"You know, somehow it's just not the same."
"What's not the same?" Lashae was sipping slowly, savoring.
"You know," said Tania. She made a face at her glass. She swirled it carefully, contemplatively, carefully, for although the fluid was viscous, still it would stain if spilled. She let the swirling subside, and then drank deeply.
"Piggy girl," said Lashae. "No need to gulp, there's lots more where that came from."
"That's what I mean. No effort. No hardship."
"Oh c'mon, are you going all Calvinist on us here?" Mark quaffed deeply from his glass-bottomed bar mug.
"Well, seriously!" Tania appeared to be winding up for a rant. She did this fairly frequently. The others sighed and settled in for it. Tania continued:
"I mean, what's the point? All of these years sneaking around with our clever little seductions. When was the last time any of us walked into a bar and walked out without some fool on our arms falling in love? It was almost as much fun to break hearts as to get fed!"
"Speak for yourself," interjected Lashae. "I guess I'm old fashioned or something, but I always would have wanted a consistent lover. But we all know where that would lead."
"So you just learn to have a consistent lover and then break their heart," snapped Tania. She hated to be interrupted when she was in a ranting mood. But she softened a bit, and drained her glass. As she got up to get a refill, Mark drank the last of his mug and held it out. "One for me too, please," he demanded. Tania sighed.
"No, it's the whole heartbreaking thing I object to. Well, the way that you do it, that's what I mean."
"Well," said Tania, opening the cabinet where they secured their Hemo, "it's better that way, you know? Make them think you're a total bitch and they won't come mooning around." She flipped the spigot and blood dribbled into Mark's mug. "Enough," he said, half-full, and she switched to her own glass.
Filled, she set it down next to Mark's mug, and hit the sterility switch, and hot steam momentarily flooded through the spigot, preventing contamination of the Hemo's precious interior cargo. Ever the gracious hostess -- when she wanted to be -- she waitressed the beverages back to the table.
Lashae spoke up: "But it's not good to get a reputation as a bitch, you know."
"Jeeze, you kids," said Tania. Mark had a chuckle at that. Lashae was only 23, and back in the old days would probably either have not been very successful, or would have been forced to be a royal terror if she survived getting burnt once too often.
Lashae sipped. "Well, it's not. Even if it keeps your cast-asides from still wanting you, nobody else will like you either, except maybe for other bitches."
"Or the guys who just want some bitch for the evening, and don't want to see them again once they've made their little conquest," said Mark, who knew about such things, being rather exactly that sort of guy.
"Such a pair you'd make," said Lashae.
"Oh, we did make such a pair," Mark allowed. "Not exactly like you might think of it, but we did cover each others' backs a lot, back in the day."
"Back in the day! That's all you older guys talk about. Like you really liked the hunt."
Tania broke in, a green-eyed cat as always: "As if you didn't?"
Lashae was instantly defensive, blushing deeply beneath her coffee-cream complexion: "Look, I didn't mean for that to get so far out of hand! Mom and Dad were supposed to watch out for me, make sure I didn't go too far. I mean, jeeze, I was only fifteen! What did I know about self-control?"
"And what do you know about it now, dearie?" Tania grinned immensely, which among the vampires was more the challenge and less the camaraderie. Lashae lit up her eyes, as fast pupillary dilation revealed the emerald gleam of light-collecting rhodopsin, but she didn't smile back. "I guess I know something, more than enough to avoid tangling with you. Bitch," she concluded, without heat.
"I suppose that will do!" said Mark, as forcefully as was called-for, which was forcefully enough to have sat a man down on the ground in mid-swing. The vampyresses both turned towards him with a half-hearted minor challenge but that was quickly mollified by his (not incidentally) heavy beer-mug raised to them as if for a toast. They sighed, unfluffed, and lifted their glasses. "Drink," said Mark: "Drink to the present, drink to peace and freedom."
"Peace and freedom," murmured the ladies, Lashae firmly, and Tania with some sulking reserve. They all clinked glasses, and drank.
Some minutes later, Tania spoke up again. "A full belly... I don't suppose I'll ever get used to it."
"Better than starving, I hear," Lashae said. "Or better than..." Vampires don't exactly feel shame, usually, except over doing something stupid, thus something dangerous.
Tania patted her on the wrist, feeling much less peckish now, clearly: "Blame your parents, baby. They should have known better."
"If you think about it, it's really almost senseless," said Mark, who had mastered thinking like the mainstreamers, "considering that the breakthrough happened only a month later. It was a month, wasn't it?"
Lashae nodded. "So, really, if you think about it, I've only had a full belly. I've never starved, never had to learn that particular bit of self-control."
"Practice makes perfect, dear," said Tania, glancing archly at Mark who ignored her with a perfection born of long practice. Then he deigned to comment.
"It wasn't always easy, back in the day, or I suppose I should say, back in the benighted bleeding darkness. Even Tania missed her strike now and then, not that we were doing much striking, it was the Twentieth Century after all. But where we'd generally had it pretty easy throughout the Seventies and Eighties, by the Nineties it was pretty difficult to find a lover. Some people were so down on their luck they were striking, striking for real, even in some cases going so far as home invasions. Not a pretty scene at all. Actually Tania had it pretty easy compared to most, and even though she's such a bad cat, sometimes she was willing to share, which is why I love her."
"Not because I'm so pret-ty?" Tania purred.
"Oh, of course that helps, but hell, we're all pretty!" It was true. Mark was a very handsome specimen, who could probably throw a cast-iron stove across a room, all fine chiseled features that somehow managed to fit in between blockiness, bland and craggy, blond and red bearded. Tania was truly lovely, with her steel-grey eyes and heart-shaped face, long of leg and with a dancer's build. Even Lashae, who wasn't exactly trying to be the fashion-plate that her companions were, was quite fetching, if you didn't mind sea-green eyes and cafe-au-lait skin and difficult hair and the body of a quiet and unassuming goddess. If there were no other reason to mostly keep to the company of their own kind, the assurance of beauty would do.
"But seriously," Mark went on, "I don't care what Tania says, those weren't exactly the good old days. At least nowadays there's nothing to fear! We don't have to hunt, and nobody's hunting us. Well, they're not hunting us for reasons. Well, they're probably hunting you, Lashae, or they would be if you hadn't made a clean escape... but mostly we don't bother anyone, we don't have to bother anyone!"
Tania sniffed. "I'll have you know that nobody considered what I did as bothering them, okay?"
"Okay, so you were a..." Lashae shut up as one of Tania's eyes turned sideways in a warning.
"Yes, I most certainly was," said Tania, "and I was a very good one. As I said, I almost miss it, and it's definitely just not the same."
"Well, what are you proposing, then?" Mark leaned forward and picked up his beer-mug again. "Are you off to boff the humans again, dearest?"
"Eeew," muttered Lashae.
"Oh, shut up, you get used to it," said Tania; then, "Actually you sort of get to like it. Oh, not that, I mean... well, look at this" -- pointing to the cabinet with the Hemo inside -- "it's not exactly a challenge to your intellect, now is it? I mean, the worst thing it's going to do to you is make you call a serviceman from cHemitics to come and fix it. What I mean is that there was a certain... thrill. You know, the contest of mind against mind, even if the only contest was to allow people to disbelieve that you could be what you are. I mean, even when someone's absolutely sure there's no such thing as dracula, you still have to be on your toes, make sure you're using the right body language, suppressing your advantages to avoid notice, and so on."
"So what do you want to do?" Lashae was puzzled. She was quite satisfied to live off of investments. Playing the stock market to her advantage was quite the challenge, intellectually, especially in the present economic climate, which wasn't quite yet grim, but which showed signs of getting ugly.
"Well, I'm not really sure. I dunno, really, I think I just miss flirting."
"You're hopeless, truly hopeless," said Lashae. "I spend half of my time in public trying to avoid men hitting on me" -- "and women," interjected Mark and she grinned mildly at him -- "and you want to go bask in their attentions?"
"Well, a girl has to know she's still got it," Tania pouted. "You've still got it," said Mark. Tania preened. Mark, for all of his apparent masculinity, was still a ladies'-man, which among vampires generally meant that he'd even speak to them when they weren't in season. Tania and Lashae admitted privately that he was fairly fun to have around, and occasionally even useful around the house, and wasn't coming around all banged up when season came on them, as was more common amongst the males. He wasn't even a WWF television addict! Plus, he knew when to toss out a compliment. They'd keep him. "Silver-tongued devil," Tania said to Mark.
"So come out with me, Lashae! Let's go put on a show!" Tania occasionally had these fits of monomania. Lashae was almost used to it. She gave a knowing smirk tinged with uncertainty and Tania shifted into cat mode: "It's not like you're hungry and are going to lose it again, you know." It was Lashae's turn to roll her eye sideways. Tania gave a little grin but backed away as she picked up the stemware and reached for Mark's mug. "Another all around?"
Murmurs of assent: and back to the Hemo cabinet she went. "Somehow it's just not the same, though..."
By the time she was back at the table, handing out drinks, she had figured it out: "I think it's all about this separatism thing. I mean, look at you, Lashae, you're all grown up and you hardly ever go out of the house. Why should you? The servants can shop the groceries and you can get wine over the InterNet, all of your business is done by wire in any case. Why sully your godly presence with the mere mortals? And I'm sure they don't miss you much, if you spend half of your time turning down dates. You've probably gotten lax in your manners, too. Do you even remember how to keep your claws in, kitten?"
"Well, of course I remember, they wouldn't let you forget, you know. Another reason to stay in. Not that I'm worried. It's just less hassle."
"But baybee, you'll lose your social skills!"
"What, getting a hand off of your ass without breaking it is a social skill? Why can't they just learn to keep their hands to themselves?"
"See? Look at you, so impatient. All of the time in the world, and so impatient. And you don't even have the excuse of being peckish. You're just out of practice. You need to come out and play."
Lashae was at the point of exasperation. "With them? Play with them? They're just so... I dunno, lacking. Inferior."
Mark quietly rubbed his face in the same way a man would do if he was getting a headache. "Don't think that way," he said, "keep in mind that they do outnumber us about fifty million to one, and that's mostly because when they only outnumbered us by about five million to one, they killed nine out of ten, practically overnight."
"All the more reason to not like them much! I mean, they can't keep their hands off of you, insist that you not defend yourself, tell you to obey their laws and then they don't permit the law to protect you."
And Tania said: "And so you only have one defense, and it's only possible because of that thing" -- gesturing towards the Hemo cabinet -- "you have to make them like you."
"How can I make them like me? I don't like them!"
"See? -and here I thought that somehow it just wasn't the same. But I think it is, more the same than it's ever been before. You see, we never liked them much when we had to prey on them. We had to be as gentle as we could, considering, because if we weren't, it would come back on us triple... it wasn't on account of them. But, jeeze, you've felt it. Hunger, the rage. The slow change, turning into a hunter, but even then, you really couldn't let it turn into hate, or you'd... Oh, sorry baby." Tania reached out to Lashae, who struck her arm aside with lightning speed, if not much force.
"I felt it," Lashae said, "you're damned right I felt it. And I killed one. Or I guess I did. My folks pulled me off pretty quickly once they found me, but it wasn't as if I didn't try to kill 'em! Well, not to kill 'em, but.. you know." She paused for a moment, and sighed. "But I still remember how much I hated him! I still hate him! And I know, I should hate myself but how can I hate myself? I was Hungry. I wasn't sane. It was my first time, I was only fifteen, and my first Hunger came, and my parents waited too long before they took me out... My parents were on the lookout around the other corner from where they told me to wait, and here he comes from around the other way, and here I am, Hungry, hating, and he thought I was a teen runaway alone in that alley and came up and put his hands on me and..." and she reached out and picked up her glass, stared at it balefully, and gulped it. And slammed it back down on the table with a thump.
"Yeah, I know, I've heard it before," said Tania, not sounding too impacted. "You're definitely not the first. But still... okay, so you hate 'em. Well, we all went through that, you can't feel that sort of thing for someone and just get over it. But once you have, you have to find some way to not have to go through it again... and the only way you can do that easily is to really try to like them, or at least one or two of them. And you can't do that unless you know some of them, and you can't know any of them unless you meet some of them, and you can't meet them unless you go out. Sitting here moping and sucking down tissue culture isn't going to help you to adapt to human culture."
Mark said, "I guess you're right. It really isn't the same, not since the Hemo. I mean, now that we don't have to force ourselves to like them so that we won't hurt them and get ourselves hunted... well. It's just too strange, the Hemo brings peace, but it's almost legitimized hatred. Separatism, anyway." He rose and brought another round to the table.
"So, what are you suggesting?" asked Tania. "Perhaps we should lighten up on the store-bought goods, keep just a little edge on, just enough to motivate us to go out and play the games as always, just knowing that there's no desperation, there's always a drink at home in the fridge?"
"Count me out," muttered Lashae. "I only need them for one thing, and hell, I don't even need them for that."
"Well, don't you think your parents would have wanted to you learn to be sociable in good company, even with the mainstreamers?"
"Damn you Tania, leave them out of this. I have no idea what they'd have wanted. They did a good job of raising me, mostly, and then some drunk driver ran into them. But okay. Hiss." It was settled then. Tania gave her a little kiss, and Lashae sat still for it, obliging with the de-rigeur ritual baring of throat along with proffering her cheek.
"So it may be, just not the same, but that's all for the best, then, isn't it?" Mark came over and gave her a little kiss, too, and she kissed them both back, so all would feel that there was no lingering resentment to turn one upon another if the stresses got too high.
"Well, since that's the way it is now, we'll just have to get used to it, I suppose. But actual flirting? Not for me!" Lashae seemed adamant.
"Oh, just watch me work," said Tania. (Mark nodded, and grinned slightly, in the human manner.) "It's fun. You might want to join in." She checked her watch. "Well," she said, "the evening's upon us. Shall we prepare, and be out, and about? And except for that one little thing, it can be the same as it ever was. The night is young, as are we, and it's where we belong. But I guess they won't have to worry about us, if they really ever did." She gathered their glasses again, and headed back toward the kitchenette. "Something more to drink, my dears?"
"No," said Mark, and Lashae shook her head, then concluded: "I think I've had quite enough."
copyright September 4, 2001, all rights reserved, by Thomas James Hardman, Jr., via TJH Internet SP.