Did I just shit myself?
It’s sort of warmer and moister down there than usual, and, in my current state, it’s a bit hard to tell what’s solid and what’s not. I’m in a mid-range hotel room somewhere near Baker Street station, with slightly out-of-date furnishings and typically English windows that seem to amplify the noise from the street rather than block it. He’s got me shoved up against a wall, and behind an invisible cloud of whiskey, lingering cherry vape liquid, and the barely perceptible metallic tinge of blood, his sharp white fangs are aiming right for my neck. I’m about to get eaten out at entirely the wrong end.
Why do I always pull the crazy ones?
He looked hot in his black shirt and jeans, nursing a plastic glass in one of London’s depressingly generic gay pubs. Ok, maybe he was just interesting, and his look of apathy was ever so slightly different from the usual bovine expressions of the slew of drunks and emotionless twats that usually hang out at Compton’s. Also, I was horny, and lonely, and the idea of going home with Mr. Suburban Budapest 2011 was more appealing than inducing chronic arthritis in my fingers from a night of scrolling through Grindr.
How was I supposed to know I’d end up with Vlad the Impaler’s queer cousin?
As he leaned in, I couldn’t help but notice his perfect, nearly-poreless skin. Was this the gayest way to die? Trapped in a sexless hook-up with someone draining all my emotional energy, all the while marveling at smooth skin and stainless teeth? He was moving as slow as molasses, evidently enjoying the rank smell of fear sweat making its way through my protective layer of cologne. Suddenly, he stopped and jerked forward, bringing his nose, rather than his fangs, close to my neck. He sniffed a couple of times and then shot back, a look mixing disgust and anger wrinkling up his alabaster visage.
“Are you a Jew?” he fired at me, accusingly, only half a question.
Normally I would countenance with something vaguely witty, like “yes, did my hooknose accidently poke you in the eye?” to cover up my rage at a date’s anti-Semitism. In my current position, though, I croaked out a meagre “Yes” in a voice not all that dissimilar from the pimply teenager who works at Krusty Burger.
“But I could have sworn I smelt pork on your breath when we met. I know I smelt pork, not… Jew!” he spat out at me, an accusation so bizarre I never thought I’d hear it, let alone defend my honour and pride against.
“I like Pret’s Italian prosciutto sandwiches,” I squeaked. “I had one before the bar… I… I didn’t think my breath would smell from it.”
My brain is reeling now. What the fuck should I have done to not end up here? Downed a bottle of Manishevitz? Padded my crotch with matzo balls? Who knew that it wasn’t garlic but gefilte fish and a couple of oily latkes that would keep Nosferatu at bay.
“I mean, for fuck’s sake, this is such fucking deception. Why would you hide this? A game leg, a small dick, hell, even the clap, I could totally understand you hiding those things. I don’t tell anyone that I’ve only got one ball. It’s not like they can expect to order up a Ken doll from Grindr with everything according to product specs.”
Wait, what?
“But that you’re a Jew? Buddy, that is fucking dirty. People need to know these things if they’re going to go home with you! I’m not a racist or anything, but, like, you know, it’s important to know…” he trails off, evidently coming down from the high of his first bout of rage.
I am so confused. I start off thinking I’m going to get laid, then that I’m going to be eaten. Now I don’t know if I might be shamed on Twitter as the gay Harvey Keitel, the Jew perpetually pigeonholed as an Italian gangster, or if I might get the crap kicked out of me by the president of the Klan’s Transylvanian chapter.
He sits down, hand on his forehead. Anger gives way to resignation, maybe even a little despair.
“Where’s your family from? Poland? Germany?” he asks me, proving that every bout of casual sex doesn’t have to feel absolutely the same.
“My dad’s from Belarus,” I answer, gradually gaining a bit of composure as the blood returns to my face, no longer quite as terrified of being in the general vicinity of my neck. “I was born in Canada, though. And my mom’s family came from… Transylvania?” My voice cracks up a few notes on that last word, and I can sense that it’s going to initiate round two of his apoplexy.
“What? Transylvania? FFS. Are you kidding me? You actually descend from some Jews who probably sold me a faulty schnitzel hammer, and you’re staring at me like Bambi in the headlights, totally clueless why I might be angry about your teensy, tiny omission?!?”
Honestly, I don’t know what to say. I was ready for the ‘why won’t you bareback’ question, but not an inquisition about my family tree and the failings of my parents in passing on wisdom from the Old Country. “We weren’t big on… tradition.”
“Jesus, what were you, raised by wolves? Scrap that, wolves would have told you about me. Did you actually know nothing about vampires? Nothing about our… predilections? Nada when it comes to who we eat and who we toss?” Incredulity is giving way to just plain cruelty.
“I guess I always assumed that vampires were just psychopaths explained differently. Y’know, like, sadists who used to drink blood and torture people and now just go into finance or recruitment…” He’s not amused. “Anyway, why would being a Jew make a difference? Wouldn’t you prefer us, since we don’t wear crosses?”
“Oh yeah, ‘cause a cross is really going to stop the undead,” he scoffs, falling further into sarcasm. Ah, so he is really gay, I think. “Do you think that some cheap, tacky hunk of plastic from Claire’s Accessories is going to stop me from ripping out someone’s jugular? A WWJD bracelet might be a boner killer, but when I’m feasting I only need my teeth to extend.”
Who knew Dracula would be so crude? But crude I can handle, so I figure I can push a bit further. I’m probably going to leave this room in a bag, so I might as well try my luck with a bit more explanation. Maybe he’ll like my spunk (no pun intended) and let me leave alive, like this is 2022’s answer to the Apprentice.
“So, then, what’s it with Jews? Why can’t you eat us – even those of us who aren’t, y’know, particularly good Jews?”
He gives me a look like I just asked why I can’t wear stonewashed denim to a white party. “Idiot. Fine, I’ll tell you what you should’ve known anyways. We only eat our own kind. Something to do with dietary restrictions or revenge or gluten content, I don’t know. The point is that I can only eat who you people call goyim. No Jews, and Roma are off limits too. Muslims are iffy, something about if they’re converts, where they converted, how long ago, etc. It’s too complicated, and there’s always a chubby Catholic around, so I don’t bother with Muslims.”
“I see…” Never one to be cut out of a conversation, I try to insert myself ever so gently. “I thought…”
“Shut up! I’m not done talking! Of course, we can’t let this whole section of the population escape our control, so Jews and Roma were usually given a choice. You can either help out, or we kill you. Simples.”
I cringe a little at the word simples. Also, at the insinuation that I’m now going to have to make a choice.
“Which brings me to our business at hand. I can either kill you or you can help me.”
“Like a familiar?” I ask, trying to drag this out, hoping that something will interrupt us so that just like when I’m asked where I want to eat, I don’t actually have to make a choice.
“Not quite. A familiar is promised eternal life. You, chubsy, just get out of getting killed.”
I look down at my waist. Chubsy? I swim!
“Well, that sounds like quite a choice. I have no idea which one I’d rather choose…” I start, getting a bit sarcastic in tone.
“Don’t get smarmy with me, Moishe.” Wow, Dracula’s starting to sound like a real dickhead. I mean, apart from the whole murdering people and drinking their blood, he’s also anti-Semitic. I bet he listens to Nickelback too. “Look, I don’t have anyone to help with my affairs. I didn’t want a breeder hanging around. You know how they are when it comes to questions about sex and apps and things. I don’t like to have to explain things too much, and I didn’t want some loser treating this like a Gothic version of Queer Eye.”
Jesus, does Vlad the Impaler watch Queer Eye? Is he going to renovate my flat, make me work through long-repressed emotional issues, and use cilantro in every fucking recipe? Does that actually repulse me more than being an accessory to murder?
“So, then, I guess I accept. Do I, y’know, like, do anything? Swear by anything? Some sort of transcendental transfiguration thing that binds me to you?” I can smell the fear-sweat on me, and I am clearly in the upper registers of nervous-chatty. I think I’m over the threshold of survival, but I’m not sure, and I both want to get deep into it, without making him regret his offer.
“FFS, for a Jew you sure do spout a lot of Catholic crap. Transfiguration? What, like sucking my dick? This isn’t church, dude. We just have a few things to sign, a little notarization, and an ankle bracelet. My cousin Petru did four years of Law Enforcement Studies at Missouri State – amazing stuff those American police forces have.”
I’m… relieved? I don’t really know. “Do I get to go on with my regular life? Like, go back to my day job, see friends, visit family, travel…” I’m probably pushing it with the last one, I know, but this is a negotiation, in a way, and I’m not giving up everything all at once.
“Travel?” he snorts. “Good luck with that one! No, look, during daylight, you get a fair amount of time for your own stuff, within reason. No cavorting with vampire killers, no agreements with other vampires, no unionization. But in the evenings and overnight, your time is mine. I’ll have various odd jobs for you, and you’ll have to help out with clean up. You do my finances, book my travel, get rid of friends and relatives I don’t want to see, repair things around the house…you’ll basically be my Smithers.”
I don’t point out that this makes him Mr. Burns, but I’m happy to be slotting into something other than a body bag.
“Oh, and you need to get yourself a good yarmulke. You don’t need to wear it all the time, but, y’know, when we have other vampires around, it’s important for them to know you’re off limits. Maybe cultivate a few more Jew-y characteristics.”
“Like what? Counting my gelt, making matzo with leftover children’s blood, poisoning wells, covering up Epstein’s crimes?” I say, just catching the pissy tone in my voice.
“Ugh, no, but it wouldn’t hurt if you would know how to make a good kugel. I can’t stand White people food. It makes their blood so bland and tasteless. And if you’re good with money, that’s always beneficial. I’m terrible with my finances. But otherwise, we vampires have the whole world domination thing down, we don’t need you to push any more Mel Gibson BS.”
“You are circumcized, right?” he asks, raising an eyebrow, the first note of temerity I’ve noticed in his voice all evening.
“Yes. No bar mitzvah, but definitely circumcized,” I chime in cheerfully, unsure if I’m supposed to let him inspect.
“No bar mitzvah? What? You missed out on such a great time! Ach, when you whip the candies and they draw blood from the rabbi? Such a good time!” He seems almost nostalgic, and I wonder how many unsuspecting sheigetz husbands have gone missing from a fully-catered children’s party.
My pulse has come down a bit, and the fear sweat smell is far from suffocating now. Plus, the pressure in my bladder means that I probably haven’t pissed myself, I’ve just sweat to the point where I might as well have.
“So, what next?” I ask. I’m sort of getting into this. I’ve definitely had worse hook ups before. Remember that guy who insisted on using whipped cream, then slipped on some and smashed his head? Or the one who pulled a muscle while putting on the world’s most awkward strip show? At least tonight won’t end with sardonic lesbian paramedics judging me and my life choices.
“Let’s go get something to eat before the sun comes up. I’ve got a blood pack somewhere in my knapsack, and, from the looks of it, this is the longest you’ve gone without eating anything, chubsy!”
I scowl at him, but he takes no notice.
“Damn, whodda thunk it, huh? I wanted to go to Salt Lake City for vacation. All those repressed Mormon boys, out for a suck and fuck on the sly, looking like trite porn and smelling of nothing. I coulda spent two weeks letting them suck on me before I sucked them dry.” I’m trying to figure out what’s sexual, what’s murderous, and what’s just plain prissy. “But nooo, my cousin Dan said I should go to London. So many cool drag clubs in East London. All that culture! All those boys from everywhere, horny for something exclusive and overpriced! But instead of getting my kicks, I end up with you, Shtisel. I suppose it’s not all bad.”
“Thanks a bunch,” I reply, wondering if I shouldn’t have chosen the quicker, possibly less painful option of immediate death.
“It’s like my mother always said: you’re a no-good fuck up, Vlad! Find yourself a good Jewish boy, or you’ll burn up in the street one of these days, ya loser!”
MICHAEL ERDMAN (he/him). Find Yourself a Good Jewish Boy is Michael Erdman's first published short story. Although originally from Canada, he currently lives in London, United Kingdom with his partner Sam, where he works at the British Library as the Curator of Turkish and Turkic Collections. Michael splits his writing time between short fiction, academic works, and the scripting and illustration of graphic novels. Find him on Twitter @altaytoyughur.