“Let me try saying this a couple of different ways, Ed.\u00a0 She’s a vamPIRE.\u00a0 She’s a VAMpire.”\u00a0 I tried to put different stresses on the syllables.\u00a0 “I don’t think you’re really getting it.\u00a0 VAM-PIE-er.”<\/p>\n
“I think I heard you the first time.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, but hearing me and understanding the problem are two different things entirely, as noted by the fact that I’m not hearing, `Oh.\u00a0 Yeah, gotcha, E.\u00a0 That was a dumb idea.\u00a0 I’ll go give blood to Bonfils or something instead.'”<\/p>\n
“Do you even read those books?” he asked.<\/p>\n
“Bonfils is like the local blood center, not a series.”<\/p>\n
“No, I know that.”\u00a0 He sighed.\u00a0 “I meant those books on your shelves.\u00a0 You know, the ones with all the sex and the immortality and the blood all that.”<\/p>\n
“Uh,” I paused.\u00a0 “Yeah, but they’re just kind of my guilty pleasure.\u00a0 I mean, not that I should be ashamed of anything I read.\u00a0 I mean, really, my vampires don’t sparkle.”\u00a0 I thought, remembering.\u00a0 “They might glow, but no sparkle, for sure.”<\/p>\n
“She says she wouldn’t drink my blood.”<\/p>\n
“Maybe she has some kind of discerning appetite, then.\u00a0 That doesn’t mean you don’t whip her up into some kind of frenzy and she forgets she’s a gourmet.”<\/p>\n
“Uh.\u00a0 I don’t think it’s like, `Ah, a fine type A-,’ blood sommelier thing.\u00a0 I think she can’t drink my blood for some reason.”<\/p>\n
“What, she only feeds on virgins?\u00a0 Only drains the humours of your eyeballs?\u00a0 I knew leaving you two in the car alone was a mistake.”\u00a0 I got up and started pacing.<\/p>\n
“Look.”\u00a0 I could tell something was bothering Ed.\u00a0 “It’s not like that, anyway.”<\/p>\n
“What, you’re looking for the cheap and fast route to power?\u00a0 Sure, let some kind of otherworldly parasite strip you of your soul, slowly.” I think I was\u00a0even more angry than I sounded. “If you’re thinking of suicide, can I recommend some better methods?”<\/p>\n
“Whoa, hold on!\u00a0 I think I have some rights here, E.\u00a0 I think I have a better idea of the stakes, if you ignore the unintentional pun, than you think.”\u00a0 He was sounding pretty heated, too.\u00a0 “I am not asking you for permission.\u00a0 I am asking you because you might have some solid safety advice.\u00a0 You are the closest thing to an expert I know.”<\/p>\n
“And I appreciate it.\u00a0 But the advice of this expert is leave the heck alone.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Are you jealous?”<\/p>\n
I stopped cold.\u00a0 “What?\u00a0 What the heck does that mean?”<\/p>\n
“I know you’ve got a girl, but do you have something against me being happy?”<\/p>\n
“No… that’s ridiculous.”\u00a0 I sputtered.\u00a0 “I want you to be happy.”<\/p>\n
“Good.\u00a0 That makes two of us.\u00a0 And I ask because you’re completely wrong.”<\/p>\n
“I think I am the expert you asked.”<\/p>\n
“So.\u00a0 In other news, um, E, did you ever figure out that I was gay?”<\/p>\n
I couldn’t say anything.<\/p>\n
“I take it from your stunned silence that you didn’t.”<\/p>\n
“But you like girls.\u00a0 I mean, really like girls.\u00a0 When I went with Maggie that night you were chatting up some cute students.”\u00a0 I sounded like an idiot.\u00a0 “I know I sound like an idiot, but…”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, you do,” he said, but I think it sounded like there was a smile.\u00a0 “Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I can’t have friends who are, you know, female.\u00a0 It’s not like it’s my whole driving concept or anything.”<\/p>\n
“Um.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 I guess.\u00a0 Why is this conversation suddenly so weird?”\u00a0 I sat back down at the table.<\/p>\n
He laughed.\u00a0 “It doesn’t need to be, I mean, I did call you up on my lunch hour and ask you about taking a vampire on a date, but you had some major assumptions, bro.”<\/p>\n
“Is this an occasion I should send a card for or something?”<\/p>\n
“Beer and pizza still work, but, no.\u00a0 Look, nothing’s really changed, it’s just that you don’t have to worry about me putting any big moves on the vampire.\u00a0 I’m not coming out to you to confess my secret love or anything.\u00a0 You’re my brother, dude.\u00a0\u00a0 If I’m laughing it’s because I finally have something in my life you find weird.”<\/p>\n
I had to laugh at that, too.\u00a0 It eased the tension a little.\u00a0 “Okay.\u00a0 So.\u00a0 Um.\u00a0 Let me focus for a moment.\u00a0 You just basically want to know if it’s cool to hang out with Matana or if she’s going to go all batty on you and freak out for your blood or whatever it is she eats.”<\/p>\n
“I get the feeling that hanging out with a vampire is kind of like hanging out with a tiger.\u00a0 They’re a really big cat, but that doesn’t mean that even if they’re laying on your lap one moment that they’re at all tame and won’t go for your throat the next.”<\/p>\n
“Well, I don’t know about tigers, but a tame vampire is a sad and sorry beast indeed.”\u00a0 I took a moment.\u00a0 “Vampires aren’t sexy, Ed.”<\/p>\n
“Hey, I don’t think witches hold any kind of particular attraction.”<\/p>\n
“Some of them are… wait for it… enchanting.”<\/p>\n
“Ugh.”<\/p>\n
“Seriously, though, no, no garlic aftershave, no ultraviolet flashlights, the thing you really have to remember is that the more human they act, the better able to control themselves they are all over.\u00a0 So, if she’s eating human food, she’s a lot less vampire than ones who can’t drink wine.\u00a0 If she’s flashing fang, she’s piqued in some way.\u00a0 That’s one thing the books have right.\u00a0 If you were going to have to meet her after dark, I’d be worried.\u00a0 If she’s fine in sunlight, she’s in control.\u00a0 If she goes bat, she has to keep most of her mass, but she loses her clothes.\u00a0 I know, it’s kind of stream-of-consciousness.\u00a0 Basically, if you notice anything unusual be on your guard, but that’s kind of true of any date.\u00a0 Girls or otherwise, I guess.”<\/p>\n
“Um, E, I don’t know if you’re in any position to say how a normal date goes.”<\/p>\n
“I had a normal date, just last ni… oh, no I can’t say that.”<\/p>\n
“What happened?”<\/p>\n
“Um, a planter came to life and gave me a riddle.\u00a0 Oh, and the Sylvia thing.\u00a0 Which I’m still trying to piece together.\u00a0 But other than that, we had dinner and, um, we talked like people do.\u00a0 So…”<\/p>\n
“Like people do.”\u00a0 He chuckled.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, yeah.”\u00a0 I sighed.\u00a0 “I want to say this is the tail end of some of the weird stuff, but then more weird stuff just keeps on hitting me.\u00a0 Did I accidentally subscribe to the real speculative fiction club and not just the book portion?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Did I accidentally subscribe to the real speculative fiction club and not just the book portion?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-seven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}