„I wasn’t trying to show you a comic book!“ said Doug as he followed them. „I’m a vampire! I’m a fat vampire, okay? I was trying to lose weight before I got bitten. Now I’m screwed.“

The girl faced him. A second or so later her friend realized she was walking all by herself. She clucked her tongue and came back.

„Why are you screwed?“ asked the girl.

This was something. Not really the topic Doug wanted to talk about, but at least they were talking.

„I’m…cursed,“ said Doug. He was going to have to come up with another word for cursed. „For all eternity, always alone, never able to quench my dark—"

No, he could see in her face he was losing her. Something else.

"Look," he said, "vampires don’t change, right? I’m never going to get any older, and I’ll always look like this. Short. Doughy. You know I haven’t had anything to eat or drink except blood for the last month? And nothing. No change. If I can’t lose weight on an all-blood diet—"

"So is that why you wanted me to go outside with you? You were going to attack me?"

"No! No, I—"

"You were going to drink my blood?"

Doug dropped his eyes, but then he was just staring at her bare belly, at the hypnotic whorl of her navel that would certainly bewitch him, make him stupid with want. He glanced to her right and noticed a few bystanders were listening, their conversations ebbing away. Beautiful people with faces like flowers, turning slowly to bask in someone else’s blazing embarrassment.

"Only if you wanted me—"

"What?" said the friend. "We CAN’T HEAR YOU."

"Only if you wanted me to," said Doug. "I just would’ve showed you my fangs and then…maybe you’d be, you know"—when he finished the thought it was barely there—"into it."