Cornelius Reading was not used to dealing with humans. Not only was he a vampire, he had also been asleep for the better part of the twenty-first century.
He paced restlessly outside a room in his vast fortress, dressed in one of his Victorian suits. Personally he thought he looked silly, not to mention desperately outdated, but it was a requirement. He had put down extensive research into this. Vampires were supposed to dress like this now. The interwebz said so, lulz.
On the other side of the door, his new bride-to-be was still sleeping. His three past wives had left him during his nine-year-long snooze, and he needed someone around, for obvious reasons. Living alone in the middle of nowhere, halfway up a snowy mountainside, was beyond boring.
A soft groan coming from the room made him jerk, ready to walk in and romance her. He listened at the door a moment, then relaxed again. She wasn’t awake yet. He could tell by the slow beating of her heart.
The wait was excruciating. Though he had lived long enough to watch eras pass, the matter of love is hard on both young and old and undead.
Just when he was about to barge in, sure the blow he had dealt her had been too powerful and harmed her sanity beyond repair, her heart picked up its pace.
Awake at last! His entrance would have to be timed with perfection. He checked his hair and entered the room, black gothic cape fluttering behind him.
Her high-pitched scream started him, and the black, gothic cape got caught between his feet, a stumble bringing him to the floor. The teenage girl sat up in bed, staring wide-eyed down at the mighty vampire lying sprawled on the black, gothic stone floor. Because it was so obvious, she was momentarily distracted by the black gothic bedding, the black gothic walls, the black gothic furniture and the black gothic curtains hanging in front of what she bet was black gothic windows.
”Um,” she mumbled, returning her attention to Cornelius, not completely sure how to handle the situation. ”You okay, sir?”
Cornelius scrambled up, cheeks a little flushed, but pulled himself together with ease. ”ov corse, mah bootyful!” he said charmingly, moving like liquid towards her. Casanova was unawares his carefully groomed hair now was in complete disarray.
The girl, whose name was Charlotte, raised an eyebrow and shifted uncomfortably when he sat down on the bed, extending a hand to touch her face and thusly woo her.
“Okay, whoever you are, you’re being weird. I’ll be nice, give you two seconds to remove yourself, unless you want me to--“ She silenced as her mind and memory starting to catch up with her, and she understood the full extent of the freakish situation.
Cornelius was sitting just close enough to receive a punch for all his hardship.
“You!” and she smacked him, “Psycho!” another smack, “Kidnapping!” smack, “Creep!”
“Get away from me!” she shrieked, completely freaking on him. Cornelius found it wise to listen to her.
When he finally got out of her reach, his hair looked even worse. Trying to maintain his dignity and understanding her behaviour, he stepped back, figuring it would be wise to keep a polite distance until she was swooning over him.
“You better have an explanation for this, you... psycho emo wannabe,” she snarled, looking like she was about to jump up and gut him.
“it wuz necesary 2 kidnap u bcuz...” Cornelius silenced, realising he didn’t know why vampires were supposed to steal their brides away from their normal lives before they could be properly romanced. “its wat i do, mai luv.”
”Wait, why are you speaking chatspeak?” she inquired, quickly overcoming her fears and starting to question this creature’s sanity.
“its laik dat in da storiiies, lol,” said Cornelius.
Charlotte thought she was right in thinking he was batshit insane. “And stop calling me your love, you creep or I’ll make you regret it.”
“But this,” he gestured to the black gothic bedding, the black gothic walls, the black gothic furniture and the black gothic curtains hanging in front of what was black gothic windows, “our love, everything is like it is in the stories!” he exclaimed, confused this girl wasn’t responding like she was supposed to.
By now, the would-be bride thought she had the prerogative to be sceptic. ”Stories?”
“Yes, the stories. Come, I’ll show you!” He walked slowly out of the room, waiting for her to follow. Charlotte slipped out of bed and realised she was wearing a black gothic dress, and frowned. Black was so not her colour, and eww, had he changed her while she was out cold?
“The stories, they are on the interwebz, you know,” Cornelius said, trying to strike up a conversation while they walked through the dark hallways of his lonely castle.
Needless to say, Charlotte was surprised to find he had installed a computer in his large library filled with dusty books as old as himself. By now she had noticed his fangs, and freaked out about it till she realised he didn’t look like he was going to sink them into her neck – which he assured her he wouldn’t do, as he was deadly allergic to blood type B.
“So lemme get this right,” she said after seeing the stories he talked about. “You’re a vampire, you’ve been sleeping half my life and you’re way older than me, which kinda makes you a paedophile, no offense... And, and you are basing your view of reality on badly written vampire fics you found online?”
“Yes,” Cornelius said.
“You kidnapped me in hopes I would fall in love with you and be your eternal wife?”
“Something along those lines, yes, my lo—Sorry.”
Charlotte’s eyes gleamed, but she chose to let his slip pass. “Because everygirlwould befriend and fall in love with her kidnapper, you know,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Her comment made Cornelius light up. Clearing his throat and fixing hair, he started acting all sexily again. Charlotte looked away, too embarrassed on his behalf to watch him make a fool out of himself.
“You’re completely right, you will only befriend me if you are very, very stupid,” he murmured and chagrined.
“Yeah, I agree. Let’s not be friends then.”
He frowned, but tried again: “And, you should know, your blood... sings to me like, my lamb. There is nothing I would rather do than drink it, ma tua ca—“
“Weren’t you allergic to my blood-type?”
“Oh, that’s true. Thanks for reminding me.”
“Where are you getting this crap from anyway?”
Cornelius sighed and fished a paperback copy of “Twilight” out from an inside pocket of his Victorian vest. “It isn’t perfect, I know... didn’t have time to get glitter,” he muttered, reading the blurb with a frown. Charlotte tried her best not to laugh out loud, imagining him voluntarily covering up in glitter. Luckily, the vampire didn’t notice, and if he had, he would probably have mistaken the suppressed laughter for involuntarily spasms.
Realising this didn’t work either, he thought for a moment. There must be some way to this young girl’s heart! If Dracula and every other bloodsuckerfromRome to New Orlandscould do it, so could Cornelius Reading!
“Do you like music, miss, um... What is your name?”
“Charlotte,” said Charlotte.
“Beautiful,” Cornelius said and introduced himself. Charlotte thought his name wasn’t very vampire-ish, but chose not to comment on it. “So do you like music, Charlotte?” he asked again.
“I, um, I guess I do,” she said, wondering why he would ask.
Her question was answered few seconds later, when he flew to his feet again and suddenly started singing, way off key: “Come with me and bless the night, let the darkness be your salvation! Curse the day, escape the light. Break the chains of imagination!”
And by God, then he modulated to falsetto.
“Come with meee and seeeize the niiight, now’s the tiiime for some inspiratiiion! Leeeave the daaay and lose the liiight. No taboos, only... new sensation...”
He must have mistaken the stunned silence for appreciation, because he started humming the interlude, and danced, Broadway style, trying to tap-dance, waving his arms around still holding the Twilight-book.
“In the shadows of the city...“ He started singing again, but now Charlotte reasoned she had been polite and suffered enough. “Where the—“
“I’ve changed my mind, I don’t like music!” she yelled in despair. “Please stop, I’ll do anything!”
Cornelius stopped mid-twirl, having some trouble regaining his balance. “Oh, well... as you wish,” he stuttered, more confused than ever. “Maybe the dancing was a bit too much,” he admitted.
“You don’t say,” Charlotte said. No amount of therapy could ever make her okay again.
He racked his brain for something, anything. There had to be something he hadn’t tried yet. Then he realised what she just had said. “You would do anything to make me stop my musical act?”
“Except marry you, creep.”
“Oh,” he said, slowly realising he had used all the tricks he knew, to no avail. The girl was definitely not in love with him, even though he had tried to make her swoon any way possible. “None of this makes any sense!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms up in defeat.
“Right you are,” Charlotte agreed.
“You were supposed to fall in love with me! The books, the stories, the musical - I’ve tried everything!” He hid his face in his hands. “This has only been a farce from one end to another!”
Charlotte felt a prick of guilt seeing him so upset and walked over, patting his shoulder. “Your, um, eyes are cool, though,” she complimented him, trying to cheer him up a little.
He sighed and extended a hand, a finger touching his left eye. “They are contacts,” he said, removing the red lens revealing his real brown ones. “They really irritate my eyes, you know.”
“Oh,” Charlotte said. “Well, your real eyes are nice too.”
“Does that mean you will stay with me?”
“Certainly not,” she scoffed, and started walking back towards the room she woke up in. “You better have kept my normal clothes!” she hollered, waving a warning finger at the centuries older vampire, and exited.
Cornelius swallowed. During the last thirty minutes he had learnt to fear this young maiden’s anger. And he had presumed she wouldn’t want to wear those mundane clothes ever again, so he threw them away the moment she was changed into the black gothic gown. In other words, he was, to use a modern phrase, fucked.
Confused, he tossed his copy of Twilight aside and kipped down in one of the library’s cosy chairs. Dating was so much easier in the 1600’s.
