So we walked the four shorts blocks to this guy's house, Louise on the phone part of the way, those huge retro-stylish sunglasses of hers on her face.
Did you know that even though a bite from a person may not seem dangerous, they really are? You've got like a huge amount of bacteria in your mouth so if you happen to bite someone, the risk of infection is extremely high. Your joints could get infected from even the smallest bite, and that's not even the worst of it. Blood borne diseases like Hepatitis B and syphilis can be spread through bite wounds.
“You serious?”
“Deadly serious. I see a lot of bite wounds. I know a lot about them.”
For all of you paying attention, you just scored a point in a little game I like to call: “Spot the Vampire”. If you've already spotted her long incisors, kudos to you, but as far back as I can remember, Louise has always had long incisors. Runs in the family.
Louise was also a doctor. She worked nights at one of those 24-hour clinics over on the East Side of town, and I never got to see her that much. I'd first run into her when I used to hang out with Angus, and that had pretty much been that. We'd become instant friends over one of Angus's Super Fantastic Bongs and had kept running into each other after that. She was one of my first customers at the porn shop, just to see the look on my face. She had also been the person who had introduced me to Jaime, and since the breakup, I really hadn't seen her that much.
The working at night thing sucks when your friends also work at night. Your schedules will never meet, so there’s no overlap since one or both of you is always rushing off to work. I made a point to try to get her to meet me for breakfast one night after work so we could catch up.
I asked her when she got off the phone from her doctor friend.
“We need to catch up some time you know.”
“I know. Let's get you patched up first, and then we can worry about that after.”
“Sorry for ruining your night off.”
“Hey, if you can't take care of your friends, then what does that tell you about yourself as a person?”
“Sorry though.”
“You've not been taking care of yourself Bob. This whole depression thing has got to stop at some point you know.”
“I'm not depressed. Not that much. You make it sound like I'm suicidal or something.”
“Are you?”
“Of course not.”
I was lying, and we both knew it. Louise offered me enough grace and just ignored that little lie. She had been the one who had pumped my stomach that one day three months before, after all.
“So how far away is your friend?”
“Just a few more houses down.”
“You dating this dude?”
“Nah. I've taken myself off of the meat market for a bit. Trying to figure out a few things in my life right now. You can call it a voyage of self-discovery if you want. I call it 'staying away from men for a while' myself.”
“Good name. A bit long, but a good name.”
“Good name for a rock band?”
“Nah, not rocking enough. Kinda poppy.”
“I like it anyway. You seeing anyone yet?”
“Nah. I'm just keeping to myself right now. A relationship is the last thing I need.”
“You're still not over Jaime are you?”
“Not even remotely. I don't want to be over her, not yet.”
“You still using?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Everything Bob. That was the main reason she left you, or hadn't you figured that out?”
That one hit me like a ton of bricks. Stopped me in my tracks cold.
“Jaime left me because I was using? That's why?”
“She never told you why she left?”
“Why do you think I've been so fucked up over it?”
Now Louise just looked pissed. She stomped around in a little circle in the middle of the street, making faces.
“I'm going to fucking kill her! I told her to let you know, but did she listen? Oh no! Not little Miss 'He Should Have Figured It Out,' no not her! Fucking girls don't know how to communicate! Argh!”
“You're a girl.”
“How do you think I know?”
We just looked at each other for a moment and then Louise cracked a smile. She was just cool like that. I was glad she was my friend.
“Come on, let's get that neck looked at. This is the house.”
I followed her down the driveway to the little house with the well-kept garden. A Black BMW with black tinted windows was sitting in front of the garage door, stylishly cool. It spoke volumes about the owner, saying that he was coolly efficient, confident and just rich enough to think that he was ten times better than you, and if you were richer than he was, then it wouldn't faze him one way or the other. He probably walked around the house in a pullover or something equally as metrosexual.
His name was Robert, and when he opened the door, he was wearing a pullover. I hated him on first sight. Pompous prick.
In hindsight, I probably realized that something else was off about this guy, but I couldn't pinpoint it at the time. There was just some other reason that I didn't like him, and maybe if I had spotted the way he had of flicking his incisors with his tongue whenever he saw blood, I would have figured it out. Or maybe not: vampires were not real, not then, and were not something I used to be on the look out for.
“Is this him?”
I took my hand off my neck before Louise could reply and grinned. “I am him. He. Him. He...” How did it go again? Ahh, fuck it, it didn't matter anyway. “I'm the guy.”
“Like he said. Robert this is Bob, Bob... hey wait a minute-I've got two Bobs.” She looked back and forth at us, feeling clever.
“Let's just stick to Robert, what do you say?” Robert looked disgusted at that thought of being called 'Bob'. Nothing wrong with 'Bob'. I liked it just fine, thank you very much.
Louise shrugged an 'okay'. “You got the stuff right?”
“Yeah, come on in and let's get him fixed up and on the way.”
Louise rolled her eyes at me as Robert opened the door wide. She could tell what I was thinking sometimes, I swear.
“Be nice, okay?”
“Being nice starting... now.”
I stepped inside and instantly forgot my promise. “Holy fucking shit. It's Ikea!”
Robert's house was almost an Ikea showroom. Everything looked like it had been lifted wholesale from Ikea, every combination perfect and complimentary. I was almost expecting a big yellow shopping bag to be handed to me at any second before I was pointed towards the cinnamon buns and cheap 50-cent hotdogs.
“Sorry, about that Robert. I forgot to warn you that he's an idiot.”
“It's quite okay. I get that reaction a lot.”
I shrugged as Louise glared at me. “What?”
“You're lucky you're already bleeding.”
Louise led me down the corridor behind Robert to the bathroom. The artwork was at least pre-Ikea and looked pretty expensive. There was a piece that looked like what could have been an early Rembrandt, but it had been more than a decade since I had studied art history, so excuse me if I was a little rusty at the time. Claude could have been able to tell me, after he had stolen it and sold it to the highest bidder of course, but he's good like that. He's the sponge, and I'm not.
The bathroom was (big surprise) another Ikea masterpiece. I just bit my tongue and sat where Louise instructed me to. Robert disappeared down the corridor.
“You could have warned me about the Ikea effect.” I whispered to her. “How do you expect me to behave when I'm walking into something like this?”
“You know I've really, really missed you. We should make a point of going out for breakfast after this.”
“Yay breakfast.” It occurred to me that I was broke. “Um...”
“My treat.”
Have I mentioned how much Louise ruled? It's true. She totally ruled.
She ins
pected the bite on my neck now, slapping my hands away whenever she touched something sensitive. The bite was beginning to throb now, so Louise had obviously been right about infection and what not.
“Should I even ask what you were doing?”
“Please no. Let's just say that I was a very, very bad boy.”
Robert returned then and passed some very medical looking supplies to Louise. He raised an eyebrow at me as he passed me a drink.
Louise: “That's not alcohol is it?”
“You know I don't drink… alcohol...”
I think both Louise, and I must have rolled our eyes, but it got the first real grin out of Robert that I had seen. And the first real look at his incisors. This was a guy who was born to be a vampire. He passed Louise a bottle of water.
“You want me to do that?”
I could only imagine the look Louise gave him from behind my back. It must have been a doozy because Sweater Bob looked a little disappointed.
“I've got it Robert. Thanks but I'm good at bites, remember?”
Robert looked from the bite to me, and I knew I hated this dude. “You should try to avoid getting bitten Bob.” He almost spat my name. “It's very unhygienic.”
So there we were in Robert's house, Louise cleaning my bite wound and fixing me up, Robert watching from the doorway, and me wincing on occasion as Louise performed some heinous act on my neck. At least she wasn't telling me about the diseases a person could catch from being bitten by another human being. Nope. That was Robert, and it was practically a repeat performance of Louise's earlier diatribe. I swear it must be a doctor thing.
So I was practically dozing, off in my happy place where Robert wasn't talking at me, or actually didn't even exist. When Louise's phone rang from her purse out in the Lack™ living room and she ran out to get it, I didn't even notice.
I heard distantly as she picked it up ad started to talk, but I was reliving the best moments of this evening's grapple in my car, and didn't care at the time. I didn't even care when Robert stepped behind me, presumably to look at Louise's handiwork.
I was still at the part where Gloria's head was still in my lap, when Robert made an incision at the side of my neck and began to suck on my neck. It happened pretty quickly, but by that time I was beyond caring. I was relaxed and carefree, off in the drug induced haze of whatever drug had been slipped into my coke. Apparently Sweater Bob was also good at roofies. One of the additional benefits of being a doctor I suppose.
The bastard.
There were additional incisions with Robert sucking on each one with a determination that I had only recently experienced with Gloria in the car. One of the things I found out much, much later was that it was a pain in the ass to drink non-arterial blood. The blood will flow quite easily yes, but once your friendly neighborhood vampire puts his mouth on you, the saliva in his mouth will cause the blood to flow even faster. But the instant they stop sucking, that same saliva has a tendency to cause the cut to heal, and fast. And for all of you who are asking why he doesn’t just drink from an artery: are you even listening. The aim here is to not kill your victim. Cut into an artery and three times out of five you will have a dead body on your hands, and you’re fucking up the supply. I didn't notice how many times he cut me, but I do know that when Louise eventually came back, I was barely able to hold my head up.
Oh yeah... Louise. I hadn't even thought to tell her to run. That Sweater Bob here thought he was some kind of vampire or something.
Her reaction wasn't exactly the one I had expected.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing?”
“Having a drink. We can share.”
“Robert, I didn't bring him here for you.”
“You didn't?”
“No, I didn't. Fuck. You drugged him didn't you?”
“You sure you don't want some?”
“He's my friend Robert. My actual friend. He's a bit of doorknob sometimes, but he's a friend. I do not make a habit of taking blood from my friends, especially without asking.”
“Hey, how was I supposed to know?” Robert sounded a little drunk. He was slurring his words like a crackhead who'd just gotten a fix. He sucked on my back for a quick second.
“Stop that!”
“You sure you don't want some?”
Louise just looked sad. She looked away.
“Yeah, I'm sure. Now will you please stop that?”
“It's really good blood. Type A.”
Liar. I was type B Positive. So much for a discerning tongue.
Louise just looked tired, a look that I had seen before in the mirror. It was a look that usually followed an intense period of self-loathing and doubt, and sometimes one of my depressive states. It was a look that said, “I'm going to fight this for long enough that I can convince myself that I really, really tried. In short, it was the look of a junkie needing a fix.
I was hooked on heroin. Had been for two years since a night of rampant stupidity with Angus and a dumb bet. It had been before I met Jaime and it was a huge part of the reason I was so broke all the time. One of the things that a junkie can tell you, is that they can spot another junkie without even trying.
My friend Louise was a different kind of junkie, but she was a junkie just the same, as I was about to find out.
I didn't even know she was a vampire. I didn't even think of that. I was too drugged and too fucked up in my head to think clearly. I was in my happy place, and that was all that mattered.
Good roofies. Sweater Bob had access to some good shit.
“Hi Louise,” I tried to say, but what came out was some unintelligible mishmash of words that sounded more like I was drooling all over myself. Louise looked at me then, looked right through me, and I could see her thinking about it.
And her teeth... I could see them now.
When she started to suck on my neck, all I could think about was how pretty her teeth were.
After that, everything got kind of hazy.
I dreamed of teeth.
***
Here's the thing about vampires and blood: they don't need it to survive. They need it to get their fix. They're all blood junkies and like with a regular junkie, a little is never enough.
There is a curious effect that blood has on your ordinary vampire. I would later learn that it is very much like a drug that all vampires are hooked on to some degree. That was another point that the movies got completely wrong, labeling vampires as gorging on blood and feasting on it, needing it to live. There are, of course, a huge number of reasons that they list, like some quasi-scientific reason that because the vampire is undead, there is no circulation, and no warmth, so the vampire needs to replace the blood in his own veins periodically...
That one cracked me up too. Just like the myth about not being able to see a vampire's reflection in the mirror. It's when the myths just get stupid and avoid any actual relation to physics and reality; those times get to me.
I cannot say this enough: Vampires drink blood for the same reason that we smoke cigarettes, marijuana or a crack pipe. It is simply because they like the effect it has on them. It is exactly like a drug, and they can't quite get enough of it.
I don't know how long Louise and Robert drank from my veins. I don't know if there were any regrets, or if they laughed like stoned idiots enjoying their fix. I don't know any of that. For a while, all I knew was darkness.
What I do know is pretty simple though. I know that there are about 12 pints of blood in the human body. I know this because it was one of those weird conversations that Louise and I had had over a bong while she was doing her residency. She was a doctor of course, so of course she knew how much blood there was. And exactly how much a person could lose before death occurred.
I don't think she intended to kill me, but coming from my own experience as an addict, I know that what you intend has nothing to do with the actual outcome, no matter how noble or in some cases tragic. Addicts tend to fuck up everything, and they do it in a grand
scale, and it's because they simply aren't thinking clearly.
You can lose up to four pints of blood before you die.
At some point, somebody decided he needed just one more fix. Just a little bit couldn't hurt could it? And besides, they were both doctors, so I was in safe hands.
Yet... somehow, they drank too much.
Way too much...
***
There was a taste of copper on my lips when I woke up. Like I had bitten my lip or something, and I could taste it. The taste practically filled my mouth.
When my eyes fluttered open, I could see Louise sitting curled up in the chair, just watching me. Her hand was wrapped in a bandage, and she looked like she had been crying her eyes out.
My throat was dry as hell, and I was exhausted. For a moment I wondered why and then it came back to me.
“You drank my blood Louise. You and Robert. Dude, like what the fuck?”
“I'm sorry Bob, I really am.”
“Since when do you go around drinking people's blood? Is this some weird new kink you haven't told me about?”
“There is something I have to tell you and I want you to listen very carefully and not say a thing until I'm done. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure, whatever. Fuck, I'm sore all over.”
“Bob...”
“Yeah, yeah. I'm listening.”
“You died last night.”
I hadn't expected that one. I had to fight the urge to laugh at her right then. What the fuck was going on here? Maybe I was still dreaming. It was a fucked up dream, but it would explain a few things.
“Robert got a little greedy and you were dying of blood loss. I kind of freaked out a little, because we weren't supposed to have even taken your blood. That wasn't what I intended at all. I'd just wanted to take care of your bite. You've got to believe me on that. I didn't intend any of this to happen. I didn't want you to die, not like that. And especially not because of me. I didn't want to be responsible for the death of a friend, especially you. So I did the only thing I could think of.”
She held up her bandaged wrist.
“I let you drink my blood Bob, and now you're going to be one of us.”
So You Might Be a Vampire Page 6