The Mixed Results of a Wampire’s Love Life

Mixed marriages are complicated, especially if one parent is a werewolf and the other is a vampire, as in my case. For one thing, it meant Dad went missing once a month during the full moon. And for another, it meant that our house had bats in the belfry—although sometimes the bats were actually my mother’s vampire friends from college, most of whom had taken up careers in academia, government, and other places with ample opportunity for bloodsucking.

There is a saying among the older generation of vampires: “Mixed marriages have mixed results.” Or at least there was such a saying among my mom’s relatives, usually while they peered at me condescendingly over their spectacles. They had a point, though. As a wampire (an awkward name for an awkward existence), I had a troubled childhood. It involved a lot of howling, biting, and bloodsucking. Breastfeeding for my mom took on a gruesomely literal interpretation whose details I’d rather not dwell on. I probably traumatized her, and that’s why she was so cold to me afterward. Breastfeeding me took too much out of her….

My troubled upbringing didn’t get much better from there. However much I tried to impress the snobs on my mother’s side, I would always be a gangly half-breed (or half-wit, depending on how upset they were) who sucked at sucking and howled with laughter when I was supposed to give one of those snide, self-superior sneers. And to my dad’s relatives, who were mostly ex-convicts, I would always be… well, actually, it’s probably best if I don’t repeat their words in polite company. Some are so bad they can’t even be translated into human language.

So, let’s just say I ended up as a lone wolf. I lived in a secluded Victorian mansion tucked away in the woods of New England, which my mother had inherited from her mother. My dad spent most of his days in his pajamas pretending to be a writer, and my mom spent most of her days pretending to be a mother, which left me to spend most of my days pretending I was a human.

That might seem like an odd pursuit to you, who I assume are human (although as the years go on, it becomes increasingly likely you’re an AI). But if you think it’s odd that I fantasized about being human, it gets weirder. I thought humans were monsters with fingers that could grow into stakes and that they all had an insatiable desire for vampire blood—which sounded awesome. And yes, also unrealistic and crazy. But my mom had problems with projection and persecution complexes. I mean, a vampire saying that humans have bloodlust? I won’t even mention the students she sucked dry or vampirized during her time in the humanities department. But that’s a digression, and I’m trying to avoid digressions. So, back to the story.

It was on one of my many excursions to the Dark Woods, separating my family mansion and the nearby town, that my ideals came into a violent confrontation with reality. That is, I met a human. A human girl, to be more precise. A human girl about my age with long locks of brown hair, bright sea-green eyes, a sideways smile that suggested mischief, and a wild imagination. You see, she was pretending to be… well, you’ll see.

I admit my social skills aren’t the best, and they were even worse then. So, after watching the girl quietly (which I later learned was frowned upon and called “stalking”), I cautiously approached her.

“So, are you a human?” I said.

To my surprise, she shrieked and leaped backward into a defensive karate position. Her eyes were bulging, and she wore a fierce, suspicious look.

“I thought humans were supposed to be ferocious,” I said, eyeing her curiously. She wore a long, pretty dress matching her eyes, and I wondered if she could throw a karate kick in it. But then, I remembered that humans could extend their hands into terrifying claws, and so her karate pose was probably just to lure me into complacency so she could scoop my heart out. Her dark curls and long lashes had already begun pulling my heart out a little—imagine what her stakes-for-fingers would do. Very sinister.

If there was one thing I had learned from my bro dad, it was to not show you’re intimidated if you are. And so, I stood my ground.

“How did you sneak up on me?” she asked, her voice taut and quick.

“Um, I didn’t mean to. I also like to explore these woods and make-believe,” I say. “And I don’t have many friends. So, I probably am awkward.”

“Oh,” she said, the worry bleeding from her face. Okay, as a wampire, that was probably an unfortunate choice of metaphor, but it’s hard for the different sides of me not to bleed into each other. Sorry. “Me too. I like to make believe in the woods.” She swayed from side to side and looked a bit bashful. “And don’t have many friends. So, yeah, hi. I’m Hannah.” She extended a hand.

I stared at it suspiciously. So, she was trying to butter me up, I decided. Get to me to come closer to her claws and then—slash! Rip! Nom, nom, nom!

“I’m graced to meet you, Hannah,” I said, using the formal phrase my mother taught me, and then bowed slightly like one of the great vampiric aristocrats from which I descend.

She raised an eyebrow and then smiled. “I see. You do like to make believe.”

That was a bit hurtful. I didn’t think of myself as make-believing. But then again… if my vampiric family didn’t accept me, why should some random human girl?

“What were you pretending to be?” I asked.

“Oh… you saw,” she said, her cheeks growing rosy again. “Well, if you must know… a moon nymph.”

Now, that was just ridiculous. “No, you weren’t.”

She crossed her arms. “And what gives you the right to tell me what I am and am not pretending to be?”

“I know several moon nymphs, and they’re all lunatics. They once abducted me and forced me to eat my way out of a giant ball of cheese.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to believe that?”

“No,” I said. “Everybody knows nymphs are tied to the nature they protect, and I’m not exactly astronaut material.”

Suddenly, she burst out laughing. It was a bright, crisp laugh with a rhythm almost like a horse’s galloping. Her cheeks turned rosy, and her eyes twinkled at me with mirth. It was utterly terrifying, and I took several unsteady paces backward, which only made her laugh harder. Eventually, her infectious giggles won me over, and I started howling with laughter.

After that, we got along pretty well. She told me about the town she lived in and about her school. I’d read a little about “school” in books but never realized how cruel it was… forcing kids to spend all their days inside studying and then giving them even more to study when they went home. It gave me a new appreciation for how unpleasant my mom’s academic vampire friends were. They were the ones inflicting their interest on the most vulnerable in society.

I looked around, making sure no one else would overhear. Vampires and werewolves usually aren’t up at the ungodly hour of 11 am, but vampires especially are gossip fiends. Once I was sure there were no unwelcome ears, I leaned closer and whispered, “Could you show me your stakes?”

She frowned. “Huh?”

“You know… your stakes.” I made a claw with my hands. Somehow this only seemed to deepen her confusion.

“What on earth are you talking about?” she said, the bemusement in her eyes shifting to amusement. Her lips creased into a smile. “You think my fingers can turn into wooden claws?”

Well, now that she said it aloud, it did sound pretty silly. My cheeks flushed red, and I looked away, trying to find an excuse. At last, I hit upon it. Steaks! “I meant, can you show me your steaks, as in… for dinner?”

“You’re inviting yourself over to my house? Aren’t you supposed to invite people over to your place?”

I looked down, flushing even more now. My cheeks must have looked bright as cherries against the contrast of my pale skin. I had no idea how the human world really worked. I knew I should have read more of Roberts's Rules of Order.

“I’d like to,” I say. “The thing is… my family is….” Is what? I couldn’t just tell her my dad was a werewolf and my mom was a vampire. So, I panicked. “Gluten-free. And antisocial.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want me to come over. We just met, after all.”

“I do, it’s just….”

She smiled. “Let’s meet here tomorrow!”

I nodded and smiled back. “I’d like that.”

And so, we did. And the next day, the day after that, and so on for months. And in that time, we became best friends. I learned about her passion for Russian novels, breakdancing, baking, and, of course, make-believe; I learned she grew up with a single mom because her dad died in a mining accident when she was little and that most of her friends were just characters in the books she read. Most of all, I learned she had an honest, sincere, loving heart.

One day, as the year wore on, Hannah invited me to “prom” with her. When I learned it was a big social event at school, I got pretty nervous. I wasn’t sure if I could be around so many people. But she would be there, and I could tell it meant a lot to her, so I accepted. She threw her arms around me and hugged me, sending a thrill through my heart. Her hair was heavy with an intoxicating flower fragrance.

A week later, as I was posturing in front of my mirror, my mother slipped in. “You smell good.”

“Oh really?” Didn’t see the compliment coming. “It’s Polo.”

“No, that almost ruined it. It’s the blood. Human blood. Have you been feeding?” she asked with a hint of pride.

“Um. No, I’m going to something called prom tomorrow. With a human girl.” I said the words quickly and then preemptively cringed.

But instead of blowing up, she developed one of those cool, calculating expressions. “Oh, is that so? We’ll have to have her for dinner.”

“You mean, have her over for dinner, right?”

“Yes, we’ll have her over, so we can have her for dinner.”

“No, Mom, you’re not eating my girlfriend.”

“Well, someone has to do it. And you clearly won’t.”

“Why does someone have to eat her?”

“First, I went through your things because I have no sense of space and saw a picture of her, and her cheeks are so fluffy and cute! And second, we can’t have a human in the family. We have to maintain our dignity!”

“Why? Because they have hands that will turn into claws and rip out my heart?” I say sarcastically.

“Oh, pish posh. I only told you that to protect you.”

“You lied to me?”

“Now, dearie. It’s okay to lie for your own good. Haven’t you read Plato? Even the humans' own contemporary philosophers say so.”

“I don’t think Plato is contemporary.”

“Regardless. I will compromise. We’ll simply have her over for the first dinner. After that, we can decide whether to have her for dinner.”

The dinner went awkwardly, as you might expect. Hannah was sweet and tried to make polite conversation while trying to ignore the cobwebs draping over the candelabra, decorative skulls, and bats hanging from the ceilings. Meanwhile, my mother made little snide comments about Hannah’s appearance and generally did her best to ask uncomfortable questions.

“This girl is so unwelcoming,” my mother complained as soon as Hannah left. “She’s not making me feel at home. I mean, why on earth would she bring me baked goods? I’m a vampire! All she can do is nitpick and make rude comments. And don’t you feel she’s a bit up-tuck? I think,” she said, waving her finger and working herself up to a crescendo, “I think she believes she is better than us!”

You see… I wasn’t exaggerating about the projection/persecution complex.

But Mom wasn’t finished. “You need to be realistic. You, son, are a wampire, and she is a human. What will she do when she finds out about your taste for blood or that you disappear into the woods on full moons and do whatever uncivilized activities wolves do? More than that, she’ll never understand who you are on the deepest level. And even though she’s a human, and I hate humans, I’ll take her side momentarily: it wouldn’t be fair to her. And besides, it’s selfish. What would my family think if you married a human? What would they think of me?”

I stared at her unhappily, unsure of what to say. “Mother, why did you marry Dad? I mean, you two are so different.”

I half-expected her to tell me she had been a lonely vampire girl who developed an unhealthy obsession with anime to spite her mother’s aristocratic interest in Russian novels and then went furry. But truth is stranger than fiction, and so:

“It wasn’t my fault. Your father can be quite devious when he wants to. He developed an obsession with me and forced me to drink his blood. After that, I tried to drink him dry, but he just wouldn’t die, so I did the tragically brave thing and married him.”

“How did he trick you?” I asked, imagining him as one of those creeps who slipped a bit of something extra in a girl’s drink at a bar.

My mother looked suddenly frustrated. “Oh, it’s too complicated. You wouldn’t understand,” she said and turned away.

“It was pretty simple,” my dad said. “I cut her off in traffic one time. She tracked me down, snuck into my room, and tried to kill me. But she must’ve not realized I was an immortal werewolf, and werewolf blood is exceptionally tasty. We drive each other crazy, but that’s part of why we’re so madly in love.” He looked up at my mother and snarled, and then she gave him one of those looks that meant I needed to get out of the room fast if I wanted to avoid seeing things I didn’t want to see.

Later that day, I met Hannah in the woods and explained we couldn’t be together and that she should find someone else for prom. Her sea-green eyes filled with salty tears, and her face looked so sad. “Why’s that?”

I told her everything about my family, ending with my abnormal condition: “Once a month, it’s hard to control my emotions and sometimes turn into a monster.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Me too. But it’s not incurable: I can be appeased with chocolate.”

“Huh. For me, it usually takes fresh blood. But maybe I should try this chocolate you speak of.”

“So, if that’s all that’s ‘wrong’ with you, I think we can still be together,” she said, her brow arching hopefully. “If you’ll put up with what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Hannah,” I said, my heart full of a good hurt, the sort of hurt that comes from love.

She laughed out loud. “Oh, believe me, there is. There’s something wrong with everyone. If we all waited for the perfect person, no one would ever have babies.”

I wondered if now was the time to tell her that if we ever had kids, she might need to consider formula over breastfeeding… considering what I did to my poor mother.

“There’s one more thing,” I said, pulling out a note my mother had written. I handed it to her.

If you are putting me through hell by marrying my son, you must become a vampire so that I can be your mother-in-law for all eternity.

She looked at the note and then crumpled it up and laughed. “Your mother is funny. She just needs some love and acceptance. We’re going to get along just fine.”

The prom was whack. It was in this place called a gym, and there were so many humans in fancy clothes that somehow covered very little of them. And there was a punch bowl. But the real magic moment happened when:

“Come on,” she said. I could tell by the way her cherry lips trembled. She was trying to look confident to make up for my lack of it. But when she extended her hand, I took it, and the next thing I knew, she had pulled me into the middle of the dance floor.

Something happened as I began to move my body to the thumping bass. I could feel the full moon overhead. Its power ran through me, but unlike all the times before, I found a way to channel it this time into breakdancing. Our movements started to sync, and the crowd and disco colors blurred; it was just me and Hannah.

In the end, we shared a kiss. Our lips brushed and then came together for a brief, sweet moment. I felt so happy. It was as though joy itself had swallowed me up in its warm, blissful waters, and I was floating on an infinite sea.

It was the start of many happy times.

There’s a saying among the old generation of vampires. “Mixed marriages have mixed results.” That may be true, but I wouldn’t change mine for the world. Oh, yeah. Spoilers. We got married in the end. But that’s a story for another time.