Vampire Girl: Chapters 28-32

Read Chapters 23-27 of Vampire Girl here to get caught up on your identity politics with Mayra, a female vampire protagonist!

Chapter 28

Interview with the Vampire

As she waited at The Spare Room, her favorite luxe bowling alley slash lounge, with a pre-emptive G&T, she listened to Adele’s “When We Were Young” as she waited for Tobias to show up. It’s the music she fantasized singing to him, 300 years from now, even though they’d still technically be young in vampire years. The bartender didn’t have that music on; Mayra blared it off her cell phone. The bar was otherwise empty.  The bartender was irritated at this interruption of his selection of “In Da Club” over the bar sound system, but she didn’t care. 

It was curious how one drink lit her up in the neon-color-strobed semi-darkness of Rock-N-Bowl. Something about the chemistry of blood made booze act more quickly on the bloodstream. Or it could simply be that Mayra no longer ate a plate of happy-hour nachos before imbibing. She didn’t really know what to say to her former beau whom she had recently rejected, so she had memorized some quotes from Interview With the Vampire, to try to slot in as conversation starters that might lead to a more intimate mood. “Consequently, if you believe God made Satan, you must realize that all Satan's power comes from God and so that Satan is simply God's child, and that we are God's children also. There are no children of Satan, really.” That one was beautiful, but not relevant to the occasion, also long. Mentioning God was never a quick way into the sack, unless you were cruising on Christian Mingle. “Like all strong people, she suffered always a measure of loneliness; she was a marginal outsider, a secret infidel of a certain sort.” No, that was more like her personal credo. “It was as if when I looked into his eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the world...on a windswept ocean beach. There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves.” Well, that’s how she often felt, but that sounded more like a personal reflection, something you’d say to yourself, not your ex. “It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there.” That could do it if she changed the pronoun to you.” Okay, on the short list. But what was it with Anne Rice’s need to start every other sentence with the same words? It was as if she had no other rhetorical tricks in her bag. No, that one was off the list. The lonely infidel one beckoned to her again. No way. That described her, or how she wanted to be seen, but it was the kind of shit she would say when she drunk-dialed friends, who were kind enough to ignore her pretentious upchuck that sounded like you got it off Pinterest. She settled on “Let the flesh instruct the mind.” It wasn’t poetic, but it might get things moving in the right direction. 

But when Tobias appeared, his hair resplendent silver, him seeming to have grown several inches still taller, his body movements supple, apologizing for his habitual lateness with a tender, rueful smile, she blurted out, “Remember that time I gave you head in a car wash? When I popped my head up, the brushes and water battering the car looked like a sudden tropical rainstorm.” “You should be a poet, Mayra. You have a talent for words.” “Is that sarcastic because you’re furious at how I’ve treated you the past few weeks?” “Why no.” “How about that ‘no’ you just said?” “Also not sarcastic.”  “And that ‘sarcastic’? Is it sarcastic?” “Mayra, I know these recent times have been confusing for you. So you retreat into yourself.” “And you retreat into the arms of Lestatia.” “Do you really blame me for that? What do you expect me to do? Put a stake in my heart?” “Is that a figure of speech or would you actually consider doing that?” “Of course I would. If that’s what you wanted.” “Was that sarcastic?” “Yes, actually, that one was dripping with sarcasm. You deserve it because you’re now starting to act like an insecure bitch.” “I hate it when you say bitch.” “But you are one right now.” “I know.  That’s why I hate it. I am sorry for how I treated you, Tobias.” She reached out and touched his icy hand. Or was her hand the icy one? “Can you forgive me?” “Of course. I don’t hold grudges. You know it. That’s why we always end up having makeup sex.”  “Could we have some right now? I don’t mean to be slutty, but there’s nobody else here and the bartender hates me already, so we could do it right on this table. If he objects, we’ll kill him.” 

“I don’t want it that way, Mayra. I don’t want to continue in this endless cycle. I also don’t want to keep breaking Lestatia’s heart.” “Does she have one?” “Actually, no.  A vampire hunter literally cut it out of her with an axe, but it doesn’t appear to have slowed her down. It seems she wasn’t using it.” “So there you are.” “Yes, but you also have recently been more heartless than the Tin Woodsman.”  “Yeah, but in The Wizard of Oz, did you notice how he was always really and truly and actually kind, so I’m pretty sure he did have a heart from the beginning, only he had to recognize that fact. It’s precisely what the wizard told him.” “Okay, then you show me that you have a heart, because I don’t trust you anymore. You’ve always been fickle and jealous, because you have a bizarre inferiority complex which I can’t placate and which causes you to lash out irrationally, such as the time a childhood friend who happened to be female texted me a rainbow emoji, which by the way meant that she had finally come out as a lesbian, then you mistook it for flirting and literally tried to decapitate me with a kitchen knife and we weren’t even vampires at the time.” “My bad. I admit I overreacted. As a token of my good faith, let me ask this. Do you love Lestatia? Because if you do, I will leave you two alone for good, as much as it would pain me and I will not even get slightly upset.”  “What we have, it’s a thing, that’s all.”  “So for once, Stephanie Meyer was right, when she said ‘Love and lust don’t keep the same company.’” “Zing.” “Tobias, if you can get away, I’ll make you a late dinner tonight, no strings attached. By which I mean I’ll pick up a bottle of 2000-year-old brandy, since neither of us really eats food. We can continue this talk, like adults.” “Okay, I’ll see you at 11.” They patted each other’s shoulders to say au revoir. 

Create a free account on Christian Mingle https://www.christianmingle.com/en-us . Cruise it and see whether you can find 5 people who look promising. You might surprise yourself. If you are already on Christian Mingle, try the Wild dating app https://www.justbewild.com for a change of pace.

Chapter 29

Listen to the Warm

Tobias was only two steps into Mayra’s Echo Park apartment when they entered a hyper-gymnastic lovemaking session so intense, so beyond words that it can only be described as super hot. The 99 positions they tried were the least of it. Nor were the cock ring, the bondage ropes, the ball gag, butt plug, vibrators, hooded latex body suit, or My Little Pony figurines. No, the best part was lying against pillows with a bottle of seltzer they passed back and forth as their sweat cooled, and taking turns reading from Rod McKuen: “It happens just because we need/to want and to be wanted too/when love is here or gone/to lie down in the darkness/and listen to the warm.” 

“Where does he get those startling images?” “It makes me feel warm inside.”  “Warm and dark.”  “Mayra, I don’t want to propose any kind of quid pro quo, but have you seriously considered going on tour as Beauty Queen of the Children of the Night?”  “I’m already doing my duty. Do you know that I’ve gotten 80% of vampires in our county who live below the poverty line on workfare and food stamps?” “Don’t you think that’s ironic, given vampires don’t eat food?” “Oh Tobias, you’re so literal. Food stamps can be used for all kinds of things on the black market: clothing, toys, medicine, weapons, time shares. Pretty soon, after these final death throes of the capitalism in which we exist, everyone will return to a barter system.” “I don’t deny you’re doing good. Yet I believe you can accomplish much more and on a greater scale as an inspirational figure. If what you want is to be a middle manager in a non-profit, then relinquish your title to the runner-up.” Mayra was in shock. “Give my title to—Lestatia?” “Yes. She feels cheated and she is admittedly more the obvious beauty queen type. She’ll rock the outfits, flirt with talk-show hosts, give beauty tips, show leg in photo-ops with politicians, and probably be named an ambassador for UNESCO. She’ll make being a vampire seem sexy and glamorous and remove the public stigma much more permanently than you can with your workaholic stress-magnet tendencies. Frankly, you come across as dour.  People don’t know the free spirit I get to see decked out with a butt plug and a ball gag.” “You guys have been talking to each other?” she said, rolling her eyes. His attempt at casual persuasion was grating on Mayra. Hearing his praise of her arch-nemesis and how unfavorably she compared awakened all her neurotic insecurities, and she wanted to decapitate Tobias with a kitchen knife. But she kept herself calm as he stroked her neck, the same way he probably did his victims before attaching himself to them with his handsome and sensual rodent mouth. “I see your point. But I need my earned title as a bully pulpit to get my agenda enacted.” 

“Honestly, baby, I’m sure you can train a couple of Renfields to do what you do in three or four weeks.” “When you say Renfields, do you mean insane fly-eating sycophantic CPAs?” “You took the words right out of my mouth.  You can check in with those lackeys now and again to keep the vision part of your agenda up to date, while leaving to them the tedious daily details.” He had called her baby.  He hadn’t done that in a long time. “I’ll think about it. Let me talk to my Consiglieri.” 

Write a haiku about Renfield, in which you talk about his positive qualities, such as blind loyalty and diabolical monomania. 

Renfield played by Dwight Frye in the 1931 film adaptation of Dracula - https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3757902/renfield-a-brief-history-of-the-horror-movie-character/

Mayra went to hear Cuac’s wisdom. “The first men to be created and formed were called the Sorcerer of Fatal Laughter, the Sorcerer of Night, Unkempt, and the Black Sorcerer. One of them holds they key to your decision.” “It’s not Unkempt, who sounds like a Rastafarian rapper.” “No, it’s not him. It’s someone very close to you, who holds powers greater than any of us—you, me, Tobias, Lestatia. Yet she or he has played an unassuming role in your life, that of a handmaiden really.” She reflected as hard as she could, which wasn’t that hard. “Okay, not Kim the Foodie, not any of the forgettable string of one-nighters and short-term boyfriends. Not my dad, who I never think about but I don’t have daddy issues and I’m sick of people saying that. It’s entirely coincidental that I had flings with my college professor, my pastor, my state assemblyman and my pharmacist, all between 5’ 11” and 6’ 1”, and with thick auburn hair like his.” “Think harder, Mayra.” “Not—couldn’t be—the Trampire.”  “Yes. She is the Sorcerer of Night.  She only put on the cloak of humility because she knew you were destined to meet her and that she would play a role in your journey, like Strider before he became Aragorn, as played by Viggo Mortensen.” “Oh my God, Viggo Mortensen is so freaking hot.  Whenever we play Marry, Fuck, Kill, I always put him as Fuck.” “You have your answer.  Go on tour. But not by yourself.” “You’re brilliant, Cuac. I’ll make it a condition that I only go as the girlie face of the pageant if I’m a sister act with my little Trampy. Come here you genius, and let me sink my fangs of gratitude into you.” “I’m good.” “Really?  Because once you go black—by the way, did they give you a visa so that you could serve as my advisor?” “No, I’m here illegally. It’s time for me to go back. I’ll see you down the road.” With that, Cuac turned into a quetzal, skin transparent to reveal his small beating heart, radiant, his feathers green and gold, and lifted off from the bench on which they sat in Echo Park. The ducks honked goodbye to their magical cousin. 

Mayra had always suspected that this moment might come. It made sense for him to take on a magnificent form and that his powers, such as metamorphosing into an avian creature and flying, would be greater than hers. She sensed the immense force within his minute presence. Perhaps Mayra’s greatest power was to not be the person with the most power. Maybe she was the mythical woman they always had talked about who operated by consensus, the one who would actually get women to work together rather than backbite, not cozy up to males in power, or undercut a sister by writing a negative evaluation because she could feel a younger, smarter woman on her heels, or sleep with the boss or have exclusively guys working for her because that would feel less threatening and better for her ego. All the same, Mayra hated that evil darkling-demoness-Gorgon-she-cobra-slut-bucket, Lestatia, in spite of now having won back Tobias. Mayra was willing to put on the sparkly bikini again to keep the blonde with the perfect physique in her place. 

The Daily Double:  Write song lyrics for the apocryphal rapper Unkempt. Be sure to address the theme of cultural appropriation.  You will earn dual points, as in a high school program that articulates with a community college, allowing two-for-one course credit for students who otherwise wouldn’t have a prayer, therefore passing on the curse of lassitude that should have been stamped out in senior year or sooner, but now those students have been taught the lesson that you can keep being subpar, putting forth minimal effort, and somebody else will solve the problem, it doesn’t have to come from within you, simply call yourself remedial, or “at risk,” and you’ll get into a situation you never wanted to be part of in the first place, because Auto Zone at least has a clear-cut training program not subject to constant change by an academic committee projecting their own grievances, ideologies, and resentments onto a program of study in the name of the students; Auto Zone just teaches you how to answer the customers’ questions and keep the back stock up to date and have basic knowledge about vehicles and their components, not to mention you get two weeks paid vacation so you can go to the beach and spend your money on brews and surfing lessons or the upcoming Jhené Aiko (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfu08wo9yms)

 or Steve Aoki (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-oA2ZLVswE) concert instead of on a United States history textbook that you’ll never crack.

Chapter 30

John Kenneth Galbraith

The Trampire set out immediately to teach Mayra several upbeat numbers to the choreography of Bob Fosse, which she had self-taught via YouTube tutorials. Her favorite was “The Rich Man’s Frug,” with its elegant pelvic thrusts. However, she was using his footwork to stage a subtle political allegory about intolerance and its effect on economic mobility. Her favorite political thinker was John Kenneth Galbraith, and she was especially fond of his insight, “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” She yearned for the era when America had a supply of great and eloquent statesmen capable of writing sharp treatises expressing the deepest political desires of the American people, while doing public service. If you do not wish to read the actual treatises of John Kenneth Galbraith, such as “Countervailing Power,” you may read some of his aphorisms on Brainy Quote.

https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/john_kenneth_galbraith 

The Trampire sometimes imagined Galbraith as a rangy, androgynous dragon swooping over the countryside, breathing the fire of enlightened eloquence and dropping leathery eggs onto haystacks and into the smokestacks of shuttered steel factories, eggs which would hatch into avian creatures who would grow up to serve as members of Congress and the heads of non-profits.  Then she and he would make celebratory love while rolling in the Long Beach surf like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr did in Hawaii in From Here to Eternity, after which she would smoke menthol cigarettes, gazing at the shipping containers being unloaded with cranes onto an endless, apocalyptic, Blade Runner-like series of piers, while he explained to her the consequences for world stability of devaluing currency. 

At Chamizal, in El Paso, deliberately built on the border with Juárez, as a symbol of international understanding, Mayra and the Trampire's interpretive dance was well-received by silent, smiling Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, who applauded politely each time there was any silence, as if anxious to ensure their guests that they were being received with hospitality. During an intermission, the Trampire’s eyes gleamed. “I think they’re getting my allegory.” Mayra held her opinion and sipped on one of the glasses of cold horchata that had been brought to them. Afterward, at the reception, as they ate taquitos dipped in tomatillo sauce, the Trampire attempted to engage their hosts in Spanish, but each person would only respond in English, speaking slowly as if to a slightly retarded person. When the Trampire mentioned that she had spent most of her life in Tijuana, and was essentially Mexican like them, she got only blank stares and the El Pasoans changed the subject to the latest Seth Rogen movie.  “Did you see Sausage Party? It was hilarious. He’s got such range as an actor.” Another shook her head.  “I don’t know. My only criticism is it’s hard to determine the main characters’ race—mostly because they are animated hot dogs and hot dog buns.”

"The Only Thing Sausage Party Says: “I Can Say What I Want,” an article by Julia Raban on The Stranger - http://www.thestranger.com/film/2016/08/10/24454102/the-only-thing-sausage-party-says-i-can-say-what-i-want 

Imagine you are going to write the libretto of a smash Broadway musical based on either Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose: A Personal Statement or else Karl Marx’s Das Kapital—both of which have pretty much the same plot. Which food items will you use as anthropomorphized substitutes for different types of human beings? Are you willing for a transplanted taco to speak with a Swedish accent?  Are you okay with an amorous tomato marrying a lamb chop, or for a sack of Yukon gold potatoes to enter into a polyamorous or dominant-submissive relationship with a box of polenta or yogurt with fruit on the bottom?  Try to come up with catchy rhyming lyrics that express the internal psychological dilemmas of these food items.

Chapter 31

Eat, Pray, Love

Mayra began to have doubts at having insisted on Cuac as their booking agent. It was true that with great power came great responsibility and so far Mayra wasn’t too sure she had used hers to maximum effect. He felt that the greatest statement to be made was one on immigration, and so they had to be in the places where it was happening.  Mayra wanted to disagree, reminding him that the media didn’t care where they were, but each time he turned into a quetzal, she was left open-mouthed with wonder and forgot what they were talking about. Also, she still vaguely hoped to fuck him and didn’t want to do anything that might compromise the sacred bond between them. The sister act had performed at a string of Texas border towns, such as Del Río, Presidio, Eagle Pass, El Cenizo, Roma and Brownsville to pretty much the same effect.

The Trampire fretted that no one was catching onto the subtle nuances of her indictment of capitalism and its indirect effect on prejudicial human attitudes. Occasionally, among the smiling, silent, quietly applauding public, someone would shout out “Queer-bait,” or “Boy-girl,” or just the usual “puta” or “maricón,” and that heckler would be escorted from the auditorium by massive, tattooed cholos with shaved heads in blazers that made them look like a cross between a club bouncer and a Secret Service agent. Other times, at the receptions, their sister act would be compared to Disney on Ice, or a Muppet show that the commenter had seen at the convention center. 

Meanwhile, Mayra’s sexual appetite had returned with a vengeance. In part this was because she would sneak out alone at night while the Trampire, who described herself as a “morning person,” slept. Mayra would cross the border and seduce and kill a Mexican man at each stop. She didn’t dare do so Stateside, since their show was trying to produce a family-friendly vibe and she didn’t want to inadvertently end up killing someone who had seen the show. She felt kind of bad about these cross-border murders and wondered whether in some way she was contradicting the message of international unity by a slow-motion slaughter of their neighbors to the near south. Worse, it seemed her conversion rate to undead had risen close to an unprecedented 100%, as evidenced by her victims coming back to life and walking away, so doubtless these new vampires were wreaking havoc on the populations of Candelaria, Ciudad Acuña, Nuevo Laredo, and Reynosa. 

Later, she rested in the arms of Tobias in the hotel room, while the Trampire messed around with an electronic keyboard. The three of them were drinking mango martinis.  It was off-putting to see her boyfriend sipping such a feminine libation; then again, he’d always had a sweet tooth.  As he took the liberty of massaging her breasts over her blouse, Mayra closed her eyes and imagined herself enfolded in the wings of Cuac, at the point of his metamorphosis. She took Tobias and led him to the bedroom while the Trampire played Adele’s “Cold Shoulder.”  Those are the words that Tobias had probably been wanting to say to her. These days when I see you/You make it look like I’m see-through. Suddenly, staring into his ice-blue eyes, him towering above her, his expression of sweet contempt returning, the confident, even arrogant gaze that had tapped deeply at the get-go into her essential sense of powerlessness in the world, she experienced a resurgence of desire, as when you are running the tap on the bath and the water keeps being cold and you’re thinking about how many gallons of cold water are going down the drain, wasted, and you’re about to give up and turn it off, then all of a sudden the water gets so hot it almost burns your hand. 

They undressed slowly, the chords of Adele’s rueful song on the portable keyboard bleeding through the closed door, suddenly sounding as happy as the tune of an organ grinder. He and she stood naked before each other, like Adam and Eve, Tristan and Isolde, Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem. Not that Julia and Javi had gone full frontal in the movie, but they had probably hooked up in a trailer on the lot, because that’s what movie stars did, in that way they were similar to vampires in that they could have sex with whoever they wanted to, only usually they didn’t kill them afterward, except for Steve Buscemi. Tobias made her feel safe; she’d almost forgiven him for biting her in the first place, in spite of that fang-sink opening the door to the nefarious, stygian, chiaroscuro, tenebrous, unending world of the Children of the Night, who sang hymns of the damned in four-part harmony but slightly off-key and throwing in minor chords so as to feel unnerving and a little bit sad, reminding mere mortals that no matter how much Pilates you do, you will die someday and shrivel like dry grass cast into a campfire by bored teenagers. They touched each other’s fingertips lightly, curious, exploring, as if it were the first day of existence, as if they were two virgins. She was no longer thinking about anal sex or any of that other filthy, nasty stuff that had become as cheap and common as soft-serve yogurt with sprinkles among her girlfriends. No, this was to be romantic, e.g. straight missionary with him lying on top, slightly flexing his biceps to look more virile, and her gazing with adoration into his eyes. It felt like something out of a dream that you would write on a Valentine card in elementary school when you were required to give one to everybody as if you lived in a Communist society, but you secretly made one card apart to award to your special guy, hiding it in the pocket of our jacket in the coat room until recess, to avoid Stalinist vigilance, because you had spent a lot of time finding the exact right rhymes to describe his pint-sized glory. 

Tobias and Mayra melted into each other, their skin literally sending sparks throughout the dark room.  The aftertaste of mango martinis brought an ineffable douceur to their lips.  She felt them as a single being, not knowing where one ended and the other began.  After a few minutes of this closeness, Mayra felt herself near a climax, simply with him riding her and weighing her body down.  But she couldn’t quite come, so she closed her eyes and imagined Cuac in his quetzal form and that she was clipping his feathers one by one.  Her body felt a sudden shudder, a release, and she lay peaceful as Tobias also grunted his way to a successful finish. 

Please write a Valentine for your special person, consisting of four lines of doggerel in exact rhymes and with a singsong rhythm. If you do not know what doggerel is, just write a poem and it will probably turn out exactly right for this assignment. If you insist on giving everyone you know a Valentine, give all of them the exact same verse. Since most people don’t read poetry except off greeting cards and are used to getting pre-fabricated sentiments, or funny dancing figurines from Jibjab, they probably won’t realize you also said the same thing to somebody else. Ecards are acceptable; in fact, that way you can put everybody’s email in the address line at once and save yourself a lot of time.  

Chapter 32

Gadsden

On the heels of her copulation with Tobias, Mayra began to feel all-powerful, the way people do right before a doctor prescribes medication for a mood disorder. Suddenly the path was clear. She summoned Cuac and ordered him to book them into Las Vegas, and to send a bill to the contest organizers, stating that this was not a request, it was a fait accompli. To Mayra’s surprise, they agreed immediately, stating that it was about time she and the Trampire “grew a pair” and “started to act like men” and “stopped being pussies” and dozens of other epithets that substituted for a reasoned response. They looked favorably on Mayra’s newfound confidence; it was what they had been waiting for. Amateur hour was over. They immediately sent photographers and did a session with Mayra on all fours dressed in a tiger skin, and the Trampire as a would-be tamer with her silk shirt front ripped to shreds. Out of that came a poster and strong pre-sales at the Bellagio for a two-week run. The sponsors wanted to call the show “Trampy and Crampy,” but Mayra prevailed, insisting on “A Night to Remember,” despite the fact that it was also the title of a 1958 film about the sinking of the Titanic. 

The Trampire designed an entirely new choreography, dropping the political allegory, and the show became an instant smash, based on such catchy, frothy numbers such as the “Vampire Vamp.” The run was extended. Performing with virtually no clothes on, in 6-inch heels, also ensured a packed house each night. Dancing two shows, 180 minutes a day, six days a week, had taken four inches off Mayra’s waist and brought her down to a size 2—smaller, she was pretty sure, than Lestatia. She’d taken up smoking and Dexedrine. Her head felt perpetually clear and light, and for the first time, she could understand the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a college book she’d never thrown away, hoping that someday its abstruse rhapsodies would make sense. 

Read the following poem by GMH:

   https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/heaven-haven/  If a vampire read this verse, would she or he be brought back to the side of light, and possibly enter the Kingdom of Heaven?  Is there redemption for their kind?  Or is it more like being a libertarian, where you end up making a Pentagram to keep all the bad things out of your closed circle? 

Yet Mayra felt less like a sorceress than did the Trampire, who to all appearances seemed to have entered into a supernatural, monomaniacal trance, radiating a fluorescent nimbus like the ones caused by black lights in 1960s head shops, where your teeth would look purple and you could see the white threads and specks on your shirt lit up. She received standing ovations every night for her solos, which kept getting longer and longer.  Until one night, when they were doing tequila body shots off each other, not in a sexual way, more like sorority sisters who are practicing to do it later in the bar with strange guys and don’t want to be embarrassed, the Trampire announced that she wanted to buy back the Gadsden Purchase. Mayra erupted.  “We are not buying anything!  You already went crazy in that jewelry store purchasing all the zirconium in sight.” “I don’t do blood diamonds. Do you even know what the Gadsden Purchase was?” “Uh, no.” “The United States once bought parts of New Mexico and Arizona from Mexico. If we buy them back, we could form an independent republic and run it as we see fit.  Vampires only.” "Like the back to Africa movement?” “Kind of. Wow, you do have a little bit of a historical sense. I thought you were more of a party girl when I met you in TJ.” “My sorority was an academic one.” “That’s what they all say, when they’re not giving head and hazing terrified freshmen by catching them on fire with lighter fluid and then putting it out with a blanket in a dark basement.” “This idea of yours, it’s separatist.” “That’s one way of putting it. I call it selective.” “And you think that the U.S. Government will sell us back that land? It seems a long shot.” “I’m pretty sure they will.” “And the money to buy it?”  “Leave that to me.”