down with the count
dean strom
Americans have become an ugly race. The women obese. It wasn't like this when I was young in the 1940s. Nor when I was still young in the 1970's. Fat girls were the exception in the 40s and 70s. Today the svelte one is. Now by the time a girl reaches adolescence and desires to be sexy and sport an exposed midriff it's already rolls she is flaunting. Her ass is, in the best cases, merely flabby. And plenty are gargantuan. And goddamn if they aren't mindlessly flaunting it anyway. I don't think they realise they're fat because they're all goddamn fat. I feel for today's boys. Some of them are obese as well but fewer. Boys might still be more active. I'm sure they're just as horny and forced to compete in the pool of fat blabby girls.
I'm a vampire and have been since 1950. Haven't aged a day to look at. I've changed in fashion and have lived fully in all of them. I'm not particularly nostalgic for anything except for the days when women weren't all fat. Now here's the deal. I haven't sucked any fresh blood for three years relying on my stock of refrigerated plasma but I've been getting kind of thirsty lately so I whisk into a small town and step into a bar. I don't know what you know about vampires but this is one bat that mixes the ethanol. The life of your next party might just be a drunken vampire.
I order a bloody mary because that never gets old. You're supposed to think a band is playing but it's really just a guy on a guitar strumming some chords, a female singer, and a laptop computer plugged into an amp. There are about one hundred people. Roughly half are women. That makes 50 women. And out of that 50 five of them are not fat. Plenty are perfectly obese. I spot an empty area with a stool and a place to set my drink. Directly in front are a few tables and the dance floor and a little to the right the "band". One of these five thin women tonight will receive my dispensation.
#1 is clearly in love with her damn little self. Her little damned self as I am about to make it. She bounces and glistens and dampens the dance floor. Her lithe and nimble body celebrates because tonight she is the beautifullest girl. And her neck... My teeth will grow quick and sink deep into this neck. It's long and curvy and her head lollygags above it. Her blonde hair will caress my face with the soft breezes of the cradle while I syphon deep and long from her jugular.
Or maybe the tall one. Choice #2 has short blonde hair but the underside is brown and it is slightly turned up at the ends. She has a large wingspan and on each of her biceps is a tattoo. On her right bicep is a long depiction of a nude Statue of Liberty. On the left bicep is that butterfly that gets around so much. I haven't seen her dance yet. She has passed by twice on her way to the restroom and is seated somewhat behind me to my right. Easy pickings.
Sitting close to the stage is a very thin girl. She's relaxed, animated, and friendly, and sure to be particularly satisfying. I will take her from behind and she will fold comfortably beneath and all but disappear. It will be sweet and quick but the aftertaste might remain for a couple of weeks. She'll purr as she goes softly.
#4 is dark and booby by the bar, surrounded by boys. The only one wearing a skirt. The others favoring small tops and jeans. The only one to have yet exposed her eyes to me and she's struggling to not look.
I can't get a good look at the fifth one. As I turn around I still cannot see her face. A good postured figure.
The waitress is here with my second drink, a double. As she is leaving something fills the area like a stifling shadow of armpit and I focus in to realise it is two fat broads who are occluding the space in an ever crowdening bar. I catch a partial glance at option girl 5 who passes behind eclipsed by the enormous asses. She moves out of sight entirely in the direction of the restrooms. I softly emit a high frequency hum designed to be a vague disturbance in order to cause them to move. They continue to blobber oblivious. Ooomph. I'm a little shaky. I'm out of shape. When running good I can knock a cow over.
All right. So I've been spending more time straightening my pants while watching reality t.v. lately than actively following my calling. But I haven't lost it. Just order another drink and get into it a little. Relax. As the guitarist plays or pretends to play chords from another Steve Miller song option 5 flashes on my cornea briefly again and is gone. A sudden flash of anger uses me. An experience that harkens back. Way back to prevampire. I am never angry. Never. This is remarkable. The two space hogs hurry away.
I can see the dance floor once again and see pigs dance. Stop it. Disappear. Not the whole you. Just most of you. Dissolve into something slender. Goddamn ugly stupid pigs, lose some blob. I suppose this anger is not a huge step beyond amused disgust. I will piss and walk to the restroom, into a stall, unzip and reach in. My penis has withdrawn. It is hardly a nub. I can barely point but manage to pee. And return to my drink.
Choice 1 is dancing with a different guy and it's his hands all over her now.
Number four. Queen of the bar. She's got world-class legs and will always have that memory. Always, that is, lasting a short time while in denial, then becoming a memory of the memory and in a few more short years she'll be dead. Or I could just take her tonight in her prime. Does she deserve me or should I let her rot in time?
Number three seems even thinner than a few minutes ago. Something becoming apparent. She is sad. Her happy making is for the benefit of being social. She carries her sadness with grace. She is a wise and beautiful girl. I think it will be this one. I run my eyes over her body and I can feel each tender curve. I return to the restroom. My cock is back and is big in my hand.
Now to draw her to me. And after we will take a walk and I will administer the joy. But I do not understand. As I focus on her she gets thinner. And thinner. Fading. She is no longer there. The others at her table carry on without seeming to notice. Look away and look again and she is still not there. She's gone. And something is wrong.
Numbers 1 and 4 are still there. 2 is okay. I turn around and see #5. The waitress arrives with another drink and asks if I'm okay. I've never been asked this before. I'm not sure but yeah I'll be fine. She tries to think of more to say but I'll not be waiting around for any waitress to get off tonight and I dismiss her. And then the plan becomes clear.
Number 5 walks into view and past and this time I see her. Though she doesn't look toward me this is the one. She is that right mix of attitude and tit. Her hair falls over one eye Veronica Lake style. She wears dark framed glasses. Braless nipples are clearly upturned. She has the perfect athletic gait but feminine. If I was the marrying type... Chuckle.
I'm not going to waste anymore time tonight on the dance. When she comes back across the room I'll hit her with something that'll knock her out. I need to get one under my belt. Here she comes. Her jaw is set and she traverses the space decidedly and I hit her with it. I shoot all my stuff at her and she doesn't bend. No glance. Not even a blink. And removes herself once again from my view.
The room is spinning and I grab hold of myself and slap some superior being back into me. I don't quite know what has happened here but I'm not going to act like some panicy human. I wonder if there's something funny with my supply of plasma. It might not have been the best idea to have relied on only that for so long. I'll get myself back into shape. Let's see. #3 is still gone. #2, the tattoo girl, has been trying to get my attention but she is the least interesting. She's the kind of girl you expect to fall for a vampire and I have had hundreds of those. But she might have to do. I'll have to go talk to her, I suppose, because I'm feeling too tired to perform with a concerted effort. Once I begin to talk she'll follow me outside. Then we can do the deed and I can get out of here. But there are going to have to be some changes. Perhaps a move to a better climate. Maybe Mexico City. Or Rio de Janiero. Perhaps take up cards again and suckering millionaires. Tease countesses in Monaco. A little classic vampirism. I've been stuck in Mobile too long, Bob. As vampires go I've been acting like the trailer variety. I've had my slump now and I'll get back in the fly. Let's get this night over with.
I plant my drink and walk up to #2 and direct her eyes to me. I lower my chin and the words basso-rumble off my tongue, "You want to dance?"
"No thank you."
At first I don't hear. I am floating my turn toward the dance floor with my hand on her elbow. I am in full Fred Astaire. Then it hits me what she has said. I have heard of this and seen this done to poor slob mortal men and observed near pathetic displays of a man's crushed legitimacy. But I have never heard these words before directed toward me. I have never suffered anything like this moment and I'll take the stake through my heart that you all think a vampire is vulnerable to.
"I said no."
I almost fall but stumble back to my stool while mocking eyes expose my nakedness and tiny bat heart. I'll slaughter Dorothy's little dog Toto with my bare hands. This is not how a vampire should act. I hit my head against the corner of the wall as I slip off my seat trying to get into it. It doesn't hurt but adds to the spectacle. I sit perfectly still.
Finally I long-swallow the rest of my drink right as the waitress walks up. I peer at her not knowing what to expect. But she returns my look with concern and I am reassured.
"Are you alright?"
"Uh no. I'd like another please."
"Sure."
And she brings another.
#5, who I am pretty sure has not seen what has transpired from where she has been sitting, now walks into my area with some other blob girl. They stand around and I begin throwing everything at her wildly. Turn and look at me. Come on. Please. Just a glance. I won't even try to bite. Just acknowledge me.
Nothing.
A guy asks her to dance. They dance. I watch her. The dance ends without a glimmer of an indication that I exist. And I am not sure that I do. I look to the mirror on the wall on the other side of the dance floor. I don't know if that's my reflection or not. She continues to talk to her friend for a bit then returns to her table. But this time it is pointedly that she doesn't glance at me. She has looked at every sector and subsector of her view circle except the precise area where I sit.
I'm not going to just sit and take this. I get up to walk past her. Again not even a nibble. I continue to walk and almost walk right out the door but return, no look, to my drink and finish it. I'm feeling that sort of drunkeness that is vaguely in my prememory and swirl around in my stool to stare at her table. I've given up all thought about numbers 1 and 4. What is wrong? Damn you, bitch. Can't you see me here?
"One more, please."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes. I'm fine. Fine. What? Come on. Oh yeah. I have something on my mind. But it's nothing. Really. One more but make it a shot of Patrone."
"Well... okay."
Yeah. Okay. Ferchrissakes. Bring me the fucking drink. This is a goddamn bar, isn't it? Maybe I'll need to wait for the waitress to get off. No. Fuck that and fuck this version of vampire middle age. Do I need to start taking the bus? Will I incinerate in place? What kind of...? Oh come on. Stop it, you sniveling fangbastard. You exist long enough you see everything. Pull yourself together, you used up bag of soiled tuxedo. What the... The shot is here. Tastes like shit but it's down. Gawd. Now I'm having trouble focusing. What's next? Puking?
I have to get out. "Get some air". What a strange concept. But it seems true. Something seems true in all this false. If I can just pull myself up. Okay. I'm leaving. I'm really leaving. I will just crawl back to my coffin and get some rest. I'll sleep for a week and forget about all this. When I come out next time I will have a plan and my old self back again. Just sleep this fiasco off.
As I blearily stumble forth I can wavily glimpse numbers 1 and 4 still at their places and bitchily so. I'm not sure I even like the taste of women anymore. You can see where mankind has gone astray when you watch women growing fat and rejecting the tenets of motherhood by shmoozing haphazardly their children's fathers. It's really women who despise the human race. It's not vampires. We vampires have a soft spot for humans. Nostalgia become manifest. Actualized. When you're being done, girls, and I'm sucking the last of your few pints of love, because I don't stop at a sip, just remember it is yourself you fear while me you pin it on.
I draw up all my strength and feign savoir vivre and turn to the exit passing what was once prospect #5 and I'm too drunk to do anything about it anyway and it's obvious I am leaving and now she looks. Now she takes the time to look. What, bitch? Do me the fucking courtesy of ignoring me on the way out as well. It must be pretty lonely at the top of your come and get me because it's been damn succulent as the knight in waiting pose at your toes. Now you're just another glance away. So glance away and let me forget you.
Out the door the air isn't fresh as far as I can tell but it is a change and will lift my wings and I'll be away. But not yet. Damn it. This isn't over. It used to be, in the early days, I would surprise them along the Seine. From behind. I'll hide and wait for one. Maybe even a fat one. Things will just have to be done the hard way tonight. Now, where is the best dark corner? Oh ye, the desirable cunt, the figment of my yesteryear, forgive me my disgust or don't, it's too late now, I'm nothing but the horse ear flicking when it must.
chi chi ©2006
