“Why won’t you eat me out?” Katie, blood drunk, caterwauled into the four A.M. graveyard darkness.

“You know why,” Tom replied. He refused to be drawn into this recurring argument.

Normally he wouldn’t have balked at such a request.

Vampires preferred to bite their lovers’ thighs—drinking from that part of the body was considered more discreet than neck marking.

With Katie, his abrasive blond charge of the past two weeks, the situation was different. There was a reason why he’d bitten her neck.

On the night of Katie’s turning, Tom went to lick Katie’s pussy, a prelude to his drinking from her thigh.

Then he’d smelled her.

He’d gagged: Katie, a smoker, a carnivore and a chocaholic, had smelled and tasted like a noxious blend of burnt rubber with an admixture of broccoli and cauliflower ­ the latter two items Tom had loathed since he was a boy. Even after his turning, the mere idea of broccoli and cauliflower made him want to puke. It probably had something to do with how he’d hated his single, Bible- and son-thumping mother, who’d always made him eat that shit.

Tom hadn’t meant to turn Katie, but he hadn’t drunk deep enough to kill her—a mistake he’d made because he’d already had some blood from another rave girl that night, hence his relative fullness.

Katie had been in an in-between state, either bound for a slow painful death, or, with a blood offering from Tom, vampire status.

Tom had been a good sort of guy in life; this nice guy-ness had survived his becoming a vampire. So he’d sliced his veins, let Katie slurp his blood, and kept her under his wing for the past two weeks—a sire training an initiate, something required by vampire etiquette.

Despite her Brillo pad personality, Katie was smart; she listened to her instincts, so there was a better than average chance she’d make a good vampire.

One more week, he thought— “Tom, listen to me!” Katie’s shrill voice brought him back to the present. “If you don’t do me, I’ll find someone who will.”

“Go ahead,” Tom said, tired. “I can’t wait till you’re gone.”

“That was unnecessary,” Katie snipped. Fear laced her voice. She may have been a get-high, come-hither girl in life, but she was still unsure about her relationship with other vampires.

She softened her tone. “Look, you’re not bad in the sack. I mean, you’ve made me come with your fingers—” Tom snorted. She’d made herself come. Just as male vampires couldn’t get it up—vampire bodies were dead (no matter what hack romance writers claimed)—so there was no blood flow, ergo no orgasm. Her coming existed entirely in her mind.

Katie continued talking. He tuned her out.

It shambled out of the darkness, solid, night-black, tall.

Ah, thought Tom. That lurking zombie again.

Katie hadn’t been aware of it.

“Kate, is that you?”

The zombie’s voice was corroded, gravelly.

“Ricky?” Katie was shocked. “What are you doing here?”

Ricky stepped out where Tom and Katie could see him. Katie, sitting on the ground, her back against a tombstone, got up.

The zombie was a recent convert. No more than a few weeks, at the most. Surface rot had set in, but would be held at bay for a little while because of embalming fluid.

“I got attacked by zombies after your party three weeks back. So. . . here I am.”

“That’s why you disappeared!” Katie sounded happy. “I was worried about you!”

Ricky grinned, pulled a worm out of a half eroded eye. “No need for it now.”

Tom said, “It’s good to see you’re, um, okay, Ricky. What a fortunate coincidence that you happened to be passing by, at this particular moment.”

“Tom! That was rude!” Katie shrilled.

Ricky studied the ground, and laughed phlegmatically.

“I didn’t just happen by,” Ricky admitted. “I’ve been working up the nerve to talk to you again, Kate, now that I’ve. . . changed.”

“Understandable,” Tom cut off Katie’s response. Katie glared at him.

Tom continued, “I’m taking off. There’s a vampire bar nearby that I’ve been wanting to visit. You two should hang out. I’m sure you can find something to do, given your predilection for human flesh, and Katie’s predilection for those with that appreciation.”

Katie looked coyly at Ricky. She ignored Tom.

“Ricky, would you still be interested in eating me out? You’d said you would at my last party. I was down with that, but then you were drunk—”

“Your pussy would taste like ambrosia after the things I’ve sampled,” Ricky enthused. “Don’t worry about me eating you, I’ve already had dinner. If I stink too much—”

“I don’t think Katie’s concerned about that,” smiled Tom, thinking: even if she were offended, she’d be one to talk.

Katie glared at Tom. “Goodbye, Tom.”

Ricky grinned. A maggot curled over his gruesome teeth.

Tom, happy for the first time in weeks, left.

© 2010 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.