Vampire Valentines Day Giveaway!

What do you suppose the three sisters did while Dracula was out chasing British girls?

I'm not a big fan of Valentines Day. But this wasn't always the case. When I was a kid, I loved the little cards everyone gave each other, the heart-shaped chocolate, and all the lovey-dovey decorations of winged babies practicing archery. Then junior high happened and it started being about someone special paying attention to you. This didn't go particularly well for me. As an extremely shy, and as I would discover later, an extremely gay, junior high girl, I didn't get all that much attention from the boys. This isn't to say I didn't have a boyfriend in junior high. In fact, that was the only time I ever did. To protect the innocent, let's just call him Jimmie. He didn't understand Valentines Day either and as it turned out, he was just as gay as I was, so you can imagine how little we actually got done when it came to traditional boy/girl, awkward junior high relationship stuff.

In hindsight, this was an odd card to get from my junior high gym teacher (kidding! I got it from your mom)

High school was worse--much worse. My high school did this thing every Valentines Day where we had an archaic competition among the men. Everyone would be given little construction paper hearts, about the size of a real heart as my biology teacher pointed out, on a ribbon necklace. These little one-day pendants were to be given to the guy you thought was the hottest. I guess they gave them to the guys so none of them would have zero at the end of the day. I don't even know what the person won or who the hell made all those stupid little hearts on strings since I went to a school with more than 2,000 students. A large percentage of people just chucked the things, myself included. By that point, I was irritated with the world (as all good high school girls are) and I wasn't about to participate in the patriarchal competition of helping a man collect women's hearts...or maybe it was because I didn't want to contribute to a society that valued looks above substance...or maybe it was because by that point I was out of the closet and a lesbian giving a guy a heart for being "hot" was dumb beyond reason...or maybe the whole thing was an antiquated waste of pink construction paper and time. There were so many good reasons to throw the heart thing away, I can't precisely remember which one I went with for the first three years of high school.

I wish I'd had this design on a t-shirt at the time. I could have pointed to it when someone asked about my paper heart.

 
Then something happened between my junior and senior year. Nikki, who had been one of my more vicious tormentors since I came out, kinda come out to me during that summer. She started being nice to me, started calling me, started coming over to see me, and even though my traumatized little brain didn't think any of it was genuine, I still sucked up all the attention I could. I remember, at the time, being completely certain it was all an elaborate ruse to fuck with me. After a couple months of nothing bad happening, I came to the conclusion it was just an odd summer friendship that would end when school started up again and she remembered she was amazingly cool and I was a total outcast. But that didn't happen either. In fact, my senior year, everyone was actually pretty nice to me, or at the very least nobody picked on me anymore. Nikki and I would still occasionally talk, I'd go to her volleyball matches when I could, we even went to lunch together sometimes. She gave me an actual Christmas gift that year. I still have it--a weird pink trucker hat that said "World Champion" on it because she knew I liked 30 Rock.

Can't we just go back to innocent cards? Not like this one; this one is naughty...maybe, it depends if you know Kirby

Then, Valentines Day happened with its construction paper hearts on red ribbons. I didn't throw mine away. I thought I had someone to give it to. Now, I can't explain what I was thinking at the time, but I saved it in my locker until I knew I would see Nikki before lunch, and then I tried to give it to her. Girls were supposed to finish the day with one heart or none at all. If Nikki had two, that would mean something strange had happened. Strange like the outcast girl with an oddly masochistic lesbian crush had given her a heart. She wouldn't take it; she wasn't there yet. In my histrionic high school girl brain, I actually believed I might die of emotional trauma. We were cordial the rest of the year, but didn't really talk much after that.

I turned 18 a few weeks after and I started dating outside the school, usually older women and always by lying about my age. Once I started getting my college acceptance letters (by the way I went 10 for 10 and I applied to some really nice schools--SAT prep courses and not having a life paid off), I mentally checked out of high school. I still had to physically go through the motions to graduate and all, but mentally, I was already done and in college. That summer, the 4th of July to be exact, Nikki fully came out to me and explained that she'd been completely gone in love with me for years. I was in a slightly better emotional/mental state at that point than I was at any point during high school, but my brain still didn't think this was something real. It would be a little like Brad Pitt saying he was completely in love with Rachel Dratch and that he was leaving Angelina to go marry her--I think that's actually the analogy I used at the time to describe why what she was saying didn't make sense. She promised to spend however much time it would take to make me believe.

It went a little something like this...

It'll be four years ago tomorrow that she rejected the little paper heart and it'll be four years ago this 4th of July that we've been together. We've had Valentines Days since then and they've been really romantic and sweet and sexy and blah blah blah, but I still equate Valentines Day with something really awful and traumatic and the 4th of July with something romantic.

In that spirit, I'm giving away a vampire book this Valentines Day. And not just any vampire book, the one with the most fucked up relationship I've ever written, horrible, depressing, frightening things, suicide, abuse, murders, revenge, and even worse things. This isn't Twilight where misogynistic vampire boys prance around trying to seduce boring girls. The vampires in The Vampires of Vigil's Sorrow are actually scary and for the most part fucked up individuals. Like my own story with Valentines Day, there is something of a romantic happy ending, but it doesn't come in the way one might expect. For anyone who is single this Valentines Day and unhappy about it, or anyone who is like me and still doesn't like this holiday, or anyone who just likes real vampire stories, enjoy a free ecopy of The Vampires of Vigil's Sorrow.

In the town of Vigil’s Rest, vampires haunt the forest, luring young girls to their doom with promises of forbidden love. After Deborah Poole, a local beauty queen goes missing, the town’s long history of cover-ups begins to unravel. She returns from the dead, more angel than demon, and acting as a spirit of mercy in the haunted forest that has known only vengeance. Oppression and tightly held secrets keep Deborah from love for decades, finally shattering when the unlikely fulfillment of an ancient prophecy gives her a new chance at love and humanity in the form of a disillusioned teenage girl, Annabelle. But to sever Deborah’s chains to the past, the duo must unravel the 200 year old mystery of the forest’s haunting and the town’s dark past.

Fabled Fang Girls

She's only evil on the outside...and probably on the inside too.

I coined a phrase for my most recent collection of short stories. I had to. There just wasn't a word befitting the rabid (bloodthirsty even?) female fans of vampires in existence right now. So I made one up. Fang-girl! It's a play on words for "fanboy" which is a description of an obsessive male fan of nerd culture. With all the "Team Edward" nonsense around Twilight, I felt we needed a similar name to reflect our fanaticism. I can just hear my readers now, "But Cassandra, you're a lesbian goddess who has repeatedly pointed out that Robert Pattinson looks like he probably smells really bad" and you're right, I am a lesbian goddess who has said that on many occasions, but just because I'm not into Stephanie Meyer's version of a "vampire" doesn't mean I'm not into vampires. The vampires I'm into don't walk around in the daytime seducing boring high school girls (or play baseball in thunderstorms like doofuses) and they all have breasts--the last part is probably the most important bit.

See what I mean about the breasts part being important?

So in celebration of my newest collection released under the Sapphic Pixie Tales label, I'm going to give you a sneak peak at one of the stories along with the usual rundown from the book jacket. Enjoy!

Fang Girl - noun – a female fan of vampire media who might be a little obsessive in her fandom.

[Derived from modern slang fanboy but always in reference to females. First used by Cassandra Duffy in Fabled Fang Girls]

Cassandra Duffy, an emerging voice in lesbian literature, releases her third short story collection, Fabled Fang Girls in a transparent attempt to satisfy the vampire addiction of her readership. Eight short stories of vampire lust and love revisit characters from Demons of Paradise and introduce new stories of lesbian sex and relationships.

“The Princess of Castle Eclipse” – a beautiful fairytale of doomed love in the tragic tradition of European fables.

“The Witch of Vigil’s Grove” and “Return to Vigil’s Grove” – two pieces of an upcoming novel that offer a chilling introduction to the town of Vigil’s Rest where a vampire haunts the forest, luring young girls to their doom with promises of forbidden love.

“The Last Best Tip” – the critically acclaimed novella finds a new home in this collection. Grifts, swingers, a sassy but irresponsible vampire and her underachieving girlfriend occupy a clever urban fantasy landscape where even eternal children of the night have money problems.

“From Nightshift to Swing Shift” – Vendela and Brooke are back! The vampire fashionista and her Australian girlfriend have hit a lull in their peculiar relationship and turn to a beautiful Persian executive to inject some much-need passion back into the couple’s sex life to keep out the Alaskan cold.

“Lovely Predators” – a brief look at the upcoming Noire style mystery novel of the same name that follows a talented Los Angeles homicide detective as she investigates a series of grisly murders that keep leading her back to the doorstep of her new girlfriend who is keeping a dark secret.

“Undead Housewives of the Other Orange County” – a farcical take on the Real Housewives television shows that interjects vampires and humanity to create a humorous story about what might really take place between bored housewives.

“Chains of Command” – a mixture of Duffy’s remarkable science fiction, paranormal romance, and hardcore erotica. Chains follows a vampire captain of a cutting-edge space warship who must break the will of her new executive officer during a long, deep space raid, but quickly finds the tables turned on her by the fiery and reckless, Commander Crash Langford.

Cassandra Duffy floods this collection with vampires, sex, horror, romance, action, and humor in ways that truly display the depth and range of her remarkable talent. Sapphic Pixie Tales is proud to offer this outstanding collection of vampire fiction from the 21-year-old lesbian author.

 

What surprised Brooke most about her relationship with Vendela wasn’t the length of it as she had a pretty high threshold for relationship bullshit; she was most astonished by how much she actually cared for Vendela. Her former boss and live-in girlfriend of more than a year was obtuse beyond reason and completely inept at expressing even simple things in a clear way, which pretty much precluded her feelings ever being communicated. The amount of guesswork required of Brooke to simply have a concept of the status of their relationship was profound. Still, for reasons she couldn’t articulate or fathom, she adored the peculiar little vampire fashion designer.

“Brooke,” Vendela said, snapping Brooke out of her dazed state. “Do you see anything that might fit Denise for the…what is she going to?”

“Possibly,” Brooke said, answering the first question first, “and she’s going to the Daytime Emmys.”

Brooke had lost all interest in fashion design after their second trip to Barrow Alaska. It wasn’t the mind-bending sex on the colossal bearskin rug that prevented her from wishing to one day be competition for her girlfriend, it was the fact that at her very best, which Vendela managed to draw from her, she was still miles behind what the petite vampire designer could manage with ease. So she shifted from design to fashion stylist; actresses, models, and singers flocked to her clientele, rightly assuming she would have exclusive access to Vendela’s fashion lines.

“Babe,” Vendela said, “you know how I feel about…television award shows.”

The short, clipped, peculiar way of pronouncing things was something that had once irritated Brooke to no end. Once Vendela started calling her ‘babe’, Brooke found she rather liked the way Vendela spoke.

“I know,” Brooke said. “I normally wouldn’t even ask, but I feel so bad for her. She’s on something like her third divorce.” Brooke selected a possible gown, holding it up to herself out of habit. The slinky, off-white cocktail wasn’t dressy enough for even a Daytime Emmy award show and was probably two sizes too small for Brooke’s personal use. “I swear my ass has doubled in size over the past few months,” she grumbled. Her statement, while an exaggeration at double, wasn’t entirely untrue. She’d lost a lot of her surfer physique by spending too much time working and too little time wave riding.

“I think your ass looks…like an apple,” Vendela said, crossing the cavernous clothing vault in a flash to stand behind Brooke. Her hand caressed down the small of Brooke’s back, onto the curvaceous ass in question, and gave it a playful squeeze.

The vampire trick of moving faster than the human eye could follow used to give Brooke the willies. After a year of Vendela doing that exact thing to her, she wondered if she would ever be able to date a human who couldn’t instantly cross a room to give her a compliment and grope combination.

Brooke replaced the dress on the rack and sighed. She was supposed to be shopping for Denise, but the more she looked at the beautiful clothes in Vendela’s line, the more she wished she could shop for herself or dress up the designer. Her overly elfin girlfriend adored the chunky jewelry, oversized sunglasses, and baggy clothes that made her appear even tinier, while Brooke loved seeing her in more fitted, daring attire. Their little tête-à-têtes usually ended up with Vendela wearing whatever she wanted and somehow Brooke ended up in the tight clothes.

“Award season is coming up,” Brooke said. “Care to be seen on the red carpet with me wearing something like this.” Brooke searched the immediate area as quickly as possible, finally deciding on a taupe straight cut gown that could easily be taken in to find Vendela’s lithe frame.

Vendela smirked, knowing the game well, and came back with a black, bow bodice pencil dress. “And you can wear this…or nothing…babe.”

Brooke stared down an entirely unreadable Vendela. She wasn’t smiling, wasn’t frowning, wasn’t breathing, wasn’t doing anything really aside from holding out the black dress that Brooke knew would flaunt every flaw in the figure she wasn’t particularly happy with anymore. The more she stared at Vendela, the more the latent vampiric power of mind control pushed a fine mist over her mind. She knew Vendela wasn’t doing it on purpose—it was just something that happened when she really wanted something. It had actually been what originally brought Brooke to Barrow, what made her pack her strap-on, and what started their whole tryst. Vendela hadn’t consciously exerted her mental control on Brooke those first few months. In fact, as she would explain later, she thought she was the seduced until Brooke had told her about the mental haze surrounding the majority of their feverish lovemaking. If Vendela’s mind was pushing out to cloud Brooke’s thinking, seeing her in that pencil dress was something the little fashionista desperately wanted, but wasn’t socially equipped enough to ask for.

“Deal,” Brooke said, much to Vendela’s surprise. Brooke took the dress from her to give it a closer look. “It’ll have to be let out quite a bit though.”

“No, it won’t…babe,” Vendela said. “It’ll be major, I promise. Trust me, I am an excellent judge of…your figure. I think you might have been Kim Novak in a former life.”

“Kim Novak is still alive,” Brooke said.

“Really? That’s…ba-na-nas.”

“Vendela?” Justin called from the doorway. “There’s a problem with the fit models not quite fitting.”

Vendela rolled her eyes and handed the dress to Brooke. Justin, the assistant that replaced Brooke, was a masterful organizer, a driven personality, an A-list gay in the fashion world, and a stunningly beautiful vampire. Brooke liked everything about him except his personality. There wouldn’t be any chance he would steal Vendela, but he also kept her running at a driven pace leaving little personal time.

Vendela vacated the room to check why what she was calling a size six didn’t fit an industry standard size six model. Justin, perfectly frocked in a vested pinstripe suit, made his way to Brooke to inspect the dress she was holding.

“60’s retro is in ever since all those TV shows decided we should glorify the days of segregation, lung cancer, and alcoholism,” Justin said. “The only positive side is the fashion.” He took the dress from Brooke and gently held it up to her with a far more objective eye than Vendela. “You’ll need to have the top padded. Or you could just get a boob job like everyone else in LA.”

“I’ll consider all the options,” Brooke said. The thing she disliked about Justin was how much of what he said turned out to be double-speak. The comment about a boob job could have been idle conversation, or it could have been something Vendela had said to him and he’d strategically decided to let it slip. Brooke could never tell.

“If you did, you might reignite the old sex life.” Justin hung up the dress. His comments weren’t usually that blunt, and it took Brooke aback a little to hear such candor from the fabulously catty vampire assistant.

“What do you even know?”

“I know she’s not having sex,” Justin said, “and now I know you aren’t either.”

It was true. Combined, their hectic work schedules left little time for intimacy and the time they did spend together had felt a little flat over the past few months. As much as Brooke hated to admit it, she probably needed Justin’s help.

“What do you know about fixing it?” Brooke asked.

“Besides the boob job?” Justin made a dramatic show of looking up while he thought. “You could always swing.”

For some reason Brooke’s mind immediately jumped to a swing-set and only then transitioned to imagining one of those hanging-from-the-ceiling sex swings. Clearly reading her thoughts, Justin intervened before her flawed train of though could evolve further along an incorrect line.

“No, silly, not literally,” Justin said. “I meant going out to another partner and then coming home to be reclaimed by her. You clearly need more sex than she does and it’s a fairly common vampire practice to send our little playthings out to other vampires so we might recapture them. Call it a latent hunter instinct.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Brooke said. Even still, the notion had set a fire in her that she was a little ashamed of, a little intrigued by, yet completely unwilling to verbally admit to.

“Is it?” Justin said, raising a perfectly manscaped eyebrow.

She knew he could read her mind. He knew that she knew that he could read her mind. The fact that they both pretended this wasn’t the case was out of simple human politeness, which made the socially acceptable white lie seem so hollow.

“Would Vendela even be interested in something like that?” Brooke asked.

“Maybe you missed the execu-bitch vice president of operations she hired,” Justin said. “I think she’s been planning it for months but hasn’t worked up the nerve to mention it to you.”

Brooke had indeed noticed the gorgeous Persian vampire Vendela had hired. Shabnam was elegant, officious, and a little like Vendela in that she was difficult to read. Brooke also wondered if she wasn’t a slightly more stereotypical vampire considering she dressed only in black and wore her eyeliner on the heavy side. Still, she was attractive, and some of her comments directed at Brooke could have been mistaken for flirting when fitted to the bizarre Vendela standards. Brooke began to wonder if peculiar, petite, and vampiric was becoming her type.

“How do I go about setting something like this up?” Brooke said.

“Tell Vendela,” Justin said. “She’ll fill you in on the rest.”

...and that's all you get. Of course, if you've read Demons of Paradise, you'll recognize Brooke and Vendela, but you'll have to buy Fang Girls to find out what happens next!