Dirty Little Secret

So, Jude just left. Realizing my plan for the night fell through, I called him up to invite him over for burnt popcorn and fucking awful movies.

“Thank God,” he said after I propositioned him. “Jess was going to try and drag me out with her girlfriends to some gay bar. Why the fuck would she think I’d want to do something like that?”

I snorted. “Of course. The question you should be asking though, is why would she want to take you some place where you’d be getting more attention than her?”

“Come on now… don’t badmouth my girlfriend or you can spend Saturday night with your other two best friends.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ben and Jerry?”

“You know it.”

“Fine, I’ll be nice,” I said, sighing. “Are you coming over or not?”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

“You live 15 minutes away, Jude.”

“Sorry, do you not want me to shower? Did you suddenly start liking the grungy dirty look?”

“Whatever. See you soon.”

FInally after he finished primping he meandered over to my side of town and made it to my apartment. I answered the door in sweatpants and a t-shirt.

“Thanks for dressing up for me,” he said, pushing past me to enter my apartment, carrying DVD boxes from a video rental store.

“Hey, I put on clean sweatpants didn’t I?”

He ignored me and went into the kitchen to make the popcorn while I examined the movies he brought. Killer Drag Queens on Dope and Vampire in Brooklyn.

“What’s with this?” I asked, holding up the Eddie Murphy vampire film.

He just shrugged. “We usually pick the movies for Bad Movie Night together. Since I was by myself I just found one I knew you’d pick.”

Aww. See why we’re friends? Because he fucking rocks and knows me better than anyone. Just for that, I agreed to watch Killer Drag Queens on Dope first.

Popcorn popped and sufficiently burnt, Jude plopped down onto my couch, putting his feet up on my coffee table and holding the bowl in his lap. I sat down beside him, handing him a beer.

“So what did Jess say when you told her you were coming over here?” I asked as the opening credits began.

“I didn’t tell her. She’d probably flip her lid if she knew I was here. I told her I was hanging out by myself while she goes out.”

I raised an eyebrow and turned to look at him. “So then why are you here?”

He looked incredulous. “You’re my best friend, Annabelle. Why wouldn’t I be here when you wanted me to?”

I considered this for a moment. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about being his dirty little secret. Could I still be considered a “piece on the side” even if it’s only emotional and we’re not sleeping together?

I stared back at him and came to the conclusion that I didn’t care. He said it himself. We’re best friends. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world, and apparently neither would he.

I sighed and shook my head, grinning. “Dumbass,” I said, slouching down the couch and cracking open my beer.

He chuckled and threw a handful of popcorn at me.

Yeah, we’re pretty awesome.

 

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Heyyy Jude.

I’m sitting here painting my nails and considering calling up Jude to go see The Vampire’s Assistant with me tonight.

Jude is my best friend, and literally the boy next door. We met when his family became our neighbors when we were both toddlers and it just kind of grew from there. Every summer, we’d sneak out of our rooms and spend half  the nights together in our treehouse fort we built in the tree that sits on the property line between our parents’ houses. We even went to college together. How awesome is that? Now that we’re both graduated, he still lives nearby, even if it is across town instead of across the lawn.

Our close friendship has made dating difficult. Anytime one of us starts seeing somebody, they start feeling threatened and eventually freak out which I seriously do not understand. I mean, it’s SO not like that between me and Jude. We’re just friends. Well, that’s not really true. We’re far more than friends. We’re more like siblings (especially since both of us are only children). He’s a good looking guy, but his penis is the last thing I’m interested in.

Part of why we’re friends is that he puts up with all my bullshit and obsessive tendencies when it comes to the creatures of the night. Through our entire friendship he’s listened to me swoon over various vampires including (but not limited to) Angel, Louis, Frost (from Blade… hell yes), and most recently Edward Cullen and Bill Compton. Even though I catch him rolling his eyes, he still smiles, shakes his head, and continues to stick by me.

I even got him to go see the Underworld movies with me. I mean, I’m pretty sure this mostly had to do with the tight shiny leather catsuit and corset that Kate Beckinsale and Rhona Mitra were wearing, but still. I bet he’ll go see the Vampire’s Assistant with me. It’ll be his penance for making me go see Twilight by myself, that bastard. Of course, I’m not complaining too much. The movie turned out to be all kinds of terrible, so I’m kinda glad he hasn’t seen it so he can’t make fun of me for liking it.

Damn. I just realized The Vampire’s Assistant doesn’t open until next weekend. I’ll still call him. I haven’t seen him in days. Maybe he’d be up for a bad movie night complete with my trademark burnt popcorn.

That is, if his girlfriend doesn’t mind.

 

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Hello, internet world!

My name is Annabelle James, and I have a borderline unhealthy fascination with vampires.

Of course, when your life is as extraordinarily dull as mine, it’s not like there’s much else to do. You find an obsession, and you obsess over it.

Mine started when I was just a kid. Around six, to be exact. And it started with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The movie, of course. I know I’m one of probably only a handful of people in the world who actually liked it, even among Joss Whedon fans. Anyway, I loved that movie so much as a kid, my mother made me Buffy’s cheerleading costume for Halloween one year. The main bad guy in that movie, despite all his evilness is portrayed in a way that is seductive. Even as a child, I think part of me latched on to that.

Fast forward five years, to the debut of the show. This is where my vampire fascination really blossoms into an obsession. The moment the pilot ended, I knew that my life had been changed. Impacted. I was completely hooked, and I followed the show religiously for the duration of its run.

This was also when I discovered the world of fanfiction. I read fanfic to keep up my Buffy fix during the summers, and I read the crappy novelizations based on the movie and the tv show. I laughed at all the witty jokes and weird slang. I gasped when I discovered Angel was a vampire. I’ve worn a claddagh ring ever since Angel gave one to Buffy and explained the significance of the symbols (love, friendship, and loyalty). I sniffled when Buffy slept with Angel and he lost his soul. I sat on my living room floor and sobbed like a baby when Buffy had to send Angel through the porthole to Hell, my mother laughing hysterically at me the whole time. I shared in the collective “WTF?” moment when Buffy suddenly and inexplicably acquired a younger sister, and my heart wrenched when Buffy swan dove off the tower and died and I thought my show was over (until I found out it had been picked up by another network and she would be brought back via witchcraft).

As I worked my way through elementary school and middle school, I was reading The Last Vampire series by Christopher Pike and watching Interview with the Vampire and The Lost Boys on repeat. My junior year of high school I fell behind in all of my schoolwork the month that I discovered the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton.

Anyway, the point of this entry is just to give you a little bit of background on me. Me and vampires go waaaay back. I’m not one of these people that jumped on the bloodsucking bandwagon the moment Twilight hit the NY Times Bestseller list. Though, admittedly… I love Twilight. There’s so many things that are wrong with it but thanks to Angel and Anne Rice’s Louis I’m a sucker for the tortured, brooding type. I can’t resist. But as much as I love Twilight, my new Buffy, as it were, is most definitely True Blood, and the series of books its based on. That is some good shit. Again, with the dangerous and brooding vampires. How is that not sexy?

So where does that leave me now? Well, I’m certainly enjoying the popularity because if vampires are suddenly cool again, that means that there’s more of them. More things for me to watch, on the tube and on the silver screen. More things for me to read. More for me to obsess over. I’m not seeing how this is a bad thing.

So this is me, whatever name you wanna call me. Vampire lover. Fangbanger. Coffin bait. Whatever.

This is my life. Welcome to it.

 

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