Philadelphia is an American metropolis with a thriving vampire community. But out of all the real vampires in the area, P. Rob Royal singled me out for a project about--of course--vampires. I wanted to share our (Facebook) correspondence with you.
P. Rob Royal June 17 at 7:18pm
Hello,
My name is Rob Royal and I'm an executive producer here at Channel 6. I'd like to talk to you about vampires. I need to get smarter about them. I would like to get a copy of your handbook. Can yo please call me at 484-664-8603.
Emilie Conroy June 17 at 10:49pm
I would be more than happy to help you to the fullest extent that I can, but as my schedule is so busy I prefer to use messaging or e-mail for communications. Let me give you the basics.
I am the elected Matriarch of the Order of Maidenfear, an international network of real vampires. This weekend we are celebrating our fortieth anniversary with an event we call the Ruby Solstice. Much of the vampire community participates in organized groups such as ours.
Additionally, I am the director and webmistress of Vampgeist Creative Media at http://www.vampgeist.com/ . Our main task has been to help people in the community and people outside the community find each other and successfully navigate media opportunities and traps. If you visit the website you will find a lot of information, all of which is freely available.
The Hybrid Vampire Handbook is available athttp://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-hybrid-vampire-handbook/2756708 . At the moment I'm contracted for several other real vampire book projects, including a conversational narrative about my personal experiences, a history of our Order, tales from the Vampgeist project, and a workbook in energy or pranic vampirism.
The world of the real vampire is multifaceted and always changing. It's been my experience that people find real vampirism even more interesting than the vampirism of film and fang. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
P. Rob Royal June 17 at 11:31pm
Thank you for responding to my message.
I have been reading information on the various websites you suggested since this afternoon. I have not been able to see a copy of the Hybrid Vampire Handbook, but we would like to read it.
I'm working with reporter Brian Taff to produce a report on vampires in our area.
As I'm sure you are aware, there is a renewed facination with vampires. Our network has a new TV show beginning and the newest Twighlight movie opens next week. But we're looking to give viewers insight into real vampire communities. Would you allow us to attend part of the Ruby Solstice? We would also need to interview someone about the vampire community. Could you do that video interview?
I've read some of your messages detailing what you do and don't do as a vampire ... kind of letters to educate people outside your community. I would really appreciate the opportunity to let our crew attend part of this weekend's event. We have attended and recorded Wiccan ceremonies in the past and have been very respectful.
You can respond via facebook or my email address: rob.royal@abc.com
Thank you again.
Emilie Conroy June 18 at 12:25am
Let me get back to you. I think I can provide what you're seeking, or if not I can point you in the direction of someone who does.
Unfortunately Ruby Solstice is a closed event, mainly to protect those in our group who do not wish to go public with their vampire lifestyles. I've been out in the open since 1988, and would have no trouble giving you a thorough and interesting interview--so long as no one is expecting Morticia Addams complete with fangs, cape, and a wooden coffin filled with the ground of my homeland!
I'm more aware of the pop vampire than I care to be, but it's all part of the package I suppose. For example, I have gotten e-mail addressed to the famous names in vampire fiction--Edward Cullen, Lestat, Celine from "Underworld", and the rest of the gang. That is, there are people who expect me to put them in contact with one of these characters, since I have the connections and whatnot. Sometimes I think a real vampire's biggest headache is the vampire fan!
Keep in touch, and take care!
P. Rob Royal June 18 at 12:47am
I thank you again for being willing to help.
Unfortunately for me, I'm trying to broadcast a report within the next couple of days. If at all possible, I would like to interview you tomorrow evening. You can reach me anyway that works for you ... facebook, email or my cell phone. Good night.
Emilie Conroy June 18 at 1:13pm
I have to apologize. You had originally written I "I'd like to talk to you about vampires. I need to get smarter about them", and so I believed you were planning to take the time to research. I didn't realize how important rushing this story was. That being the case, I really can't do more than I've already offered.
Getting an inherently secretive community to open up about its activities is hard enough. Best of luck working with a tight time constraint.
I'm looking forward (in a macabre masochistic way) to seeing what these guys do manage to produce. Sure, it was an opportunity to talk about the vampire community as we know it, but I'm pretty sure anything I said would have been mangled and the whole thing turned into a one-ring circus. Sigh.
(2016 postscript--nothing ever materialized)
Showing posts with label Anecdotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anecdotes. Show all posts
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Advisory--Real Vampires Wanted
Not even vampires are safe when the creeps decide to come out of the woodwork.
One Vampgeist client became our client after the following events. She received an e-mail. Some huge network or another was seeking “real vampires” to be featured in a series “showing the truth about modern vampirism”. Interested real vampires were told to show up at a local television studio at a given time for an audition.
Well, our client squealed in enthusiasm. Imagine! National television! I suppose we can all understand how this might be heady stuff, heady enough to not wonder how the e-mail address had been attained or the solid logistics of the production. She put on her vampire best as requested and went off to audition.
The “studio” was a loft apartment, but this didn’t dissuade hundreds of “real vampires” from going after their moment. A line of potential talent lined up down the hall, down the stairwell, and outside into the cold January morning. Our client waited patiently for her turn with the “producers”, and then finally was ushered into the loft with a swish of the assistant’s hand.
Our client remembers how she had to tell herself that she was new to the whole TV thing, that maybe this was how it was done. She didn’t have the time to reflect more because one of the three male “producers” started laughing at her. “You’re precious,” he said, coming towards her, scrutinizing her body. “Doll, we want real vampires.”
“But I am a real vampire,” she insisted.
Now the other two men joined the third. “Look at you. You’re too damn fat to be a real vampire.”
Her jaw dropped. She is a thin woman and always has been. “What the hell does that have to do with being a vampire?”
But they weren’t about to answer her. They showed her the exit, making certain she didn’t speak to anyone else waiting in line.
All of this transpired as the result of a plague of e-mail invitations to participate in television shows and other media outlets that has been infecting the mailboxes of members of the real vampire community. If there has been a legitimate project–something setting out to explain rather than exploit–it has been buried under invitations to make talk shows more interesting and teasers about possible reality series.
If there were one or two of these making the rounds, this advisory might not be necessary. But it has become something of an epidemic. What’s worse is that these invitations appeal to a certain sense of vanity that we probably all feel to some degree. Being on national television is appealing, but that’s not the likely end to a real vampire’s encounter. Exploitation, abuse, mockery of the real vampire to increase an audience–these are the ultimate products of these projects, when there is actually a project at all.
The answer to this problem is in all of our hands. We must protect ourselves and venture forward wisely. Vampgeist has compiled these rules for safe conduct among media teasers.
1) Go with your gut. If you get a bad feeling, delete the message.
2) Recruiters for legitimate media outlets may use a canvassing method to announce a project, but they will still remain professional in their e-mail. Check to see if there is clearly a name and other contact data, as well as the outlet they claim to be representing. Do a web search for further verification.
3) Check the spelling, grammar, and syntax of the message. This is not elitist so much as another check for professionalism.
4) Ask questions. A professional will be expecting it, and will also find the time to answer.
5) Do not give out too much information, especially personal information, on your first attempt at contact. They need to establish a kind of trust and reciprocity with you first.
6) Remember that THEY are seeking YOU out because your knowledge may be a valuable commodity.
7) No one is going to think any less of you if you just delete the message and move on with your activities. Televised appearances have nothing to do with being a real vampire.
At Vampgeist we have staff who are checking out potential media contacts and projects. We offer this service to anyone in the real vampire community free of charge. Our safety and our integrity as a community are too important to be compromised by people seeking to make us look a little less than sane.
One Vampgeist client became our client after the following events. She received an e-mail. Some huge network or another was seeking “real vampires” to be featured in a series “showing the truth about modern vampirism”. Interested real vampires were told to show up at a local television studio at a given time for an audition.
Well, our client squealed in enthusiasm. Imagine! National television! I suppose we can all understand how this might be heady stuff, heady enough to not wonder how the e-mail address had been attained or the solid logistics of the production. She put on her vampire best as requested and went off to audition.
The “studio” was a loft apartment, but this didn’t dissuade hundreds of “real vampires” from going after their moment. A line of potential talent lined up down the hall, down the stairwell, and outside into the cold January morning. Our client waited patiently for her turn with the “producers”, and then finally was ushered into the loft with a swish of the assistant’s hand.
Our client remembers how she had to tell herself that she was new to the whole TV thing, that maybe this was how it was done. She didn’t have the time to reflect more because one of the three male “producers” started laughing at her. “You’re precious,” he said, coming towards her, scrutinizing her body. “Doll, we want real vampires.”
“But I am a real vampire,” she insisted.
Now the other two men joined the third. “Look at you. You’re too damn fat to be a real vampire.”
Her jaw dropped. She is a thin woman and always has been. “What the hell does that have to do with being a vampire?”
But they weren’t about to answer her. They showed her the exit, making certain she didn’t speak to anyone else waiting in line.
All of this transpired as the result of a plague of e-mail invitations to participate in television shows and other media outlets that has been infecting the mailboxes of members of the real vampire community. If there has been a legitimate project–something setting out to explain rather than exploit–it has been buried under invitations to make talk shows more interesting and teasers about possible reality series.
If there were one or two of these making the rounds, this advisory might not be necessary. But it has become something of an epidemic. What’s worse is that these invitations appeal to a certain sense of vanity that we probably all feel to some degree. Being on national television is appealing, but that’s not the likely end to a real vampire’s encounter. Exploitation, abuse, mockery of the real vampire to increase an audience–these are the ultimate products of these projects, when there is actually a project at all.
The answer to this problem is in all of our hands. We must protect ourselves and venture forward wisely. Vampgeist has compiled these rules for safe conduct among media teasers.
1) Go with your gut. If you get a bad feeling, delete the message.
2) Recruiters for legitimate media outlets may use a canvassing method to announce a project, but they will still remain professional in their e-mail. Check to see if there is clearly a name and other contact data, as well as the outlet they claim to be representing. Do a web search for further verification.
3) Check the spelling, grammar, and syntax of the message. This is not elitist so much as another check for professionalism.
4) Ask questions. A professional will be expecting it, and will also find the time to answer.
5) Do not give out too much information, especially personal information, on your first attempt at contact. They need to establish a kind of trust and reciprocity with you first.
6) Remember that THEY are seeking YOU out because your knowledge may be a valuable commodity.
7) No one is going to think any less of you if you just delete the message and move on with your activities. Televised appearances have nothing to do with being a real vampire.
At Vampgeist we have staff who are checking out potential media contacts and projects. We offer this service to anyone in the real vampire community free of charge. Our safety and our integrity as a community are too important to be compromised by people seeking to make us look a little less than sane.
Marilys and Phobos, Too! Case Studies
You may run into vampires who claim to be 436 years old. They may even claim to be immortal (and as they are currently alive, how can you dispute it?) and witnesses to the great events in history. You’ll find vampires who drive hearses (with eight miles to the gallon mileage, I can’t imagine the expense) and sleep in coffins. There are vampires who have paid $300 and more for dental-quality fangs, and still others have had their own canines filed down into fangs. And yes, you will find vampires who drink blood, although consent is the general rule and precautions are taken to ensure safety.
Marilys Mars is a real vampire in Philadelphia whom I know rather well. As far as she is concerned, she was born in the eighth century, she stopped aging when she was 25, and she has witnessed the flowering of Western civilization. She’s not shunned for her outrageous claims, however, as she is a contributing member of the vampire community and a great source of real wisdom. Marilys has helped countless vampires through their period of awakening.
But there is no getting around what has made Marilys notable—Marilys herself. Of course when someone claiming to be Carolingian offers to share her story, I’m ready to listen. I felt kind of awkward starting out with, “So, been around a while, have you?” Fortunately, Marilys has something of a press release, a quick narrative covering the last twelve hundred years or so. She’s given me express permission to reprint her tale here.
“Vampirism chose me. I didn’t choose it. But however it came about, here I am, out and in the open. This is my story. Whether you believe me or not is your choice. Mine is only to tell you. Do not ask me to make you a vampire. Do not ask me to turn you or to embrace you. Vampires are chosen. If you are meant to be a vampire, then you too will be chosen. Do not force the hand of fate in this matter. You cannot imagine the agonies of the soul you will suffer.
“To begin with–that seems so trite, and yet it’s so fitting–I was born somewhere in the Kingdom of the Franks in the year 778. It was the year of Karlos Magnus’ shame in the southwest mountains. I joined the ranks of the vampires when I was no more than ten years of age. My father had begun speaking on my marriage and I was of no mind to perish in childbirth as my mother had. The vampires offered me a kind of safety in that vampire women could not conceive children. Thus my father offered me up as a barren sacrifice.
“That’s right. I was an unwanted child in an unknown peasant family. Wealth and infamy were not mine by birthright. In fact I had to suffer through three marriages to wrinkled old men who spat on me for my infertility until I turned 25. At that point, I was becoming an old woman even though the vampire strains in me kept me looking youthful. I engaged the vampires around me to perform the Rite of Attainment–that exchange of energies that would fix my age at 25 for all time.
“There was no returning to a normal pastoral existence after that. But I had learned that gold spoke with more power than anything–even sons. If I was going to enjoy immortality, I needed to get some gold. I did have physical beauty and charm in my favor. With luck, I could manage to set myself up in marriage with wealthy, aging men who would be so enamored of me and the great care I took with them that they would bequeath all their goods to me. After a few marriages I was able to purchase my own lands and my own keep.
“Believe me when I tell you that I paid quite a price to amass my riches!
“The world changed around me and I remained the same. I’m no one famous in what you would call history. So far as I remember I had one brush with history in serving (as opposed to serving with) the army under Jeanne la Pucelle. Gilles de Rais still owes me a few gold coins.
“We vampires have needed to lay low in order to survive. When the wars over religion and the bite of the devil were felt all through Europe, our lives became distinctly uncomfortable. Think about it. So many innocent people lost their lives–and we were hardly innocent. I thought about going into the Osmanli Empire and trying to sell myself as a qualified slave–at least I would be safe. I could do a lot worse.
“Eventually I heard about the new land discovered across the ocean, a land wild but for the most part tolerant. Naturally I had a little unease about travelling and settling with Puritans–not that I was religious at all, but I was certainly no Puritan. Then I thought of the opportunities awaiting a creature like myself in a new land. I made my way to England, learned to appear outwardly Puritan, and sailed west.
“It wasn’t long before I was playing old tricks to survive–marrying dying old men for their wealth. The game was simple enough. Generally they kept quiet, but if they had thoughts of exposing me…well, you get the idea.
“I’ve been in Philadelphia since the Constitutional Convention. My friends have come and gone, and still this seems as good a place for a historical relic as any. In the late twentieth and dawning twenty-first centuries it has become relatively easy to be a vampire in the open. I actually fit into the groups I live in now.
“Never in my life have I known love. I have known loyalty, friendship, kindness, pleasure, and affection. But my heart sits in ice. I often wonder whether I am able to experience love.
“This is my tale, such as it is.”
I suppose there are a lot of things I could say. I can’t say I believe it, and yet to say I don’t believe it seems so harsh. What’s important is that Marilys believes it. There’s not a note of insincerity to her, no temper evolved from years of shouting down skeptics. She is at peace with herself. We should all be so fortunate.
“You knew Joan of Arc?” I asked, since she’d mentioned encountering La Pucelle.
A lazy smile lit up her face. “Knew her? No, I don’t think anyone could have actually known her. She was not knowable. She was more of a presence, a motivation.”
“How about the Song of Roland?”
“What is that?”
Dear reader, let me fill you in. The Song of Roland is a French epic poem about Charlemagne’s troubles in the Pyrenees in 778—what Marilys calls “Karlos Magnus’ shame in the southwest mountains”. I explain to Marilys why I drew the connection. “I am unfamiliar,” she tells me. “I haven’t read it.”
“Are you going to offer to turn me?”
Shaking her head, Marilys laughed. “Not you. You’re too much the spirit of your age. You’d be miserable as a vampire. No, you’ve been kind to me, and I like you too much.”
Phobos, on the other hand, is mortal and quite aware of it. Whether he was born with some variety of vampirism in him or if he took in outside influences doesn’t occupy his thoughts. Secure in who he is, Phobos dedicates the time “certain others would waste screaming their immortality” to helping latent vampires understand what they are and are not. As something of a joke, Phobos offers vampires claiming to be immortal the chance to prove it by jumping off the roof of the vampire house where he lives. So far, no one has taken him up on the opportunity.
Marilys Mars is a real vampire in Philadelphia whom I know rather well. As far as she is concerned, she was born in the eighth century, she stopped aging when she was 25, and she has witnessed the flowering of Western civilization. She’s not shunned for her outrageous claims, however, as she is a contributing member of the vampire community and a great source of real wisdom. Marilys has helped countless vampires through their period of awakening.
But there is no getting around what has made Marilys notable—Marilys herself. Of course when someone claiming to be Carolingian offers to share her story, I’m ready to listen. I felt kind of awkward starting out with, “So, been around a while, have you?” Fortunately, Marilys has something of a press release, a quick narrative covering the last twelve hundred years or so. She’s given me express permission to reprint her tale here.
“Vampirism chose me. I didn’t choose it. But however it came about, here I am, out and in the open. This is my story. Whether you believe me or not is your choice. Mine is only to tell you. Do not ask me to make you a vampire. Do not ask me to turn you or to embrace you. Vampires are chosen. If you are meant to be a vampire, then you too will be chosen. Do not force the hand of fate in this matter. You cannot imagine the agonies of the soul you will suffer.
“To begin with–that seems so trite, and yet it’s so fitting–I was born somewhere in the Kingdom of the Franks in the year 778. It was the year of Karlos Magnus’ shame in the southwest mountains. I joined the ranks of the vampires when I was no more than ten years of age. My father had begun speaking on my marriage and I was of no mind to perish in childbirth as my mother had. The vampires offered me a kind of safety in that vampire women could not conceive children. Thus my father offered me up as a barren sacrifice.
“That’s right. I was an unwanted child in an unknown peasant family. Wealth and infamy were not mine by birthright. In fact I had to suffer through three marriages to wrinkled old men who spat on me for my infertility until I turned 25. At that point, I was becoming an old woman even though the vampire strains in me kept me looking youthful. I engaged the vampires around me to perform the Rite of Attainment–that exchange of energies that would fix my age at 25 for all time.
“There was no returning to a normal pastoral existence after that. But I had learned that gold spoke with more power than anything–even sons. If I was going to enjoy immortality, I needed to get some gold. I did have physical beauty and charm in my favor. With luck, I could manage to set myself up in marriage with wealthy, aging men who would be so enamored of me and the great care I took with them that they would bequeath all their goods to me. After a few marriages I was able to purchase my own lands and my own keep.
“Believe me when I tell you that I paid quite a price to amass my riches!
“The world changed around me and I remained the same. I’m no one famous in what you would call history. So far as I remember I had one brush with history in serving (as opposed to serving with) the army under Jeanne la Pucelle. Gilles de Rais still owes me a few gold coins.
“We vampires have needed to lay low in order to survive. When the wars over religion and the bite of the devil were felt all through Europe, our lives became distinctly uncomfortable. Think about it. So many innocent people lost their lives–and we were hardly innocent. I thought about going into the Osmanli Empire and trying to sell myself as a qualified slave–at least I would be safe. I could do a lot worse.
“Eventually I heard about the new land discovered across the ocean, a land wild but for the most part tolerant. Naturally I had a little unease about travelling and settling with Puritans–not that I was religious at all, but I was certainly no Puritan. Then I thought of the opportunities awaiting a creature like myself in a new land. I made my way to England, learned to appear outwardly Puritan, and sailed west.
“It wasn’t long before I was playing old tricks to survive–marrying dying old men for their wealth. The game was simple enough. Generally they kept quiet, but if they had thoughts of exposing me…well, you get the idea.
“I’ve been in Philadelphia since the Constitutional Convention. My friends have come and gone, and still this seems as good a place for a historical relic as any. In the late twentieth and dawning twenty-first centuries it has become relatively easy to be a vampire in the open. I actually fit into the groups I live in now.
“Never in my life have I known love. I have known loyalty, friendship, kindness, pleasure, and affection. But my heart sits in ice. I often wonder whether I am able to experience love.
“This is my tale, such as it is.”
I suppose there are a lot of things I could say. I can’t say I believe it, and yet to say I don’t believe it seems so harsh. What’s important is that Marilys believes it. There’s not a note of insincerity to her, no temper evolved from years of shouting down skeptics. She is at peace with herself. We should all be so fortunate.
“You knew Joan of Arc?” I asked, since she’d mentioned encountering La Pucelle.
A lazy smile lit up her face. “Knew her? No, I don’t think anyone could have actually known her. She was not knowable. She was more of a presence, a motivation.”
“How about the Song of Roland?”
“What is that?”
Dear reader, let me fill you in. The Song of Roland is a French epic poem about Charlemagne’s troubles in the Pyrenees in 778—what Marilys calls “Karlos Magnus’ shame in the southwest mountains”. I explain to Marilys why I drew the connection. “I am unfamiliar,” she tells me. “I haven’t read it.”
“Are you going to offer to turn me?”
Shaking her head, Marilys laughed. “Not you. You’re too much the spirit of your age. You’d be miserable as a vampire. No, you’ve been kind to me, and I like you too much.”
Phobos, on the other hand, is mortal and quite aware of it. Whether he was born with some variety of vampirism in him or if he took in outside influences doesn’t occupy his thoughts. Secure in who he is, Phobos dedicates the time “certain others would waste screaming their immortality” to helping latent vampires understand what they are and are not. As something of a joke, Phobos offers vampires claiming to be immortal the chance to prove it by jumping off the roof of the vampire house where he lives. So far, no one has taken him up on the opportunity.
Girls Gone Vampire
Have you ever gone shopping for a corset?
Soon after I’d started poking around in the Orlando vampire community, I received an invitation to a vampire ball called “A Midsummer Night’s Scream” from a fellow who called himself BlackSwamp. Like everything else in the Orlando area (Disneyworld, Universal Studios) the vampire community did things in a big way. This event would be held in the downtown area on a July evening and proposed the most confusing dress code I’d ever seen.
“Let the flowers of the night be in full bloom,” the invitation said. “Let Elizabethan gowns and hose mingle with the tight vinyl of the now. Let great gods and goddesses dance with mortals shivering in the thrill of subjugation. Come in Victorian bondage and Medieval fury. Show your whole flesh or a peek of wrists and ankles. Be your fetish and fantasy on this night of nights.”
I began to suspect that sweatpants and sports bras weren’t an option. Undaunted, I called BlackSwamp for some advice.
He chuckled. “Go get a corset,” he told me. “The rest will come naturally from there.”
A corset? Like those horrible whalebone things that crushed ribs to get a waist with the circumference of a broom handle? I was dubious, but I dutifully wrote down the name and address of Night Rod, “the best place for vampire gear around”.
“And tell them BlackSwamp sent you,” he added. “They’ll give you the royal newbie treatment.”
I’d dragged my best friend Violet into many an adventure before this. She was especially excited to explore the vampire universe, and as she’d be going to the ball with me, she wanted to find out about this corset thing.
“That’s one of those things that pushes your boobs together and up, right?”
“Actually I think it goes around your waist.”
Violet grimaced and said, “What’s the fun in that?”
Night Rod proclaimed itself as the premier boutique for imaginative fetishwear and voluptuous costuming in Central Florida, a Target for the theatric. I’d never expected to see an actual farthingale anywhere but in sixteenth century portraits and historical films, but there they were, designed for all shapes and sizes and every one of them intended to make the wearer look like a ship under sail. A rainbow of Elizabethan gowns offered the chance to dress in the full regalia of a royal court or as a simple slops wench looking for a tumble in a hayloft.
Apparently the art of making chain mail isn’t as dead as I’d thought, at least in certain circles. The full body suit of endless metal loops made me cringe, but the sleeveless and low-cut shirts that covered anything from the entire torso to the bosom only had potential. Violet nudged me and pointed at the display of codpieces. “For the dashing knights who want to protect their jewels,” she said.
I’d just begun to look over the grand selection of all things black when a salesman straight out of some gothic abyss swooped down on us. Where he wasn’t covered by black leather, he was pierced. But don’t think he was just another darkling pressed in the mold. He had the most ebullient smile I’d ever seen on anyone—a masterpiece of paradox. He introduced himself as Christo and I gave him BlackSwamp’s tidings.
“So you’re friends of the dark lord,” he said, half-jesting. “Do you already have something in mind?”
“BlackSwamp said something about corsets,” I said.
“Excellent. PVC, leather, rubber, or vinyl?”
Violet and I looked at each other. “Are we buying clothing or tires?” she asked.
Well, Christo seemed like an accommodating sort, so I could ask him my stupid questions. “Look, we’re out of our depth here. What would you recommend? What’s most comfortable?”
“Comfortable?” He let a giggle slip. “You don’t wear a corset for comfort. You wear it for looks.”
“I thought it was underwear,” Violet said.
“In the Dark Ages, maybe. Today you wear a corset for it to be seen.”
Violet raised an eyebrow at me. “Underwear as outerwear with no obvious purpose?”
“It’s the aesthetic,” Christos said. “Vampire aesthetic. Goth aesthetic. Whatever.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I said, appreciating the discreet and polite way Christos was estimating our respective sizes.
After a few minutes Christos reappeared with a bough of black fabrics over his arm. “I don’t think what you’re looking for is an actual corset,” he said, laying out the garments. “Corsets by definition are designed to mold and shape the body into a predetermined form. But you’re going for a look, not a shape.”
“You mean we’re too fleshy,” Violet said.
“I mean you want to be able to dance, don’t you?” Christos raised a black velvet and purple satin creation. “See how the careful lacing up the front is a creative mimic of a historical corset. The purple area narrows at the waist, an optical illusion to make your waist look as if it’s actually constrained. In the bust, the cups support and display the bosom. This is a cheat, I grant you, but it’s a woman’s best friend.”
Christos had brought out about two dozen of these best friends, all of them black with some kind of jewel-toned relief. I’d never worn vinyl or rubber before, and neither seemed to me to be good choices to wear right next to my skin. “Let’s assume I manage to get this down over myself,” I said. “How am I going to get it off again? You said yourself the lacing is for show.”
“Talcum powder,” he said. “People usually coat themselves in talcum powder before getting dressed. It prevents chafing and makes the faux corset slide off more easily.”
“Do you think BlackSwamp would kill us if we just came in black t-shirts?” Violet asked.
“That Elizabethan farthingale is looking better and better,” I added.
Christo laughed again, a paragon of patience. “Well, BlackSwamp suggested corsets, but really there is no limit to what you can or can’t wear to a vampire ball. No one’s going to turn you away because you’re not wearing corsets. So why not look around and see what appeals to you?”
This is a great metaphor for the vampire community as a whole. I tried a corset, but I found it too constricting. But that was fine. I could find something else that did fit my body and my personality and be no less welcome for it.
With Christo’s help, Violet and I began looking to outfit ourselves in a vampire manner that suited us. I found a black t-shirt with red calligraphy, something about having been the one-armed Nosferatu at the grassy knoll (a nosferatu is a Romanian species of vampire) which I could wear with faded jeans and black boots and call it a vampire’s night out. Christo helped me select some accessories: a silver necklace with a crystal-crusted ankh, a pair of handcuffs to be worn as bracelets (or whatever, I suppose), and a chain link belt straight from the auto body shop. Most importantly in Christo’s opinion, I needed special makeup—something that “hinted at the undead without destroying the natural glow of being alive”. He picked out a bottle of white cosmetic foundation that to my relief did not look like white face paint on my skin, and really did look remarkable with the black eyeliner and lipstick he also chose for me.
If I were to be the modern vampire, Violet chose to dress as her Renaissance counterpart. She’d really been taken with the idea of the slops wench. “No one would ever expect her to be a vampire,” Violet said, eyeing a gown finely made to look tattered and worn. “And once she got somebody into her hayloft, it would be dinner and a show!”
Christo rang up our choices. I realized we’d spent a lot less than we’d expected, but fortunately Christo didn’t work on commission. All of his extra effort for us was just part of the kind of guy he was. “I’ll see you two at the Scream,” he said as we were leaving, his smile never wavering. “It’s always astounding.”
On a normal sultry evening the venue for the vampire ball served the local gothic and punk communities with music and mayhem. That night, “A Midsummer Night’s Scream” transformed the place into a sensory carnival, a mix of the Roman Saturnalia with Mardi Gras shaken up and added to a phosphorescent cocktail of Rube Goldberg, Edward Bosch, and Medieval danse macabre wood cuttings. I’d never guessed that so many people in our area had the vampire community as a common denominator and yet there we all were, from all walks of existence and of all flavors, dancing and chatting and reveling as if we’d known each other for decades. Well, maybe a few would say centuries.
Violet and I nabbed a small table in the corner and set up to observe. I don’t mean in a Jane Goodall kind of way. We needed to ground and center just to take in everything exploding around us. People we’d never seen before and had never met greeted us with real warmth, a warmth that was easy to return. Christo from Night Rod stopped at our table for a few moments before returning to a hunt of his own—hot pursuit of a red-headed contortionist from Kissimmee.
Settling in, we ordered two Bathory Bubbly cocktails—a ruby red mix of raspberry ginger ale and grenadine syrup, served in breast-shaped glasses on a mirrored tray and named for the infamous Blood Countess whose vanity drove her to murder. At the Scream, great pains had been taken to accommodate guests avoiding alcohol. This concern was half health consciousness and half the knowledge that many real vampires believed alcohol seriously interfered with their vampiric gift.
At last our host BlackSwamp appeared. Now I’d been expecting something straight out of a dark fetish fashion magazine, and his black leather tuxedo did not disappoint. But while he completed the look in a black top hat and tails, he wore nothing under his jacket, leaving his suntanned pecs to be envied and admired.
“Clever,” I said to him as I stood to give him a kiss in greeting. “You’d be the prom date from hell for a lot of parents.”
“Been there, done that.” He leaned over to kiss Violet’s cheek. “May I say you both look in sanguine glory tonight?”
I might have been new to the community, but I wasn’t slow to thank him for what was meant as a compliment.
“Be warned that the trolls are here in force tonight,” he said.
“Trolls?” How many legends could fit inside one club?
BlackSwamp rolled his eyes. “Basically they want to be vampires, so they show up looking for someone to drink their blood and turn them.”
“You told me it’s not done like that,” I said.
“It isn’t. But try explaining that to a troll.” He started laughing. “You’ll see, I’m sure. You two look approachable.”
Violet frowned and said, “Maybe we should be meaner?”
BlackSwamp shook his head. “Close yourselves to some and you might close yourselves to all. There are plenty of interesting folks here tonight you’ll want to meet.”
The more people I talked with, the more people I wanted to get to know, and I was thoroughly fascinated by the real vampire—trolls notwithstanding.
One young woman accepted an invitation we hadn’t offered and sat with us for a few minutes. Eventually she asked, “Are you two feeding partners?”
I knew what she meant. She was asking if Violet and I drank each other’s blood. But before I could say anything, Violet giggled. “Sure,” she answered. “We go out for pie all the time.”
Another young woman seemed trapped somewhere between old enough to vote but too young to order a legal beer. Kind of dancing, kind of staggering, she came up to me. I could barely stand the aura of heavy smoker about her, but at least she had chosen clove cigarettes. If I shut my eyes and imagined myself in a dark room with some blues playing I might be able to pretend the scent was incense. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, displaying a smile perfected by the addition of gleaming white faux fangs.
“I can’t believe I’m here either,” I muttered to myself.
“You’re one of them.” She drew closer. “I know it. You’re one of them.”
In her current state this young woman could have thought I was anything, from Snow White to Sasquatch. I should have just turned around and walked away, but my curiosity is a fierce beast. “One of whom?”
At this she made some hand gesture I did not recognize. She touched her forehead, her lips, and the area over her heart with her index finger, and then crossed both arms over her chest. “You are one of the ancients and I salute you,” she whispered.
Biting her lip, Violet looked at me, her eyes sprightly and impish. I’d gotten myself in good this time, I thought. “Look, whatever you think I am, I’m not. I’m just enjoying a good party like everyone else.”
The young woman broke into a smile of epiphany. “Now I know you’re one of the ancients,” she squealed. “Only a true ancient would deny being an ancient.”
“Or someone who actually wasn’t an ancient,” I said, but she was awash in a deluge of conviction.
“Tell me everything. Tell me what it’s like to never die and to always live. Tell me about what you’ve seen and what you’ve experienced.”
“It gets old after a while,” I said.
BlackSwamp reappeared. “Kara, darling.” In a brotherly movement he swung his arm around her thin shoulders. “What have I told you about bothering strangers?”
“Don’t do it,” she said, looking up at him. “But Black, these two won’t hurt me. They’re ancients. Didn’t you know?”
He shot us an exasperated smile that said, “I told you so.”
With great care he turned her away from us by her shoulders and pointed her in the direction of a knot of Greek deities. “Who was she?” Violet asked.
“A liability waiting to happen.” BlackSwamp waved his hand toward the crowd. “There are dozens of them here. They just don’t get it, no matter how patient we are in explaining things to them. Kara has been at every vampire ball and event since we began holding them. This can be dangerous. You don’t just go around offering your blood to anybody. Who knows what some creep might have in mind?”
All right, I’m a bit of a true crime buff, I admit it. I knew what BlackSwamp was alluding to—that delusions of what the real vampire community was all about could lead to some bad choices and physical harm. “But this ball was by invitation only. Couldn’t you have checked everybody out before you invited them?”
Looking a little abashed, BlackSwamp shrugged. “We have over five hundred people in here tonight, and I can personally vouch for most of them. But I don’t know the background and purpose of every single person that comes through that door. I’m sure there are predators just looking for someone like Kara to use and discard.”
“Must make it tough to appear a respectable subculture,” I said.
“In general I don’t think we much care how we appear to the rest of society. However, when you bring in the potentially dangerous and illegal, even we have our red flags.”
Then BlackSwamp said something that has become my statement of purpose, the reason to move deeper into the community and enrich my own life for the experience.
“Vampire society is something of a secret society, but it is an open secret. We are open to anyone with enough genuine interest and determination to find us and come to know us. New awareness is the foundation of our future.”
Soon after I’d started poking around in the Orlando vampire community, I received an invitation to a vampire ball called “A Midsummer Night’s Scream” from a fellow who called himself BlackSwamp. Like everything else in the Orlando area (Disneyworld, Universal Studios) the vampire community did things in a big way. This event would be held in the downtown area on a July evening and proposed the most confusing dress code I’d ever seen.
“Let the flowers of the night be in full bloom,” the invitation said. “Let Elizabethan gowns and hose mingle with the tight vinyl of the now. Let great gods and goddesses dance with mortals shivering in the thrill of subjugation. Come in Victorian bondage and Medieval fury. Show your whole flesh or a peek of wrists and ankles. Be your fetish and fantasy on this night of nights.”
I began to suspect that sweatpants and sports bras weren’t an option. Undaunted, I called BlackSwamp for some advice.
He chuckled. “Go get a corset,” he told me. “The rest will come naturally from there.”
A corset? Like those horrible whalebone things that crushed ribs to get a waist with the circumference of a broom handle? I was dubious, but I dutifully wrote down the name and address of Night Rod, “the best place for vampire gear around”.
“And tell them BlackSwamp sent you,” he added. “They’ll give you the royal newbie treatment.”
I’d dragged my best friend Violet into many an adventure before this. She was especially excited to explore the vampire universe, and as she’d be going to the ball with me, she wanted to find out about this corset thing.
“That’s one of those things that pushes your boobs together and up, right?”
“Actually I think it goes around your waist.”
Violet grimaced and said, “What’s the fun in that?”
Night Rod proclaimed itself as the premier boutique for imaginative fetishwear and voluptuous costuming in Central Florida, a Target for the theatric. I’d never expected to see an actual farthingale anywhere but in sixteenth century portraits and historical films, but there they were, designed for all shapes and sizes and every one of them intended to make the wearer look like a ship under sail. A rainbow of Elizabethan gowns offered the chance to dress in the full regalia of a royal court or as a simple slops wench looking for a tumble in a hayloft.
Apparently the art of making chain mail isn’t as dead as I’d thought, at least in certain circles. The full body suit of endless metal loops made me cringe, but the sleeveless and low-cut shirts that covered anything from the entire torso to the bosom only had potential. Violet nudged me and pointed at the display of codpieces. “For the dashing knights who want to protect their jewels,” she said.
I’d just begun to look over the grand selection of all things black when a salesman straight out of some gothic abyss swooped down on us. Where he wasn’t covered by black leather, he was pierced. But don’t think he was just another darkling pressed in the mold. He had the most ebullient smile I’d ever seen on anyone—a masterpiece of paradox. He introduced himself as Christo and I gave him BlackSwamp’s tidings.
“So you’re friends of the dark lord,” he said, half-jesting. “Do you already have something in mind?”
“BlackSwamp said something about corsets,” I said.
“Excellent. PVC, leather, rubber, or vinyl?”
Violet and I looked at each other. “Are we buying clothing or tires?” she asked.
Well, Christo seemed like an accommodating sort, so I could ask him my stupid questions. “Look, we’re out of our depth here. What would you recommend? What’s most comfortable?”
“Comfortable?” He let a giggle slip. “You don’t wear a corset for comfort. You wear it for looks.”
“I thought it was underwear,” Violet said.
“In the Dark Ages, maybe. Today you wear a corset for it to be seen.”
Violet raised an eyebrow at me. “Underwear as outerwear with no obvious purpose?”
“It’s the aesthetic,” Christos said. “Vampire aesthetic. Goth aesthetic. Whatever.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I said, appreciating the discreet and polite way Christos was estimating our respective sizes.
After a few minutes Christos reappeared with a bough of black fabrics over his arm. “I don’t think what you’re looking for is an actual corset,” he said, laying out the garments. “Corsets by definition are designed to mold and shape the body into a predetermined form. But you’re going for a look, not a shape.”
“You mean we’re too fleshy,” Violet said.
“I mean you want to be able to dance, don’t you?” Christos raised a black velvet and purple satin creation. “See how the careful lacing up the front is a creative mimic of a historical corset. The purple area narrows at the waist, an optical illusion to make your waist look as if it’s actually constrained. In the bust, the cups support and display the bosom. This is a cheat, I grant you, but it’s a woman’s best friend.”
Christos had brought out about two dozen of these best friends, all of them black with some kind of jewel-toned relief. I’d never worn vinyl or rubber before, and neither seemed to me to be good choices to wear right next to my skin. “Let’s assume I manage to get this down over myself,” I said. “How am I going to get it off again? You said yourself the lacing is for show.”
“Talcum powder,” he said. “People usually coat themselves in talcum powder before getting dressed. It prevents chafing and makes the faux corset slide off more easily.”
“Do you think BlackSwamp would kill us if we just came in black t-shirts?” Violet asked.
“That Elizabethan farthingale is looking better and better,” I added.
Christo laughed again, a paragon of patience. “Well, BlackSwamp suggested corsets, but really there is no limit to what you can or can’t wear to a vampire ball. No one’s going to turn you away because you’re not wearing corsets. So why not look around and see what appeals to you?”
This is a great metaphor for the vampire community as a whole. I tried a corset, but I found it too constricting. But that was fine. I could find something else that did fit my body and my personality and be no less welcome for it.
With Christo’s help, Violet and I began looking to outfit ourselves in a vampire manner that suited us. I found a black t-shirt with red calligraphy, something about having been the one-armed Nosferatu at the grassy knoll (a nosferatu is a Romanian species of vampire) which I could wear with faded jeans and black boots and call it a vampire’s night out. Christo helped me select some accessories: a silver necklace with a crystal-crusted ankh, a pair of handcuffs to be worn as bracelets (or whatever, I suppose), and a chain link belt straight from the auto body shop. Most importantly in Christo’s opinion, I needed special makeup—something that “hinted at the undead without destroying the natural glow of being alive”. He picked out a bottle of white cosmetic foundation that to my relief did not look like white face paint on my skin, and really did look remarkable with the black eyeliner and lipstick he also chose for me.
If I were to be the modern vampire, Violet chose to dress as her Renaissance counterpart. She’d really been taken with the idea of the slops wench. “No one would ever expect her to be a vampire,” Violet said, eyeing a gown finely made to look tattered and worn. “And once she got somebody into her hayloft, it would be dinner and a show!”
Christo rang up our choices. I realized we’d spent a lot less than we’d expected, but fortunately Christo didn’t work on commission. All of his extra effort for us was just part of the kind of guy he was. “I’ll see you two at the Scream,” he said as we were leaving, his smile never wavering. “It’s always astounding.”
On a normal sultry evening the venue for the vampire ball served the local gothic and punk communities with music and mayhem. That night, “A Midsummer Night’s Scream” transformed the place into a sensory carnival, a mix of the Roman Saturnalia with Mardi Gras shaken up and added to a phosphorescent cocktail of Rube Goldberg, Edward Bosch, and Medieval danse macabre wood cuttings. I’d never guessed that so many people in our area had the vampire community as a common denominator and yet there we all were, from all walks of existence and of all flavors, dancing and chatting and reveling as if we’d known each other for decades. Well, maybe a few would say centuries.
Violet and I nabbed a small table in the corner and set up to observe. I don’t mean in a Jane Goodall kind of way. We needed to ground and center just to take in everything exploding around us. People we’d never seen before and had never met greeted us with real warmth, a warmth that was easy to return. Christo from Night Rod stopped at our table for a few moments before returning to a hunt of his own—hot pursuit of a red-headed contortionist from Kissimmee.
Settling in, we ordered two Bathory Bubbly cocktails—a ruby red mix of raspberry ginger ale and grenadine syrup, served in breast-shaped glasses on a mirrored tray and named for the infamous Blood Countess whose vanity drove her to murder. At the Scream, great pains had been taken to accommodate guests avoiding alcohol. This concern was half health consciousness and half the knowledge that many real vampires believed alcohol seriously interfered with their vampiric gift.
At last our host BlackSwamp appeared. Now I’d been expecting something straight out of a dark fetish fashion magazine, and his black leather tuxedo did not disappoint. But while he completed the look in a black top hat and tails, he wore nothing under his jacket, leaving his suntanned pecs to be envied and admired.
“Clever,” I said to him as I stood to give him a kiss in greeting. “You’d be the prom date from hell for a lot of parents.”
“Been there, done that.” He leaned over to kiss Violet’s cheek. “May I say you both look in sanguine glory tonight?”
I might have been new to the community, but I wasn’t slow to thank him for what was meant as a compliment.
“Be warned that the trolls are here in force tonight,” he said.
“Trolls?” How many legends could fit inside one club?
BlackSwamp rolled his eyes. “Basically they want to be vampires, so they show up looking for someone to drink their blood and turn them.”
“You told me it’s not done like that,” I said.
“It isn’t. But try explaining that to a troll.” He started laughing. “You’ll see, I’m sure. You two look approachable.”
Violet frowned and said, “Maybe we should be meaner?”
BlackSwamp shook his head. “Close yourselves to some and you might close yourselves to all. There are plenty of interesting folks here tonight you’ll want to meet.”
The more people I talked with, the more people I wanted to get to know, and I was thoroughly fascinated by the real vampire—trolls notwithstanding.
One young woman accepted an invitation we hadn’t offered and sat with us for a few minutes. Eventually she asked, “Are you two feeding partners?”
I knew what she meant. She was asking if Violet and I drank each other’s blood. But before I could say anything, Violet giggled. “Sure,” she answered. “We go out for pie all the time.”
Another young woman seemed trapped somewhere between old enough to vote but too young to order a legal beer. Kind of dancing, kind of staggering, she came up to me. I could barely stand the aura of heavy smoker about her, but at least she had chosen clove cigarettes. If I shut my eyes and imagined myself in a dark room with some blues playing I might be able to pretend the scent was incense. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, displaying a smile perfected by the addition of gleaming white faux fangs.
“I can’t believe I’m here either,” I muttered to myself.
“You’re one of them.” She drew closer. “I know it. You’re one of them.”
In her current state this young woman could have thought I was anything, from Snow White to Sasquatch. I should have just turned around and walked away, but my curiosity is a fierce beast. “One of whom?”
At this she made some hand gesture I did not recognize. She touched her forehead, her lips, and the area over her heart with her index finger, and then crossed both arms over her chest. “You are one of the ancients and I salute you,” she whispered.
Biting her lip, Violet looked at me, her eyes sprightly and impish. I’d gotten myself in good this time, I thought. “Look, whatever you think I am, I’m not. I’m just enjoying a good party like everyone else.”
The young woman broke into a smile of epiphany. “Now I know you’re one of the ancients,” she squealed. “Only a true ancient would deny being an ancient.”
“Or someone who actually wasn’t an ancient,” I said, but she was awash in a deluge of conviction.
“Tell me everything. Tell me what it’s like to never die and to always live. Tell me about what you’ve seen and what you’ve experienced.”
“It gets old after a while,” I said.
BlackSwamp reappeared. “Kara, darling.” In a brotherly movement he swung his arm around her thin shoulders. “What have I told you about bothering strangers?”
“Don’t do it,” she said, looking up at him. “But Black, these two won’t hurt me. They’re ancients. Didn’t you know?”
He shot us an exasperated smile that said, “I told you so.”
With great care he turned her away from us by her shoulders and pointed her in the direction of a knot of Greek deities. “Who was she?” Violet asked.
“A liability waiting to happen.” BlackSwamp waved his hand toward the crowd. “There are dozens of them here. They just don’t get it, no matter how patient we are in explaining things to them. Kara has been at every vampire ball and event since we began holding them. This can be dangerous. You don’t just go around offering your blood to anybody. Who knows what some creep might have in mind?”
All right, I’m a bit of a true crime buff, I admit it. I knew what BlackSwamp was alluding to—that delusions of what the real vampire community was all about could lead to some bad choices and physical harm. “But this ball was by invitation only. Couldn’t you have checked everybody out before you invited them?”
Looking a little abashed, BlackSwamp shrugged. “We have over five hundred people in here tonight, and I can personally vouch for most of them. But I don’t know the background and purpose of every single person that comes through that door. I’m sure there are predators just looking for someone like Kara to use and discard.”
“Must make it tough to appear a respectable subculture,” I said.
“In general I don’t think we much care how we appear to the rest of society. However, when you bring in the potentially dangerous and illegal, even we have our red flags.”
Then BlackSwamp said something that has become my statement of purpose, the reason to move deeper into the community and enrich my own life for the experience.
“Vampire society is something of a secret society, but it is an open secret. We are open to anyone with enough genuine interest and determination to find us and come to know us. New awareness is the foundation of our future.”
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