The Virtues and Vices of Vegan Vampires

By Sarina Dorie

I sat across from my date in the little diner, a beautiful blonde in her thirties. Bayley’s cheeks were a natural rose against healthy bronze skin—and she wasn’t wearing makeup to achieve that look. She’d been just another pretty face on CherubMatch.com—until I’d seen she worked for Greenpeace. She cared about climate change and keeping the Earth around for centuries to come—just like me.

Bayley smiled coquettishly over her menu. “I’m so glad you had time to meet tonight, Vickie.”

“Me too. I was excited to see how much we have in common.”

My oversized pleather purse shook and fell over in the booth beside me. I was fortunate my date didn’t notice the muffled hiss coming from inside as she read the menu.

At nine pm, the restaurant was nearly empty. My coffee remained untouched in front of me, though I had smudged my crimson lipstick on the white ceramic surface as I had pretended to sip.

“It’s rare to find another lesbian who is a vegan,” she said.

I had actually listed I was pansexual, but that wasn’t important.

Bayley really was gorgeous. Even with makeup, I hadn’t been able to achieve that glow during my entire lifetime. Once, I would have been jealous of her natural beauty, flawless skin, and ample curves, but I was over that. I had learned to accept myself and my flaws, the small ones and big ones.

I leaned forward, resting my chin on my hand as I gazed at her. “Tell me more about your veganism.”

Unlike that guy I’d dated last week who worked for The Nature Conservancy and was on a keto diet, she smelled intoxicating, like fresh springtime mixed with rosemary, lavender, and lemon balm. It might have been because she didn’t eat meat. Or it might have been because she showered.

Bayley tossed back her long locks. “It’s up to all of us to do our part to reduce our carbon footprint. I’m doing what I can to help with our sustainability. Plus, the livestock industry is so cruel to animals. It’s barbaric.”

“That is so noble,” I said. “I couldn’t agree more.”

I was in love already. I hoped she wasn’t going to be like the keto guy who claimed to love animals because he owned two dogs and a cat. He hadn’t passed my test.

The waitress arrived to take Bayley’s order. She selected a salad, and because they didn’t have tofu, she asked to get garbanzo beans on it. I noticed she chose the honey vinaigrette for her dressing. That wasn’t vegan. The waitress looked at me.

“I’m intermittent fasting,” I said. “I’ll stick with the coffee.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Bayley said. “I don’t want to eat in front of you!”

“That’s all right. I have my coffee. Enjoy yourself.” I smiled awkwardly, uncertain how to ask my next question without sounding judgmental. One of the reasons I had been interested in Bayley was because she was a vegan like me. “I noticed you got the honey vinaigrette.”

“Yes, I do eat yeast and honey. I’m not that extreme. The bee population is dying, and I want to make sure I support the bee industry. Plus, I eat fruit, and almonds, and avocados—and those all depend on bees for pollination.” She played with the rings of water her glass left on the table. “I hope that’s not a dealbreaker.”

“No, that’s fine.” She had her own life to live the way she wanted. She could support the slaughter of innocent honeybees that happened in bee farms. I wasn’t the one who needed to live with myself at night. I forced myself to smile and try not to be so picky. “I’m a strict vegan for moral reasons, but I don’t require everyone to be as strict as I am. My main focus is not eating animals when it’s possible. But there are times it isn’t possible. There’s contamination in our food sometimes. If there was a zombie apocalypse, and pigeon was the only thing I could eat, I wouldn’t be so self-righteous that I would refuse it, ya know?”

She laughed. “You are hilarious!”

Last week’s date was almost a complete carnivore—which had been a turn-off. The odor of acetone and toxins oozing out of his pours had soured my appetite. At the same time, I couldn’t afford to be picky.

Bayley tapped her healthy manicure against the table. “I guess if we lived in a dystopian sci-fi novel or something, I would be eating mystery soup if that was my only choice.”

I was relieved she was pragmatic. Like me. “And if you were a vampire but wanted to be vegan, it would be really hard. You would have a moral dilemma between eating animals and people. Which would be worse?”

“Animals would be worse! Humans already overpopulate the planet and use up more than our share of resources!”

What a relief she thought just like me.

She frowned. “Did you ever read Twilight? Stephenie Meyer labeled the vampires that were hunting animals as vegetarian. That is exactly opposite of what vegetarians are! The bad guys were the actual vegans because they drank human blood—and prevented cruelty to animals. Obviously.” She rolled her eyes.

“So you think the villains were right to eat people instead of animals?” I held my breath, hoping we saw it the same way.

Even the keto guy had understood me on this point.

“Well, the bad guys killed people. It would be different if they only ate humans who consented like in the Anne Rice books.”

She was incorrect. The humans in Anne Rice novels did not consent. But Lestat drank the blood of bad guys, so he was doing the world a favor by ridding the world of immoral people—not that all vampires could read minds to know whether someone was actually evil. And Louis had been a complete mess who had starved himself to the point where he had binged on humans. And the Sookie Stackhouse series had synthetic blood—which bypassed the moral dilemma in many circumstances.

Real vampires didn’t have blood tofu as an option. And real vampires couldn’t read minds to find out who was a bad person. Reality involved resorting to conversation.

“Yes,” I said, gauging her response. “It would be okay to be a vampire and drink human blood if the humans were consensual. As long as we—they—don’t eat animals, it would be okay, right? That would still be vegan?”

She laughed and nodded to the table of two elderly women giving us dirty looks as they got up and left. “I think talking about cannibalism is making the place clear out.”

Most likely it was the late hour making people leave. There was a difference between cannibalism versus vampirism that she didn’t seem to grasp, but I didn’t press the matter.

Our conversation over dinner was smooth and easy. I liked Bayley and respected the career path she’d taken. She was the kind of person who wanted to make sure Earth would be around for generations. I really thought she might be the perfect match for me. Already I was fantasizing about how I could depend on her to be there for me whenever I needed her.

My mouth watered as I stared at her pouty lips.

Only once did a sound come from my oversized patent leather purse. I nudged it to make it quiet. Bayley’s eyebrows shot up.

Now was probably the right time to bring up my special diet.

“Sorry about that. Um, I mentioned my intermittent fasting. I only eat between 10 pm and 5 am. I’m still trying to get down to a six-hour eating window but I’m not quite there yet.”

“That takes dedication.” Her gaze roved over my slender figure. “But you’re so thin. I hope you aren’t using intermittent fasting to lose weight.”

“No, it’s more about indigestion. I work nights, and if I eat too close to bedtime, I get indigestion and can’t sleep well.”

She nodded.

We split the check. As we walked out to the parking lot around the back together, I had almost made it to my car when my alarm went off on my smart watch. Bayley halted under the streetlamp.

I stopped a few feet from my Prius. “My eating window just opened up.”

“Oh, darn!” Bayley halted in front of an SUV that I hoped wasn’t hers. “And the restaurant just closed.”

“That’s okay. I have food with me.” I patted my purse.

The contents shifted and hissed.

Her sculptured brows knitted together. “What’s in there? Did you bring your pet to the restaurant?”

“No, not a pet. Just an emergency ration.” I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “Here’s the thing. When I was talking about vampires, I wasn’t being hypothetical.” I flashed a smile and extended my fangs. I allowed my luminescent eyes to catch the light.

Bayley sucked in a breath and stepped back. The sudden pounding of her blood thrummed in my ears, spiking desire. “You mean, you’re a—vampires are real?” Her voice came out a squeak.

Surely, she must have read enough recent stories in the tabloids to have at least suspected my kind were real.

“Relax. I only drink the blood of consensual food sources, except—”

“I do not consent,” she said quickly.

She fumbled for her keys in her purse as she backed away, closer to a Honda Accord. I was pleased to see she didn’t drive the SUV. Her car was old enough that it lacked power door locks. If I was the kind of vampire that forced myself on humans, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

But I wasn’t that kind of vampire.

“Don’t worry. I would never bite a human without consent. I’m a moral person. I care about the environment, and I don’t want harm to come to animals—I’m vegan.” I put up my hands in a disarming gesture, though her fear was still sour in the air. “The real problem is, it’s so hard to stick to veganism when I don’t have enough consensual donors.”

I unzipped my purse to reveal the feral cat I had hunted and caught. The sedated cat stuck his head out of the purse and yowled. Eating sedated food wasn’t ideal because the drugs transferred into my blood, but I could wait until I went home so I wouldn’t be driving under the influence.

“Do you mean—you’re saying,,,?” She stared at the cat, horror spreading across her expression.

“When I don’t have a consensual human, this is what I need to resort to.” I frowned at the cat, feeling bad about using it as a meal, but my date had stood me up the day before.

My belly rumbled, answering her question.

“It looks like Tiger is going to need to be my dinner. The bad thing about cats, is they don’t have as much blood as humans. They usually don’t survive.” I shook my head. “It really is too bad you aren’t willing to let me take a quick sip to tide me over until tomorrow. But I completely understand your reasons. It’s so easy to be a vegan when you’re human. It’s harder to support that lifestyle choice among the undead.”

The sour taste of fear in the air shifted to anger. She bit out her words as ferociously as a carnivore. “You’re basically saying I have to let you drink my blood or Tiger gets eaten?”

Naming my food always made it harder to imagine using them as a meal. For the humans anyway.

I tried to disarm her with my smile. “You don’t have to do anything. It would strictly be voluntary. I won’t do it if it isn’t consensual.”

She sucked in a breath, staring at the cat. “You’re a monster.”

With an attitude like that, we definitely weren’t going on a second date. It was too bad. She truly did smell delicious.

She held out her wrist, “Fine. Go ahead and bite me, but don’t take too much. I have a work meeting tomorrow morning.”

I’d known she would see reason, just like the keto guy. He hadn’t wanted Tiger to become dinner either.

I took her wrist. The pulse throbbed below the skin. I bit in, making eye contact. She glared at me with unbridled hatred, like I was forcing her to do this.

Seriously, that passive aggressive attitude was a major red flag. It wasn’t going to get her anywhere in relationships.

But that was okay. Tomorrow night I had a date with a non-binary, gluten-free professor of environmental studies. Maybe that would work out better.