Dracula's Bride on FB
I'm One of Dracula's Brides and BOY BYE
EMILY LINSTROM
Thank you so much for accepting my friend request! You have no idea how tough it is trying to build up a decent following from an isolated Transylvanian village that looks like a defunct Medieval Times restaurant. The Wifi sucks up in this piece, so I have to walk to an internet cafe run by some unibrow named Dobroslav to conduct my social media affairs. I'm still crafting my influencer persona, that profile pic of Monica Bellucci from Bram Stoker's Dracula is just a placeholder. When he—and you know the 'he' I'm talking about—turned me I was 16th century #goals: a healthy, fleshy size, proof that I never had to toil a day in the fields or beg for my meals, with a pale (and only a little lead paint pocked) complexion, regal hairline that started at the back of my head, no eyebrows, and mostly whitish teeth. I’ve since learned that this is not the modern beauty standard, and I’m presently recalibrating. The whole liquid protein diet does most of the job, and I successfully disguised my tanning bed purchase as a coffin upgrade. He won't know the difference. That man can’t see a foot from his own face, and not just because of the fog machine. Vampire men are the actual worst.
Look, it was a sweet gig while it lasted. I’m not really the poly type but it was nice to shoulder the responsibilities of that relationship with two other women. (We killed the rest.) I’ll miss those girls when I’m gone. Sure, we fought sometimes—Jonathan Harker is still a sore spot—but we’re like Little Women, only with significantly more clean-up following a visit from Laurie. They’re not ready to abandon the unholy bachelor and I have to respect that. But for me, nah. I’m out. Just because a guy turns you doesn't make him your keeper. That Stockholm syndrome shit is cute when you’re 200, but it gets old—literally and figuratively—real fast. If he put in for some decent electricity he might finally get all the gaslighting references. So far, his big leap into the 21st century was some Soviet-era cassette relic and I swear to god, if I have to listen to Celine Dion's That's The Way It Is one more time...
Money is easy to come by when you’re a sexy, sexy creature of the night, and I’ve got dynasties of bling and coin to get my life. Traveling only by night would have been problematic before SPF 50 and Ray-Bans but not anymore, so get in loser we're going 9-5. I’m thinking about opening a wedding consultancy in L.A. or juice cleanse studio in South Beach, maybe penning a bestselling memoir titled He Had Me at Hell No. The possibilities are endless when all you’ve got is time and an all-you-can-eat buffet called civilization. I really don’t get what you morons mortals are bitching about. So some Orange Julius™Caesar fuck is currently in office? Hello, have you met my soon-to-be-ex? He used to brag about erecting forests of impaled bodies and went equally hard for that Bill the Butcher stache long before craft beer and gentrified Brooklyn. No one has to die of a head cold anymore and 40 really is the new 20 (when I was alive it meant time for your grandkids to start pricing headstones). Plague? Wiped out. Women in the workforce? Check. The fact that I can seduce, suck dry, and bench press a grown man through any ceiling—glass or otherwise—in the time it takes to refresh your LinkedIn has got to be an automatic interview bypass.
Anyway, the Western world beckons. Don't worry, now that we're officially friends you're on the safe list.
For now.
X
Emily Linstrom
American writer, artist, and Pagan soul residing in Italy. Her work has been featured in a number of publications including Three Rooms Press, Nailed Magazine, A Women’s Thing, The Wisdom Daily, and Carve Magazine. She was the first prize recipient of Pulp Literature Press's 2015 The Raven short story contest, and is a regular contributor for Sabat Magazine, The Outsider, and Quail Bell Magazine. Additionally, Linstrom is a member of the faculty at the School of Witchery. You can view her work at: www.emilylinstrom.com and follow her adventures on Instagram at betterlatethan_em