Chapter Nine: Hard to Digest

Hector’s Aunt Maxie clasped Verne’s hand in hers and looked to Hector.

"Is this your girlfriend? She's very pretty..."

"Um, Maxie, this is my friend..."

"Vera," Verne said. "Hector and I go way back."

"Just friends?" Maxie sounded disappointed. She squinted at Verne and donned the pair of eyeglasses dangling around her neck. "You've got a very dark aura, Vera. Do you know that?"

"I might have guessed," Verne said. "Can we come inside?"

"A little rain never hurt anybody," Maxie laughed. Though, presumably, she didn't know that Verne's main protection against the sun was a healthy application of SPF-50, now in danger of washing away.

Vampire or not, Maxie's dogs didn't mind Verne. In fact, they downright loved him... this, quite possibly, had something to do with the fact that he still had traces of blood on his hands and clothes. Dharma, the golden retriever, kept nipping and tugging at his mom jeans, and the rottweiler, Namaste, was very interested in the vampire-blood-tinged bullet holes in his sweater. But they were a lot more interested in getting petted and being called good doggos.

They sat down for dinner, with Maxie ringing a little gong at the table for a moment of silence in lieu of a prayer – the gong made the dogs to bonkers, happily howling and dancing around the living room. This was, apparently, part of the nightly ritual. Verne accepted a glass of water but passed on food – or at least tried to.

"I'm vegan," he said, which was about the farthest possible thing from the truth.

"This is all vegan," Maxie countered. "Grown from my and Gloria's garden... even the spices. That chunky stuff's jackfruit. It has a meaty texture, but it's not so different from, like, avocado. Go on, eat! You'll love it."

With some reticence, Verne took a bite... and found that it wasn't bad at all. He took another bite, his face lighting up in a genuine smile as he tried to make sense of why Maxie's 'Caribbean vegetarian curry' didn't taste like despair and ashes. He recalled eating his father's blood sausage, how it had tasted ashy and mealy at first but grown more and more palatable as he'd devoured it. He speculated that, when he was fully sated on blood, maybe regular food would taste pretty normal. He ate a small portion, relieved that he might actually enjoy regular food now and again... and would later be relieved that he'd only consumed a small portion, as all of it would pass through him within a few hours, mushed to a pulp but almost entirely undigested. Vampires, it turned out, could eat food with no issue, but they sure couldn't digest it.

+++++

Sometime during supper, Verne's phone had started buzzing, but he'd long been indoctrinated into the Vera clan's rule of no phones at the dinner table. It wasn't until an hour later, when the veggie curry started to make itself urgently available at the other end of Verne's digestive system, that he thought to check on what the dozen or so messages were about.

He was sitting on the toilet, pondering how the stuff coming out could smell exactly like it had coming in and puzzling over his new anatomy, which he'd tried to ignore all day. One of the strangest things about his transformation was how normal everything seemed. How, when he was lost in thought, it was easy to forget that he was a female vampire rather than a male not-vampire (mortal? human?... were vampires not human?). It was strange looking down at female anatomy and slim, well-toned legs, smooth and apparently hairless. He didn't even have the tiny, downy hairs that very un-hirsute Lisa had. His skin wasn't exactly colorless, but it was very pale, containing none of the flush of normal blood, nor any of the usually-imperceptible discoloration of blood vessels beneath the surface. His phone buzzed for the third time, so he retrieved it from his mom jeans' back pocket, annoyed at how the device seemed cumbersome in his smaller hand.

L: <Verne I need u to call. It's important, Lisa had texted two hours and change ago. Uh-oh. That didn't sound good... especially not when you considered the next message five minutes later.
L: <I know ur out from work... please pick up.
L: <Verne pls we need to talk.

Shit. He hoped she meant texting-talk rather than talk-talk... his voice was distinctly female, a lot higher than his old voice, with a kind of silvery clarity he'd have found attractive if it wasn't coming from his own throat. How was he going to break the whole being-a-girl-vampire thing to her? It must already seem to her like he was avoiding her (which he wasn't), so he replied:

V: <Sorry, crazy shit happened to me today... had to go to urgent care – not NVC related, he texted.
V: <I promise I'm not avoiding you. I hope everything is ok.
V: <Let me know what I can do to help.
V: <I love u bae. Pls let me know what's up.

He knew she'd seen his messages because the little check-mark went dit-dit-dit down the conversation history, indicating she'd read them. He sat for a minute, staring at his phone and trying to ignore that he was weathering a relationship crisis while sitting on the porcelain throne and passing undigested Caribbean veggie curry on account of being a girl vampire. Then, finally, after two interminable minutes, he got the '…' animation of her writing a message.

L: <I don't think u should come to K-ville in 2 weeks, she said. What the fuck... was she breaking up with him?
L: <Maybe we should break up. Shit! She did want to break up... was it something he'd done? He started to compose a message to ask, but she beat him to it.
L: <It's not anything u did. Still love u.
L: <I had a mini-stroke yesterday

Verne was so surprised, he dropped the phone... and caught it a fraction of a second later. Vampire reflexes to the rescue. A mini-stroke? Lisa? She was only as old as him... three months younger, actually. He felt the urge to cry, and then he did… his eyes teared up. His vision tinged pink – vampire tears, apparently, had an inky violet hue. Go figure.

L: <It's not that bad, she continued.
L: <Not yet.
L: <I don't want u to see me turn into a Nick Desmond

Verne's fingers flashed across the keypad.

V: <OMG
V: <Shit, Lisa. I'm so sorry.
V: <I have to see u
V: <I'm coming tonight.

L: <Vernon
L: <Don't

He didn't care what she said. He didn't care that she didn't want him to, nor that he'd have some very serious explaining and convincing to do. Verne wasn't at all sure that he was in a position to help, but for the first time in his life he might be, and he was damn sure going to try.

Once all of the mortal food had passed through him, Verne wiped, washed his hands, and then stumbled out of the bathroom, visibly upset.

"Too much spice for you?" Maxie asked.

He looked to her and allowed himself a feeble laugh. He'd hardly even noticed the spice. "My girlfriend is sick," he said, blotting at purple tears. It probably looked like streaked mascara. "Like, really sick. I need to go to Knoxville."

Maxie nodded sympathetically and looked to the wall clock. It was almost 8 pm. "Give me twenty minutes to get ready and we'll head out."

"You'll drive me to Knoxville? But... you hardly know me," Verne said.

Maxie shrugged. "I'm sure we'll get to know one another in the car." She turned and shouted down the hallway. "Hector! Vera and I are going out for the night! Look after Bella and Stella and the dogs, ok?"

"Who are Bella and Stella?" Hector called back.

"The tarantulas! They're creeping around here somewhere. They weren't expecting guests."

"Really?" Hector's head popped out from the guest room, concern rising in his voice. "Tarantulas? Wait, Maxie! Really?"

+++++

Maxie's car was a thirty year-old Volvo with 206,000 on the odometer, doors of four different colors, and a faded Nader/LaDuke 2000 bumper sticker. By the time Verne clicked his seat belt, it was just past eight thirty in the evening and the rain had slowed to a pleasant patter. Verne had taken a shower, wanting to get the feel of blood and Caribbean curry off of himself. Somebody had cracked the door open as he showered and stepped in for all of two seconds, but he'd paid them no mind – even Hector wasn't dumb enough to try to peep on him, and Maxie seemed to have a loose notion of personal boundaries but a strong notion of personal respect. Verne liked her a lot. When Verne stepped out to dry himself off, the bathroom sneak and Maxie's fuzziness with personal boundaries became evident: while he was showering, she'd swapped his change of 'mom' clothes out for a better-fitting and more fashionable set: bikini briefs, black leggings, and a long-sleeved jersey shirt in aquamarine and off-white.

"I thought you'd like those better," Maxie said in the car. She pulled out onto the old Cleves Highway headed south toward Wilmington, forty miles before their long drive west. "Sorry… I wasn't sure whether Ellen's bras would fit, but you weren't wearing one anyway. Looked like you were wearing your mom's clothes... I'm guessing you're running away?"

Verne wanted to be miffed for a few reasons. The presumptuousness for one... plus, the fact that he was twenty-one and hadn't lived at home for a while. But Maxie's intentions were so well-meaning that he couldn't possibly be angry about it. "Thanks," he said. And, he had to admit, they fit a lot better, even if women's underwear was going to take some getting used to. "I'm not running away," he said. "Not from my parents. I don't know how much Hector told you..."

"Not a lot... which is surprising for him. Must be some pretty serious shit."

"It is. I have the same condition that my girlfriend has... or I had the condition. Something called neurovascular chimerism."

"That's a mouthful. Never heard of it."

"It's really rare and pretty horrible, at least once the symptoms really kick in. It kills your brain a little bit at a time over one or two years. So... I started to get symptoms and found out about a treatment... only it's expensive. Really, really expensive. So Hector helped me steal like... probably a few million in pharmaceuticals. It cured my condition, but had some pretty crazy side effects... this is going to sound crazy, but I'm basically a vampire now."

"Basically a vampire?"

"Definitely a vampire," Verne corrected.

"That explains your aura. And all the sunscreen."

Verne wanted to be mad at the woman for snooping through his things, but that seemed like a very Maxie thing to do. She'd never steal your stuff, but she'd snoop the hell out of it. Verne nodded. "Yeah. And now the guys from the clinic are after us and they've got some pretty serious muscle."

Maxie nodded enthusiastically. "The assholes with money and power are always like that. But you should feel proud for sticking it to 'em and taking what you need, since it's usually the other way around. And vampire curse or no, it sounds like you haven't sold your soul... which is what they really want, isn't it? They want you to do what they say, when they say, how they say, always and forever. Remember that - a curse can't change who you are inside unless you grant it power over you."

Verne supposed that was true, whether you meant it as a metaphor for impersonal corporate authority or literally, as in the case of shadowy supernatural vampire cabals. Verne didn't feel like he'd sold his soul... but, then again, he didn't really believe in souls... but, then again, maybe it was time to revisit that notion. He hadn't really believed in vampires until he became one.

They hit Wilmington and then headed west, zipping over empty roads at well over the speed limits. It might have been older than Verne, but Maxie's Volvo was in excellent condition. And, as Maxie drove, they listened to an old hippie album from a band called Pentangle album in the tape player, and Verne spilled the beans to Maxie about everything that had happened to him over the past few weeks. He showed her his fangs and admitted he'd been sustaining himself on blood. It would have been much easier to be able to suck the pulp out of supermarket fruits and vegetables than to rely upon the blood of supermarket customers for sustenance. And, when he admitted that he'd been a male until just under a day ago, Maxie was only slightly surprised, and not for the reasons that Verne might have expected.

"No offense, Vera," she said. "...can I still call you Vera?"

"Vera is fine," Verne said.

"No offense, Vera, but you don't move like a man. Curses do a lot of odd things, but that's probably the most surprising bit about it. You don't have the mannerisms of a man. I know people who have transitioned, who had been cross-dressing and passing for years before that point, and those habits don't come easily. The only reason I realized that anything was off was because your clothes didn't fit."

"And my aura."

"And your aura. Especially your aura," she agreed. "Inky violet, almost black."

"That's the color of vampire blood."

Verne looked down at himself in Ellen's clothes – Ellen was Maxie's daughter, now in college and living in the DC area. Not only did the clothes fit perfectly, he sat primly in the bucket seat with his legs crossed, his slim hands perched upon his knees. When he'd showered, he'd made good use of no less than six cleaning products, and afterward wrapped the towel around his chest and blow-dried his hair like that's what he always did. It seemed that he'd somehow acquired all the relevant instincts when his body changed. He could only wonder how that magic had worked out.

They drove in silence a while longer. They stopped for gas and Maxie got herself a snack and some coffee to keep alert, and then decided that Verne could take over on driving for a while. Verne had learned to drive on a manual, but didn't have much experience behind the wheel... but on empty highways in the middle of the night, it hardly mattered. He mostly had to keep an eye out for crossing wildlife. He stopped again for gas just outside of Asheville, at which point Maxie roused from her nap and squinted at him.

"What?"

"We're going to visit Lisa in Knoxville," she said. "How, exactly, are you going to help her?"

"I don't know," Verne said. "I'm working on it."

"Okay. Well… work wisely. Just don't do anything stupid, okay?"

And Verne promised he wouldn't. But that was more easily said than done.

OvidLemma

Thanks for reading, and make sure you follow me here to catch my latest releases! Chapters for Transfusion will be posted daily through the end of the novel. If you liked this story, don't forget to check out my many other stories Scribble Hub, Patreon, or Amazon (free with Kindle Unlimited)!

https://www.patreon.com/OvidLemma
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3AOvid+Lemma