I walk out of the maintenance room, veiled in shadows. Slipping right past the bouncers, who don’t see me because I don’t want them to, I stroll – no, strut, gotta strut – down the adjoining corridor and onto the fog-shrouded dance floor.

I scan for you through washes of muted underwater colors changing a hundred times a minute. Purple and blue and green and stark white flash off my nonexistent sunglasses in time with the drum program of “Days of Swine and Roses.” Christian Zombie Vampire... This shit, and the shit dancing to it, make me want to puke, though my reaction appears to you as a sexacious moue.

I brush past one particularly annoying little poser, a pallid little black-clad creep. His teased black hair is caked with dye, and his pimply face is smeared with white greasepaint. I can’t tell whether he’s trying to look like Robert Smith or the Joker. He’s got a drink in each hand and as I pass him I drop the Mask for less than a split second – almost subliminally fast. The drinks go flying across the floor and the kid’s face contorts in shock. Hope he pissed himself. Demon Lover once more, I glance back at him and smile sweetly into his disbelieving stare. He doesn’t even notice the snickers of all the people who saw him spill his drinks.

But enough of pleasure. You’re my business tonight. I cut through the crowds near the bar, feeling hungry eyes upon me, I could have just about anyone in the club tonight. Your place or mine? Oh, pardon the piles of excrement and putrescent cats.

But I don’t want just anyone. I want you. I know you’re here somewhere. I silently reject three imploring stares as I sweep the bar. And there you are, writhing seductively under the strobes.

Oh, you are perfect. Let me guess. You’re twentysomething, but creeping inexorably toward the big three-oh, though you try to pretend you’re not. You’ve got a day job in a bank and you try to pretend you don’t, which is why you’re dolled up like Siouxsie Sioux’s little sister. Yes, you are stereotypically adorable, Neil Gaiman’s wet dream, a cute little Death-doll tripping the light fantastic through the club scene and trying to forget about the inevitable – the husband and the real job and the 2.5 kids and the station wagon and the PTA membership and the couch in the house in picket-fence suburbia where you’ll spend the rest of your life vegetating in front of the TV set till you die. But that’s next year, right! Tonight is now.

strobe lights, no one has to know about all the boredom and insecurity hidden under the leather and d pancake makeup.

Bet you’ve read lots of Anne Rice you’ve read the whole series, haven’t you? You sometimes fantasize about Lestat and wish he’d appear to whisk you away into the night. You’d love to be a vampire, wouldn’t you? That’s the life, right? No job, no responsibilities, no need to deal with all the other annoying people, no wrinkles, no gray hairs, no crow’s-feet. Just endless balmy New Orleans nights of whirlwind sex as the blood runs down your body like the food on that Basinger chick in 9 1/2 Weeks.

Well, it’s your lucky night, sugar. You’re gonna live forever. Tonight you’re gonna find out what being a vampire’s all about.

I wait till the first melodic strains of “Tin Omen” envelop the floor and then maneuver myself opposite you. As predicted, you meet my sunglasses-shrouded gaze with a slow smile that attempts to evoke mystery and reveals only transparency. I thrash around with you and say something [ that you can’t hear over the music anyway, and you nod and

1augh. I move c1oser to you, and by The Time This MorCa1 i Coil starts playing, we’re in each other’s arms.

I lead you off the floor, lips locked. You’re already pretty tipsy, and a few more drinks ensure that you’re trashed. I’m not much of a conversationalist and you just don’t have anything interesting to say, so I cut the preliminaries short and escort you out the door toward my waiting Camaro. You giggle and snuggle into the vise of my arm, putting your feet on autopilot, trusting my 1 You’re pretty drunk, and not that smart anyway, so we’re several blocks into the Barrens before you realize Q Nocturne’s parking lot lies in the opposite direction. As the fist glimmer of alarm illuminates your dull cow-eyes, I decide I’m tired of this game. No one around to hear you except the bums, dear. Time to take the masks off. Demon Lover disappears, replaced by Demon.

What’s the matter, darling? Don’t you want another kiss? A long, slow one? No one’s going to answer your screams, but they’re awfully irritating, so I clamp my right talon over your mouth. I pin you against the alley wall and leer at you. I want you to feel it. I want you to become fear. I won’t let you faint – I want you conscious.

You sob and beat your fists against my breasts. Futile, dear. It’s like socking lumps of gristle. But I don’t understand. You look like a vampire, you dress like a vampire, you act like a vampire, you immerse yourself in vampire chic. And now I’ve introduced you to a vampire – a real, dead vampire. Don’t you want to be a vampire – just like me?