Sensing my frustration, she moved on. “Have you been finding connections with anyone else in town? I was happy to see you at trivia night. That’s a great place to meet young people.”
“Um…I’m meeting a lot of people.”
She nodded with understanding. “Meeting people and developing authentic connections aren’t the same thing. Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Umm.” Most people thought I was Tiffany Amanda Blair, widowed and damaged. “No one knows me.” The words rang with truth.
“Tiffany, if you can’t connect with yourself in an authentic way, how can someone else?”
I shrugged. That sounded like some mumbo jumbo. I just needed apill to make me stop wanting things I shouldn’t want, make me okay with being a simple woman, not a vampire thirsty for blood and sex.
“Are you okay with who you are?”
“No. I’m trying to become Tiffany Amanda Blair, the woman who people in town loved and accepted. I want to be the girl who won Best Smile in high school.”And didn’t have to hide her fangs, I silently added.
“Is that who you are?”
“No, that’s the problem. I want to drink blood and fuck.” Hadn’t she been listening?
“Tiffany, I know you aren’t there today, but I want you to work toward accepting yourself as you are. I want you to admit that you are human and accept that. Do you think you could do that?”
I shrugged. This wasn’t going anywhere.
“I, Tiffany Blair, am human. Can you say that?” She looked so hopeful.
“Do you want me to be honest or not?”
She sighed. “Okay, you’re not there yet. Let’s talk for a minute about why you chose to identify as a vampire. Why do you feel like a vampire?”
“Because I want to bite people, drink blood, and stay up all night,” I said casually. “Eleanor, I’m a servant of the devil. It’s not like I get direct orders, but all of my innermost thoughts and desires are evil.”
“So what I hear you saying is that you are not okay with the power and the violence inside of you?”
“Yup.” I nodded.
“I relate to that. I think most women probably do on some level. Society tells us that we need to be strong, but in a passive, supportive way. We are not encouraged to embrace power and violence.”
I nodded. That was true. “Yes. They call us bitches, or witches.” Everyone says they want a strong woman, but what they really mean bystrongis long-suffering and supportive. No one wants a strong woman biting them on the neck and draining their blood.
“Society tells us that we should be made of sugar and spice, but women are animals with thoughts and desires, some of them carnal and violent.The makeup, the clothes, the tiny voices—every day women perform a role to make men comfortable, to make men feel important and strong.”
That sounded about right, though my carnal and violent thoughts were a little stronger than what she assumed.
“You need to stop burying thoughts, feelings, and desires that make you uncomfortable. That is what makes youyou.It sounds like you’re using vampirism as an emotional outlet. What would it feel like for you to embrace those angry parts of yourself and accept them?”
“Embracing vampirism would feel like sucking my boyfriend dry.”
“Tiffany, you are not draining your boyfriend by simply asking for your needs to be met.”
“What?”
Getting fired up by her own rhetoric, she leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “You can be a human woman—imperfect, angry, messy. If you embrace and accept that about yourself, you will be on a more authentic journey.”
I kind of wanted to bite her. The smell of AB negative was tickling my senses.
“What about the panic attack?”
“The disconnect between your true self and the person who you think you need to be—I believe that’s why you had a panic attack. You’re trying to put yourself into a box you don’t fit in.”
