Interview With a Jewish Vampire Read online

  I should have been ashamed of myself for lusting after every man I saw, but I was going through post-divorce pent up demand. After ten years of spending all my sexual energy avoiding sex with my husband, I was insatiable. Not coincidentally, my husband had also been avoiding sex with me—but then he was getting it elsewhere.

  I’d always had terrible taste in men. I tended to go for the bad boys, who were dangerous biker types when I was a teenager, and then dangerous hedge fund manager types when I got older and decided to marry money. Of course, my ex-husband was the baddest boy of all. After fifteen years of promising that one day he’d take me on a vacation, he took the shiksa at the next desk instead. They headed for the Bahamas where he’d stashed a lot of cash, but not before cleaning out our joint bank account and canceling my credit cards. His finances were so tangled that I would have had to hire a team of accountants full time for a year to sort them out, and by that time, I’d be broke. He was kind enough to give me the house in Scarsdale with the huge mortgage I couldn’t pay. That’s how I wound up in a tiny Manhattan studio apartment on the Upper East Side with a rent I struggled to meet every month.

  Maybe Sheldon still had some money? I doubted that Madoff could have taken it all. After a hundred years he must have a few nest eggs stashed here and there. He didn’t have a family to support after all, only Goldie, and how much could a golem cost these days. But by the time he finished talking I really didn’t care how much money he had, I was a goner, but in a good way. Ironically, considering he was a fearsome creature, he had a sweet smile, an adorable dimple in his chin, an old world courtliness and charm.

  “Why don’t we finish the interview at my place?” I’d had too many drinks, it was very late, and he was the most attractive guy I’d met so far on JDate.

  “You want me to come up to your place?” he asked, all of a sudden looking at me appraisingly. “Did you have maybe a nightcap in mind? You have any blood in the fridge?” He chuckled. “You’re not afraid of me?”

  “You told me yourself you only feed on animals.”

  “I did say that, but why should you believe me? I’m a vampire, not a boy scout.”

  “I’m not interested in boy scouts,” I breathed heavily. I didn’t want to ask him directly what his sexual proclivities were. Or if he had any. Was there sex after death? Didn’t Woody Allen ask that question? I couldn’t remember what the answer was. I vaguely remembered Anne Rice’s vampires. They didn’t seem to have actual sex, but got off on the act of sucking human blood. However, Stephanie Meyer’s vampires loved sex, but only with other vampires because they got pretty rough during the act. There were as many myths about vampire sex as there were vampire novels. I wondered what vampire series Sheldon had read. I hoped it was Twilight and, like Edward, that he would fall totally and madly in love with me.

  “Why don’t you hail us a cab?” I suggested.

  “Cabbies never pick me up. Blacks and vampires, it’s prejudice pure and simple.”

  I hailed one. As we smooched in the back seat I found out Sheldon knew how to use his tongue as well as his teeth.

  Chapter Two

  I was breathing heavily in the cab, but by the time I got to my apartment, I was gasping for breath. I lived in a third floor walkup and I was out of shape. Sheldon seemed to float effortlessly up the stairs because vampires probably didn’t have to go the gym to stay in shape. Wouldn’t that be great? As soon as I walked in the phone rang. I didn’t have to look at the Caller ID to know who it was.

  I picked it up, put my hand over the receiver and said to Sheldon, “It’s my mom, I’ll be off soon, make yourself a drink.” It occurred to me he might not drink but at least I was being a good host.

  “Hi, Mom, it’s midnight, why are you still up?”

  It was a rhetorical question, I knew she’d stay up so she could call and ask about my date. If I looked at my Caller ID I knew I’d see that she’d called at least five times and hung up before my voice mail picked up. She didn’t want to seem like the nuisance she was.

  “C’mon, Rhoda, this is your mother here. You know I don’t have a life. I’ll never have another date—not that I’d want one of course. Forty years with your father was more than enough. I have to live vicariously. And of course you’re my only child and I want you to be happy.”

  I worried about Mom these days more than she worried about me. She’d already had a quadruple bypass but she refused to stop eating fatty foods and start exercising. She lived in Century Village in Florida, and her life consisted of sitting by the pool, hanging out with her girlfriends, going to early bird specials that were laden with greasy food that old Jewish ladies love. Yes, she did go shopping, which was a pretty strenuous form of exercise considering that she hunted bargains with the zeal of a lion stalking its prey, but she refused to take the stairs like I told her to. She was still a kid who loved escalators.

  “Mom, my date happens to be here as we speak, and he doesn’t look happy. Can I call you back later?”

  “Have a good time, darling. Don’t rush on account of me.”

  “I have no intention of rushing. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” I hung up.

  Sheldon actually didn’t look impatient, even though he didn’t have all that much time until dawn. I assumed he had to be back in his coffin, or at least in his neighborhood, by then, but what did I know? I hadn’t really inquired. I sat down next to him on the couch, looked into his eyes and said, “How about if we finish the interview some other time? I’m really too tired to keep asking questions.”

  “I’m tired of answering them. I ‘d rather get to know you better.” Then he did the whole sweeping me into his arms and kissing me passionately thing and I swooned. I swear I actually swooned. That had never happened to me before.

  “You are such a succulent morsel, Rhoda. Most women these days are so skinny it’s disgusting. Where, or actually when, I come from, only the peasants were skinny. Jewish women from good families were plump and voluptuous, like you.” He pressed his lips together and voiced a hum of approval. His hands ran over my body, stroking me very slowly, working up to my naughty bits. I could tell he wasn’t rushing to get foreplay over with so he could put it in like a lot of guys—he liked to take his time.

  Then Sheldon lifted me up to carry me to the bed as if I weighed almost nothing. No man had ever lifted me up before, much less carried me anywhere. It was thrilling. Why did it take a vampire to make me feel like a real woman? I will not go into detail about everything that happened after that because I do have some discretion, despite the opinion of my mother who thinks that whatever goes through my head comes out my mouth, but suffice it to say that Sheldon was terrific in bed. OK, I’ll go into some detail. I will dispel the myth right now that vampires are cold to the touch. When they get excited they heat up quite nicely. There’s no worry about bad breath, since they don’t breathe. It is uncomfortable though to be huffing and puffing while your lover is deathly quiet.

  “Do you think you could breathe a little for me honey?” I asked in my sweetest tone of voice. I didn’t want to insult him. “You’re making me nervous. I keep wondering if you’ve had a heart attack.”

  “Sorry,” Sheldon smiled. “I can breathe but I don’t have to so I forget. I’ll try to remember while we’re making love.”

  Another interesting fact, vampires can keep it up forever. They can have multiple orgasms without losing their erections. They never need Viagra. If they have an erection lasting over four hours they don’t have to call a doctor—they could actually have one for all eternity without any ill effects.

  Sheldon was a regular tantric vampire…he just wanted to please me. And he did, oh yes he did. His fangs did descend a bit during the act because he was excited, just like you’d expect, and he did give me a teeny hickey, but he refrained from sinking his teeth in, saying, “Don’t worry, I had dinner already…don’t ask!” I didn’t.

  After about two hours, a few orgasms and many positions, including some I’d ne
ver experienced, I begged for mercy. We even had sex standing up while Sheldon easily lifted me so my legs could wrap around his back, a position I’d seen in the movies and always wanted to try. I’d never found anyone near strong enough.

  “Sheldon, I think you better let me down before I pass out. I’m exhausted.”

  He gently brought me back to the bed, laid me softly as if I were breakable and leaned over me stroking my hair and gazing into my eyes. I felt like letting go and weeping from an excess of emotion, which I sometimes did after great sex, to the consternation of my partners, but I didn’t want to freak him out. I broke the spell instead by asking him more questions, though the recorder was long forgotten.

  “You know, I never asked you what your love life was like. Did you have girlfriends? Who were they?” I wanted to know everything about him.

  “Yes, I did have some vampire girlfriends who were made around the same time as me by Count Dracula. He liked to prey on Jewish women. It was easier for him to get away with it. Then, once there was a group of us, we drifted off into our own community in Transylvania separate from the shtetl. Eventually we went to America. We actually rented a boat just for Jewish vampires where we could all bring our coffins and dirt from the old country. Most of the vampire girls were nice Jewish girls from the shtetl, except for being vampires. Think your grandmother at nineteen but with fangs. They weren’t liberated like you. I had a couple of vampire girlfriends but it didn’t go anywhere—where could it go? We couldn’t get married and have kids. I haven’t been with a woman since then. It’s been almost a century. I’ve been so lonely, I thought I might go crazy—or kill myself. If I hadn’t met you, I don’t know what would have happened. You saved my life.”

  I was totally stunned. I couldn’t imagine that I’d really saved his life? Maybe he was just saying that to flatter me. No femme fatale, I wasn’t used to having that kind of effect on men. I was more the “he’s just not into you” type. How did a vampire commit suicide anyway? I decided not to ask that question. He was virtually a vampire virgin.

  “Why haven’t you had any girlfriends? What were you waiting for?”

  “I was afraid to approach human women. They might get scared and have me hunted. There are vampire hunters out there you know. I live in a Hasidic community in Crown Heights. Where would I meet a girl? And vampire women, well I’m really not attracted to them. I longed for a juicy Jewish girl.”

  “So why me?”

  “You seduced me, remember?” He grinned. “I didn’t have anything to do with it. I told you what I was and you wanted me anyway. I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  Maybe he was handing me a line, but I wanted desperately to believe him. I’d fantasized ever since my divorce about a man who would be so devoted to me he wouldn’t leave. In New York City, it would take a mythical creature to fulfill that fantasy.

  We talked till almost dawn. He interviewed me too, wanting to know everything about me. I told him all about my marriage, how unhappy I had been, how I got left for another woman. He listened sympathetically to my tale of living with a husband who went into rages and berated me for every little thing--a hedge fund manager I had to support because he couldn’t get another job after the market crashed and his bank went under. I even told him that I wanted children but couldn’t have them with my ex. We’d gone for testing and it seemed his few sperm were barely treading water, much less swimming. I found myself talking about my childhood as an overweight lonely, only child who relied on books for comfort. I told him about my mom who I rebelled against when I was a kid, but whom I was extremely close to now. He murmured sympathetically, encouraging me to go on. He barely blinked as I spoke, he was so intent on every word. But then maybe vampires don’t blink much.

  He told me he had been a rabbi with a congregation, a wife and children when he was turned into a vampire, but had to leave his family and wander the countryside before he found a group of Hasidic vampires that took him in. His wife would have been horrified if she’d known what he’d become. I had slept with men since my divorce but Sheldon was different—he made me feel desirable, a beautiful woman who deserved to be loved. I totally forgot about being fat since he seemed so enamored of every curve I owned. I even started feeling my thighs just might be acceptable. We hung onto each other until the last moment, until he started yawning and had to go home and back his coffin to sleep.

  By the time he left, he’d forgotten about the interview. I couldn’t even remember where I’d left my fancy recorder. I was a goner. Not literally, thank God. When he left, he promised to call but he didn’t leave me his number, which made me uneasy. As soon as he walked out the door, I started wondering if he was sincere. They all promise to call. You’d think that a vampire would follow through, but who knows? Despite all his protestations of love, maybe he was just a one-night stand like all the other bloodsuckers I’d run into since my divorce. They ravish you and then disappear into the night never to be seen again.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning I felt vampirized, but in a good way. My limbs were so rubbery I had to hold onto the night table when I got out of bed. I had aches and pains in places I didn’t know were places. I replayed every little detail of our lovemaking as I made coffee, remembering how Sheldon looked at me, stroked me, told me how beautiful I was. I was in a reverie when I remembered that Mom had called last night. I picked up the phone reluctantly, not wanting to break the spell.

  “So how’re you feeling, Mom?” Still tired?”

  She’d only had the surgery two months ago and I’d been down in Florida with her until recently, helping her recover. It was a slow process.

  “Well, I’m not exactly a spring chicken here, ya know. I feel pretty good considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “That I’m still alive. Enough about me. How was the date? Give already.”

  “Mom, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

  “That good, eh,” she chuckled.

  “I wouldn’t say good exactly. It was more of a cross-cultural experience.” I tried to get off the hook without lying.

  “Cross-cultural? He wasn’t Jewish? You met him on JDate.”

  “Oh, he was Jewish alright. Just not the kind of Jewish I had in mind.”

  “Ugly? No money? Too many ex-wives? Insists on keeping a kosher home.”

  “Actually he was really good looking but I’m not sure about his financial situation. He doesn’t have to keep kosher because he doesn’t eat—food.”

  “Rhodaaaa,” she whined. “Are we playing twenty questions here or what? Is this some kind of riddle?”

  “Riddle is right, Ma. If I tell you what happened will you promise to believe me?”

  “You’re a journalist. You do your homework. Of course I’ll believe you.”

  “He’s a vampire.”

  “Umpire?”

  My mom’s hearing wasn’t as good as it used to be. Especially when I said something really unexpected.

  “Vampire, Mom. Think Dracula.”

  “You’ve been seeing too many old episodes of Buffy.” Mom and I used to watch that show together. We both loved it. “You mean he was some kind of crazy who thought he was a vampire. I hope he didn’t want to suck your blood.”

  “No, he doesn’t feed off Jews, only goyim. He’s got ethics,” I joked.

  “Rhoda, c’mon. This is your mother here, not David Letterman. Are you still trying to write for TV?”

  One of my secret desires was to write for a show like Sex and the City. Or Desperate Housewives, or The Witches of Eastwick, which had been cancelled by clueless TV execs. I hoped witches were sticking pins into their TV exec dolls. Instead, I was stuck writing for Bottom Line, a newsletter where I had to interview “experts” and ghostwrite articles for them. At the bottom of the article it would say, “So and so was interviewed by Rhoda Ginsburg.” They were the kind of dumb self-help articles that people could finish while they were on the can, as, I believe, Jeff Gol
dblum himself said about a fictional magazine in The Big Chill. I don’t know what I would have done if my Word program didn’t have bullets. I hated the job but it paid well, even though not well enough to cover all my expenses. And it was a steady gig, the Holy Grail for freelance writers.

  “No, Mom, I’m serious, he is a real vampire.”

  Long silence. I could hear her breathing.

  “Nah. You can't really believe there is such a thing?”

  “Now I do. Sheldon convinced me. He really is undead, and Jewish. I’ll send you a copy of the interview I did with him. That should convince you.”

  “No matter what I read, I’ll think you’re going nuts.”

  “I’ll paste it into an email as soon as I transcribe it, Mom.” My Mom still couldn’t figure out how to download attachments—much less how to play an audio file.

  “Where does this vampire live?” my Mom asked. “In a coffin?”

  “I have no idea if he sleeps in a coffin but he said he lives in a Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn, probably Crown Heights. He took the ‘4’ to meet me.

  “Hasidic? I guess he fits in there. They all look pasty faced.”

  “You got it, Mom.”

  “Are you going to see him again? Did he ask for your number?”

  “How desperate are you for me to find a guy? Would you settle for a vampire as long as he was Jewish?”

  “Well maybe, as long as he has a few bucks. I guess vampires must have centuries to get compound interest. I worry about you. No husband, no savings, not even any relatives when I’m gone.”

  Mom was humoring me. There was no way she was going to believe my vampire story unless she saw Sheldon with her own eyes. Even then she'd be skeptical. My mom was a veteran of the New York City school system where she'd taught for twenty-five years in some pretty tough neighborhoods. Nothing much surprised her.