Bite Somebody

by Sara Dobie Bauer

  Sadly, being supernaturally strong didn’t translate to having super endurance. A normal person would think they’d go hand-in-hand, but no. It was yet another one of those things no one bothered to explain to Celia before she became a vampire.

  He visited her at work. He would show up at Happy Gas and buy Smartfood White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn, because he said it was the only edible item they kept in stock—this coming from a man who drank kale smoothies every day.

  Celia finished reading Twilight, so she would have to wait to get the other books to find out if Edward ever turned Bella. She had hoped the book would give her some insight into Ian and their relationship, but it didn’t and she’d mastered how to be an angsty teenager years ago.

  Then, the romantic montage halted when, one night, Ian came walking out of her kitchen with a bag of blood in his hand. “Why do you have blood in your fridge and freezer?”

  He must have found her popsicles, too.

  She needed to glamour him—immediately. But she felt kind of guilty about glamouring Ian. Plus, she had to face facts, Celia had no idea how to glamour someone. She’d seen Imogene do it, but she had only a vague understanding of how it was done. She needed Imogene, but she thought Ian might get even more suspicious if, instead of answering his question, she made a phone call.

  “Celia?” he said.

  Think, stupid, think. “I’m anemic.”

  “Probably because you never eat.” He glanced at the bag: B-negative, Celia’s least favorite.

  “I have an eating disorder?”

  He looked back at her as she sunk deeper and deeper between two cushions in her couch. “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, what, you put blood in your cereal?”

  “I have an IV.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s being washed.” Did IVs need to be washed?

  “Hmm.” He shrugged. “Okay.” He turned and walked back to the kitchen.

  Hmm, okay? That was it? She was off the hook that easily?

  Ian came back and laid his head in her lap with his long legs folded over the arm of the couch. She stuck her fingers in his hair. She knew from experience that playing with it momentarily erased his brain. Instead of humming happily, though, his eyes popped open. “I knew you were a vampire.”

  Holy fuck, he figured it out!

  Then, he laughed. He had just found a fridge filled with bags of blood (and peach juice for Imogene’s rum punches), and he was joking around. Celia suspected she was falling for a maniac.

  Celia needed to talk to Imogene, but she wanted some privacy. Imogene didn’t mind talking, so long as she could hunt at the same time. She whined until Celia agreed to go to St. Arthur’s Circle and meet her at a bar called Daiquiri Deck, where they served…daiquiris.

  They sat out on the second story porch. The nights were getting warmer and warmer in southern Florida. Summer was raring to go, ready to drench the air in never-ending humidity and the sweet scent of flowers—with just a hint of rotting fish. Tourist season was in full swing, so Imogene had her pick of the litter.

  She was playing “Marry-Fuck-Kill” when Celia started poking at some blue and green frozen mixture called Kryptonite. Imogene’s game really could have been called just “Fuck-Kill,” because Celia had yet to hear her friend mention marriage—ever.

  Celia said what needed saying: “I think I should bite Ian.”

  “Duh.” Imogene watched a chubby tourist walk by on the sidewalk below. She said, “Kill!”

  “I mean, nothing I do upsets him. Nothing surprises him. If I walked around naked all the time—”

  “He would bend you over a table and ravage you.”

  Celia scoffed.

  “What?” Imogene looked over her sunglasses at her. “You get his blood pumping, Merk.”

  “So should I bite him?”

  “Fuck!” she said to a group of tan guys in boat shoes. “Of course you should bite him.”

  “Right.” She took a chilly sip of her overly-sweet beverage. “So are we supposed to talk about it first?”

  Imogene looked at her, shrugged. “I don’t know. What would you say?”

  “I’m a vampire, and I would like to suck your blood.”

  Imogene giggled; so did Celia.

  “What do you say when you bite guys?”

  “I don’t say anything. Kill!” she said to a pale, skinny guy in jean overalls. “I just glamour them and drink my fill.”

  “You’ve never had a crush on someone?”

  “Hell yeah, I have.” Imogene finished her blood-red concoction called Planet Mars. “I have a crush on Ian.”

  “You do?”

  Imogene waved to the waitress, who nodded when she lifted her empty plastic cup. “Look, I’m attracted to men all the time. Doesn’t mean I want to keep them around.”

  “I want to keep Ian around.”

  “Duh. Fuck!” she yelled at a guy on a motorcycle.

  Celia rested her head in her hands. “Maybe I should talk to my therapist.”

  “Screw your therapist. I’m your therapist.”

  “A terrible thought,” Celia said.

  “Look, just bite him. I’m not sure if you remember, but being bitten feels really good. Plus, once the venom gets into his system, he’ll be all high and shit. He’ll be more open to discussion when he’s high.”

  She thought of the occasional cloud of pine that floated around Ian. “He’s been high around me before.”

  “Venom is a different kind of high. How do you not remember this?”

  “I was really wasted when…” She shrugged as a waitress brought another Planet Mars and Kryptonite, not that Celia needed it.

  “Just do it. Just get it over with. Then, you can stop thinking about it. Plus, it’ll explain the creepy bags of blood in your fridge.”

  Celia shook her head. “He’s gonna break up with me.”

  “Merk. The man’s had blue balls for weeks. And he just came upon your Dracula stash. If he’s willing to put up with both of those things, a little bite isn’t gonna scare him away. Kill!” she shouted to a couple of tourists with cameras around their necks.

  “How do you know he’s had blue balls?”

  Imogene pushed her glasses up her nose and slurped at her red drink. “Let’s just say, when he’s around you, the blood travels south.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “You can see it.” Imogene paused. “You can’t see it?”

  Celia sighed. “How old are you?”

  She made a disgusted noise and looked down into the street.

  “Imogene, you’re so much better at this than me. How long have you been a vampire?”

  She folded her hands on the table. “Since 1985.”

  Celia quickly did the math in her head but didn’t say the number out loud, just in case Imogene wasn’t as cool about throwing her age around as Dr. Savage.

  “How did you…I mean, who did…”

  “God, stop doing that fucking Rain Man thing.”

  “Sorry.” Celia sipped her drink and turned the second one, untouched, in a slow circle on the white tabletop.

  “I was a club kid in Miami. Met this vamp named Wharf.”

  “His name was Wharf?”

  Imogene laughed. “Yeah. I was living on the streets of Miami, so I followed him to Lazaret, and,” she shrugged, “the sex was spectacular. Neither of us were very good at monogamy, though, so we went our separate ways.”

  “You’re not homeless now, are you?”

  “Nope.” She lowered her glasses and winked. “I’m a good thief, Merk.”

  Biking home, slightly buzzed, Celia wasn’t sure meeting Imogene had helped her at all. Her mind still wasn’t made up about biting Ian or talking to Ian about being a vampire or…anything. Her mind was really kind of fuzzy from the Kryptonite, although she’d held herself to a limit of two.

  She rode up the little rock driveway to the Sleeping Gull, but that was when…

  Blo
od. Lots of it. Ian’s blood.

  She fell off her bike and landed with an “oof” in a hibiscus bush. She didn’t even bother locking her cruiser up for the night. She just kept walking in a sort of haze until she spotted Ian on the steps of their apartments.

  He was in one of his spandex bike outfits.

  “Ian?”

  He looked up at her. “Hey. Slight wipeout.”

  Slight? All the flesh from his left shin was gone, replaced by torn, dripping red.

  “Could you get me some hydrogen peroxide?”

  He said something else, but by then, his voice sounded like the Charlie Brown parents: wah-wah-wah. Celia crept closer. The scent of his blood was thick, heady. There was no chance of a “Ralph” moment. No, it was too late. Celia’s fangs went boing, but Ian was too busy looking at his own mangled leg to notice.

  That was when she attacked him.

  She called Imogene. Together, they dragged Ian into her apartment. That was when Imogene finally got a look at him. “What the fuck did you do to his neck?”

  “I don’t know.” Celia was hyperventilating.

  “There are, like, three different bite marks,” she said, but she could barely speak, she was laughing so hard. “What, do you stutter bite?”

  “Imogene, this is not funny. I attacked him without his consent, and I destroyed his neck.”

  Imogene was still laughing. In fact, she had to sit down on Celia’s couch to avoid falling over.

  “Oh my God.” She paced. “Oh my God.” Celia thought it was like the Great White all over again! Too bad Ian hadn’t punched her, too. His blood was all over the inside of her mouth. The flavor was totally unlike the bagged stuff she bought from Steve every week. Ian tasted like summer barbeques and lazy days by the sea. His blood coursed through her, and she felt like she could have leveled a building or flown to the moon.

  “How do you feel?” Imogene must have noticed the wild look on her face.

  “He’s gonna break up with me!”

  Imogene shook her head. “How do you feel, Merk?”

  She took a couple deep breaths. “I feel great,” she said. The lights in the room were brighter, the colors more vivid. Imogene’s body seemed to glow—all purple, of course. Celia’s brain floated, and Ian—despite the whitewashed pallor of his skin—looked like a golden god on her living room floor.

  “Better than the bagged stuff, right?”

  Celia couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  Imogene pulled a yellow pill from her pocket. “Want a Klonopin?”

  “No. No. I need to be ready for when he wakes up.”

  Imogene put the pill away, stood, and put her arm over Celia’s shoulders. “Congratulations, Merk. You just popped your cherry.”

  Ian groaned, and they both jumped. The only movement Celia could see came from his fingers, which clasped and unclasped the strings of her apartment carpet. Surprisingly, Imogene went all Florence Nightingale. She let go of Celia and knelt at his side. “Ian?”

  “Mmmm,” he said.

  “Hey, dude. You all right?”

  “I don’t…what the heh…” He blinked his eyes open. “Did I get roofied?”

  Imogene chuckled. “Not that I know of.”

  “Celia…”

  “She’s here.” Imogene glanced over her shoulder.

  Ian didn’t look at Celia. Actually, his eyes slipped shut again. Then, he said, “Did you bite me?”

  Imogene took the opportunity to pull her white earbuds from their hidden place in her cleavage. She poked one into her ear, then the other, and said, “I’m gonna step outside.”

  Celia gave her a look that said traitor.

  Then, Ian threw up. Celia suddenly knew she couldn’t live without him because if she still thought he was cute, chucking all over her living room floor, she would think he was cute doing anything—and there just wasn’t enough cuteness in the world. She didn’t know exactly how to voice this revelation, so instead, she spilled her biggest secret. “I’m a vampire.”

  Ian leaned up on one elbow and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. He seemed to notice the puddle of blood surrounding his lower leg, soaking her carpet. “Do you have any hydrogen peroxide?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “And maybe a mint?”

  “I have chewing gum.”

  He gave her a bleary-eyed thumbs-up.

  She heard his voice as she rifled around in her bathroom: “Celia, a towel, too. Something you can toss after.”

  “Okay.” She rushed back to him, piece of foil-wrapped chewing gum extended. Then, she set the peroxide and towel by his leg and stood up again. She felt almost scared to be near him and his blood and the smell of him and…blood. She could have gone for round four on that neck.

  Ian leaned up and poured peroxide on his leg. Compared to the nonexistent skin on his shin, the shark bite scar on his other leg looked almost appealing. He wrapped his new wound with the towel and laid back down on the floor, chewing gum.

  “Ian?”

  “What did you say a minute ago?”

  “Oh. I’m a vampire.”

  “Right. That.” He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. “So you really did bite me?” The wounds on his neck would still be numb from the venom; she knew that much, so Ian still had no idea that she’d stutter-bit all over his perfect skin.

  “I didn’t mean to bite you. I was gonna talk to you about it first, but then, I came home, and you were all…” She gestured to his leg. “Open wound. I couldn’t help it.”

  Then, he did it: he reached for his neck. His long fingers found one bite mark, then another, another. “Oh my God,” he muttered and looked like he might puke again.

  “I know,” she said, “you’re a mess, but it was my first time, and everyone’s first time is kind of awkward. I like your neck a lot, and I want to be your girlfriend. One bite probably would have sufficed, but once I got started, I just…you taste really good.”

  He held up his hand in a silent, “Please don’t talk anymore.” He wrestled into a seated position and leaned against her entertainment center. “You want to be my girlfriend?”

  She nodded, then shrugged.

  He took a loud breath in through his nose.

  “You’re going to break up with me, aren’t you?” she shrieked.

  “Celia, just…” He put his hand on his forehead.

  She sat on the edge of her coffee table.

  “Night shift,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Bags of blood instead of food in your fridge.”

  “Right.”

  “You’d think I would have seen this coming.” He scratched his chin. “Do you have any juice?”

  She shook her head no.

  “There’s some in my fridge,” he said. “Could you get it for me, please?”

  “Yeah.” She stepped out onto the porch, but Imogene wasn’t there. Celia thought she saw her friend dancing near the beach as she walked into Ian’s apartment and brought back an entire jug of organic apple juice. Celia watched him dazedly put his chewed piece of mint gum on her table and chug three-quarters of the bottle.

  He was starting to look a little better, not so green. His blue eyes weren’t quite as glazed. He looked drunk instead of like someone tripping balls. “Imogene…”

  Celia nodded.

  “A vampire,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “How many vampires are there?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We’re not really into social networking.”

  He nodded as though this should be obvious. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No!” Celia slid down to kneel in front of him. “No, no. That’s not what this is about. See, humans and vampires develop relationships, and well, yeah, there’s feeding.” She paused. “But there’s devotion and friendship and Jeopardy!. Vampires and humans…they date.”

  “Is this usually how the conversation goes?”

  “I don’t know. Like
I said, you’re my first time.”

  “Oh.” He got this look on his face like he understood the gravity of the situation—like he’d just taken a teenager’s virginity. “How long have you been…?”

  “About four months now.”

  “And Imogene?”

  “Since 1985.”

  “So then, you’re new,” he said.

  “Yeah.

  “And I’m your…” He paused. “First.”

  “I always wanted my first time to be special.”

  What a relief when he smiled at her. All his tan wrinkle lines popped out like a moonrise. “I guess I don’t have to worry about you swimming in the ocean at night, huh?”

  She smiled back at him. “No.”

  “So no sunshine.”

  “No.”

  “No food.”

  She shook her head.

  “But you can drink alcohol.”

  “One of the perks.”

  “Do you have super strength and stuff?”

  “I can rip a phone book in half.”

  He chuckled. “What else?”

  “Um, I have a really strong sense of smell. And there’s this thing Imogene does called glamouring where she makes people like her or makes them forget things. I don’t do that, though, I swear.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Yeah, I mean, I would never do that to you.” Celia looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. “I’m really sorry I bit you, Ian.”

  “Well, you should always have honesty in a relationship.”

  Her head shot up. “You’re not going to break up with me?”

  “You want to be my girlfriend. Would be dumb to break up with you before we even get started.”

  “Even though I look like Nosferatu when I wake up?”

  “You don’t look like Nosferatu when you wake up,” he said.

  “Even though I destroyed your neck?”

  He shrugged. “It’s kind of funny really. I finally meet a girl I see a future with, and she drinks blood to stay alive.”

  Celia tried to laugh, but it came out like her usual nervous half-choke donkey bray. Then, she realized he really looked a mess. “Do you want to wash up?”

  “Yeah. Can you help me?”

  “Sure! Let me just get Imogene.”

  “You have super strength,” he said. “Why do you need Imogene?”