Joe Vampire

POST 4



Girl No. 3



As any self-respecting man-child should, I take my share of responsibility for my failures with women. It would be easy to blame it on my attraction to women who use my eagerness to please against me, and that this had inevitably become a source of friction. But I don’t think it was a problem for either of them; I could tell by the way they “let” me do everything for them all the time.

And by the way I just went along with it.

Since they were the ones who broke things off, that couldn’t be it. After a great deal of thought, I believe I finally understand the issue: the common tipping point in both situations is that my idea of the proper comfort level in a relationship was the exact opposite of theirs. In each pairing we threw huge heat at the onset, and we were able keep things at a rousing boil for a good long while. But just when we got to the Soup Stage, the place where everything had simmered down to a comfortable warmth and excitement became more of a rarity, they bailed. As if excitement and arousal are supposed to be a permanent state.

If that were true, Cialis wouldn’t need to broadcast their Four-Hour Wood warning.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m as much for e-mailed crotch shots and indiscriminate sex in IHOP bathrooms as anyone else. But what I really dug was the phase after that, when everything mellowed and the pressure to impress one another had dissolved. I was as happy in the chilled out moments as I was in the moments when we were all heated up – happier, even. For me, it was the Soup Stage that made all the needy pleasing worth the effort; those moments gave us substance and deepened the bond created by all the prior excitement. Coincidentally, these were also the likeliest moments when screwing someone else became a viable – and preferable – option for both women in question.

Bitches.

My last girlfriend – let’s call her Aretha Skanklin – was kind enough to explain her own narrow view of the issue for future relationship reference: I was too childish to know how to sustain a stimulating connection with a grown woman. I was halfway through a Doctor Who marathon on SyFy and a box of Cap’n Crunch when she dropped the bomb and stormed out the door. Otherwise I probably would have helped her pack and driven her to her new guy’s place. Sure, I would have cried the whole time, but I would have helped.

See how sick that is?

The fact that she had already shagged two other guys in the months leading up to that moment led me to believe that she herself might be a little unclear as to how this commitment thing was supposed to work. So I let her walk, without doing much to stop her.

A solid three days passed before I realized what had happened and took up residence under the coffee table.

This was an almost scene-for-scene replay of girlfriend number one – let’s call her Dionne Whorewick – only it was Stargate SG-1, not Doctor Who, Cocoa Puffs instead of the Cap’n, and she had only screwed one other guy… whom she eventually married. And I actually did cry while that one was ending. But she gave no explanation, other than telling me she wasn’t happy anymore. It was a much different feeling when she left; she was the first girl I had ever associated with the word love – not just like or wanna do it with, but actual love. I think it might have been that sort of interrupted attachment that latched me firmly to Aretha, who was the next woman who showed any interest… most likely so I’d lend her the three thousand bucks she needed to get her boobs done. I’ve often wondered if Dionne didn’t ruin me for other women. Not that there’s been a line outside my door, but it would be nice to find at least one who looks forward to the Soup Stage as much as I do. Maybe then I can have a relationship that won’t end in sub-coffee table spelunking and rug burns, with me sucking cheese product from a can. Really, though, that was only two women out of the whole female race. The odds are squarely in my favor. Two down; every other unattached woman in the world to go.

Enter Girl No. 3.

Her name is Chloe, and she hasn’t earned a clever R&B-themed ho’ name yet. From what I can tell so far, she is likely never to. She was possibly the next big thing for me, my muse to rejoin the world of the unheartbroken, to find meaning in something beyond Netflix and frozen dinners for one. She’s an office mate, in merchandising. We’ve had several witty pass-bys at the copier over the past few months. I can tell she’s nothing like Aretha or Dionne, and I’m pretty sure she’s into me (at least a little bit, anyway) based on three specific yet not terribly representative indicators:

• She has never once asked me to help her move furniture, care for her pets while out of town or fund any elective plastic surgery

• She strikes up conversations with me even when it’s clear that I’m not in need of immediate medical attention, and

• She linger looks as she leaves, which means her eyes are the last thing to turn away when she goes. This one is the most encouraging.

I should mention that she’s semi-involved with someone else, mostly because I’d like to think that this is what has kept things from progressing for us. But he’s widely known to be a tool and the two of them are tenuous at best, by all accounts. Still, she’ll have to make the first move, and only after she’s uninvolved, since I know all too well what it’s like to be on the other side of the cheat.

Even a tool doesn’t deserve that kind of mess.

In what I consider one of our more memorable pre-vampire exchanges, I was heading toward the copy nook to send off a fax when she beat me to the machine. “I’ve got next,” I said, and smacked a quarter on the cover like it was a pool table.

She smiled without turning her head. “Isn’t that just an excuse a guy uses so he can buy a girl a drink?”

I smirked, hoping it was sweet and sort-of seductive and not smarmy or stalkerish. “There’s coffee in the kitchenette… freshly brewed three hours ago,” I told her. “I’d be glad to bring you a cup. With a spoon, of course, in case it’s taken on the consistency of pudding.”

“That’s the best you can do – three hour-old free coffee?” She looked sidelong, her chestnut hair hardly veiling her creamy blue eyes, and I sort of lost my concentration.

“And pudding… bonus, right? Like an after-dinner beverage and dessert in one swoop. That has to count for something.”

She finished her copies and looked me straight on. “It definitely does.”

So sweet.

It was a thousand moments like this one that came together to form our connection, a connection I’ve always hoped she feels as much as I do. And oddly enough, she’s the one girl I don’t feel any hesitation about speaking to, and I have no doubt that this confidence stems from the knowledge that she is nearly unattainable.

How ironic that the impossibility of having a thing with her has made me comfortable enough to pursue her, even in my own hopeless, misguided way.

I’d been working up the nerve to give her my number to put the ball squarely in her court should anything change. I’d even composed a few self-protective follow-up comments just in case my forwardness freaked her out. But in some parallel universe where the Alternate Me doesn’t get all spazzy around smart, pretty women once the flirting becomes something more, I wouldn’t need any follow-up comments because she would happily take my digits. In that universe, she’s already called me, and she’s already ditched the tool and turned down other offers in order to spend time with me instead, so we can burn through the exciting moments on our way to the Soup Stage. I would imagine we’re not quite there yet, but in that universe she’s already making my life fully magical.

In this universe, however, I recently became a vampire.

That kind of dropped things in the crapper.

Even before the transformation I made myself come to terms with the idea that we might only be office friends. As much as I would have liked to be outside-of-the-office friends, office friends would be better than nothing. But I might want to hedge my bets, just in case. So with Aretha out of the picture, Dionne not coming back anytime soon, and Girl No. 3 a remote possibility at best, I was seized by a rare moment of confidence in which I psyched myself out of my whole shut-in mentality.

For a minute, the world was my slut-free oyster.

This was why I had decided to take the invitation to Pomme when Michelle – another office friend, and only an office friend, though not even much of that anymore – told me she had a nowhere-near-the-office friend by the name of Dawn who I might be interested in meeting. I figured that aside from band practice and our shit gigs at birthday parties opening for eighties cover bands, it had been a very long time since I’d gone anywhere remotely fun. And I might as well have a back-up plan, in case this universe never catches up with the other and Chloe remains a non-thing. And Pomme was supposed to be a hotbed of Exciting First Moments. This could have been the shot in the arm I needed. As it turned out, it was more like a sleazy, saliva-soaked shot in the neck.

Well… what do you know?

I guess I’m ready to talk about how it happened.