The sun is rising. The window coverings lowered hours ago. Rosanna is below, asleep in her casket. I’m obviously still awake. I’m writing this while lying in Yelena’s bed stretched out on satin sheets.

  The Otoboke Beaver show was a very good time. They’re a fun band to watch because they’re playful and have so much energy. The crowd was really into it. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Rosanna and I met Hisato and his girls inside the venue. Right when we got there the very first thing Grace wanted was a photo of me and her for her Instagram. She crouched to my level and snapped away. She must have taken at least thirty pics. I nodded as she swiped, showing me each one but I didn’t really care which one she selected. Everyone would be commenting on her, not me. If anything, I negated her thirst trap.

  I didn’t get a wristband but was still able to get drunk before the first of the two opening acts even took the stage. Hisato handed me drink after drink and I drank and I drank.

  We, minus me, attracted a lot of attention. Numerous men (two of them did have top knots) and a couple of women tried approaching the rest of the vampires, while I stood there like an orange wallflower. It got louder as the venue filled up. And when the first band came on it was so loud that the attempted flirtations became limited to just these fake horny smiles and way too much heavy eye contact because none of the admirers thought they could continue to shoot their shots verbally because they had no idea we were vampires and could hear them clearly over the music even if they decided to deliver their one-liners in whispers. But truth be told, I was glad they all shut up, because I could listen to the music unimpeded and moreover because no one was talking to me, until…

  “Hey, she doesn’t have a wristband!” said this big burly bouncer who came up to us and gestured to me.

  “That’s cuz they discriminate against children here,” Hisato answered.

  “She can’t be drinking. I’m trying to be cool by not kicking you all out.”

  “Look. I’d make you an offer you can’t refuse and all but you’re nowhere near my type. So here’s two hundred bucks. You can bounce now.”

  “That was her last one,” the bouncer said, accepting Hisato’s money, and taking the glass from my hand before walking off.

  Hisato just smiled at me and took a vial out of his breast pocket. “Good thing nobody needs a wristband for coke!” He powdered his nose and then offered me some. I shook my head, as I didn’t feel like having any, but Corinne and Darcy joined him.

  The first band finished and left and were replaced onstage by roadies who began to set up for the next band. The crowd rushed to the bar. Second band. Roadies. Bar. Repeat. Finally Otoboke Beaver came on stage. They wore their signature colored dresses, Yoyoyoshie, the guitarist, in orange. Her dress was cuter than mine of course, but I hoped she noticed me as I didn’t see anyone else wearing orange, but she probably didn’t cuz I’m short and cuz we were pretty far back as Hisato insisted on staying by the bar. I sang the lyrics I knew. My Japanese is still very good. It was as I was screaming the words to my favorite song of theirs (which translates to After making love to me, you eat your wife’s cooking) I noticed him looking at me. A guy out in the crowd, a mortal, in front of us, a little off to the left. More than once he turned his head back in our direction. He had dark hair that was styled messy. He wore loose fitting clothes, all black. A little on the short side, but still taller than me of course. Soft brown eyes. His complexion and facial features made me think he was Thai or had roots somewhere in Southeast Asia. He was good looking. Very good looking. Too good looking to be looking at me. I turned to make sure he wasn’t looking at Rosanna or Darcy who were on either side of me, but when I turned back he nodded to me. For sure it was just to me. And nobody else around me seemed to notice or they just didn’t care. They were watching the Japanese girls on stage wailing on their instruments and sing-screaming in their gang vocals style. So in that moment it felt like it was just us. Me and whatever his good looking name is.

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  He looked youthful but I noted he was wearing a wristband. That’s good. At least he’s an adult, just like me. Well, not like me. I stood there wondering why he, an adult, was looking so long at a child. Was he some sicko? But then he stopped. He turned back toward the stage and no longer looked back. I shouldn’t have thought anything of it. He was here to watch the show just like everybody else, but I felt a little crestfallen to have lost his attention because I was so unaccustomed to receiving what felt like interest.

  Most weren’t singing along as most didn’t seem to be Japanese speakers. As before, because of the loud volume of the music, conversations were pretty much avoided, as they’d need to be shouted in fragments, so the crowd resorted mostly to hoots and hollers. Therefore it was easy, with my vampiric hearing, to pick out complete coherent sentences said in a normal speaking voice.

  “I came here for you,” it said.

  It was a male voice, not as deep as Khalil’s or Berthold’s, but still quite masculine.

  “I saw you on Instagram. That’s how I knew you were here.”

  I knew it was him. The good looking guy halfway to the stage. The one who had nodded to me. I thought he was talking to himself, rehearsing his approach, thinking no one around could hear him for the music, and before I could decide whether that was cute or weird and whether I would like weird, he said, “I know who you are,” and this time it felt less like a rehearsal. He said it direct.

  I was taken aback and didn’t know if he was bullshitting. I could have easily used telepathy to reply, asking him, “Oh yeah? Who am I then?” But I stood there, saying nothing, realizing I was giving him a pass for creepy behavior because he was so attractive.

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked. And this time he sounded playful, like he was teasing me. I still didn’t reply and told myself I was playing hard to get. But I still thought he was lying until he said, “You’re Orly Bialek.”

  He did know who I am. He knows me by name. He must know what I am, yet he isn’t afraid. If he knows that, he must also know I’m not a child. And he said he came there for me. How astonishing it is to feel chosen. Some people are probably numb to it. But to me it’s delicious, like this satin on my naked skin.

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