REVISION #9 OF AN OPEN WINDOW

So when Van Helsing found your castanets tangled in my sheets the other night I told him about you.

"You know," I said, "I think that Gypsy Dancer down at the Dreamland is a vampire."

"How do you know?" he asked me.

"Well when I said I almost died, she just got that hungry look."

"Hmmm, if I were you I'd quit falling asleep by that open window," the Prof. said.

"But I love the fresh air," was all I could think of to say.

"It's all that dying," I told you later, the next time you came in the window. "It makes me depressed, but wise."

"Oh how sad," you'd said and "I will pray for you," then without missing a breath you told me the story of your latest meal or maybe it was your last heartbreak; I am too weak to remember.

"I asked you once if you could love," I cried, "and even though you said 'Yes' I still think you haven't learned to speak my language."

You just smiled and took another bite. I love the way your thighs do that thing they do.

"Now I don't want to complain," I sighed, "but the next time you take a jug of my blood down to your jaded friends, the ones who don't even know me, couldn't you at least tell them who it came from?"

You smiled that reddish smile and promised to but you never remember what you said to me or lied to me or didn't say to me the way you impale yourself on my wooden stake, I expect you to die!

But "So why shouldn't I close that window?" was all I could think of to hurt you with.

"It's sad," I said later. "and I am tired of people saying 'you've been dying long enough, why don't you get it over with? borrrring!'"

And you whispered in my ear 'That's nice dear' while your music dulled the rhythm of my slowing heart. I always know you're in the mood by how your wings spread.

Van Helsing called again last night and asked me how the salve is doing on those little holes in my neck.

"I think it's working a little," I told him, "That and the fresh air."

An Open Window first appeared in Dream International Quarterly.