The social media posts from the Carmilla Courtship Society San Francisco Vampire Ball have continued to be posted with regularity since the event ended. There’s probably hundreds if not thousands of photos they (or is it just Vance?) have to go through and choose the best from and it seems to be their strategy to post in intervals of small batches rather than one giant dump. I imagine there’s some social media handbook of best practices that advised this. I’ve been looking at the posts occasionally. Here and there, I see faces I don’t know but remember being there. I saw one of Jenny Yang and Wei Fei of Red Flower, looking stylish and mysterious but happy. I saw two photos with Vanessa. One of her between her blonde Blood Angels, each holding a full wineglass. They all smiled for the camera yet Vanessa appears miles away. The other photo was the one I saw the photographer take of Vance inserting himself in the shot of guests at Vanessa’s table, his face right beside hers. Someone commented “Bloodsucker Couple Goals” and there were more than eight hundred likes on just that comment alone. Worse is that further down in the comments someone wrote “Better her than the kindervampire” followed by a vomit emoji. There were likes, but not as many, and I’m guessing that’s just because most didn’t scroll that far down or didn’t understand who the kindervampire was. The poster’s profile was private. I put my phone down after that, made a drink, and started flipping channels, but before I settled on what to watch, a car pulled into the driveway, the driver stepped out, came up the walkway, and I sprang to my feet just as a key was inserted into the lock on the front door.

  “Khalil! You’re back!” We hugged each other really tight.

  “I missed you, Orly.”

  “That makes me happy. I missed you too. I didn’t think you’d be gone so long.”

  “I didn’t either. I’m sorry, if you needed me here.”

  “I just like to see you. Let’s have a drink.”

  Over the next hour, he told me about New York, all the places he’d been, and about Constanza, whom he had been staying with.

  “Is there anything going on between you two?”

  “Yes. Now you can say there is.”

  “I’m happy for you. If you’re happy. You seem happy.”

  “I am.”

  “I thought she had a lover though. A mortal.”

  “She did. But he gave her an ultimatum. He was in his early thirties and said she needed to turn him now because he didn’t want to be any older for eternity. ‘If you loved me you’d do it already. If you don’t then I can’t keep hanging around forever.’ That sort of thing.”

  “He sounds like he’s beautiful.”

  “Very. He was actually an underwear model in his twenties. He was a nice enough guy but he misread how much Constanza actually cared for him and didn’t like to be cornered.”

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  “So she killed him?”

  “No. Not exactly. We were all in her apartment, drinking wine, listening to jazz, and I said I needed to excuse myself and step out, meaning I needed to feed. But Constanza looked at me and said, ‘Don’t go.’ I understood her meaning even if he didn’t. So, I fed there. We made love for the first time after that, with his corpse right there on the shag rug beside us, listening to John Coltrane.”

  “Sounds romantic even if I don’t know who John Coltrane is. I’ll look him up. Did she take her glasses off? She wears glasses she doesn’t need, right? Because she likes how they look on her?”

  “Yes, she does. I asked her to leave them on.”

  “Oh my. Does my Khalil have a glasses kink?”

  “Only with hers. And just because they’re hers.”

  “That’s sweet. I’d like to spend more time with her.”

  “She’d like that. She said so.”

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you? And moving to New York?”

  “If you’re okay with it.”

  “I’m your maker, not your mother.”

  I said that, thinking it sounded clever, but then I thought of Yelena and that I would never have moved away from her. But now that I think about it while writing it here, maybe I only felt I’d never leave Yelena because I was still so young while she was still alive. Had everyone lived, maybe I would’ve grown up and left her nest by running off with Mayuko.

  I told him I’d miss him. He said he’d stay in close contact and promised to visit. I told him I’d worry about him with him so far away. He said he felt safe with Constanza and tried to reassure me by needlessly reminding me she was nearly an Ancient. He asked what had been happening around here while he was gone. I got him up-to-date on Vance whom he hadn’t heard about since right after the Otoboke Beaver show. I told him about Silviu. He said it sounded like my heart is with Vance. I told him about the San Francisco ball and how I’ve recently been dubbed the “kindervampire.” Sweetly, he asked who said it and then said, “I can kill them or sue them. Your choice.” I opened my phone to show him the comment, but it was no longer there. Neither of us thought the poster suddenly felt bad and removed it. We concluded the posts were being moderated. The Bloodsucker Couple Goals comment was still there. So who was moderating? Was it Vance? Or did he hire moderators?

  And then there was a new photo at the top of the feed. A picture of me. Standing alone at the edge of the dance floor, waiting for Vance to ask me to dance. It’s a close up but must have been taken from far away. It had a generic caption, like the other posts: Carmilla Courtship Society San Francisco Ball and the date. There were already many comments.

  I would’ve gone if I knew I could bring my kids!

  I would’ve gone if I wasn’t broke!

  It’s #kindervampire

  She must’ve forgot her fangs.

  I was there. Everyone was acting like she was royalty.

  LOL I saw that crown on Temu!

  She goes by @mydarlingtragedy. She says she’s an empress.

  Who cares?

  Her face is the tragedy

  Ugly Claudia

  You should be ashamed! You’re bullying a child!

  I think she’s pretty.

  Eww. You like kids.

  You and Vance apparently.

  Don’t even do that. I saw it. The #kindervampire was all over him. He was trying to get away from her but had to act like a good host.

  Agreed. I’ve met him multiple times. He’s not like that at all. Plus he’s with Vanessa.

  You know what was weird? The first thing I thought of when I read those comments is that I felt more loved when Mirela was alive. Something like, she wouldn’t let me be abused like this. But I guess I’ve only ever known the safety of her protection in the midst of the coven at the Communion of the Ancients where no one would dare lay a finger on me, save her. Had our relationship lasted longer than the Communion, could she have protected me from the internet? As much as they bothered me, they were only words.

  “On second thought, it’d be easier to kill them than sue them,” Khalil said and I tossed my phone to another section of the sofa and rested my head on his shoulder.

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