Before I know it, he’s filling a lot of my time, too. Late nights in the park, long meandering conversations about everything and nothing. Sharing tips for various cons at first. Then funny stories, books, and beliefs. Real things. He’s surprisingly respectful of my vegetarianism, considering. 

“Hey, I read Consider the Lobster along with everybody else freshman year.” “And when exactly was your freshman year?” I ask with feigned innocence. “You know better than to ask. Besides, I’m not that old.” 

Obviously, I call him a cradlerobber. Obviously, he calls me a gravedigger right back. We like sharp words that mean something. Obviously, we fall for each other. Or at least, I fall for him. I’m not so sure it’s reciprocated until one night in the park when it’s so muggy it feels like the sky herself sweats along with us. Well, sweats along with me. The Vampire doesn’t really… do all that. 

“So when are you going to ask me?” The vampire says. He catches me mid-chewing my cuticle. Startled, I bite the hapless strip of skin clean off and wince. “Ask what?” I’m taken aback by his tone. He looks at me disapprovingly. “For eternal life,” he responds. 

“Oh. Um. I don’t really…want that?” 

He’s silent for a moment. 

“Really?” 

I look up and catch his gaze. His eyes are powder blue and shining like twice-frozen snow. And for the first time maybe ever, The Vampire looks shocked. “Aren’t you scared? It seems like all humans are scared of death, like all the time.” 

“Not really. I uh. Well, I kinda like died or like, almost died a couple times, so I guess it doesn’t feel weird to me.” 

“You died?” 

“Yeah. Clinically speaking, at least. They, uh, brought me back. Had a, like, spiritual experience that maybe was just a hallucination from the pills, but maybe I met Christ, and maybe she was in fact RuPaul in that one episode. You know the one with the like, neon yellow wig? God, I will never be able to forget that wig.” 

There’s a silence when I finish speaking. I can’t look at him, focus instead on squeezing my hand tight around my wounded finger. I feel the salt from my sweaty palm stinging where my cuticle is missing. 

“Right. Wait, so you really don’t want me to turn you? To give you my dark gift?”

I roll my eyes. He won’t let me sit in the awkwardness of my confession. He keeps it from being awkward with his theatrics. He’s always willing to put himself on the line for me. 

“Y’know, sometimes it feels like people just want me for my immortality and stunning good looks.” He continues, draping a limp wrist across his forehead. “Oh, what a difficult life that must be.” 

“You have no idea.” His tone is tragic, but a smile plays about his pale face. “I’m not letting you off the hook entirely,” I tease. “So like, when are you going to drain me of my lifeforce?” 

“You’d really like that, wouldn’t you?” He laughs. I smile. He picks up my hand from where it fidgets in my lap and turns it so my wrist faces his mouth. I inhale sharply. The air smells like yesterday’s rain. The hairs on the back of my arm stand on edge. 

The vampire sucks the blood from my torn cuticle gently. The bite never comes. Instead, he releases my finger with a pop and smiles up at me. 

Turns out he’s something of a vegetarian, too. 

“More like flexitarian,” He corrects. “Mostly critters, but the occasional ne’er-do-well can surely get what he deserves.” 

“Is it always a he?” 

“Just about. Feminist duty and all that.” 

Though I remain mortal, I pick up a few tricks from My Vampire. We drain the dudebros on those terrible betting websites that technically I’m ethically opposed to but, like, if men are choosing to be dumb on there… What are a couple of scamologically minded lesbian boyfriends to do? It’s really fiscally prudent to have a boyfriend with a flexible moral code and decades to pick up hobbies. “It’s not like I ever liked coding,” My Vampire says. “But you have to do something to fill eternity.” 

It’s a good life we make for ourselves, nocturnal as it may be. When drunk guys on the street call us lesbo freaks, he just smiles at me. It’s not like they’re wrong. Plus, my boyfriend was feeling kind of hungry, anyways. 

Around his 200th year, My Vampire gets a little antsy. He moves past essays into the kind of books you only read when you’ve got eternity to spend, moseys through most of film history, and fosters a moderately successful local clowning career. I cheer on every sidequest, glad he has ways to keep busy as sleep claims more and more of my time. I’m only human, after all. 

It’s when he starts bringing home the bats that we begin to have an issue. First, I think it’s an overzealous neighborhood cat. I wake up to a bat on the porch. I scream. Visions of Cujo flash before my eyes. Eventually, I realize it’s long dead and, as such, unlikely to bite. I bury the tiny corpse in the backyard. 

Then it keeps happening. Big brown bats, little reddish orange bats, and medium-sized tricolored bats. I wake up to a bat on the porch. My fear morphs into disgust, then pure bafflement. I wake up to a bat on the porch. Maybe a prank by the neighbor’s kids? I wake up to a bat on the porch. Finally, I take another look. I’ve never seen such an anemic-looking animal. And there on the body—two perfect puncture wounds. 

I confront him at dusk. The vampire is laser-focused in the mirror, applying blush in two careful spots on the apples of his cheeks. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of telling him he looks pretty. Instead, I jab my finger into his chest, each poke a punctuation mark. 

“You. Are. Gross.” 

“You don’t like my makeup?” The vampire pouts up at me from his velvet vanity stool. “I’m trying a new thing where—” 

I wave a hand to quiet him. 

“The bats. You know I’m talking about the bats.” 

There’s a space in the room after my words. This, more than anything, tells me I’m right. The vampire sets down the blush. He won’t meet my eyes in the mirror. Then he stands and faces me with a scowl, turning so quickly that the stool hits the ground in his wake. 

“This is who I am.” The Vampire hisses. “This is what it means to commit your life to a vampire. Face it. I kill living things. I drain their blood. I’m evil at my core. You hate the bats because of what they represent. You hate the bats because you hate ME.” “I call bull.” I cross my arms and raise an eyebrow. 

“You can’t handle the truth.” 

“Okay, Jack Nicholson. No, I’m saying this isn’t who you are because you are a compulsive neat freak and you know how I feel about rabies ever since my dad showed me that movie when I was like, way too young.” 

My Vampire has the decency to look chagrined. He picks the stool back up and offers it to me. I sit with a sigh. My vampire ruffles his curls and plops down on the floor next to me. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll be honest, I forgot about the rabies thing. Nonissue for me.” My Vampire rests his head in my lap and picks at the carpet. He’s too quiet, too still. I can tell there’s something more. 

“There’s something you’re not telling me. What’s really going on?” 

My Vampire meets my gaze. His eyes are wet. His blush has smeared beyond its designated dots, and he looks flushed as I know he can never be. 

“I don’t want to lose you.” He admits. 

“Do you mean lose me to someone else or lose me…?” 

“Yeah.” He nods as my voice trails off. “Lose you like that.” 

“Ah. You want me to live forever. So naturally, you waited until I was a wizened old broad to raise this grand dilemma.” I keep my tone light and teasing. I’m glad he isn’t looking at me now; he can’t see the tears in my eyes. There’s no show to what he’s telling me now. Nothing he’s trying to sell me on. 

“You wish I had asked sooner?” He asks. Now it’s me avoiding his gaze, wiping my eyes quickly with the back of my hand. I clear my throat and shake my head. “You sort of did,” I reply. “I mean, you acted like you hated the very thought, but. I do think you would’ve turned me then. If I’d asked.” 

“Maybe. Why didn’t you?” 

“I told you then.” 

“Tell me again.” 

“Death doesn’t scare me. It’s not that I want to die, but I don’t want to live forever either. I like getting older. For a long time, I didn’t think that was a thing I was going to get to do. If I live, I get to be every version of me. If I stop time now, that’s all I’ll know.” 

“I love you.” 

“I believe you. And the best way you can love me is to let me live the way I want and die the way I want. To love all the versions of me you haven’t met yet. And no more bats, or you might lose me the old-fashioned way. I mean, seriously. Where did you even find that many bats?” 

The vampire’s face is shiny with tears. He laughs and shakes his head. “I’m like, really fast. You miss it because you’re always sleeping, but I’ve got like, mad awesome vampire skills.” His voice is playful. I push a curl back from where it sticks to his cheek. 

“Okay, darling. Love me as I am. For as long as I am. And no bats.” My vampire smiles and shakes my hand. 

“Deal of a lifetime.”