The problem with Brown, the thing that got me into this situation in the first place, is that everyone there sucks.
            Brown was the only Ivy I applied to, much to my parents’ chagrin, because I knew it was the only one I actually wanted to go to. It had this vibe of being the “Cool Ivy,”more laid back than your Harvards or your Yales of the world. Brown wasn’t just for obnoxious future defense contractors, it was for people who cared, people who wanted to actually “do something.”
            I realized pretty much right away that I’d made a colossal miscalculation when I tried to strike up a conversation with a girl in my intro to psych class.
            “You know, just this weekend actually I met Malala,” she informed me after the briefest of introductions.
            “Oh wow, how’d that happen?”
            “We were both at this charity gala hosted by my great uncle, I don’t know, maybe you’ve heard of him…George Soros.”
           Yeah. These kids were rich, like rich rich. Now don’t get me wrong, I grew up securely middle class; my parents were accountants for God’s sake. But at least I went to public school, at least I’ve had a job before. Another girl chimed in, dazzling us with an account of her magique three-month stay in Paris, to which Little Miss Soros hummed along in privileged understanding.
            “There really is nothing better than a private tour of the Louvre. It’ll change the way you think about art forever.”
            “So what did you do this summer?” Paris Girl finally asked me, remembering I was there.
            “Oh, I um…I was working mostly,” I replied, suddenly feeling embarrassed.
            Oh cool!” said Soros Girl (or was it Paris Girl? Not to be classist, but all rich people look the same to me.) “Was it an internship or a corporate position or,”
            “Um…no. I was a cashier at Walgreens.”
            “What’s that?”
            Needless to say, I found it hard to connect with anyone on campus, and so eventually, I started looking for…other ways to meet people. Providence is home to a pretty substantial queer community, actually, so I got myself a fake and started hanging around the lesbian bars downtown.

            It didn’t take long for me to get noticed. I was young and I was new. That’s more than I can say for most of the women who frequented those places. They would come to me with desperation in their eyes, showering me with drinks, with praise, practically begging me to go home with them. I always did, holding their hands as they led me back to their shitty apartments over sketchy 24-hour drug stores, unmade beds surrounded by dying houseplants and torn-up cat toys. I almost never stayed the night; I’d come up with some BS excuse about homework or roommates but in reality, I knew I didn’t want to sleep next to any of these women. They didn’t disgust me necessarily, just upset me, made me realize that their loneliness was my loneliness and that it might never go away. I saw myself in these women, saw my future: underemployed and unfulfilled, living alone, wondering how someone with so much potential could fall so far.
            I was pretty much just as unhappy at the bars as I would have been on campus, but at least I got free booze out of it, and sometimes the sex wasn’t half bad either. Still, it was a very unstable lifestyle and I’d already grown bored of it by the time I met Marjorie.
            Marjorie was femme, but in the 1950s sense of the word. She dressed like it was the 1950s. Big skirt, pearl earrings, white gloves; she was like something out of a movie. It was early December 2018 when I first saw her, right before I was supposed to go home for winter break. She strode into the bar, the cold air rippling behind her, climbed onto the stool next to me, and asked the bartender for a Negroni on the rocks. I just sat there, mouth agape, cradling my bottle of Guinness. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen; she moved with an effortless grace that defied all laws of gravity. When she turned to me, chin resting in her palm, I felt like I might have a heart attack.
            “What’s your name?”I paused, suddenly forgetting the answer. A-Amanda.”
            “Amanda,” she repeated, smiling to reveal a row of perfectly white teeth, two of which were, in retrospect, a bit sharper than they should’ve been. “She who must be loved.”
            “What?”
           “It’s a Latin name, a gerundive to be exact, and it translates to ‘she who must be loved.’”
            “Oh, right.”
            “I’m Marjorie,” she said, presenting a gloved hand for me to shake.
            Even her name sounds vintage, I thought as my trembling hand wrapped around hers.
            “Pearl,” I blurted out. “It means ‘Pearl.’”
            “Very good,” she smirked. “Can I buy you a drink?”
            We spent the rest of the evening in rapturous conversation. I complained about school, she told me she understood, said she knew what it felt like to be an outsider.
            “Queer isolation?” I asked, finishing off my third beer.
            “Something like that.”
            My memories of how I got back to school that night are pretty hazy but I remember Marjorie walking me back to the RIPTA stop, her fur coat draped over my shoulders. I remember under the shelter, right when I was about to get on the bus, she leaned down and kissed my cheek. I would’ve just chalked it up to a drunk wishful hallucination, but when I woke up the next morning, her lipstick was still there.
            I thought about Marjorie for the entirety of winter break, unable to get her out of my head. I thought about her while playing video games and reading Dostoevsky, while working at Walgreens, while I stared into the darkness of my room at night. She’d already sunk her teeth into me without doing a thing, had infected my mind until all I could see when I closed my eyes was her, her face, her gentle hands, the contours of her body concealed beneath her clothes. The day I got back to campus, I headed to the bar. I wanted, needed, to see her again. I braved the late January chill and warmed myself up with some more cheap beer. Then more, and more; it took her a while to show up, and I was thirsty. Finally, around midnight when I’d just about given up, the door opened, and there she was. She was in a different outfit this time, a green dress with a plunging halter neckline. Her eyes met mine immediately. I felt faint.
           “Hello, love,” she said as she took her seat.
            “Hello.”
            “Where have you been?”
            “Home.”
            “And where exactly is home for you?”
            I looked around the dingy bar filled with lonely dykes. I looked back at Marjorie who seemed to shine in the low light. “Nowhere important. Can I buy you a drink?”

            Marjorie invited me back to her place after I realized I’d missed the last bus. I accepted eagerly, both because I didn’t want to pay for an Uber, and because I really hoped this was more than just a friendly gesture. Her apartment was exactly what you’d expect from a woman like her, wool carpeting, saucer lamps, antique appliances. I was too drunk to notice the distinct lack of windows.
            She grabbed my hand and led me to her bedroom. I laid my tired, drunken body out on her satin sheets. Her lips were cold, alarmingly so, and had a distinct iron taste to them that I would later realize was blood. But I didn’t think anything of it then, or if I did I was too drunk on beer and lust to care. I just pulled her closer.
At some point over the course of the evening, she bit me. I remember the moment so clearly; she hung over me, her carefully styled hair now messily draped over her shoulder, her entire body exposed and radiant. And her face, previously smiling and marked by pleasure, now looked deathly serious.
            “I need to tell you something.”
            “Hm?” I asked, my post-coital brain fog inhibiting all my senses.
            “I said I need to tell you something.”
            I propped myself up on my elbows, coming back to myself when I noticed how troubled she looked. “What is it?”
            She took a deep breath, “I’m a vampire, Amanda.”
           For a second, I was confused, then I just smirked. “Oh I see, and I’m your hapless victim, right? You’re going to drain the life out of me while I beg you to stop, going to positively ravish me?”
            “I’m not joking.”
            “Neither am I. I’d totally be into that.”
            “I’m not trying to roleplay,” she insisted, “I’m trying to tell you the truth.”
            “Okay, so you’re not kinky then, just crazy?”
            “I guess vampirism could be considered a form of insanity.”
            “Yeah, it could.”
            “You really don’t believe me, do you?” she frowned.
            “I believe that you believe you,” I explained. “I just also think you might be crazy.”
            “I am a vampire,” she insisted, her face transforming into almost a pout.
            “Then prove it,” I blurted out, against my better judgment.
            “What?”
            “If you’re really a vampire, prove it. Bite me.”
            “You can’t be serious.”
            “I don’t believe in vampires; therefore, I have nothing to fear. But I’m open to being proven wrong. Bite me.”
                        “No.”
“If you don’t do it, I’ll just have to assume you’re either a liar or a lunatic, and in either case I don’t think I’d really want to sleep with you again.”
            She hesitated for a second, furrowing her brow, considering her options. “God, you’re such a child” she finally muttered before digging her teeth into my neck.
            I gasped as I felt her puncture my skin and begin to draw out my blood, screamed out in pain as she drank from me.
            “STOP!” I yelled, and immediately she did, extracting her fangs from my neck and lifting her face to meet mine.
            She smiled, my blood dribbling from her chin. “Believe me now?”
            That was when I should’ve run, when survival instincts should’ve taken over and caused me to bolt out of there, butt ass naked, and never look back. This woman, this demon, she terrified me. Yet, I could not make myself turn from her. She had proven me wrong, had stooped to my level, shown me the impossible. I grabbed her face in my hands and crushed our mouths together, reveling in the taste of my own blood on her lips.

            It only took a few months for me to ask for it. I was failing all my classes and barely even left my room anymore for anything other than visiting her. I’d just come from a meeting with my academic advisor where he warned me I could be expelled if I didn’t improve my grades the night I showed up at her door, begging for her to turn me.
            “Make me a vampire,” I pleaded. “I can’t do this anymore; I can’t be human. You need to make me one of you.”
         “No,” was her reply as she tried to shut the door in my face.
            “Please!” I held it open with my shaking hand. “I need this.”
            “You need therapy.”
            “I need you. Forever.”
            Her eyes widened; the door creaked open. “Why don’t you come in?”
            “You know you’ll never be able to see the sun again?”
            “Dad’s side of the family has a history of skin cancer so I try to stay out of it as much as possible anyway.”
            “Hm.”
            We did this for at least half an hour, this monotonous back and forth. She would tell me something intended to make me reconsider my position, I would come up with some justification for why that didn’t matter. It was exhausting.
            “You’ll watch all your loved ones die. They’ll age while you stay frozen in time.”
            “Don’t actually have that many loved ones, and the ones I do have would’ve died before me anyway.”
            “You won’t be able to eat or drink anything but blood ever again. No more home-cooked meals, no more beer.”
            “My mom’s a crap cook anyway, and you’re the one who’s always trying to get me drunk, I really couldn’t care less.”
            “You’ll have to become a killer,” her thumb paused where it had been caressing my cheek. “You’ll have to suck blood. Your life will come at the expense of thousands of innocent people.”
            “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Marge, but I hate most people. I won’t be too broken up about killing them.”
            “You’re really sure about this?” Her eyes, concerned yet deeply hopeful, met mine, and I knew there was no alternative.
            I placed a gentle kiss on her mouth. “More sure than I’ve ever been about anything. I want this, I want eternity, with you. I love you, Marjorie, you don’t have to be alone anymore.”
            A smile dawned across her face. “I love you too. This is going to hurt. A lot.”
            She dug her fangs into my neck for the second time, slicing through the scar tissue that had begun to form over the old wound. My blood flowed eagerly from my veins and into her waiting mouth as she drank from me, deeply, without remorse. I cried out, first with pain and then with fear, as I felt a coldness spreading through my body, my limbs growing numb.
            “I think I’m dying,” I gasped out as my vision began to swim.
            “You are.” She stopped then, hooking an arm around my back to hold me upright as she bit down into her own wrist, offering it to me.
            “Drink,” she commanded, and I did.
            I took her arm in my mouth and sucked up the blood already flowing there for me. It coated my tongue like honey and filled me with need. I tried to bite down and found that my teeth had grown sharper, sharp enough to pierce her skin and begin to drink in earnest. The gasp she let out when my fangs sunk into her quickly dissolved into a delighted giggle.
            “You’re doing so well,” she informed me.
            I could only moan in response, completely lost in the taste of her, on my lips, down my throat, filling me with strength. I swallowed gulp after gulp, unable to get enough, wanting more of her within me, wanting it with some primal, carnal desire.
            Eventually, though, my fullness settled in and I could drink no more. I removed my mouth from her arm and set it on her lips, greedy, hungry kisses. Kisses that communicated my need to taste her further. She received them gladly and we spent the rest of the evening in a type of bliss I’d argue is beyond human comprehension. Not until you’ve been filled with the sugar-sweet blood of your maker, your lover, your eternal companion, can you begin to understand the intimacy we experienced that night. It is like nothing I have felt before or since. I was in love, I was remade, I was immortal and unassailable. It was the beginning of something new, something I’d been searching for all my life. There was no one else I’d rather be next to.
            I’m sure now you’re going to ask why I killed her. But I’m afraid that part of the story will have to wait for another time; I’m getting quite hungry, and the sun’s almost up. If I were you, I’d start running…now.

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Lee Cheeseman is a writer from New York currently studying creative writing and English at Bryn Mawr College. Previously, their nonfiction work has appeared in Advocate.