How to Have Sex with Dead Celebrities

            Necrophilia is not a subject I’m very familiar with. When I played doctor as a child I never wanted my patients to be that still.

            But recently I heard a wild rumor about a secret group called the Matterhorn Society, founded in the 1950’s by a wealthy industrialist living in Southern California who rounded up friends that shared his rather kinky appetites. Supposedly the members were well-connected politically and used their wealth to bribe mortuary and funeral directors across the country, who in turn left them alone with the corpses of some very famous celebrities. Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Betty Grable, even Hermione Gingold were supposedly part of their vast list of necrophile conquests.

            Trying to investigate this shadowy society led me down dozens of blind alleys, until I struck gold by connecting with the son of one of the club’s most illustrious members by phone. At first he vigorously denied all accusations, but I kept pestering him until he nervously agreed to meet me in the Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library, where he promised to turn over some documents that would support my claims, if I agreed to keep his dad’s name out of print. I waited there for almost two hours before giving up. But, when I got home, my apartment had been broken into and all significant data on the Matterhorns was missing. Someone also had thoughtfully nailed a dead cat to my kitchen table. Seeing my life flash by like the plot of a paranoid Harlan Coben thriller I decided then and there to abandon my investigation into this ominous cult of corpse fuckers.

            But what about necrophilia? The word rolls trippingly off the tongue. It sounds like a town in Transylvania or the title of a Metallica album or a Southern girl’s first name. All I know of the subject is from movies- like Riccardo Freda’s The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock, or Joe D’Amato’s Beyond the Darkness. Kissed, starring the lovely Molly Parker, or Dominique Derddere’s Love is a Dog from Hell and Jorg Buttgereit’s punk epics Nekromantik and Nekromantik 2. My personal favorite is the 1972 sleaze oddity Love Me Deadly, co-starring Lyle Waggoner (of The Carol Burnett Show) about a wealthy socialite (Mary Charlotte Wilcox) who delights in attending funerals of men she doesn’t know so she can wait until everyone leaves the room and steal a passionate kiss from the corpse.

            Or what about the case of Karen Greenlee, who was arrested in 1979 for stealing a hearse with a body in it, which she proudly admitted to having ravished. Greenlee, 23 at the time, used to find work at funeral homes in order to practice her particular fetish, and was definitely unrepentant about her perverse predilection. She also admitted to sexually interfering with up to 40 corpses. In interviews, she was quite passionate about her unnatural desires; when asked what it’s like to make love to the dead, she said, “That body is just laying there, but it has what it takes to make me happy.”

            Maybe she’s onto something. Dating is so deadly these days. And celebrity stalking must be tough too. The only way you’ll ever get close to the Sharon Stone or George Clooney is when they’re laid out on a morgue slab. Sure, you may have to wait a while for certain movie stars to die- Greta Garbo was 84 when she finally passed on to that Grand Hotel in the sky. Ginger Rogers was 83 when she finally stopped dancing backwards in heels and Bette Davis was 81 when she took the last drag of her cigarette. But then again, remember the old adage about a fine bottle of wine. True, rehab is forever helping celebrities remain alcohol and drug-free, thus lengthening their life spans- but there’s always a new breed of troubled actors just itching to join the fellowship of such doomed stars as John Belushi, Whitney Houston and Anna Nicole Smith.

            THE PROS AND CONS OF NECROPHILIA

PROS:

• You never have to bring flowers; chances are they’ll already be there.
• You never have to ask, “Did you come?”
• You don’t have to look your best.
• You don’t have to hear about their favorite Friends episode.
• You don’t have to see them home- or again, unless you’re handy with a shovel.

CONS:

• It’s hard to hold down a steady job when you’re constantly dashing off to funerals.
• It’s hard to find a date when you reek of formaldehyde. 
• It’s expensive to bribe mortuary attendants.
• It can’t be used as a tax write-off.
• It’s really hard to explain to your family when you get caught.

But for anyone out there with high performance anxiety or is just plain tired of the dating game, this could be a brand-new field to explore. So let me give you some handy tips to start you off on this adventurous new lifestyle.

            Find work in the field. Get a job as a funeral director- this will not only give you a lucrative profession, but also quality time with corpses.

            If you are committed to only having sex with celebrities, you don’t have to set up shop outside Julia Roberts’ house waiting for her to croak. Subscribe to Hollywood Reporter and Variety. This will give you up-to-the-minute obituaries and handy items about failing health or traffic accidents, affording you ample time to make travel arrangements.

            If you can’t find work in the “business” make friends with as many funeral employees as possible. In New York, cozy up to anyone working at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue (where many of the famous dead have passed through). In L.A. there’s Forest Lawn in Hollywood, Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale and Westwood Village Memorial Park, the watering hole for such celebucorpses as Marilyn Monroe, Donna Reed and Natalie Wood.

            Try to keep a low profile. Don’t keep popping up at strangers’ funerals just for fun. It might also help to keep your air conditioner at home on “very cold’ to get used to the body temperature of your new “dates.” And whatever you do, keep those fingernails trimmed.

            As for the moral dilemma this ghoulish enterprise might raise, rest easy knowing that you can search the Bible from cover to cover and never find the phrase, “Thou shalt not lie down with corpses.”

            Legally there were no laws against necrophilia in California until a case in 2003 prompted the state legislation to act, but there are many states which don’t have laws on the books banning necrophilia. I wonder if it’s a crime transporting a corpse across state lines for the purpose of sex?

            Oh well, death means never having to say you’re sorry.