Dear 40-something-year-old Stalker

Dear 40-something-year-old Stalker,

First off I’d like to make it clear that I’m not offended per se when a man flirts with me, even one who’s more than twice my age. I even find it flattering sometimes; a real self-confidence booster. And if you come across the opportunity to drink a free Corona while some witty, sharply-dressed man tells you how great you look, I say why the hell not?

But you took a different approach. I’m not saying it was necessarily the wrong one, but staring at me through the bathroom window from the shadows outside while I showered was just a tad… nonconsensual. I realize it was my fault for having the little window open in the first place, but there is no ventilation fan in the bathroom, and for God’s sake, is seeing someone shower from the neck up really that arousing?

Evidently yes, because the next day I found a little note stuffed into my truck’s window. It was kind of graphic for an introduction. I tried to pretend like the whole awkward business had never happened, and was hoping that you’d be content to just stare across the courtyard at me from the porch of your apartment building every time I came home from work, but I guess you took my non-reply as a signal that you just weren’t making your intentions clear enough.

One day my friend was climbing into the passenger door of my truck. “What’s that little thing stuffed in between the weather stripping and the glass?”

I could barely see what he was talking about. He stepped down and pulled a neatly-folded scrap of white paper out of the car door. By the time I realized what it probably was, he had already started to read the note aloud.

“Thing I will do- Have every inch of you… inside and out. Will cum [crudely-penned smiley face here] by at 10 tonite. Has a few beers for more fun.”

I don’t know if to have was just poorly conjugated or if you were referring to me in the third person like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, but just for future reference, when you do decide to go for broke and expose yourself on paper like an old man flashing his naked, poorly-grammatically-constructed body from behind a trench coat, don’t do it on October 31^st, and don’t plan the uninvited rendezvous for Halloween night. I had been on the fence about the whole thing up until that point, but then I was like, “Nah. Halloween night. Too creepy. Too creepy a night to be having rough, anonymous, barelyconsensual sex with an illiterate, 40-something-year-old peeping Tom.”

But your invitation didn’t feature the popular circle-yes-or-no reply system for me to mark down my answer, so it looked like my front door was going to be graced by your presence whether I liked it or not. My friend decided he was going to stick around for the evening and see how things panned out.

I will give you this- you are quiet, and that is an important trait for a stalker. Despite my friend grinning and running to the door every fifteen minutes to look through the peep hole, we never saw you softly place the brown paper bag on my welcome mat.

“Ooooohhhh shit. You are not going to believe this,” my friend said; one eye closed, his face scrunched up against the door. “Oh shit.”

“What?”

He undid the deadbolt and opened the door of my second floor apartment. He looked down the empty stairwell.

Inside the bag was a mason jar, a 24 oz. can of Miller High Life, and a note. My friend grabbed the white scrap of paper. “Enjoy the beer to relax then fill the jar and place outside your door. I want to taste your warm golden necter [sic].”

My friend looked up, his brow wrinkled. “You don’t think he means… I mean, he couldn’t possibly be asking you to…”

Listen, I enjoy beer as much as anybody else, and Miller High Life is the Champaign of Beers- a generous gesture that did not go wasted on me, but where are we, Germany? You can’t just broach the subject of piss play to a stranger with a can of beer and a mason jar. And outside of craigslist or the sex industry, people usually start off with a hand shake and an exchange of names before they wander off into sexual fetishes.

Mason jar full of piss or no, you were back outside my door at the top of the landing promptly at ten. You stood there silently underneath the bare, incandescent bulb, slowly weaving about with bloodshot eyes and a can of beer in your hand, pantomiming what I can only guess was supposed to be some sex act involving urine. You occasionally pointed at the door, looking deep into the peep hole’s solitary eye, and mouthing what my friend lip-read as “I want to fuck you,” and I chose to interpret as “I want to fun you.”

My friend and I took turns staring through the peep hole in open-mouthed horror. It really is impressive/terrifying how silent you are.

Of course the show finally came to its logical and probably unavoidable conclusion- you being led away from my door in handcuffs by a police officer. I’m sorry about that, but dude; you were really creeping us out.

Like I said, I’ve got nothing against being hit on by men per se, but first of all, I’m straight, and secondly, how about a little more tact next time? Do you know how awkward it is when you have to tell the tale of your gay stalker to a sheriff in Denton, Texas, and then show said officer a collection of erotic notes rife with grammatical errors? It was embarrassing for everyone, for lots of reasons.

Sincerely,

Sebastian Braff