Молли Харпер - Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs

Grocery shopping at two-thirty A.M. is the only way to go.

I lugged my lone bag of groceries up the front steps, only to find a slender redhead in a black sundress sitting on my front porch swing. I stopped in my tracks. I stared at her.

She stared back. I tried to cast out my senses to pick up any evil tendencies.

Nothing.

She rose on her mile-long legs and spoke in a voice utterly without accent. “Hello, I’m Andrea.”

She smelled human, normal. In fact, she smelled great. Earthy and fresh, like something just baked. She had a face made for another century, for high-waisted lace gowns and hairstyles involving ringlets. Yet, here she was, standing on my porch like a nocturnal Mary Kay lady.

It seemed to be my turn to talk. “Can I help you?”

“Gabriel sent me.”

“For…?” If Gabriel sent someone to give me an after-undeath Goth makeover, I was going to be seriously pissed. Andrea stood and unknotted the silk scarf at her throat.

Even in the dark, I could make out the healing bite marks, the purpling bruises.

“Wait, are you a pet?”

More important, was she Gabriel’s pet?

She laughed, a soft, silky whisper that made me feel frizzled and oafish. “I’m a freelance blood surrogate. I have friends in the vampire community. Friends who enjoy my company and my discretion.”

I remained silent. How exactly was that different?

“I’m AB negative, so I’m a popular selection,” she added.

“That’s a rare blood type. Only one percent of the population has it,” I blurted.

“Bet you’re popular down at the Red Cross.”

“Yes, I’m sort of a delicacy,” she said, smiling. “How did you know that?”

“The brain may die, but my compulsion for useless trivia lives on,” I said, ignoring the frown that marred her alabaster brow.

Andrea was clearly unaccustomed to not being jumped the second a vampire spied her snowy swanlike neck. “Gabriel said you were nervous about feeding from a human.

So he sent me over to help you through it. I think he’s worried about you, to be honest.

It’s kind of sweet.”

I rattled my keys not so subtly and motioned toward my front door. “I’d really rather not.”

Andrea was even less accustomed to being turned down flat. Suddenly awkward, she strode toward me, her gait unsteady. “It’s OK, I want you to. I enjoy it.”

I heaved my groceries onto the hall table and closed the door. Even without my ghost aunt lurking about, I didn’t want this conversation happening anywhere near my home. It was just unseemly. If I could have found a polite way to heave this woman off my porch, I would have. Damn Mama and her hereditary devotion to hospitality. “Look, Andrea, I haven’t completely decided where I stand on the feeding-on-humans issue.

What’s the vampire equivalent of a vegan?”

“There isn’t one,” she insisted. “What can I do to make this more comfortable for you?”

“Get a tourniquet and a glass, and take your neck out of the equation?”

She laughed and led me to the porch swing, where I sat as she tipped her head back. I opened my mouth, extended my fangs, and leaned toward her. I saw her pulse beating beneath her skin, her living, human skin. Every nerve ending was an opportunity for me to cause her pain. She took a steadying breath when she felt my nose awkwardly brush her ear. It reminded me of how I used to exhale sharply when I was stuck at the annual library blood drive.

“I can’t,” I said, giving her a helpless, apologetic look. “I’m sorry, I’m just afraid I’m going to hurt you.”

“Don’t worry about being nervous. A lot of vampires have trouble with this from time to time. It happens to everyone.”

“If I was a forty-year-old man suffering from erectile dysfunction, that would be a great comfort to me, thanks,” I said, even as the thirst sent my stomach rumbling.

“Think of me as a free-range animal,” she offered.

“That’s…a brilliant idea,” I started, until I pictured her being led into a slaughterhouse by vampires wearing black cowboy hats and Dracula capes. “But not helping.”

Seeing a chink in my argument, Andrea smiled and crooked her head back, offering her delicately veined throat. “Don’t think of me as male or female. Or even human. Think of me as a cheeseburger on legs. That seems to help the newbies with pacifist tendencies.”

I waited for icky visuals involving an undead Ronald McDonald, but none came.

“Oddly enough, I think that might work.”

I leaned toward Andrea, who happily settled into her “feeding position,” head tilted back, arms relaxed. She moaned as my lips skimmed her throat.

“Um, if I’m going to do this, you can’t do that,” I told her. “Vampires do not suddenly become sexually ambiguous the moment they’re turned…unless, you’re Angelina Jolie, and then we can talk.”

Andrea silently leaned back and offered her jugular. I found a place on her skin that hadn’t been marked and sank in my teeth. Her blood was warm, alive, and electric, flowing freely into me and flooding my senses. True to her word, Andrea was delicious, with a delicate, floral flavor under the hemoglobin. Absently, I wondered if blood types were like wines. Maybe type O negative was full-bodied with undertones of oak. Or if you want something light with hints of tropical fruit, type B positive.

Andrea let loose a comfortable yawn and companionably wrapped her arms around my waist as I swallowed mouthfuls of her blood. It was surprising how quickly my thirst was slaked. Then again, there wasn’t much in the way of excitement to stretch the procedure out. It was cordial, efficient—like an ATM transaction.

I pulled back, watching a drop of scarlet run from tiny twin punctures I’d left on her throat. Andrea whimpered and collapsed back on the swing, rolling around like a puppy in high grass.

I lay back, too unsteady to stand. The comfy emotional distance I was enjoying evaporated as Andrea writhed and wriggled. Obviously, she had enjoyed the experience far more than I had. I felt dirty, like some married father of five walking away from an encounter at the Lucky Clover Motel. But at least I knew I hadn’t hurt her. At this point, I just hoped I hadn’t cultivated myself a dandy new stalker.

Andrea’s wounds began to close but didn’t heal completely. Just after the Great Coming Out, I’d read something about the proteins in vampire saliva speeding up the healing process in humans. It seemed only right that we helped them heal after drinking from them.

Andrea’s breathing had returned to normal. She sat up, stretching in a long, lean line. She pulled a prepacked alcohol wipe out of her purse and wiped at what looked like the mother of all hickeys. She tied the scarf in a jaunty knot at her throat and smiled. She looked like a woman who’d just spent an afternoon with a masseuse or possibly on a masseuse.

“Why would you do this?” I asked, wiping at my mouth.

“It’s nice to be needed.” She rose on wobbly legs. “And if you understood what it feels like to be on the giving end, you wouldn’t ask.”

She stood and fished a card out of her purse.

“I’m going to leave my number,” she offered, smiling. “If you’d like to see me again, just give me a call.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, you seem nice, but I don’t know if you’re…”

“Someone you would spend time with in real life?”

Open fanged mouth, insert foot. “No, I didn’t mean…This is so strange. I’m sorry.”

She smiled, her lips thin. “It’s going to be a little strange for a while. I’ll leave it here for you.”

She laid the card on the porch railing and walked away without as much as a look back. Humiliated, I flipped Andrea’s card between my fingers. She seemed so nice. And I hurt her feelings. I made her feel cheap. This was the sort of thing that was going to keep me cringing for days and then strike me at odd intervals over the next year.