by Jerry
“Yeah.” I hold myself together while I walk, Andreas’s fleece wrapped around my waist, steps small to avoid any further leakage, arms clasped in front of me—as if anyone really walks like that.
“I’m Ashlynn, Dr. Treggman’s nurse. Why don’t you follow me on back and I’ll get you started. How does that sound?”
“Fine.” I nod and follow her back, even cooperate.
She makes me get on the scale.
“Wow, you’ve lost nine pounds since your last visit—two weeks ago.”
Takes my blood pressure.
“Fifty over thirty. That—that can’t be right. You’d have to be . . .”
And my temperature.
“Um, okay, this—I’m going to get Dr. Treggman.”
She backs out of the exam room, keeping her eyes on me until she’s safe on the other side of the door.
I lean back on the patient table. Its white paper crinkles beneath me. Dr. Treggman walks in just as I’m peering at the crotch of my jeans to assess the situation.
“Finley, nice to meet you.” He sets his laptop on a wheeled table and sits on a short black wheelie stool and wheels himself and his laptop over to me. “I’m Dr. Treggman.”
I nod.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asks all while peering over his glasses at the form I gave the nurses. “Bleeding?” Then he looks over his glasses at me. “Would you like to be more specific?”
“I got my period for the first time in three years, today.”
“You’re on Testosterone Cypionate?”
“Intramuscular injections.”
“So you know, then, that people who have taken steps to medically transition are on the restricted list for vampirification.” He stares at me over his wire-frame glasses and old plasticky laptop. Slowly, his lips purse. “The nurse gave me your stats. I’ll have to report this. I’m sorry, I’m required by law.”
I squeeze my legs together and lean forward, trying to appeal to his human side while I still have one. “Look,” I say softly. “I need help, okay? This is the only clinic I even feel safe coming to for trans stuff.”
“Mr. Hall, this isn’t trans stuff, this is vampire stuff. And there’s a reason the two don’t mix; we don’t have conclusive studies on how vampirification affects atypical bodies.” He starts typing, again.
I’ve seen the Federal Vampire Commission’s list of atypical bodies. It’s trans and intersex folks. Disabled and neuroatypical folks; the F.V.C. even provides a list of prohibited surgeries and medications. Never mind those who can’t afford the required physical exams and application fee. And heaven forbid you’re a woman of childbearing age who “might want to have kids someday; how can you be sure you won’t want to?”
“As I’m not versed in vampire anatomy—” Dr. Treggman’s words buzz like a fly in my ears. “—I hesitate to make any recommendations—”
I clench my hands into cold, white fists and punch them down on top of Dr. Treggman’s shitty laptop. His tan, hairy arms tremble where they stick out from the keyboard. I lean over the wheelie desk and bare my growing fangs. If I breathe deep enough, he smells like dinner.
I lean my full weight on the shattered laptop, crushing him in a hand-sandwich between layers of circuits and plastic.
“Finley.” His voice is hoarse and shaky. “Finley, please, you’re hurting me.”
“Finley!” Andreas’s sea glass voice turns my head.
“What,” I ask, slowly, “are you doing here? You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“Good thing I wasn’t. You need to let the doctor go. He’s just doing his job.”
“You know how many doctors I’ve met who are just doing their jobs?” The one who asked if I was really, really sure, because I didn’t seem very masculine. The one who suggested psycho-sexual therapy as if my kinks disqualified me. The one who told me no cis gay men would want to sleep with me.
“I know.” Andreas snakes an arm around my waist and pries me off the laptop.
Dr. Treggman squeaks relief and Andreas looks into his eyes and says, “You will wait quietly.” The doctor slackens, suddenly unconcerned about his injured hands or the one and a half vampires fighting in his exam room.
“I can’t go like this.” I gesture over my un-reproductive organs.
“So, buy some new clothes. Here.” Andreas thrusts a few bills into my hand.
I hate that he’s so easily solved my problem. I want to stay angry. I’m still angry. I’m still bleeding. “How did you know where I—”
“I can smell you.” Andreas taps his nose. “Now, I’m going to convince the doctor not to report us for this mess. You will meet me outside.”
“I didn’t even think you could go outside at this time. I thought I’d ditched you.”
“Yeah, well I’m old and soon you’ll be young, so don’t ditch me for a few more centuries. You have a lot to learn.”
My “Ugh!” is a bratty growl as I slam my fist into the doorframe and leave. If this is my life, now, bring on death.
Andreas meets me in the back alley and pushes me against the brick so hard it cracks. Notably, I don’t.
“What were you thinking?” he asks. “Are you trying to get us euthanized?”
“I was thinking you don’t understand how my body works and I needed to see someone who does.” I try to pry his hands off my shoulders but he’s got millennia on me. I haven’t even managed to die, yet.
“Dr. Treggman doesn’t know more about vampirification than I do. Besides, if you’re really concerned, we have vampire doctors.”
“Any trans ones?”
“What?”
“Do you know any transgender vampire doctors?” I ask slowly to drive home my point.
Andreas’s lips twitch, revealing a flash of white. I wonder if he has emotions or only teeth.
“Didn’t think so.” This time, I brush him off easily. “You’re welcome to feel doubly stupid, by the way. Turning someone without an application—a someone who also happens to be trans. It’s not even legal!”
I get halfway down the alley before he says, “I thought you smelled different. Not enough to deter me. Actually, not bad at all. Just different.”
“I’m flattered.” I suppose that’s the vampire equivalent of “Wow, I’d never have guessed you were trans,” or “But you look so normal.”
I put my borrowed sunglasses back on and pause at the shade’s edge. “Let’s go home so I can die, already.”
Andreas catches my shoulder before I can step further into the sunlight. Smoke rises from his hand before he jerks it away.
“I thought you were old,” I snap, still unable to control my temper.
“I am.” Blisters swell on his otherwise unblemished skin. “Just because I don’t catch fire wearing SPF 70 in the shade, doesn’t mean I can lie out on the beach in June.”
I cross vacations off my list of future plans. A list that seems to shrink every hour.
“Look, Finley, don’t let this ruin your last day.”
I walk backwards across the line of light, watching Andreas grow smaller. He doesn’t offer any more wisdom. He doesn’t even stay.
Don’t let this ruin my last day. It’s not really my last day. My last day was pizza and burnt French fries, strobe lights and pulsing bass. Drunk pissing.
I stand at the top of St. Paul Street and watch cars fly past. They disappear between skyscrapers and the orange glow of sunset. I should care that this is my last sunset—at least for a few centuries.
I cared when it was my last night with breasts. When I faced losing erotic sensation. Never arching under the hard pinch of rough fingers or the wet suction of a man’s lips. I didn’t want the mounds, but I had them my whole life. And, then, I didn’t.
I cared before my voice dropped. When I faced losing my ability to sing. “Most guys can’t,” the Internet said and no voice coaches worked with trans men, only trans women. The drop was sudden and uncomfortable. I strained and pushed to sing The Kinks and
The Beatles and cried when I couldn’t. I hadn’t lost my ability to cry, yet.
I care that this is my last sunset.
The sky is black and blue when I show up on Andreas’s doorstep. His bandaged hand and heavy eyelids are my fault. He glances at the back of my canvas and my small kit of paints and brushes, as if he expected more.
“I probably won’t see another sunset like that.” Not that I have to justify my time to him. He probably expected I’d visit with family or friends, vomit up a last ditch attempt at a favorite drink or meal. Maybe I should’ve. Too late, now.
“No, you probably won’t.” Andreas steps aside so I can set my things in the guest room and kick off my shoes. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” I roll up my pink and orange stained sleeves. “I’m ready.”
Andreas leads me into the basement. It’s unfinished. The rough cement floor cools my feet; the air chills my exposed skin.
“You don’t have to take off your clothes, but you should,” Andreas says.
“Why?”
“Death is messy. You don’t want it sticking to you.”
“Fair.” I don’t ask for further details. Despite stabbing myself with a needle every two weeks and going through surgery, I’m not particularly good with gross body stuff. Surprise-menstruation was enough to last me an eternity.
I leave my shirt and jeans in a pile, half-folded. Andreas lifts up a metal hatch, exposing soft, freshly tilled soil underneath.
“No coffin?” I ask. Vampires aren’t exactly forthcoming about their reproductive process. Secrets are power and they’ve already given over so much to humankind.
“No,” he says. “Just you and the earth.” His cheeks flush with recently-drunk blood. He’s jealous. He stares at the loose dirt like a lover he wants to wrap himself around.
“You can join me. If you want.”
Andreas shakes his head. “You don’t want that. You want to be alone. Trust me. There’ll be other nights.”
I don’t tell him I don’t want to be buried alive and alone. I don’t want to taste dirt. Don’t want it matted in my hair, packed up my nose—the crumbs rolling up into my brain. If I’m barely breathing, does it even matter?
Andreas offers his hand. I let him help me into the earthen grave because no one’s done anything like that for me since I was a girl.
I sink a few inches when the dirt gives beneath my weight. Andreas’s grip tightens to keep me from falling. Mine tightens with hopes of pulling him in with me. But he doesn’t stumble, doesn’t follow. When he lets go, I clasp my hands in front of me.
“Lie down.” Each of his words is a nail in my imaginary coffin.
I dig myself a space, lie down, and close my eyes. When Andreas pushes the first mound of dirt over my feet, I panic. But my body’s not setup to panic, anymore. I have no racing heart or nauseous stomach. My deep breaths mean nothing. I suck air in, but it sits there until I push it out.
“Relax.” Andreas covers my legs next. He doesn’t pack the soil tight. I assume so that I can get out. I hope.
He unclasps my hands and lays them out beside me. Even corpses get to hold themselves in death. But I’m left exposed to the dirt Andreas piles on my chest and over my arms. Over my neck and ears.
I blink up at him, nothing but a pale face amongst black-brown soil. A waning moon in the night sky. Andreas bends and presses a soft kiss against my lips. It doesn’t mean anything. I almost wish it did. We don’t love each other, don’t long for each other’s touch or look forward to some eternal romance. I didn’t even pick him. He bit me. I didn’t get a say beyond turn or die.
Andreas climbs out of my grave and disappears from view. When he returns, he’s holding the wooden handles of a dirt-filled wheelbarrow. “I’ll be back for you.” And with that, he dumps it over my face. I feel him pat its cold weight over my head and body. Hear the squeaky hinge on the metal trapdoor and its bang shut.
Dirt fills my mouth when I scream.
Starving.
Starving and dried and thirsty.
Thirsty and hungry are the same. My body is a desert. I swallow bits of dirt with the rush of blood I suck down. The source is hot against me. Hard against me. My jaw is rigid, eyes wide on those of the man who feeds me.
“Finley.” His voice is underwater. My name ripples to the surface.
He rips the source away. I lunge after it, but he pins me on a cold cement floor. I run my tongue over the sharp line of my teeth and cut it on my fangs. They taste like him. My wandering eyes settle on the source. The source has a name. His name is Andreas.
“Finley.”
That’s my name. I know because I chose it.
“Finley, can you hear me?”
I cough up dirt and blood. Spit it on the cement. “Yes.” My voice is smoother, darker, fuller.
“How do you feel?” Andreas asks.
“Starving and dried and thirsty.”
He smiles with closed lips. “Let’s get you in the shower and some blood in your system. How does that sound?”
My answer is a low growl—one that’s conceived in my chest and born through my throat. I chase the feeling with another. Andreas pulls me off my feet and into his arms as if I am his pet. I press my nose against his shirt and sniff his blood through the layers of cotton and flesh.
He sets me on my own feet, again, in the shower. It’s big enough for three, no curtains blocking us in. Showerheads hang from the ceiling, raining hot water onto our cold bodies. Andreas rips his clothes off and tosses them into a sopping heap on the rug. I’m already naked—I forgot.
Starving.
I feel every drop of water that strikes my skin like a match tip catching fire. Mud rolls over my muscled arms and unsticks from the dark curls between my legs. I’m not bleeding, anymore.
Andreas offers his wrist. I latch onto his neck, instead. His laugh resounds through my jaw. The blood jostles, choking me for a moment. I pull back and crack my neck, let the rush settle in.
Nerves in my chest prickle to life—nerves that died under the knife years ago. I squirm where Andreas slides his hand down my back, where he rests it under my ass and squeezes, pressing our bare bits together.
When I bite him again, my teeth light with as much pleasure as my cunt—more, even. Like there are nerves in my new fangs.
“There are,” Andreas says, confirming my thoughts. “And it’s so much better than sex.”
My body pulses with blood like that first rush of testosterone. Andreas doesn’t taste like one person. He isn’t a varietal vintage. He’s the blood of everyone he’s drunk. Like the house blend, I drink him until he stops me.
I know it’s blood; I can taste the iron. But it recalls words like silky and juicy, the swirl of red in a glass, and roll over the tongue.
“Enough,” he says with fangs exposed.
I didn’t expect the lust part of bloodlust, but Andreas looks different with my undead eyes. I can see the lines of severity in his expression, the flare of his pupils, feel his subtly shifting muscles.
I reach between us and grab Andreas’s erection, rub my blood-engorged clit against it and moan. “I want you,” I say.
“You want blood.”
“I want both.”
Andreas smiles. “I’ll give you both.”
We fuck with my forehead pressed against the slick tiled wall, Andreas’s mouth hovering against the back of my neck. Even amidst the steam, his breath is hot, tongue strong and wet. I want him to feed on me again, like that night in the alley. Only this time we both want it and it is so much better, this way.
His cold fingers shock my nipples hard, rolling and pinching them. In only a few hours they’ve regained the sensitivity they lost under the knife, two years ago.
With his other hand he covers my mouth. And while I relish the bondage, the stifling of my growls and moans, I know it’s an offering. I sink my teeth into his wrist and draw the color from him.
While his blood rushes through me, turning me, resurrecting
me, Andreas pushes his thick cock into my cunt. I steady myself against the wall while he lifts me with one arm—the arm not lodged in my mouth—and thrusts.
It’s not long before he comes, trembling inside me; his body pins mine to the wall. I’m so close, so full, probably saturated. Andreas reaches between my legs and rubs my clit. I close my eyes, lick the wounds on his arm, rest my weight on the full feeling in my groin.
If he weren’t propping me up, my orgasm would knock me to the shower floor. It radiates through my blood stream. It wakes me up.
Andreas has to rip his arm away from me. “Careful,” he whispers in my ear. “Your body is adjusting. You don’t want to be sick, again, so soon.”
He rinses us off, takes my hand, and together we lie on the shower tiles, their orange-pink marbling a farce of sundown. I rest my face against his pec, over his juicy heart, and kiss the skin. Andreas chuckles and holds me there while the water pounds over my blissed out body.
“I’m still hungry,” I say.
“I bet you are.”
“When can we hunt?”
“We can’t.”
“Why not? You did.”
Andreas flips his body on top of mine. “I’m old, Finley. Too old. I’ve followed human history for millennia. I’ve met believers and skeptics. Warm beds and pitchforks. Somehow, I never expected assimilation.” He relaxes onto his side, rests his head on his hand. “Never expected to go mainstream.”
“ ‘I’m Andreas. I was a vampire before it was cool,’ ” I say, mocking him.
His smirk is sharp and quick; I almost miss it. “You think you’re going to be the vampire that breaks the rules. That fights the normalization of our culture. That doesn’t register with a government that’s existed as long as my last haircut.
“Your laws don’t really matter to me. But for some reason I went along with them. I figured, why not try something new? Live in the open for a change, make friends, furnish an apartment, get a hobby.
“Wasn’t so bad at first. Bagged blood is like your Diet Coke. Not as good as the real thing, but you get used to it—so much, sometimes, that you get a sugar rush if you revert.” Andreas traces a finger down my jaw, over my neck and chest, swirling it around one of my swollen areola. “I wanted to hold a live body in my arms and feed while it wriggled against me, struggled for the life I sucked hot out of it.”
