the walls. I sat in a bright red wing chair, upholstered with cheap vinyl that squeaked with each movement. A matching chair and sofa surrounded a coffee table covered with pornographic magazines of varying measures of taste and distaste. A television sat where it would in anybody's living room. A VCR sat atop of the TV, surely for the viewing of pornographic videos.
The fellow at the door - not so much of a pimp, Jasmine would tell me, but more of a bodyguard - had collected fifty dollars from me, and I would tip Jasmine another fifty. Though extravagant, this expense was not unreasonable considering my lack of expenses for food and drink.
Jasmine appeared shortly. "Oh, hi, Al" she said, smiling broadly with recognition. "I guess turnabout is fair play."
"Yes. It is."
Jasmine led me to the room where she plied her trade. As I followed, white, rounded flesh from underneath her short, matte-black skirt revealed itself ever so slightly with the rising and falling of her steps.
"What'll it be?" She closed the door and faced me, her breasts bobbing up and down under the clingy fabric of her nearly see-through gauzy top. The room was stark with white walls, the only furniture a black, vinyl couch sitting against one wall and a padded massage table in the center of the room. A shower lay in an adjacent alcove.
I dropped a fifty-dollar bill on the massage table. "I just want to talk."
"Okay," she said, scooping up the fifty. "I'm all ears."
"I know you work outside this place." My voice was little more than a whisper.
Jasmine nodded. "I think all you cabbies know that."
"Indeed. We are often privy to many secrets that we do not divulge. May I expect the same discretion from you?"
The woman smiled warmly. "Sure, Al. Hey, everybody's got a secret. You, me, everybody. What's yours? Thrill me."
I paused, taking a moment to consider whether this was not the most moronic action of my long, protracted existence. "My secret will likely shock you. You probably will not even believe it."
"Go ahead, flatter yourself." She laughed loudly and took a seat on the message table, crossing her legs, showing ample amounts of muscular flesh. "You guys always think your little secrets are so damn shocking. Hell, you wouldn't believe some of the things I've heard, some of the things guys wanted me to do. Guys want me to strap on a dildo and fuckthem up the ass. Guys want me to fuck their dog while they watch. So, if you can really shock me, I'd be pretty damn impressed."
"I can appreciate your unique position to observe the wide variety of human deviance." A momentary pause allowed me to carefully choose my words. "There is much strange in this world we live in."
Jasmine slapped her thigh and nodded her head vigorously, then pulled at the chain around her neck, lifting a piece of rose quartz from between her breasts. She fondled the crystal between her fingers. "Tell me about it. I just moved outta my apartment. Place was haunted."
"Really?" I felt myself smile. "You believe in the unseen, the unexplained?"
"Yeah." Her voice was hushed, as if she did not want anyone to hear her denounce the doctrine of scientific secularism.
"What if I were to tell you that I am not what I appear to be?"
"And what are you really?" She leaned forward, her expression earnest despite the sarcasm dripping from her words.
"I am a creature of the shadows, rising with the sunset, subsisting on the blood of the living."
Jasmine laughed loudly. "And I suppose you vant to suck my blood."
"Yes," I answered, "as a matter of fact, that is exactly what I desire."
Jasmine stood and backed quickly toward the door. "I scream, and you're flying down the stairs faster than you can say Bela Lugosi."
I quickly rebuked myself, having foolishly taken for granted that even Jasmine would be affected by this wave of fear and suspicion sweeping across the city. Quickly, I sought to ease her misgivings. "Please, Jasmine. Fear not. If I am indeed that monster of your streets, your so-called Madison Mangler, I would not tell you I am anything unusual."
Jasmine exhaled loudly and stepped away from the door, regaining her perch atop the message table, arms crossed about her chest. "Then, you're just crazy. Crazy is okay, but it'll cost you extra."
"Please," I said. "Please listen to what I have to say. Iam a vampire. I have been for a thousand years."