Losing my humanity

Becoming a vampire was, in a nutshell, too much Bridget Jones and not enough Anne Rice.

I wanted to become a vampire because I was an insecure woman in my late 20s, and I really wanted to be a different person. After my transformation, I saw my true self: an insecure woman in her late 20s who really wanted to be a different person and who now, additionally, needed to eat people to survive.

It was also a lot harder than I thought it would be. The toughest part was finding a freaking vampire. I spent about three months barhopping and wandering the streets at night before I found the real thing. Let me tell you, there are a lot of pale, toothy, nocturnal guys out there. Some are musicians, some are drug addicts, some are insane, and most dangerous of all, some are actors.

It was getting expensive (Los Angeles is one of those cities where cocktails cost more than meals) when I finally realized --newsflash-- vampires don't go to swank places. It's like the opposite of Cheers. They like crowded, anonymous places where nobody knows anyone's name. Tourist traps are perfect. When a traveler goes missing, it takes a while before people notice. You want a vampire? Try Universal Citywalk. I go there myself when I need a quick snack.

I found my vampire in a divey place near LAX. I was in a diner that was kind of a poor man's Hooters (it was called Booties or Scooters or something like that). My tire had blown out on the way back from the airport, and my cell phone had no reception. Booties had a pay phone in the back of the restaurant, and as I was trying to get through to Triple A, I noticed this Michael Madsen lookalike eyeing me from the bar. Kill Bill Michael Madsen, not Mr. Blonde Michael Madsen, unfortunately. When he saw me looking at him, he tucked in his beer belly and lurched towards me, "You need a ride home? I'll give you a reee-al nice ride."

Right.

But then, as he wiped some drool from the corner of his mouth, I saw something. I saw a fang.

There are things you hear about that just don't hit home until you experience them yourself. For example, things in cookbooks. Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Does anyone know what that means? Then you try it yourself, fuck up like a dozen eggs, and then finally, ta-da, your egg whites look like, well, soft peaks.

Or, take the expression "dead as a doorknob." When someone is dying, especially if you're the one who's killing them, you want to know, "Are they dead yet? Are they dead yet?" Believe me, you know. It's when a person stops being a person and becomes a thing. An it. Dead as a doorknob. That's what it was like when I saw fake Michael Madsen's fang. I knew in my bones he was real.

Getting him home was a treat. The bouncer helped me change my tire and pretty much dragged, let's call him Michael, into my Honda. 200 pounds of sauced vampire is hard to handle on your own. Luckily, my apartment is on the first floor. We staggered into my place. I propped him against the kitchen counter. He perked up at this point and took a good look at me. He leaned in and bared those fangs, "Wanna live forever?" Before I could answer, he fell over and puked.

There is nothing as disgusting as vampire puke. Remember the movie The Shining? The part where the tsunami of blood fills the hotel lobby? It's like that but smellier.

I kept going (why? why?). I mopped up. I made coffee. I waited. For hours. I hadn't even realized I was asleep when I woke up on the kitchen floor and I saw that Michael was sipping his coffee and watching me. "Why are you still here, girlie?" he asked, "You should be running."

"I want it," I said. He kind of slid himself across the floor towards me. I tried making fists to stop my hands from shaking.

He was right next to me, stroking my hair. "Are you sure?" he drawled. I bolted, or tried to, but he grabbed my neck with both hands and bit.

Why doesn't anyone tell you how much it hurts?

I blacked out. When I woke up the next day, everything, everything, everything was different.