She sat, grinning at the moon. From her perch on the fire escape of the apartment building, the city looked like a Lite-Brite she used to own—a thousand dots of colourful light blending together to create a picture just for her. Her grin grew larger as she swirled the lights in her mind to create new images: a happy clown, Mickey Mouse, a freshly drained carcass. The last made her stomach growl with impatience; it could not appreciate the splendour of a full, yellow moon or the gut-wrenching innocence of a city unaware of just how evil some of its inhabitants could be.
Sighing, she stood up and began to climb down the rusted-iron ladder. She had no idea where her next meal was, but she had a feeling that it would find her soon enough. Perhaps a walk would silence her stomach for awhile.

She was born “Camille Chase.” Her first name was Latin for “a virgin of unblemished character.” How ironic. If only her parents could have known what she would become, perhaps they would have chosen a more appropriate name for their only daughter. First of all, the “virgin” part was a laugh; she was no slut, but she had been around the bases several times in her day. And what was “unblemished character” anyway? Without using a dictionary, she had figured out that those with “unblemished characters” didn’t go skulking around in shadows and feeding off the blood of living things. That was why she changed her name some twenty-odd years ago to something more suitable: Marjorie, Scottish for “a child of moonlight.” That’s what she was now: pale and mysterious like the moon.

Marjorie passed the used-book store where she had bought the book of names a few months ago. “Under New Management” the banner over the door said. She wondered if the new owner tasted as good as the previous one. But, unfortunately for her, the store had closed for the day. Maybe she’d visit tomorrow…
Finally, she could stand the hunger pains no longer. She walked through the nearest doorway and found herself in a dance club. From the look of the crowd, it was an under-21 club, which meant that she would fit in perfectly. Marjorie was over seventy years old, but didn’t look a day over seventeen, which was exactly how old she was when she was changed. As she sauntered to an empty table, her brain flashed back to that horribly wonderful night…

Camille had been living in New York at the time—1941, she remembered—and had volunteered to be a nurse in the war. Her parents, of course, objected, but she had wanted to do her best to help “America’s boys” anyway she could. So in 1941, she crossed an ocean to France where she worked as a nurse for the Allies for a year and a half. After that, she went to Britain to work in a hospital there. That’s where she met Jeremy.
His face was like that of a saint…the patron saint of prizefighters. Private Jeremy Stone was on leave in London when he got into a barroom brawl. Camille was the nurse on duty, so she cleaned and bandaged the young man’s wounds. He kept claiming that it wasn’t necessary, that he was a fast-healer, and that she was far too pretty a girl to be taking care of a “gross-looking” boy like him. She laughed at his flattery, and he had grinned, and asked her out to dinner. She accepted and two days later found herself alone with him in an alley near the center of the city. He claimed it was a short cut, and she with all of her virginity and “unblemished character” had believed him.
When they reached the darkest part of the passageway, he stopped and turned around to face her. She could still hear his voice say “We’re here,” low and seductive with a slight hint of malice.
“But this doesn’t look like a restaurant,” she replied, her youthful voice piercing the blankness of her surroundings.
“No, but it is where I eat.” The last words she would ever hear alive.
With a flick of his wrist, he grabbed her arm and coiled her to his body. By this time, her eyes had adjusted to the light, and she could almost clearly make out his face as it contorted into the gruesome mask she would grow to love and hate. Her first instincts were to scream and run away, but she felt an odd compulsion to stay. She later learned that it wasn’t her own will at all, but him hypnotizing her like a snake mesmerizes its prey.
Jeremy leaned in close, then tilted her neck upward gently with his free hand. He rubbed his lips up and down and side-to-side over her neck until he settled finally for somewhere near the middle. She heard her flesh break apart as his teeth closed around that small oval of space. She moaned softly with ecstasy, pain, joy, and fear as he gulped pints and quarts of her blood from her jugular vein.
When he finished, he pulled a switchblade out of his pocket, cut an “x” over his heart, pushed her head to his chest, and commanded her to drink. She did so, and as she swallowed his warm blood, she could faintly hear him sighing with pleasure. Ten minutes later, her night vision failed, and the world went black once more.
Camille woke up, topless, in a dim, brown flat in a warm feather bed next to Jeremy. She turned her head to look at him and found that he was staring at her.
“Well, look who decided to wake up and greet the world with new eyes.”
Her fingers moved to her neck and felt a bandage over her pulse-point. She then moved her fingers to her upturned wrist and waited to feel her heartbeat. When she couldn't find the familiar bumping under her skin, she looked at him, eyes aghast, and pulled the blanket away from his topless chest. She found another bandage over his heart. “Welcome to the club, lover,” he whispered as he leaned in close to kiss her.
She moved away from him and jumped out of bed. “So it wasn’t a dream,” she stuttered.
“No, and you were…fantastic,” he murmured lustfully. He tossed the covers aside and climbed out of the bed after her. Taking her in his arms, Jeremy began to kiss her, first on her forehead and then down to her cheeks, her lips, her chin, her neck, her…Oh, God…her breasts.
“You are me, now, and I am you,” he breathed between kisses and caresses.
She tilted her head back and felt goose bumps flood her body. Suddenly, like a light had gone out somewhere in her mind, she felt everything pure and good and virginal glide out of her; she felt reborn.
Stopping him at her naval, Camille pulled Jeremy’s head up to hers then whispered, “Take me again, lover.”
She led him by the waist of his pants to the bed, then laid down on the mattress with her arms raised behind her head on the pillow, her breasts resting on her still heart with anticipation.
He eased himself on top of her and proceeded to remove the “virgin” from the definition of her name. They made violent, animal love until it was too dark to see where her body began and his body ended.