DO VAMPIRES GET BLOOD CLOTS?

“Well, this is awkward,” I said to him.
“To say the least,” he said.

When I came to, I was floating on the ceiling of my southern gothic mansion. Once I registered where I was at, I looked down and saw myself, in mid-conversation with The Hot Vampire. He was standing just inside the doorway of the house. This did not surprise me as I have recently inhaled season one of True Blood and have been frequently falling into dreams about being somewhere other than where I’m currently at, often while vampires are present.

So there I was, in my southern gothic mansion, in the foyer—it was expansive, wood floors, marble carvings ingrained on the walls, crown molding, an elaborate parlor to my right, a Gone-with-the-Wind staircase rising into the darkness behind me.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I heard me say. I was wearing a white nightgown, of course, and I have to say, I was surprised I was pulling it off. White usually makes me look washed out. And I get really, really messy really, really quickly. Good thing I wasn’t drinking coffee. Or eating pasta with red sauce.

What I was doing in the foyer of my southern gothic mansion was standing there in a huff, my hands on my hips, just about to cluck my tongue. “I mean, really, you HAVE to be kidding me,” I said again.

Once I saw this PBS special on cuttlefish—they are excellent, they shimmer, they shape shift. The Hot Vampire’s eyes looked like shimmering cuttlefish. “No,” he said, “I’m really not kidding you.”

Since he was already standing inside, I assumed I had invited him in. Yet he was standing there as though he was about to leave. I touched my neck. Same old dumb neck I’ve always had. “It’s not contagious, you know. It’s just a blood disorder, which isn’t, like, transferable. Anyway, whadda you know about it, hot shot?”

“I know your blood likes to clot up when you’re not on blood thinners and runs like water when you are on blood thinners.”
“‘Blood thinners’ is a misnomer,” I snapped.

It is, you know, the blood thinners don’t actually thin your blood, they kinda just stop it from clogging up. But I had to admit, The Hot Vampire’s description of this tomfoolerytastic blood disorder was the best I’ve heard, and I’ve heard/read/researched a lot of descriptions about my blood disorder.

From the ceiling, I could see how The Hot Vampire stood in my foyer—feet shoulder width apart, arms hanging languorously at his sides, lips throbbing, complexion pale, eyes doing that shimmery-cuttlefish thing. This guy could pull off a waistcoat, alright. His was charcoal gray. His ruffled shirt underneath was crisp and not-messy. I bet he never washed a pair of red shorts with a load of whites. What a douche.

“This dream fuckin sucks,” I told The Hot Vampire.
“Ha! Good pun!”
“That wasn’t a pun.”
“Yes it was. Though it may have landed better if you had said, ‘You fuckin suck.’”
“It wasn’t a pun.”
“Yes it was.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Yes it was.”
“NO. IT. WASN’T. AND WHY DON’T YOU WANT TO SUCK MY BLOOD?”

We both stood there facing each other but not looking at each other, both of us shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

Finally he said, “You look pretty in that, um, dress?”
“Don’t patronize me, bloodsucker.”
“No, I mean, you know, it makes you look thin.”
“Because normally I look fat? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Um…no. No, I’m sure that is exactly not what I’m saying.”
“I think it is.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“IT. IS. NOT.” He put his hands on his hips and started tapping the toe of his boot. “This really isn’t working out for me,” The Hot Vampire said.
“Well, it’s not working out for me, either,” I told him.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”

“I mean, it’s perfectly good blood, you know. It’s not like, you know, bad, you know,” I said.

I wasn’t so sure this was a true statement. Do vampires get blood clots? Is it kinda like eating curdled cottage cheese? Or maybe it’s way more dangerous, and I was proposing a fatal experience? Or maybe blood clots are like lumps in mashed potatoes, and some vampires like their potatoes with lumps and some don’t.

“I wish I didn’t just compare myself to mashed potatoes,” I told The Hot Vampire.
“You didn’t just compare yourself to mashed potatoes,” he said.
“Well, I did in my mind.”
“OK.”
“Aren’t you supposed to read my mind?”
“No.”
“No because you think my mind is wonky or no because vampires don’t read minds?”
“Yes.”
(If I was David Mamet, I would write “beat” here.)
“You know, you are not the romantic vampire I had intended you to be when I initially fell asleep on my couch.”
“Frankly, you are not the human I had intended you to be when I coerced you into having a dream about me when you initially fell asleep on the couch.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”

He started moving towards the threshold of the doorway. My southern gothic mansion had really beautiful stained glass windows in and around the doorway. The moonlight was slithering through the glass and painting prisms on the wood floor. It was a cool house. I should have a party there sometime. The Hot Vampire walked over the threshold and down the porch steps. It was a wrap-around porch. I love wrap-around porches.

Vampire fantasies really suck when the vampire rejects you.