Chapter Text
Angelica
I rest the bridge of my nose in my thumb and index finger. Victorian gothic clothes aren’t exactly comfortable, but Mom and Dad insist that everyone around them wear them, which includes me when I go to the manor. They insist that I do this at least once a week, and they give me a cooler full of blood bags at the end of it.
Being born a vampire sucks. I thought I would finish college and not have to talk to them more than once every couple of months. That was a nice two weeks of freedom in between graduation and my adult fangs coming in.
“Are you okay?” Dad asks, as one of the maids sets ornate wine glasses of blood down in front of us.
“Same as always,” I say, sipping from the glass.
God, I hate being so thirsty, I hate needing it this much. But every week, it starts to feel more criminal that I’m settling for stupid old blood bags instead of whatever they’re doing to get this, or better yet—
Ugh, okay. I have my fangs, true, and born vampires are thirstier than turned ones, and it doesn’t help that Mom was also born, but—
“Are you still struggling?” Dad asks. He knows me too well.
“Yeah,” I sigh.
“I’m sorry. Your mother says it’s harder for women, and I can’t imagine going through it at twenty-two.”
Mom turned Dad when she was one hundred and thirteen, and he was thirty-five. It’s kind of funny, because she got her fangs and stopped aging when she was twenty-one, so the vampires who don’t know about their history think he’s the older one. It’s hard not to crack up when people finally realize that she’s the boss, and that “Val,” which he always calls her, is short for Valentina Baliyeva, the closest thing to a vampire queen that still exists.
“Yeah, well, it’s not easy when Mom is your mom, and she keeps telling you that you’re going to be dramatically powerful and you’re so lucky.”
He nods, sympathetically. All born vampires are women, and even women who get turned are more stereotypically vampiric than men.
Heels echo in the hallway, getting closer to the dining room. “Speaking of,” he says.
“Angelica!” I hear in Mom’s loud voice, already gripping a glass. She sees me once a week, and still insists on acting as if she’s greeting me at an annual Christmas party. Dad smiles at her, hopelessly in love, and she kisses him on the cheek, with an adoring “Ivan,” sitting to his left.
She wears a big, ornate, black dress. “Have you fed yet?”
Ugh, right away. She’s been a fully fanged, born vampire for so long, that getting me to feed and forget what it was like to approach being human, just like she has. She builds it up so much that I never want to do it— except, increasingly, every single part of my physiology is begging me to feed on someone.
I sip at the glass again, and find myself with closed eyes, imagining it tasting that much better. Metallic, iron-y, and dark… from a girl’s neck. When I feel the venom build in my mouth, I swallow and snap back.
“Uh, nope!” I chirp back at her, hoping it’s convincing.
“You were thinking about it, though,” she says, smiling. God damn it.
“Valentina,” Dad says, drawing out the four syllables of her name, lovingly, but teasingly. “You’re bugging Angelica.”
“It’s not fair,” she says back. “I can’t draw Ivan into a little song.”
“You’re going to have to tell her eventually.”
“Why? She’s the second born vampire in a row! She has her fangs, she’s strong, she should want to feed on someone. She’ll be far better of a vampire than I ever was the second that she does,” she says, before turning to address me. “You picked it up early. I’d catch you biting on the necks of your toys in your bassinet. And I had to start feeding you blood bags when you were five! I was eleven before I even thought about trying a single drop. You moved straight from a bassinet into a coffin.”
She’s right, and I hate it, because she has to be so… Valentina Baliyeva about it.
Second born vampire in a row is rare, and I wish it didn’t feel fun and sexy. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t lay awake in the coffin sometimes, imagining a woman and her neck, biting her, soothing my wound, and the moment Mom told me about— all your powers finally coming to you.
Giving into what every sanguine little cell is begging me to- wait, what did Dad say?
“What did you mean by tell her?” I ask. They look at each other, Mom looks a little annoyed.
“I’ve been thinking a lot,” she starts. “And your father and I think it would be good to make a change,” she declares. “He’s tired of New York, and honestly, I am too, after a hundred years. But I don’t want to move unless I can put you in charge, and trust you to fulfill your responsibilities as my daughter.”
Huh.
“So that’s why I’m eager for you to feed, darling,” she says, holding Dad’s arm with her gloved hand. It’s adorable— he’s a full foot taller than her, at 6’6, and yet, she’s four times stronger than him.
“You could’ve just told me.”
“Why? So you’ll just go out and feed and get me to move away, instead of actually growing up? You have to do it the right way before I leave you.”
I sip from the glass again, and it tastes so, so good… my brain fills, again, with necks, blood, girls, fangs, venom..
“See? She’s thinking about it again,” Mom says to Dad. “Val…”
I look back up at them and open my eyes, confident I’m as red as someone like me could be. “Sorry.”
“It’s quite all right,” she says, as a maid brings another glass. “And please, don’t rush into it now that you know this. I’m officially saying you can feed on your terms. Even if I want you to want to feed soon.” She pauses for a beat, and grins devilishly, fangs on display.
“It’s not like we don’t have the time.”
I leave with a cooler of blood bags, which seem to taste worse each week, and I’m sure I look positively ridiculous, done up in one of Mom’s old Victorian gothic dresses, sitting on the subway with a big blue cooler. I eventually get it to the apartment— a little studio jammed with things I took from the manor when I left, and put the blood bags in the refrigerator.
For now, I know I want a cocktail and to forget about everything, and since I can’t be bothered to change, there’s only one place it makes sense to go.
Ramona
Before each shift at The Raven, I do every single thing I can to look as feminine as possible underneath the dark lights in the restaurant. I don’t think the owners know that I’m trans— though it’s been a couple of weeks, the Baliyeva’s are only mentioned under hushed tones. Contouring and doing the right highlights around the cheekbones, little facial feminization “hacks” as the internet likes to call them give me a little security.
I turn to Tori. “Do I look good?”
“Yeah,” she says, dolling herself up in her phone camera.
“No, I mean, do I look… feminine?” I ask.
She turns to me. “Yes, brainworm girl, you’ve looked like a woman since high school.”
Tori was the only person I ever hung out with outside of school back in Maine, and we kept in touch, even when I burned out after senior year and she moved to Manhattan to go to college. Apparently, she does extraordinarily well tending bar here, even while going to college, and she knew I was suffering in Lewiston.
So a few months ago, she told me to come work at The Raven, she could vouch for me, and it’s slow here— a lot of rich people stop in, apparently, so tips are good, even if there are few.
Though lately I’m worried I’ll eventually open my phone and see a picture of one of the regulars I like standing next to Ghislane Maxwell at a party.
“Speaking of brainworms,” she says, and I instantly know where she’s going. “Have you eaten today?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Um… this morning?”
“It’s almost four o’clock. It better have been a big breakfast. What was it?”
I sigh, theatrically. “Toaster strudel, one of those packs of walnuts and dried cherries, and… I don’t know. Half a bag of potato chips?”
“Girl.” She looks at me like a condescending older sister. “You need calories. Energy!”
“I had a red bull.”
“Not the kind of energy I’m talking about. Get something from the kitchen, the food here’s good. And if they talk weird about you for ordering something overly plain,” God, she knows all my moves— “I’ll tell them you’re cool and they’re lame. Have you heard the stuff they play out of their speakers in the kitchen?”
So I tap the little handheld thing we use to put orders into the kitchen, ordering a pasta dish with some grilled chicken in it, that does come with some delicious bread, and make sure the tables are sat.
I walk back up to the bar, where Tori is wiping everything down and cutting lemons, and pick up the conversation as if no time passed. “I just can’t deal with most food. In Lewiston I worked at this sushi place, and my bosses stood around me in the server station, watching me try one of the rolls.”
“And?”
“I threw up in front of them.” Tori laughs. “I didn’t last there much longer after that. I’m just super sensitive to taste.”
“I get ya,” she says. “You’ve always kind of been like that.”
“It’s not even like a body image thing it’s just food fucking sucking.”
And right on cue, I see a hand holding the pasta dish I ordered lay it on the bar in front of me.
I look at Alex, of the guys who works in the kitchen, who was nice enough to bring my plate out to me, even though it’s not his job. “Uh, this food is an exception.”
He turns his head a little bit. “No, seriously, she’s just weird about food. She likes it, it’s fine,” says Tori.
Alex seems to give up and walk away, wordlessly.
“That’s not doing me any favors,” I say to no one in particular, and look down at my pasta. It is delicious, especially here, so much so that I don’t even mind the grilled chicken.
Tori cuts me a break and pours Coke from the beverage gun into a glass. We don’t have fountains here, it’s mostly either water or alcohol, and she knows I’ll feel bad for asking.
***
“You have one at 21,” says Magdalena, the hostess, before she turns on her heel and walks away.
One? A Single person? I wish it were unheard of, it’s always usually some random old person who wants to talk to me about crabs or ask me where my family is from ethnically, as if we’re not a bunch of fucking white people.
Okay, maybe that’s “old people in Maine” shit.
I walk over, looking at the handheld that I use to take orders. “How are you doing tonight?” I say, and then look up at her.
She looks about my age, twenty three? And she’s absolutely gorgeous. Long, platinum blode hair, pale skin, and beautiful makeup, with a dark red lip combo. She wears an ornate, black, victorian gothic gown— it looks old and expensive, one of the nicest dresses I’ve ever seen. “Very well, how about you?” she asks, and big, glimmering eyes.
“Um… I’m great” I say, and she giggles a little bit. “I’m Ramona,” I offer.
“That’s a pretty name. I’m Angelica,” she returns, elegantly. Even the poised, controlled way she speaks and carries herself is lovely. She reminds me of who I wanted to be when I started transitioning so long ago.
There’s something otherworldly about her. I’ve always felt like I was from somewhere else, dropped here from outer space or something. Something about Angelica, even just looking at her, her mannerisms, makes it seem like she’s from… wherever I’m from.
“Would you like to start with anything to drink?” I ask, remembering the waitress script, and she giggles a little bit to herself.
“I’ll have a glass of port. Tori knows the one I like.” She must be a regular. “I’m just here for a drink tonight,” she clarifies.
I type her order in the handheld, simply adding a comment— “her name is Angelica?” and when the order pops up on her screen at the bar, Tori immediately goes to the back room and pulls a bottle of wine.
When I go to pick up the glass, Tori looks like she’s about to talk to me, but a man in a suit walks to the bar and asks for another drink, which she makes for him.
Angelica drinks her wine, and another glass,, and picks at a glorified appetizer, while I check on my other tables and bring things from the kitchen, the normal waitressing loop. I can’t help but look at her as I pass by, and whenever I do, she’s studying me.
Occasionally, our eyes meet, and she smiles, warm sweet, a little mischievous, as if there’s something only the two of us share. Does she know that I’m trans? I haven’t been clocked in a while, but maybe she knows what to look for. She did compliment my name, as if she knew it was something I picked out on my own, or something…
I check on her again, and she asks for a check, which I print out, and give back to her in a little leather book.
She doesn’t let me walk away before she puts her card into it, and looks up at me again, smiling. I would assume it’s flirty, even a little lascivious, but… I’m me, at a restaurant, underweight and probably clocky.
I get to the payment terminal and look at her card as I prepare to slide it into the computer, only to look at her card. Angelica… Baliyeva. As in the Baliyevas.
I’m a fucking idiot, staring at her like a desperate lesbian, and she probably owns the restaurant.
I ring it and start mentally searching for other jobs, when I see Megan, the manager, talking to her, concerned look on her face. Angelica smiles and nods quickly, enthusiastic.
I tuck the new receipt and a pen into the same book, and drop it off in front of Angelica, who offers the same knowing, devilishly cute grin.
“What’s up?” I ask, either her or Megan.
“I was just telling Megan what a wonderful waitress she’s hired,” says Angelica.
“Oh, it’s funny,” I hear myself start. “I didn’t know you were one of the owners until I saw your card,” I say. Why did I say that.
“Oh, no, my Mom and Dad are the owners, I’m just a nepo baby,” she says. “They want me to come here and look at things and make sure things are running alright.”
“Which means two glasses of expensive wine?” I ask, and Megan stares daggers at me, but Angelica laughs. “Exactly. Keeps my Mom off my back.”
Magdalena walks up to us and needs Megan for something, so they walk off toward the host stand, and before I can walk away, Angelica writes quickly with my pen, and hands me the book with a wink and a smile, before picking up her black leather bag, matching everything else, and leaving, heels clacking on the floor. She’s so effortlessly glamorous.
I get back to the little server area and open the book, to put her receipt with all of my others. She left a hundred bucks for me, which, alright makes sense— daughter of Manhattan rich people— but the piece of paper curls, bent fro the receipt printer, and reveals cute handwriting. “Text me, darling! 212-555-4468”
I guess she was being flirty. I can’t imagine why— what about me as a nervous, clocky waitress makes her want to hear from me again?
But I add her number any way— I’m in no position to turn down gorgeous goth women who are probably at the very least bisexual— and send her a message. “Hey, it’s Ramona!” I write, before realizing that the message has no context, and adding “…so you can save my number.” which is still a little clunky.
I get sat a couple more times, and take care of my other tables, and get it back— I give them the script, upsell them into slightly nicer wine, and crack them up with the right lines, and I remember that I am a good waitress— I was just thrown by someone so… Angelica.
Those eyes, that adorable face and otherworldliness.
I’ve tried to imagine my perfect woman before, but she didn’t look like this girl.
My imagination isn’t that good.