the train. That night, Scary Helmet Man went to a party.
There, in another kitchen of another Midwestern rental apartment,
I
met a woman with a sly Southern accent and a nervous attitude. She'd recently
been
hired as the paper's youth columnist, which meant she trafficked in celebrity
gossip and snide pop-culture commentary. This was of less interest to me than
the fact that her fiancé was out of town for the weekend.
"I'm Scary Helmet Man," I said. "Bleeeeh! Aren't I scary?"
We got amazingly drunk, and then she took me for a drive. In a high-school parking lot, she attacked me with a fervor usually reserved for guys shipping out to war. I responded accordingly with flaring tongue.
"Oooh, I can feel your cock, Scary Helmet Man," she said. "It's so haaaaaaaard."
This was my first experience with dirty talk, but I liked it. So I responded in kind.
"Oh, yeah, baby," I said. "I wanna fuck you so bad."
I've said sexier things on the phone at telemarketing jobs, but it seemed to work. We had, I believed, a profound, even primal, physical connection. The next week, when I was home, I called her.
"I'd sure like to see you again," I said.
"Ehhh," she said. "Probably not."
But, she said, getting together with me had caused her to realize that she didn't really like her fiancé all that much. When he'd returned home from his trip, she'd broken it off. I was so encouraged by my newfound status as a homewrecker that I looked up Yankee Girl in the phone book and suggested we have dinner.
A week later, at an inexpensive restaurant of dubious quality, Yankee Girl and I reacquainted. A big bowl of Everclear punch might have helped. The Halloween magic didn't work in November. Without Scary Helmet Man, I was a neuter.
The bill came. I put down half.
"You invited me," Yankee Girl said.
"Right," I said. "I can pay you back as soon as we get to my place."
I have yet to pay her back.
n°
Bad Sex With Neal Pollack appears monthly.
©2004
Neal Pollack
and Nerve.com
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Commentarium (4 Comments)
Y'know, in my late teens and early 20's I was generally too shy to hit on girls and get sex. It happened a few times, but I was always embarrassed before, during and after. I wish I could have read these columns in those days...they would have reassured me that no matter how badly I screwed up in the dating and mating scene, there was somebody doing it worse, and surviving.
Good on ya, Neal! Bleeeeeh!
"Based on my past sexual history, I considered this liaison a success." hysterical, love the column.
Neal, I hadn't read you before. Funny stuff about Halloween. My two Halloween/sex stories (the ones I remember) In Memphis at the Dead Rock Stars Party in 1980, I went as Sheik Yerbouti, an escapee from Iran post Shah. my date/live-in was a very well done Wolf Man character from a book called ten makeup monsters (it's cheap & good face paint!) , Cybil Sheppard was there (she's a Memphis girl) in one of her back at home/down on her luck periods, she was Princess Grace w/ tiara and steering wheel and red tutu and red cowgirl boots. While on the dance floor, she was wildly interested in the Sheik, but he was spoken for and couldn't do anything about it.
The other was leaving the party for a wild anonymous makeout session in the backseat of my '85 Plymouth Reliant K, got her glitter all over me and the Plymouth, almost got 'caught' later on due to glitter.
Cover half the bill, and offer to repay the other half upon arrival at my place. I never thought of that. Brilliant! I'm going to use that.
Now you say something