A common misconception about bloodsuckers is that we just go around making more of us. Not in the way you think. It’s a bloodline thing. 

     

     We don’t bite. At least southerners don’t. It’s a pulling sensation that doesn’t stimulate my senses like it used to, but that’s how it goes with most things. Sucking the skin, hard enough to guide the blood right through a little incision cut with the sharp end of a tooth. That’s another thing, the whole Nosferatu teeth. Not true. 

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     Modern media has ruined us. 

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     My blood and saliva are valuable. It numbs the skin I’m sucking, withdrawing little half gulps. Once I’m done having my blood, I gently kiss the mark. The damage is undone. It just appears as a dark bruise for the next couple days. You’d think it was a hickey. 

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     There is such a thing as a consensual vampire. There’s no signed agreement saying you’ll get sucked, but you don’t turn, so it’s okay. It’s a process, like any relationship. 

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     With this boyfriend of mine, James, we clicked. He knows who I am. I’m just a moderate human bloodsucker. His neck is covered in my marks. He can never leave any on my neck or breasts though. I heal too quick. 

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     He wants me to turn him, but I say I can’t. Just not possible, and I don’t think what it would be like if I could turn him, us slowly losing our old minds in our young bodies together. Too outlandish. 

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     I can’t turn anyone into someone like me. 

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     One night a few weeks ago we got drunk and went back to my place. He bit my arm, it was the most ridiculous thing. He drew blood for an instant before I got my feet beneath him in the bed. He flew through the air and hit the wall like a pillow. 

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     That’s another thing. It doesn’t work like that. I only get strong in moments of intense action or danger. The danger part is irrelevant, because I know there is no danger but discovery. Like if I’m hungry chasing a dog, and almost get hit by a car. I could block it. 

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     Poor James has a big bruise on his head now and it was bleeding. I kissed it. I’m a disciplined sucker. I didn’t take any. He was okay, and we fucked after. Then I took a little more blood from a new bruise on his neck.  

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     I was never very fast. I could maybe keep up with Mark Ennis, our university’s running back, but not likely. On a good day, though. Like, a bad day for thirst. Looks pretty ridiculous chasing something. One would think my dog just got away from me in the park, and I was trying to step on its leash before it ran off forever. 

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     I don’t need it to live. If I wanted to, I could suck him dry. I’ve never killed anyone. And I don’t want to. Cops can still arrest vampires.

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     If I have too much one day, then I feel kind of nauseous. My period doesn’t bother me. The temptation isn’t there anymore. 

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     I just take a little at a time from people with their permission. Whenever I have a boyfriend, most don’t believe me. Until I did it. Then they get away from me. No big deal. James and I love each other though. He lets me take a lot a little at a time. 

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     There’s nothing more intimate than knowing what someone tastes like. 

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     With animals I finish quick though. I always bury them. There’s not a single exception. Innocent creatures, even dogs that bite. It’s in their nature. Most of them are in this little park that I run through some mornings. Always neat and marked, I put them in little graves off the path. The parkgoers probably think it’s a city project I don’t know. I wash my hands in the water fountain. 

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     I do have one talent that is a bit unusual, aside from the blood drinking. Talent? I can stand still. Completely still, without blinking, for a little while. This helps with squirrels and stuff. A squirrel is a Capri-sun. 

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     Another common misconception. I eat food and snacks and stuff. I suck animals for health. It’s an iron supplement, my own daily vitamin C. Whatever. Human blood is different, and it is a treat. It’s good for my bones. If I want broccoli, pepper popcorn, or a hamburger, or a cucumber sandwich, I eat it. But I need blood for my health. 

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     I’ve thought about volunteering at more blood drives as a nursing student, but that seems wrong. 

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     My face breaks out if I don’t have some every few days. I have a few bumps on my face right now. I just got back from a run. I wiped my mouth in the chrome reflection of a water fountain before running back to campus. Cat this morning. I’ll wake up in the morning and the bumps will be gone. 

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     James always makes Twilight jokes at me. I don’t sparkle. I just burn a little easier most of the year. I get red like everyone else. He tells me I’m sexier than the blonde evil vampire from the first one, but I have nothing on Alice. He makes me laugh. 

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     Whenever he has a cut in his mouth, I lick it to heal. I think of myself as a healer. Healing balm. This man my mom used to date called her a destroyer. But she’s a healer too. That man got out of our lives after knowing us and even sic’d the cops on us. They chalked it up to something absurd and left us alone. 

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     She still looks no older than fifty. My grandparents look good most of the time too. Those are the hungry years, they say. Always tired, slouched, and grey around that time of the month.

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     I can’t really suck myself. Too timid. It’s embarrassing. One time in the early days I bit with a little pointed end of my natural teeth to draw some. It heals too quick before I can get after it. Not much adrenaline either. Just a feeling that what you are doing is wrong.

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     I didn’t know who I was until I was 15. That’s a normal time for personal discovery my mom said. I’ve seen the movies. I didn’t think it meant this. 

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     I don’t know anyone else like me outside my family. I have a mom and her two parents, Pop and Nan. We are all the same, just growing in different times. It was easier back then, Pop told me one time in that lunatic way that he has late at night. I used to stay up watching movies with him until one in the morning. He liked James Dean and Ana De Armas. Then I would take him to his coat closet, help him up, then go to my own closet and hang from my feet until the morning. 

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     I’m just kidding, I have a tempurpedic. Pop has slept on the same bed for sixty years, a bed that reminds him of France, he says.

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     My dad ran off before I could remember him. So there must be more of us. Part of me hopes that he got someone pregnant. I must have a step sibling out there that might be a little similar. The other part of me wants to tear his legs off for leaving my mom and keep him in a linen closet with stakes on the floor.

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     Surely we aren’t alone. We exist to each other, and certain people, like James. Okay, I sometimes wish I could turn him. My grandparents and my parents found each other somehow, but it’s hard right now. I’m still young. I’ll stay in the city and wander the parks and farmland. I’m durable. And I’m happy. 

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     I’m going to shower now. I have a 9:30 history exam this morning. It’s Valentine’s Day. I can’t wait to see what flowers are waiting at my door.