Vampires on Dinner Dates.

The window is fixed. At last. I can sleep in a warm room again.
Tonight I was running up the steps to my apartment after having just fed when I come to a sudden screeching halt because Michael is waiting outside my door for me, having come to "surprise" me and take me out for dinner. I nearly had a heart attack and just prayed that I didn't have any blood stains on my lips or teeth.
And the sad thing was that it was all unbelievably sweet and I would have been SO happy to have a guy come by and surprise me with a dinner date BUT I had just fed and I sure didn't feel like having something to eat then. I honestly did try to eat but after a point I just couldn't eat anymore and left quite a bit on my plate. I'm just hoping I didn't hurt Michael's feelings, he was pretty concerned that I wasn't feeling hungry. I thought of telling him that I wasn't feeling well but that would have been completely ridiculous - I look like I'm at the peak of my health after I've just fed. He would have known it was a lie.

Lies and Windows

Julie come over last night because I had offered to help her revise for her French test and we sat freezing in my room for about twenty minutes trying to conjugate verbs before she finally declared "Enough is enough!" and we went over to Solz's place instead.
When they asked me how my window got broken, I lied and said that I had tried throwing my Western Civ textbook at my alarm clock one morning but missed and hit the window instead.
Note to self: Must roughen up Western Civ textbook a little to make lie seem more plausible.
Called the super up again, he promises that the repairman would come tomorrow.

This Week

So Michael and I pretty much hung out the entire weekend. Julie and Solz have met him and they've given him their stamp of approval! I introduced them when I brought Michael over to Vargrave Club this Saturday. Solz did a great set. Girls are throwing themselves at him, guys are buying him drinks and talking turntable stuff to him. He's getting weed for free. We're stealing weed from him. Et cetera, et cetera.
It's freezing at night because of the stupid window I broke last week. I've called the super up to complain at least three times but he says the handyman is "busy". How busy can he be? How long can it take to fix pipes and windows? Grrr. I've tried taping it up with masking tape but the wind still drifts in. And it's not funny when the temp gets real low in the middle of the night.

Sunblock a la neck? No, thank you.

Tonight I ran out for a quick feed and grabbed this woman and bit her neck and...
"Ew!Ew!Ew!"
*Spits in disgust*
Let me tell you one thing - tasting a neck which has been heavily laden with sunblock lotion is not on my top ten list of gourmet meals.
Stale sunblock. I think it's Banana Boat. Ew.
I pity vampires who live on the coast. Ew. Sunblock-flavoured meals.
I gargled, like, a pint of Listerine after that. Yuck.
I still have the taste of sunblock in my mouth.

Drinks and Urban Myths

So anyway, after drinking, we sat on a fire escape and I got Paul to tell me those urban vampire hunter stories.
Apparently, the Tri-Staker (gawd, what a name, it's like something out of a bad comic strip) is some guy who uses a stake shaped like a pitchfork, so there are three stakes at once piercing you. This vamipre bartender once told Paul that he had a friend who barely escaped from the Tri-Staker, and until today still has three perfectly aligned scars on his leg where the pitchfork-stakey-thing got him.
"Did you see the scars?" I asked.
Paul snorted. "Hell, no! I told you, it's always a story that happened to the friend of a friend. You never really see them. It's like seeing ghosts."
And then there's this other guy whom it is rumored that he's made a pact with some demon (whoa, do demons exist too? Paul says he doesn't know either and he's never met any) so that he would have the strength of a vampire. Apparently, this guy lost his whole family to some vampires and so he wants revenge on all of us.
Howard the Hunter is rumored to have been around for like hundreds of years, and you'd think that he should be dead, being human and not vampire, but he keeps popping up every fifty years or so and going on a blood rampage. You know you're going to a victim of Howard's if you wake up one morning and find the letter H carved somewhere on yourself. It's apparently Howard's way of telling you you're doomed, so you can freak yourself out before he kills you.
"Maybe there are a whole bunch of Howards," I suggest. "Like copycat criminals or a whole line of successors."
"Or maybe he's got some mysterious demonic way of keeping himself alive like drinking off the blood of vampires themselves in some horrible ritual," Paul says breezily. "That's one of the rumors about our hunter friend."
"Oh, c'mon," I said dismissively. "Surely you don't believe that."
"There's also the hunter known as the Traitor," Paul went on, "some vampire who got religion or something, and decides that we're all terrible evil monsters so he's on a mission to kill all of us. That's the one story I believe more than any of the others. It's more plausible. And I think Gwenda was murdered by him."
"Gwenda?" I repeat.
"Yeah...that's the name of the girl who made me."
"That rich vampire chick who picked you up in Seattle?"
He rolls his eyes at me. "Don't put it that way, you make me sound like a gigolo. Yeah, Gwenda. Some vampire I know who was over in Germany for a bit told me that he thought that was what happened. He knew Gwenda too, and he hung out with her every now and then, and she told him that she had hooked up with some mysterious hot vampire. The last he heard was that she had planned to head down to Paris with the vampire but the night before she was supposed to leave, he went over to her house and found her dead - that is, he found her dress on the ground and nothing but a pile of ashes in it. And he never did find that mysterious vampire she was hanging out with. Also, there had been rumors going around that the Traitor was in the area. So my friend put two and two together and decided Germany was too hot for him and that he should beat it back to Boston, where he found me and told me the story."
"Were you upset when you heard about her death?" I asked.
Pau shrugged. "I was, kind of, a little. After all, we had spent quite a few years together, and she was the one who made me after all. But by then, we had grown apart. I wasn't in love with her anymore. She was more like... an older sister or something by then, and one that I wasn't close to anymore. To Gwenda, I was always more of a plaything, just something new to entertain her for a while, and I had realized that by then."
I sighed and leaned back to look up at the stars. This whole vampire thing was much bigger than I'd ever imagined, and I'd so suddenly become a part of it. Honestly, I wonder how life is going to be like for me if I ever made it to Paul's age, or even beyond that. It's exhilarating and exciting in one way, but weird and foreign in another way. What is it that I've truly given up and what is it that I've truly gained when I ceased becoming human and became a vampire?

Drinkers Schminkers

Last night Paul and I went hunting together again. It's kind of nice to drink with someone for a change. You know how lonely it can be sometimes drinking by yourself.
Although we did have a little argument about who we should drink from. We were watching from the rooftop at the corner of 66th and Wesley (Paul's idea - apparently, it's better to scope out a feed from above then from on the street, you get a better view and wider range of people to choose from. Comes with the experience of a 117 year old vampire, I guess) when we saw, at the very same time, a couple of totally hot guys walking across the street, and at the same time, twin sisters heading in the opposite direction. Needless to say, I wanted to take the guys and Paul wanted the girls. We started arguing until we realized we'd lost both guys and girls.
We drank off a middle-aged couple that night. Bleh. But they were the only couple we could agree on.
Sometimes, there are a couple of pros about drinking by yourself.

The First Date, the First Broken Window

So anyway, I was looking back on my last entry and a lot of it was pretty gushy. Gawd, I can't believe myself. I hope all this gushiness isn't another lousy vampire trait that I end up inheriting from Julian. I had to take a shot of tequila (stolen from Solz's extensive collection) to compose myself to write this next entry.
Anyway, Michael and I had our first date tonight. Now, on an ordinary first date a normal human girl would rush home from college, take a long bubble bath, and pick her outfit, then rush to answer the door as she dabs on her lipgloss, right?
For a first-time vampire like me, this is how it goes: first I rush home from college, dump my books on the bed, race back out to find someone to feed on, spots a potential victim but is scared off by said potential victim's entire family pouring out on the doorstep, goes off to find another potential victim, finally finds someone to feed on, feeds, rushes back home, realizes that I have locked myself out of my flat in my rush to feed, races out to climb the fire escape and force the window open, makes note to fix window later, rushes to take a quick shower and pull on something decent looking, then races to answer the doorbell while scrubbing off some dried blood from the side of my lips.
Phew.
And they say an immortal life is easy. That's a load of bull, that's what I say to that.
But the date went pretty well. He was really fun and easy to talk to, and he was right about the pasta restaurant, their food is unbelievable. We ordered spaghetti and a huge bowl of chili clams, though how I managed to finish all that food right after my *ahem* earlier meal, I'll never know.
One of the members of Veur was in an accident so they had to cancel the gig and we got some lousy band instead so we sat at the back and just talked. Which worked out just well anyway.
So basically, the date went well, the night went well, everything went well, and I have to call up the handyman tomorrow to get that damn window fixed.

Update on the Love Life of a Vampire

A while back I was talking about how guys are way more interested in me now that I've become a vampire. (Not that they know I'm a vampire, of course, if they did, they'd probably take to the hills). Anyway, since then I've gotten waaay more guys asking me out then when I was a human, which is so great. My love life as a human permanently sucked. Julie says it's because I always seem so aloof but honestly, I don't see how that's changed since I've became a vampire. My theory is just that guys are plain materialistic and go for looks, not personality.
But that doesn't mean I'm not going to go out with any of the hot guys that have just become interested in me.
*Ahem*
Anyway, my Love Life as a Vampire has been relatively stagnant up till now, even with all the extra attention. I mean, first I've been way too busy getting to grips with my undead life...there were a couple of guys that I met in the clubs but I never bothered exchanging my number with them, and then Peter came along, and then after that Paul came along and had me all worried about Julie... and basically all this shit has just had me too preoccupied to notice guys...
But suddenly that's all changed today with Michael!
"Who's Michael?" you might say.
He's this hot guy that I met today at college. He studies Economics and has the bluest eyes ever and works at the library and was helping me photocopy and laminate stuff and we just had this great conversation. We both like Veruca Salt and The Lemonheads and Breaking Benjamin and The Velvet Revolver and candied apples and hate butterscotch. He mentioned that a girl like me probably had lots of boyfriends and I was about to laugh my head off when I caught myself in time and tried to look nonchalant and said "Well, no, not at the moment."
And he asked me out!
And of course I said yes...what do you think I am...stupid?
We're going out tomorrow night...he knows this pasta restaurant that he claims is totally great and after that to this little coffeehouse where there's this band, the Veur, playing. Veur's a band from our college, it's made up of students from our French course and they write their own songs. The words are pretty poetic and they're probably going to make it big pretty soon.
I can't wait for tomorrow night! I called up Solz and Julie and they're totally excited for me. I'm totally excited! This is like, for the first time, finally, a real proper date with a real proper guy.
Too bad I'm not a real proper girl. I gotta rush home early so I can head out somewhere and feed before Michael picks me up.

Vampire Traits and Vampire Urban Legends

Lately nothing much has been going on...
Solz has just gotten a job as a DJ in Vargrave Club, it just opened up. We're all very excited because that means he can get us all in for free this weekend.
Last night I took Solz, Julie, Paul and a couple of our other friends down to the Red Door. I told Paul the story of how I first discovered this place and he laughed. He said he knew of vampires who just stuck together and didn't mix around with humans - how they have their own clubs and restaurants and all, very Mafia-like. But he rarely hangs out with them. "They're a bit snobby," he said. "They're not really prepared to let in just anyone into their circle. Personally, I'm more of a loner myself."
Hmph. Sounds just like Peter. And possible, Julian. Is that a vampire trait?
But I'm intrigued. Very intrigued. I'd like to meet more vamps. What are they like? Are they all like the vamps I have met so far? Because the ones I do know of aren't too impressive. At least two out of three have a habit of taking off. Or maybe it's just because all the vamps I've met so far are males. After all, it's so like a guy to take off like that. Hmrrph.
Anyway, Paul says he doesn't know much about other vampires here since he just arrived in LA and all a few months ago. I asked him about vampire hunters and he laughed. "I haven't seen any before," he said. "You do hear things, though, from other vampires. Like about vampire hunters or people with names like the Tri-Staker or Howard the Hunter, people who are reputed to be such good vampire hunters that they acquire a sort of legendary myth to their name in the vampire society. But I think it's just hogwash, like urban legends or myths. You know, it's always this vampire's friend's friend's cousin who got killed or whatever. Just a vampire's horror story."
So of course I had to make him tell me all the stories. I mean, c'mon. Urban legends? Myths? They make the best stories! But the drinks arrived then so I'm still waiting to hear those stories. I probably shouldn't - I might not get any sleep after that. But hey - all the more reason to hear the stories.

Looking out for your Friends - It's A Tough Job!

A whole bunch of us - including Solz, Julie and Paul - tried out this new bar down on Queensdale Avenue the other night. It was a pretty nice place and the drinks were great. The music was pretty decent too - they had a mix of jazz and blues. Paul and I are on much better terms now - and it shows. Julie pulled me aside to the ladies about an hour after we got to the bar and said to me "I'm so glad that you and Paul are getting on so well. I was a little afraid you didn't like him."
"What do you mean?" I demanded, trying to look as innocent as possible.
"Oh, I don't know," she sighed, leaning forward to get a better look at herself in the mirror as she applied the Cherry Red lip gloss she stole from me a year back, "I just kind of got the feeling you didn't like him when I first introduced you guys to one another. And you always seemed a little standoffish with him."
"I've only seen him a couple of times," I protested, "And besides, I'm standoffish with everyone."
"Yeah, that's true," Julie agreed, a little too fast for my liking. "But you do like him, don't you, Agatha? This is important to me. I want you guys to get along."
"You really like him?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yeah, I do. I don't know, Agatha, there's just something about him. It's different from all the other guys I know, from Bob and John and Don."
"I never liked Bob," I told her, "And John was such a boring guy."
"What about Paul?" she asked. "What do you think about him?"
"Um...well, he seems like a nice guy," I said slowly, "at least so far. I don't know him any better than you do, Agatha. But he seems okay... so far."
She beamed. "That's good enough for me right now."
"Just be careful, okay?" I said. "I mean, you only met him at your bookstore. It's not as if we've got any mutual friends to tell us about his background or anything."
She laughed. "You sound like my mum."
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, well, this is good sound advice I'm giving you so pay attention, kid."
She just laughed even more. "But you do like him, don't you, Agatha?"
"So far," I admitted.
She beamed. "That's good enough for me then."
I just hope none of us are making a mistake about Paul.

Vampire/Human Love Matches

I summoned up all my courage and confronted Paul on Thursday, at the coffeehouse he worked at. I told him that as Julie's best friend and all, I felt it my duty to interrogate him on his background and exactly what he was planning to do with Julie. He said his background was way too long a story to tell on his ten minute break and asked me to meet him after his shift was over and added, "But the one thing that I can tell you now is that I really, really like Julie and would never hurt her."
Hmmm.
Well, that one sentence bought him time until his shift was over. Then it was interrogation time. I mean, I'm not exactly going to let my best friend go out with a vampire unless I know what he's all about!
To his credit, he answered all my questions readily enough. Apparently he was originally from somewhere in Seattle and his family was kind of poor and all until he picked up this rich chick and she bit him and turned him into a vamp. And he's a hundred and seventeen years old.
"A hundred and seventeen?" I shrieked at that point. "Julie is dating an old man?"
He got pretty huffy at that point. "Does this look like an old face to you, sister?" he demanded, putting said face a little too close to me.
Okay, so he's a pretty good-looking 117 year old and I'd never have guessed if he hadn't told me, but still. Jeez. I've never hung out with old people. Aunt Marshall is like, 50, and there's only so much I can take of her.
Anyway, on with the interrogation. This rich chick dumped him after a while (yet another case of a vamp biting and leaving! jeez!) and they went their separate ways but last he heard she got killed about seventy years ago or so in Europe. He confirms that we can only be killed by wood, he's not too sure why either.
"I guess you're pretty new at this, huh?" he adds.
"What makes you think that?" I demanded.
I guess, if anything, i gave it away when I called him an old man.
So anyway, he offered to teach me the ropes, help me get a hang of things as life as a vamp. He knows more about it than Peter did anyway. "Yes, we are immortal." "Yes, wood will kill us." "No, we won't get wrinkles as we get older. Does this face look like it has wrinkles to you, sister?" "No, we won't burn if we get sprinkled with holy water."
Then we went hunting together! Okay, we went after Paul's night shift at the Darla Bar. We got this couple who were leaving the bar - Paul staked them out. He took the guy and I took the girl - anyway, there is no way I would let him drink the girl, not while he's going out with Julie. It was kind of fun, actually. I've never drank with anyone else before. Even when Peter was there, we never drank together, we always met up after that. Paul showed me other places where you could find good veins, not just the ones that I know on vampire biological instinct. It was quite a useful lesson.
And after we drank, I demanded to know the most important thing of all: what was it thqat he truly felt about Julie???
He said he had never felt this way about other girls before. He also added that since he became a vampire and ever since that vampire girl who mde him left him, he has never had a serious relationship with anyone, least of all a human, because he figured it would never work. But with Julie, somehow that has changed. And he really wanted to make a go at it.
"If you're serious about this, you're going to have to eventually tell her the truth," I warned him.
"I know," he said, and his face under the street lamp looked really unhappy. "I know some day I probably will have to. But I don't know how she's going to take it. I mean, how do you accept the fact that you're dating a vampire? Jeez, and you're her best friend but you haven't even told her that you're a vampire yet."
He's got a point about that.
God, I think he really is telling the truth about his feelings for Julie. I'm really happy that he's not intending to hurt her or anything, but I have a feeling that it's going to be a way bumpy ride for them. I mean, relationships and all are already plenty difficult when you're human. Being in a human/vampire relationship? Jeez. Talk about a tough match. I really, really, really hope Julie's not going to get hurt along the way.

Guilt, guilt, guilt.

Paul joined us for coffee at Schezade's today. Grudgingly I must admit he does seem to be a nice guy. Funny, too. I watched him very carefully and if he even so much as glances at Julie's neck, I would have jumped all over him. But he didn't. He looked into her eyes every time. What a model boyfriend. Eurrrgh. He works days at a coffeehouse and nights at the Darla Bar and, according to Julie, is taking a break between college semesters to decide what he truly wants to do. Or so he says! For all we know, he could be a million years old. Note to self: must corner Paul and demand to know his entire history. Can't let Julie date vampires with an unknown record. Gawd, I feel more and more guilty about this every day. I want to tell her, but I can't without giving myself away as well!
And they're really piling us on with assignments at college. Since I will never die, do I really need a college degree? Am thinking more and more about dropping out. But if I'm going to live forever, I would like to live in luxury. Maybe I should become a rock star or something.

I don't believe this!

Julie's new hot boyfriend is a vampire!
And yes, he is as hot as she said he was, and very rugged and poetic and everything with the to-die-for green eyes and a sexy soul patch. In fact I'd be pretty damn jealous myself if he didn't turn out to be a...VAMPIRE!!!
When you don't think they exist, they're nowhere to be seen. Suddenly you become one of them and they're everywhere. Bah!
Solz and I met him on Friday night at Storm, as planned, and the moment she whipped him out I started choking on my Bombay Sapphire. Needless to say, he knows I'm one as well. That homing pigeon instinct of ours or whatever. I didn't know what to say! What should I say to Julie? I have to warn her! But how? What do I say: "Oh, hey, Julie, I don't think you should go out with that hot guy of yours cuz he's a vampire and might just suck you dry. How do I know this? Oh, did I forget to mention that I'm a vampire too? It just happened recently so don't get mad that I haven't told you, okay?"
Jeez.
Anyway, he cornered me while Solz and Julie were off getting more drinks for us and asked me what I was going to do. I demanded to know what he was planning to do with Julie of course. Was he going to drink her? Or turn her into one of us? I don't know if I want her to become one of us. I mean, it's all cool and great and wouldn't it be unbelievable if Julie was one too....but, oh, becoming a vampire is such a fucked up thing, do I really want my best friend to have that kind of fate as well? But if she wants to be, who am I to say no? But how do we know if she wants to become one of us when she doesn't even know we exist?
I'm digressing.
Anyway, Paul - that's his name - swears that he never intends to drink from Julie or to hurt her in any way. He also says that he just wants to go out with her, like a normal boy-girl relationship. I don't know what to believe. Should I tell him to stay away from her? But she has never looked so happy. Gawd, I'm so confused. I just told him that he better treat her well or he'll have to answer to me.
The thing is he doesn't seem like such a bad guy either. Does he really mean well? Or is he just good at manipulating? I don't know! What should I do? Aaaargh!