Baby Got Bite Read online

  Contents

  Intro

  Baby Got Bite

  Dear Reader

  Follow Maz:

  Baby Got Bite

  Maz Maddox 2018

  Halloween Short Story Giveaway

  I hate Halloween.

  Whatever the original origins of this horrific monstrosity of a holiday were, it’s now a reason for perfectly reasonable people to dress up as walking punchlines for an evening. Punchlines and sexy versions of punchlines. Some dress as pop stars, actors, various characters from popular cinema films, animated shows and monsters. As in werewolves, swamp creatures and of course…

  Vampires.

  You’d think I would be offended by the absurd representation of my people by literally everyone, but I actually don’t care. The pale makeup is fine, the plastic fangs are hilarious and the Victorian get up?

  Dope. Who doesn’t look good in that?

  I just preferred to hide away and wait for the evening to be over with. In fact, it had been a good twenty-something years since the last time I was out during the Devil’s holiday. Well. Out in general. I had taken a sabbatical...from life.

  As in I was in a coffin doing the vampire equivalent to grizzly bear like hibernation for the past two decades. It’s a rather long story, but let’s just say I had a really bad cause of a stake in the heart and needed some time to...process the breakup.

  Exes, am I right?

  When I woke up in this oddly electronic year, I was concerned. Then in awe. Then concerned again. The technology had certainly improved since I was last awake, but OMG. Culture shock, much? I adored the 1990s. It was really when I came into my own as a vampire. I was something of a late bloomer and the whole sauve vampire thing didn’t kick off well in the beginning. But in the era of ripped jeans, grunge rock, and the golden age of cinema?

  Oh. I was king. I was pretty fly for a dead guy.

  But now?

  I don’t know how to unlock my Apple phone. I don’t get Facebook. I don’t like skinny jeans even though I look bomb in them and what the fuck is SnapChat?

  For real? This is a thing? Making yourself look like a weird anime character with mouse ears is the deal now?

  As fucking if.

  Here’s a fun fact about vampires and smartphone cameras. We don’t mix. I’m sure you’ve heard a million different old wives tales about vampire’s not having a reflection in the mirror? That’s not true, we can see ourselves fine and like to often. We can be vain bastards. Hence why I tried the whole “facie” thing.

  Wait. That’s not right.

  Self face? Self...something. When you take a picture of your face with your phone by holding it at arms length and have the pouty lip thing going on.

  That thing.

  When we look directly in a smartphone’s camera, our eyes do this...terrifying see through thing. Look, I’m not scary. I’m about six foot, swimmer body, dark hair at my shoulders with pretty normal blue eyes. They can get a little Interview with the Vampire after I have dinner, but not Lestat level insane.

  But if I stare into a digital camera, they go hollow. I have no idea why. It’s like staring into the void-like stare of a demon. My pupils go transparent and you can see through them.

  Freaky shit, dude.

  Something I do like about this era is Starbucks. Well, I like a certain barista that works at one.

  Since it was autumn, the morning didn’t come until much later. That meant I could stay out so late and drink in as much nighttime life as I could. I mean that in both the metaphorical sense as much as I mean drinking blood. Because I do that.

  When I saw him, he was walking from his car up to the small Starbucks coffee shop at the far side of a shopping center. I was sitting in my car trying to remember how the hell to make the GPS work when he caught my eye. What a striking thing he was. Young, fit, with dyed black hair swooping to the left slightly over one eye.

  He was so dark. I loved it. I would later learn, the whole look he was striving for is called “emo”. A derivative of “emotional”, I think. It’s a style as well as a type of music, which isn’t all that bad. Though, I think being labeled as “emotional” is slightly weird. Isn’t everyone emotional? Do they mean overly emotional -- like do they cry a lot or something?

  Anyway, he’s adorable.

  Even though I can’t drink coffee, I went inside for an excuse to talk to him. It’s lame, I’m fully aware. But great Cobain’s ghost this boy was a hottie. Black hair, pale skin, green eyes and his lips? The ring on the right side of his pillowy lips made me think of naughty things.

  This began something of a mildly pathetic morning ritual of me going to Starbucks at 6am, buying coffee I wouldn’t drink and flirting with the barista. His name was Danny. And his voice was buttery and sweet. When he spoke, he did this thing where he’d flick his hair back just a little. It was ridiculous and I loved it.

  Each time I tried to ask him out for the evening, I would choke. It was like all that time sleeping melted away what it felt like to be a pimp, hot, vampire mack daddy. I had de-evolved myself into my formal awkward fledgling days.

  This went on for a couple weeks. Me flirting, him smiling, and me leaving to pour my coffee out in the bushes. I was just about ready to rip my hair out when he asked me a question.

  “Hey, Vincent?” Danny asked, leaning on the counter after passing me my pastry I was going to waste.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you like parties?”

  “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

  He laughed. “Well, there’s a Halloween party tomorrow night at my friend’s place. You should come.”

  My heart flipped in my chest.

  “Sounds rad.”

  “You gotta dress up though.” That damn grin. All teeth and lip ring and sex.

  Dress up. Awesome.

  “I’ll be there with bells on, dude.”

  He insisted on giving me the address through text, even though I really wanted to just write it down. It was a good 50/50 shot I’d remember how to get back to the screen again before the party started.

  Of course it had to be a Halloween party.

  Did I mention I hate Halloween?

  Yet there I was, standing in a Spirit Halloween store the day of said annoying holiday, trying to find the least jackass thing to wear. Since the swarms of pre-Halloween shoppers had already torn through anything remotely decent, I was left with the season’s rejects and joke options.

  I narrowed it down to Little Bo Peep and a giant banana.

  Since I’m male and didn’t have hips or a killer set of knockers to rock the Bo Peep, I left Spirit Halloween with a goddamn banana costume under my arm.

  I’m an immortal, undead vampire who drinks blood and sleeps in a coffin. But lucky me -- I get to live out my wildest fantasies of being a fucking giant piece of fruit for the evening while trying to score with a cute twenty-something emo boy with a delicious lip ring.

  Hate. Halloween.

  I waited until around ten to show up to the party. It was alive then, thankfully kidless, and packed with plenty of warm bodies to make the whole place feel appetizing. I made sure to stop and fill up before getting there, because I’m not a damn savage. I wasn’t going to kill someone at the party Danny invited me to.

  That would be totally rude.

  The costume got plenty of laughs which stung a little. I know I was a grown man dressed as a giant, bright yellow banana, but c’mon. Pointing?

  Even though I couldn’t do much with it, I grabbed a beer and scanned the crowd. Danny was there, puffing on one of those electronic cigarettes that smelled like burnt cotton candy. He was dressed as some type of clown, I think? He’s painted white with neon green hair and a purple jac
ket. At first I think maybe he’s some vilain from an 80s movie that I can’t remember, but then I see his teeth.

  They’re...metal. So, maybe like a clown robot?

  When he saw me, he laughed, his cheeks a little red from alcohol despite the white paint.

  “Hey, Vincent! I love the costume.”

  I presented myself a little with open arms. “What can I say? I’m a-peel-ing in yellow.”

  “Nice dad joke.”

  What?

  “This party is all this and a bag of chips” I say as he pretend to drink the beer I snagged.

  “Wow, you weren’t kidding about this guy’s lingo,” one of his friends -- dressed as Viking or something -- remarked, eyebrows up like I just spoke Latin or something.

  “So. What are you dressed up as?” I ask Danny, who squints at me with an amused look on his face.

  “You haven’t seen Suicide Squad?”

  “Oh, uh...not yet.” I guess it’s a movie and I try to mentally log that into my giant back pile of crap I need to catch up on. The conversation leaves me behind pretty quickly. Apparently Viking guy is dressed as something from Game of Thrones, and I have no idea why suddenly Marvel comics are the best damn thing in the world. I thought comics were nerdy.

  When I do chime in, I’m painfully aware that they think I’m hilarious and not in the good way. Each thing I say is “so retro”. Danny is sweet and keeps trying to chat with me. But as the topics taper off and deflate, I quickly realize we have zero things in common.

  I mean...the man’s never even seen Pulp Fiction before. And who the fuck doesn’t like Nirvana?

  To top it all off, each time the group wanted to get a picture with me, they complained that I kept blinking. It became a thing and it was yet another reason to give me shit about.

  Somehow, between talking about bands I don’t know and Marvel movies, we shifted to The Ninja Turtles. It was there that my night went to shit.

  “Jesus, did you ever see those original movies?” Danny laughed. “Talk about painfully 90s. I couldn’t even get through the first one. It was literal torture.”

  Suddenly, I didn’t think his lip ring was that cute anymore.

  I’m pretty flexible about a lot of things, and I’m very willing to admit I’m a little stuck two decades back. But if you have a problem with my boys in a half shell?

  Talk to the hand, asshole.

  I’m out.

  Slipping away wasn’t hard once they got swept up in talking about Breaking Bad, so I made my way outside. I had squandered a perfectly good evening to dress up as a banana and fail at getting the hot barista. It was not my proudest moment and I’ve been alive a long time.

  But I wasn’t going to dwell. Not on Rex Manning day.

  Crisp autumn wind played against my hair, cooling me slightly from the horrific heat inside the banana suit. Since most of the party goers had costumes that barely covered them, there weren’t many of them standing out in the cool breeze. There was one guy, sitting in a lawn chair smoking a cigarette -- a real one -- gazing out at the city lights.

  I wasn’t really in the mood to chat anymore, but I was kinda in the mood to smoke a cigarette. It had been a long time and it’s not like they can actually kill me, so I banana shuffled over his direction.

  His profile was handsome. Young guy, maybe twenty five or so, with long, straight brown hair to his shoulders under a white, backwards ballcap. The long black coat he wore kept him warm and covered him down to his knees, but I could tell he wasn’t the type who lived at the gym.

  He seemed to match his Clerks counterpart very well, from body size to neatly trimmed beard, which made me smile.

  “So,” I started, waiting for him to look my way before continuing. “If I ask for a cigarette, are you going to give me the silent treatment?”

  The smile that followed could have knocked me on my ass. The fucker had dimples. Both cheeks.

  Fuck lip rings. Dimples reign supreme.

  “You know, you’re the first person to get my costume.” Bob laughed.

  “Youngsters have no taste for the classics these days,” I said as I flopped down into the chair beside him. “No Jay?”

  “Nah. My friend was supposed to go as Jay but she bailed.”

  “So not cool.”

  “Bunch of savages in this town, man.”

  Oh, this man was wonderful.

  “I’m Vincent, by the way.” I reached out and took his hand to shake it, and boy did he have a nice grip. His hand was warm and dry, and full of those perfect sparks that danced up your skin and made your toes curl.

  “Ben.” He smiled again, holding my hand a little longer than a straight guy would.

  Yeeeees.

  “So, Ben. What’s a nice place like you doing in a guy like this?”

  “Oh, you are smooth. I bet you say that to all the Silent Bob look alikes?”

  “Only when I’m dressed as a giant banana.”

  Ben side-eyed me like a master. “You’re just trying to get people to check out your potassium.”

  Be still my beating heart.

  “Gotta give the boys what they want,” I preened, making him chuckle a marvelously smokey sounding laugh.

  “You know, I don’t know why you went with a banana. You’d make a killer Vincent Vega. Plus, the names match. So bonus there.”

  I couldn’t help but crack up at that. Fun fact, Vincent isn’t my real name. I have to change names every couple of years to stay under the radar and always pick my new names from movies.

  Guess where Vincent came from?

  “Yeah, about that. I actually do have a full black suit and white shirt. And I may, or may not, know how to twist on a trophy winning level.”

  Ben’s brown eyes brightened. “That’s the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “I aim to please. Say,” I leaned over, my banana suit squeaking sexily as I did. “You wanna get out of here?”

  “...Are you serious?” He asked with a chuckle, his brown eyes narrowing a little.

  “Yeah, I am. We should bail. Go have our own fun.”

  “I make it a habit of asking specific questions when men in fruit costumes ask me to leave with them at parties…”

  I nodded sagely, because it was a golden rule to live by. “Good idea. Ask away.”

  “When you say we should leave...what do you have in mind?”

  “Specifically?” He nodded. “Sex.”

  “Together?”

  “Optimally.”

  “Are you a psycho, married, or secretly a hitman or anything? Am I going to wake up with both kidneys after said mutual sex?” Ben had leaned over, mirroring my playboy, banana swagger. It suited him well, all the way down to the arched brow and mischievous grin.

  “No, never, I’m not that much like Vega and kidneys are chump change. I’d go for the liver or heart. More dramatic.” I flaired my hands and wiggled my fingers for effect.

  “Not selling me, Vincent,” he said over a laugh, his dimples making my heart tap dance. The laugh was cut short as I closed the gap and pressed a kiss to his lips. Just a little ghost of a kiss, feather soft, to let him know I wasn’t a threat. He smelled like Old Spice, cigarettes and some type of citrus shampoo.

  I didn’t pull away fully, just enough to give him room to advance or retreat. If he really didn’t want to leave with me, all he had to do was lean away. Luckily for me, he leaned in. The next kiss had a little more kick, a dash of nicotine laced tongue that matched the tingling I was feeling throughout my body. We almost got too carried away, but a laughing drunk girl stumbling outside broke the spell. By that point I was ready to maul him then and there and was sporting a major hard-on from just his lips.

  For the first time that night, I was thankful for the banana suit.

  “You live close by?” I asked.

  “Walking distance,” he answered immediately, causing me to swoon at how low and lustful it had become. My melting banana consistency made him laugh, and I let him haul m
e to my feet so we could leave. Neither of us bothered to track down the host to say goodbye. The party was already moving along just fine without us, so we slipped out without incident.

  His condo wasn’t far, but it was a little longer than “walking distance”. It worked for me, I needed time to reel in my primal side before I tore this sweet man into shreds in my lustful state. We filled the time with talking about classics, with Ben giving movie suggestions I would actually like.

  I learned he was a former film student turn computer coder who ran a film podcast with the same friend who meant to be his Jay. When I asked what a podcast was, he didn’t seem to think it was all that weird.

  The man got me. He was fun.

  “Be warned,” he said over his shoulder as he began unlocking the door. “This place is kinda a movie nerd’s wet dream. I don’t want you getting too excited too fast.”

  I pressed against his back and purred into his ear, “I’m already excited. Now say, “movie nerd” slower.”

  Ben leaned back into me and grinned as he unlocked the door and swung it open.

  Holy hell he wasn’t lying.

  Framed, theatrical posters were hung meticulously throughout the impressive layout. All the posters were cinematic treasures, both good and bad, with Mallrats sharing the same wall as Silence with the Lambs. But the real panty melter was his fucking amazing TV and surround sound system next to his archive of movies.

  Thousands. Of. Movies.

  DVDs, Blue disks (blue rays?), and even a couple VHS tapes.

  He was most likely going to make some type of not-so-humble humble remark about it all, but I was too busy putting my tongue into his mouth. My hands started pushing at his clothing, pulling his heavy jacket off him so I could feel more of his form properly. He wasn’t as soft as I thought he would be, not in the shoulders and chest anyway. He was strong, even if he was a little soft around the stomach.

  I didn’t give a shit. He was hot as hell and I wanted him so bad I felt like I was on fire. His delicious laugh against my lips made me grin wide as he tugged on my costume.

  “This has got to go,” he pleaded. The banana costume was not removed gently. I ripped the damn thing off with no remorse or care that I was wearing very little under it. Since the thing was so stifling, and I was hoping to get laid, I just wore boxer briefs under it.