Misty Rose: Nature
Chapter 18
So, I sort of avoided talking about it with Pops, but… yeah, some of my problems were Kaitlyn stuff and some were job stuff. And a few of them happened that month, which was otherwise kind of light on shitty stuff. No problems hunting and I made my half of the rent. Not complaining of course. Just commenting so it doesn’t seem like I spent the rest of the month asleep.
First one to talk about was job stuff. I ended up calling Mr. Lewis back. Really wasn’t happy about it, but unless I stepped up my feeding just so I could rob people, my bank account wasn’t going to last much longer, and both me and Kaitlyn had a lot of debt, like cell phone bills. I guess I mostly called Mr. Lewis back about the dancer job hoping it’d been filled, because if the job was gone, I wouldn’t have to decide to turn down a job I could do, you know? It’s not like there were a lot of vampire-friendly jobs out there, or like I’d have to do the dancer thing forever. Just for now, to make rent. Growing up, my Mom did what she could part time, but it was hard for her to keep anything because of her problems, and because of caring for me. My Dad… he did a few things, but was mostly a truck driver, and pretty much only local because my Mom didn’t like him being away for a long time, and… the recession that happened when I was still a kid hit people like my Dad really fucking hard. He’s got his CDL, and made good money when there was work. But there wasn’t always work, and we’d have trouble getting by. We were on food stamps more than once, which… hurt both my parents, but we needed food, and it wasn’t like my Dad could ask his family for help because of… how they were.
Anyway, that’s why I found myself calling Mr. Lewis. During the day, actually, while Kaitlyn was at work because I was too embarrassed to do it with her around. And… I don’t know, I felt like maybe I should make it seem like I was still doing stuff during the day to people who knew me before. I got put through to Mr. Lewis’ office right away. Must not have been busy.
“Um. Hi, Mr. Lewis,” I said when he picked up. “It’s Misty Rose.”
“Hey kid,” he said. “How’s your mother?”
“Oh, she’s… doin’ better. Recoverin’.”
“Glad to hear it. I remember when my parents got sick. You be sure you still get out and enjoy yourself. Go to parties. Date some guys. Live life while you’re young and pretty.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”
“So, whatcha need, kid?”
“Well, um… about that job. The, um… dancer job.”
“Was hoping you’d ask,” Mr. Lewis said. “You decide to try out? Because I’ve got a great costume all set up for you. Should work like a dream, and I bet you could use the tips.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do kinda need the money.” He already had a costume? Jesus. The old creep must have been just waiting for me to decide to dance around naked in his club.
“Great,” Mr. Lewis went on. “Always glad to help a girl in need.”
Sure he was. Long as he could see her naked and make money off it. But I still needed the job, so I had to put up with him being a creep. “Um… so what do I hafta do?”
“Well, I can’t pay favorites, kid,” Mr. Lewis said. Favorites? Ew. “You gotta audition like all my other girls, so we can be sure you can walk the walk. Know what I’m saying?”
“Oh. I see.”
“Means you gotta have a routine, kid. Means some kind of pole work to show off what you can do. I’m sure the other girls could teach you a few things if you want. Make sense?”
“Yeah. I mean… you’d wanna… be sure a dancer can dance…”
“You got it, kid. Knew you were sharp. You have a routine?”
“Um… not yet. Been kinda busy and… well, it’s kinda hard to practice at my Mom’s house.”
“I hear ya. You want me to ask the girls to give you some pointers?”
“No, I can… um… figure out somethin’. Thanks.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help. You’re welcome.”
Well, fuck. Guess the whole plan of being able to get out of having to turn down a job I could probably do by having the job get filled wasn’t going to work. Yay. “There’s still no waitress slots?”
“Nope. Sorry, kid, but I’m full on waitresses for the night shift.”
“Just checkin’,” I said. “Um… so is there… a time frame on the dancer job?”
“For you? Nope,” Mr. Lewis said, and I could feel his skeezy grin over the phone. “I’ll keep a slot open for you. But don’t let this opportunity pass you by, kid. It’s good money.”
“Okay. Wouldn’t wanna wait too long, right?”
“You got it, kid.”
“Alright. I’ll, um… call you when I’ve got… an audition routine. I guess.”
“I’ll be waiting. You take care, kid.”
“Um… thanks. Talk to you then. Bye.”
I ended the call and stared at my phone for a moment. Fuck. Not only was the stripper job still open, but it sounded like Mr. Lewis really wanted me to take it. Like I’d get it as long as I at least made some kind of effort with the audition. Which I didn’t want to do. But I needed a job, and I couldn’t think of any other things I could manage along with being a vampire.
Then there was Kaitlyn stuff. She was… well, there were a few things. The one that probably was the smallest was that she’d been staying up later and later so she could spend more time with me while I was actually awake. But if she was up until dawn, I felt like she wasn’t getting enough sleep before she had to go to work. Kaitlyn said it was no big deal, but I could tell she wasn’t sleeping all that well. I’d tell her she should get more sleep, but she would just shrug or ignore me or say it was the only way we could spend time together. Which was sweet, I mean, I didn’t want to not spend time with my best friend, but… just hanging out wasn’t more important than her getting sleep, you know?
Second problem was mostly my fault. Couple days after talking to Mr. Lewis, I went out hunting and got another hoodie slashed up. Nothing major, but the asshole got in a couple stabs before I could knock him out. I heal, but my clothes don’t. Kaitlyn fixed the holes for me, but I still felt bad about it. So… I decided I was going to try out the idea I had with the halter top. I’d hidden the thing in my dresser because I still wasn’t happy with the idea that made me buy it. You see, the assholes I’d go hunting for would usually stab or shoot me or whatever in the stomach. That general area. Don’t know why, but most of the holes that had to be fixed were on my torso. So, um… less clothes would mean less holes. So some kind of short top or sports bra or… the halter top. Same goes for bottoms. And the leather short shorts were the only thing I had that really went with the halter top. Only problem, and it was a sort of big problem, was that I’d be running around in a halter top and booty shorts. Yeah. My party clothes covered more skin. I was having problems with wearing that kind of thing inside a club, and I’d be running around in public like that.
But I thought I should at least try it. Sort of. At home. Maybe I was just being a prude. So a couple nights after talking to Mr. Lewis, I told Kaitlyn I had something I wanted her opinion on. I went into the bathroom and changed into the halter top and shorts. Looked at myself in the mirror, and yeah, I felt like some kind of stripper or fetish model. But Kaitlyn was waiting so I went back out again. She was over in the kitchen area, and I guess she’d just taken a drink of something because she saw me and spit it out on the floor. I rolled my eyes.
“People don’t do spit takes in real life, Kaitlyn,” I said.
Kaitlyn just kept staring at me. I was getting a little uncomfortable. Okay, so, it really wasn’t my usual style. I don’t do a lot of black, and not this kind of outfit at all. I’d have been blushing if I was alive. After a little while, Kaitlyn finally said something. “Why?”
“Um…” I said. God this was embarrassing. “I thought… if I’m gonna keep doin’ this…”
Kaitlyn just kept staring at me… and I could hear her heart beating now, which was weird.
“Um… feedin’ on people… who try to jump me… I should…” Kaitlyn was still staring at me, so I folded my arms across my body like that was going to do anything and started back into the bathroom. “Look, I’ll just change. This is a shitty idea. Sorry about…”
“No, it’s fine,” Kaitlyn said. “Sorry I was staring at you. What’s this… costume for?”
“Not a costume,” I said. “It’s more… well, I thought less clothes means less holes, right? Um… I heal but my clothes don’t so, um… if I don’t wanna keep replacin’ stuff, I should…”
“It’s… a different look. For you,” Kaitlyn said, and I felt like she was trying to be nice about it.
“It’s embarrassin’. I feel like I’m naked here.”
“Covers more than a bikini.”
“Well, yeah, but… a bikini is different. It’s… normal. For swimmin’ or the beach.”
“You look good,” Kaitlyn said. Probably being nice again.
“I don’t look good,” I said. “I look like a skank.”
“No you don’t.”
“Oh, come on! Leather halter and matching booty shorts?”
“It looks good on you.”
“I look like… a dancer in a rap video. Or a stripper.”
Kaitlyn put her head on one side. “You took the job?”
“No!” I said, then took a breath. “No, this outfit doesn’t mean I took the job.”
“Okay,” Kaitlyn said, raising her hands. “Why’d you pick that top?”
“It was what they had, and it’d at least match my shorts. Walmart doesn’t sell anything that’d work, and the only place open was The Dungeon.”
“Okay, but why that?”
I sighed. “Everything else was some stupid lace thing or fishnets or corsets or…”
“What’s wrong with those?”
“Lace would just rip, and a corset would get shredded. And I’d still look like…”
“Well, I still think you look good. It’s a good costume.”
I glared at her. I wanted her opinion on the outfit, not… not Kaitlyn pushing me to run around dressed like a stripper. “It’s not a fuckin’ costume, Kaitlyn. I’m not a stripper!”
“Not a stripper costume,” Kaitlyn said. “More like a superhero costume.”
I just stared at her. Superhero? I’m a fucking vampire, I thought. What kind of superhero was a blood drinking walking corpse? For fuck’s sake, I’m what superheroes fight. Jesus.
Kaitlyn went on anyway. “We’d just need to get you a mask and… wear boots with that. You could totally pull off being a vigilante, and beat up thugs and low end criminals.”
“Kaitlyn…” I tried to interrupt.
“’Course, you’d need a vigilante name,” Kaitlyn said, off in her own world. “We can figure that out later. Prob’ly shouldn’t go with anything obviously to do with vampires…”
“Kaitlyn!”
“But yeah, we could make this work. And you’ve already got the most important superpower, least from what I’ve seen. Okay, yeah. You’ll need a gimmick, too.”
“Kaitlyn, no!” I yelled at her. “I’m not a hero, I’m a monster!”
That seemed to get through to her. “What?” she said, staring at me. “Why?”
“’Cause… ’cause I’m some… walkin’ corpse that drinks blood, and…” And right then, I started crying pretty much out of nowhere. It just… really hurt. Kaitlyn was thinking of me like some kind of good guy, when I wasn’t. Vampires aren’t heroes. Even ones like Pops, well… we couldn’t really do good things, just less shitty things, and maybe help if helping meant killing someone. But we weren’t going to be superheroes or vigilantes or whatever. We’re all monsters, and dressing up and playing superhero wasn’t going to change that. Vampires are monsters. “… and… and I beat people up and drink their blood, and… I… I’ve killed people I think, and… Jesus, now I’m cryin’ again…” I started trying to wipe the tears off my face, but vampire tears, so I just wound up smearing blood around. Yuck.
Kaitlyn walked over and put her arms around me. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m here.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll… get blood all over you again…”
Kaitlyn didn’t let go of me, so I ended up hugging her back… and crying into her shoulder for a while, which pretty much ruined her shirt, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like… I’d had another idea turn out being just about the worst way to fix something again. I just wanted to… figure out a way to keep my clothes from being fucked up by assholes, and instead I’d gotten Kaitlyn thinking I was some kind of hero and not a monster. And even with everything else, I was still feeling embarrassed because I felt like I was dressed up like a stripper. After a while, I did manage to stop crying blood all over Kaitlyn. And myself, as it turned out. I pulled back a little and looked at my halter top.
“Shit,” I said. “Now I can’t take this stupid thing back…” Actually, I couldn’t anyway because The Dungeon’s fucking no returns policy, but still.
Kaitlyn pulled me back into the hug. “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “For… bein’ here. And puttin’ up with my shit.”
“It’s fine,” Kaitlyn said. “It’s just a shirt. I’ve got more.”
I squeezed Kaitlyn tightly, and we just stood there holding each other until I calmed down. Well, mostly. After a bit, I realized one of Kaitlyn’s hands had drifted downward until it was pretty much resting on my butt. Wasn’t sure if she even realized it, so I didn’t say anything, at least for a while. But eventually it got too awkward. “Um… Kaitlyn? Don’t feel up the cryin’ vampire chick,” I said, trying to make a joke out of it, even if wasn’t a good one.
Kaitlyn didn’t move her hand. Instead, after a moment, she squeezed my butt. Which made me giggle because it was so ridiculous. But I felt better, so that was okay. We stayed like that for a little longer, then I changed back into normal clothes and the halter top went back into my dresser. After I cleaned it of course. Kaitlyn’s shirt couldn’t be saved, but like she said, she had others.
Another Kaitlyn problem was… well, I dunno whose fault it was, but it was definitely her taking something too far. Few days later, I woke up at dusk with more blankets and stuff on me than I remembered putting over me the night before. Which was weird, but whatever. I pushed them off me and crawled out of my closet like usual. Then I saw it. Someone had put a stripper pole into our apartment. An actual pole, made of brass, bolted into the floor and ceiling. It even had a… I guess they’re called crash mats. But this wasn’t some portable thing that could just be taken out. It’d been bolted in with power tools or whatever. Wasn’t going anywhere.
And that bothered me. Okay, yeah, the fact that our apartment now had a permanent fucking stripper pole in it was an issue. And how stuff like my dresser had been moved around so it’d fit and there’d be room to use it. But we didn’t have any kind of power tools, and neither of us was good with that sort of thing, and the stuff that’d been moved was stuff that me and Kaitlyn couldn’t move working together. Which all meant someone’d been in our apartment during the day. While I was asleep. Which was a problem. But I hadn’t heard anything and woken up, including fucking power tools and enough people to move around furniture. So there was, like, several different things that were a problem all at the same time, and they were all because of that fucking pole.
Kaitlyn wasn’t home, but I was pretty sure who’d had it put in. I grabbed my phone and called up Kaitlyn, glaring at the stupid pole. This was going to need a lot of explaining.
“Hi, Misty,” Kaitlyn said when she picked up.
“Kaitlyn. Hi,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “So… what the fuck is this?”
“I dunno,” Kaitlyn said. “What’re you looking at? I can’t see over the phone.” She was using her sort of but not really pretending to be innocent voice. It’s hard to describe, but I’d gotten to know her well enough to know when she knew I knew she was just playing innocent.
“What I’m lookin’ at, smartass, is the stripper pole someone installed in our apartment.”
“It’s a stripper pole.”
“Yes, I see it’s a fuckin’ stripper pole.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I wanna know why the fuck it’s here.”
“Don’t you hafta audition? So you need a routine. And practice.”
“Uh huh,” I said. Mr. Lewis musta said something to her at work. “How’d it get in here?”
“Mike and a friend of his put it in for me.”
“Get ’em to take it back out.”
“Aww,” Kaitlyn said. “But they just finished, and I’m treating them to dinner for all their hard work. Do you really wanna tell them they gotta take it all back out again?”
“Well, I don’t want it here.”
“Don’t you need to practice?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “I didn’t say yes, Kaitlyn,” I said. “I said I’d think about it.”
“Not what Mr. Lewis said.”
Well, that figures. Far as that wrinkly old pervert was concerned, I’d already decided I was going to be dancing around naked for him and anyone who came to the club. Didn’t even want to think about what he’d told the other girls. Or customers. Ew. More I thought about it, the more… angry and embarrassed I got. Is there a word for angry and embarrassed at the same time? That’s how I felt, and it kept getting worse… until somehow it just didn’t matter anymore. I was too pissed.
“You know what?” I said into my phone. “I don’t care. I don’t fuckin’ care. Deal with that later. Right now, though… Mike was in our apartment? With a friend? Do I need to count my underwear? Or were you watchin’ him? When did you even have him do this?”
“I was watching,” Kaitlyn said in a being patient voice. “They put the pole in while… you were out. Visiting your mother.” She meant while I was dead, but she didn’t want to say that in front of her brother, his friend, whatever restaurant they were at, and the whole world. So, yeah, Kaitlyn is actually capable of keeping her mouth shut. When she wants to. She just doesn’t always want to.
“Fine,” I said. “Just don’t do anythin’ else like this while I’m dead, okay? I got enough to worry about without worryin’ about why I don’t wake up when there’s power tools goin’ on.”
“No promises,” Kaitlyn said. I could hear her grinning.
“Whatever,” I said. “I just… ugh. Fine. We’re gonna talk about this when you’re back.”
“Oh, goodie.”
“Hangin’ up now,” I said, and did exactly that. Then I went and sat down on my bed and tried to look up stuff on my phone, but… that fucking stripper pole kept distracting me. Before I got turned into a vampire, if you’d said something that wasn’t alive was staring at you or whatever, I’d have said you were full of shit. Probably. But now… I swear that fucking pole was standing there being smug. Felt like it anyway. Kept distracting me and I couldn’t concentrate on anything I was looking at.
Kaitlyn got home about half an hour later. Knew it was her before she came in because I heard her brother screeching his tires like an idiot as he drove away. I got off my bed and stood looking at the door with my arms folded, so Kaitlyn would know I was still annoyed. After a moment, just long enough for her to take a deep breath as it turned out, the door opened and Kaitlyn walked in.
“Hi,” I said. “Good day at work?” May as well get the small talk out of the way.
“It was okay,” she said. Seemed to be ignoring my less than happy expression.
“Uh huh. So what did Mr. Lewis actually tell you?” Small talk over.
Kaitlyn shrugged, putting her stuff down. “I got a present for you.”
I sighed. “Kaitlyn, we need to talk about this.”
“About what?”
“About this… this pole!”
“I though you liked poles,” Kaitlyn grinned at me.
“What? I…” I said. Then I got the joke. “Ugh, not what I meant.”
“I’m okay with talking about poles, if that’s what you want,” Kaitlyn said, still grinning.
“Oh, shut up.”
“We can talk about that specific pole, which isn’t attached to a guy,” Kaitlyn said. “But first, let me give you your present.” Kaitlyn pulled what looked like a CD case out of her purse and handed it to me. I took it and… well, it wasn’t marked. Kind of looked like a bootleg, or like someone had burned a copy of a DVD, because the disc inside was blank and the movie cover thing was just a folded up printout. I glanced over the printout and looked up at Kaitlyn.
“Nice bootleg box,” I said. “This printed from Rotten Tomatoes?”
Kaitlyn just grinned at me like she did when she’s made a joke I haven’t gotten yet. I looked back down at the printout. Had to be something there I’d missed.
“’An evil vampire princess and her bloodsuckin’ stripper sidekicks…’” I read out loud.
“You wanna be the princess or the stripper sidekick?” Kaitlyn asked me, still grinning.
See what I mean about how annoying Kaitlyn can be? She’d probably been sitting on that joke all day. Normally I’d… well, I’d start yelling or something. But I felt the animal side coming on, and I decided I’d probably better just calm down, so I dropped the case and just… walked outside and slammed the door behind me. Didn’t go far, just along the parking lot. The landlady’s corgi started barking like usual, and that made me mad, too, but… I calmed down. I’m not an angry person normally. But the whole vampire temper thing was making it real easy to get annoyed, and Kaitlyn could already be annoying as it was, so… maybe I needed to remind her about vampire tempers. Nicely. When I’d calmed down. I walked back towards our apartment, though, because I could hear our landlady trying to shush her corgi, and the little hairball wasn’t having any of it while I was still nearby.
Eventually, I calmed down enough to go back inside. Kaitlyn was laying on her bed in just her underwear and… I guess the vampire was still paying attention because… she looked good. I caught myself staring and shook my head to clear it. Last thing I needed, you know? “Put on some clothes,” I said and stomped into the bathroom. Not for any reason, just to… calm down. Again. Fuck the vampire.
When I came back out, Kaitlyn was in the same position, laying on her bed and looking at her phone. But she’d put on actual pajamas, so at least that was better. She seemed like she wasn’t really paying attention to me, but… I kind of doubted that. I walked over and sat down on my bed facing her. She didn’t say anything and instead pulled out a remote control and pointed it at me. Or, well, at the TV and DVD player behind me.
“Kaitlyn…” I said.
“Movie first,” she said. “Then we talk.”
I sighed and started reaching for the remote, which of course she moved out of range, but then she looked at me and said, “Please?” So I decided to play along for now.
I’m… not even going to talk about the movie. It was… one of those movies I think only exists to have sexy women running around doing sexy things in sexy clothes. But it only lasted an hour, so it was short. And we didn’t really wait for it to end to start talking anyway. Kaitlyn started it.
“I saw how you looked at me,” she said. “I didn’t mind.”
That figured. She went right to the one part I was least comfortable with. I sighed. “Yeah, well… my animal side was awake. That’s why I went outside. And… it doesn’t care about some stuff.”
“Gender,” Kaitlyn said.
“That. You bein’ my friend. Lotsa things.”
“I’m sorry.”
I sighed again. Got to be honest, I did feel bad. Maybe before I did kind of just… let stuff happen to me sometimes because I wouldn’t get mad. But now… was a lot easier to get annoyed. “Me too,” I said. “Just… try to remember that I got this thing that… makes me angry. Okay?”
“Okay,” Kaitlyn said. “I can get Mike to take the pole out if you want.”
I looked over at the thing. Now I was thinking about it… okay, sure, I wasn’t happy about it. But I wasn’t really mad either. So maybe how I was acting before was because of my temper. And it was true that I’d probably need it to practice. If I decided to take the job. “Nah,” I said. “Leave it.”
“You sure?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Might need it,” I said. “And… whatever that old pervert said, I haven’t taken the job. I’m still thinkin’ about… if that’s what I wanna do. Or if I could find somethin’ else.”
“You don’t hafta find a job,” Kaitlyn said.
“I kinda do. My bank account isn’t gonna last forever, and you can’t make rent by yourself.”
“What about the assholes?”
“I been lucky,” I said. “And eventually there’s gotta be one that’ll go to the cops anyway.”
Kaitlyn nodded. “I gotcha,” she said.
Rest of the night was us sort of having… just after argument friend talk. Sort of feeling out how the other felt, not really talking about anything important. And not talking about that movie.
But I guess this also sort of brings up the last Kaitlyn problem. She didn’t seem to care about my animal side and the… stuff it made me do sometimes. Made me feel. Like… okay, a little while ago, I talked about how the only thing Kaitlyn being bisexual changed was that we didn’t walk in on each other in the bathroom, right? Well, that’d stopped. Now sometimes she’d walk in on me when I was in the shower or whatever. And she… well, we’d have different social lives sometimes. Go out and do stuff without the other one. But now… it was like she didn’t want to go anywhere without me, and if I wasn’t going out, she’d stay home. Mostly. But I didn’t let her come with me when I was hunting because… I still didn’t want her to see me like that. And maybe she didn’t really understand what being a vampire really meant. How… we could be monsters. Even me. I mean, I beat up people and drank their blood. But she never saw me like that, so… I guess she didn’t really believe it.
Or maybe she did, and that was more worrying. I mean… what if she was actually attracted to that? She always did seem to have… a thing for more dangerous guys. And girls. And she didn’t really seem to care how much of a criminal asshole her brother Mike was. So if being a vampire put me into that category… well, I’d have to do something about that. There’s a difference between just… human criminals and vampires. Maybe I’d need to actually tell her about some of the more twisted shit Victoria told me about the stuff some vampires did.
Anyway, the only other thing I had to complain about was… kind of specific to the way I’m handling being a vampire because it has to do with muggers, robbers, and the other criminal assholes that I was using for a food source. I suppose I could just talk about it, but there was one guy right about this point that more or less managed to hit all the things I want to say, so I’ll just talk about him.
I was wandering around in bad parts of the city at night like usual. You know… girl out jogging alone, listening to headphones and not paying attention. Most muggers try to be all sneaky and shit when a victim’s coming by. I guess this guy was too, but I could actually hear him wheezing from a little ways away. Okay, normal humans probably couldn’t, but still. Then he stepped out of the alley he was in right in front of me and… alright, I know it isn’t right to fat shame people, but this guy? Damn. He was a little shorter than me, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he weighed twice as much. So, yeah, complaint number one, if someone’s going to pick a job where they got to expect some kind of effort, like trying to overpower and rob people for example, it’s best to be in some kind of shape. I could have just outrun the guy. You know, if I wasn’t actually mugging him.
“Hand over your wallet!” he said. That’s complaint number two. I get that criminals aren’t usually the sharpest tools in the shed, but they all say the same shit. And it gets old. It’s worse if it sounds like they got their idea from a mugger in a TV show whose job is to get beat up by the hero to show his street fighting cred. This guy wasn’t impressing me, so I decided to give him some shit.
“Or what?” I asked. “You’ll eat me?” Not nice, but like I said, he wasn’t impressing me.
“Or I’ll shoot you, bitch!” he said, and pulled a gun out of his pocket. So he got a couple of points there for at least having a weapon that’d make up for his weight.
Still felt like giving him shit, though. “Oh. A gun. Wow.”
“I’m not fuckin’ around, bitch!” he said. His eyes were starting to bug out a little.
“Yeah, heard that before. Ooh, I’m real scared.”
“You’ve been mugged before?”
“Assholes like you try to mug me a lot,” I rolled my eyes. “Doesn’t work.”
“Why?” the guy asked. “Do you run away?”
“Nope,” I said. “Mostly I just hit ’em. Like this.” And I smacked him as hard as I could in the face. He went down with just that, but it must have mostly been shock because he started trying to get up right away. Or maybe all his padding sort of absorbed the hit. Ugh, okay, that’s not PC. Shouldn’t be fat shaming people. Even muggers.
“Just stay down,” I said. “This doesn’t hafta be…”
I guess that caught his attention because suddenly he pointed his gun and shot me right in the stomach. I mean, I was pretty close, so I guess it’d be hard to miss me. And yeah, it hurt. It always does. But that just made me mad.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said. “See what you did?” I held out the new hole in my hoodie.
“But I just shot you!” the… plus-sized person said. I ignored him.
“I literally just bought this yesterday,” I said. “Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to actually find clothes I like in stores I can go to? And now I gotta fix the hole.”
“But… I just shot you!” he said again. I wasn’t done complaining.
“I bet there’s…” I twisted my hoodie around. “Yeah, look, there’s another hole in the back too. Fuck you, asshole. Why couldn’t you just stay down?” Then my brain caught up. “Shit. I’m not supposed to let you humans see…” I shut up. This was bad enough thanks to my big fat mouth.
“What are you?” Now the… full-bodied fucker sounded scared. Of me.
“I’m…” I started. Well, he didn’t seem too bright. So maybe something stupid out of a TV show might work. “Um… I’m… a bad dream. You’re just dreamin’ this.”
“I am?” he said. Either the… large person was really dumb, or when I smacked him did more than I thought, because he got this confused look on his face on top of being scared.
“Yeah,” I said. Well, may as well play along now. “You’re gonna wake up later and your money and your gun will be gone ’cause you… got jumped by two guys. Yeah. They knocked you out and robbed you while you waitin’ to rob someone else. Then… you dreamed it was some chick ‘cause… I dunno, you got mommy issues or somethin’.”
“Don’t think I believe that,” the… husky mugger said.
“I don’t fucking care what you believe,” I said.
“Why?”
“’Cause you’re a mugger, asshole.”
“What? But…”
“Oh, shut up,” I said. “Actually, never mind, I’m just gonna knock you out now.” Then I hit him on the head again, and kept doing it until he finally passed out. Complaint three? It’s kind of dumb to complain about, but I’m tired of how stupid criminals are, and I didn’t meet a lot of other people besides vampires, so it was getting real old by that point.
“Jesus,” I said, when the… fluffy fucker was finally out. “I know he’s a thug, but why do they gotta be so stupid?” I didn’t expect an answer, but I felt like it had to be said, you know? I looked around and, yeah, all the work I had to put into knocking his… overweight ass out meant we were now out in the open a few feet from the alley. This wouldn’t work for my drinking from him. So I grabbed his ankles and dragged him off the street. Tried to.
“Oof,” I said, trying to shift his… okay, look, this is stupid. He was fat, okay? Really fat. “Damn, boy, lay off the tacos.” I got him into the alley eventually without him waking up. I took the cash out of his wallet, dropped his gun down a drain grate, then looked around. “Okay, Gun down drain, wallet, fat fucker dragged into alley… and now…” Then I leaned over him and bit his neck.
His blood still tasted amazing. Blood from a living human always did. But in his blood… well… I could taste he wasn’t healthy. Like I could taste the cholesterol and sugar in his blood. And that’s complaint number four. Lot of people just didn’t eat healthy, and in some cases, I could taste it. Seriously. And yeah, I do know I’m kind of saying something like that people should live healthier just in case some vampire bites them because the vampire won’t like it. Vampires would still drink their blood, because it’s blood. But at least their blood wouldn’t remind me of a donut slider. I’d only had one once as a human because they’re fucking disgusting. And here I was sort of tasting it again. Gross.
Complaint five came up right about then too. Because the fat fucker smelled bad. Not like homeless bad, but… like he’d sweat, then used that horrible body wash shit instead of showering, then sweat a bunch again. Over a few days. His neck actually left a bad taste in my mouth when I pulled back from drinking his blood. Honestly, it was like being a dirty crook is taken too literally in a lot of cases, and it fucking sucks if you gotta do something that puts your mouth on that kind of guy.
Okay, that sounded bad. But I think I made my point.
