I hear it from everyone. “Bite me,” they'll say. Then they'll laugh like they said something clever. Like they're the first person to ever say that to a vampire. Seriously, I've gotten tired of it. Depending on how drunk I am, I'll either laugh at them loosely in an attempt to get invited back to their place, or get snappy and lose out on a good meal.Meh, I'll fix the italics later.
Most other vampires are lucky. We don't display any outward signals to being vampires until we get close and extend our fangs. If you see someone walking down the street smiling with fangs sticking out, he's just a dick vampire showing off. Or he's some dick human with fake teeth. Posers.
Of course, I stand out simply because of my hobbies. Seven-year-olds haven't been allowed in bars since well before I was turned, but that's the appearance I give as I walk into whatever club or dive I decided to visit that particular night. Then I get carded, and yeah, “born 1746”. I'm a vampire, and the whole establishment immediately knows it. Even the air around me becomes polarized, the tension is so strong. Half of the people shy away, afraid that they'll “catch it” or something. Oh well, it gives me a bit of breathing room.
The first to crowd around me are punks that want a fight. They wanna tell their buddies that they beat up an immortal or whatever. Never mind the fact that I'm under four feet tall. I really don't ever want trouble. When a fight between a vampire and a human breaks out in a bar, the vampire always takes the blame. If some punk does show up behind me looking for trouble, it usually just takes a flash of my fangs to convince him to take his business elsewhere. Of course, after two centuries of bar-hopping, I've learned that my body isn't going to take a full grown man out for a fight. I work out, so I'm no slouch, but I'm still working with a seven-year-old frame pretty much, so I'm nowhere near the level of these linebacker barflies. If I can't scare them off, and my bluff gets called, I just turn tail and go. After 200 years of being called names because of what I am, “chicken” just doesn't have any effect on me.
If I can avoid any fights and don't have to leave, the chicks head over. Girls think I'm “cute” or “adorable.” I'm never “hot” or “sexy,” unless its some pedophilic freak., and I've got no interest in being raped. Or sex at all, for that matter. That is the problem with being turned in childhood. No puberty. No sex drive. No sexual feelings at all. So while I've watched all my friends have girlfriends, get married, have kids, generation after generation, I've sat on the sidelines. I'm not really jealous of them, really. Just sort of left out. I dunno.
I guess that's why I come to these bars. It's obviously not for the girls. Nope, I just wanna get drunk off my tiny ass. It's not too hard when you're my size either. Maybe two shots and I'm gone. I try to keep to lighter stuff, and after a while I just switch to water or tea or something. I like being drunk, though. First, I've got centuries of misery I'm looking to drown, and second, it makes it easier to flirt with the dumb bitches who sit by me.
Take last weekend. Perfect case study. I sat at the bar, and just sorta waved to the bartender. I've been here often, Mike knows me. A few of the regulars nod in my direction, but I get to breath easy. I wouldn't become an instant celebrity for once. Of course, I was still the little boy in the bar, so I got some attention for that. After the first ten minutes, I had downed two shots (long day at the office), and had finally gotten some attention. Some guy walked up, and pretty much called me out.
“Hey, kid,” he said. “Ain't you a little short to be drinking, Junior?” He and his buddies started laughing. Drunk. Not like I was feeling any better. I turned on my stool, faced him straight on, and raised my upper lip. Two fangs slid out of my gums and glinted wetly in the low bar light. Not a word. I just grinned a big, overly friendly grin.. He was smart enough to slink off.
I relaxed back into my seat and stared into the glass, tried to act inconspicuous, but the damage was done. I could feel the eyes of the young lady to my left. I didn't need to glance at her to know that her eyes were big with wonder. She'd probably never seen a vampire before. At least, no one that she knew was a vampire. So I was a treat. And as an extra bonus, I was a little kid. Why so many women in their 20's and 30's have an attraction to me is beyond my capacity, but it's been a near constant facet of my life.
Maybe, I thought, maybe if I just stare at the glass she'll take a hint and go away. I was just lying to myself here, but still, it was better to at least try than give her some sign and...
Then I glanced her way, just to check. Fuck! She's still there. I tried to stare back into the glass. If I'd had heat vision, I would have burnt a hole straight through to the bartenders nads.
“Hi.” She spoke. I'd been breached. Prepare for flirting.
“'Ey,” said, not trying to seem too interested. Go away go away, I was thinking at her.
It didn't work. “You're kinda cute.” She followed it with a half-drunken giggle, and ran a hand down my spine.
“Thanks. You're pretty, too.” Fuck. I was talking in my 3rd grader voice. That wasn't the way to shoo her off.
She let out another giggle, and almost hugged me right there. “And so polite too! Do you have a name little boy?”
“Yeah, I'm Tony. Anthony, that is.” Shit, I was nearly wasted too. The thing about cute nick-names, though, is that they're just what chicks think little boys should be named. Anthony is the name of the crusty old wise guy. Tony is the cute adorable little brat that's just bursting with love.
She wanted me to be the latter. “Nice to meet you, Tony.” She was acting like a kindergarten teacher. Great. “My name is Sherry.”
“Uh, hi Sherry.” Well, at least I was being polite. Everyone always tells me they never think I'm drunk. Really I'm just a polite drunk, so no one can tell. But that didn't help me in this case.
I could see the look in her eyes. She was still half drunk, and couldn't decide just how to continue the conversation. Her eyes lit up and she smiled a little more with her expertly crafted line. “So, are you really a vampire?”
I turned and looked back at her. For a moment, I considered just spitting back something coarse and sarcastic, and try and drive home the “not interested” vibe. But then I looked in her eyes and saw just how fascinated she was. She had never seen anything like me, and she wanted to be with me so much that short of physically attacking her, she wouldn't get the point. And even in that extreme, she might still like it. It was kinda creepy, really, but I thought that at least I could make a good meal out of it. “Yeah,” I replied, and eased myself into a more conversational mindset. “Since I was seven years old.”
“Oooh.” The statement should have been pretty obvious, but she seemed to think it was the most interesting thing she'd ever heard anyone say. “What's it like?”
Here it goes, I thought. I've been getting the same line of questioning nearly all my life. “I dunno. What's it like being human?”
She giggled at my preposterous question. “It's BOOORING. Vampires always seem so much more interesting. It's just so... different!”
Yeah, I thought, Different. That's what I've been all this time. Different.
She started in on the same line of questions I always get from people who just know about vampires through myths. “Are you really allergic to sunlight?”
“Nah, we just sunburn very easily. Vampires don't get a lot of the same hormones and enzymes normal humans get. Melanins the most obvious one. That's why all the vampires you see have such pale skin.”
“But they don't all have your pretty blue eyes, Tony.”
I laughed at her compliment. “Thank you, Sherry. But even that's another side effect of the vampirism. Everyone's born with blue eyes. I just never managed to grow outta mine.”
“Oh...” She seemed to suddenly grasp that I really wasn't just a little kid. “So what about crosses and garlic and stuff? You hurt by that?” I could hear her words beginning to slur a bit. I took that as a cue to switch to water.
“No on both counts. For crosses, how well do you think we would do as a species if we were slain by every set of perpendicular lines we saw? Trees on the horizon would kill us.” I paused while she nodded, and gave her a chance to say something, but she just looked at me, so I went on. “And garlic, well, that's just ridiculous. I mean, I don't particularly like the stuff, but it's not gonna kill me. They're both just uban myths.”
“I see. How about a stake through the heart? Would that kill you?”
“Wouldn't it kill you? Geez, Sherry, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying your damndest to kill me here.” She looked surprised at first, but followed my lead when I laughed at the joke. “Seriously, though, we're just as easy to hurt as humans. We just have a greater immune system, and we don't really age, so the only way to kill us is physically. And in that respect, yeah, a stake through the heart would kill me.”
“Hrmmm.... Next question: How did you become a vampire?”
“I got bit by one. My mom, actually.” I averted my eyes just a second, then looked back and tried to smile again.
“Sounds like theres a story behind that.”
“Yeah, but it's complicated.” I smiled more as I saw my opening. “I'd love to tell you on the way to your place...?”
She pretended to mull over the decision for a second. “One more question before we go, then. If you bite me, will that make me a vampire too?”
I just gave her a big toothy smile. I didn't wanna let the girl down just yet.
* * * * *
We decided to take her car. For one because I'd had way too much to drink for my little body to start driving, and besides, my motorcycle only seats one. The car was one of those new little hybrid things, and it looked green in the low light. When she turned on the car, the radio jumped mid-song into some light ambient electronica, a nice change of pace from the bar's hard metal, which I could almost still feel, even down the block from the place. It was something I hadn't heard before, which is getting rarer and rarer as days go by. It was also quiet enough that we could still talk. I was just about to shift the conversation away from myself and onto her, but she beat me to the punch. Ah well. Ladies first, right?
“So, what'd you say, your mother bit you? Isn't that illegal, for a vampire to bite a kid?” I guess she was focusing so hard on driving the car that she didn't have anything left for tact. It was that, or she just didn't know better. Either way, I decided not to lecture her on manners. She'd picked me up because I looked like a cute kid. No reason to spoil the mood by getting all old and crotchety.
I rolled thoughts around in my mind, trying to decide just how to answer her without opening up too much. There was a little bit of drunken sluggishness there, too. After an awkward silence, I thought I'd given her the implication that she'd hurt my feelings a little. I tried to play into that, and then gave her the brave smile of a child who was covering his emotions... It hurts my head even now just trying to think about what I was trying to pull off, and what must have been going through her head at the time. Anyway, I went into character, a dash of tragic child, a dash of wizened elder, and a hint of mystery and adventure.
“I was born in the British colony of Pennsylvania, March 12, 1746, to a farming family. I was the youngest of seven boys and girls, cuz you know, those where the days when you didn't raise children, you raised farmhands. I honestly don't remember much from before I was turned, just the things I was told, and things from books I picked up.
“But a when I was just under three years old, my house got attacked by a feral vampire. At the time it was just me, my mom, my dad, and my brother Nathan, who was all of four at the time. The rest of the family had taken the harvest out to sell at market, I think. Anyway, like I said I don't remember it, but the way my mother told me was that she was feeding me and my brother lunch while my dad did some work outside. He yelled into the house for help and called out 'VAMPIRE!!' My mom sprang into action, and told Nathan to get Dad's shot gun, while she ran outside to help. I was a little to clueless to realize just what was going on, but I remember feeling on edge, if only because Mom was too. A minute later I heard the loud unmistakable noise of gunshots, and I decided I should see what was happening.
“By the time I got there, all I could see was mom and dad lying next to each other on the ground, with mom holding dad close. Mom said the last words he said were 'Take Care' before slipping away. The vampire had sucked him dry.
“Mom hadn't fared much better... She was still alive, thank God, but she was weak. Even worse, she now bore four fang-holes on her neck, marking her as being turned. I don't remember what she looked like before, but after that was the way she looked for the rest of her life.”
Sherry decided to interrupt me here. “So, how exactly does a vampire turn someone? What's so different about four fangs than 2?”
I paused again, though I tried to catch myself this time. I had to figure out the right way to tell her this without giving away too much. “Well, see, these two fangs,” I slid out the fangs from my upper gums to demonstrate, “are just for sucking blood. When a vampire wants to turn someone, they have a lower pair that pushes their own blood back into the bitee, sharing the vampire disease if you will, as well as any other contagions the biter may be carrying. It's really a pretty disgusting process, something like regular human sex.” I decided to stop there, and let her signals tell me where to go next.
“So can I see your lower fangs, then, too?” She was pretty obviously interested in the turning process, and was starting to stare at me with a hint of awe in her eyes.
I got a bit of good luck just then, though. Someone was smiling down on me. “WATCH THE ROAD, SHERRY!” I pointed ahead to the red light. Sherry slammed her breaks on and lost her train of thought. As the car skidded to a halt a few meters from the light, I answered her question. “I don't think now's really a good time.” I took a nervous gulp. “Maybe later.”
I hate lying to them.
She didn't seem to notice, and just went back into the conversation. “So where were we? You told me how your mom became a vampire, but that doesn't explain why she bit you. Did she bite all her kids and start her own coven or whatever?”
“No, you were right earlier, that sort of thing is against the laws. Both humans and vampires forbid turning children.”
“So why did your mother do it then?”
“Because she had to.” I took another sigh, and tried to get my story back on track. Somewhere in my head I knew that this whole sob story was just making her want me more, which made it easier for me to get what I wanted, but at the time I couldn't get the thought that this was really cathartic out of my head. “Well, after dad died, we lost the farm. We'd made enough on the one harvest that we could afford to move in with my uncle, Mom's brother Jeffry, and his family. No one told them that mom had been turned, but they pretty much knew. Anyway, that was the house that I spent the rest of my human childhood in.
“Times were tough. We basically had to hide Mom, and claim that she had died with Dad. It was hard for Uncle Jeffry to get enough food for us all... Anyway, eventually, I got sick. Cholera, I think, though the details from back then are kind of sketch. All I remember is lying in bed sick, and I was looking up at Mom. Jeffry was telling everyone that she was just a maid. The doctor had come in from Philadelphia, and was giving me his best care, but eventually he said something along the lines of 'There's nothing I can do.'
“Mom heard him and just flipped out. She let out this inhuman-sounding howl. It's not a vampire thing so much as a mother thing. She knew that if she turned me, I wouldn't be sick any more. But she also knew it would mean death for her. There wasn't any room for appeal. Any vampire that attacked a child was to be killed on site. I looked up in her eyes, and it was half hazy. I remember her saying “I love you, son,” and then she just started sucking.
“I felt each prick... It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before or since. I'd seen mom feed before. She was usually rough about it, not caring, just hungry. But this was very gentle. She was somewhat rushed, but she still took care. I didn't feel like I was being bitten so much as being held. It was...”
I stopped. We'd come to a park in front of her place. A dorm. Oh boy, college meat. This should be entertaining.
Eventually I realized she hadn't left he car yet. She was staring at me, with her eyes sparkling like she had just heard the most wonderful fairy tale. “That is the sweetest thing I've ever heard, Tony.” She took my hand and pulled me out of the car through her door. She lead me like she was my big sister, or mother. So many of the girl's I pick up (get picked up by?) have weird issues with children. They see me and just stop at the seven year old body, and decide that I'm their little brother or new son and they're gonna adopt me. You women who think you are objectified by men have no idea how guilty you are of the exact same thing.
So anyway, we got to her dorm, and she turned on the light. It was a typical dorm, lightly furnished, papers and books all over the place. She sat down on one of the beds and patted at her side, motioning for me to join her. This was actually the first time all night I'd gotten a good look at her. The light in the bar was terrible. She, on the other hand, is actually very beautiful. Nothing like a supermodel or anything like that, and a little too heavily made up for my tastes, but I decided that she wouldn't be a bad person to spend a night with. I sat down next to her and leaned into her side, my head resting on her bosom. I was glad that it doesn't make me shudder the way I had in the past. I've learned to get past the issues with relating every pair of above average breasts to my mother.
“Hey, Sherry,” I whine in a well-rehearsed voice. “The lights are kinda bright. Do you think you could turn them off?” She kicked off both her shoes, and one of them hit the target. The lights switched off, and we were alone in the darkness. I know it's cliché, but I like the darkness. It's the greatest equalizer to me. Nothing can take away from my size, but at least in the dark I don't LOOK like a vampire. Or a kid.
My internal musings were interrupted by Sherry leaning back. I was surprised and fell on her, prompting a laugh out of both of us. Her laugh turned into a sigh as she stretched her hands out. I could almost feel them arching out behind her head, scraping against the wall, and then sliding around me. She was done being polite about it. She wanted me to be with her. I felt her hands grab me and pull me on top of her, and suddenly I was facing down into her eyes, and her lips were locked to mine. I moved my hands over her body in ways I knew from experience she'd find pleasing, and she did the same to me.
Eventually she broke our kiss and put two fingers over my lips. “Tony,” she purred. “I want you to bite me. I want to be a vampire too, and then I'll be with you and you'll never be alone.”
“You really wanna do that for me?” I asked, kissing at her neck, letting my lips find the spot with the biggest flow. I knew she didn't. It was just some combination of alcohol, tiredness, and infatuation with the concept of me, but I've learned to play along.
“Yes. Please Tony. Bite me.”
I didn't need any more prompting. I dug my teeth into her. Not my fangs; my actual teeth, giving her an initial surge of pleasure. I felt her arching her back under me, with me riding her like some crazy beautiful beast. That's when I struck. My fangs slit into her neck like twin needles, and instantly found purchase. I started sucking away at her throat. I could feel her having an almost orgasmic sensation from her pleasure. I was her wildest fantasy come true.
I was exactly that. A fantasy. Everything I'd told her about how vampires pass it on, how the lower fangs are what makes new vampires, was true. But it only applied to females. Males can't make their lovers (or drunken college hook-ups) into fellow vampires. I didn't want to spoil Sherry's evening, because she was so into the fantasy, so I told her what she'd wanted to hear. I'd told half-truths. I'd omitted the crucial details. I didn't tell her that because vampires have no human reproductive system, sex is just an inconsequential game with us. I didn't tell her there was nothing I could do to make her one of us.
I'd learned over the centuries exactly how much blood you can drain from a person. Too much and they die on you, and the cops love to persecute vampire offenses. Too little and you're still hungry. But if you time it right, you can get just enough blood from a person to make them pass out. That's what I did to Sherry that night. When I felt her slipping under, I retracted my fangs and became nearly instantly docile, gently kissing her, cooing her to sleep under me. I pulled her covers over her, and let her dream about the vampire she wished she was. That's all it was. A dream. That's all it would ever be. Just a dream. Same as me. A one night stand. A myth you can't prove to your friends because I slip out under the cover of darkness. Alone.
I'm always alone.
The clock on the wall said 2:15 as I slipped out of the dorm room. I reached into my pocket for my phone to call a cab home. Instead my fingers found a pen and some paper. I scribbled something on it. “Tony – 512 350 1295” As I slid the paper under her door, I couldn't help but think that I was gonna regret it the next day.
Oh well. One day at a time. Maybe tomorrow I wouldn't have to be so lonely.
Happy Halloween kiddies! I hope you enjoyed my little treat. Not exactly in the spirit of the day, but a little festive none-the less. I might write more about him. As I wrote more and more, I started to like Tony. He's fun to write for. I hope he's as much fun to read.
I've been beaten up by wind all day today. It's annoying. I really think some Wind God or something has decided I've upset him by making fun of that line from "the Storyteller's Daughter." I really meant no disrespect, dear jinn. Please stop buffetting my bike around all day.
Okay, I'm fucking exhausted. I've been writing for around 3 hours straight. I hope you like it. Yeah, it's seven pages, and it changes tense. Is that really so bad? As I got near the end, I felt like I could have written the whole thing past tense, and avoided a little confusion, but I'll leave it up to you for now. Email, message, something, to share the opinion. Yeah, that is my phone number that Tony gives Sherry. He wasn't gonna originally, but after all I've been through recently, I was in the mood for a happier ending. But yeah, don't call me while I'm napping now.
Or when I'm sleeping.
Or in class.
Or just ever, really.
Phones hurt my brain. x_x
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