You Suck: A Love Story

minutes later, because she felt responsible, Jody was helping him clean bits of masticated burrito off the kitchen wall and the front of the refrigerator. “It’s like every bean was storming the gates of repressive digestion to escape.”
    “Yeah, well, being refried will do that to you,” Jody said, stroking his hair. “You okay?”
    “I’m starving. I need to eat.”
    “Not so much eat,” Jody said.
    “Oh my God! It’s the hunger. I feel like my insides are caving in on themselves. You should have told me about this.”
    She knew how he felt-actually, she had felt worse when it happened to her. At least he knew what was happening to him. “Yeah, sweetie, we’re going to have to make a few adjustments.”
    “Well, what do I do? What did you do?”
    “I mostly fed off of you, remember?”
    “You should have thought this through before you killed me. I’m fucked.”
    “We’re fucked. Together. Like Romeo and Juliet, only we get to be in a sequel. Very literary, Tommy.”
    “Oh, that’s a comfort. I can’t believe you just killed me like that.”
    “And turned you into a superbeing, thank you very much.”
    “Oh, crap, there’s burrito spooge all over my new sneakers.”
    “You can see in the dark, now,” Jody said cheerfully. “Wanna try it? I’ll get naked. You can look at me in the dark. Naked. You’ll like it.”
    “Jody, I’m starving over here.”
    She couldn’t believe that he didn’t respond to the naked persuasion. What kind of monster had she created? “Okay, I’ll find you a bug or something.”
    “A bug?! A bug!? I’m not eating a bug.”
    “I said there’d have to be some adjustments.”
    Tommy had been dealing with more than a few adjustments since he’d come west from his hometown of Incontinence, Indiana-not the least of which had been finding a girlfriend, who, while smart, sexy, and quick-witted, drank his blood and tended to fall unconscious at the exact moment of sunrise. He’d always suspected that she might have just picked him because he worked nights and could walk around during the day, especially since she’d once said, “I need someone who works nights and can walk around during the day,” but now that he was a vampire, he could close the door on that insecurity and open another onto a whole new world of insecurities he’d never even considered before. The appropriate age for a vampire is four hundred years old-he should be a world-weary and sophisticated creature, his human anxieties long since overcome or evolved into macabre perversions. The problem with a nineteen-year-old vampire is that he drags all of his adolescent insecurities into the dark with him.
    “I’m really pale,” Tommy said, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. They’d figured out early on that vampires do, indeed, cast a reflection in a mirror, just like they could tolerate proximity to crucifixes and garlic. (Tommy had run experiments on Jody while she slept, including many involving cheerleader outfits and personal lubricants.) “And not just winter inIndiana pale. I’m, like, pale like you.”
    “Yeah,” said Jody, “I thought you liked the pale.”
    “Sure, it looks good on you, but I look ill.”
    “Keep looking,” Jody said. She was leaning against the door frame, dressed in tight black jeans and a half shirt, her hair tied back and streaming down her back like a flaccid red comet tail. She was trying not to appear too amused.
    “Something’s missing,” Tommy said. “Something besides color.”
    “Uh-huh.” Jody grinned.
    “My skin cleared up! I don’t have a single zit.”
    “Ding, ding, ding,” Jody onomatopeed, signaling that Tommy had hit on the correct answer.
    “If I had known my skin would clear up, I’d have asked you to change me a long time ago.”
    “I didn’t know how to a long time ago,” Jody said. “That’s not all, take off your shoes.”
    “I don’t understand, I-”
    “Just take off your shoes. “
    Tommy sat on the edge of the tub and took off his sneakers and socks.
    “What?”
    “Look at your toes.”
    “They’re straight. My little toe isn’t bent anymore. It’s like I’ve never worn shoes.”
    “You’re perfect,” Jody said. She remembered finding out this condition of vampirism and being both delighted and horrified because now she felt that she’d always need to lose five pounds-five pounds that were preserved for eternity.
    Tommy pulled up the leg of his jeans and studied his shin. “The scar