Misty Rose: Nature
Chapter 16
So… the last bit of this journal has been pretty shitty. Lot of nasty stuff. And I’m sorry about that, but that’s kind of how the first couple of months of being a vampire were. Nasty is pretty much what a vampire is, with superpowers and fangs. We’re all fucked up somehow.
Next part’s not going to be so bad, I promise. This part’s going to be about how much it sucks to be a vampire. Not like how it sucks blood, but how much it sucks to try to be at all normal or do things like a normal person when you’re a vampire. So it might sound like I’m just bitching about little things, but… some of this I got to say, so you get what it’s like.
First thing is food. Vampires can’t eat food, really, so it’s not that. Oh, and since we don’t eat, we don’t poop, but that’s a different topic. You might be thinking that not having to eat… or poop… is a good thing, right? Well… talk to a human who can’t eat food about that. Like… I don’t know, someone being treated for throat cancer or something like that. Eating is a natural thing for humans. There’s all kinds of things that go off in the brain just because of eating, and it doesn’t even have to be good food. And good food, well, that can be a lot better in terms of happy chemicals. But vampires don’t eat. We still got the urges, but it’s all about blood, and that’s like… only being hungry for literally biting chunks off animals. You can’t really stop in a store and just buy something or go to a restaurant or one of those food carts. But… you still smell it, and it still smells good, and you remember, and part of you wants to eat something because vampires are always hungry. Or, well, thirsty. But then it’s like you remember what it’s like to throw up, and you don’t want to eat any more. Friend of mine in high school was lactose intolerant, really bad, and she said she got sick when she smelled anything that people would put on ice cream like caramel or hot fudge, or like apple pie because her Mom would always make apple pie a la mode and she’d love it but she’d get sick and throw it up later. It was kind of like that. I’d smell something I used to like to eat, and if I forgot being a vampire and started wanting to eat it, my stomach would turn and I’d feel kind of sick. But I’d still be hungry, so I’d start wanting blood.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t all vampires. I think maybe older vampires that forgot what being human was like didn’t have to deal with it. But I did, and it sucked.
Then there’s that whole vampire body reset thing. I talked about the… main reason why it sucked for me. Being stuck not having what I thought was a perfect body for all of time. But there were other little things, too. Like, and this is stupid, split ends. I had just one, but it was a full on tree end, and I didn’t find it until after I’d been turned into a vampire. For a human girl, no big deal, just cut it off, right? But when I did that, the damn thing would be back the next night. And it was like because it was just that one, somehow I’d always manage to find it again, every damn night. Sometimes the little fucker would end up right in front of my eyes when I shook out my hair. Tiny little thing, but somehow it was something that’d bug me because I’d never get rid of it.
Same goes for my nails. Not talking about chipped polish or whatever, that was still the same as ever because I guess it’s not actually part of my body, like makeup. But I’d let my nails grow a little long before the night I got turned, and the nail on my ring finger on my left hand had a tiny little nick. The sort of thing I could just file out when I’d trim my nails, like I was going to do the next day. I’d just decided I didn’t want to deal with it right then, or that I’d get it at the party, but I didn’t, and now the damn nick came back every day. After a couple of weeks of that, I picked up the habit of flicking the nick with the nail on my thumb on that hand whenever being a vampire got on my nerves.
Speaking of nerves, I talked about the world being sharper, but I never really talked about what it really looks like. Well… you know when you see a spooky alley or some place that seems sort of weird and dangerous? How the shadows look like maybe something could be hiding in them and you don’t want to go into wherever it is? Well, everything looked like that, and I mean everything. Even my own damn apartment looked more dingy and… strange to me. I got used to it, but I didn’t feel welcome in my own damn home for a while. And the rest of the world looked… too sharp. Like when I was trying to see everything because I was having a freakout, or something had weirded me out and I was… I don’t know, worried about some creep following me. Sounds were weird, too. Nothing easy to explain, but like… the balance was off. Or like there was some weird tone I couldn’t really hear. And some human sounds seemed too loud or off key. Mostly humans laughing or sounding happy, but that might just be me being upset about not being human like how PDAs make single people feel lonely and annoyed. In any case, the feeling was that everything was just… slightly off. Not quite right, like some movie where they’d fucked with the film in post and made everything just a little strange.
Something else that was strange was that animals didn’t like me, either. Not just my landlady’s corgi, who used to love me. Other kinds of animals would get angry or run away when I was around. Except ravens for some reason. Maybe because I’m a walking corpse. I don’t know. Found out why I still showed up in mirrors, though. Scary lady said that was a myth, and that some vampires could do that as part of turning invisible. Or something. But it wasn’t something all vampires could do. I’d always been able to see myself. Looked a little pale, like I hadn’t been eating well, but no blurry anything. Which was a good thing if I’d been bothering with makeup much because otherwise I’d have to ask Kaitlyn to do it, and who knows what she’d paint on my face if I did.
Some stuff was more… schedule than anything supernatural. Humans complain about how they don’t have enough time in the day. Yeah, well, try having to stay indoors and locked away from the sun except at night during parts of the year where the nights are only nine hours long. Like right about this point in my time as a vampire. We’d passed the point where nights started getting longer, but it still sucked. The sun would go down about nine and come up about six, and that’d mean most things would be closed by the time I woke up, and wouldn’t open until after I had to go hide. And Kaitlyn had to sleep, so we’d get maybe three or four hours to hang out, then she’d be asleep and I’d have maybe five hours to actually do stuff like… go hunting or whatever. About the only things open at that point were the all-night places, and… well, that’s a topic all to itself. But it was damn hard to do anything like go shopping for stuff we needed. And once a week I had to go to the laundromat because aside from quiet stuff inside, that was about the only thing I could do to help out. Didn’t have a job, and the only money I had came from robbing the assholes that tried to mug me. So… I tried to help out in other ways. Like cleaning up around the place. I tried cooking a couple times, but… that just didn’t work out unless it was something quick and easy because otherwise I’d start feeling sick.
As for the places I could actually shop, well… doesn’t even take vampires to have those places be a problem. There’s all kinds of weirdos and creeps that end up in places like Walmart at two in the morning, and they’re only humans. They weren’t as scary as they used to be, but it was still something I’d have to deal with, and I didn’t want to always have to deal with them, you know? And that’s just the creeps at the normal places. Well, as much as Walmart at two in the morning can be normal. Just try getting anything unusual at all, let alone at times a vampire can shop, and there’s no such thing as vampire stores. Least, not that I found. And I kind of doubt a vampire would want to spend their nights running some store full of… stuff vampires need just in case a vampire comes in to shop. By the way, yeah, clothes shopping was a big deal, because of how my food source was also one of those stubborn stains, and there’s only so far the tricks for getting blood out will go. So I had to replace stuff more often than normal, least until I learned how to drink without spilling any.
The not normal places, well… let me give you an example. So after my hoodie got shredded by those three assholes, I decided maybe I needed to get something tougher, you know? Not like armor or anything, just… something that’d survive being slashed or shot better than what hoodies are usually made out of. I didn’t think I’d just be able to walk into some store and… I don’t know, buy some kind of heavy duty clothing or anything. But places like Walmart and the other places open late enough for a vampire to shop there just don’t carry the sort of thing I was looking for. Most places didn’t. I had to start looking for… places outside the normal range I’d shop at. Biker gear shop would have been perfect, lots of tough stuff there for bikers and whatever, and I figured something that’s made to stand up to being scraped across asphalt could handle a knife hole or two. But the ones that were actually online were too expensive, and none of them stayed open late enough, I guess because the owners wanted to actually go ride their bikes after work or something like that. Yeah, I could have ordered something online, but that’d mean shipping on top of whatever I had to pay, and I didn’t know how the sizes worked for women’s biker gear, and I didn’t want to deal with online returns.
So that pretty much just left BDSM and fetish wear shops if I wanted something tougher than normal clothes, and the idea didn’t make me happy. Most of the more… legit-looking places were out because of being sex toy shops and not really carrying the sort of things I wanted, or just by not being open late enough. Which more or less left the more sketchy places, and of those only one was open late enough. Place called The Dungeon. All kinds of thrilled about going to a place like that. But after having wasted my spare time for a few nights trying to find something better, it seemed like I didn’t really have a choice. So I borrowed Kaitlyn’s scooter and drove over after she’d gone to sleep.
Pretty much seemed like a mistake from the start. I guess The Dungeon wasn’t doing too well on just selling stuff to the BDSM crowd, because the place also had a lot of other stuff. Like those cell phone plans drug dealers like so much, and a lot of cheap sort of goth, sort of punk clothes and whatever, so it was kind of like Hot Topic. And… I’m not much of a judge of quality of whips and corsets and handcuffs and crap, but a lot of what they had seemed really low quality. Maybe not even real leather, like the stuff you’d get for costumes at a Halloween store. Good enough for the look, not good enough to actually use if you’re serious. What I was looking for, well… it looked like I had a choice between the really low quality shit, which probably wouldn’t last even as long as a hoodie but was still kind of expensive, and stuff that was even more expensive than I’d thought it’d be but might last a little longer maybe. Not what I’d hoped for, but it’s not like I can go into some place and ask them for clothes that are going to stand up to being stabbed with a knife.
The guy behind the counter was not helpful. Tall, skinny, long black hair that was probably dyed, too much eye makeup, and looked like he was wearing the most expensive stuff from their fake goth clothes. He was… I don’t know if skeezy is the right word. I don’t really know the BDSM scene, so maybe how he was acting was normal, but he was pushy, and kept saying things like how no, I didn’t want one thing, I wanted to pick something else. Maybe I came across as a submissive? Think that’s the word. He sure didn’t seem to think I was the one giving the orders in whatever relationship he thought I was in. Also seemed disappointed that he couldn’t get me to try on some of the things he suggested, but… what was the point? I wasn’t looking for goth fetish outfits, even if some of them looked a lot like what I’d seen other vampires wearing at the meeting. Some kind of… corset or bodice or whatever wasn’t going to help with what I needed.
Wound up settling on the only thing that was cheap enough to afford… barely… and actually seemed like it’d stand up to some damage. It was this… black leather halter top thing that more or less matched the leather hot pants I already had. Can’t even describe how embarrassing it’d be, but it’d at least cover the important parts and maybe not get shredded if I ran into another problem with the assholes I was getting blood from. Got to be honest, I think that guy pressured me into buying it, and it wouldn’t be the first time I got pushed into a bad use of my money, either. Had second thoughts before I got home, but The Dungeon had a no returns policy. Wound up hiding the thing so Kaitlyn wouldn’t see it, and I could decide when I was… brave enough to try wearing it.
Yeah, yeah, I can be a coward sometimes. Bite me.
But trying to get stuff you need when you got to deal with the sort of stores that’ll be open isn’t the worst part of being a vampire. Worst part of being a vampire has got to be the social life. I’ve already complained about how socially warped vampires are, so I won’t get into that again. But it also fucks up your relationships with humans. First off, all humans look tasty. And if you’re not good at keeping interest off your face, people get the wrong idea. Think being attractive enough to get a bunch of unwanted attention is bad now? Try adding in looking slightly interested by default because the asshole hitting on you at the laundromat has blood, so it shows on your face. Humans sniffing after tail don’t do so good at telling the difference between wanting to suck out their blood and wanting to suck on other things. Then think about how awkward it is to run into someone you had a one night stand with and who might want to try it again, and there’s you with the hungry vampire face. Or even worse, you bump into an ex at the gas station or whatever. Ran into one of mine like that who hadn’t gotten over me yet even though I’d kicked his ass to the curb three months before getting turned, and all it took was me being a little thirsty and not keeping it off my face to get him trying to get back with me. Hundreds of thousands of people in the city and it’s like the awkward ones just start popping up everywhere like I’m some kind of jerk magnet.
It’s not just exes and assholes, though. Most of me and Kaitlyn’s friends were either through work, or through the rave scene, and if you just drop off the planet, some of them notice eventually, and might have your number, which means they start asking if you’re okay. I’m a shitty liar, so coming up with reasons why I suddenly wasn’t going to parties wasn’t easy. Kaitlyn helped some with that, but she had to do the same too, at least with the party people. Some of her excuses were a little… well, I’ll just say I wouldn’t have come up with them myself. But telling some guy that I’d maybe led on a little too far the last time I saw him because I wanted the attention that I was busy exploring my inner lesbian biker seemed to work. At least it got him to stop texting me.
Last social thing is dating itself. That’s mostly out. Kind of hard to go to dinner with some guy when you don’t eat because you’re a vampire. Meant I couldn’t go out and have guys buy me dinner anymore. It meant they would be the dinner. And I just wasn’t comfortable pushing to skip the meal and get right to the point where I could bite them, which would in most cases be the sex part. The whole don’t fuck a guy on the first date thing sort of goes right out the window because when you’re a vampire, you don’t really have time to go on a date two or three times with the same guy like human girls do before trying to get him alone. You don’t care. What a vampire wants from a guy doesn’t really require knowing if he’s an asshole or not.
So, yeah, being a vampire is actually pretty annoying, except when it isn’t, at which point it’s usually shitty or outright horrible. Least it is if you aren’t already rich or attractive or brought right into the upper class of vampires who get to socialize with people rich enough to ignore the weird things you do because you’re a vampire. And yeah, money still matters to vampires, so if you don’t have it, you’re no better off than if you’re poor and human. Worse, really, because you’re poor and a monster. Sorry if I’m crushing anyone’s dreams here, but seriously, if you’re given a choice, don’t become a vampire, unless you already got shit going for you that puts you above the shit people who aren’t rich have to deal with. And if you do, you’ll probably enjoy it more as a human. Being a vampire just adds a shitload of fucked up to whatever problems you already got.
Anyway, don’t forget that everything that shows vampires as having great lives because they’re rich and pretty and can do anything is showing that because someone wrote it that way. People don’t buy vampire stories where the vampire just goes out and bites some asshole, then goes home and sits around on their phone like boring old humans do. There’s got to be something that’s interesting going on, even more if the story just isn’t that good by itself. And if reality TV proves anything it’s that The Adventures of the Rich and Pretty is enough to get people to buy even shitty stories.
But I can talk about anything I want in this, because it’s not something I’m trying to make a living off of. And I’m not going to pretend being a vampire is any better than it is. That’s not the point of me making these journal things. But I’ll get to that later.
