***AUTHOR’S NOTE***
I originally posted this bit of spice-free comedic horror/romance, on Wattpad, as a standalone piece, for World Goth Day, in 2023. Perhaps due to its brevity, and my having only updated once or twice, to add an author’s note at the end, it didn’t get much traction there. Given the popularity of the recent Nosferatu film, I thought it couldn’t hurt to give it a wider audience. Enjoy!!!
Electric sconces in the style of torches with leaping flames, blazed upon the walls, papered in a repeating pattern to give the appearance of a moldering stone dungeon. Nosferatu swept into his favorite red satin-lined black cape, plucking it neatly off the coat rack beside the front door. He twirled it with an artful flourish. “I’m going out. The blood! It calls to me. I can hear its scarlet song thrumming through the veins of this wretched city.”
“Not in your present state, you’re not.” Varna stood firm directly in his path, arms crossed, expression stormy. A stray auburn curl had escaped the braids that laced across the top of her head. He resisted the urge to tuck the strand back into place, or lay it behind one of her perfect ears. She looked so adorable when she was angry! But she mustn’t know he thought so. She’d chosen the violet gown for tonight—his favorite of all the period costumes he’d bought her over the years, with its daring, heart-shaped neckline. Did she know how it affected him?
Nosferatu snarled and extended his long, clawed fingers toward her. “Who are you to stand in my way?”
Varna shivered at the caress of his fetid breath upon her face, though she didn’t budge. “I am but your lowly thrall. But if I may…you gave me full power in this one matter only. You told me not to let you roam the streets until I’d made you presentable.”
She approached him, treading softly upon the Persian rug laid out before the door. Her violet satin slippers whispered across the teal and turquoise abstract pattern.
Clucking like a mother hen, she added, “You’ve been plucking at your hair again, haven’t you? While waiting for the death-sleep to overtake you, before dawn? And when did you last brush your teeth? They look like rotting tombstones, set jagged about your mouth.”
“I look… fine.” His inflection betrayed his uncertainty, however. It almost sounded more like a question. “I am of the night. What care I if my appearance frightens the foolish folk of this place? My countenance was meant to strike fear into the hearts of mortals everywhere!”
“You broke into my beauty parlor in the middle of the night, centuries ago, smashing mirrors and causing a ruckus, all because you wanted to look more like the… other vampires. The ones who lure beautiful maidens from their bedchambers. Remember that? You made me swear upon my life, such as it is, that I would make you handsome every night before you stalked the city.”
He harrumphed, the action almost humanizing, in spite of his chiropteran appearance—most notably the many folds of his vampire-bat-like nose. “I remember,” he admitted, unable to meet her glittering emerald stare. “But I thirst so, and beautifying takes so much time…”
“You also told me the blood tastes all the sweeter when it’s given willingly, by a fair and comely maid who yearns to slake your thirst. Or would you rather go back to whacking them over the head when they shriek in horror at the sight of you and dragging them away into alleys full of rubbish and rats?”
Nosferatu sighed, even though he had no use for breathing. These exchanges with his thrall always flustered him so, calling forth glimpses of his lost humanity, before he fell victim to the curse that started his eternal damnation. He’d been handsome for true, once upon a time, until the witch he spurned twisted his nature and made him one with the darkness. “Alright. You may primp me. But I get to choose the wig.”
“Once you’ve brushed your teeth, and sweetened your breath with a bit of crushed mint.”
“If I must.” As a mortal man might approach the gallows, Nosferatu slouched and slumped his way to the kitchen sink. Varna insisted on keeping all tools of hygiene and presentability as close to the front door as possible, the better to pounce on him with any of them as he tried to leave.
“Trust me. You must,” she insisted, following him, and extending his toothbrush and paste from the basin.
Dutifully, he wetted the brush under the sink and applied the neon-blue gel paste. “That last one, Astrid, she said her name was, she tumbled into my arms as easily as ripe fruit falls off the bough. Her blood reminded me of my childhood home, and her lips were sweet as a pear,” he mumbled around the toothbrush. Taking a small paper cup from the counter and filling it, he rinsed and spat, showing Varna his teeth for inspection.
“Yes, yes, she sounds delightful. Your teeth look much better. You’ll need a quick manicure, too. Pity that your nails grow back to their fullest length whilst you rest.”
Nosferatu plucked a sprig of mint from the potted plant on the granite counter and chewed it as he spoke. “I’d like them to shine. A quick buffing, and a light layer of clear polish, if you would.”
Varna fussed him into the customary chair, a curious half-smile on her pale, widow’s-peaked face. “I daresay you’ve begun to enjoy this.”
Nosferatu grumped, scowling. “I enjoy the blood and nothing else.”
“Alright, if you say so, sir. Though making that unpleasant face will only deepen the crows’ feet about your eyes and thicken the furrows around your mouth. Do we really want that? I think not! Now, where did I put that make up?”
“Just there, by the hairbrush. Not too much sparkle, this time. A hint of glimmer, yes, but only a whisper.”
“Of course! Just a bit of highlighter, to accentuate your aquiline jaw and cheekbones. But first, we cleanse, and lay the foundation. I think we ought to further discuss the possibility of me becoming a representative and sales person for that lovely cosmetics company that queried me. They have such a wonderful range of products! Just think of all I could learn. The extra income wouldn’t hurt, either, though I know you’ve invested wisely over the years…”
He sighed again, this time with quiet satisfaction, only half-listening as she continued to speak at length about the lucrative possibilities of marketing to the rest of the undead community. One must learn to make do, when one cannot see one’s own reflection; Varna made the sacrifices rather pleasant, all things considered. Not for the first time, he silently thanked the witch who cursed him, and the stroke of luck that brought him that night, half-mad with loneliness, to Varna’s shop.
He didn’t have the heart to tell her the lasses still recoiled in terror at his approach; if anything, the cosmetics only heightened the peculiarities of his features. Perhaps his more conventionally-attractive contemporaries enjoyed a sweeter vintage of blood than he, but he imagined it tasted the same, whether spiked with fear or laced with lust. Maybe none of the city’s bachelorettes welcomed him with open arms, but Varna eagerly awaited his return every night, and that was all that truly mattered.
All the Bright and Sparkly Things 
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