extorting me. Which may or may not include my barber.
Bio: 28 years old, an Arizona native my whole life (which is really more the result of circumstance than
choice). To date I have published two fiction pieces and two non-fiction pieces in independent magazines and
e-zines, though I have abandoned the path of creative non-fiction to pursue my love of speculative fiction
and am heavily focused on writing my first novel. Yes, wish me luck with that.
My writing is an attempt to fuse gritty literary fiction with even grittier speculative fiction along the lines of
urban fantasy and horror with just a touch of magical realism (which has seeped across the Mexico/Arizona
border) thrown in for flavor.
Other interests include an obsession with music that threatens both my bank account and sanity because of
how relentlessly I pursue new and interesting artists. While not even an amateur chef, I love cooking and
spend far too much free time watching cooking shows. I'm a strong believer in the power of gnomes and
reference them at least twice a day in general conversation.
forces plaguing Jim's life.
by Jim Higuera
I’m not a good vampire. If I was, I wouldn’t be working at Obsessions, a twenty-four hour adult boutique. If I could
just bite people, feed and take whatever money they have in their wallets and purses, I wouldn’t need a job. I can’t.
I can’t even work up the nerve to ask cute girls at a bar for their phone numbers. It’s been over three months since I
was turned and I still haven’t bitten a single person. Instead, I pay a guy who works at the Red Cross fifty dollars to
slip me a few pints of O positive every week. This guy is really into death metal and Satanism and he thinks I use the
blood in evil rituals. He gives me free shirts and demo CDs for his band, but even though I’m dead, I can’t bring
myself to wear a shirt with “Goatfucking Bloodshits” printed on it.
I’m still looking for that ideal victim. In all the movies, vampires never have a problem stalking people or seducing
them. They don’t get squeamish at the thought of actually breaking skin. I go to the nice clubs looking for
potentials. I wear my nice suit, sip sangria and smoke clove cigarettes, and try to work up the nerve to talk to
someone. Domination or seduction, none of it works. Maybe it’s the pasty white skin or the too-long nails or the
way my fangs give me just a hint of a speech impediment, but I can’t seduce anyone. And when I get demanding, try
to lay my will upon the few men or women who will actually talk to me, I just come across as creepy and I get a lot
of drinks thrown in my face.
With the way vampires have gone all pop culture, I keep thinking there should be a handbook. Some sort of how-to
guide for new vampires like “Bloodsucking for Dummies” or “Twelve Steps to Being a Better Creature of the
Night.” Most days, I drink reheated blood from medical bags and work the night shift at a porn shop because it’s the
only job where looking anemic and having fangs doesn’t concern the managers.
I count my days in bottles of Astroglide and flavored body oils. There are people who buy condoms in bulk,
hundreds every week. I never have the nerve to ask if they’re using all those condoms themselves or passing them
out at parties.
“So are you going to come this weekend?” Charlie asks. “You owe me.” She points at her foot, the one I dropped
the box of porn on. “I lost a thousand dollars because I missed dancing on Friday night. You have to come. Some
of the girls might dig the vampire thing, you know.”
I’m running out of excuses, and now she’s using my guilt against me. She’s been asking me to come see her dance
since I started working at Obsessions. The way she talks about the hundreds of guys drooling and popping hard-on
tents in their pants for her, it’s not like she’s lacking in customers. It’s not me she’s actually interested in. Rather she
sees a guy who isn’t dying to fuck her and she just can’t let it go. Maybe to her I’m elusive. Really, I’m just scared.
“Come on, Coleman. I’ll give you a free private show.”
Charlie rubs her foot through stiletto heels she couldn’t wear if she were actually injured. She’s posing, leaning
forward so I can see the tops of her breasts down her shirt. Nice, I’m sure, but the only thing that interests me in the
whole view are the veins and arteries, the lightest flutter of the skin on her neck and wrists from the blood pumping
beneath, tiny lines of blue barely visible through her perfect golden tan.
“I’ll come,” I tell her. “Saturday night. I’m busy Friday night.”
“Out finding new victims for your blood lust?”
“Something like that.”
“Cool, I’ll get you a free pass. You’re going to love this,” she says. She’s not even hobbling now. Fucking fake. “I’
ll even give you a free private show.”
When we work together, Charlie spends most of her time telling me about all the famous people she’s slept with. She
dances at the Fantasy Island Gentleman’s club down in Scottsdale three nights of the week and the place attracts all
the rich celebrity types. Most nights after dancing, she goes home with someone famous and wealthy and beautiful.
Athlete, rock star, actor, billionaire tycoon. Her sexual history reads like a Who’s Who from Entertainment Weekly.
Usually, I let Charlie work the sales floor. For her, answering questions and making recommendations is all about
personal experience. I have no clue about the advantages of bamboo nipple clamps over wire ones or what the best
lubricants are for butt plugs. I make random guesses. When people ask for a personal perspective on whether leather
straps are better than vinyl, I just go with the vinyl every time because no cows died.
When it’s slow, I do the night inventory, stocking all the flavored body paints and back issues of “Jailbait” and “Asian
Nymphomania.” Charlie helps, but mostly she talks about how she’s saving up to get another breast enhancement,
about how she’s got all her face-lifts and body modification surgeries planned for the next ten years. The reason she
works at Obsessions is to have something legitimate to put on her resume. Her real goal is to get into porn, not just in
front of the camera, but starting her own company.
“I know I can’t dance forever,” she says. “But with medical advances, I can keep going until I’m at least forty-five,
maybe fifty. Look at Madonna, or those chicks from Friends. People would pay money to see them naked. I know
I can do this for at least another twenty years.” It’s not the money, she says. Not just the money. Dancing is the
lifestyle of being at the center of everyone’s attention. For her it’s about having hundreds of eyes not blinking while
they stare at her, the fact that everyone in the room, at that moment, wants to fuck her more than anything else.
“People who see me dance go home and jerk off and have sex with their wives or girlfriends or whatever, but they
think about me. That’s a rush, being the vision that haunts people for days at a time. The money’s just a bonus,”
she says.
Charlie doesn’t even have sexual fantasies anymore because she’s done everything and everyone. She gets off by
being the fantasy for other people, now. It’s all about watching them get aroused and get off because of her. To me,
it just sounds like the one person she desperately wants to fuck is herself, but she can only do it through other
people. Her partners are proxies. In an ideal world she could clone herself and have one massive Charlie orgy with
the whole world watching. For the moment, she settles for doing videos on her own website when she’s not dancing
or selling power vibrators.
Being dead, I still don’t feel as screwed up as all the people around me.
COPYRIGHT 2006 BY JIM HIGUERA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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