Vampires Don't Dance

Her skin dimpled then caved as the two fangs sank into her.  She let out a sighing moan in the back seat of the Nissan Micra, the sound caught on the window as steam.  It hurt but the pain was dwarfed by her teenage love for the bewitching boy sucking on her neck.  She knew she had been seduced and she didn’t care.  When she was like him they could get away from this place and be together.  For eternity.  Pinned in place she stared through the grey headrest in front of her while the pressure on her began to drain her consciousness.  Her lustful heart pushed a garden pond of blood into the pale boy’s mouth; she idly wondered how long it would last as her eyelids glided down.  Just as she neared her little death the feeling changed.  There was still a clamp on her throat but now instead of dragging her into an early grave it was injecting some new kind of life into her.  Her eyes whipped open and she pushed herself up, gasping.  The teeth held her as her last breath escaped: a long, threadbare, serrated sob.  And then her heart… Stopped.  Her man stretched out on the seat behind and around her, looking contented. ‘How was that for you?’ he asked, smirking.  She slowly turned her head to face him, the expression on her face frozen in a position she couldn’t identify.  Then collapsed onto his chest giggling.  At last! she thought, euphoric with adoration and the thrill of her new life stretching out into the night before her.  She took a moment to savour the evening, when she’d kissed his lips before they were cold as grave dirt but now they didn’t make her shiver.  She took full advantage of this fact.  Orange streetlights shone through the trickling condensation as it disappeared. ‘I feel great! We should do something... Want to go clubbing?’ she asked with alive eyes.  ‘Why?  Are you hungry?’ he queried.  ‘No... But we haven’t been out dancing together before.’ She sat with one hand on his chest and another on hers, still amazed her heart had stopped but she kept on going.  Happy that she had someone else without a pulse for comfort.  He looked like he was trying to decide something, his gaze boring into her unsettlingly as his ancient mind worked.  ‘Yes,’ he concluded ‘Let’s go to the club.  You’re only young once, right?’ He grinned a wicked, pointed grin.

Inside the small town nightclub it was a Friday night, just after payday.  There were too many things happening for anyone to process all of them.  Her beau’s pearly skin reflected the spotlights, making him seem alien next to the fake tans.  He looked uncomfortable.  ‘Let’s get a drink!’ she shout-suggested.  They sidled over to the chaotic bar and prepared for a long wait.  Pressed up against each other (and everyone else) in the queue it was too loud to hold a decent conversation.  Throbs of bass shook their guts and the beat kicked empty bottles around the top of the bar.  When she was finally served she turned to give her man the beer he’d ordered and noticed he was staring at the dance floor.  The usual crowd of shirts and dresses was swaying to the drums, a gaggle of particularly pretty girls danced in a circle around their handbags, drawing their bodies across those they thought were deserving.  In the dark she couldn’t tell who he was looking at or what he was thinking – was he staring because he wanted food or sex or did he just want to dance?  She downed what was left of her Vodka Sorted as a surge of jealously and envy welled up in her.  Her tactics for getting men to do what she wanted involved acting like a sleepy cat: stretching and coiling herself around her target.  When his eyes were on her again she kissed him, happy that the shallow bitches could see he was hers.  ‘You dancing?’ she purred in his ear.  ‘I... We...’ and he shook his head.  She flashed a confused smile and put both of her small cold hands over one of his. ‘Come on.’ she implored and started to pull him towards the dance floor.  He let himself be lead for a few paces then stopped dead.  Drunks barged into them and their hands broke apart.  She grabbed for him again and when she got a grip he yanked her towards him and walked her out of the smoker’s exit before she knew what was happening. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.  ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’ he replied.  A feeling of dread hovered over her.  Was she being dumped? ‘Okay,’ she said, more calmly than she thought she was capable of  ‘What is it?’  He sighed and pulled her away to some attempted privacy from the gassed puffers.  ‘Listen...  Since tonight you’re going to find your life goes through some changes.’ he explained softly.  She still felt like she was going to be dumped but she wasn’t angry or despairing.  The emotions she used to wear on her sleeve seemed more like a jumper she hadn’t worn in a while – in a drawer somewhere.  ‘One of those changes,’ he went on ‘Is that you can no longer dance.’  A long moment passed as she looked at him to see if he meant what he’d just said.  His eyes said he was telling the truth and willing her to believe him.  ‘What?’ she eventually asked.  ‘Because you don’t have a heartbeat now you don’t have any rhythm.  You can try to dance but you won’t be able to move in time with the music.  More than that you won’t find it fun.  I’m sorry, it’s just something you’re going to have to get used to.’  For a long moment his eyes implored her to listen to him.  ‘Right,’ she said with her arms folded ‘I came out to dance.  Tomorrow we can get out of this town, this country and you can tell me all about being a vampire and what that means but tonight I’m going to see off my old life properly.  I want to dance on my own grave.’  With this she turned and stomped back into the club – determined to have a good time.

Now alone, she treated herself to a double voddy, watching the dancers as he had done while she waited.  She tapped her foot against the bar, she still had rhythm, right?  As soon as the drink was in her hand it was down her punctured throat and she was marching over to the dance floor.  The next song was just starting – it was a huge, filthy beat that she loved.  She would wait for the drop, then she would dance.  Enough nights had been spent on this same sticky floor that she knew what she was doing.  How could someone forget how to dance?  As the intensity of the tune mounted she began to sway back and forth, feeling the music surge through her.  The song teetered on the precipice, about to go wild.  If she still had breath she would have held it.  With a blast the club kicked into high energy mode, the wildness of the night people spilling everywhere.  She was busting a move, her eyes closed, feeling the movement of her body.  Of course she could dance, of course she could.  Slabs of sound hit her and she pirouetted with victory, lifting her left foot as she span.  Gracefully she put her foot back on the ground and stepped into her next smooth move, only for it to become a stumble.  Urgh, I’m such a lightweight! she thought, vowing to take it easy on the booze for the rest of the night.  She didn’t want to be dragged home (or to a hospital) with fang marks on her neck.  The dance reeled on around her and she rejoined it.  I don’t even care where he is.  I’ll make it up to him later.  I’m so excited to be getting out of this boring life!  Her thoughts carried her away, she was used to escapism.  Then she noticed – she wasn’t dancing.  While she had mused she had stopped completely and was now standing still, surrounded by the mosh.  She self-consciously started to shuffle in place, failing to blush.  Guys and girls were looking at her with lust, contempt, or cocktails of both.  She felt the pressure and started to dance again.  Her limbs started to move with the beat and she was dancing like she had been but...  Her heart wasn’t in it.  She no longer felt like she was floating on the waves of bliss and noise, it was just moving as expected.  ‘Hey!  Are you okay?’  It was one of her not-quite-friends from Tesco where they both worked.  ‘...Yeah.  Yeah, I’m just having a weird night.  How are you?’ ‘I’m great!  Come on, I want to show you something.’  With this, her colleague practically skipped to the Ladies toilets.  She followed, feeling a lukewarm despondency.  What was there to do on a night out if not dance?  From a dark corner of the venue a pair of eyes stayed on her, flashing with strobe lights.

The Ladies room was like the inside of a disco ball, thousands of reflections showed the bustling activity of make-up applying and drunken bitching.  She let herself be lead into a double cubicle where the flimsy door was locked behind them.  ‘Out with your man tonight?’ her friend asked, smiling that the quiet girl from the cheese counter was coming out of her shell at last.  ‘Yeah.  We’re supposed to be going travelling tomorrow so I wanted to give this place a decent send-off.’  A raucous laugh barged around them, it was hard to tell if the owner of it was even having fun.  ‘Well, how’s that going?’ her friend asked.  She flinched and said ‘Not that great.  He’s taken tonight as an opportunity to tell me he doesn’t dance.  I’d been looking forward to getting on the dancefloor with him...’  ‘Doesn’t dance?  Too much of a hard man, eh?  Well if you’re not dancing you’ll need something else to make your night go with a bang.  Want to buy some eccies?’  Her friend reached into her handbag and produced a baggie holding around a dozen small blue pills.  She eyed the ecstasy tablets intently, they each had tiny rockets stamped on them.  It seemed appropriate, she would be blasting off into the great unknown after tonight, so she bought three.  ‘He might not want to dance but I’ll make sure he has a good night.’ she told her friend and they both swallowed a pill each.  They locked arms and charged back out into the main room of the provincial nightclub, ready to join the party.

 She had been charging about looking for him for an indeterminate length of time when she realised she wasn’t having any fun.  She had expected to have a quick dance with her co-worker and then say goodbye to her forever, falling into her man’s arms as she came up on the drugs.  But after her pal had given her a loved up farewell she had scoured the place and not found him anywhere.  He must be lurking, she thought, he likes to practice his lurk.  She frowned, she didn’t feel like she was under the influence of illegal substances.  She felt cool and calm, totally sober.  As she deliberated on getting another drink a ghastly image flicked over the corner of her vision.  The last person she wanted to see was here and she was alone and pale and off the dancefloor.  Any other time she would hide herself in the swaying masses of dancing saplings and would end up forgetting she was there to conceal herself.  But now she couldn’t stand to feel the ground vibrating through her soles with the music and see the faces of those caught up in the dance, eyes half closed, drunk and transported.  She froze in the disco lights and could only watch as her ex-boyfriend shook hands with the people who were scared of him.  He was getting a lot of handshakes.  She wanted to get away from him, towards her new man that hadn’t treated her like...  Well, the simple truth was that her vampire suitor had looked after her better than any living, breathing man ever had.  She had to find her new man before she was found by her old one.  She made her feet start walking, taking her further into the club.  A dark corner near to one of the bars looked appealing, if he wasn’t in the gloom she could at least search the club with her gaze.  And keep an eye on the guy who had broken her heart before it had stopped.

Staring from the dark she watched a thousand personal dramas unfold, safe but troubled.  Her hand strayed to her still chest, she felt hollow without a rush of blood inside her.  She been lied to.  A lie of omission.  Why couldn’t he have told her what would happen to her when she turned?  And now he’d apparently disappeared, slunk off into the night as a low-lying mist or a clawed bat.  She hadn’t seen him transform but then she also hadn’t expected to never dance away her pain again.  It had begun to sink in, she could put on her favourite song but couldn’t get lost in the sound, couldn’t immerse herself in it and let her body coil around a beat.  Going out dancing had been her escape, when everything else seemed shit she could fall back on what was expected of her as a young woman: go out, get smashed, dance the night away, maybe take home a boy.  It made her happy, in the moment.  A chortle burbled up to her throat with the thought I guess I’ve always been a creature of the night.  But her lover was gone.  Or at least temporarily missing.  Cowering in the dark wasn’t getting her anywhere, it was time to hunt him out.  She came back to her body and shifted her eyes from the heap of dancers to see her ex boyfriend standing not ten feet away at the end of the bar.  He’d snuck up on her, she had been too busy thinking and staring to notice her immediate surroundings.  Her knees locked.  She stared with round eyes.  He wasn’t looking at her, he was slapping a crony on the back and sneaking glances over at a group of impossibly pristine princesses doing shots, eyeing them up.  She couldn’t move, any second he could turn round to her and start to talk to her in that tone and oh God, what was she doing?  He shouted and belly-laughed in his mate’s ear then clocked that she was standing there looking at him.  The smile stayed on his face but changed, twisting on his face like a knife between ribs.  He looked into her eyes and winked, his filthy teeth shining in the murk.  She held his stare, emotionless.  Long seconds passed.  The smile slowly drained from his face, she had never defied him like this when they were going out.  They had both expected her to drop her head and scurry away, or to come to him to see what he wanted of her.  She stood, shoulders back, chin up and gave him a look that said ‘I am not afraid.’  He shook his head and a real frown crossed his face, and then cut through the crowds gathered at the bar like a shark through water.  She didn’t feel anything except the desire to get out.  It was time to find the man who’d brought her here.

Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have been comfortable searching a club alone for one missing person.  She would get in people’s way as they walked and knock over drinks and get caught between dancing couples.  All of those things were still happening to her, but she walked with determination, not reddening with embarrassment or stumbling and apologising.  She wasn’t serene and couldn’t shake the paranoid feeling that maybe she had been left behind.  But her heart wasn’t pounding in her ears in a thunderous rush and she thought her thoughts slowly and without panic.  Maybe I’m being naive, she thought Vampires are supposed to deceive mortals.  Maybe he never really intended to take me away from here.  Even if she didn’t get to elope now she knew that things had changed.  She hoped it was a change for the better.  Then she spotted him.  He was standing at the top of a flight of stairs leading up to another bar.  Dry ice billowed around him, he stood with his arms wrapped round himself, brooding and posing.  As she began to climb the steps he saw her and smiled.  He swooped down towards her and wrapped her in his arms.  ‘How’s your night going?’ he asked ‘I’ve counted everybody in this place twice.  Did you dance?’  She allowed herself to be held and looked at him.  She wasn’t drunk and never would be again.  She hadn’t come up on the drugs and wouldn’t be able to.  She couldn’t get angry or tearful or ecstatic, her feelings were dim and getting dimmer.  And in the end she hadn’t danced.  Not really.  She didn’t feel human anymore.  But being held in these cold, otherworldly arms she didn’t care.  ‘Let’s get out of this town,’ she said to him ‘For good.’