Joe Vampire - By Steven Luna Page 0,4

suits covered my flesh like a second skin, never again to know the feel of online catalog clearance cotton. It was inevitable – I would become darkly suave, fashionably dressed, dangerously hung and supremely focused on what was important in life: sucking on babes. I would do nothing more than appear in their presence and they’d draw to me with their mouths moist and slightly open, as if I were a Coach outlet. Suddenly, I'd be the guy women searched the room to find because they actually wanted me, not so they could alert security in order to avoid being flashed on their way to the parking lot. Suddenly I’d be able keep an erection for long enough to cause an orgasm for someone other than just myself. Suddenly I would be… someone. And not just any someone – a vampire someone, cool and seductive and expected to be so. No excuses necessary for my erotically- charged questionable public behavior… not anymore. I would feed and seduce and leave a trail of female flotsam in my wake as I moved on to find more. Somehow I believed that becoming a creature of the night would make me more of a man.

That was just before I started making bargains with the diarrhea fairy. Instead, as it turned out, This made me shit out my humanity over the course of a week and a half while leaving behind a slew of craptastic parting gifts, including (and mostly limited to):

• Sensitivity to Natural Light – I can totally relate now to the idea that sun exposure will reduce a vampire to ash, though we don’t actually incinerate; we hardly even char. What does happen is more of a savage blistering irritation, as much as an irritation can actually be considered “savage”. It’s like a sub-surface second-and-a-half degree burn that defies all SPFs. Think anal itch over every inch of your body that Gold Bond couldn't even begin to ease, and you’re almost there. It's a killer. And instead of just peeling in the manner of an irresponsible sun worshipper, your skin eventually creates a flaky ashen husk that allows you to molt like a Biblical leper. A burn that can't be comforted followed by the sloughing off of all of your skin – who doesn't love that? And for the record, vampires don’t sparkle in the sun; that is a bunch of bullshit.

• Loss of height – Screw any hopes I had of being taller; it feels like I’ve actually shrunk instead. Pre-This, if I threw some Dr. Scholl’s in my cross-trainers and remembered not to slouch, I could maybe graze the far side of six foot one. Post-This, I’m lucky if I make five eleven in double Chuck Taylors with my hair in a fully gelled spike. Maybe it’s some sort of physical deflation that comes with having your mortal soul removed and replaced with spiritual mush; maybe it’s just the posture of General Defeat. Either way, not cool.

• Flatulence – Oh. My. God. If you ever thought your dog was capable of doing permanent olfactory damage when he let one go, you ain’t smelled nothing yet. Try sampling a Silent But Deadly sneaking out of the ass of a vampire. It’s the scent of rotten corpse times five, and it comes with no regard for what you have or haven’t eaten or how hard you squeeze your sphincter shut. Gross, I know, but we’re going for honesty here, folks, and I would be remiss if I didn’t bring it up.

• Telepathy – Reading this back, it sounds pretty stupid. But it’s true. More than anything, it's an annoyance, since you can hear EVERY thought that EVERYONE has at ALL times. Grocery shopping is sometimes like being in a high school cafeteria wrapped in a disco shoved up the butt of a Super Bowl party and being forced to listen to every conversation simultaneously. Maybe not quite that bad. But close. I’ve spent a tremendous amount of energy these last few weeks learning how to tune out most of the noise while trying to hone in specifically on only the women who might have an interest in getting laid. By me. Which equals none of them, really. So telepathy sucks.

• Insomnia – Forget what you’ve heard about vampires sleeping by day so they can feed by night. Most days I'm happy to catch a twenty minute power nap. Maybe with meditation and a fistful of Lunesta I could come close to relaxing