In Response to Twilight: My Kind of Man, Pt 1

He had the classic look: smooth, clear skin that seemed to glow; a soft, smiling mouth and brilliantly-colored irises, hair styled as if he had just rolled out of bed, except every strand fell in perfect artistic symmetry with the planes of his face, etc, etc. And he was a vampire, did I mention that? The Twilight kind. Say what you will about them not being as great as your classic, fanged night-dwellers, but they're impressive to meet face-to-face.

This is what I’ve got in front of me: sparkling, bloodless conglomerate of everything we girls think we want in a guy. Take “vampire” out of the description and replace it with sensitive/rugged/brooding/charismatic/successful, or whatever we always want to find in a mate, and you see these guys everywhere – in fiction, anyway.

So I come up to this guy. Let’s say his name’s Edwin. And he’s flashing his pearly teeth at me, saying all these things about how he’s so entranced by and devoted to me but it’s too dangerous but he wants to know everything about me because even the middle name of my great-great grandmother is so fascinating to him and what’s my favorite color? Is it still my favorite color now? What will my favorite color be tomorrow? And oh my gosh, will he ever stop talking? He’s got all this hot’n’ready intensity over nothing. Like it’s been waiting to shoot out at whoever he decided was different enough from bland but more normal than spectacular and I just happened to be the person that fit the profile.

Whoops. I’ve been tuning out for like five minutes and he’s giving me puppy dog eyes, entreating me for an answer to whatever perfectly flirtatious-but-gentlemanly request he just made. I blink.

“Um, what?”

“Oh, you silly goose.” Edwin chuckles under his breath and shakes his head fondly. “That’s so like you – lost in all the beautiful thoughts floating around in that head of yours.”
He reaches his hand to brush my cheek – softly, I’m sure, because it’s always softly or tenderly or lovingly, one of those -ly words – but I grab his wrist and bat it away, impatient with pretty much everything about him. If I hadn’t been presented with so many versions of this kinda guy in entertainment lately, I probably wouldn’t be so annoyed with it now, I’m sure. Or at least I wouldn’t understand why he chafes at my last nerve.

“Just tell me,” Edwin finally says, leaning toward me. “Tell me something I can do to make you happy.” At first I want to sigh, but then an idea strikes me.

“Like what?” I ask, wondering how far he’s willing to go.

“Anything.”

I perk up.

“You really mean that?”

His face lights up with all the glory of the morning sun. Or evening sun. Whichever’s more glorious, I guess. “I do.”

Yuss.

I pump my arm in a cha-ching! gesture and pull out a huge, honkin’ horse syringe filled with human blood. “See you on the other side!” A grin splits my face and I plunge the needle toward his chest.

“What the – wait!” Horror-stricken, Edwin knocks my hand out of the way. “What are you doing?”

I lower the syringe and look straight at him, completely serious. “I’m making you real.”

“But – “ His mouth works for a moment. “But I am real.”

“No, you’re fiction. You’re the kind of fiction that young girls and desperate housewives dream about but no one really wants to live with. But this,” I say, gesturing with my syringe, “is full of blood – human blood! With all of its degenerative imperfections. That’s what I want from you.”

“But honey,” he says, and the simpering way he says it makes me shiver and twitch away. Which doesn’t stop him from taking my hand and holding it to his chest. “This is who I am. I want to be with you. Isn’t that enough?” Again, his pinkish lips toy with me in a soft smile. But no, that wasn’t enough.

“Look at me,” I say, “and look at you. Do you see a difference? Besides – “ I cut him off preemptively, seeing where he’ll go with that – “besides that whole I’m a normal human girl, you’re a monster inside deal. Look at me. I’m a person, not some kind of deity. You keep saying that’s part of what you love about me. I believe it. And underneath this sparkling layer of – of fakeness,” I say, waving my hand at his general appearance, “I think the real you might be someone I’d like to see. Is that so crazy?”

“But – ”

“I can’t promise I’ll love you as you’d become. But I do know…the version of you I see now? I can never really love. Not the kind of love I want.”

Edwin holds his breath, obviously struggling. I see panic in his eyes. I can understand that. After all, who doesn’t hide behind a mask of pretended perfection? The version of themselves they think everyone else wants to see? Who wouldn’t feel frightened at the prospect of losing that?

For the first time, I feel a real spark of empathy for him – maybe even a connection.
I wait.

“All right,” he says finally, blowing out all his breath. “I’ll do it.”

I lean forward and really look at him, though he attempts to avoid eye contact. “Thank you,” I say, and he glances up briefly. “It means more to me than I can say.”

Edwin’s mouth flickers into one last – admittedly dazzling – half-grin. “Just…try to remember me this way,” he says, as a last resort. I just smile myself, half-shaking my head, committing to nothing.

I blow out my breath. “Here goes nothing.” I give him a brief, tight hug. “For real, this time...see you on the other side.”

And so, I delicately insert the larger-than-life needle past his shirt, through his skin, between his ribs, and into his anxiously beating heart. I take a breath, then slowly, but firmly, push the plunger through the tube, expelling red, wet, very human blood into his system.