“Hey, can I come in? ‘Cause, like, the sun’s comin’ up and I’m gonna start sparkling any minute here.”
“Edward?”
“Yeah. Can you let me in, please?”
“Holy cow! Get in here. Edward! I thought maybe…”
“Maybe, what? That I was like, a real vampire?”
“No, no, of course not.”
“It’s okay. Everybody thinks it.”
“They don’t. You’ve got millions of fans…”
“Well, I think it. And they’re right.”
“You are a real vampire, Ed. You suck blood…”
“Ah, that doesn’t count. Besides, except for Bella, I haven’t like, chowed on a human in decades. I’m starting to forget what they taste like.”
“Well don’t look at me, kid.”
“See! See! You’re not even scared of me! And what’s with the cross?”
“It’s a crucifix, and it’s supposed to remind you of your eternal damnation.”
“Yeah, right. I’m damned. I’m a daddy!”
“‘S what you get for having unprotected sex, Ed.”
“But I don’t want this! I don’t want to be married to my high school sweetheart. What kind of life is that for a vampire! I want a harem of sinister undead beauties in white nighties at my beck and call! I want to fly! I want to bring on floods of rats and turn into creeping fog! I want to destroy virgins and chew on a corpse laid out in a chapel! I want to be a vampire! A real vampire!”
“Sorry Ed. You’re the result of hundreds of years of evolution and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“What do you mean, evolution? I’m UNDEAD. The undead don’t evolve.”
“Yeah, you do. Listen, there are two main species of vampire; the monstrous, ugly, permanently damned, corpse-eating kind, and the seductive, discreet neck-puncturing kind. The monster line has just kind of…died out. That’s the problem with symbiosis.”
“Symbiosis? We’re top predator, man!”
“Yeah, and what happens when the top predator eats too many of the prey? The predator dies back. Then you’ve got the the problem that your particular preferred prey tends to mob up and fight back. Now, what happens in every story where the vamp chomps through a village or tries to convert the local beauty?”
“(Mumble)”
“Didn’t hear you there, Ed.”
“They get…staked.”
“Or burned, or otherwise made to cease to exist. Right. Now, what happens in all the stories where the vamp is broody yet powerful and finds a woman who loves him more than life itself.”
“(Mumble)”
“If that was “they live,” well, continue to walk the earth anyway, you’d be right. Classic evolutionary pressure. The monsters died, the Undead Lord Byrons lived.”
“So how did this happen? I mean, Vlad the Impaler did not have girlfriend trouble!”
“Women got the vote.”
“Huh?”
“The vampire myth is a rape myth, Ed. It’s a warning to young girls not to trust the handsome stranger who promises you the moon and the stars if you’ll just come up to the castle and look at his etchings. It’s about how every guy wants your virginity and if you give it up, you’re worse than dead. By the time Brahm Stoker got hold of it and wrote ‘Dracula,’ it became a story about how young women need to be saved from their sexual feelings which will inevitably lead them to death, or worse.”
“Those wacky Victorians.”
“You got that right. I mean, what’s the plot of ‘Dracula?’ Girl falls for vampire, stalwart hero saves girl from vampire, girl becomes proper wife, and presumably forgets all about those silly cravings. But, see, the problem was women didn’t WANT to forget all about those silly cravings. They wanted the guy who would take them away from the fate of being a proper wife.
“And women buy books. Lots and lots of books.”
“I noticed. But, wait, you’re saying the whole falling in love with a vampire thing is an expression of sexual freedom…”
“About which American society still has really mixed feelings. We still see sexually free women as doing something really dangerous, so we’re still equating seductive men with monsters …”
“But what about Vampire Lestat? He’s gay! You can’t tell me women are running around falling in love with a gay guy!”
“OMG. Clearly, the undead do not read manga. Lestat’s your grandfather, Ed. He was the beginning of the modern trend. The first vampire hero. Oh, there’d been attempts to re-vamp (you should excuse the expression) Dracula with things like Fred Saberhagen’s “Dracula Files,” but it was Lestat who took off. He was perfect. A handsome, broody monster who actually loved deeply, who did right in the end, and was absolutely unattainable because he was a gay vampire, so everybody could fantasize about being the one he actually came to love.”
“You are kidding me.”
“Nope. ‘Fraid not. And you’ll notice, the vamps didn’t remain gay. They went back to heterosexuality very quickly after Anne Rice. These days the vampire myth isn’t just about about sexual freedom. It’s about obtaining what everybody says you can’t have and shouldn’t want.”
“So, what, now I’m a piece of really good chocolate?”
“Actually, I think you personally might be a Mormon.”
“What?”
“Never mind. I can’t back it up. But the chocolate metaphor is good. You’re the forbidden in a manageable package. Just the right amount of danger.”
“Because women buy a lot of books?”
“Last big gasp of the monster line was Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT, and even he couldn’t stand up to the power of the women’s vote.”
“But, wait a minute. What about all those kick-butt, vampire hunting heroines?”
“Very powerful expression of the fantasy of freedom. Those women are absolutely without question not victims. The KBVHH chooses to love a vampire. And because she invariably looks hot in black leather, the guys don’t mind looking at her either. Equal opportunity eye-candy may be the ultimate evolutionary force.”
“I’m, like, so gonna wring Angel’s neck. He should have chomped Buffy a good one when he had the chance.”
“I don’t think you can kill a vampire by strangulation, Ed.”
“So, that’s it?”
“‘Fraid so, Ed. You’re stuck being the hero.”
“But…like it’s not the end, is it? I mean, we changed once, we can change again, right?”
“Could happen.”
“Then I’ll be the first of the new breed! I’ll be dark! I’ll be death on silent leather wings! I’ll rip the hearts out of my enemies and…hey, what time is it?”
“Almost nine.”
“Ah, crap! I gotta get going. Bella’s taking classes at the community college and I’ve got to take care of the kid.”
“I bet you even drink wine don’t you?”
“Starbucks, mostly.”
“Good luck, Ed.”
——————————————————————————————————————–
Hehe, I like it, you have imagination that is quite healthy
When you write about something though, zombies or vampires you really do your research that is for sure.
My my Gawd – that was hilarious! And I love vampire stories, the Gothic the better. “Interview With the Vampire” is still among my favorites, as is Elizabeth Bear’s alternate history/vampire story “New Amsterdam” – and I am really looking forward to reading Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s “Hotel Transylvania”, a recent acquisition of mine (am waiting eagerly at the postbox).
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s stuff is fantastic. I’m quite partial to Saberhagen’s Holmes/Dracula cross-over, the title of which I’m forgetting right now.
There’s a writer from waaaaay back when, Manly Wade Wellman (who wrote the wonderful John the Balladeer stories which really ought to be brought back into print again), he did a really wonderful short. It’s WWII, the Nazi roll in to take charge of a tiny village on the Romanian border and to their surprise the locals are being really helpful. “Oh, yes Sir, anything you want, Sir! You need a headquarters, Sir? Well, there’s this castle up a little further up that would be perfect for you…” You can see where this is going. V. satisfying little story.
“I’m, like, so gonna to wring Angel’s neck…”
Thank you, Sarah! Buffy and Co. HAD to come into this someplace. But let’s not forget Spike. DEAR Spike…
More fun ones, imo, are Barbara Hambly’s “Those Who Hunt the Night” and “Traveling with the Dead.”