Blood...

You know that feeling you get when you can't think of anything else except that one thing you want? For some people, it's waiting the whole day to get home to the Xbox or the PS4 and get back to the game they've been waiting all day to play. For others, it's waiting until they can crack open that bottle of vodka, or light up that cigarette or joint or whatever it is they're aching for. The whole day is spent waiting to get to that one moment. And for the entire day, it's like everything is in black and white. It's less real, less vivid, so much less there and the only thing real, the only thing getting you through it, is knowing that the release is coming soon.

I drifted through my commute to work, seeing but not seeing the people on the bus and not caring so much about anything. I carried the memory of the sharp taste, and the dull musky heat of the blood that had filled my mouth, but more than anything, it was that euphoria as all of my senses had woken up, synapses rapidly firing, my brain going into overdrive with so many possibilities, so much life...

That right there, that was the only thing that mattered and every waking moment I had to wait for it was a quiet torture of just getting through the day.

"Are you staring at my boobs?"

I blinked myself out of my stupor and realized that I had been staring at the neck of the woman on the bus across from me, enough to freak her out. She had one of those long slender necks that made you wonder what kissing them must be like, the kind of neck you could call graceful, elegant, lovely even. I smiled in what I thought was a reassuring manner and shook my head.

"No, not at all," I said. "I was admiring your neck."

"That's not any better," she snapped. "Stop staring at me you freak!"

She, however, stared at me for the rest of the ride, and I valiantly read the posters on the ceiling and looked out the windows instead, and really tried to avoid looking at her neck. Or her boobs.

Over the course of the day, I must have pulled out my phone a dozen times to send a text message to the King, but I'd always put it back, not knowing what I was going to say without sounding too needy, too much like a goddamn junkie.

The King was now my only way into the club, I needed him, but he had made it clear that he wasn't doing me any favours and I really didn't want to burn that bridge. Besides, he was a wealthy and famous man in his own right, and he already had plenty of hangers-on. The last thing I wanted to do was to be part of his crew just because I needed him to get me into HTDK.

A couple of times during the night I caught myself staring at some customers, actively wondering what their blood tasted like. It had gone beyond the mere admiration of necks that I had recently taken on as a hobby and had now progressed to noticing in great detail how the blood pulsed through their arteries, the slight whoosh-whoosh of the blood perfectly in rhythm with the steady ba-bum ba-bum of their beating hearts. The ba-bum ba-bum would at times speed up when they noticed me watching them, the beat so loud in my head that I would briefly wonder why nobody else was hearing this, before remembering that this part was something unique to being a vampire.

The older blonde lady with the long willowy and beautiful neck (what was up with the long necks anyway?) had been flushed and embarrassed about buying what had to be her first sex toy, and she had turned bright upon turning and meeting my gaze. I had tried to smile, but from her reaction, smiling wasn't working so great for me. She had quickly escaped but had glanced behind a couple of times, one time biting her lip as if trying to muster the courage to do something against her character. The next woman had been short with dark, unkempt hair who just seemed to have a bigger presence than most of the other customers—

"It's the bloodlust you know," a woman's voice said right in my ear, causing me to almost jump out of my pants. I jumped and spun around, my hands grabbing uselessly for the baseball bat Sammy kept under the counter.

Beatrice leaned casually against the wall, a box of Chinese takeout in one hand, chopsticks in the other. This immediately struck me as bizarre, because I've never actually seen anyone outside of a movie ever actually eating out of those containers. Most Chinese takeout I'd ever had usually came in those flimsy styrofoam containers with forks that were always too small and too flexible to allow you to eat your food with any real enjoyment; I'd always had to swap them out for real forks since chopsticks always made my hands cramp.

Why was I seemingly distracted by what Beatrice was eating, you ask? Well, first of all, it reminded me that I hadn't had lunch yet and that I also hadn't eaten any Chinese food in ages... at least not that I could remember. I'd scarfed down some frosted flakes earlier and had spent the day grazing on the Costco-sized box of granola bars that Claude had tucked away in the top cupboard with the stupid sports cups I never got around to using but still collected for some stupid reason. He had either thought I would never find them there or had figured I would eventually find them when I got desperate enough. Either way, I found them and proceeded to pig out, but just a little. Apart from that, there hadn't been any actual real food since I was out of eggs and the bread had gone all moldy on me.

Beatrice was almost unrecognizable as either of the versions of herself that I'd had the pleasure of not being able to avoid meeting. The last time I had seen her, she had been wearing that form fitting white suit that had suited her so well, and she had looked the part of the predatory vampire. The woman eating noodles out of the box in the middle of my store wore gray baggy sweatpants, sneakers and an unbuttoned red plaid shirt that had been thrown on over the top of an old Motley Crue "Dr. Feelgood" t-shirt. Her long blonde hair was buried under a black Beanie, but as always, it was a stark contrast against her dark clothes.

She grinned at me and continued. "Before long, you're going to start wondering how everybody tastes." She slurped up some noodles, keeping her eyes on me, then continued through a mouthful of food, "and then soon after that, you're going to be finding out. It's how bad legends and even worse movies get made you know. Some idiot just decides he can't help himself."

"How did you get in here? I didn't see you come in."

"You think I did the Batman thing and just appeared out of nowhere? I only wish I could do that. That shit is hard, all that sneaking around just to be dramatic."

"But you just—"

"I could have brought a marching band with me, twelve trombones and a full drum section, maybe even a hundred elephants, and you still wouldn't have seen me. You're like, totally out of it man."

"You're confusing the hell out of me."

"You want to take a bite out of that lady!" Beatrice yelled and pointed at the short woman with the unkempt hair, who whirled around, fumbling her collection of DVDs of BDSM porn.

"Hi!" she yelled, clearly startled, then her brain caught up with what was going on: "He wants to do what to me?"

"Nothing!" I glared at Beatrice. "It's just a little vampire humour."

"Well, she's not very funny. And in my professional opinion, neither of you would make very good vampires."

Beatrice and I exchanged a look that spoke volumes of definite What-The-Fuck, then we both looked incredulously at the small woman who looked more like a frumpy middle-aged housewife who might have a BDSM fetish than any type of vampire we'd actually met. Her mud-brown eyes glared right back at us imperiously.

"You don't even sparkle!"

Beatrice turned sharply to look at me. "Bob, what the fuck is she talking about?"

"You really don't want to know. Hell: I know, and I wish I didn't know what it is that I know. Run now and save yourself."

"Can't I just kill her instead?"

"It won't do any good," I groaned. "There's more of them." Beatrice looked completely lost, and I suddenly realized she really had no idea what I was talking about. "Have you seriously never heard of Twi-Hards?"

The lady was aghast, then her brain caught up with her. "Are you threatening to kill me?" She sputtered at Beatrice, and her eyes were darting around the store, desperately looking for a witness, someone to back her up in the empty store. Of course, there was no one since it was two AM and only the weirdos and drunks were out at this time.

"No. She's threatening to kill you. I'm just providing service with a smirk."

"Stay back!" The frumpy lady grabbed the first thing at hand, which of course happened to be the Belladonna Bitch Fist. It was good and sturdy and better than her threatening us with a dildo, but still...

Beatrice had had enough.

"The level of stupid in this store is giving me a headache," Beatrice deadpanned. "Since you're not going to let me kill anybody, I'm getting the fuck out of here." She glanced at the frumpy lady and laid on a thick layer of sarcasm that only an idiot could miss. "She might call the police. Oooh! Eeek! Run away... run away..."

Beatrice winked at me as she sashayed towards the door, making it very clear that she was not, in fact, running away from anything at all. The frumpy lady glared at her the whole way. The Belladonna Bitch Fist was still held up like some magic totem to ward off the weird blonde chick and smirksome store clerk.

While I rung up the lady (she decided to take the Belladonna Bitch Fist after all), it occurred to me that I wasn't even thinking about blood anymore.

******** AUTHOR'S NOTE **********

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