To put it bluntly: here is why I am a pit bull patrolling the edges of the vampire community.
Between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, I was in a small cult. No, the leader (a man who my best friend was dating, who became like a big brother to me – I never had siblings, I always wanted one) never claimed to be a vampire. He claimed to be God. Pantheist that I was at the time, I saw no reason to quibble with him – per the books he had us all read, he was God and I was God and that tree was God…right? (Well, no. He wanted to be special. I admitted that he was wiser than most, enlightened, but I never considered him any more of a messiah than I or anyone else could be, and I think that pissed him off.)
He never needed to call himself a vampire. He was one – not that I knew it, or had any interest for that matter. Believe it or not, I never had any interest in vampires until I came out of the closet as one.The only books I read were Bunnicula and Interview With A Vampire, and the latter I saw as a metaphor for forbidden sexuality.
Every time I saw him, I would go home drained and wan and shaking.
Eventually, my parents called the cops and told them that I had been kidnapped, thus to have me removed forcibly from a party that I had been attending on Halloween night of 1987 – probably just as well, because I found out that Daniel, the leader, had raped and beaten my best friend, and assaulted another one of the cult followers so badly that she ended up in the intensive care unit.
I have seen crap in the vampire community. One of my ex lovers was involved with a circle of friends who had been taken advantage of by a supposed “immortal.” She had a little “clan” that she fed from. In exchange for psychically draining these college students (who ought to have known better!) to the point of death, she would inject them with her “immortal vampire blood” and turn them. What was that blood? E. opened the refrigerator because she was curious – she had been forbidden to partake, because she was “too innocent” – turns out it was Grenadine syrup. You know, the stuff that gets added to orange juice to make Shirley Temples, or Tequila Sunrises if you add a little tequila to that mixture.
There are a lot of credulous people out there, not all of them children, who are desperate and hungry for a little mystery and spirituality and personal touch. Our world is largely devoid of mystery. For many, God is dead, or is seriously absent. Mainstream Christianity and other mainstream religions are losing members of the congregation left and right to fundamentalist sects, cults, atheism, and personal mysticism – this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think it has created a void. There isn’t any myth or magic in the oh so rational world, hasn’t been in a long time, and that void wants to be filled.
Those who “want to believe” often grasp at anything that seems mysterious to fill the void – including a belief in undead vampires and a desire for contact with them, maybe even being turned or fed on.
I will be damned if I see such hungry, desperate seekers used by those who would prey on their spiritual hunger – or those who are simply so hungry for mystery or something that makes them “special” that they claim to embody figures of myth. It’s irresponsible and sick. It hurts other people, the idealists and dreamers who choose to believe only to be fed upon and misused and lied to. It also hurts those of us who are trying to lead our normal if eccentric lives without getting persecuted.
Mistress