My First Paranormal Romance

By Eustacia V. Wedlock

 

Chapter 1

Pamela was a sweet young innocent girl. Despite being incredibly hot and having an earl for a grandfather, she was inexplicably unpopular with her fellow high school students, especially the boys. Perhaps they were all gay. Or maybe it was the way she started every date by telling the guys, “My bridegroom is Jesus.”

Anyhow, Pamela’s pretty boring, and there’s not much of a story there. So it’s her older sister Miranda that is going to be the subject of this tale.

Apart from being incredibly hot and the granddaughter of an earl, Miranda was completely different from Pamela. Miranda was really, really popular with the boys, if you know what I mean. By the end of her sophomore year in college, Miranda had so many notches on her bedposts, all four of them, that they looked like they’d been attacked by woodchucks.

Naturally, when Miranda planned her junior affair year abroad, she wanted to go some place with a lot of really good-looking guys. Miranda had no sense of geography, and thought that there would be a lot of cute guys in Transylvania, because it sounded hot, so she filled out her application accordingly. Luckily for her, she couldn’t see well without her contacts, and checked off the box for Sydney, Australia instead.

The day the envelope from Junior Year Abroad, Inc. (a Jersey company) arrived, Miranda plucked it out of the mailbox and ran into the living room to tell her parents the good news. “Mummie! Dada! Next year I’m going to,” and here she paused while she ripped open the envelope, “Sydney, Australia? Hey, wait, that isn’t what I put in for! I wanted to go to . . .” Miranda racked her brain to remember where she had actually wanted to go. She was sure it began with a “B.”

“That’s all right, dear,” said her mother. She thought Miranda was a fool. “Sydney is a wonderful city. It’s in one of our colonies.”

Miranda switched gears and tried to remember what she knew about Australia. “Isn’t that where they filmed Lord of the Rings?”

“No, Miranda, that was New Zealand,” said her father. He thought all of his daughters were fools. “Australia is inhabited by convicts and kangaroos.”

Convicts! Miranda remembered seeing a show about a woman’s prison on the BBC. There were all those rugged guards that terrorized the female prisoners while lusting after them. The only thing Miranda didn’t like about that show was how passive the women were. If she had been in that prison, she was sure she’d have been running it within a month. Australia sounded like it was going to be fun.

Chapter 2

Miranda’s disappointment about not being incarcerated the moment she landed in Australia quickly evaporated. Australia was such a different place than England. They didn’t even speak English! It took Miranda a whole month to learn how to communicate with the natives. What was really cool was how they were all nocturnal. They’d get up at dusk, crawl through all the pubs in the city, and then go home to sleep it off at dawn. They were sort of like vampires, without the pointed teeth and the bloodsucking thing.

Miranda actually got to hoping that some of them would be real vampires. Wouldn’t that be exciting? She could have a tragic romance and become immortal. Admittedly she’d have to give up having her sisters as bridesmaids at a Church of England wedding. She was pretty sure that vampires were Jewish or Buddhist or something. But week after week went by, and no vampires loomed out of the fumes of beer and chips.

But this wouldn’t be My First Paranormal Romance if Miranda didn’t run into a vampire, now, would it? So, yes, it finally happened. Thanks to a heavy drinking binge, Miranda overslept Tuesday night’s drinking by about fourteen hours. Unable to get back to sleep thanks to the sun, Miranda decided she should actually go to a class. She staggered into a classroom in the Needless War Memorial Hall, sat down in the first chair she found, turned to the guy in the next chair, delicately belched, and asked him, “Is this Prof. Smith’s 2:15 Psychology class?”

And then she got a good look at the guy, and she screamed. He was hideous! He had a crew cut and freckles, wore glasses with clunky frames, and sported a Lord of the Rings t-shirt featuring Gollum. He had to be a nerd.

Apparently he was used to girls screaming at him, because he just ignored it. “No, this is Prof. Fukayama’s 10:45 Advanced Number Theory class.” And then he stuck out his hand. “Hi, I’m Herman. I’m a vampire.”

Miranda knew when she was being conned. “You can’t be a vampire,” she exclaimed. “It’s daylight out.”

Herman shook his head. “This is Australia. We’re in the Southern Hemisphere. When it’s dark in your country, it’s daylight here. All vampires come out at the same time of day. So here we come out in the day and sleep at night.”

There was something about that that didn’t seem quite right to Miranda. She didn’t know much about astronomy, but she was sure that Galileo or somebody had proved that gravity and everything else was the same in Australia as in England. Though she had put on four pounds since she arrived. But that wasn’t important. What was important was that here in Australia, vampires slept by night. All she could say to Herman was, “How do you guys ever make the pub scene if you sleep by night?”

Herman frowned. “We don’t. You ever see any vampires in the pubs?”

He had a point. Miranda shook her head.

Tears started to well out of Herman’s eyes. “It’s so damn hard to meet anyone in the daytime here, especially sexy young virgins who would become my victims and awaken to passionate love at my touch.” And then it was if Herman actually had an original thought, and looked pleadingly at Miranda. “Would you be my next innocent victim and eternal love? Well, actually my first. I haven’t had much luck so far.”

Miranda could scarcely contain her laughter, so she didn’t. She must have chortled at the idea of going out with Herman for at least three minutes. Apparently, Herman was used to that, too, because after first turning red with embarrassment, he stuck around. Finally, Miranda was able to stop laughing long enough to say, “Look, Herman, if you’re looking for an innocent virgin to ravish, I’m definitely not the woman you’re looking for. I am nowhere near the woman you are looking for. Know what I mean?”

Herman knew what she meant. But in an odd way, it didn’t bother him at all. Yes, vampires are supposed to lust for young, innocent teenagers. (And let’s note Miranda’s other disqualification: she had turned 20 four months ago.) But the thought of getting an experienced woman excited Herman. She would no doubt be a master of many dark sexual arts, all of which would be unfamiliar to Herman, whose personal experience with women was limited to an awkward caress of the breasts of an unconscious college girl while he was still human. So while Herman couldn’t actually imagine what any of those dark sexual arts could be, his fangs itched to drink from Miranda’s throat. Although that might have been from a buildup of plaque: Harman hadn’t used a toothbrush since he became a vampire because he couldn’t see himself in the mirror.

So Herman tried to appear suave, leaned back, put on what he hoped was his most confident smile, and said, “That’s OK, Sheila. Why don’t we go out for a beer and get better acquainted?”

To Miranda, Herman’s pose struck her as romantic as being propositioned by her 14-year-old kid brother, who at least didn’t have as many pimples. But Herman was going to buy her a beer, and Miranda had developed a great taste for beer in college. Miranda knew that that when a guy bought her a beer he expected her to eventually drop her knickers, which had not posed a problem in past. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to drop her knickers for Herman. On the other hand, he was a vampire. Didn’t all the books and movies prove that they got their jollies from sucking blood? Yeah, they’re still guys, and have the equipment, but do they use it? And if the vampire’s touch is supposed to be cold, then presumably their equipment would be cold, and that was something Miranda had never experienced. Though there had been that time in Monica Westmoreland’s pool . . .

It was the mystery of what vampires actually did for sex that finally decided Miranda. That and the fact that Herman called her “Sheila.” All the Australian guys did that. They didn’t seem to be able to distinguish one woman from another. They never called up for second dates. So even if Herman was a dud, at least it would only be once. And he’d not be able to tell other people afterwards who she was. “Okay, Herman, let’s go find a bar and some beer.”