Christopher Moore - Bloodsucking Fiends

"Let's go home," Tommy said. "I've got a blister on my big toe."

"No fucking way, writer-boy."

"It's low in calories," Tommy coaxed, prodding her foot with his sneaker. "Good, and good for you."

"Not a chance."

Tommy sighed in defeat. "Well, I guess we've got more to worry about than my toe or your weight problem."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that last night I saw a guy in the store parking lot that I think was the other vampire."

There was a bum sleeping on the sidewalk across the street from the loft when they returned. Tommy, full of fast food and the elation of being twice laid, wanted to give the guy a dollar. Jody stopped him and pushed him up the steps. "Go on up," she said. "I'll be there in a minute."

She stood in the doorway watching the bum for movement. There was no heat signature around him and she assumed the worst. She waited for him to roll over and start laughing at her again. She was feeling strong and a little cocky from the infusion of Tommy's blood, so she had to fight the urge to confront the vampire, to get dead in his face and scream. Instead she just whispered, "Asshole," and closed the door. If his hearing was as acute as her own, and she was sure it was, he had heard her.

She found Tommy in bed, fast asleep.

Poor guy, she thought, running all over town doing my business. He probably hasn't slept more than a couple of hours since we met.

She pulled the covers over him, kissed him on the forehead, and went to the window in the front room to watch the bum across the street.

Tommy was dreaming of bebop-driven sentences read by a naked redhead when he woke to find her sleeping next to him. He threw his arm over her and pulled her close, but there was no response, no pleasant groan or reciprocal snuggle. She was out.

He pushed the light button on his watch and checked the time. It was almost noon. The room was so dark that the watch dial floated in his vision for a few seconds after he released the button. He went to the bathroom and fumbled around until he found the light switch. A single fluorescent tube clicked and sputtered and finally ignited, spilling a fuzzy green glow through the door into the bedroom.

She looks dead, he thought. Peaceful, but dead. Then he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. I look dead too.

It took him a minute to realize that it was the fluorescent lighting that had sucked the life out of his face, not his vampire girlfriend. He affected a serious glare and thought about how they would describe him in a hundred years, when he was really famous and really dead.

Like so many great writers before him, Flood was known for his troubled countenance and sickly pallor, especially under fluorescent lighting. Those who knew him said that even in those early years they could sense that this thin, serious young man would make his presence known as a great man of letters as well as a sexual dynamo. His legacy to the world was a trail of great books and broken hearts, and although it is well known that his love life was his downfall, he felt no regret, as illustrated in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: "I have followed my penis into hell and returned with the story."

Tommy bowed deeply before the mirror, careful to keep the Nobel Prize medal from banging the sink, then began to interview himself, speaking clearly and slowly into his toothbrush.

"I think it was shortly after my first successful bus transfer that I realized the City was mine. Here I would produce some of my greatest work, and here I would meet my first wife, the lovely but deeply disturbed Jody…"

Tommy waved the microphone/toothbrush away as if the memories were too painful to recall, but actually he was trying to remember Jody's last name. I should know her maiden name, he thought, if just for historical purposes.

He glanced into the bedroom where the lovely but deeply disturbed Jody was lying naked and half-covered on the bed. He thought, She won't mind if I wake her up. She doesn't have to be at work or anything.

He approached the bed and touched her cheek. "Jody," he whispered. She didn't stir.

He shook her a bit. "Jody, honey."

Nothing.

"Hey," he said, taking her shoulders. "Hey, wake up." She didn't respond.

He pulled the covers off her as his father used to do to him on cold winter mornings when he wouldn't get up to go to school. "Up and at 'em, soldier — ass in the air and feet on the floor," he said in his best drill-sergeant bark.

She looked really great lying there naked in the half-light from the bathroom. He was getting a little turned on.

How would I feel, he thought, if I woke up and she was making love to me? Why, I believe that I would be pleasantly surprised. I think that would be better than waking up to frying bacon and the Sunday funnies. Yes, I'm sure she'll be pleased.

He crawled into bed with her and ventured a tentative kiss. She was a little cold and didn't move a muscle, but he was sure she liked it. He ran a finger down the valley between her breasts and over her stomach.

What if she didn't wake up? What if we do it and she doesn't wake up at all? How would I feel if I woke up and she told me that we had done it while I slept? I'd be fine with it. A little sad that I missed things, but I wouldn't be mad. I'd just ask her if I had a good time. Women are different, though.

He tickled her just to get a reaction. Again, she didn't move.

She's so cold. With her not moving at all it might be a little morbid. Maybe I should wait. I'll tell her that I thought about it and decided that it wouldn't be courteous. She'll like that.

He sighed deeply, got out of bed and pulled the covers over her. I should buy her something, he thought.

Jody snapped into consciousness and bit down on something hard. She opened her eyes and saw Tommy sitting on the edge of the bed. She smiled.

"Good morning," he said.

She reached for whatever was in her mouth.

Tommy caught her hand. "Don't bite down. It's a thermometer." He checked his watch, then pulled the thermometer out of her mouth and read it. "Ninety-five point two. You're on your way."

Jody sat up and looked at the thermometer. "On my way to what?"

He smiled bashfully. "On your way to body temperature. I bought you an electric blanket. It's been on for like six hours."

She ran her hand over the blanket. "You've been warming me up?"

"Pretty cool, huh?" Tommy said. "I went to the library and got books too. I've been reading all afternoon." He picked up a stack of books and began to shuffle through them, reading the titles and handing each to her in turn. "A Reader's Guide to Vampirism; Vampire Myths and Legends; Those That Stalk the Night — kind of an ominous title, huh?"

She held the books as if they were made of wormy fruit. The covers depicted monstrous creatures rising from coffins, attacking women in various states of undress, and hanging around castles perched on barren mountains. The letters in the titles dripped blood. "These are all about vampires?"

"That's just the nonfiction that they had on hand. I ordered a bunch more through the library exchange. Check out some of the fiction." He picked up another stack from the floor.

"A Feast of Blood; Red Thirst; Fangs; Dracula; Dracula's Dream; Dracula's Legacy; Fevre Dream; The Vampire Lestat — there must have been a hundred novels."

Jody, a little overwhelmed, stared at the books. "There seems to be a theme here on the covers."

"Yeah," Tommy said. "Vampires seem to have an affinity for lingerie. Do you have any particular craving for sexy nightgowns?"

"Not really." Jody had always thought it a little silly to spend a lot of money on something that you only put on long enough for someone to take it off you. Evidently, though, if you went by these book covers, vampires looked at lingerie as garnish.