I N T E R V I E W S W I T H T H E V A M P I R E S   2

occupying the dark cultural capillaries that connect Gothic death rock, S&M pornography and black-magic occultism, modern vampires -- they call themselves "self-made vampires" -- dispute the idea of a unified "vampire community." They do, however, have a micro-industry catering to their gory tastes. The Atlanta-based Gothic erotic magazine Blue Blood offers a medley of fiction, amateur porn photo spreads of fanged, eye-shadowed lovers, "how to" articles about the joys of blood drinking and safe-sex guidelines for practicing vampires. Catalogs like Vyxyn's and Sabretooth Inc. sell vampiric paraphernalia including leather accessories, enamel fangs and full-sized coffins. They even have their own blood-drinking celebrity: vampire novelist Poppie Z. Bright. As Danielle fixes tea in her kitchen, I peer hungrily at the array of objects strewn across her San Francisco apartment, seeking clues to this life that rarely meets the light of day. Video games, books, scarves, posters, necklaces, talismans and mirrors adorn her floor, walls and the curling thorns of her wrought-iron bed. There is a picture of her dressed to the Gothic nines and glaring into the camera with a cruel, preternatural beauty. When she comes back, she notices my roving eyes and apologizes for the mess. The daughter of a university professor, Danielle grew up on Long Island, where she often hung out in pre-revolutionary graveyards with her best friend, who wanted to be a werewolf. "I was terrified of the concept of dying as a child. I figured vampirism was a way to cheat death." Her voice has a rough, inhaled timbre -- as if part of her is holding her breath while the other rattles off answers with a matter-of-fact efficiency. At age 10 she and her friend made a pact that by 13 they would either be vampires or werewolves. But after years of waiting in vain, Danielle decided to take matters into her own hands. "Finally, I realized that if I wanted to be a vampire, I was going to have to do it myself. So I went to the dentist." She smiles, revealing a set of gleaming white fangs. "Only time will tell whether it's worked." For Valentine's Day four years ago she and her boyfriend, Violet Hemlock -- a phlebotomy technician -- visited the dentist to have their incisors capped. "I didn't get these to be trendy. I don't have any piercings or tattoos," she informs me, leaning forward to let me touch the sharp porcelain points. "Of course, I don't have the jaw strength to really use them. Besides, the human mouth is filthy. And there's always the possibility of slipping with scalpels or razors. Needles provide the minimum mess and the maximum out-take," Danielle declares with nonchalant enthusiasm. "With a butterfly needle, you can hook up a tube to somebody's vein and literally suck it out like a straw." While many vampires admit they only drink blood in small sacrilegious sips, she claims to drink as much as a cupful at a time. Unlike many of her kin, Danielle maintains that the act of drinking blood is more intimate than erotic. "Sometimes it means friendship bonding, or romance, or drawing strength from somebody. I've had blood offered to me as a gesture of friendship when I was down, and it definitely perked me up. It's saying that you trust a person enough to take a bodily fluid that's potentially lethal into your system." After dropping out of Barnard College, Danielle moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she began a career as a stripper, dominatrix and writer of Gothic fiction. Her collection "Dogs in Lingerie" is a treacherous cocktail of dark fairy tales, sex industry reportage and drug poetry. While her writing still oozes with the adolescent alienation so common to most vampire literature, it also deromanticizes the old-fashioned glamour of the myth. As we share honeyed cinnamon tea, Danielle seems like a nice enough young woman, with her mix of cautious vulnerability and perfunctory good manners. But clearly there is more to her than meets my eye. The last page of her book features a copy of a police report recording her arrest for biting a policeman. Her friends and acquaintances refer to her heroin habit in casual passing. Sometimes, for quick cash, she'll participate in a "blood orgy" at a local S&M club -- the vampiric equivalent to prostitution. Evidently, blood drinking is only one of many taboos Danielle toys with. Toward the end of our visit, she brings out a tiny, leather-bound journal, filled with delicate pen-and-ink drawings, painstaking script and blood drippings. "Sometimes I'll create little keepsakes from the blood. Or use it later in magic rituals." When I ask what she means by magic, I am surprised by her definition's undertones of self-help pragmatism and its lack of supernatural haze. "Magic is whatever form of theater that gets you charged up enough to enact your will on the physical world. When I live as a vampire, I feel more powerful. If you want to be something, you have to go out and do it."