My Sister, the Vampire

My Sister, the Vampire

Author's Note: All characters engaging in any sexual activities are over the age of 18 years. Names of all characters are fictional, and were changed to protect the naughty! Certain details were also changed to further conceal the identities of any real persons.

Twenty-some years ago, right after finishing grad school, I wrote a novel about vampires. Based on a true story out of Eastern Europe, it took place in a small town in the old Austrian Empire, a region that is now in Slovakia. The book is no longer in print, but was relatively successful back in the day. Sales were good and there was some talk about making a motion picture out of it, plans which never materialized. Those are not the details I think about when I remember the book—and I remember it often.

What I remember so fondly is the cover.

A few copies can still be found in my basement, in addition to the well-worn copy on the shelf of my study, the private hideaway where I do my writing. The cover is still eye-catching. In a dark and foggy cemetery, next to the rusted iron gate of an ancient stone crypt, stands the figure of a mysterious woman in white. Her back is to the camera with her face to the side, her profile partially hidden by flowing flame red hair. The only color on the cover, other than the title and author in blood red, is her hair.

One of the reasons I am proud of that cover is, in addition to writing the book, I also took the cover photo. And the story of that cover is nearly as good as the plot of the book, although far less tragic.

For months I immersed myself in writing, all fall and through the Christmas and New Year's holidays. I spent a few days visiting my family over the holidays, but spent most of those cold months cloistered in my small, one-bedroom apartment writing, with frequent trips to the local university library to research some of the historic details. Back then, I didn't know how to pace myself, and sometimes I got so engrossed I forgot to go grocery shopping. By the time I finished, I was a real mess.

It was nearly midnight when the phone rang.

"Hi. It isn't too late, is it?" It was Consuela, my sister, her voice low and breathy.

"What time is it? Doesn't matter, I don't sleep anyways."

"What is keeping you awake?"

"Still working on the final edits. They are due this weekend. The editor complains I use way too much passive voice, and we have disagreements about some of the dialogue."

"Bet you can't wait until it is finished," she cheerfully said.

"I'm already planning to be drunk for a month."

"That is the best idea I've heard all week."

I asked, "What are you up to at this late hour?"

"Finally got the kids to bed and now I am trying to figure out a way to stay sane. I really need to take a break for a few days. Chuck just dropped on me that his mother is coming this weekend, and I can't take that. One of them is bad enough, but his mother, too?"

"Take the kids and go to Mom's for a week." It seemed like a good suggestion.

She hated my suggestion. "The reason she is coming is to see the kids, since she could not get down her for Christmas this year. But I had another idea."

"Head to Mom's without the kids?"

"She's nearly as bad as Chuck's mom these days. Besides, she won't allow alcohol in her house." Our mother had always been a religious fanatic, but it had progressed in the last few years. I made the mistake of suggesting wine with Christmas dinner, an idea so lousy it nearly ruined the holiday for the entire family. Go figure. "I had another idea—could I crash at your place for the weekend? I only need a few days to decompress. I'll even bring the liquor, so I won't drink all yours."

"It's really a bad time for me. I'm really busy and the place is a wreck. You know how I am when I am writing."

"I don't care about a mess, and I won't get in your way. I'll hang out by the pool during the day."

"Today's high temperature was about fifty. It's February."

"Don't remind me. Saturday is Valentine's Day."

"Maybe you should stay home for Valentine's."

"I'd rather be staked to an anthill. Look, I'll clean your apartment or go shopping. Is that cool bar you took me to still open? That one like the old gold mine? It's walking distance."

Out of patience and not up to a fight, I told her Baby Doe's, the place she remembered, was still there, and surrendered to her will. If she wants to volunteer to vacuum and put some of this mess away, have at it!

Consuela had noticeably changed since the Holidays. Friday night, when I opened my door to see her standing there, it was a bit of a shock. Sure, she'd driven a few hundred miles, which takes its toll on anyone, but her hair was a mess and, when she took off her coat, she looked five pounds lighter than six weeks before. And she didn't have five pounds to lose.

"How was the trip?"

She tossed her coat on a chair. "Great—if you enjoy sitting behind a truck wreck on the Interstate for two hours. How's your book?"

"Sorry about the drive. The book is good—turned in the final edits yesterday. I guess having company coming motivated me."

She was surveying the room. "You weren't lying; this place is a mess!"

"I spent the afternoon cleaning up." That earned an eye-roll.

I probably should tell you about Consuela. From the sound of her name, you probably imagine us as Spanish. An exotic girl with black hair and matching eyes wearing a long black and red dress. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our mother heard the name in a movie and instantly fell in love with it. We've often wondered how she looked at a pale, redheaded baby girl with blue-green eyes and decided to stick her with a Spanish name, but it is doubtful she ever considered the irony. I came along a little more than a year later and, although I still call her my big sister, outgrew her by junior high. Tiny as a child and still petite as an adult, she finally got to 100 pounds after she was married.

From the look of it, she may have dropped back below the century mark.

"So, the book is all done and out of your hands?"

"Now we're just fighting over the cover."

"What's wrong with the cover?"

"Take a look at what they want." I'd printed out their suggestion and it was still sitting on the table where I'd thrown it that morning, and handed it to her. A coffin lay on a table with a shadow person behind it. Across the top was the title in white, Gothic lettering, with my name at the bottom.

Her initial reaction was to make the face she made when our mom served her liver and onions. "It's not too bad."

"It's not good."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"I hired a model. In fact, we're shooting tomorrow. Come along if you want."

"You are doing a photoshoot with a model for the cover? I mean, you've done photography since you were a kid, but I never expected you to do it professionally."

"When I told them how much I hate this cover, I managed to convince them to give me the weekend to come up with an alternative. It won't be too hard, pretty basic stuff, and I have Photoshop to edit it just right."

"How did you find a model?"

"Found her on a website where models and photographers can meet up. She charges a hundred dollars an hour, but it's worth it. She looks just like the painting of the book's vampire that hangs in a museum in Bratislava. And there is a boutique that specializes in period costumes, and it had an old-fashioned nightgown that will be perfect."

"A nightgown?"

"In the book, she appears to her victims at night wearing a nightgown."

"I think you just wanted to meet a hot model."

"No, this is totally serious. But it never hurts to meet a hot model."

Because vampires don't hang out in broad daylight, we scheduled the photoshoot for early in the morning and hoped for clouds, to capture the gloomy, spooky vibe I wanted. Consuela and I hung out drinking wine and relaxing before going to sleep relatively early; she insisted on sleeping on the couch, refusing to kick me out of my bed.

The next morning was perfect: gray, overcast skies and a hit of fog. We were scheduled to meet at 7:30 at an old graveyard in a nearby town a half hour away, and Consuela and I arrived early to scout everything out. At 7:30, she asked, "Where's your model?"

"She'll be here." When she hadn't shown up by 7:45, I called, and a sleepy voice croaked hello on the other end. "We are here at the graveyard; where are you?"

"Oh. Last night I partied pretty hard. I must have forgotten to set the alarm."

"How soon can you be here?"

"Where is it again?"

"The old cemetery on highway 5."

"Oh, that's like an hour from here. I must look like shit. Can we reschedule for next weekend?"

I was freaking out. This was my only chance to avoid a shitty cover, and shitty book covers mean shitty sales. "Listen, I don't give a damn what you look like, get your ass over here!"

"Wow. There is no need for that. Shit happens."

"And professionals get their shit together. See you in an hour?"

"I'm not really in the mood today. Call me this week and we can reschedule." Click.

Consuela did not need to ask. She heard my side of the conversation as well as the string of obscenities I screamed out after the bitch hung up on me and knew the model was a no-show. True to her name, she tried to console me, calming me with words and well-intentioned suggestions. Photos of headstones in the fog. Try to find another model for the afternoon or tomorrow morning.

"The forecast is for rain tomorrow. And a photo of a tombstone will never convince anyone to read a book."

"What size is that nightgown?"

"Medium."

"It's a bit big..."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, I'm not much of a model, but if you want to try, I'm willing to be your vampire. It will save you a few hundred dollars, too."

Consuela did a little modeling back in high school, but there isn't much of a career in modeling at 5'2". Her idea did pique my interest. While Sveta, the vampire, as only a teenager and Consuela 28 or 29 at the time, she regularly got carded at the liquor store and could easily pass for a teenager—even after giving birth to three kids. Hell, she was skinnier than most teenagers. A black & white cover might work for the mood, with some blood red lettering giving it color.

"It's like 45 degrees. I'm not asking you to wear a flimsy nightgown out in this weather and not pay you for it."

"Don't be an idiot; I'm not a professional model. You are going to need to tell me how to do everything. But the way you described the cover—I can do that. The nightgown is pretty adorable."

Made of gauzy white fabric with short, puffy sleeves and some lace designed to fall to mid-calf, a ribbon neck that could be tied or—if loose—draped over bare shoulders for a second, sexier look. It was pretty darn adorable.

"Medium might be big..."

"Don't worry," I said, starting to find enthusiasm with her solution, "I brought clips since we didn't have time for a fitting—we can clip the front or back, whichever is facing away from the camera."

"I'm not blonde like that model, but ..."

"Why didn't I think of that? A redhead is kind of perfect."

"We usually are."

"Particularly for this. Did you know in Greek mythology, redheads become vampires when they die?"

"Well, that is something to look forward to!"

While I got set up near some spooky looking graves, Consuela changed in the car and came out wearing her winter coat over it. "Is this okay? I had some makeup in my bag, so I put a little on, but figured they did not wear much makeup 200 years ago in the Hungarian Empire."

She looked gorgeous. "Sometimes having a beautiful sister can be a good thing."

"When is it a bad thing?"

Posed next to a grave and knowing what I wanted, I took her coat and tossed it over a gravestone out of frame and we started shooting. At first focused on framing the shot, directing her to move the way I envisioned the cover in my head, I probably had 20 or 30 shots before I noticed it.

"Oh-oh—we have a problem."

"What's the matter?"

"They didn't invent the bra until about 100 years after she died, and I'm pretty sure they didn't have panties like that back then."

"You can see my underwear through this?"

I handed her the coat to put on while I showed her the photos in the small display window, blowing them up so she could see the clear outline of her white bra and panties through the semi-opaque fabric.

"In other words, you can't use them?"

"Maybe I can photoshop them out; I'm not real good with it, so I have no idea how well that will work."

"Damn, that sucks. I'm so sorry. If I'd known, I'd have brought some beige lingerie. I think I packed black and red, so even going home to change, there is nothing to change into."

"That's okay. Maybe I can do something in editing."

"Or...let me see that again." I pulled up a photo and blew it up for her. "It's really not that see-through, just enough to see white lines, right?"

"Right..." I answered.

"You can't tell anyone about this." Before I could answer, she reached up and slid her panties off, stuck them in a coat pocket, then handed me the coat. "One test shot front and back. I don't want my junk on a book cover, but if it is as opaque as I think, it might not show." I took one of her front and she turned for one from the rear. Before we checked the images in the camera, she asked, "Be honest—can you see anything?"

"No, only the shadow of your silhouette. Nothing else shows through." The photos confirmed it, although the white outline of her bra was obvious in the photos, so she pulled her arms inside her coat and, a second later, pulled the bra out.

"Okay, where were we?"

My main idea of long shots from the back, her face half-hidden behind her hair to create mystery, went perfectly. She posed near a dozen different graves, pulling on her coat between shots to keep warm. To be honest, a couple of times I saw the line of her crack, but that wasn't the look wanted on the cover: not too sexy—just sexy enough. And, Consuela had a lovely, tight little ass. After an hour of taking basically the same shot with different backgrounds and slightly different poses, we started taking some different poses, from the side, from the front. The fact that nothing really showed through puzzled me. Did she shave?

I struggled to concentrate on the shots.

Must be her pale complexion. Probably light pink nipples, that's why they didn't show through. And, she must shave.

"Do you want to get coffee?"

"Sure. That was fun—did we get what you need?" Over coffee at a Starbucks a few blocks away, she was animated, almost manic. "It's too bad that's all you needed. All sorts of ideas kept popping into my head I wanted to try."

"Like what?"

"Like my face! For example, something close up that I can keep. And like coming out of a grave or from behind a headstone. Or maybe something with my hair hanging down from the front, like The Ring. I kept thinking about that wearing that nightgown."

Originally, I planned for some tighter shots with the model, perhaps sexier alternatives in case the publisher did not like my long shots, but her ideas were amazing. "Why didn't you say anything while we were there?"

"It's cold out there, and coffee sounded good. Now that I'm warmed up, I feel ready to go."

"It's not even nine..."

"Oh, come on—let's go back!"

It's probably been since high school since I saw Consuela have that much fun. She got into it, vamping, peering around monuments, emerging from behind gravestones, peeking over the tops of them, her face wearing all sorts of expressions. Her idea of brushing her hair over her face with those eyes staring out with a snarl or vacant expression was fantastic. I was having almost as much fun as her. We were kids again.

While doing some close-ups with her Ring hair, one eye completely covered and the other staring through a two-inch gap between the strands, she followed my direction as well as the most experienced model. Eyes left, look right, now straight at me. Through the zoom lens, for maybe the first time in my life, I truly saw her remarkable eyes. Ringed with a band of sapphire, most of her irises were sky blue. Around the pupil though, centers of emerald glowed created almost a flame pattern.

"You really have beautiful eyes. Well, eye. One is hidden by your hair."

"Thanks."

"Don't smile—you're supposed to be scary."

"Sorry."

"Intense."

"What?"

"Your eyes, they're intense. The left one, at least."

Although not my intent when buying that nightgown for the shoot, it worked amazingly well for this look, although when she untied the bow and pulled it down over one shoulder, she combined the creepy and sexy in a way quite different from Samara in the movie. On her hands and knees, elbows out at crazy angles, she crawled toward me with hair scraping the brown, winter leaves among weathered tombstones tilted at crazy angles. I was laying on the ground with her crawling toward me, enjoying the show, when I realized how good the show actually was.

The collar loosened to reveal her shoulder revealed more than that. Much more. Her titties swayed with each step, pointing down in Vs.

Inside my pants, I felt a stirring begin, and rather than embarrass myself, I said, "Okay, ready to try something different?"

Bent over a gravestone, leaning on it, her long hair hanging down to lay on its curved top, she asked, "How's this?"

"Fantastic. I hope you don't mind showing some cleavage."

"I don't have any cleavage."

Click. "This photo will prove you wrong when we get home." Click. "So will that one. Bring your elbows in—perfect! Hold it. Good, now eyes left...lean forward a little more..." Click.

"I had cleavage after the babies. Now, I swear they are the same size as they were in tenth grade."

"Will you stop? You're going to love these when we're done. You may not want to show Chuck, though—I have a feeling he will not appreciate you posing for sexy pictures."

Checking to make sure what was visible, she asked, "You aren't seeing too much, are you?"

"No, but you'd better not lean forward any more if you want to keep them PG."

To be honest, I did not mind at all, enjoying the spectacular view, but I wasn't going to trick my sister into posing for topless photos, so whenever I caught her bending forward too much with the ribbon undone, I warned her.

"Pull your hair down. Like The Ring."

Using fingers as a comb, she pulled her hair so it covered her face; I pushed it aside to reveal one blue-green eye and a sliver of white, freckled skin below.

"I can't get over how beautiful your eyes look through the lens."

"Can you even see the other one?"

"Okay, one beautiful eye. Looks amazing through the zoom. Now, come out from behind the tombstone. Bend your elbows out all crazy—there! Perfect! Now, lean into it. Get down low. Drape your hair on the tombstone. That's it! Elbows up!"

I must admit, my sister makes a fantastic model. She was really into it and, by that point, so was I. Believe it or not, I really wasn't paying attention to how the loose neckline was hanging open behind her hair. We must have shot 150 shots of her crawling over gravestones, rising from behind low brick walls around family plots that made it look like she was crawling out of a grave.

Back then, the memory cards were 250 or 500 megs, so when we had about 400 shots in the largest size. I swapped out the card and we kept shooting until the second card filled up. It was almost noon and the sun was breaking up the clouds. Packed up and going home, it was impossible to tell which of us were more eager to see the photos, which took forever to download onto my PC. Computers were so slow back then. Waiting was torture.