Being Human

“Ow, hey, what the - are you biting me? What are you, a vampire?”

If blood still flowed through my veins, I know I would feel heat and blood rushing to my cheeks. My fangs shrink back into human size with my ferocious shame. “No,” I say defensively.

“No what?” Kiana, the woman whose neck I had been sampling, snaps at me. “No, you’re…not…a vampire?” She blinks, looking me over. Quickly, I wipe my hand around my face, conscious of the traces of blood lingering around my mouth. Whip-fast, she strikes out and grabs my wrist. “What in the world?” she mutters, staring at the blood clearly spread around my face and now my hand. I hunch my shoulders up near my ears and meekly attempt to tug my hand out of her grip. “Honey, what is going on?” 

She sounds oddly kind and gentle - genuinely curious. We’ve only been on three dates. How is she so calm? I can’t imagine how I’d react in her position. Of course, I’ve done a lot of things I never could have imagined doing before I became a vampire, and I don’t just mean drinking blood. “I’m sorry,” I finally say. It’s the least I can offer.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Running away is the obvious answer. It’s probably the wisest choice I could make. Kiana’s still gripping my wrist, though, and something about it feels grounding. Plus, I can’t tell if she’s using her mom voice on me or her therapist voice, but it’s effective either way. Sighing, I deflate into her couch. “YesImavampire.” When she doesn’t move or speak, I feel compelled to enunciate. “Yes, I’m a vampire.” Finally, she releases my wrist.

“Well, dang.” She takes a beat to breathe, then she settles back into the couch, matching my pose. “That must be...” She pauses to search for a word. I expect her to say things like gross, terrible, awful, horrible, unsettling, upsetting - things I thought when this first happened to me just a few months ago. The silence stretches on so long, I assume she’s given up on a word, when she finally produces: “weird. New. Confusing. Yeah?”

For the first time since my undeath, I actually feel tears prickle at my eyes. Maybe I’m finally hitting a despair phase of my grief. I’ve felt anger, numbness, anger again, numbness again, bargaining, and numbness again. Even acceptance, as much as I’ve fought it, has been something I thought I was reaching. Kiana has just reacted with more kindness and care towards me than I’ve reacted towards myself. Humanity I’ve been trying to bury and deny stirs within me. Oh no. I’d assumed I couldn’t cry anymore, being pretty dead and all, but I feel the balloon I stuffed full of my feelings that I’d tucked away to ignore burst, and all of a sudden I’m sobbing. Beside me, Kiana starts. Slowly, hesitantly, she reaches out a hand to rest on my leg.

Feeling very inhuman and monstrous, I jerk away and curl into a ball away from my intended dinner. After another second or two, Kiana places a tentative hand on my back. As she starts rubbing, her movements become more confident. I hate how comforting the gesture is. While I wasn’t planning on killing her, I was planning on feeding off of her. I am unworthy of such compassion. No matter how unworthy I feel, it doesn’t stop the tears. At this point, all I can do is ride out the flood. When the tightness in my chest finally abates enough to speak again, I immediately apologize. “I’m sorry; I’m so sorry.”

Kiana gently tugs at my shoulder, and I comply, turning to face her again. She doesn’t even have to prompt. One look at the compassion clear on her face, and everything’s pouring out of me. “I have no idea what happened. I went out with a friend to be their wingperson. I got a little drunk, and most of the night is a blur. When I woke up - I was this. It’s been awful. Craving blood would be bad enough, but everything about vampires is just so seductive,” I force the word out like poison slowly being drawn from a wound. “You know, I didn’t even want to go to the bar in the first place. I’m asexual, and I think I might be on the aro spectrum. I’ve never enjoyed the whole bar scene, I’ve never really understood flirting, and I definitely don’t understand trying to pick strangers up at the bar. My friend’s just been so nice to me and been there for me so much. I felt like I couldn’t say no, and it literally ruined my life. And now I’m this…this - sexy bloodsucking beast in an awkward, repulsed asexual mess of a body.” I bury my fingers in my hair and tug. The little stings of pain satisfy my self-hatred.

“So,” Kiana says, and I can tell she’s actually smiling after everything I just heard. “You’re asexual and don’t want to flirt in a bar. So instead. You went on a dating app to pick up dinner.” I want to yank my hair straight out of my head. It sounds even more pathetic and horrible when she puts it that way.

Her laughter is such a confusing reaction, I actually don’t recognize it as laughter at first. Either Kiana has a very macabre sense of humor or I’ve completely broken her. Slowly, I untangle my fingers from my hair so I can stare at her. She’s laughing so hard that she’s crying. Like a cartoon character, my mouth is actually agape. I’m acutely aware of it but can’t figure out how to close it. Maybe I should go back to biting her. At this point, it may be a mercy. The thought immediately fills me with shame, so I sit there and let her get whatever this is out of her system.

When she gathers herself, Kiana shoots me a lopsided smile. I don’t understand this woman, but I’m finding her kind of wonderful. “Sorry,” she says, and I know I’ve broken her. I tricked her into a couple of dates so I could drink her blood, and she’s apologizing to me? “I don’t mean to laugh at your misfortune, but you have to admit that is pretty funny.” 

I don’t have to admit anything, I think - but I’ve already admitted so much, and she hasn’t tried to stake me through the heart even a little. “I guess,” I offer. “I’m glad you think so. You know - considering.”

“Yeah, it really wasn’t great of you to try and eat me,” she agrees somberly. Then she brightens and a new wave of amusement crosses her features. “Wait, is Drack short for Dracula?”

Even though it’s impossible, I know my face must be bright red. “I kind of hate-picked the name. I guess I thought it might act as a warning to people who saw me on the apps or something.” This sets off a new peal of laughter.

“I think that’s cute.” Kiana’s nose wrinkles when she smiles at me, and I stir uncomfortably, unsettled and confused by the feelings I’m experiencing. “I do have a question, though. Well, another one, I guess.” I nod. “It sounds like you have some good friends. Why not just ask them if you could drink their blood? Unless you have to kill when you feed.” She finally looks serious.

I quickly shake my head back and forth. “No, I’ve managed to eat a couple times now, and I didn’t kill anybody. I wasn’t going to kill you,” I try to comfort her, though the words hardly feel comforting. “I was just gonna drink enough to get rid of the dizziness. As far as I can tell, you would have woken up a bit dazed but otherwise none the wiser tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

Kiana shrugs. She’s honestly taking things so much better than I did when I realized what was happening. “Hey, you have to eat. But your friends?”

“I could never tell them about this. It’s so embarrassing.”

“Sweets, isn’t that what friends are for? Are they really that great a friends if you can’t tell them these things?”

“What? Like, ‘I think I’m technically dead now, y’all, and also, I’m hungry. Can I drink your blood? I promise, I probably won’t kill you!’ That’d go over well.”

“Yeah, why not?” I’m both infuriated by and completely jealous of her nonchalance. “We’ve only met three times, and I think you’re doing a pretty good job with me.”

“You’re being way too kind. I’m lucky you didn’t deck me and throw me out of your house when I bit you. I deserve it.”

Once again, Kiana leans over and places a comforting hand on my thigh. “Besides the whole biting without asking thing, you’ve been very sweet and thoughtful towards me. And the biting didn’t really hurt. It was more like a gentle stinging. It just felt kind of odd. Maybe I would have kicked you out if I’d realized what was happening, but I’m glad I heard you out. You know, there’s probably quite a few people out there who have some sort of vampire or blood kink. You could probably get at least a few people who would consent to helping you out with this every now and then, even if you’re not ready to tell your friends yet.”

The thought makes me sick. “No, just no. They’d probably expect sex in return, and I don’t want to do that.”

Kiana is silent for a few minutes. I have nothing to add. Even though I’ve only been honest, I feel a bit bad about striking down her suggestions. She’s just trying to help. “Okay. How about tonight, you can just finish what you started? I won’t promise I can do this whenever, but I get the feeling you’re not eating enough.”

Part of me wants to curl in a ball and die a final death. Kiana is way too good for this world. A slightly bigger part of me doesn’t know what I’ll do if I leave here without drinking more. I’m ravenous. I cautiously reach a finger up to trace the near invisible puncture holes my fangs already carved into Kiana’s flesh. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m kind of curious, to be honest.” I can’t look her in the eyes, but I do let Kiana see as I release my fangs. Slowly, giving her time to change her mind and back away, I lean closer. She doesn’t flinch or tremble at all. At last, I give in and drink.

There might be a way to drink someone’s blood without putting them to sleep, but if there is, I haven’t figured it out yet. Kiana slumps over mid-way through my efforts, and I’m careful to hold her up and keep track of how strong her heartbeat is in my strange, new hearing. While it’s still steady and strong, I force myself to pull away. I’m still hungry, but it’s much more manageable. I’m not big or strong enough to take Kiana to her bedroom, so I settle her on the couch and track down a blanket to tuck her in with. With the others, I pretty much ghosted them. I secretly checked in on them like a creeper to make sure they were okay, but I didn’t contact them again. I don’t know if Kiana would be comfortable with me staying the night, but it feels wrong to just leave her after she volunteered to be my food, so I settle into her chair and wait for her to wake.

She sleeps so deeply that I fall asleep at some point, too. Kiana stretching startles me awake, and I’m even more surprised to discover it’s morning. “What happened last night?” I feel my eyes go wide, and I freeze. Kiana laughs. “I’m sorry, that was mean. I remember. Well, I remember us talking, anyway. I know what happened. You’re better than a sleeping pill,” she tells me approvingly. “I think that’s the best night’s sleep I’ve ever gotten.”

“Finally. Something to add to the pro list of being a vampire.”

Kiana snorts. “Do vampires drink coffee?”

“Only if it has ridiculous amounts of cream and sugar.”

“Of course.” Kiana leads me to her kitchen, and I can feel another talk coming on. “So,” she says, determinedly staring down at the ripples she creates with her spoon. “Do you have any interest in dating me or was it just about eating?”

I feel terrible. I want to lie to her, but that would only be crueler in the long term. “I’m not even sure I want to date at all, and I don’t think that’s something I’m going to be able to figure out anytime soon. It’s not easy figuring this vampire thing out. I’ve been having an existential crisis the entire last few months. Am I immortal now? Would it be ethical to date someone mortal? Or date someone when they’re basically food to me? I mean, is it even ethical for me to be friends with people anymore or would it seem like I was always disconnected from them? It wouldn’t be fair to put anyone else through this when I don’t have anything figured out, even if I did have the time to actually put towards a relationship. I did pick you because you seemed like a really good person, though, and I thought we’d be able to get along. And I was right. You are a really, really wonderful person. I wish I hadn’t picked you for this because I truly think we could have been great friends under different circumstances.”

I peek up from my own coffee to see her reaction, too ashamed to actually meet her eyes. I can tell I’ve hurt her. It’s unfathomable to me that anyone might be interested in me that way, but I guess there’s a reason she responded after we matched. I know this is where it ends. She’ll kick me out of her home, and I’ll just have to hope she doesn’t tell anyone who or what I am - or report me for scamming on the apps. She takes a slow breath, sits up straight, and squares her shoulders. “I don’t think you should go through this alone. Who knows what isolating yourself until you figure out if you’re immortal or not would do to your psyche? I still think you should tell your friends, but you’ve already told me. I’m willing to see what being friends with you is like if you’re willing to give me a chance.”

“I - really? You still want to be friends even if I don’t want to date you?”

I’m humbled by the look of pity that Kiana gives me. “Yeah. You’re funny and thoughtful and you have the same weird taste in movies I do. I like spending time with you. I can’t imagine that you’d be this nice to someone you were planning on eating but be a jerk to your friends.”

“Wow. Thanks. You are really incredible.” When Kiana reaches her hand out, I take it without hesitation. She firmly squeezes my hand in a gesture of comfort. Even before I became a vampire, I often felt monstrous just because I sat on the outskirts of many so-called human experiences like having crushes or struggling with lust. Right now, sitting with a new friend who accepts me exactly as I am, I finally feel decidedly human. Maybe being a vampire doesn’t have to be the end of my life after all.