Virgin Pie

She rang the doorbell, salivating.

But it wasn't just about sticking to her diet: she had a purpose. It's what everybody said young people needed, wasn't it? It's what she'd sought when she consumed all the vampire literature and pop culture she could lay her claws on. She'd even started dressing the part for a while, dying her amber hair a dark mahogany, donning leathers and thick black eyeliner, pewter nose rings. All this so she could hang out at an underground goth club on the weekends, looking for others like her, a place to fit in. But there'd been no real vamps there-just confused middle class wannabes, lonely street kids, new-age crack heads. Nobody special. And the music, pardon the pun, really sucked.

After about a minute, the front door creaked inward, the screen door swung out. The man who emerged looked startled to see her, which was odd. "Oh, uh, hi. You're, um, Brittany then? Here to meet Chet?"

"That's right. You must be his dad," Brittany said, shiny as a dew drop. She was getting very good at the play-acting.

He was much as she had pictured him: heavy-set, plain, pasty-skinned except for a nasty sun rash on his face.

"Yes, that's me. Come in," he said, ushering her inside as he surveyed the street for observers. "Chet went to run an errand for me, but he'll be back soon."

Sure he would. What a good boy was the invisible Chet, the phantom seventeen-year-old who just wanted to experiment.

"That's o.k. I can't wait to meet him," she said, cute as a gumdrop. He thought she was a complete idiot, obviously.

"Would you like a . . . lemonade?" asked, gesturing for her to sit.

Typical. In her carefully chosen outfit she looked about thirteen, an age preferred by many perves. They always offered sweets of some kind beforehand, thinking that being young meant you were dense, too. When the bribes failed, they resorted to intimidation, then humiliation. She knew this from her research, online and off, and from that razor-edge glint in their eyes: never had she actually played along that far.

"Lemonade? Yes, please," she answered primly, sitting on a vinyl chair at the kitchen table, her predatory eyes flashing in the dim light. Their houses were always dark, filmy. She surmised that the pantry in front of her was where he kept his equipment-ropes, camera stuff, props, drugs. The usual.

"Coming right up," he said, licking his lips nervously. He pulled back the curtain and peered out the kitchen window over the sink. "You sure nobody came with you?"

"Positive."

She thought she heard him curse softly. Perhaps he didn't believe her. It didn't matter. She had nothing to fear; he, on the other hand, was fucked, even if he didn't know it yet.

"Here you go," he said, handing her the glass of pale pink lemonade, his voice all soft-spoken and strangely melancholy.

She took a sip and studied him closely. The moment of truth was approaching, she could sense it.

"Oh shit," he said, sitting opposite her across the table, chair cushion wheezing beneath him, "You might as well know. There's no Chet . . . I made him up."

He folded his arms on the table and put his head down on them, like a kid being punished. "I thought you were him," he said, his voice muffled and whiny. "Then I thought maybe he brought you with him as a decoy or something. Stupid. I'm so stupid!" He banged his head on the table. "You'd better go," he said, then added, "God knows I'm fat enough already."

"What?"