This story is simple.
There’s no deeper meaning. No commentary on society or human nature. No treatise on how people should behave, or the consequences of careless action, or even an ode to beauty or love.
It’s just a 400-word gimmick. But an entertaining one.
The entire point of it is the first and the last line. That’s it. All the stuff in the middle was just getting from one to the other, which will make sense when you read it.
Go on, then. Read it.
basically the same
“They’re basically the same thing.”
Jenny gawked. “The same thing?”
Val nodded. She wasn’t even looking at her friend.
“Yeah,” she said. “The same thing.”
Jenny stopped walking. As if on cue, a dog barked somewhere in the distance.
“How is being bitten by a vampire the same as sex?”
Val circled back to her friend. They had the sidewalk to themselves. Hell, they had the street to themselves. But it was well-lit and in a mostly-nice part of town, so neither was particularly worried. Plus, they had cell phones, and Jenny never went anywhere without mace on her keyring.
“Well,” Val began, “both involve penetration, for one.”
Jenny scrunched her nose. Val rolled her eyes.
“Like you haven’t thought about it.”
“It’s that word,” Jenny said. “Penetration. I don’t like how it sounds. It’s so, I don’t know, forceful, I guess.”
“It’s what happens. And in both cases, it’s something hard sliding into something soft.”
“Okay, stop.”
Val only grinned.
“If it’s the first time, sex even involves blood.”
“I said stop.”
Val laughed quietly to herself. “Okay, princess. But you asked.”
“I didn’t ask for details. Not like those.”
“And anyway, you gotta get over being so fucking innocent.”
Jenny’s eyes went wide.
“What?” Val asked.
“You said the f-word.”
Val grinned conspiratorially. “It’s just a fucking word.”
“Stop it. Why are you being so gross tonight?”
Val thought about that for a moment.
“I’m not sure. I mean, we just saw a horror film. Could be that. Or maybe I just like torturing you. It’s what friends do.”
“Well, think about puppies or something.”
“Vampire puppies?”
“No! Regular, cute little puppies. Geez, what is wrong with you?”
Val laughed, and then they walked in silence for several blocks. They parted ways at Jenny’s house. Val lived just three blocks east. They hugged, and Val said she’d call when she got home.
Only she never called.
Cutting through the alley by her house, she’d run into a stranger. A man she didn’t recognize, but about whom she did not have a good feeling. When he saw her, he leered and said, “Wanna fuck?”
“Uh, no, creep.”
A grin split his face, revealing not teeth, but fangs.
“Then maybe a snack,” the stranger replied. “You know, they’re basically the same thing.”