Gimme, gimme some of that Vampire Money...

"Gimme, gimme some of that vampire money..."  -  My Chemical Romance


Well, yeah. That would be nice.

I just read the latest Tweet from Gerard Way and it simply said "Gimme gimme some of that vampire money."

And I thought, what does that mean? (I've not got the new album yet and only seen a couple of the new videos online, so I didn't realize Vampire Money was one of the tracks on it.) I figured he was going to be in a vampire movie or something.

So I Googled. Found it was a song title and then came across this article -

http://www.musicrooms.net/alternative/20448-gerard-way-twilight-has-romanticised-goths.html

(Check out the second tower ad, right hand side. Oh, the irony.)

The article made me really sad. I thought, well shit, he's not gonna star in the movie version of Vampire Vintage now, is he? Damnit! (Vivant was actually in-part inspired by Gerard Way's look and his theatrics.)

Joking aside, (yes, I know he won't star in my movie, nor will I probably ever have a movie,) but, the thing that made me sad about the article was this - Gerard Way said he is now totally over the whole vampire/goth thing.


Why?

Because of the sparkly one. Because of the overexposure and watering down of the subculture. Because of the cynical packaging and marketing of the goth / vampire as a commodity.

In essence, I can see his point and to a greater degree, I concur with his analysis.

But.

I remember a day, a day before My Chemical Romance were famous, before they were the apple of every purple-haired emo goth's eye. They were nobodies. Virtually unknown. But I loved their music. They inspired me. And now that everybody else loves them and is inspired by them, I still love their music. I am still inspired by them. Because what the music meant to me, what it said to me, what I felt when I listened to it, I felt in my heart and in my soul. And there is nothing on this earth that could possibly tear that out of me. Nothing. And just because they are now one of the top bands in the universe, I have no intention of turning my back on them nor withholding the cash I spend on CD, DVDs etc. I cannot switch off what I feel for their music just because a few million other people like them now too. Those few million people have taste, I say. And I'm a till death kinda girl.

If I could talk to Gerard Way and to anybody and everybody else who are burned out on vampires, just because of misplaced media overexposure, this is what I would say. Some of us loved vampires before they sparkled. Some of us wrote vampire fiction before they went to high school and had strangely-named offspring. Some of us have always written about vampires - even before they were part of every-day tween memes.

And some of us loved vampires and gothy things when it seemed that nobody else did, and, indeed, would laugh at at those of us who did for doing so.

For me, the whole Twilight / paranormal romance / teen / tween slash, slash - whatever - aren't even part of the genre I write in, or the genre that I love. Twilight has never been marketed as a vampire book and is not being made an icon by vampire lovers. It has been adopted by those who read romance books.

But for every icon that's made there's always an iconoclast waiting in the wings. There's always something else will come along to capture the hearts and minds and the Big Thing of today will be fish and chip wrappers tomorrow.

I say keep the faith! Don't turn your back on us - we didn't do it. We were hijacked by High School Musical with fangs and a million canine-toothed Fabios on bad POD covers. I'm waiting for the day I see a picture of Kim Kardashian and Justin Beiber with fangs. That day, I may slit my own throat in despair. (Not really, but you know what I mean.)

None of this is meant with disrespect to The Twilight Saga or the Twilight movies or Stephenie Meyer - I've never read it, seen it, met her. There is a place for Twilight and there is a place for us - for everybody. It just makes me sad that people who loved what we love don't want to be on our 'team' anymore because of those things. And they don't really have anything to do with us.

But no matter what anybody else does, what anybody else writes, anybody else says, no matter how uncool or out of favor they become (they won't,) I will still love vampires. I will still love goth and the gothic. I will still write really cool vampire books. Because that's me.

Never give up.

Never lose hope.

Never let anybody take from you that which you love.

And above all - "Be yourself, don't take anyone's shit and never let them take you alive." (G Way.)

- Alex. < --- Runs with vampires. Stakes boys who sparkle. (I'm just kidding!)

HEAD SHOTS : Scenes from the Zombie Apocalypse

OUT NOW in Kindle Edition!

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DESCRIPTION -

Meet Vic.

She used to be a cheerleader but her heart was never in it. She'd much rather have spent her time curb-stomping the high school Rah Rah Girls than cheering with them.

The daughter of the local "Vet who never left 'Nam," Vic had to fight tooth and nail for every single popularity point she ever earned.

But it was the skills her not-so-crazy father drummed into Vic her entire life that made her excel at surviving, starting with the day the world ended.

HEAD SHOTS : SCENES FROM THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE is a novella-length taster of a future full-length novel, HEAD SHOTS : LOVE SONG FOR THE APOCALYPSE.

Taking a slight departure from the usual continuous narrative, this 10,000 word novella is told in scenes, allowing for a lean, mean, rip-roaring read.

Excerpt from the opening of HEAD SHOTS : Scenes from the Zombie Apocalypse -

THE CHEERLEADER

WEEK 12

She stood in front of a broken window in the abandoned house they'd just looted. She was still. Silent. Others in the room whispered and whimpered, all of them terrified. They all knew what was coming.

Vic didn't even screw up her face when she caught their scent anymore. The stench carried over distance and you could always tell they would be here soon when the breeze smelled like the dead.

She heard shuffling coming from the left of the window. She stiffened, knife raised, ready to strike, muscles taut and glistening with sweat in the evening heat.

There was a gargling noise and the stink intensified. A young man behind her – no more than seventeen – bent double and heaved his guts up on to the floor as the scent of one of the dead fucks assaulted his nostrils. Some people just never got used to the aroma of rotting flesh.

That was what Vic usually called them, dead fucks. Each time she said it, she said it with venom. She said it with hatred. The F sound elongated when she spat it.

And then it was right in front of her. She grabbed at its head with a gloved hand, getting a fistful of maggots as well as hair.

She plunged the buck knife into its eye and wiggled it back and forth, up and down. She remembered her dad telling her they called it scrambling in Vietnam, “cause it leaves the brain looking like scrambled eggs – and 'bout as useful.” Then he would laugh, joyless, hollow laughter. Darkness would descend behind his eyes and color his gaze.

Vic knew that darkness now, she saw it in her own reflection.

She knew how it felt to be haunted, the way he was.

She pulled the blade out; it made a wet sucking noise; rancid vitreous humor dribbled down the loose meat face of the dead thing. The room voiced its disgust but she didn't even flinch.

Almost too easily she sliced through its neck, down to the bone. She hacked and stabbed at it, shattering vertebrae.

Then she punched it, just out of pure anger, needing the sting of pain in her own flesh to know she was hurting it, just to have that feeling of bone connecting with bone. The force of her blow separated the head from the neck and it fell backward, making the thing look like a rotten hoodie top. She laughed at it, but it was mirthless laughter, just like her dad...

My Favorite Obsession

When I was a little girl, sometimes I would stay up late and watch scary things I shouldn't be watching on my tiny black and white portable TV.

I'd turn the volume way down low, trying hard not to wake up my mum and dad.


It was on one of those late night TV shows that I first encountered what became an enduring fixation I've had for as long as I can remember.


The Black Dahlia Murder.


I'm completely obsessed with it.


I've read the books, seen the documentaries, bought a CD of the declassified FBI files, even watched movies very loosely inspired by it, like 'Deceiver' starring Tim Roth and Renée Zellweger.


It.


It.


As if it was an inanimate object that did not involve flesh nor bone nor blood.


The Black Dahlia – a mysterious alias, a book, a movie, a rock band, a kick-ass t-shirt, an obsession.


It.


But the it had a victim.


Her name was Elizabeth Short.


She wasn't just a Hollywood lush or a maybe prostitute.


She was a daughter.


She was a sister.


She was loved.


She was just 22 years old when a psychopath cut her in two and left the pieces of her ruined body in a vacant lot near Hollywood.


And a legend was born that day in January 1947, the same day as Beth Short died.


The Black Dahlia Murder has inspired, haunted, obsessed writers and film makers for decades. I am one of them.


In my first novel, Vampire Vintage (which I actually completed recently,) my main character Belladonna Busto is hugely influenced by Elizabeth Short. Immensely. Elizabeth Short (or girls who look like her,) seems to appear in a lot of my writing. I don't do this consciously, but eventually I recognize it during the writing of the piece. She even makes a fleeting appearance in Vampire Vintage. And I just know I have to write a fiction book about her some day. I know I will. She's in my psyche.


There's much myth and speculation that surrounds the life as well as the death of Elizabeth Short, AKA The Black Dahlia, from rumors of BDSM movies to prostitution to hermaphrodism.


But we will never know the full story of her life or her death. But we'll continue to be fascinated by her and her vicious, brutal murder.


We will never know if she was aware of what was happening to her. We will never know if she was conscious when her killer bisected her body. If she was, how long did she endure? We will never know if he sliced through the sides of her mouth and gave her that near ear-to-ear gory grin before he cut her in two.


We will never know any of these things.


But we will always wonder about them. We will always ponder these questions, even if we don't want to acknowledge our own ghoulishness, even to ourselves sometimes.


And we will always be fascinated and repulsed by the spectacular murder of the young woman they called The Black Dahlia.


My personal favorite book on this subject is John Gilmore's SEVERED : The True Story of the Black Dahlia. Gilmore's painstaking research and obsession rises off the page to meet you.


Reading this book for the first time gave me a sense of Elizabeth Short as a person and not just a dark and mysterious alias or a raven haired beauty in a faded photograph. She became real to me instead of just being a horror story on late night TV.


Do you have a Black Dahlia fixation like I do? What fascinates and compels you the most about the case?


I wrote this vignette about my obsession with The Black Dahlia Murder. Enjoy.




- Alex.

I AM THE BLACK DAHLIA

A Vignette by Alex Severin.

I am the Black Dahlia. I'm dying now but I know that I will live forever in hearts and minds and storylines.


I can see the future. I can see worldwide fame, my notoriety. I will be the subject of books, books written about the manner in which I am now dying. I can see learned men will talk about me in years to come. There will be motion pictures about me, about my life and about my death.


I always new that I would be famous.


But this is not what I had in mind.


Champagne and limousines.


Red carpets and movies stars.


Screen tests and premieres and stardom.


That's what my life should have been, not this, this dirt and blood and sex and death.


Headlines.


Newspaper sales.


Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Hollywood beauty brutally slain!


Black and white photographs of me looking pretty, looking like the movie starlet I could have been.


Should have been.


Beautiful...Vivacious...Tragedy...


That's what they always say about the ones like me.


I am the Black Dahlia and I have no will left to move even if I had the strength.


From where I am right now there is no way back to normal.


I have to die.


I have to die to become legend, to become myth.


I am bound hand and foot in a dirty bathtub. I can feel the cold chrome of the faucet on my wrists and a trickle of rusty water drip, drip, dripping, down my arm.


I can only imagine what he's going to do to me.


Boards.


Beneath me.


A space between them.


Brutal!...Slaughtered!...Homicide!...


I am the Black Dahlia, the one who will be immortalized in the sensationalist headlines that will follow the discovery of my body. I've read the lurid details of murders before, many times. Nobody ever thinks they will be the victim that others will revel in reading about.


But the gutter press could never, ever capture this horror, the horror that has turned my veins to ice as I realize what he's going to do to me.


And still I cannot move.


I cannot struggle.


I cannot even scream for my throat is full of blood cascading down from my ruined mouth. He sliced it – almost ear to ear and with the keenest blade – and I can only wonder how horrific I look at this moment. I'm glad I will not live to see it. I would be a monster.


Metal.


Sliver of light glints off the surface.


Long.


Flat.


Saw.


Oh, God, please let me die now! Please don't let me feel it! Please don't let me feel it!


I wish that I could talk to him, my murderer. Tell him not to do this. Tell him that I don't deserve this.


I wish I could move to let him know that I am still alive and I know what he's going to do and I don't want him to, I don't want to feel it, don't want to be cut in half and still be alive and know what he's doing and feel it, feel it, feel it, feel the blade sawing through my flesh and then reaching my spine, separating my vertebrae, making me a legend.


I am the Black Dahlia and I am dead now.

I am serene.

I no longer suffer the pain of my torture.

I lie here, morning dew settling on my skin, awaiting my discovery, my infamy, and the birth of a million obsessions, a million more stories. I lie here, alabaster and bloodless like a broken sculpture among the grass and weeds.

I am the Black Dahlia and I know you will hear my name.

Vampires! What's Your Type?

Vampires - sensual, erotic, beautiful, enigmatic, romantic...and deadly.

Vampires are the stuff of dreams and fantasies.

Vampires give us the gift of immortality.

Vampires challenge the one inevitability in life - death.

Vampires are synonymous with love, sex, desire, lust, obsession...and blood.

What is it you love about Vampires?

What type of vampire do you love to watch, love to read about?

Have you fallen for the passionate brooding fops, like Lestat, who walk the night in velvet and lace in Anne Rice's 'Vampire Chronicles?'

Or are you a sucker for the ghoulish, vicious vampires of '30 Days of Night?'

Or maybe you like your vampires with a hint of teenage sparkle about them, like the ever-popular Edward Cullen of the 'Twilight Saga.'

What's your type?

- Alex.

Excerpt from BLOODY LOVERS - Vampire Erotica Story

Hey, me again!

Just popped in to throw an excerpt up here from one of the stories in my new vampire erotica collection, 'Make the Streets Run Vampire Red.' It's out now in Kindle Edition.

(Remember, if you don't have a Kindle reader, don't worry! There's lots more ways to read Kindle Books. All the info is on each Kindle book's page, on the right side.)

It's just a wee taste, savor the flavor, see if you want to gorge yourself on some more.

Enjoy!


US - CLICK HERE TO BUY 'MAKE THE STREETS RUN VAMPIRE RED'

UK - CLICK HERE TO BUY 'MAKE THE STREETS RUN VAMPIRE RED'


BLOODY LOVERS (Excerpt)

Only when she was sure every candle was lit and in place did she turn off the main light in her apartment.

There were dozens of them, all shapes and sizes, but each one made from virginal-white wax and placed in a black glass holder. They covered every flat, stable surface in the room.

A plume of heady-scented incense smoke swirled lazily into the air; the room was filled with the aroma of red and black berries and a hint of frankincense, a top note of exotic musk and spices from far away places. The scent made her think of excited sweat on dark skin.

Krista's stage was set.

The splendor of her nakedness was exaggerated in the shadow cast on the wall by the flickering light of the candles. She admired her own fine form on the mirrored wall opposite.

She gazed at her damaged flesh, an expression of love on her face. She was proud of her scars, and felt they made her utterly unique in the world. And they said so much about her. Her scars told a story - the story of her devotion, of her trust.

Krista ran a finger over the heart-shaped scar on her left breast; she smiled at the difference in texture it had from the skin which immediately surrounded it. She loved the fact that particular scar was so prominent, so raised, that you could easily tell the shape of the scar without looking at it.

This scar was special.

Only one person in the whole world was allowed to drink from her heart.

Krista’s heart belonged to Lord Ruthven.

Each inch of changed flesh on her body held a memory. Each one of them reminded her of a day, of a person, reminded her of an emotion or a phrase, of a song. Some of them reminded her of a particular sensation - either pleasure or pain, or both. But all of them, each and every piece of scar tissue on her body made her feel love, love for the one who gave it to her and love for herself.

Each new scar she acquired made her feel even more beautiful than she did before. The more scar tissue she collected the more confident she became.

Krista admired her own body and ran her fingers over every scar, delicately touched each raised reminder of a steel caress or an ivory stab.

Lord Ruthven watched her. Although he did not love her, he was fascinated by her, and she allowed him to do things to her no other blood doll would ever tolerate.

Most of the donors he’d come into contact with were little more than weekend vampires. They would dress up in pseudo Victoriana, donned over-the-counter costume fangs from a joke shop and paint their faces with clown white.

But Krista was different. Lord Ruthven knew that from the moment he met her and immediately saw the mosaic of scars that adorned her body.

She was beautiful, olive-skinned and raven-haired and the myriad of scars and her opulent clothing made her look like an old pre-Raphaelite painting with a cracked temper coating.

She was the only one he’d ever indulged in blood-play with who actually allowed him to bite.

She loved it.

She revelled in it.

She needed it.

Each time they had a session she would writhe beneath him, grab fistfuls of his hair in her hands and force his bite deeper. She scream at him to bite harder, to suck harder, to fuck her harder.

And when the blades came out, she was so far into the whole thing that she actually scared him.

He had the notion that she would like him to murder her. He was sure she would die with a dripping cunt if he were to slice her flesh into ribbons with a cut-throat razor and bleed her white.

As he watched her, he was suddenly overwhelmed by his own need for blood. Her blood.

His need rose inside him, swelled, grew into a passion that was just the right side of hatred. He launched himself at her across the room, wrapping her long, dark hair around in his fist and jerking her head back violently.

Krista screamed, but it was not a scream of fear or displeasure. It was a scream of excitement, a scream of lust, of need for the kind of pleasure only torn flesh could give them both.

A new scar was about to be born...



- Alex.



Get 'Make the Streets Run Vampire Red' my new Vamprie Erotica Story Collection in Kindle Edition from Amazon.com